Brain Dead

by Alice Carina

  "I'm a stalker, remember?" I snapped at him. "Anyway, there's something I want to check out when we leave..."

  "You mean the other survivors..." he said softly, without a trace of doubt in his voice.

  "No," I replied simply. "There was another crowd other than the one around the survivors lair... There's probably something drawing their attention. I want to know what. Simple as that."

  "When do you want to go?" he asked after a pause.

  "Who said you were coming?" I asked angrily. After what had happened the other day, he couldn't be trusted to look after himself. He'd probably get me killed too.

  "You're not going alone."

  "Why not?"

  "It's too dangerous."

  "Everything is dangerous. Besides, I can take care of myself."

  "I'm going."

  Why did the puppy have to grow fangs now? He was just going to get himself killed. Stupid child.

  "Whatever. Do what you want." What else could I say? He was older than me! I couldn't boss him around.

  "I plan to." What's that supposed to mean?

  Chapter nine

  Chapter nine: dog

  Matt was following me, and it was starting to creep me out. It wasn't even the 'worried you're gonna run off' type of following. It was the 'I'm a puppy, so I'll follow you' kind of following. I was beginning to worry that eventually I wouldn't actually have any personal space left. All I would have is the clingy five-year-old-like twenty year old. That truly frightened me.

  Ever since I had said I would check out the gathering of zombies, he had been acting like if he left me alone, I would disappear. What an idiot. If I was going to run away, I would knock him unconscious first. That way he couldn't come after me, AND I got the pleasure of hitting him. There was nothing to lose!

  I didn't bother to hide it from him when I decided to check it out. The coast was clear - well as clear as it could be with zombies out there. They were all interested in the lovely fake trail I had set up yesterday, so we had no trouble leaving the apartment and walking through the streets.

  The shopping centre wasn't too far away, but just to make sure we had a quick escape route, I avoided the direct path and went the long way around. It was annoying to take such a circuitous route, but it was better than being surrounded by a horde of zombies, that was for sure.

  Matt followed me silently, his bag of ammunition and his rifle clutched against his chest. He kept glancing around, the worry clear on his face. He jumped at every sound, quickly putting himself between me and where the sound was coming from. So far, he had successfully managed to protect me from the wind and a few old, squeaky hinges. I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was a little overprotective.

  Once we reached the shopping centre, Matt acted even more protective than before, as if he was worried I was the one that any of the evil survivors would attack if they were still there. The only real danger we faced there was the zombies that were still crowded around the car, which had an even bigger hole in its front windscreen than before. Go the zombies for destroying it more.

  I stopped to rest on the roof of the second hand shop that we had sheltered in before and waited. Matt was still paranoid, as if something was going to happen to me at any moment, despite the fact that the zombies were nowhere near us, and anything else didn't really count as dangerous.

  "How long are you going to keep this up?" I demanded when he started pacing behind me.

  "What?" he asked, looking genuinely perplexed.

  "I have managed to survive on my own this long, why do you think that I'm suddenly in more danger when you're around? You weren't this paranoid when you were on your own, so why are you starting now?"

  Matt just stared at me for a moment, looking as if he was just as confused over his behavior as I was. He gripped his rifle, frowned and stared at the ground. He started to look like a child sulking because he had been caught doing something wrong, but he didn't want to stop.

  "I don't want you to die," he mumbled, almost too soft to hear it.

  I was about to say something, probably sarcastic or cynical - or both - but I was distracted by a movement in the street. I quickly tried to follow it with my eyes, but it took me a moment to spot it again. It was a group of zombies, but they had caught my eye because, instead of moving separately, and at their own pace, they were moving as a pack.

  Zombies never grouped together so closely except when they were surrounding something living. It was only then that I realized that there was a possibility that the horde of zombies nearby had trapped someone. Zombies only ever gathered when there was food nearby, and the longer it was there, the more zombies came. Whatever they had cornered must have been there for quite some time to attract so many of the undead.

  "What is it?" Matt asked worriedly. He reached out to touch my arm, but stopped himself at the last second.

  "They've caught something living."

  Matt seemed shocked, but as he followed my gaze, he could see the group of zombies staggering down the street. At the end of the block, we could see a much larger crowd of zombies, probably where the poor survivor was trapped.

  Matt looked torn between wanting to rescue whoever was trapped there and protecting me. Man, the guy really needed to sort out his priorities. It was like the only thing in the world that didn't come before him was the freaking zombies. I would have felt sorry for him if it weren't for the fact that he was irritating me to death with his overprotectiveness.

  I ignored him and started heading towards the zombie crowd. I made sure not to go anywhere near the ground, even if it mean backtracking and taking the longest route around. With so many of them there, no way was I risking myself by going down onto ground level. No, I was quite happy where I was, and still living.

  It was only as I got closer that I saw just how big the crowd really was. There must have been hundreds of zombies just standing there. They were so tightly packed that I couldn't even see what it was that had caught their attention. They were all crowded around an old house with two levels. I figured there was a metal fence of some kind, because there seemed to be a gap between the zombies and the front door of the house.

  I could hear Matt following me, but I didn't bothering looking at him, especially when he was acting pretty conflicted, and I figured he wasn't going to be of much use, even with a gun and his heroic desire to save everyone, and value all life equally. At least that's what I thought, but he was acting like he'd rather leave whoever the survivor was for dead than put me in danger.

  We were on the hardware store next to the house before I could see what was inside the gate. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the empty garden and the survivor trapped between the house and the fence. I also realized in that moment why so many zombies had gathered.

  It was a dog.

  It was lying on the grass, its collar chained to a post and a variety of bones and empty dog food packets scattered around it. The border collie was the first animal I had seen since the beginning of this zombie apocalypse, most of them fleeing the city or starving to death in their cages. I had never seen one of them getting caught and eaten, and with their keen senses I doubted they would ever be caught.

  It was the first living animal other than a human that I had seen in so long, it was almost incomprehensible to believe that there one was, right in front of me. I could tell from the amount of rubbish around it that the dog was running out of food. With no way of escape, chained and surrounded as it was, it would slowly starve to death, or the zombies would break through the gate and catch it. Either way, it was going to die.

  I glanced at Matt, but although he looked sad about the dog being trapped, he was clearly less upset than if it had been a person. I looked at the dog again, and I knew that if someone didn't do something soon, it would die. And that thought horrified me. Before all this, I had been one of the many people that thought the saddest films ever were the ones about animals dying. This situation reminded me of that.

  I didn't
want the dog to die, but how could I do anything when it was surrounded by zombies?

  Chapter ten

  Chapter ten: worth risking your life for

  I couldn't do it. I couldn't abandon the dog. A human? Sure, why not? But a dog? NO! Not when they had those eyes that could see into your soul, but never judged you. Not when they were always so happy to see you. Not when they would never betray you. I just... Couldn't do it. I couldn't leave it to die, no matter how dangerous it was.

  Unfortunately, the problem was; how do I get over there, and how exactly could I get the dog back out, all without getting bitten by the zombies? It looked a lot like an impossible task. The dog couldn't climb, so the only way to get him out was to CARRY him. Not something I particularly looked forward to trying.

  First things first; I had to work out had to get out of their in the first place. I could probably get to the building from the back - it was the only part of the house that was only a couple of meters away from any of the other buildings around it. From there, all I had to do was climb down, grab the dog and jump back over, hopefully with a rope and Matt on the other side to help pull the dog up.

  It wasn't too impossible.

  Matt had this look on his face like he wanted us to leave as soon as possible, and he didn't know why we weren't already a couple of blocks away. Being this close to that many zombies could not be good, and we all knew it. Zombies were bad. We shouldn't play with zombies, no matter how fun they looked and how much they wanted to play with us.

  I looked between Matt and the dog, not really sure what the difference between the two of them was except for the tail and the fur. How could he make me choose between the dog that walks on two legs and the one that walks on four? 'Cause, I'd choose the four legged one; it was cuter.

  "I'm going to save the dog."

  Matt stared at me, horror and worry clear on his face. "NO! It's too dangerous!"

  Way too overprotective. "I don't care; I'm not leaving it."

  "It's just a dog! It's not worth dying over."

  I didn't even bother to respond. Here he was, mister 'I have to rescue everyone' and he was telling ME that I wasn't allowed to save a dog. I was going to take the stance of any teenager told they weren't allowed to do something; I was going to do it just to spite him. I would have saved the dog anyway, but now I was determined to do it, no matter how dangerous.

  I walked across the rooftop, jumping easily over the meter gap. Matt didn't move for a moment, looking kind of disbelieving of the fact that I had walked off. How was this guy still alive in a world like this? He was acting like 'dangerous' was something special, that it was a warning rather than a statement.

  By the time Matt realized I wasn't coming back, I was standing at the edge of the closest building to the house the dog was trapped in front of. I glanced at him, trying not to show fear and hoping that he would help me even if he didn't want my to try to save the dog. It was definitely going to be less dangerous if I had the guy with the rifle willing to come save me if things got too dangerous.

  I had never felt so relieved in my life as I watched him sigh, shake his head, and run after me. I had always wanted to be left alone, even when people were normal and the only zombies were in horror movies, but at that moment, I felt glad that I wasn't alone. Even if he was just a stupid, selfish child that didn't understand what personal space was.

  He came and stood next to me. "If you're not going to reconsider," he glanced at me, but the answer was clear, "then I'll cover you. I would go with you, but I'm not much help close up." That was certainly true; he was useless if he was anywhere near the danger.

  "Thanks," I said simply. "If you want to help, don't shoot me, and wait here. I'll try to find a rope so we can pull him across, but if not, I still want you close enough to help if anything goes wrong."

  "If anything happens, I'll do everything I can to help you."

  "Duh, but I can take care of myself." I could, no matter what he said.

  I didn't wait for his reply, 'cause it'd probably be something like 'this situation is different' or 'that kind of attitude will lead to your death' or something. So I jumped the gap to the house, stumbling slightly as I landed. Not a very good image to leave with the worrying mother hen behind me; he was probably already beginning to panic.

  It was pretty easy to climb down from the roof, but it was only when I was on the ground that I saw the window in the attic that led to a balcony that would be VERY easy to get to the roof with. That was kind of irritating, but at least it meant it would be so much easier to climb back up with the dog.

  The dog itself was even cuter up close, and I could see the bright blue eyes that stood out against its fur. It wagged its tail at me, not seeming to care that I was some stranger, or that we were surrounded by zombies. It just looked happy to seem me, just because I was human, someone loving and breathing.

  I knelt down next to him, running my hands through its fur. It didn't matter that he was caked with dirt, his fur was still softer than anything I had felt in weeks. I hugged him, and he licked my cheek. I pulled back, surprised at my own actions and the dog's reaction. I pulled back and looked around, making sure there was nothing too dangerous.

  I pulled the dog's collar around so I could see the name tag. It said 'LUCKY'. Oh the irony, that one of the unluckiest dogs, who was stuck chained in the yard, surrounded by zombies was named Lucky. Sure, you could argue that he was actually lucky, since I was going to save him, but he could be dragging me into death too, or he could easily die a worse death later. We wouldn't know until it happened.

  I unclipped the chain from his collar, and for a moment I thought he was going to run away, scared off by the zombies, but instead, Lucky jumped on me and licked my face again. I wanted to laugh, but it only reminded me of all the bad things around us. Kind of like a contrast, pointing out just how bad things had become since I had last seen a dog.

  I jumped as I heard a sudden crash, and Lucky started barking. I turned in horror to see the gate in pieces, making a gap just large enough for one zombie at a time to squeeze through. It didn't matter how few there were; we were trapped, and they were going to follow us wherever we went.

  I ran to the door, hoping that it was unlocked. Lucky was definitely unlucky; it was locked. I pushed against the door, but it didn't even budge. It was too solid of a door for me to break down before I was eaten by the undead that we're staggering towards us. I looked at Lucky, but the dog just growled at the zombies, standing behind me, trying to protect me.

  It reminded me of Matt.

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter eleven: loss

  Matt's POV

  I was useless.

  I couldn't do anything to save him.

  I saw it all happen through the scope of my rifle. I had seen the look of happiness on his face as he had hugged the dog. It was a look that I hoped I would see again, that I could help to create, and the sadness I hoped never to see again. And then I had seen the fence buckle under before the zombies. I had seen the gap it caused and the zombies slip through.

  The reason the zombies had gotten through was probably Jake's presence. I could sort of understand it - he was irresistible - but it was the most horrific thing I had ever seen. Jake had turned to face the zombie that had dragged itself through. I saw his horror and fear. The dog was barking, and I couldn't help but think how useless that dog was.

  I called Jake's name, but I knew he couldn't hear it. I didn't really want him to hear it. The idea of seeing his fear, his eyes pleading with me... I couldn't bare the thought of seeing it. All I wanted was to see him smile, like he had with the dog. I didn't want him to die. I didn't want to see him scared.

  It was all that stupid dog's fault! Jake had gone to save it - I still didn't know why, when he didn't really like anything, and he had only saved me because it was convenient - and now he was going to die. If I wasn't so panicked, I probably would have been jealous of how Jake cared more about the dog than me, but now wasn'
t the time.

  The last thing I saw was Jake disappearing in the shadow of the house, lost from my sight as he approached the front door. I couldn't see what was happening, but as more zombies spread through the yard, and with no Jake in sight, I couldn't help but feel like I was never going to see him again, that he was gone for good and it was all my fault.

  I waited, and waited, in the faint hope that he was fine, and that he was coming back. But there was nothing, just more zombies flooding into the yard, stumbling around, searching for the prey that was probably already gone. And still I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  I lost hope the longer I watched. By the time there was no more space inside the fence, I knew that there was no chance he had survived. And that was when it hit me that I was alone. My only companion was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't turn back time, and I couldn't bring him back to life. There was no cure for the undead, even if most of his flesh had not been eaten.

  He was gone.

  I felt as of my heart had been torn in two at the thought of never seeing the cold, unsociable boy again. He may have made it clear often enough that he didn't like me, but that didn't mean that I couldn't like him. He may have been uncaring and mean, but he had saved my life when he didn't have to. He had let me stay with him even when I could turn on him at any moment.

  I felt tears stream down my cheeks as the grief hit me. He was gone, and it was all my fault. I had let him go and try to save the dog. I had let him go alone, and I had just stood by and watched as the zombies trapped him. I let out a son as I wondered what I could possibly do now that he was gone.

  I heard a noise behind me, but for the first time since the beginning of the whole walking dead apocalypse thing, I didn't even try to defend myself. I didn't care anymore now that I was alone. Nothing seemed to matter if I had no one to talk to, no one to protect. Jake had been right; I was useless when I was only protecting myself.