Diary of a Minecraft Zombie (Book 2)

by Russell Robinson

  The lead human looked back to us, “are you going to join us?” Bones raised his chest and tilted his head up then pushed past the juggernaut of a man, with his bow readied. Alex gripped the handle of his sword as he clenched his teeth and followed Bones out.

  The human looked to me, “and what about you.” My lip wobbled, along with my hands, but then I spoke, “okay.” I walked out of the house and took my place behind Bones and Alex. The lead human brushed past us, ran toward a group of pig-men, and started slashing them into the ground. The pig-men’s counter attacks bounced off the strange looking armor. In one sideways swipe the human floored three pig-men at once. Alex impaled one, stopping it from striking the human. They exchanged a nod. I opened my mouth to yell but Bones’ arrow beat me to it; a pig-man nearly took out Alex.

  They were relentless.

  The battle continued for what seemed like hours. There were so many little fights within the broader battle, all trying to grab my attention. I looked at each human for a second to ensure they were all still alive. I called out to warn of any dangers – it was all I could do. I’m not exactly the strongest of creatures. Sadly, we lost some more of the humans that had come through The Nether during the fight.

  Our infected world had become cleansed with the help of the buffed up humans. The pig-men’s corpses rotted quickly into the ground and the sky squids were shot down from the sky, leaving their bodies on fresh grass. Some even destroyed mountains as they fell.

  Bones, Alex, the remaining humans, and I stood together as we gazed over our lands and toward the horizon to see the sight of victory. It didn’t look that way though because we had lost so much and our home was still in ruins. At least now we had a chance to rebuild.

  Thursday – Day 6

  We sat around a fire, inside of the home the humans had built before entering The Nether. The lead human (whose name is Jonah) took off the unique armor to reveal his normal sized arms albeit muscular. Most of the bulk had come from the size of the armor and not from Jonah’s physique. Alex was the first to speak up about it, “where did you get that armor?” Jonah sat down with his bowl full of fish and passed it around the group, “we made it in The Nether.” We each took a piece of fish and passed the bowl. I looked into the dead fish’s eyes and then placed it on the floor (with my parents missing I didn’t feel the urge to bite or feed. I had never experienced this before so it felt rather strange).

  “How did you manage to make it,” Bones questioned. The other two humans looked at Bones, and I, still with some uncertainty but didn’t voice their opinions or act hostile. I believe it is because we had helped them win the battle or maybe it was simply because, apart from Jonah, we were the only company they had left.

  Jonah held his piece of fish over the fire, “you remember the ground we ran along once entering The Nether?” Alex nodded as he took a bite from his almost burnt piece of fish, “that pasty stuff?” Jonah took his fish from the fire, as he passed it to his other hand, and shook the hand that had been over the fire then put his fingers in his mouth and winced, “yes, well who knew rubbing that paste on our diamond armor and dipping it into the sea of fire would create an even stronger set.”

  Bones cackled, his head flinging backwards, as he played with his piece of fish (of course he couldn’t eat it but I think he liked to pretend). “That’s the most counterintuitive thing I’ve ever heard. How did you find it out?” Bones looked between the humans, who didn’t meet his gaze, until settling on Jonah.

  One of the other humans coughed, “we were running from the man pigs, or whatever you’d call them, and I slipped. My armor became covered in the pasty stuff then I hung over the edge of the earth. The back of my armor dipped into the fire which surrounded us. If Jonah hadn’t pulled me up I probably wouldn’t be here to tell you this. Anyway, I turned my back to one of those man pigs which swiped at me. My armor had hardened to barely receive a scratch from the attack.”

  The up until now quieter human settled back into conversation with his friend. “After that we all jumped at the opportunity to forge our own set of unbreakable armor,” he paused and waved his hand, “well we haven’t found anything that can break through it thus far.” Bones leaned back and placed the back of his skull on his finger bones, “that’s quite a story.”

  Alex had just finished devouring his piece of fish, “so what is our plan of action now.” Jonah bit a chunk from his fish, “I’m unsure but we need to rebuild what we had.” That’s when my brain shot into action and I began to stomp the ground. Alex looked at me in disbelief, as did Bones, but surprisingly Jonah listened: he approached me on his knees, as to be head level with him, and asked: “What is it?” I made my best mime of digging, upon which Alex snapped his fingers, “the underground is most likely still preserved… we just have to deal with the monsters.” I shook my head at that but Alex assured me he meant work around the monsters not harm them.

  I couldn’t help thinking they may have all been wiped out and maybe my parents were part of them.

  Friday – Day 7

  Jonah climbed through the hatch on the floor of the house with a bag full of cobblestone, which he passed to one of the other two remaining humans. I saw Jonah disappear immediately back down the passage to the undergrounds. Alex was outside helping the other two humans build settlements. I wonder why they were doing it; it’s not like more humans would be arriving any time soon - there were no females to make that happen. Then I remembered how our world used to look and how crushing it was to see it in ruins. Bones was down with Jonah to keep any of the monsters from attacking him (Jonah had taken off his unbreakable armor – that’s what we all started to call it – because it was too heavy for mining).

  That left me all alone in the house to let my thoughts bounce around. Let me tell you: that isn’t the best of ideas when your parents are missing. I couldn’t stop thinking about where they were, if they were still alive and, if they were safe, if they were breathing at all. Usually I’d talk to Bones or Alex about how I’m feeling and if something is a good idea before I go through with it, but they weren’t around and the impulse to explore was too strong – just like that day I first left our cave.

  I travelled down the hatch in the hope of finding my parents. I feared passing Jonah or Bones along the way but I hope they’d understand why I was travelling on my own. Besides, it wasn’t as if any monsters would attack me and the enemies from The Nether realm had been wiped out.

  Thankfully I didn’t cross paths with anyone I knew. I saw some fellow zombies, a group of spiders, the odd creeper here and there and even an ender man (although ender men are monsters they still creep me out). I smiled as I walked past each and every monster. Some didn’t react at all whereas others paused and looked at me. I was happy to see other monsters had survived, it gave me hope.

  I know now that I searched for hours, as Bones and Alex had been worried and looking for me, but at the time it felt like thirty minutes or so. Through all the tunnels and dead ends and holes.

  I decided to rest on a rock under a waterfall in darkness. The sound of the water hitting the rocks was smoothing so I closed my eyes. The heat of the lava on the opposite side of the deep cavern kept me at a pleasant temperature. I rested my head, like being back in our cave, and imagined being with my parents. The smile which followed was one of pure joy, but it quickly dropped into a droopy frown as a tear fell from my cheek and hit against the floor formed from rock. I wiped my face, to clear my vision, and that’s when I saw a small standalone building. It must have been only ten feet tall and not very long or wide. It had gaps in the front for the windows and door where light flickered out, so I decided to travel towards it.

  The closer I got the more the lights flickered through the holes in the makeshift home of stone and onto my eyes which I covered. I peeked through the gaps in my hands, in order to make my way towards the door of the building without tripping into the lava. I passed under the torches and into the doorway then into a dimly lit room. The mo
ment I saw it wasn’t empty, and who was in there, was when I skip in excitement. My parents were safe.

  My mother grunted and pointed her head sideways at me which made my father turn around. I swung my arms around my father’s shoulders who wrapped his around my chest. I pushed my head into his chest and closed my eyes as my lips moved upwards into a smile. That’s when I heard a groan. I moved my head backwards to see my father’s eyes wide and his mouth open and I felt his hands digging into my back. I pushed my hands against his chest, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop him from biting into my arm, despite how frail he had become (I didn’t have time to process how withered they looked; it was as if the bite jolted me back into reality).

  Tears bubbled up and sat on the bottom of my eyes. Even now I’m unsure if it was due to the pain of the bite or the feeling of rejection. I reactively grabbed the fish from my pocket, from the time around the fire with the humans, and threw it to the ground, upon which my parents dove on top of it and pulled it to pieces with their teeth – their craws scratched against the floor as they consumed the meat. Once they had swallowed they turned to me. I hobbled backwards, ready with the intention to bolt if they still attacked, and waited. They approached me, looked me in the eyes, sniffed around me, and then embraced me in a hug.

  As I felt the warmth of my parents, both on my skin and inside my heart, I contemplated the event which had just played out. What if they had killed me? Is that how a zombie changes when the urge to bite becomes too strong? They didn’t even recognize me …

  I brushed my head against my parents as a way of overwhelming my thoughts with their presence. They were alive and that is all that mattered.

  Saturday – Day 8

  Since finding my parents, and reintroducing them into the group, things have changed so much. I can talk quite fluently now - enough to string sentences together (Alex has been teaching me and I’ve been picking up mouth movements and pronunciation from Bones, Jonah, and the others). My parents look at me in shock when I’m about to talk to them as if I were human. I hope to be able to teach them someday, but maybe getting them into writing is a better starting place. It does take quite a lot of energy to push the words out, so I have to take a breath between each one, but I make sure to stop talking as much when I feel worn out.

  The humans have been breeding food. It’s fascinating to see actually. They rounded up the few remaining cows and pigs and kept each different type of animal in separate areas (surrounding by fences). After some time, out pops a smaller version of the animal from the bigger one – it was my first time seeing it so I don’t know how to explain it better than that. The cows eat the grass but the pigs get restless without meat. We ended up… well… the humans see it as less of a hassle, and a way of preserving resources, to use those pigs as food straight away. They always save a little for us to nibble on to keep the urges satisfied (I told them about the condition of my parents when I found them and they were kind about it – Jonah made it clear to the other humans that it was part of our needs to be given some meat each week).

  Jonah is the nicest human I’ve met, apart from Alex of course.

  The rivers and seas were filled with pollution from The Nether; the sky squids shot a lot of their waste into it and some even collapsed into the seas in the battle. The humans are still trying to clear most of it out, but we’re able to get fresh water from the waterfalls in the caves and, when we are unable to venture underground, from boiling the water from the fresher parts of the seas. Then there’s the work being done to rebuild the mountains. Jonah says: “that’s the hardest part of this entire rejuvenation.” That was a big word for me to handle. He said it means to restore.

  We’re surviving …

  I almost forgot about Bones’ new pet spider! I took him down to where I found my parents, to collect whatever they had gathered (which wasn’t much), but he found the contrast between the running waterfall and the bubbling lava to be something, so decided to stay for a while. We spent the better part of an hour sitting on the rocks, barely talking, as the water brushed against us and then we sat closer enough to the lava to dry off without getting burned.

  As we sat with the heat warming our faces, I noticed a shadow in the corner of my eye upon which I turned instantly. A spider had crawled onto Bones’ shoulder. He went to grab it – his face looked like he was going to throw it to the ground rather than stroke it – but the spider crawled into his ribcage. If Bones could cry I believe he would of then. He hugged his chest, as to hug the spider, and tilted his head down. He must have been remembering his old spider that had been left behind in The Nether.

  Alex has chosen to sleep in the same room as the other humans. Bones has a small den of his own, which he has already decorated with paintings, and my parents and I live just below the humans (we dug out a cave in the rock underneath the humans’ house). My parents like it this way and so do I, it reminds us of our old cave.

  I’ve spoke of everything that has happened since the pig-men and sky squids invaded our world, but I’m sure I won’t be able to stop writing about future happenings. Until then …

  Sunday – Day 9

  When I woke I looked around our new cave to see it empty of my parents. I quickly travelled to the surface. I crossed Alex on the way. “They need more resources…” he moved into our cave – going down the hatch required passing through our cave - and aimed for the tunnel which led deeper. I responded with: “For… what?” (I still had to take breaths between words). The last I saw of Alex, that morning, was his head disappearing into the tunnel. The sound of his reply told me he was half way down the tunnel, but I didn’t hear what he actually said.

  I made my way out of the main human house to the sight of the three remaining humans, frantically moving between a pile of metal and whatever it was they were building. Jonah turned, noticing me, and gave me a wink as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “How’re feeling Brains? I’m happy to see your parents are safe.” I nodded to thank him and then asked, “what… are… you… building?” Each word took a big gulp of air, in order for me to push out enough sound, so I think Jonah understood why I didn’t verbally respond to his question.

  “This,” he took his hand from my shoulder and then pointed both towards their creation, “is going to be our way to a better future.” Jonah smiled as he stared at it. I looked up to pieces of metal which had been merged together, and which were resting on a square of brick, to hold it off the ground, then looked to Jonah, who turned to me as if he knew I’d have more questions, “What do you think?”

  “What… actually… is it?” Those last two words were short enough to push out in one breath. Jonah’s smile looked more like a grin this time, as if he had been waiting for, and was pleased with, my question. “That, my friend, is the beginnings of a spacecraft.” That was a new word even to my now developed tongue, “spacecraft?” Jonah placed his arm fully around my shoulder and led me towards the creation. “I’ve only read about it in books, but the stories speak of building a vehicle which shoots up into the sky,” he signed with his hands as I followed them with my eyes, “this floats in the sea around our world – they call that sea: space.”

  My eyes widened and followed his hands up until I became distracted by the glimmer of the sun against the metal of their, in-progress, spacecraft, “so… where… has… Alex… gone?”

  “He’s gone to get the vital ingredient…” Jonah winked at me as if to say he knew how storybook he sounded. I couldn’t help but give into his storytelling, “which… is?” Again Jonah smiled as he turned to face me, “if I told you I’d be ruining the magic of the surprise,” he looked to the sky as he rubbed a hand over his beard, “heck, I don’t even know if it will work.” I thought about shooting off this world as I looked around, “we are… rebuilding,” I looked to our main building, “why… would… we leave?”

  Jonah dropped to one knee in order to look at me face level – he wasn’t just strong, he was very tall too – “Think of this as human c
uriosity,” he minced, “sorry, I meant just curiosity. It can also just be our plan B.” I nodded, smiled lopsidedly, and then walked toward the human building and into our cave.

  My parents were back and resting on their rock. Bones was back at his, with his spider, of course Alex was underground and the humans were busy. I retired to my rock and sighed. I rested my body and head and shut my eyes.

  Wow… swimming in the sea of space on a spacecraft sure did sound fascinating.