Three years ago Ash twiddled her short brown hair and stared at the computer. She had gotten into the dreaded cycle of refreshing. A few of her favourite tumblrs, Twitter, Reddit and the forums she frequented were all the tabs she had open. Yet none of them were updating. Well, some were, but there was this hashtag trending on Twitter. "Hashtag outbreak. Well, let's see what's going on." Ash clicked on the link provided by the user. It led to YouTube. "Ugh, another viral marketing video?" The cursor hovered over the close button of the tab as the video played. From the poor aspect ratio, it was definitely recorded on a smartphone's camera. To make things worse, the recording was shaky. She rolled her eyes a bit, but the next image drew her gaze. A man was on the floor, crawling away. He looked up at some woman, and screamed and begged. "Don't eat me!" The woman fell onto him anyway, and she sunk her teeth into the man's face. Ash just stared, slack-jawed. The grainy footage was hard to see through, but Ash guessed that it might have been poor special effects. The door knocked, and she sighed. Her father had come back from work, most likely. "Coming! Stop knocking so much, dad!" she yelled. Picking up a white shirt, she slid it onto herself (her father disapproved of her walking around the house topless, but she was so flat a bra wasn't necessary) and walked to the door. "Look, stop knocking, I'm..." As she pulled the door open, what standing there wasn't her father. It was a man. Ash would have said that it 'is' a man, but men didn't have their guts hanging out in front of them and still be standing upright. His glazed-over eyes flickered to look at Ash, and the thing roared. Turning around, she tried to run, but the dead man's hand was faster. He grabbed onto her shirt, and tried to grab onto her. She heard a loud rip of the shirt she wore, but the momentum from his jerky grab was good enough. "Nonono— NO!" Ash screamed. The zombie, now with a proper grab onto her, sunk his bloody teeth into her. She screamed, and the pain brought upon her by his second ironclad bite sent everything to darkness. Minutes later, the corpse of the tomboy on the floor shook violently. With a quiet groan, Ash sat up, and slowly got to her feet. Her torn shirt slid off her body, reducing her modesty to naught, but she didn't care. Her mind, previously filled with the ambitions and dreams of an 18 year old girl, were now filled with instinctual hunger. Stumbling out of the room, her dazed zombie instincts looked up into the sky to the sound of a helicopter. Just like the mindless horde of the walking dead, she followed. ----- Modern Days "No, c'mon, don't mess this up..." Her claws held the USB cable nervously, as she gently eased it into back of the computer. A few damaged cables were scattered beside her. When Ash heard the click, she grinned. Hopefully, the internet was still working. The power was. And if there was one thing that Ash remembered recently, there were such things called computers. As she eased up the battered office chair to the computer, she heard the sound of a vehicle. The army was here. They would usually scavenge for supplies. Food, spare parts, gasoline, and the like. That was their way of living their life. This was her unlife. Ash looked out at the room she made. A bed (she didn't need to rest, but it felt unnatural for her room to be missing one), a mini-fridge (filled with choice cuts from the local supermarket, and a few from unlucky passers-by. The meat had already went bad by human definitions, but she kept it around. Eating helped stave off the worst effects of being a zombie.), and a computer that was already in this room. A first aid kit, stuffed to the brim with bandages (her choice of clothing today), sat beside the computer. The windows were boarded, and the door was barred. Someone else was here earlier, but she shot herself. Ash just took over. With a grin that showed bits of meat stuck between her teeth, she clicked on Reddit. There were certainly less users, but it was still active nonetheless. Even if humanity would still shoot to kill her at first sight, she still wanted company of some sort.

Three years ago "How is he doing, Mom?" She spoke through a cellphone. Her eyes were looking at the things that were going around her. The soldiers passing by, their faces and whatever they were doing. Her free hand was fiddling with the buttons on her navy green jacket. She listened at the voice on the other side of the line. "He's doing better..." A voice of an older woman sounded. "That doesn't sound very promising." Rose said and sighed, leaning back against the wall of a hallway. "Has he said anything?" - "No, he's seeing a therapist, because he's having a lot of nightmares". The woman spoke. "Tell Daniel I said Hi, okay?" Rose asked her mother. Daniel was her older brother. He was 5 years older than her, and he joined the US army before she did. But he got in an accident a few months back and lost his leg. He was in Afghanistan, and so far Rose heard, they were attacked. His brother was close by a grenade when someone threw it and it went off. He lost his leg and was sent back home. It was busy at the military base here. People were always busy, some soldiers had just gotten back from a mission or a practice. Rose stayed here when her brother was sent back home. Even though her mother wanted her back, she felt she needed to be here. Rose felt she had a purpose here, serving her country. "I have to go. We have to check out some things going on in Michigan". Rose spoke through the phone. "Oh honey, be careful. Have you been following the news?" - "Yes, I have mom. Don't worry. It's probably nothing to worry about." Rose said. But she had no idea what was going on or what to expect. She pushed herself off the wall and ended the conversation with her mother and left with a group for Michigan. Modern Days What she saw 3 years ago in Michigan wasn't something to not worry about. It wasn't something that would be easy to fix. It was a virus that was spreading more and more. It brought the dead back to live, and they were hungry. Rose wasn't exactly how or why, her mission was to get people in safety. She and other soldiers had been busy finding survivors and fighting off zombies for 3 years now. They were losing people almost on a daily basis. It was sad, but they didn't really had a choice. Rose didn't really else had a choice. The army offered them food and in return they would do as they were told. People said hell was full, and that's why the dead were coming back alive. Or that it was humanity's own fault. If we did believe in God and lived according the bible, this would never have happened. Most people didn't know what was trying to kill them, so they just made up lies... "We're almost there!" A voice yelled at a group of 6 soldiers. Rose was one of them. "We'll be back in exactly 3 hours!" The man who was flying the helicopter mentioned. Rose got her helmet and put it over her short brown hair. In the military long hair wasn't ideal. She felt the helicopter going down and eventually landing on a big intersection, in the middle of a small highway. Rose and the other soldiers jumped out, holding their rifles, running away from the helicopter, and off to a place where they couldn't be seen by others so they had a moment to discuss how they were going to this. "Clear!" Rose said out loud after they had entered a small store. Bart, another soldier closed the blinds, and used two fingers to peek between the blinds. So far, there were no zombies to be seen. "How are we going to do this?" Bart said in a heavy voice. The reason they were there because someone had called for help through a radio. They said they were in this city, hiding in a mall. Rose took out a big city map. And pointed at a red circle drawn on the map. "The mall is here. We are here" She pointed to a small spot on the map. "It's about 2.5 kilometers away." She said, and looked at the 4 male soldiers, who were listening. Rose looked down on the map, and her fingers moved over the map. "This is the shortest road. And probably the safest road too" She spoke quickly, and put the map back in her pocket, before she turned to a blond soldier. "I've talked it through with Mason, he leads the way". Mason nodded, and they left the abounded store. It was halfway their trip when they were attacked by a big group of zombies. They were only with the 6 of them, and there were just too many zombies. Shots were fired and heads were bashed in. It looked like there was no way out and they weren't going to make it. Bart was the one who sacrificed himself. He managed to get the zombies attention and pulled the trigger from a grenade when Rose and the others were far enough not to get hit by it. The soldiers kept on running, until they were safe. "Rose..." Mason said. "You're bitten". Rose her heart skipped a beat and she got this feeling of desperation in her stomach. She looked at her body, to see where she was bitten. With the adrenaline rushing through her body during the zombie attack, she hadn't noticed that one got to her. It was a big bite on her upper arm. "F*ck" Rose cursed. She knew what this meant. She couldn't go any further with the guys. "Well, go on already. I'll be fine. I promise" Her right hand covered the wound on her left arm. She watched the guys leave, and she was all on her own now. Rose knew she wasn't going to make it on her own here.

Ash grabbed a pistol in her claws. It was more for threatening the living at this stage, and maybe a few potshots at the other intelligent dead. The army seemed a bit more proactive in her sector today. If they broke down the door, she'd return fire. A grenade explosion rocked the building slightly, and Ash frowned. They were messing up her building. With a tired sigh, she plucked off the boards on her door with her bare claws. (Claws can work like a hammer in a pinch.) She plucked off a kevlar vest from the bed (courtesy of a few of the undead soldiers) and moved out. She used the vest as a shield against her head, holding her pistol in the direction of the little gunshots of a pistol. It must have been an individual soldier, or a survivor, or the rest were sticking to melee weapons. Sticking behind the reanimated corpse of a young woman wearing a female business suit, she slowly edged her way to the source of the gunshot noises. A young woman, looking like a soldier with the mishmash of body armour she wore, sat in a corner. Her right hand grasped tightly onto what looked like a wound on her other arm, while her left hand held a pistol. A few zombies fell as she fired at them. Ash counted the shots. When the second-to-last bullet fired, there was just the zombie left that she took cover behind. Well, Ash was a zombie, but a nice one. "Save your bullet." Grabbing the zombie woman, Ash tripped her to the floor and smashed her head in. Holding the kevlar vest to her head, Ash peeked behind it to see the soldier she had temporarily rescued. A black-haired, caucasian woman. Too young to die, but here she was, infected. Ash was infected once, but she got lucky. "Don't shoot," stated Ash.

Rose fired again, but this time she missed. It took her a moment to realize that she just fired her last shot. But Rose didn't lower her gun yet. Maybe whoever was talking to her wouldn't know and keep a save distance. Zombies didn't talk right? They wouldn't back down for a gun, unless it went through their head. Rose was looking at the thing that was holding the kevlar vest to her head. Her hand was shaky, but the gun still aimed to whoever was talking. Blood was dropping down on the floor and she knew that would only lure more zombies towards her. She needed to get out of here if she wanted to stay alive for a few extra hours. "Too late." Rose said. Rose was starting to become a bit light headed from the blood loss. It wasn't a small wound and she didn't had time to take a look at it and find some bandages. Thinking about that, she realized that bandaging her wound had little to no use. She was going to die anyway and come back as a zombie. She couldn't shoot a bullet through her head any more, because she wasted her last bullet. There were still a few options left: throw herself off a high building, have someone else bash her head in. Rose could be creative, maybe she would even see the fun in it soon? "Who are you?" Rose asked in a demanding tone. "Lower that stupid vest" She wanted to see who she was talking to and how that person looked like. From what she could see, Rose wasn't sure what she was talking to and she was dying to know.

Ash lowered the vest. She mentally prepared to dodge, even though she was pretty sure that the bullet would hit her before the sound reached her ears. Her grey hair, her slightly bloodshot eyes, and her slightly pale skin would have told the soldier everything, unless she was beginning to see things. "I'm Ash. And you're bitten," groaned Ash. Apparently, the woman spent her last bullet trying to shoot her. And unless she fancied death by a crowbar, she would probably have to give her a bullet of her own. If the soldier didn't question Ash's appearance, she herself was going to bring it up. "Do you want... bandages? Painkillers? There's still some around here," asked Ash, a little tentatively.

Like she didn't know that she was bitten yet. "Yes, thank you, captain obvious." Rose snarled. "I didn't know that." Her tone was sarcastic and angry. She was angry because she was bitten and it felt like she had failed. She failed her group and the people she wanted to help. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped whatever she was doing when Ash lowered her vest. "What the..." Her big brown eyes looked at the claws, the bloodshot eyes and the pale skin. Rose hadn't noticed the claws before, even though those big claws couldn't be missed when it held that vest. Did a zombie just talk? No, that as impossible, but the talking wasn't the only thing that scared her. Rose blinked with her eyes a few times. No, this wasn't a dream, because it all looked very real. Maybe she was hallucinating? Did the virus work so fast through her body? She had no idea how this virus exactly worked and she didn't care either. It made people die and come back alive. The only thing she needed to know was how to kill them, but she already figured that out 3 years ago. "I must be hallucinating." Rose said. Rubbing her eyes with her left hand, she groaned from the pain when she moved her left arm. "Because zombies don't talk." She shook her head, her hand still covering her face. "Zombies don't talk, zombies don't talk." She repeated to herself, not listening to Ash's last question any more. Rose thought she was going crazy. Her right hand was shaking as she put the gun back in the holster on her belt. It was empty, she couldn't use it anyway. She slowly moved her hand away from her face, but the talking zombie was still there. Rose looked at it with big eyes and her mouth open from shock. "I'm hallucinating."

Ash guessed that resentful, sardonic tone, came from an infected person. But the soldier's tone when she saw her face, and perhaps refocused her eyes. Ash herself didn't know how the infection progressed in someone who got a minor bite. If the soldier didn't trust her own eyes, how could she communicate? "Well, I'm not sure how to re-assure you..." Ash sat down besides Rose, and placed her hand on her shoulder. "But I'm talking. I'm not sure if the bites cause hallucinations, but I'm here, and talking to you." She wondered what else to say, hopefully to take Rose off her bite wound. "Oh right! What's going on out there? And what's your name?"

Her eyes almost rolled out of her head when she sat down next to her. When the zombie also laid a hand on her shoulder, Rose got scared and tried to stand up quickly and walk away in a defensive mode. Instead, she sort of fell over, landed on both her arms and crawled away from the zombie. "Don't touch me! Zombies don't talk!" Rose tried to stand up, her knees were trembling and her forehead was sweaty. She took her helmet off her head and threw it at the zombie, frustrated because she was getting sicker. "Zombies don't ask for my name." Rose mumbled, unbuttoning her jacket, because she was sweating like crazy. "Zombies eat meat, human meat, animal meat, whatever kind of meat! They are... Brain dead!" "Right?" She took a deep breath and made an attempt to calm herself down. She was bitten, she was dying and there is a talking zombie... "I need to warn the army..." Rose said and she sounded determined. Her eyes stared at the talking zombie. "I have to go." She turned around and made a few steps into a random direction until she stopped and realized she could never walk to the army.

The soldier was getting creepier now. Did people start acting this weird after a bite, Ash wondered. Perhaps becoming a mindless zombie was a nice respite after all this crazy panicked thrashing. Ash shook her head, and looked off to the side. She did a double-take as another walking corpse stumbled into view. Uncomfortably close to Rose. Raising her pistol up, she fired a shot, taking out the zombie in a headshot. "The army's a day away of walking, even if you take the open streets, miss," said Ash, shaking her head. "You're not going to make it." With a sigh, she decided to lie. Well, twist the truth. She was technically a zombie, but zombies didn't talk. Zombies don't ask for names. They were brain dead. All this she was not. "And I'm not all of that. I'm not a zombie either. Take a bloody seat before someone tries to eat your face off!" shouted Ash.

"Then why do you look like a zombie?" Rose asked. "It's not Halloween yet." She avoided to look Ash in the face. The shot made her jump up a little. She was so scared, and she didn't expect a zombie to shoot a gun either. She sat down against the wall where she sat down earlier and closed her eyes for a moment, just to take in everything that had just happened. "I suppose I can't borrow your gun to shoot myself in the head?" Rose asked the zombie. She opened her eyes to look at the wound on her arm. It looked nastier than she expected and she had lost a lot of blood. She was sure she could see some bone too. If she didn't do anything about it, the wound would become infected. But she was going to die anyway, so she decided not to do anything about the wound. "If you're not a zombie. Then what are you?" Rose asked looking away from her wound, back to the talking zombie.

Ash blinked at the request. She expected it, but it was harder to hear it than to imagine it. "Y-yeah, you can. If you want." What was Ash, anyway? She didn't have a pulse, and her body didn't feel pain. She just shrugged. "I'm Ash, someone who just lives here. Do you have a name, or did they start referring soldiers by ID number when the world went to shit?" She recalled... being bitten. A long time ago. But she didn't know when she specifically became less of a zombie, and more like herself. "I was bitten a long time ago, I think. Maybe I got lucky." Ash shrugged, and toyed with her gun. As long as she didn't point it in her face, it was safe enough.

"I don't remember my ID number at the moment." Rose answered. "My name is Rose." She introduced herself. "And I'm bitten a while ago." Rose said with a sigh. This zombie got lucky, but was still bitten? That was weird. Was that even possible? "Do you remember anything from the bite and after it?" Rose asked. She wasn't sure if she wanted to live the rest of her life like a zombie. But at least she couldn't get bitten twice. "When the world went to shit, we pretty much lost our lives, just like everyone else." Rose said. The military was the only place they felt save and they could call home. It wasn't really home... It was a mess, a chaotic place with lots of blood and bodies of dead soldiers. Everyone was running around like crazy. There was always so much to do, so many missions. But never enough people, never enough guns or ammunition and sometimes not enough food. But they had a bed and a roof above their head at the base. "But instead of running away, we risked our lives for humans." Rose spoke quietly. "Not that some humans were worth it." Rose said and looked up at Ash the talking zombie. "What about those claws?" Rose asked. "is that a side effect of being a talking zombie?" Rose asked.

Ash smiled at Rose. At least the woman introduced herself. Given the circumstances, though, she had the right to be upset. "I don't remember a lot of things. I don't even remember my last name. I'm not even sure how I came to be like this." Ash looked at her claws, as Rose recalled the circumstances of humanity. It certainly went to shit out there. Ash might have even considered herself lucky, in the circumstances. There was lots of food in the places that were overrun. Ash only recalled a specific moment when she regained consciousness, or rather, awareness. The circumstances weren't pleasant, and she preferred not to think about it. "I think it's a side effect. And I prefer another word. Zombies are for those mindless, stumbling ones. I'm a..." Ash pondered. She hadn't come up with a name. "Hunter." Like the Special Infected guy in Left 4 Dead.

"A hunter?" Rose asked curious. What kind of name for a mutated zombie was that? "Okay, then what are you hunting?" Rose asked curious. "Meat? Humans?" Rose continued to ask Ash. It looked like she spoke the truth. But it was still weird how she looked like and talked at the same time. She looked like a zombie, but she spoke? It was probably a mutation of the virus, or perhaps her body handled it differently? Rose had no clue, and it wouldn't take long before she would turn in a brainless, meat eating monster. The sun was slowly going to down in the sky, towards the horizon. "So, you eat human meat too?" Rose asked before she let out a soft groan, trying to stand up. "I assume I won't go after you after I turn." Rose spoke and managed to get on both her feet. Her arm was hurting so much now that the adrenaline was leaving her body. "Are there more like you?" The soldier asked and looked at Ash. The sun was shining in Rose her face, and you could see the sweat on her forehead and her hair was wet. a terrible fever was the side effect of the virus, before someone would turn. Rose saw black spots in her vision and she felt dizzy after she stood up. She had lost too much blood. If she wasn't going to die from the fever and the virus, she would die from the big amount of blood she lost. So she took off her jacket, since she was burning up anyway, and tried to wrap it around the wounded arm with one arm.

"It's a self-made name. Well..." Ash sighed. Her life wasn't exactly pretty. She occasionally dealt with thugs who saw themselves as the Last-Man-on-Earth. She rarely took the initiative to end them, but when they got overwhelmed, Ash dealt the finishing blow just so that they would not turn. The meat kept that way. "I hunt for food." She scratched her head, trying to find a way in her mind that made it sound less grim. "From reasonable sources. I mean, I don't kill anyone who isn't already going to die, and I have a reasonable expectation of who's going to live or die." Ash shrugged, giving Rose a look of that pretty much meant 'perhaps, but probably not'. "I'd be a treat for any living scientists who's looking for a cure, but I'm guessing they'll consider me legally dead and dissect me." She knew of others that were like her, but in different ways. Some of the zombies were intelligent, but not on a 'conversational basis'. They knew how humans worked, and targeted them in clever and cunning ways. They were like animalistic hunters looking for prey. "There are. But they're dicks." Ash felt a little crestfallen when she saw Rose manage her wound. The soldier would probably die of blood loss first before the infection got her. "Do you think you can contact your relatives, or friends?"

Rose shook her head at the same time she tried to get her belt off her hips and pants. All with one hand. She looked clumsy, but she got it. The holster and guns were on the ground and what was left was an empty belt. she wrapped it above the wound on her arm, using her teeth to get the belt through the buckle and tightened it. She had to stop the bleeding and the belt was the only thing that tightened good enough around her arm. Rose groaned from the pain when she fastened it, but she couldn't buckle the belt with one hand. "Help me, please." Rose asked Ash while she was listening to her. There were others like her? How big would the chance be that she became like her as well? "Did you became like this right away?" Rose asked. "A talking zombie?" - "uh, I mean a hunter?" Rose quickly said and a small smile curved her lips. At least, it was an attempt to smile, the pain from her wound was too much. But talking and keeping busy helped her blocking out the pain. Rose had been shot before, but that pain was nothing compared to this zombie bite. Her brown eyes stared into space for a moment while she was thinking. Was there someone left she could call? A friend, a relative, someone she loved? No... "Our chief..." Rose answered. "No, wait, Brody." Brody was a good friend of her brother. Her parents were gone, her brother was dead too and she didn't know about the rest of her family. But Brody and her became best friends since the virus. He was the only one she had left that reminded her of her family. But Brody was on another mission, or perhaps he was already back? "I think I can contact Brody." But she was wasn't sure exactly how. She was in pain and her brains weren't really working along. Maybe it was the virus, maybe it was the loss of blood.