her despair. I jostled her with the hand that held her wrist. She stirred briefly. I shook her again, harder.
“Get up,” I whispered. “Come on. We have to go. We can’t stay out here all night.”
She turned over in place and dropped her head onto the bench. She groaned.
“Come on,” I urged again, pulling at her arm.
“Just leave me,” she mumbled, her words melting together.
“I can’t do that,” I said sternly. “You don’t have a choice. You’re coming with me whether you want to or not.”
She sat up and turned to face me. Her eyes were heavy and the color was drained from her face. “Bite me.” She said it without a hint of malice or displeasure.
“You better be careful what you say to a zombie. I might just take you up on that,” I replied with a smirk.
She glared at me. Then she lashed out with her free hand, pounding on my arm to try to force me to release her.
“Ooh. Ow. Stop. You might break it,” I said in a monotone. “Okay, seriously, knock it off. You’re starting to annoy me.” I batted her arm away.
She began to sob as she desperately tried to pull her arm out of my grasp. “Why are you doing this to me?” she moaned.
I groaned. First aggression, now emotion. Humans would try anything to save their skin. I stood and jerked her to her feet. “Let’s go. I’m tired and I want to go home.”
She dropped her head dejectedly. I pulled her forward and she stumbled after me clumsily. “I’m not opposed to dragging you,” I said.
She relented. I drew her along and she walked in silence behind me. She didn’t try to get away. She didn’t so much as make a sound. She shuffled behind me obediently. I began to think that this must be what it was like to have a pet. My own human that I walked around on a leash. She followed me for a while as I tried to make my way through zone E to zone C. I had never really gone to this part of Revenant, so the area wasn’t familiar to me, but I knew you could cut across zone E to zone C and from there I knew how to make my way back to zone A. It would probably take a few hours to walk back. But I didn’t have much of a choice with my human tagalong.
Zone E was bigger than I realized, and I got lost a few times. We had walked for about a half hour when I paused at a street bench to let the girl rest again. There were no Wakes around. Everything was quiet. Only the center of zone C would really have anybody out at this hour. As long as we avoided any patrollers we would be fine. I told the girl we would rest for a few minutes and then we’d have to go again. She was despondent. She ignored me completely, turning away and staring off into the darkness.
“I just want to die,” she said after a few moments of silence.
“That’s the difference between us,” I said. “That’s why zombies are taking over the world. That’s why we’re surviving and you’re dying. We want to live more.”
“No,” she said without looking back at me. “You just want to die less.”
I shrugged. “Semantics.”
“If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “do it now. I’m tired. My family’s dead. I’ll never make it back to the others alone. And I don’t even want to go back.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” I told her.
She turned to look at me. Her eyes were flooded. “Please don’t make me become one of you. Please. I’d rather be dead. Please don’t turn me into a zombie.”
“You don’t have what it takes to be a Wake,” I responded coldly. Humans are so weak, Joe. They hold onto their useless human existence with their frail, vulnerable bodies until their last breath, while zombies live on forever. The world keeps turning and humans keep dying. That’s the way it’s always been. They never change. They never evolve. They deserved to die. The zombie awakening was as much a mercy genocide as it was evolution. Humans are just waiting to die. That’s the way it’s always been, way before zombies. We’re just cutting back the wait.
She was sobbing inwardly, making little hiccuping noises as she tried to contain herself. It was pathetic. “Come on,” I said. I began forward again and she allowed herself to be led resignedly, like a lamb to slaughter.
We went down the dark street. The zone was deserted. There weren’t any lights anywhere. The human must have felt blind. As we progressed forward, a silhouette became visible against the moonlight. It was one of the largest buildings in Revenant. It stood on the borders of zones E and F. I had forgotten it was so near the bus station. The human froze at the sound of stifled moans and grunts. The Stiffs were out again. They always came out at night, searching for prey. They wandered the grounds mindlessly, unable to figure out how to climb the gate, the only thing confining them to their afterlife prison.
The Stockade. It even sent chills down Wakes’ spines.
“What is it?” the human asked nervously.
“Hell for zombies,” I said. “Come on. It’s better not to let the Stiffs see us. It’ll get them all riled up.”
I began pulling her along, away from the building. I stopped. I heard footfalls. Something was following us. I put my finger to my pale blue lips to request silence from the girl. I could hear growling. One of the Stiffs had escaped. I let go of the human’s arm to defend myself and spun around. A pair of yellow glowing eyes stared back at me. The creature attacked.
It was a full-grown german shepherd, one of the dogs that had somehow found its way into the boundaries of Revenant. It leaped at me, snapping its jaws rabidly, slobber trailing from its lips like a scarf billowing in the wind. I was caught off guard as the dog dug its teeth into my ankle. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel the pressure as it bit in. I tried to shake it off, but the mutt had its jaws clenched tight against my skin.
“Dumb dog,” I mumbled as I reached down to pry it away.
It instantly let go and snapped at my hands. I recoiled. I didn’t want it to do any more cosmetic damage than it had already. My mentor would not be happy to foot the bill for an even bigger repair job. It snapped its jaws at me wildly, barking over and over again loudly.
“Shut up,” I hissed at it. I tried to reach out and smack it away, but the dog lunged at me again. I pulled back and it continued snapping at me, its front legs extended out before it rigidly and its back arched downward. I moved my hand across the dog’s eyes and it followed it with its head, snarling madly. Then I quickly reached out with my other hand and smacked the dog away. It rolled down the street, came to its feet whimpering, and quickly scampered off in the opposite direction.
I sighed with annoyance and kneeled to inspect the damage to my ankle. There were slight indents where the dog had bitten down, but it hadn’t even broken the skin. It was another time I was glad to be a zombie. A human would have had his flesh pierced through. I stood and turned to face the girl. “Stupid stray dogs get in here sometimes,” I said to the darkness.
The girls was gone.
I quickly scanned the area, snapping my head back and forth. The rattling metal gave her away. I sprinted toward the gate surrounding the Stockade. The girl was scurrying up it, almost at the top.
“Hey! Hey! What are you doing?” I demanded.
She didn’t respond.
“Hey!” I cried. “Are you crazy? There’s nothing but Stiffs in there!”
She paused at the top of the gate and glared down at me. “I’d rather take my chances with them than with you!”
“Are you insane? They’ll kill you!”
“Good. I want to die,” she shot back. “At the very least I don’t want to go wherever you’re taking me. I don’t want to become whatever you want me to become. I’ll take my chances with the zombies!”
Then she threw her leg over the barbed wire at the top of the gate and awkwardly pulled herself over. Somehow she managed to maneuver around the barbed wire to avoid being cut.
“Hey!” I shook the gate. “They’ll kill you! Don’t be stupid!”
She didn’t obey. She climbed down the gate quickly. About halfway down she slipped and fell to the ground insid
e the compound. A couple of Stiffs reacted to the noise, lifting their heads and looking in the general direction of the girl.
“Hey!” I shook the gate again.
She stood slowly. She turned and looked back at me with empty eyes. My hands were curled around the mesh of the gate and I gazed at her with horror and fascination. The girl was committing suicide right before my eyes. It was the most absurd thing I had ever seen. Only humans were capable of willfully throwing away the only thing that mattered. They didn’t deserve life. They didn’t understand how precious it was. If they did, then they would understand why zombies held onto it so stubbornly, even in death.
The human turned and ran away from the gate, toward the entrance of the Stockade. The front doors were never locked. It wasn’t necessary. The Stiffs were allowed to roam the grounds outside the prison as much they liked. It didn’t hurt anything. They couldn’t figure out how to get over the fence, and they only wandered about mindlessly. It at least allowed some of them to stay limber and avoid the onset of rigor mortis, in case their parts needed to be used for patch jobs for Wakes.
A few Stiffs gave notice as she hurried across the compound and ran through the main door. A couple of Stiffs began to follow her, moving slowly. Stiffs only moved with urgency when they were sure they had seen or smelled something. Otherwise, they kind of just followed little sounds or movements languidly.
I couldn’t believe it. The human girl had just escaped into