Chapter 5

He finally found it after fifteen minutes of searching. He cautiously approached the exit and poked his head outside.

“Right side clear; left side also clear; front okay.”

After having ascertained that there was no danger, he dragged Alphonse outside and stood in the middle of the pavement, trying to decide which direction to take.

“What do you think Alphonse? Which way should we go? What does your zombie instincts tell you? Dogs have good instincts, so it must be the same for you right? As for mine, I think it might be defective…. Now that I think about it, lots of things seem to be defective about me. Am I cursed?”

A groan interrupted his pondering. Alphonse’s body was turned to the left and he kept on staring in that direction.

“Left it is then. Let’s go.”

He gripped the shoulder straps of his bag tighter, then started to trudge in the direction Alphonse chose. Along the way, he picked houses at random to explore. All of the houses he entered were uninhabited and in disarray. There wasn’t much to collect as they had already been raided.

He did find many corpses though, both human and zombie ones, in various states of decomposition. Most of them had their head bashed in or looked like they had been mauled. He crouched down near a zombie corpse and examined it, “Hmm it has the same characteristics as you. Well at least its skin and nails. Poor thing’s face is beyond recognition. It’s just pieces of flesh at this point. Pff and man does it stink!”

He pinched his nose and continued to examine the corpse, ‘ Is that a female zombie or a male one?’

He was still trying to determine his specimen’s gender when he heard the sound of chewing. He froze, ‘Why do I have the premonition that I’ll see a disgusting sight if I turn around right now? Calm down, me. It’s just my imagination, that’s it. Alphonse is definitely not…’

The rest of his thoughts trailed off as he turned around to find Alphonse definitely chewing on a nearby human corpse. He watched in horror as the other bent down to tear off a piece of flesh with his teeth. Blood dripped from Alphonse’s lips as he chewed voraciously on his meal. The chewing sound was particularly loud in this silence.

If he wasn’t already pale as a corpse, he would have paled even more. He got up and gagged, “ Alphonse! Did you have to do that in my presence! That is disgusting to watch! Oh yuck! That is not even a fresh corpse! Have some standards for creator’s sake!”

Alphonse paused in his chewing and eyed the small zombie. The latter was hiding his eyes with his hands to block the disgusting sight. He used his sharp nails to tear off a piece of meat and presented it to him. He growled when the other did not notice his actions.

Tsuki hesitatingly peeped through his fingers when he heard that growl. He immediately regretted it when he saw the yucky meat being presented to him. He flew into a rant, “Eat, my ass! Who would eat that disgusting thing! Go eat by yourself,thank you very much! Let me make one thing clear, I won’t eat this. I am not like you. I don’t know if it is a psychological remnant from when I was still human, but the mere thought of eating human meat makes me wanna puke! And raw at that! Meat has to be cooked!”

Alphonse glanced at him then promptly tossed the piece of meat in his mouth. He then calmly turned back to continue his…’meal’.

The ignored small zombie made a disgusted face and stood up, “I am going to wait for you over there so take your time.” He walked towards a tree and proceeded to sit under it while muttering, “Now I’ll have to find some water to clean you. There’s no way I am walking with you with blood all over your hands and mouth.”

‘Anyway, it seems like zombies are not affected by the sun. I thought they would be scared of sunlight and avoid it. Well, I can’t really take Alphonse as an example, he doesn’t seem like a normal zombie. He is way too aware... Unless all zombies are like this? It’s also strange how we haven’t encountered any functioning zombies or humans till now. Oh well, whatever. No use worrying about it. ’ He thought to himself while patiently waiting for Alphonse.

****

They were back on the road after Alphonse had filled his stomach and he was cleaned of the blood. While aimlessly walking, they came across a hardware store. The front door was broken in so he went inside.

“Look, a duffel bag! Lucky!”

He quickly picked up the bag and started to fill it with anything useful that remained. Alphonse just slouched at the door and looked at him busy around. He dragged the duffel bag to Alphonse then took off the bag on his shoulder.

“Here you carry this one. I’ll carry the duffel bag as I don’t think you will be able to carry it. What if your entire arm comes off from the weight or something? That would be horrifying and disgusting at the same time.”

He manoeuvred Alphonse’s arms in order to settle the bag on his shoulder.

“There done. The sun has almost set.” He said as he glanced outside, “let’s find an empty building to hide in. We don’t know what might happen at night. We are going in blind, without any useful information. It’s quite worrying.”

With that thought, they walked out and he browsed the streets for a good hideout. They lucked out when he discovered a small store sandwiched between two buildings. It had an underground room with a bed, a bathroom and small inconspicuous windows that allowed you to see the streets.

He had gone down first to check it out the came back up to get Alphonse.

“This is perfect….but how in the creator’s name are you going to get down? You can’t go down the stairs on your own….Guess I’ll have to carry you. It’s only a few steps after all.”

He stood staring dumbly at Alphonse for a while, trying to decide how to carry him.

“Why are you so freaking tall?! There is no way I am doing the princess carry. Piggy back it is.”

He stepped towards Alphonse, took his hand, turned backwards and then put the hand on his shoulder. He reached behind him for Alphonse’s other hand and put it on his other shoulder.

“Mind your nails please.”

Then he slowly crouched down and grabbed hold of Alphonse’s thighs. He took a deep breath then stood up.

“Sweet bloody Mary you are heavy.” He grunted.

Alphonse’s legs kinda dragged down but at least he could lift him up. He quickly and cautiously went down the few steps then put the useless zombie down.

“I so don’t look forward to carrying you back up.”

He pushed poor Alphonse inside then bolted the door after he had entered too.

“Go squat in a corner Alphonse. I am going to monitor the streets for any activities.” He said as he turned and made his way to the windows.

He proceeded to give all his attention to the streets before him. The sun was nearly down, casting an ethereal red glow across the buildings.

‘According to the fiction books, night time is when all undead become more active and violent. I wonder if Alphonse and I will be affected.’

Said zombie slowly staggered to a dark corner near the wall. He stood there, his red eyes shining creepily, and stared at the small zombie peering through the windows.

So when the unaware dunderhead glanced back a few minutes later to check on his companion, he nearly screamed when he only saw two red glowing orbs looking at him.

“For the creator’s sake, Alphonse! I know I asked you to go squat in a corner, but did you have to pick the darkest one and stare creepily at me?! You bloody scared me! My un-beating heart nearly started beating again. Not that it would be a bad thing….at least I think so. I thought that you were a demon for a moment. I mean zombies now exist. So who knows, one day I might see a unicorn running around…a zombie version of one maybe..” With that disturbing thought he went back to his monitoring.

In his few minutes of inattention, the last rays of sun were already gone and the world was plunged in darkness. There was blessed silence for a brief moment, before the sounds of anarchy began. Screams echoed in the distance, the smell of blood slowly started to become more obvious, vicious growls could be heard like a cacophony and some weapons firing could be heard. Surprisingly there was no activity near him. Most of the sounds came from a long distance way.

‘So there are people and other zombies. It’s just that I woke up in a unexpectedly calm zone. Maybe the zombies migrated towards where they sensed there was more food… I don’t seem to be affected by night time. I feel calm and have no violent urges whatsoever.’

With his continued attention to the outside world, he failed to notice the silent movement of his companion. Alphonse’s eyes glowed more brightly as he slowly approached the unaware small zombie.