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I paused in the deep shadows of the trees and examined the road I had just found. Despite the darkness of night, my red-tinted vision allowed me to see every blade of grass and pothole as if it were noon.

Other than a handful of abandoned cars and two zombies in the distance, the road was empty, which was to be expected. Only fools and zombies traveled at night.

I inhaled deeply to check the air. The strong scent of the pine forest was almost overwhelming, although my enhanced sense of smell could identify most of the hundreds of lighter scents underneath it.

Ignoring the scents of the plants, I focused on the ones from living creatures. There wasn't much around here; a handful of regular zombies, a herd of elk, some deer, a couple of rabbits, and a dog in dire need of a breath mint.

No scent of humans lingered in the air, nor had any been on this road recently. No hint of my sister either.

Still, it was a road, and all roads went somewhere. Perhaps this one wouldn't end in the middle of a tourist resort overrun with zombies like the last one had. If my sister was still human, she'd be inside one of the remaining Strongholds. I just had to find all the blasted places in order to check them, and I refused to consider the worst-case scenario. She was probably the only person left who might call me by my name, Trinity, instead of yelling 'Zombie!' and running away or shooting at me.

Keeping within the shelter of the trees, I followed the road at a slow jog. Chloe trailed behind me warily, leaving plenty of space between us as she usually did.

It would have been easier for the husky to run on the road, but the zombies would immediately give chase. These were just regular ones, so they'd ignore me if I showed myself, but Chloe wouldn't be so fortunate.

It was less of a hassle to remain in the trees. There weren't any humans around for me to worry about, although if a human had – against all odds – caught a glimpse of my shadowy figure or glowing red eyes, they would have been shaking in their boots.

That was if they even saw me at all. Like the ninjas or assassins in old Hollywood films, it was nearly impossible to spot a Nightstalker at night unless we revealed ourselves. My dark grey hoodie and faded black jeans also blended in beautifully with the shadows.

The husky continued to follow me through the trees as the world around us slowly got lighter. The predawn light would have still been considered very dim by human standards, but it was already getting too bright for me. I pulled a protective case out of my backpack and opened it.

Inside, a pair of wrap-around sunglasses were nestled in the padding. They weren't ordinary sunglasses though. These welding glasses had a few modifications which prevented any traces of light from coming in around the edges. They were the only reason I could go outside during the day. Almost as if I were a vampire... At least I don't burst into flames or sparkle in the sunlight.

I slid them on and kept going. Every so often, I stopped so Chloe could have a brief rest, but it wasn't long before we were moving again. The sun slowly crept higher into the sky as the hours passed.

The faint smell of humans and concrete reached my nose, but it was just the afterscent of an abandoned town. I was running low on food though, so it would be a good idea to see if there was anything edible left.

It wasn't hard to find the tiny town since it was right alongside the highway. As I expected, only zombies roamed its streets, lured in by the still-lingering smells of the humans who used to live here six months ago. The years of human inhabitation had ingrained the scent into the buildings themselves.

Even from the tree line, I could see a dozen zombies. If it hadn't been for their filthy clothing and the way they moved, they could have been mistaken for perfectly healthy humans who happened to be aimlessly meandering around.

I wasn't overly bothered by their presence since I was no more human than they were – I just had more control. With another deep breath, I identified most of the ones here as regular zombies.

About as bright as a brick, these common mindless zombies were barely able to move faster than a jog. All they could comprehend was the need to chase and attack anything that wasn't a fellow zombie. They rarely bothered me, and if they did, a quick growl usually made them change their minds.

I was also picking up the scent of two Runners, which were going to be a bit more irritating to deal with. Among the four ranks of zombies, roughly one in ten thousand were Runners. Their speed wasn't quite as fast as their previous human selves, but they were stronger and had much more stamina. Their intelligence had also taken a big hit, which made the feral ones more aggressive.

Like wild dogs, they would try to challenge other zombies to establish a spot in the pecking order. They ignored the regular zombies since those ones didn't care about things like hierarchy, but Runners would confront anything else with red eyes.

If it didn't have red eyes, they would attack it before seeing if it was edible. My sunglasses sometimes provoked them into challenging me just because they couldn't see the color of my irises, but the daylight was simply too bright and painful for me to remove them.

I couldn't see the Runners from here, or if they were within my line of sight, they were blending in with the regular zombies. My nostrils flared, but from the lack of hygiene products, I highly doubted either of them were sane. I had met a handful of sane Runners during my journey, but they weren't common. Most lost control – and their humanity – within days of turning.

Regardless of where the Runners were, I wasn't getting anything done by standing here and gawking at the scenery. With a faint growl – which earned me an uneasy look from Chloe – I gave in to the inevitable.

"Come on, Chloe." My voice was quiet and slightly rough from disuse, but she would have heard it.

I turned away and went deeper into the forest to find a safe place to leave her. Once I found a small clearing well out of earshot of the town, I stopped and shrugged off my backpack. I rummaged around inside and pulled out a plastic bag with a well-chewed bone inside.

The brown husky watched me from about twenty feet away. I tossed the bone toward her, and she trotted over to it with a wagging tail. She flopped down, content now that she had something to chew on.

"Stay here," I murmured, despite knowing she wouldn't go anywhere.

Chloe was used to me leaving her with a bone, so this was a long-established tradition between us. I picked up my backpack and headed back to the town.

As I came out of the trees, I let my instincts rise higher, which made my vision take on a slightly redder hue.

My walk was smooth and steady with the hint of a stalk. The slightly aggressive and predatory stance came easily to me. Any zombie would immediately recognize the posture and know what I was, effectively preventing most of them from bothering me.

I didn't even have to think about my movements. They felt natural. Much like a practiced fighter, my knees were always slightly bent. To stand straight and tall was a human action, and it would immediately attract unwanted attention.

This roadside town was so small it probably wasn't on most maps. Most of the buildings on the three streets were houses, accompanying a handful of stores and a tiny motel. I walked toward the store, although I knew it had probably been looted already.

One of the zombies sniffed the air and turned to face me with a low growl. That caught the attention of a couple of other zombies, who looked over to see if he had found anything edible.

He may have looked like the other zombies, but his more coordinated movements and scent revealed him as one of the Runners I had smelled earlier. I paused and dropped into a fighting crouch, pulling back my lips to show my teeth in threat as I let out a challenging snarl.

He took several steps closer, and I slightly spread out and tensed my fingers as I turned to directly face him, making my challenge clear. I gave another warning growl, which he ignored, much to my growing annoyance.

I knew what was coming next, and as much as I disliked having to go through the motions, the First Strike match was inevitable when a Runner wasn't completely convinced I was a zombie.

When he stepped closer, I launched forward with a snarl. I slashed out with my hand, and my sharp nails left four bloody furrows on his arm. At the same time, he returned the greeting and swiped at me, but I was faster and more coordinated than he was and easily avoided his strike.

I resumed my fighting crouch and snarled at him once again, baring my teeth as another warning. With a growl, the Runner lowered his gaze to the ground and took a tense step back. Even though he was a mindless feral, he knew he had lost this match. I remained where I was as he turned and meandered off in a different direction.

I shook myself off with an irritated growl. Feral zombies didn't really think; they just tended to rely solely on the few instincts they had. The average Runner wasn't much smarter than a dog, and like dogs, Runners occasionally challenged other zombies.

Usually, the first one to land a strike won. I didn't even bother using weapons in cases like this since weapons riled up other zombies. Against a Runner, a Nightstalker always won. Just as a Runner would always win against a normal zombie.

One on one, none of the present zombies were a match for my Nightstalker abilities. I could be in trouble if they ganged up on me and I wasn't able to outrun them. That wasn't a likely scenario though. I was much faster than they were.

I tended to get challenged by most feral Runners because the zombie undertone in my scent was slightly altered by the soap and hygiene products I used. It wasn't much of a difference, but it was just enough to confuse the dim-witted zombies. And it didn't help that my sunglasses hid my red irises.

Nightstalkers usually roamed solitarily at night and rarely mingled with their lesser cousins. I hated admitting that I had anything in common with these feral creatures. The irony of that detail was that my fingers still had blood on them, not to mention the bits of Runner flesh beneath my nails from our minor spat.

I was more dangerous, but in the end, my instincts were just as feral as theirs. The only real difference was that I was able to hide it under a veneer of humanity. They had no humanity, and I fiercely clung to the remains I had left.

After watching the Runner lose the First Strike match, none of the other zombies bothered me. I glanced in the windows of a small store, somewhat amazed to see the shelves weren't completely bare. At some point, the front door had been pried open, so I just let myself in.

I pulled my water bottle out of my backpack and grabbed a small package of tissues from the counter to clean my hands. Once that was done, I checked the shelves to see what had been left behind by previous looters.

The pickings were slim, but it wasn't as if I ate much. After checking around, I found enough canned soup, stew, and dried fruit to last me a couple of weeks. I hefted my loaded backpack onto my shoulders and walked to the front of the store, pausing in front of the window when I noticed a Runner racing down the road.

Moments later, the second Runner also entered my view as it ran in the same direction. Alerted by the Runners, the regular zombies quickly followed after them, already falling behind as their shuffling jog failed to keep up with their swifter cousins.

I jumped on top of a counter for more height and craned my neck, curious about what they had seen. It wasn't unusual for zombies to chase after deer or other wild animals, although the animals were generally faster and usually lost their newfound fans easily enough. I had left Chloe deep in the forest to the south, so it wouldn't be her they were after.

The distant rumble of a motor reached my ears. Then a second vehicle revved its engine, although this one sounded like a truck. I remained where I was, waiting to see what I might be dealing with.

A blue truck drove into view, going just fast enough to keep ahead of the Runners while honking the horn. Considering they were dragging strings of tin cans behind them, their speed and noise were intentional.

Not bothering to jump down from the counter, I continued watching. If anyone had been looking, it would have been easy to mistake my form for a mannequin. After all, what zombie would stand motionlessly in a store's window display?

I narrowed my eyes as a second truck lured the remaining slow zombies down the highway like a rather twisted game of tag. Before long, it also rounded a distant bend in the road and left my sight with the zombies still trying their best to catch it.

I wasn't sure how far the trucks were planning to go, although I suspected the drivers were just luring them far enough away that the zombies would keep following the road or at least not return quickly.

The town's streets were now free of zombies, just in time for a caravan to arrive. A large group of vehicles was exactly what I didn't want to see. They were likely here to loot the tiny town for more supplies.

I took a slow step backward and dropped off the counter. My eyes never left the vehicles that were slowing down as they approached the town. There had to be at least twenty, but I didn't plan on lingering long enough to count them all.

I had never seen vehicles with so much zombie-proofing before, and it made me uneasy. Bars and metal screens covered every opening to keep any zombies at bay while leaving holes for weapons to stick out.

Most groups just relied on armored trucks, buses, or vans to keep Runners from reaching the humans inside, although it wasn't too unusual for a group to use a weapon to cut the tendons or ligaments in an attacking zombie's arms or legs to render the limb useless. It was an effective method to knock a Runner off a protected truck or van, assuming they didn't get any of the infectious blood on themselves.

This group was acting different.

I didn't like different. And it often didn't like me. Especially when I could see people inside grabbing weapons as the vehicles approached the town with the obvious intentions of stopping.

The convoy began spreading out, with most of them stopping along the main row of stores. Some kept driving, presumably to check the other streets in case a zombie had been left behind.

Before they started looking too closely and noticed me, I eased away from the window. After one last check to make sure no one was looking in this direction, I turned and jogged for the exit, although the rough, jarring strides were mostly for show in case someone managed to spot me.

It felt weird to jog. It was a stride that paced out a human and conserved energy. Regular zombies were too clumsy to truly jog, Runners either walked or ran, and Nightstalkers usually ran in a slight, smooth crouch that was seamless and practically glided.

I slipped out the back door, only for a vehicle to appear at the end of the back alley. Before they had a chance to see me, I quickly crouched down beside a large green garbage bin with a faint growl of frustration.

The vehicle drove slowly into the back alley, and the sound of a second engine also grew louder. Then the grating of tires on the debris-littered pavement ceased and both engines turned off. They had stopped. Well, there went my escape route.

Plan A had disappeared with the appearance of the group looking for supplies. Plan B had evaporated with the way they had this area surrounded. Guess I'll have to move onto plan C and keep plan D ready for deployment.

Doors slammed as people started getting out. I peered between the garbage can and the brick wall. The group milled around the trucks near the end of the back alley. From how they were organizing themselves, it looked like they were preparing to thoroughly loot the three biggest stores.

They had quite an array of weapons, and most had some sort of chest armor, as well as shin and arm guards. I wanted nothing to do with such heavily armed people. It had not gone well for me the last time I tried, and I had no intention of attempting it again. Of all the days for a group of raiders to come through town... Just my rotten luck.

Please note, if you are reading this book anywhere else, it's a stolen, pirated copy, likely on a virus-filled mirror site.

Copyright © 2017. People may use my 'zombie world' to create fanfics/spinoffs as long as proper credit is given (ex. Inspired by CrystalScherer's story The Virus Within). Please note that this does not allow you to copy my story - this allows you to use my world-building and zombie ranks in spinoffs/fanfics with credit given.

Sorry, no translations are allowed.

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