1 The coming

After becoming a zombie saving my love, I have gotten a chance to watch some human behavior. They are quite slow and fall over after a few moments of running. Their team sense is also weak which makes my job easy.

I am one of the few who was human until recently and wasn't turned the day the others were. There was a flash of light and everyone blacked out but when we came to, some were still alive and others were dead but back up. As you can imagine, it was carnage the first few days. Survivors found places to take refuge and the new rules of the world came into fruition.

I was one of the lucky few near my home at the time along with the rest of my school mates. There were a few teachers as well but it was mostly students. None of my friends survived the blink except me.

It has been a few months since I was forced to become a zombie. My "group" if you could even call it that has gotten ahold of a number of humans. The runners are our scouts but the humans always fall over after a few moments so it takes almost no time for them to become our meal of the day.

There have been a few who were in groups and found a place of refuge but it did not take long to overthrow them because their teamwork is always awful. They are not very strong usually either so using sheer force is enough to do the trick except when they have weapons then they tend to be a problem.

The original zombies are stupid and get taken out with ease but the evolved, like myself, have a hidden advantage: intelligence. They don't ever figure it out until it's too late. I've evolved even further since first becoming one of them. There is a system to get the groups to fight amongst themselves and thus fall to us but it is not important to mention.

There have been rumors of a cure to our condition but it is untested and in a different place. I'm not sure I really want to go back to being one of the humans. I'm stronger now, faster, smarter. The only downside is the hunger. It controls everything. No matter how many humans the group eats, we have to find more.

I have managed to smell something while we walk around this airport. It is a group of humans. They must have come looking for supplies like the others have. With careful instruction, I sent my horde out. The runners watched from the ledges outside for a few minutes before reporting back. Then the crawlers made their way to give them a scare.

When the group lost their composure and wasted some ammo trying to kill the crawlers to no avail, the walkers were unleashed. It took only a few minutes to overthrow them and have dinner. They tend to argue when the crawlers come out. It was truly getting somewhat boring hunting with this much ease.

After our horde finished their meal, I went back upstairs to wait for more humans. Halfway through the day, another group of zombies made their way in from the open door the humans used. But their group had no evolved so they could only follow my orders.

As much as I would like to have helped them, our group was already trailing the line of being too large so they needed to find somewhere else. Giving directions to a pack of zombies would yield no results so I just commanded them to leave and find a new place.

They curiously followed one zombie which I had to take note of. That could prove to be troublesome later or our saving factor should we ever encounter a problem.

It was days before any other humans came. We had a maximum time limit of about a week before falling over and dying permanently. It had been 6 days. We needed food. I could not let my horde die. Finding a new set this diverse and useful would prove to be a challenge.

Then I smelled something. A fresh group but there was something different about them. The smell of flesh is usually overpowering and easy to smell even for the weaker walkers but their scent was hidden under something. And one of them smelled non human. The zombies killed most of the wild life in the first few weeks but this was something else.

I set our usual plan in motion but as the runners were watching something was off. I ran to the stairs to see what was happening below and as I did, I saw what was off. The thing commanding the group of humans was definitely human but he was large. Too big to be a natural human. He had some kind of breather pushing some red gas into his nose.

"Kill the watchers." The Russian monster-man said. Without a thought, the gunners shot down my runners. All six of my runners died in seconds. Even with me knowing their approximate locations, I couldn't pinpoint my runners exactly so there was no way they could. If we were going to beat them, we had to do so as a group but many would die.

With a roar, I sent my entire horde out. All 200 of them surged down the stairs from everywhere in the airport. As I suspected, sixty were mowed down before any reached the front of the group. The shooters were the front line with knife and shield holders behind them and some kind of assassins behind further and the leader was all the way back.

I commanded the walkers to bring the shooters' bodies back to us. Usually, the groups we hunted would react at this and try to save their wounded/dead but the leader silently watched as we dragged the bodies away.

"Oh, it seems one of them is commanding the others." The leader said looking at me. I made sure to stay hidden while giving commands so he must have had intel of some kind on me but from who I wondered. We were locking eyes as I wondered some things about this man but the main thing I needed to know was what that gas was and what it did to him.

I could not risk losing any more of my army so I commanded them back. There was a growl from one and a shriek from another but they knew not to disobey my commands as I could set the rest of the horde on them at any time.

The group of humans took their leave when we began to retreat. It must have been an intel gathering mission and I suspected I was their main target but it would take more than such a small unit to get to me. As I had met some of the other evolved I could say for sure I was far above the rest.

I needed new runners and I needed them immediately to keep my army from dying. There were none left in the airport so I had to take a walk to the mall a mile away. It took hours to get there as I could not afford to waste the energy to run and risk running into the group from before with no energy. Contrary to popular belief, while we were much more physically endowed than normal humans, we weren't infinite in stamina.

It only took a few minutes to call the zombies in the mall to me. I found quite a number of runners here which I hoped would be the case. They were hesitant to follow as I had no power here but with a quick few kills of the walkers, they followed. Even to the upgraded runners, I was quite powerful.

We had to go find some humans and bring them back to the airport. As we walked the streets around the mall, there were a number of small human packs but not enough to feed my army. I needed a group at least ten strong. That would sustain my pack for a few days at least. It was a few hours before we came upon a house. The house was all boarded up but I could hear some kind of noise from inside. It sounded like a popping of some kind.

There were humans inside and we needed them. Judging by the smell of them, the group was somewhat large. But I did not smell the familiar charcoal so they could not have had guns.

I sent my runners up the back stairs after I got a few boards up and I went around the front. While their attention was on me, the hunters would swarm. It took little effort to get the best of them all and kill them. We were careful not to bite them or they would become like us. I was stuck carrying four of them while each runner carried one. Any more than one a piece and the runners would be too slow to react to anything.

We got back to the airport early in the morning. My zombies swarmed the fresh kills and their bodies were reduced to nothing in minutes. As I walked around, I saw a few of my own dead but I did not have the capacity for emotion since becoming a zombie so I just pushed their bodies out of a nearby window and kept on about my business.

As hard as I tried, I could not remember anything about the Russian man except his gas. My mental fortitude was not yet strong enough. After a few more days, I had all but forgotten about him.

Just then a new group came into the airport. Fresh meat for my horde.