Zombie

• Jade Humphries, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2012

I sat up gasping for breath as a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the night. I flung myself out of bed and down the stairs to the front door; I swung it open to see Zen leaning on the door frame, covered head to toe in blood. My eyes went as round as saucers as he lent there, but before I could do anything, he collapsed to the ground…dead. Zen was my best friend in the whole entire world; we had been friends for eleven years. He was eight when we’d first met, I was seven. He would be nineteen now if he wasn’t dead, today was his nineteenth birthday.

Zen died saving me, no-one else knows that. Just me. There was a mad guy on the street with a gun; he shot the gun in my direction. But Zen being defiant and also being Zen, stood in the way. Would’ve been me if it wasn’t for him. I’m pretty sure that everyone would’ve wanted it to be me, not him. But what has happened has happened, and it would’ve happened for a reason. As soon as Zen collapsed to the ground, I flung myself to the ground after him.
“Zen?” I screamed his name, I even shook him, but that didn’t help.

Zen would’ve forgiven him if it was me that had died; I just really wish I could’ve done the same. But I’m not the forgiving type.

Anyway that wasn’t the last time I saw Zen, I saw him a few days later in a local Coffee Shop. I looked up from the book I was reading, which had brought tears to my eyes, and there he was, sitting directly opposite me.
“Zen?” I asked, because I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
“That’s me!” he said back to me with a grin on his face.
“But you’re meant to be dead!” I muttered.
Instead of answering me he got up out of his seat and walked away. I flung myself out of my seat, which happened to flip over backwards causing a loud racket, and followed him into an alleyway.
“Aurora, I’m not exactly how to say this but…I’m not human!” I looked at him shell-shocked and forced myself to take many deep breaths.
“What are you then Zen? A Vampire? Werewolf? Zombie? Or something worse?” I looked square in his electric blue eyes whilst I said that.
“I’m a Zombie…did you want to join my kind? You’ll get to live for eternity!”

I could’ve sworn that I was in some kind of trance, because as I nodded my head and he pulled me towards him, whispering positive thoughts into my ear the whole time. I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to live without him. After that thought I knew from that moment onwards he was going to change me so that we could be together for the rest of eternity. Nothing in this universe would be able to separate us.