My day had started in blood.
At precisely 9:23am, I approached my vehicle, a gun-metal-grey four-by-four. It was my prize and only possession. Soft leather interiors and air conditioning. A beauty with a bull bar. It was one of the few things that hadn’t been pillaged during the war – this baby had been my father’s when things were more peaceful. Presently, it was covered in tree canopies and other wilderness I’d spent two hours foraging this morning. It camouflaged brilliantly.

I was in the Arcadian forest of a previous North America, lodged somewhere between the Canadian border and Vermont. It was summer time, so the air was humid with sordid heat. Midges gnawed every inch of exposed skin, and the sunshine baked the earthy dung heaps. You got used to the smell eventually.

Avoiding dehydration, the rising temperatures were my best friend. Every odour, every scent was magnified. Meaning that the peaty stench of a corpse was easy to detect. That factor had assisted greatly. It was the reason I’d been able to destroy a resting colony of undead in the forest just minutes ago.

I started dismantling the camouflage, careful not to disrupt the natural wilderness. I didn’t want to leave a footprint. Finally, the vehicle shone in the blistering heat. It was a beacon; a metaphor for leaving the oppressive forest behind.

Behind me, a twig snapped. Experience had taught me calmness; it might have been a deer or a squirrel. Still, the shotgun was trained at my waist. Turning around, I was out of luck.

The corpse looked at me like I was the most hated person on Earth. In its glassy eyes, there was despair and a fading hope. Like killing me would be their life’s achievement, given I’d taken away their colony. Almost as if it felt a sense of loyalty, which I knew to be ridiculous – dead bodies didn’t hold emotions.

They must have been young when they died. It had been male, with a tiny, gawky frame. A child. And they were fresh; their face was pale from the first stage of death. Their palms and underside of their forearms were deep burgundy with livor mortis. They’d died in the supine position, probably lying in bed whilst fighting the virus. It hadn’t yet entered putrefaction, where decomposition occurs. This boy –corpse- had been reanimated no more than a month ago. This shocked me; I hadn’t seen a fresh undead in over a year.

He stood, staring, with his bulbous green eyes. He was three metres away; a safe enough distance. He posed no danger. Well, not yet, anyway. The undead recognised me – he’d raised an index finger, pointing accusatory. Those eyes slid down my body. I looked down also, shotgun still trained, and saw my clothes. They were shredded and splattered and laced with gouges of flesh. It was obvious the wounds were not my own, but remnants of his colony members. I was covered in zombie.

Unbidden, my mind wondered how he’d ended up this way. I did not want to know for fear of becoming involved, which meant letting a guard down and being weak. And I didn’t need reminding that these creatures bred upon man’s nostalgia and altruism. This boy wanted brains. He did not need my pity. But he was fascinating.

Maybe the undead knew more than instinct to kill – maybe their memories hadn’t been scrambled in a tangle of neurons and virus and decay. A tear rolled down his cheek, though his little mouth remained in a hard, determined line. Maybe I’d killed his mother. Or his guardian. Or his friend. Maybe the undead were capable of not only remembering, but creating new memories.

I lowered my shotgun.

It sprung at me.