The Undead

'and he cut them open, his eyes glinting with obvious hints of madness and the craziness in the depths of his eyes flared up, the blood splashed on his face, but finally in that moment... all their mystery laid bare...'

Day One

Dion felt his heart nearly leap out of his mouth, and his heart beats momentarily quadrupled.

Standing in the middle of the room and in front of the Prefect's desk was Daniel, or what was formally known as Daniel, right now he was just a mindless living husk completely driven by his cannibalistic desires.

Daniel was the Deputy Social Prefect, the broadcasting department was one of the many departments under him, so him being here at an unauthorized time was perfectly normal, he must have come in to cross-check some accounts or maybe even review his schedule, it could have been anything really.

But that wasn't the point, the point was that at some point this afternoon Daniel had come in here and was still here when the signal went off which had turned him into a zombie.

Dion had a moment of respite as Daniel - the zombie - was backing him, its nose sniffing hazardly about.

Dion's eyes narrowed as he observed Daniel.

'What are the odds...' Dion felt wistful.

After his careful observation he had not seen any obvious injuries on the zombie, unlike many of the undead he had encountered which had their throats ripped open or their insides spilling out of their stomach, this zombie was strangely whole.

Which meant...

All these seemed to point at the fact that Daniel wasn't bitten - or eaten - he was turned by the signal, he was one of the... Originals?

Ok, that felt cheesy, but it was a perfect term Dion could easily use to categorize them.

Anyways, Dion felt sad. He had been outside when the first incident had occurred, so he knew how low the odds of one being zombified by the signals were, perhaps even as low as 5%.

'I wonder...'

What would have happened if Daniel wasn't part of that unfortunate 5%, perhaps they would have discovered another ally who would have been willing to brave this apocalypse with them.

Afterall, in this apocalypse every single life was priceless.

'A pity...'

Dion mused, he was genuinely sad.

'If only - '

SNAP!

Suddenly he felt his andrenaline pumping at ferocious intensity, in those moments while he was musing absentmindedly the zombie's head had turned in his direction. Dion was startled, face to face with this zombie - any zombie - he found it difficult to muster his courage.

Instead he found himself being drawn to its wide open maw, first was it's teeth, unlike Dion thought it hadn't gotten sharper, being a zombie hadn't changed that, it still had a flat blunt ending but they had been equipped with an impossible jaw strength that allowed those 'blunt' teeth to easily sink past the resistance of human flesh, into the warm delicious sweet nectar-like -

... Oh God!

Then there was it's tongue, it had lost the usual pink human hue, now it was a dark color that seemed to reek of death. It's gum was already rotting, it's whole mouth even, Dion could spot yellowish skin somewhere there, thankfully it hadn't fed yet or Dion wasn't sure he could stomach what he would have seen.

But Dion suddenly realized something startling while watching the rapidly decaying body parts of the zombie.

'They are dead'.

As simple as that, a few words but seemed to contain a world of meaning.

These things, all the zombies out there, they were all dead. And like all corpses, they were already decomposing.

Sure they were moving around and showing supernatural vitality, but they were in all essence still dead. Perhaps just animated. Dion wasn't sure if this animation was a temporary effect or more permanent, he dreaded the later and wished for the former, but it wasn't his choice to make.

He now understood, he had realized it, figured it out.

The reason why a broken neck hadn't been enough to stop one of them was simply because of this fact, afterall there were by all justifications dead, so a broken neck wouldn't stop them, it was just another awkwardly twisted body part.

In fact Dion stood to reason that even its organs were dead too... well, except for one.

And that one was it's only weakness, or at least it's only known weakness.

It's brain.

Back then Dion had asked James to shoot them in the head, and it had worked. Granted he had known nothing about this theory of his, that had just been his conclusion after carefully observing the zombies, but now he was thrilled to have finally figured out the dynamics behind that conclusion.

It was a sort of addictive feeling, having all the information and making accurate deductions from them.

Wow!

The zombies, their organs were all dead, except for their brain, their brain was the only thing moving them, it was their drive, their core, this was why they were so much influenced by their instincts. But then, if all their other organs were dead, that meant that the functions those organs carried out could no longer be done, as there were a lot the brain couldn't do alone.

This was in no way a small issue, as there was a reason why any normal human beings would have been dead in such a case. There were a lot of functions, both minor and major, performed by the body organs that if they were stopped the body would shut down.

Dion could think of a lot, but his mind suddenly addressed one, digestion.

With most of the organs dead, it was without a doubt that most of the systems would cease to function, among them was the digestive system. Dion pondered about the endless appetite of the zombies and wondered just how much their stomachs could take before it gave.

What would happen then, would they die? Or would they still find ways to impose their disturbing existence on the surving populace.

If they would indeed die, it meant that the zombies now had a lifespan... and a very short one at that. Such good news seemed too good to be true, but he found himself hoping.

'Then there was that also...'

Their sight.

Earlier Dion had deduced that the zombies lacked sight, they still had eyeballs - though barely - but were still blind. Now he knew why, their dead looking eyeballs was in reality just that - dead. The eyes were a tissue so it was inescapable that it would die also.

'But then why...'

Although all these seemed logically, he couldn't forget about something else, their nose.

By all reason the nasal organs should have died too, but he had noticed painfully earlier that a zombie's nose was one of its strongest points. Something was wrong.

Something was missing.