Do you ever feel you're constantly trudging an uphill battle? Because right now I do, always one step forward and two steps back. How did I come to this realisation I hear you ask? 

Well, it all happened a few days after I’d met up with Meg and Charlie. We had found an abandoned zoo where half of the animals were zombified and the other half were breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was the perfect cover. No one seemed brave enough or stupid enough to go anywhere near zombie tigers, and we could stay under the radar by feeding on animals instead of humans.

Humans taste better, but they’re so damn whiny. “Please don’t kill me, I have kids.” “Don’t eat me, I want to live.” “Please, no, we’re on our honeymoon.” Yap, yap, yap, so annoying. 

Sorry, I’m getting off track again. We used the zoo as our base—lie low during the day and scout the area at night. We found a couple of e-scooters in the staff headquarters, which came in very handy to search a wider area. But by the third night we still had found no sign of the zombie hunters or Tiff, and I was getting discouraged. Then we hit another unexpected speed bump.

“Are you from around here?”

What the?! She spoke. After days of side glances, nods and grunts, I finally got a sentence. I soon realised after we met Meg is very shy. Charlie on the other hand speaks enough for the two of them—that kid never shuts ups!

She looked at me through long lashes as she chewed on her bottom lip. Her long hair still partially covered her deformed face. I saw it yesterday morning when she thought she was alone. It kinda looked like something took a bite out of her face. Her eye was missing and part of her cheek. I get the feeling she’s embarrassed by it, but it actually looks really cool.

“Yeah, close to where we first met, actually. What about you? I haven’t seen you at school before. I don’t think?”

“We moved here about a year ago for my Dad’s job. Charlie goes to the local intermediate, but I’m no good at school, so my mum home schooled me.” She tried to make eye contact with me, but her gaze kept falling back to her fidgeting hands. 

“Really? You seem pretty smart to me.”

When we first arrived at the zoo, I struggled with my sad old floppy hand. Meg went to the veterinary wing, searching for supplies and to my surprise, when she returned she’d made me a splint. My fingers still had limited movement, so once she had fitted it for me, I could actually use it again. It’s still a little weak and I can only do basic tasks with it, but man it’s way better than it was. And the first thing I did was pick her a monkey tail with it—my way of saying thank you. We ate the rest of the monkey too, but the tail was just for her.

“That wasn’t the problem. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I’m painfully shy and the thought of going to school makes me want to barf so bad. Just talking about it now is making me queasy.”

“I get it. I’m not exactly shy, but me and my buddy Derek were a couple of loners. People avoided us, they called us nerds, dorks, losers, more times than I can count. We didn’t care though, we had each other, and we used to have great fun, all on our own.”

“Where’s Derek now?” she asked.

“He was one of the unlucky ones, eaten by his own mother. She was actually the one who turned me, I was just lucky to have outrun her.” Judy, you were a force to be reckoned with. 

“I’m really sorry, I don’t know what I would have done without Charlie and his school friends.” She flashed me a comforting smile. It’s nice. She smiles with her entire face and she looks really pretty. 

“It’s okay. His Mum Judy actually ended up saving my sad excuse for an existence twice before a bunch of dickheads shot her in the head. She was awesome, which is the major reason why I’m trying to rescue Tiff. Judy would have wanted me to at least try. The look on her face when they dragged Tiff around my an electric dog collar—”

Meg gasped, and her hand shot straight to her mouth. “That’s terrible!”

“I know that’s why I don’t want to give up. Tiff doesn’t deserve that, and a big part of me really wants revenge for Judy.”

“Understandable. If we knew who had killed my parents, we would have stopped at nothing to avenge them.” She looked at me through sad eyes—well, eye.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did they die?”

“We don’t know. It was just after Charlie came home from school the day of the outbreak. Dad rang from work, he was yelling at mum down the phone that it had all gone terribly wrong and for us to leave town straight away. Mum of course didn’t listen, and she went to go get Dad. They never came back.” She started to cry. Shit, what was I supposed to do? Crying girls scare the dying daylights out of me.

“I ate my parents,” I blurted out.

She looked at me, her eye bulged and her mouth fell open, then after what felt like the longest stretch of silence in my life, she started laughing. Like side splitting laughing. And then I joined in. We laughed till we cried, my face tired from smiling so much. Then suddenly she just stopped.

“Wait, where’s Charlie?”

I followed her gaze around the empty staff lounge. It wasn’t uncommon for him to wander off, but we could usually hear him pottering around somewhere. As I sat there listening, all I heard was silence, dead quiet silence. 

“Maybe he’s gone in search of dinner? We saw some uninfected rhinos in their enclosure yesterday that the zombie tigers can’t get to. He could’ve gone back?”

“Well, he’s a stupid idiot if he’s gone down there alone. Maybe we should split up and search around here first?” Meg suggested. 

“Yeah, good idea. I’ll check the shop and offices, you check the veterinary department and the storage shed. We’ll meet back here in twenty if we haven’t found him. Then we’ll both search the park.” She nodded once and headed for the door.

I went in the other direction and was almost at the zoo store when I heard what I thought sounded like a faint scream. Shit balls, that sounded like it came from outside somewhere. I got back to the staff lounge at the same time as Meg, both of us out of breath from running so fast.

“Did you hear that?” She asked. 

“Yes, but I sounded like it came from outside the front gate.”

“That’s what I thought too. Surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to venture out there in the daylight?” She didn’t sound convinced. 

“Let’s go check it out. It’s probably some poor sucker being pecked to death by a zombified pigeon, but we better make sure it’s not Charlie.”

She was out the door before I could even finish my sentence. We had to be careful though, over the last few days we’d noticed more anti-zombie mobs scouring the neighbourhood. That’s where the zoo came in handy, we were protected by the zombie tigers and penguins. They roam the zoo, keeping intruders out. The front gates were locked, keeping them trapped. So now and then we leave an enclosure open so they don’t starve—You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, kinda thing. We keep a safe distance inside the secured buildings, though. Who knows whether they would try to eat us too?

We climbed up to our regular scouting position on top of the roof of the main entrance. From there we could scan the surrounding area for potential threats before we ventured out into the night to find anything that would lead us to Tiff.

Once in position behind the large sign, we spotted a small group of men and women in the car park surrounding something caught in a net. They looked like zombie hunters. They all had a weapon, and some even resorted to metal kitchen utensils as armour. One guy had a loaf tin hanging down over his nuts—that seemed like wishful thinking. Surely a single madeleine pan would have sufficed. 

“Toby, that’s him in the net. They’ve got Charlie!” Damn it! Why can’t we ever catch a break? And what the hell was he doing out there in the first place?

As she went to stand up, I pulled her back down. “We’ll be no good to him if we all get caught. Let’s try to get closer, to hear what they’re saying.”

She nodded, fighting back tears. We quickly made our way back down, exited the zoo via the staff entrance and plunged into a nearby garden for some foliage camouflage. By now they were loading Charlie into the back of a ute. Fortunately for us, we could hear every word of their conversation. 

“Bill, take him back to the lab. The Doc wants live ones.”

Son of a bitch! At that moment Bill stepped out of the driver’s seat. I recognised him instantly; it was the guy who shot Judy! Rage surged through my every nerve ending. I wanted to jump out and bite his smug face off, but we had Charlie to think of now.

“Toby, my father worked at the lab,” Meg whispered. 

“No way! Judy worked there too. What do you think this all means?” I asked.

She just shrugged. We had no bloody idea what the hell was going on. And to be honest, I could barely function past ‘mmm brains’ these days.

“All I know is we have to get Charlie back,” she said, a determined stare taking up residence on her normally placid face.

“Get the scooters, we can follow them at a safe distance and see where they go.”

“But we know where they’re going. To the lab.” Meg looked at me like I was a complete half-wit. 

“Oh, shit, yeah. Sorry, I’m getting hungry.”

“Well, let’s get to that lab so we can satisfy our cravings with a ten course meal.”

“Meg, I like you more and more with every brilliant idea that pops out of that cute mouth of yours.” Oh shit, did I just say that out loud?

We both sat there in silence for what felt like an eternity. Finally, the zombie hunters dispersed, so we could exit the garden. After another few minutes of awkward silence I asked, “should we wait till it’s dark?”

“Yep, good idea,” she said as she rushed past me back into the zoo.

Way to make things weird, Toby!

Word count: 1839
Total word count: 9127