There's a bunch of zombie facts I've put together in these three months since I've been infected. Sort of like a list of things that caught me by surprise – things I didn't expect would happen once you're bitten by one of the assholes.

First zombie fact is the speed thing: being a zombie is slow. I can't run. I can't even walk, I have to do this silly penguin walk everywhere I go.

It gets exhausting, really.

There's a lot more. A lot about your life changes once you become a zombie, and very little is stuff you'd think about when watching The Walking Dead.

Because when we conjure post-apocalyptic scenarios around the bar table, we always picture ourselves as the survivors. Daydreaming, we imagine ourselves running around with the best of them, the quintessential gang – the kind, white-bearded doctor, the funny chubby guy, the ruthless-but-secretly-kind-at-heart-action hero type. The annoying little kid. And you, right in the middle. I've always pictured it like that. Beautiful Eve, barbed wire wrapped around a baseball bat resting on her shoulder – that's how it was, in my head. Eve, getting by in the wild. Killing zombies left and right. Cool as shit.

Truth is, eighty percent of us got infected in that first week. I lasted a bit more – four months, give or take. Right now? Probably around ninety-eight percent of the population are zombies.

And those two percent that are still around? Those are the people who didn't bat an eye when it came to bashing their kids' head to death when they turned. People who had no problem turning to cannibalism when there was no more food. Men and women comfortable enough around a shotgun that you just knew that first zombie they shot was not their first time killing something.

Army men. Soldiers. And psychos. That's who made out alive. For the rest of us, it's zombielife from the bite on. And it's not what you'd expect from movies and comics.

Case in point – I'm a vegan.

Let me explain what that means.

About a week ago, I was penguining my way down Hollywood Boulevard, brushing past other zombies, turned over cars and torn apart billboards of old TV shows and all that crap, scanning the streets for food. Pigeons, stray cats, unlucky squirrels. Whatever.

That's my life now, by the way. I wake up, I say good morning to Jeff and the others, I leave, I look for animals I can eat. I limp like an idiot all around what's left of Los Angeles looking for something without a consciousness to put in my mouth and chew. Something that doesn't have a name or a favorite TV show. And, more often than not, I come home empty handed and empty-stomached. It's hard, out there. And getting harder by the day.

Somewhere around Fairfax, I heard the sound. Like crying, coming from an alleyway not far to my left.

"Is someone there?" I asked, turning to look. I couldn't see anything, but the sound was still there, loud and clear.

Baby crying.

I'm not one to give a crap about other people, mind you. If this whole zombie apocalypse thing taught me anything, it's eat or be eaten. Literally.

But it's a baby crying in the middle of broken-down, zombie-riddled Los Angeles. You just know I'll have trouble sleeping at night if I don't check on it.

I limped my way into the alley. The crying grew louder as I approached, but I couldn't see anything that looked... babish. It was one of those asshole sunny LA days, you know them? From seven AM to seven PM it's just sun, sun, sunlight beating your face like a UFC fighter, not a damned cloud in sight. Clear blue skies and burning hot on your shoulders. And still, with all the light, I couldn't see where the crying was –

And then I saw. Behind a green, overfilled dumpster. First just the handles, then, revealing itself as I approached step by step, a stroller. A stroller with a baby in it.

A non-zombie baby. Not six months old.

Well, actually, the thing might have been five, for all I know about babies. But it looked tiny and barely had hair on its head.

"Hey... bro," I said, towering over the tiny creature, resting my hands on the stroller's handle. "Whatcha doing in the middle of this mess?"

The baby's eyes opened. I thought maybe it was relieved by my presence, because it stopped crying once it saw me.

Then I remembered I'm a zombie and I look like one. The baby seemed to figure this out too, because it immediately started crying twice as hard as before.

"It's fine, it's fine," I said, brushing my hand on its forehead. "I'm not going to eat you."

I mean, I want to. I'd eat you with some baked potatoes and a nice, icy Diet Coke in a second.

Babies are really self-centered things. This one kept crying no matter how much I told it that it was going to be all right. No matter how much I brushed its forehead.

And I was thinking, 'What on earth am I going to do with this guy?'

I couldn't leave it there. It was a miracle no other zombie had found it. And any other zombie would have eaten the shit out of that baby. Good luck meeting other vegan zombies around. If I left that baby there, that thing wouldn't last 'till noon.

But I couldn't bring it home with me. What was I going to tell Jeff and the others? What was I going to feed it? How would I pay for college when it got older?

And then, in the middle of considering all those variables, something hit me in the head. Hard.

I fell to the floor, dazed, blinking myself back to sense.

When I looked up, this guy. This tall zombie, his back to me. Pulling the stroller towards him. Leaning his face forward.

A zombie dude about to eat a baby is what I'm saying was happening.

"Hey! Hey, come on!"

He turned to face me. "I'll leave you the limbs."

"No!" I got up. "No, don't eat it. Come on, that's a baby, dude."

"I'm hungry," he replied, shrugging and turning back to the baby. I limped towards him, holding his shoulder.

He pushed me again, harder this time. I fell.

You fall a lot when you're a zombie.

Down on the floor, I was looking up, watching as this grey asshole leaned forward. Watching him open his saliva pit, closing in on the baby's head.

That's how crazy it gets. This was a person about to eat a baby.

And then his head exploded.

I looked back. Behind me, a bulky, non-zombie guy in overalls stood by a back door to some bar, smoke oozing from the shotgun in his hands.

"Hey, Dylan!" the man screamed in a thick southern accent, eyes still on the stroller. "There's a freaking baby on the alley!"

Before he noticed me, I rested my head back on the pavement and tried my best to play dead.

Try explaining to some gun-loving dude that you're a vegan zombie using only grunts.

"A baby?" came a voice from inside the bar.

"I shit you not."

Fat man went for the stroller, looking down at the baby with curious eyes.

"What's a baby doing in the alley?" A second man appeared by the doorframe.

"I don't know, I don't think he came of his own will," the fat man replied.

"Someone left him there?"

"People do all kinds of crazy shit when they're afraid," the man replied, pushing the stroller towards the door. They gave the alley one last scan. I closed my eyes in a rush, feeling their gaze stop by my body.

Nothing to see here. Just a dead zombie girl. No point wasting shells.

"What are we gonna do with it?"

"I don't know. But you're changing the diapers."

I heard the door closing, and the voices muffled back into silence. I opened my eyes.

It's true. People do all kinds of crazy shit when they're scared. Like leaving babies to die on alleys when they become a burden.

And zombies?

I got myself up, stepping past the now headless zombie on my way back to the streets.

Zombies do all kinds of crazy shit when they're hungry.

There's a point to this. The point being I don't do this crap. I don't eat people.

I'm a vegan, like I said. Which brings us to the second zombie fact:

Zombies still think. The virus gives you the rotten skin, the red eyes and the grunts, but it doesn't mess with your mind. I'm still me. Jeff's still Jeff. Tall-headless-zombie's still Tall-headless-zombie. So we get to make decisions. To take our ethics and our morals into account.

But things are not always that simple.

There's one thing that changes inside, once you get infected – you get the uncontrollable urge for raw, live meat. Preferably human.

And I mean it when I say uncontrollable. The world went to shit in six months, and every zombie knew exactly what they were doing all along. It's just that zombie-hunger – the hunger for human flesh the virus gives you – is not your 'I could kill for a doughnut right now' kind of hunger.

It's rip out your eyes hunger. It's 'I don't care if I'm a baby killer now, as long as I eat' hunger. The world went to shit in six months, and every zombie knew exactly what they were doing – they just couldn't help themselves.

I've seen it. I've met other vegan zombies who gave in. Even a dude who killed himself after eating a preacher. Came to me crying, telling me he couldn't do it, he was weak. Three months into his vegan diet, he caved. Couldn't live off of rats and dogs any longer. Found a preacher barricading inside church and ate him.

Hanged himself the next morning.

Other vegans just... die. Too weak from the non-human diet, they stop walking at first. Then they can't hunt around for squirrels or pigeons or whatever, so they get even weaker. Then they can barely talk. Then they die. I've seen that happen too.

But most zombies, they just learned not to give a fuck. Most zombies aren't vegan. They went with it. They're shooting us in the head, anyway. Let's eat them.

It's like everything else in life, I guess. Some people just don't give a shit.

I'm three months into the diet now. Three months since I turned, and I still haven't eaten anything that can think.

And I don't plan on changing.