"Reel it in, rockstar," Avi prodded as my mind clung to the oppressive need for brains.

"What's wrong with me?" I tried to shake off the compulsion.

"You're hungry; it's expected. You've been out for a few days," Avi shrugged.

"Out?"

"Yeah, so there's a bit more you should know, but I think it is best if I show you."

The few blocks passed in quick steps. "The speed is messing with me," I murmured to myself.

"Yeah," Avi set a hand on my shoulder to slow me, "we should probably work on that. The normans will spot you in a minute if they see your clip."

The slower pace was painful. It reminded me of the farmers' market. The swarm of people all moving at their own pace would flare an annoyance in me that I found hard to stifle.

"Sarah," shot from my lips.

"Mmhmm," Avi nodded to himself.

"Do you know where Sarah is?" I stopped dead in my tracks.

"No, never met her. Feel like I have with all the mumbling you did during your change," he shrugged.

"My change?"

"We're getting there," as he spoke, he began to walk again.

"I don't have time for all this. I have to find Sarah."

"You have all the time in the world; odds are she is either dead or just like you. Near as I can tell, the only thing that will steal your time is a bullet between the eyes or..." His words trailed off, but I wasn't listening.

"She's not dead," I stammered.

Avi didn't answer, but his passive shrug let me know that he disagreed with me.

"I can tell; she's not dead. I have to find her," I argued.

"Well, first, you need to learn to survive. So slow down, Scrappy-Doo."

I bit back the anger that erupted in me from his lack of urgency. It was easy to forget the fury when my eyes fell on Grand Park. It was as packed as usual, but not with the tanned meanderers that I had expected. The park was crawling with empty minds frantically pacing.

"What's wrong with them?"

"We'll just say they are less enlightened," Avi nodded to himself.

I tore my eyes away from the crowd to look at Avi. He was gazing at them with unfiltered sadness.

"These were all people," he added. "Sometimes you can tell who they were by the clothes they have or remnants of a hairstyle. Now they are just mindless bodies looking to kill or be killed. Not that they know. The fog is thick. That's the headache you have; the haze is clearing for you."

"Why? I mean, why are we lucid?"

"Well, this is where things can get a little dicey for us. I turned your brain back on."

"You what?" A flash of horror passed through me like lightning.

"There use to be more of us, but well..." Avi jerked his face away from me. "There is the lore of zombies. As I said, most of the healthy people are just surviving, but there was at least one man, Michi Sano, that wouldn't give up on his daughter. He remembered some stories passed down through his family of a salt that would bring back the soul of a dead walker."

"Salt? Like, table salt?"

"No, not table salt. Moshio; it's a salt made from seawater and seaweed. It's a bit rare, but Michi had some to bring his daughter back."

"What happened to them?"

Avi let out a sigh. "Dead, but that's a story for a different day."

Avi again tipped his face away from me, and I knew not to press. "Okay, so what? You shook some salt on me, and here I am?"

"Pretty much," Avi shrugged.

"And you have more of this salt?"

"A bit," he nodded.

"I need it. I need it for Sarah," I demanded.

"Look, my friend, best case, she's dead." He looked at me now. "Worst case," he nodded to the empty vessels clamoring over each other.

"Worst case? How can you say that? If she is out there, I can bring her back."

Avi sighed, "come on; we should get out of here before another thinning comes around."

"Thinning?"

"Yeah, a few times a day, what's left of the military shows up and takes out as many of them as they can."

"But they're people," panic rose in my voice.

"They're monsters that will kill at the smallest whiff of blood pumping," Avi corrected.

"I can't leave; Sarah may be here."

"You need to eat, and you need to learn your new normal before you'll be any good to anyone living, dead, or walking dead."

"I don't think I want to," I admitted as the thought of brains fogged my brain. It should have upset my stomach, but instead, a hungry growl rolled from deep within me.

"Don't worry; no one is going to die today, at least not at our hands."

"How do we eat then?" I followed after Avi as he continued on his way.

"Well, when Michi found his daughter and turned her back, he started to turn a few more of us. I was one of them. He was a good man. If more people had listened to him, we could be finding ourselves in a different world, but people..." Avi let out a heavy sigh. "People are controlled by fear."

"Fear? They should be afraid. We eat brains," I argued, starting to revile myself.

"We eat brains. People have been eating brains forever, just not from each other. Well, I'm sure there were a few fringe cases, but socially speaking, there weren't many cannibals before the turn. But we don't have to eat human brains. We can survive on the brains of anything. It's our version of vegetarianism."

"Gross," I murmured to myself, eliciting a chuckle from Avi.

"So, when Michi started to turn a few of us, a network started to form of sympathetic people."

"Sympathetic people?"

"People that could tell the difference between the zombies you just saw and us." As he continued to explain, we found ourselves at an unmarked door in another alley. Avi gave a gentle knock so as not to dent the door. From the divots, it was clear that not everyone was as measured with their knocking as Avi.

"So, we what eat like cow brains or something?"

"Cows, pigs, sheep, sometimes when supply is thin, a dog or cat sneaks in," he struggled to keep his voice even, and I could tell that he was not a fan of the latter options.

"I'd rather not eat than eat Fido," I murmured.

"We'll see about that when the choice has to be made."

"Hey, Avi," a young man with a healthy complexion greeted casually before his eyes landed on me, causing him to recoil.

"Meet my noob, Seth," Avi offered. "Seth, this is Alex. His family owns this restaurant and are sympathetic."

Alex relaxed slightly, but I could still sense his alarm. It barely registered, though; I was too busy fighting the urge to attack. My stomach was screaming like the rolling thunder of an incoming storm, and my mouth was filling was saliva at Alex's scent.

"I'll get your order," Alex nodded before escaping with the clang of the door.

"How can you stand to be near him?" I panted.

"You get used to it, and I'm not as hungry as you are."

Alex returned with a cooler moments later. I expected Avi to pull a wallet from his pocket, but instead, he pulled a small box and handed it over. Alex gave him a nod before departing a final time.

"What was that?" I asked in confusion.

"What was what?"

"What did you pay him in?"

"Bullets," Avi shrugged. "We serve a purpose. The zombies don't care about us; we have no brains to entice them. We can walk through them like they are kittens. It's the normans that we have to look out for; they'll put a bullet in your head if they think you are a zombie."

"What?"

"Green skin, black eyes, brain breath; you show up at Christmas, and you might as well pull the trigger yourself. That's why you need to have the shades and the mints. As for the skin, not much we can do, but when I need to mingle with the healthy brains, I tend to wear long sleeves and make my visit brief."

We meandered down the streets at a slow pace. Avi was trying to teach me to blend in, but it just caused static in my brain. I wanted to find Sarah; it was consuming me almost as much as my hunger. Finally, we stopped at one of the many condo buildings.

"Home sweet home," he offered as he opened the door for me.

He headed to the stairwell as we began to climb. I didn't say anything for the first four flights, but as we rounded the fifth, I couldn't stop myself. "What floor are we headed to?"

"Eighteen," he answered casually.

"Eighteen, why the hell didn't we take the elevator?"

"You're dead; it's not like you're getting winded," Avi shot back to me.

"But I'm bored."

"And hangry, it appears. Besides, elevators are death traps."

"You're a fucking zombie!"

Avi winced at the word; as it struck him, I could tell it was a sore spot. I let my complaints drop and silently climbed the stairs behind him.

In the world of a zombie apocalypse, everyday things felt weird. Watching Avi pull keys from his pocket and unlock a front door felt strange. I was acutely aware that if a zombie wanted to enter, they would just rip the door off the hinges. The need to lock a door felt silly.

"Holy shit, this place is amazing." I glanced around at a posh condo.

"Yeah, I think it belonged to one of The Greenhorns."

"The Greenhorns, like the band? Fuck, does that mean they..."

Avi cut me off, "when inventing a fate, I prefer to invent best-case scenarios. I like to think they are in Nashville safely hanging out. And I like to think they appreciate my house sitting. I've been keeping their fish alive." He motioned to a tank with a goldfish happily swimming around.

He set the cooler down on the kitchen island and pulled out a container before sliding it across to me. I stared down in horror; it was undeniably a brain. I had hoped it would be hidden, like a brain casserole. But this was just straight raw brain. Even as my mind struggled to comprehend, my stomach growled. I popped open the plastic container, and the allure of the smell took over me. Before I even realized I had started eating, my container was gone.

"Enjoy it?" Avi laughed as he spiked his dinner with hot sauce.

"Disgustingly delicious," I nodded. "You like your's spicy?"

"Hot sauce doesn't really make it spicy. It's more like pepper for us. Like everything else, our sense of taste is dulled."

"So, what do you do when you can't get takeout?"

"Mmhmm," Avi began as he finished his bite. "That's getting to be a bit dicey here in the city. I've heard stories of people like us hunting deer, bobcats, things like that. But they are thinning here with the volume."

"So there are others like us? Sarah could be like us?"

"There are others like us, vegetarians. And others that have their wits around them but take a different path."

"A different path?" I pressed.

"We are stronger, faster, hard to kill; some see that as a reason to call us superior. A group of aware zombies has formed north of here, but they don't have a dilemma with eating human brains. To them, it's like eating a cheeseburger."

"But they can think and have all their memories? How can they..."

Avi cut me off with just a mournful shake of his head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. It's not what Michi wanted."

I could tell there was more to the story, but this was not the time.