It's night now.
The sky is a deep bruise overhead, and the moon's barely more than a smudge behind the clouds. I'm still moving. Shuffling, like the rest of them. One dragging foot at a time. The pace is glacial, but it's movement. My arms swing slightly with each step, stiff and jerky. I don't control it. The body moves on its own, pulled by some silent thread, and I just… ride along.
The forest stretches in every direction, dense and quiet. Trees stand like crooked sentries, their limbs half-naked with leaves turning orange, gold, red—some already bare. Autumn, definitely. And with this kind of tree mix, we're somewhere in America. Or Europe, maybe. The colors are beautiful, honestly. I think I would've liked this before. A walk in the woods. A real one. Breathing. Feeling the wind. Instead, the breeze just moves through me like I'm hollow.
A pair of coyotes trot into view—gray shapes moving low and cautious. But not scared. Not really. They weave between the legs of the herd like it's just a weird rock formation. A few of the others turn slowly toward them, groaning, arms half-raised like they're reaching for the moon. But the coyotes are already slipping away, tails up, casual as hell. No fear. No rush. They've seen our kind before.
I find myself watching one of the women again.
Red.
She walks near the center of the horde. Her pace is just as awkward and broken as everyone else's—head tilted, left arm twitching with every third step—but she's… striking. There's something about her. Her hair's matted and streaked with dried black and rust-red, but it still catches the moonlight in places. Her body, even in death, is soft, full, almost graceful in how it sways with each step. She shouldn't be beautiful, but she is. I keep looking at her.
Guess part of me's still wired for that. Great. I've lost my pulse, but not my libido. Real classy, brain.
I look down at myself again. Beige khakis. Stiff and dirty now, crusted with mud and worse. The shirt is pink. Hawaiian. With tiny red lobsters on it.
Jesus Christ.
No wonder I died.
I wonder who I was. Not just my name—Dante, which still floats in my head like a stubborn bit of driftwood—but what I liked. What I did. I must've had a job. A family? Friends? The clothes don't say much, except maybe I thought I was funny. Or laid-back. Or maybe I was just on vacation. Somewhere warm. Somewhere I thought was safe.
The sky starts to shift again, soft grays bleeding into the black. Dawn.
A turkey vulture swoops low, wings wide, gliding silently overhead. It dips close to Jacket—who twitches his head up and groans—and then flaps away before anyone can really react. Some of the walkers reach half-heartedly toward it, but it's gone in a blink, circling again at a safe distance.
They'll eat birds, I guess. Not bugs, from what I've seen. A spider crawled across one guy's eye last night. He didn't even blink. Just kept moving. They don't seem to notice anything that doesn't have warm blood. It's like the hunger is tuned to something alive. Something that fights back.
The forest stretches on. Trees, roots, ferns. The air smells like rot and dirt and the faint hint of frost.
Then something changes.
The group starts veering to the right. Not fast. Just a slow turn, like the tide adjusting to some unseen moon. I feel it in my legs—the pull. I try to resist, just to see if I can, but the body moves anyway. My arms swing a little wider. My spine bends into the motion.
And then I see them.
Two figures, threading between the trees.
A man. White beard, white hair, a shotgun held tight to his chest. His face is weathered, wary, but not panicked. And next to him—a boy. Small. Maybe ten or eleven. Hoodie. Backpack. Both of them move with purpose, but not fear. Not the kind I'd expect.
They've done this before.
The man scans the horde—his eyes flicking from face to face. His grip tightens on the shotgun, but he doesn't lift it. He just murmurs something to the boy, who nods and shifts closer. They angle around us. Threading between trees. Skirting the edge of our slow, stumbling path.
My body groans without my permission. The same low, dead moan the others make. I hate it. I hate the sound of it. But I keep walking. My body keeps dragging itself forward, and for a horrible moment, I wonder if he'll shoot. If this'll be it.
But he doesn't.
They disappear through the trees.
The horde keeps moving. Unchanged. Unbothered. A few still shuffle in that direction, but the urgency has already faded.
We fall back into our aimless path.
Wandering.
Waiting.
Thinking.
And I think this: I'm not like them.
Not entirely.
I don't know what made me wake up. What lit the spark. Maybe it's temporary. Maybe I'll fade again. Sink back into the rot and hunger like the rest of them. But for now, I'm awake. And that has to mean something.