Zombie Group Chat In My Head Chapter 1

The world ended, but the nightmare came with a twist: I could hear the thoughts of the undead.

“Yo, back off! Nobody touches her. She’s the one our boy is obsessed with.”

“For real. Remember when we were human? Grayson was the one who kept us safe. He’s got that lightning ability now.”

“Listen up, guys. This is our Girl. We’re going to protect her, get her back to the Captain, and let him take over.”

Then, a chorus of gravelly, psychic voices chimed in:

“Are you high, Jax? No sane person sees a pack of ghouls and thinks, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow them.’ She’s gonna run the second she sees us.”

I rolled my window down just a fraction of an inch, my voice trembling.

“I—I’ll do it.”

* * *

I’ve officially lost my mind.

When the sky fell and the world went to hell, I didn't get super-strength or the ability to fly. I got the "privilege" of hearing the internal monologues of the things trying to eat me.

I’d been holed up in my cramped studio apartment for thirty days. The silence was deafening, and my pantry was a graveyard of empty granola bar wrappers. Starvation eventually overrode my survival instinct. I crawled into my beat-up little hatchback, desperate for a grocery run, only to be swarmed by a mob of the undead within three blocks.

I thought it was over. I watched them climb onto my hood, their gray, decaying palms slamming against the windshield. I was curled in the driver's seat, shaking so hard my teeth rattled, when the voices started bleeding into my skull.

“Wait, wait! Stop hitting the glass! Look at her... doesn't she look exactly like that girl Grayson Pierce used to keep a photo of?”

“Grayson? You mean Captain Pierce? The guy with the lightning hands? Man, he saved all our asses before we turned. You guys didn't forget that, did you?”

“Nobody forgot. He practically ran the city's defense. And everyone knew the only thing he cared about was finding his ‘Holy Grail’—this girl.”

“Talk about a lucky break. We’ve been looking for her for weeks. Brothers, we’re taking the Boss’s Girl home.”

I thought I was hallucinating from the sheer terror. I was being hunted by a pack of zombies, and I was dreaming they were my secret service?

But then, more voices joined the fray.

“Jax, you’re delusional. Look at her face—she’s paler than we are. She’s terrified.”

“And even if we want to protect her, our bodies are literally hardwired to bite. How are we supposed to escort her without, you know, devouring her?”

“Stop hitting the window! If you break it and someone bites Grayson’s girl, we’re all dead. Again.”

“I’m sorry! My hand isn't listening to my brain! It just wants to smash... I want to bite that neck so bad...”

“Bad hand! If you can't control it, I’ll bite it off for you!”

Right before my eyes, three zombies lunged at another one, tearing his arms clean off with a sickening crunch. I nearly fainted.

“Oh, great. Now we’ve really scared her. Should we just leave?”

“If we leave, she’s literal finger food for the first mindless roamer she passes. We have to stay.”

“Stay and do what? Give her a heart attack? We’re monsters, man. No one trusts a monster.”

“Think! How do we get her to follow us to the Captain?”

“Jax, give it up. Who in their right mind follows a zombie?”

The group—about a dozen of them, still wearing tattered, blood-stained high school letterman jackets—started to shuffle away. I didn't think. I just acted. I slammed my hand onto the horn.

The sound echoed through the desolate street. They all froze, turning their rotting heads back toward me.

I cracked the window a tiny bit more.

“I’ll do it,” I shouted, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Can you... can you take me to Grayson?”