This is from an ongoing web-serial… or in this case web-zerial. Start from Chapter One below, or if you know the story, carry on shuffling!

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Taa and I were staring at the flyer that Kaa and I had brought back from our little adventure to the suburbs. She and I had been staring at it for a while.

“What are we going to do?” She kept asking me. I looked up at her and shrugged. Her dull green eyes met mine, filled with quiet concern. I knew Taa was one of us who was troubled about moving. They had put so much effort into the Rot and Repair shop. Moving it now would mean stuffing as many supplies as possible into backpacks. Daa would have to move tools and his endless boxes. The alternative would be to leave everything and then start a new collection at the next place.

It was a difficult choice because we weren’t sure where we were going. She asked me if Kaa had found anything yet, but I shrugged. So far, we haven’t come up with a solution. There was an idea that perhaps we could go to the wilderness. We knew there were forests over the mountain. Freshwater. It wouldn’t be far. But we aren’t particularly pleasant-smelling, nor are we particularly fast. A bear could simply attack at any point, and that would be that. Taa had the idea that we all wear those pine-tree air fresheners that humans hang in their cars to throw off the wildlife

We would have to make shelters, and if a hiker found us, it would be awkward. They would probably tell the authorities that there was a clan of weirdo’s standing around in the woods, and they would come and investigate. Nowhere was really safe from the prying eyes of humans. We could be in the middle of the desert for a year and then have some annoying, buzzing drone hover over us, and that would be the end of it.

If anything came for us, I guess we could sprint and move with speed if we had to. With no muscle pain to get in the way, it is fairly easy. But we can’t maintain it for too long, because something could break or fall loose. We also prefer not to. I mean, who does?

Taa looked at me in the eyes again. She looked away again, like she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t find the words. I took her arm. She looked up again. There was a slight glimmer in her dull green eyes. If she had a beating heart and even a drop of liquid left inside her, she might have shed a tear. But in this state, all she could muster up was a slight weariness in her eyes.

She opened up her white coat with the pin on it. A large chunk of her side was missing, right between her ribcage and hip. I looked in her eyes again. I didn’t want to look at her decay.

“The Drift,” she groaned.

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to believe it. “You’ve patched worse. It’s just a bad spot, that’s all,” I mumbled.

She nodded. “No, I can’t.”

There was no point arguing with her about it. She was the expert on patching, after all. If she said it couldn’t be done, then I guess it couldn’t be done.

“How did it happen?”

She turned to the shop, and then looked back at me. This was a difficult subject for her. I wondered if the others knew. If she had told Eve or Daa about it.

“It just fell off yesterday morning,” she murmured. “A whole chunk of me, just… gone. It lay there in the dirt like it had given up. Like it decided I wasn’t worth holding onto anymore. I don’t know, Nee. I don’t know how any of this works.”

None of us did. But I didn’t tell her that. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. What do you tell someone who technically is dead that they are on the verge of dying again?

“Why didn’t you seek shelter in the shop?” I asked her, “Can Eve not help? Or Daa? Could they not have sewn it back in place or something?”

She shrugged.

“What’s the point?” She moaned. “Every day, they come to me—injuries, wounds, fractures. I patch them up, but they just break again. What’s the point of all this, Nee?”

I guess I never really thought about it – what it must be like for her, Eve, and Daa to see us slowly decay over time. They were the closest in the end to those who went to the Drift. The constant reminder of how we are all literally falling apart. We have no dreams, no goals, or ambitions. We are just the clump of dry flesh and bones that hang out together and slowly disintegrate.

I mean, the best thing that happened this week was when Kaa proved to me that Bear-man was better than Shark-man. Can’t believe I didn’t think about the shark breathing in the open air. Idiot.

“What happens now?” I gurgled.

She shrugged again.

“Nothing I can do now,” she replied.

I didn’t want to lose Taa. I had known her since the beginning. Her dull green eyes and helping hands had supported me a lot over the years. Being able to talk to her and find some type of companionship in this mess was something I looked forward to when I watched the sun rise.

A little while ago, we were discussing the stereotypical zombies that come out of graves. I was trying to work out how that would work because surely their bodies would all be in various stages of decomposition, and most of them would be too decayed to rise up. It made no sense how everyone could simply burst through the soil, all pretty preserved. But then she smiled and suggested that maybe the grave digger had planted the zombies. He had got a zombie seed packet and sprinkled them around the graves. Those zombies didn’t derive from humans but were little seeds.

The zombies all grew from them and then emerged at the same time as plants. That would explain why they were all in similar decay states, as well as why they all shot out at the same time. Plant them in September, and they’ll rise and attack by January.

Zombie Seedlings. I had laughed about that idea for days. It was a great concept.

Taa looked up and nodded as a sign of the end of the conversation. She had no answer to my question, and we had no solution for her situation. The sun was starting to go down, and one or two of the street lamps were flickering on. Most of them had dead bulbs in them.

Slowly, Taa shuffled back toward the Rot and Repair Shop. I stood where I was, with no real reason to go anywhere. There were no clouds in the sky, and so I could be still till the sun appeared again in the morning. I wouldn’t have to shuffle out the rain.

I stayed where I was, watching her shuffle away. The weight of the flyer, of her words, sat heavy in my mind. The Drift. It was always there, waiting for all of us, but Taa? I shook the thought away. I couldn’t imagine this place without her.

I didn’t like change. I know it is necessary, and I also know we are in dire need of some. We need a goal or a point. We have to dream. We can’t merely survive. It’s been like that for fifty years, and we have still not advanced any further. We still have no solution. No understanding of how we became the way we became.

I was just thinking about the zombie seeds again when I heard a noise. It sounded like cars were pulling up on the opposite side of the tracks. It could be trouble. Maybe a deal was going down, or teenagers were bored. Either way, it was best to go to the shadows. I started to shuffle towards the bridge. I moved fairly slowly, as I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, but I also didn’t want to be standing there if humans appeared.

I saw a few other zombies that had been stagnant start to move, as well. Kaa was already in the shadow of a building, next to a dumpster skip. Trust Kaa to be prepared. I saw him move a bit for a better view of the railway track. Seems I wasn’t the only one that had heard the noise.

I heard the scuff of feet jogging over pebbles. I turned. These weren’t teenagers. These were adults. Adult men, by the sound of it. A spotlight shot on, straight at us, from the parked trains. We all stared directly at it like deer looking at a car lamp. It made my dry eyeballs uncomfortable.

“Stay where you are, vagrants,” a voice boomed from a megaphone. “We’ve received complaints about disturbances in this area. All individuals must vacate the premises immediately. Failure to comply will result in removal by force.”

A high-pitched squeak crackled from the megaphone.

I looked at Kaa again. Had someone reported us after our morning trip to the suburbs? Who complained about a few random people standing around a railway track? Surely not that idiot, Stevie? I was unsure of what to do next. Do we attack? Do we just leave? The easiest would be to leave, but then what about our things? What about the Rot and Repair shop? For the last couple of years, we had been swaying back and forth about what we should do, and now it seemed like the choice was being made for us.

I started shuffling away from the railway tracks and the highway, towards the darkness and the outer section of the city. There were only two more blocks before the rural sections started. We were running out of space.

A few of the zombies around me started shuffling, too. Maybe we could go back in the morning to fetch our things. There was a shout from the police, and then they marched forward. Their perspex plastic shields clanged as they hit the ground, then were lifted into a defence position. They smacked their batons against the shields and started to holler at us to move along, bugger off, and never come back.

I looked at them with scorn. We were hardly a threat. It felt like the whole army had come and to do what? Shepherd a flock of zombies? I was across the road already and at the edge of the next building when, all of a sudden, there was a charge. The police all rushed forward and invaded the area where I had just been. Some of my friends were still there.

They started to shine their light into all the dark corners, exposing any zombies that hadn’t moved. They tore apart the box homes and tents. Started hitting and smacking my friends. I guess the ‘force’ part of the threat had started.

At first, the zombies all took the first hit or two, then Stev lunged towards his attacker and sank his decaying teeth straight into the policeman’s neck. After that, chaos erupted, as all the zombies that hadn’t moved were now attacking. I took a step forward, but then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Kaa.

Behind him were about fifty or eighty of us. He shook his head.

“This isn’t the time,” he groaned. “We can’t take the police on. Listen.”

I listened. There it was. The police sirens. The backup was coming. The fifty police officers who were here were soon going to turn into 150. There were only about fifteen of us engaging with the police. Screams took over, and I returned my gaze to the zombies and policemen to see who was making the noise. It was the humans. They had bites, scratches, and rips that were bleeding profusely. The humans that hadn’t been gorged at were yanking out their guns. They were no doubt filled with rubber bullets for what they assumed would be an easy removal, but had now turned for the worst. They were panicking at the savagery of our attack.

“It’s about time you showed up!” I heard a familiar voice shout. I turned and saw Crazy Mike. He started walking straight into the chaos. I wanted to hold him back, but Kaa was still holding my shoulder.

“They are not natural! They don’t eat or sleep!” he continued, shouting at the police. One of the policemen saw Crazy Mike and realised that he was less threatening than the barbarian zombies.

“You’re going to have to come with me,” the policeman shouted at Mike.

“I’m not one of them!” Crazy Mike yelled. “I’m human!”

They shoved Crazy Mike up against a dead streetlamp and pulled his hands behind his back. They pulled out handcuffs, and Crazy Mike started to scream hysterically. One of the policemen noticed me staring and started coming towards me. Time to go.

Guns shot off, but my peers didn’t go down. They just got more aggressive. I saw one policeman tear the cardboard and plastic sheeting from our Rot and Repair shop. Taa leapt out, surprising him, and he tumbled backwards. She fell straight onto him, with her hands clawing and teeth bared. He screamed, trying to push her off as blood gushed from his shirt, where she had been.

His partner spun around and opened fire. She kept going, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to do it for long. I again tried to shuffle forward, but Kaa kept his firm grip on me. He then actually started to pull me back.

“Taa,” I turned, looking at him. But his face was still hard. He didn’t know how close she was to the Drift. But I’m not sure if that would change his mind. He kept walking backwards toward the building. Pulling me away from our home.

“We have to go. Now.” he said.

The others had already started to move. I saw Eve and Daa with their back to me. Daa had his arm over Eve. They knew we were leaving Taa behind. But they kept moving into the dark. They had accepted it. Maybe they did know that she was decaying. Maybe they had said their goodbyes a long time ago.

I guess we were leaving.

We moved through the shadows, leaving her behind. The screams faded, replaced by the steady shuffle of our feet. Darkness shrouded us. I stared ahead, my chest hollow.

A wave of helplessness overcame me. I could hear the police screams, turning more into shouts as they got the upper hand. The reinforcements had arrived and were overpowering my friends.

“They’ll find out who we are,” I said to Kaa as I caught up to him. “They’ll take a closer look and realise—we were already dead”

“There is nothing we can do about it. There are too many of them.” Kaa groaned. “The only thing we can do is make sure they don’t find us.”

“We have to back go for them. Taa is going to Drift.”

Kaa looked at me. His sunken eyes looked at me through the strands of his dark hair, and I could see there was genuine sorrow.

“You know we can’t, Nee.”

I shifted my glance and stared at the darkness ahead.

“I know.”

We’d never been in a situation like this. It showed how small our group was getting. Back in the old days, we would have fought and won. Killed every human in sight. Left no witnesses. Some of us might have been damaged beyond repair. I guess that’s how we got to this point. Too much damage beyond repair.

How were we going to fix ourselves without the Rot and Repair Shop? Over the years, we collected all those supplies: the perfect-sized rods to make a splint if our bones broke, our duct tape. Oh, the duct tape.

And Taa. We needed her. She was the best around for fixes. Eve was good, but Taa was gifted. I think it was because she was some type of specialist doctor before. It’s a skill she’s carried over, and it shows. Most of us wouldn’t have lasted this long without her.

Zombie seeds. Zombie seeds. We need to plant more. Grow new ones. Start over.

I’ll never forget you, Taa.