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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“If we are too fragile to fight for our lives and the lives of our friends, then what is the point?” Nee groaned at me, “We should go back.”

“No, Nee,” I replied. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he know that going back was suicide? There would be nothing there. We had no possessions of any real value. Sure, a few poles and duct tape, but nothing that we can’t get again. Our true possessions, the ones that hold any memory, we keep on ourselves at all times.

Our houses were boxes. They weren’t even houses. They were camouflage so we looked like street dwellers. But we don’t even have a cardboard box. We don’t need it. We are beyond homeless. Looking at Nee, I realised it wasn’t the cardboard box he wanted to go back for. It was more personal.

“We can’t leave Taa behind,” he groaned, this time even louder so that Daa and Eve could hear.

Eve shrank back as if Nee had struck her with a hot poker. Daa turned slightly. Even though he had lost his eyebrows a long time ago, you could see the death stare at Nee.

“Taa knew what she was doing,” he groaned back at us. “I told her to come, but she refused. She was close to the Drift, anyway.”

He then placed his arm over Eve again to comfort her. She was making low moan sounds. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t cry. I think Eve would have given anything to be able to tear up. Have that sensation; feel the relief that comes with it. But she couldn’t. All she could do was dry-cry.

“We would all go into the Drift if we had stayed,” I said. “We are not as…” I rummaged around in my brain, trying to find the word. “Complete, as we once were. We are damaged. Shredded. Disintegrating every day. We can’t go to war with humans.”

“If we can’t fight for ourselves and for our friends, then what is the point of this life?” Nee repeated. “I should be able to stand up for my friends. Not just limp away, in fear of death.”

“If it were only death, I would join you, brother,” I said. “But it’s not. It’s the Drift. I do not want to see my friend revert to dust for someone who is already lost.”

Nee kept quiet after that.

“We still do the ritual. Of some sort.” He eventually said quietly. I nodded.

“Let’s find a safe place for a few days,” I said, “and then we can try our best and think about what to do.”

Our safe haven ended up being the last block before the open road. It was a development of commercial buildings that never got finished. Contractors might have taken the money and disappeared, or the landowner ran out of cash. The fact that it was all a bit half-assed felt fitting for our situation.

The buildings loomed around us, skeletal and unfinished. Their beams and scaffolding jutting out like broken bones, not that dissimilar from some of us. The air smelled of rust and damp concrete, with faint traces of something sharp and metallic. Rubble crunched under our feet with every step.

We all stood in empty doorways and hallways with rubble on the floor for a day or two before slowly regrouping. It was something that we naturally did, a kind of habit of waiting for the quiet and calm before moving again, making sure we weren’t followed and that the place was fully deserted.

We all gathered in the courtyard. Without discussion, conversation, or agreement, we all naturally brought something with us that would burn. It was like we all knew what needed to be done. We threw our sticks and branches in the centre. Some of us carried beams and poles. Soon, we had a large pile going.

The sun was setting over the city, and lights were slowly coming on—a sign of suburbia moving and breathing. Lights in far-off buildings lit up, and the streetlights started popping on around us. In the distance, there were red and yellow dots from the headlights moving up and down the roads and highways. While we stood there in the solid darkness swirling around us, comfortable. Unbothered by the cooler temperatures of the night. Not fazed by the mosquitoes, who hung around for a few seconds before realising there was nothing warm and tasty for them here. The bats then came for the mosquitoes.

Leo came forward and poured half a bottle of gasoline over the wood. Then flicked a lighter on and lit a small stick before throwing it onto the pile. It whooshed into a sudden yellow and red haze. Intense heat flared off it. Although we didn’t feel it, we naturally all stepped a little back – an old habit from a childhood we don’t remember.

We stood staring at it for a little while. The fire crackled and creaked as the flames bounced and danced in the night. Eve stepped forward, the flickering firelight carving shadows across her face. She turned to each of us, her empty gaze meeting ours in silent communion.

“Taa,” she groaned. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, she placed a tiny cross of twigs into the flames. I wasn’t sure if it was the world’s tiniest gravestone, or if it was a symbolic version of the medical pin that Taa had worn. It didn’t matter. Either option was a beautiful gesture of a friendship that had spanned at least fifty years. Longer if they had known each other when they were alive. She tossed it in the growing fire.

We all groaned, “Taa…” in unison. The sound rippled through us till the groans vibrated through us, and it became one sound.

I looked over to Nee. He had a faint smile on his lips.

“Zombie seeds,” he whispered. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but whatever it was, it seemed to bring him some happiness. I was a little relieved. He had taken strain with the choice of us leaving. But it had to be done.

Another guy shuffled forward and dropped a token in the fire. He groaned, “Dav.”

We repeated it. About fifteen of us lost that day to the Drift. I looked around. We wouldn’t be able to lose another fifteen anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter. It wasn’t like we were all of a sudden going to reproduce or anybody would make more of us. We were it. We were the only ones of our kind, and today, the humans had killed 15 of us with a single blow. Soon, we would all be gone, and one more notch on the extinct species destroyed by man next to the dodo and the white rhino.

We all started the slow, rhythmic elegy that was our ritual for those lost to the Drift.

The Drift calls softly, cold and wide,
A shadow’s tide where lost ones glide.

We groan as one, for one who’s gone,
We are bound together, we carry on.

The Drift awaits with open gloom,
A hollow grave, no stone, no tomb.No shelter found, no place to stay,
Eternal night, no light of day.

We groan as one, for one who’s gone,
We are bound together, we carry on.

To the Drift they go, beyond our sight,
Their soul has gone into the night
Shadows wander, far and near,
Gone but felt, still lingers here.

We groan as one, for one who’s gone,
We are bound together; we carry on.

We stood around staring at the fire the whole night. The flames became hypnotic as they flickered and danced in the darkness. Every now and then, an ember would fly free and follow the heat into the shadows of the night. The stars above us watched down on us, and we watched the fire.

We just kept groaning and mumbling the names of those we had lost. Hoping that they would find peace wherever they were. I thought about the Drift and wondered how soon it would be for me to leave.

Compared to most, I was one of the better-preserved zombies. I had a bit of duct tape here and there, and I was missing a bit of hair in patches. My eyes were pretty sunken. But I didn’t need any metal rod support or have gaping holes of missing flesh. Nee was actually in pretty good shape, as well. I would say he was actually better than me.

But as I looked around, I realised that many were also close to the Drift themselves. I could see the concern in their eyes that the next time we gathered like this, it could be for them. Their personal items could crackle in the flames. How long had they wandered the earth? Their entire human lives and almost fifty or so in this state. Almost a hundred years for some of us and nothing to show for it. No legacy. No names.

As the fire died down, the sun started to rise. I wanted to start talking to everyone immediately about our next step, but everyone just carried on staring at the cooling ashes. I looked out towards the land beyond. We needed some idea, some plan. We needed to go somewhere humans wouldn’t be able to find us.

I had to wait and be patient. It couldn’t be me that brought up the next steps. They would expect it and wouldn’t take it seriously. It had to be someone else.

“What if…” Nee groaned at me. I looked at him. I hoped he was going to say something about what we needed to do and not have another deep conversation about the past.

“What if we go somewhere where humans can’t?”

He was talking about the future, which was good, but I’m pretty sure he and I had this conversation. We couldn’t think of a place that humans didn’t already live in. Or visit. Or hike. They were like ants, scampering around on the surface of the earth, leaving no space for anybody else.

“We’ve discussed this,” I said. “Water destroys us. High altitude could blow us off the mountain.”

“What about radiation?”

Oh. There’s a thought.

“Radiation would quicken our decay,” I said.

“Only if we stayed a long time,” he said. “If we were there just for a few months, it would have no effect. Could probably even stay there for a year. We could hide there and work something out. Give these humans time to calm down, at least. Or give us time to maybe go to another city? Figure out our next move.”

I gave a slow nod.

“You want us to hide?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nee said. “They were pretty rough with us at the old place. And that flyer you found suggests they are only going to get worse.”

“What about that city? It got bombed a little ways from here.” Rune said. “I don’t know what they used to call the place, but now they refer to it as Fallout Bay.”

“Fallout Bay,” I repeated. Then Nee repeated it. Then, the zombies next to him did the same thing. Slowly, the name was repeated over and over by all of us in the circle. We were all mulling over it.

By the intensity of the groans, it sounded like we all agreed. Ok. We had a destination. That’s half the battle, right? A place to go to. To move to. Radiation was an interesting concept. It’s a great shield to move away from humans.

“We’d best get going then,” I replied. I didn’t want them to lose momentum or change their mind. I was thankful to Nee for talking about it.

I slowly turned and started to shuffle. The group started to turn and move as well. We started making our way out of the courtyard towards the highway when an engine roared. A car shot out from between two buildings and skidded on the courtyard’s edge, right in front of our dying fire. It was black and white and had the word “Police” written on the side, with flashing lights. Now what?

The door cracked open, and a balding man with thick wrists came out and stared at us. We kept still and stared back at him. There were a few seconds of silence as we assessed one another. We looked at him, an intruder in our midst. He stared at us, a group of dirty, badly dressed, supposedly adults, standing around a pile of smouldering ashes in a half-developed complex.

“Nobody moves,” he shouted. “Are you the same lot that was down by the railway tracks? I’m not looking for trouble; I am just asking.”

We all stared at him, frozen. Do we lie? Do we run? Or do we wait for him to make the first move?

“No…” One of us gurgled out that was nearest to the cop. His voice was dry, and it sounded terrible, but it was still English.

We all waited to see if the cop could buy the simple lie. The cop pulled out a radio out of his car.

“Yeah,” he said into the mic, “They’re here, boss.”

I guess we didn’t fool him. We froze, our groans fading into an uneasy silence. The officer’s eyes darted from one of us to the next, his hand twitching near his belt. Around me, the others shifted slightly, their stiff joints creaking like old floorboards. It wasn’t fear—we couldn’t feel fear—but something else. Instinct, maybe. A shared understanding that this man was a threat.

Jaa, one of the younger zombies nearest to the police car, lunged forward. His teeth sank into the officer’s neck, and with a savage jerk, he tore out his jugular. It was over in a second. A blur of movement.

The officer didn’t even get the chance to scream. He clutched his throat and turned towards Jaa, who was now simply staring at him with a complete lack of emotion. Fresh blood dripped down Jaa’s chin. He smeared his sleeve over his mouth, but there were still red stains on his lips and teeth.

The policeman staggered backwards, using the car door to prop him up, but his hand slipped and slid with the added lubrication from the blood. Not to be gory, but it was a horrible squeak as his hand slipped. He eventually collapsed on the edge of his car seat, with his hand smearing red down the inside of the driver’s window. The only noise was him gurgling and bubbling as the red, warm liquid spewed both externally and internally in his body. It started to flow out of his mouth as well. He then slumped against the backrest for a few moments before the lack of support and weight caused his whole body to slide out the door again.

His body hit the ground with a heavy thud. A sickening crack followed as his skull struck the car door—then another as it met the concrete. If Jaa’s neck tear hadn’t killed him, that crack would have.

“Sorry, policeman,” Jaa groaned at him. He bent down and wiped his hand over the policeman’s face to close his eyelids, and, in the process, he smeared a trail of blood down his face. It was meant as an act of kindness, but with the corpse folded unnaturally on the ground, limbs twisted, lying in a pool of still-warm blood—it looked savage. The markings of a hand smeared down his face made it practically barbaric. More blood pooled out of him from where his head had made that cracking noise. Jaa wiped his bloody hand on his shirt, then shrugged. Once humans start leaking, they never stop. He turned to look at all of us.

“We need to move—now,” he said, a bit weirdly calm and logical for someone who had just killed a guy. But I guess he wasn’t just someone. He was a zombie, and technically he was dead. Can a dead man be guilty of murder?

I brushed the thought aside. I could give that question to Nee later, and he could ponder it. For now, I turned and groaned, “Follow me,” and started leading us out of there. But I knew it was already too late. I could hear the sirens coming for us. We wouldn’t get out in time. Not before they found us—or the carnage Jaa left behind.