Repost: Little Wastelander

[Dodom]

I guess a repost can't hurt, given that the section is almost empty and many new members have come since it was first posted anyway.


Little Wastelander

Steve gradually stopped crying and rested his head on his father’s shoulder. He didn’t understand why the big kids were being so mean. And it was not just one bad kid, at least ten of them had started throwing stones to the new ones and three had pursued him after he began running. They were a lot taller than him, their legs were longer and they ran much faster. They had shoved him to the ground and kicked him, and one sat on his chest to punch his face. His father must have seen that he was covered in spit, but he pretended not to notice as he held the uncomfortably slimy boy against his chest.
They had never made it this fast back to the barracks. James, Steve’s father, had yelled at the Halo agents when they wanted to stop him for the registers, and walked right past. Secretly, the little boy was happy to find himself important enough to break Halo’s rules, even though the reason for it was a split lip and multiple bruises. He had fully regained his composure when they got home, and the first thing he did in the bathroom was to erase the lines the tears had drawn on his dirty face, before pursuing and washing himself entirely.
He felt dirty, although the reason he had been beaten was that these bad kids were a lot cleaner than him. He was *infected*. He had to go to school with them because there weren’t enough teachers to educate all of the young separately. This was his very first day, and he was under the impression that he would hate school with all his heart.
“Maggy!” James shouted. Some rustling sounds were heard, and the stout woman came in. She was a large woman, one of those who never lost the weight of a pregnancy, and had a rather dull face, but neither Steve nor James saw her that way, she was perhaps the most loving person they had the chance to know. Her face hardened with contained anger when she saw her son’s bruised face.
“They said this wouldn’t happen; they said they’d make sure our kids would be safe. Did you do something about it? Because by God, I will!”
James shook his head: “I’m sorry, I’m afraid they won’t do anything. A fourth grader punched a kindergartner, but the way they see it, infected scum bothered an actual child. If anything, we’ll be the ones to get penalized. Sometimes, I’d rather move to the Wastelands instead.”
“Don’t tempt me James, I’m starting to consider it seriously.”
Then, the woman’s voice and features lost any trace of anger as she turned to her hurt son. Steve had washed himself properly already, but he didn’t complain as she picked the sponge and ran it softly around his face. He leaned back in the tub and closed his eyes. She didn’t wear her special perfume today, but he liked to just feel and smell her as she moved around, even when her only scent was soap and a faint trace of sweat. He could have fallen asleep if she hadn’t deemed him clean enough and lifted him out of the bath, proceeding to wipe him dry. He fully enjoyed that attention, he knew that soon, he would be too old for it.

The few next days were quiet. Steve did hate school as much as he thought, but at least no one punched him. Infected kids were sitting on the right half of the classroom, by the door, and the rest were on the left side, by the window. A little too often for Steve’s tastes, spit-balls and eraser bits were flung rightward, and the teacher only muttered half-hearted warnings to make it stop.
The same separation existed during the break, but was the pupils’ initiative, they were allowed to mix in theory. At least he had his friends from the barracks to talk to, it was forbidden during class.
Before long however, a gang of big kids came to the younger classes’ section of the schoolyard and caught Steve and two of his friends in a corner. Others ran to get a teacher, but the big ones would have enough time to do a lot of damage. Bad news, none of them wore an infected badge, they were surely out to get the dirty ones out of their school again.
“Fred is in quarantine, you filthy little crawler, and it’s all your fault. If your dirty rotten blood got him infected, you should blow your brains right away, because we’re going to kill you!”
The fourth graders repeatedly grabbed him and pushed him against the wall, interrupting the motion only to make ugly faces at him and imitate zombie moans. When the teacher came and ordered them away, they obeyed but not without turning to call him a crawler and say even meaner things about his mom. He began to understand that no matter how nasty they acted with him, they would never actually get punished.

Another day, he met the boy called Fred again. He was the one who had punched his face, and he proceeded to repeat his feat. One big difference though, last time he had been laughing; this time he was shrieking hysterically, and tears shone in his eyes. To Steve, this made little difference, what mattered was to keep his hands in front of his face so the other’s fists wouldn’t hurt too much.
“They make me sit with the dirty ones! The older child accused. They want me to wear that stupid badge! My friends don’t want to sit with me at lunch! Why did you do this to me stupid crawler? I’m going to kill you!”
His words were hardly understandable as he sobbed as much as he yelled. Steve wanted to argue that he had not chosen to be punched hard enough to spill blood on him, but Fred wouldn’t stop hitting to allow him. When he did stop, it was to squeeze his neck instead. Fortunately, a teacher came at that time and yanked the assailant away. From the look she gave the misbehaving boy, he wasn’t getting treated more harshly now because he was infected, but because there was such a thing as crossing the line after all. That made Steve feel a little better.
Dizzy, he took his time before getting up again, and a growing circle was clearing around him. Since the epidemic, people had learned to dread the dead, and for many, the fear extended to anyone who wasn’t getting up fast enough. When he did sit up, a few kids shrieked and backed up a little more. He couldn’t resist the urge to shout: “GRAAAHR!” and more kids screamed this time.
The teacher, still restraining Fred, motioned him toward the school’s entrance: “Jokes like that got people killed, don’t be an idiot. Now go to the nursery and get yourself patched up alright?”
Fred didn’t come to school the following days, but Steve didn’t feel very safe. His friends had promised to kill him too, and they were still around.


___________________________________________________________________
James had no daddy to carry him home, and Steve felt sorry not to be able to return him the favour. Fortunately, Maggy took care of him as soon as she saw him stagger in.
Fred’s father, he explained, was waiting for him when he came out of work. He was only a moderately vigorous man, but he had brought a piece of pipe to hit him with. Before demonstrating that he was strong enough to defend himself despite his lack of weapon, he took a rather nasty blow to the head, and judging from his limp, one other to the leg.
Steve spied on him as he took off his shirt and saw that he also sported a gigantic bruise on the chest, which alarmed Maggy as much as the broken skin over his cheekbone. The man grimaced despite her gentleness when she felt his ribs and eventually declared that they did not seem broken. She then cleaned the blood on his face and disinfected the wound.
“They’re going to kill us!”
James cackled bitterly: “Then I hope I’ll become a Zerker and get back at them.”
“I’m talking seriously. We already can’t send Steve to school anymore, all the clean kids blame him for what happened to Fred, and half of the teachers are ready to turn a blind eye on what they do. Now they pick on you too, and soon they’ll follow us home as well. We can’t stay.”
“Where would we go? If we settle out of the Island, we’ll be eaten instead of beaten, it doesn’t sound a lot more fun.”
“I thought about it. The Zombie Hunters bring material back from the continent, lots of it, we wouldn’t have many manufactured goods otherwise. They need secure docks to afford all the loading job, they must be making sure that the area remains a green zone. There should be usable buildings around that.”
At the time, James laughed at the ridiculously dangerous idea, but a week later, after an unidentified individual threw a Molotov over the fence at Steve, they were seriously considering it. Fortunately for the boy, the bottle didn’t break when it landed at his feet, but an attempted murder against a five years old was more than they could take. The authorities took the incident seriously, but without any proof as to who had gone that far, they could do little. No member of the family left the infected barracks anymore; they hired neighbours if they had errands to do outside.

Halo agents proved understanding. They would take them to a fairly quiet zone of the Wastelands, close to the Hunters’ usual routes, so rescue would be available if needed. The agents they dealt with obviously considered that they would die soon, but it was more dignified to fall fighting to reconquer a chunk of a world that once all belonged to the living than to get beaten to death in an alley.

Steve cried when his parents sold most of his toys to buy what they called “essentials,” and even more when he figured out that he would possibly never see his friends again. But he eventually accepted the situation. He was alone with his mom most of the time since the bad kids were after him, as long as she was there with him, he knew that things couldn’t get so bad. They spent days preparing a pack of food, fuel and ammunition, with very few non-consumable goods thrown in: these should be easy to find in the Wastes, and there would be many toys as well.
He took to cuddling with his mother every time he found her sitting, finding a way to balance himself on her knees no matter what else she was doing. She tolerated it most of the time. He would curl up against her, his face buried in the folds of her shirt, and pretend that no bad thing ever happened. It was easy to believe when all his world was her warmth and her hand playing idly in his hair and the smell of her laundry soap and her heart beating so quietly, as if to promise that there was nothing to fear anywhere. Sadly, it never lasted long, either she had some task to do, or her legs became sore, and he would be facing the cold dry world again.
He got to spend his first night in the Wastes sleeping under the same blanket as her, and despite the knowledge that life would be more difficult from that point, he slept better than he had in many weeks.

[Dodom]

The routine wasn’t so bad after all. James went out when the weather was nice and made sure the area was clear. Some times, he would shoot a zombie or two. Most of the time, there was none. They were scarier than the ones on the videos Steve had seen, especially since the ones who made it so far into the green zone were mostly of the fast kind, Berserkers and Hunters.
The man would first make a ruckus, drawing out any dumb ones, and after these were done with, he’d sit motionless for about half an hour. Hunter zombies were relatively smart, but they could be fooled into thinking that one has lowered one’s guard, and they came out too. Then Maggy and Steve would come out and enjoy some fresh air. There was a playground near their home, the boy loved the strange tubular structures meant exactly for his age’s enjoyment, there were no nice ones like this on the Island. But it would have been more fun with other children to play with.
The adults never left both at once, someone was always at home, with Steve, but they were quite busy. They brought piles of stuff at home and he helped sort them out. Batteries were especially valuable. Most of them had rusted away years ago, but some high quality ones still had electricity in them and they could trade them for food with the Island people. They were already starting to see themselves as distinct from them.
Steve was upset when his mom changed her kind of laundry soap. He was used to her smelling a certain way, it was part of what defined what home was. But she had found those boxes of soap in a nearby store and she found it more convenient than getting more of the kind they had back on the Island.
From inside the house, it didn’t seem like the world was full of hungry walking corpses, everything looked so normal, they still had their petty concerns and little pleasures. If they were careful enough, they could live there forever.
Zombie Hunters got used to their presence. They respected their newly gained status of Wastelanders, even though so close to the docks was a reasonably safe area. Maggy had the idea to let them into the house to rest when they had to wait for transportation, she’d offer them a warm meal and drinks and tell them stories. In return, they brought ammunition and some other items that were more difficult to obtain through regular trading or looting, they altered their patrols slightly to cover their street thoroughly, and gave them news from their old friends. The woman joked that they could as well open a restaurant.
This way, they kept a correspondence with their former neighbours; writing letters was Steve’s favourite exercise as Maggy taught him to read. Fred’s family seemed to have settled down, perhaps returning to the Island would eventually be possible.

One day, Steve heard shouts downstairs. His parents rarely argued, when it happened, it scared him. He couldn’t tell what they were talking about. He ran down, despite what his parents had told him to do in case of an emergency. He wanted to make sure that they were safe, that none of *them* had broken in. No, his parents were alone, but what he saw scared him enough to send him running up the stairs. They were both terrified, their face all red from screaming too much, and it was doubtful whether even they understood what they were saying.
Mom always stayed calm, even when she was scared, even when she was angry! Mom did not scream, she did not cry! Why was she screaming and crying now? Whom else would they fall back to if even she couldn’t handle things? Dad… dad was strong, but he wasn’t the one who always made things right. It was mom’s job! Their voices calmed down gradually, but Steve was still shaking with fright when James climbed the stairs and told him to go downstairs. He didn’t like the dampness of his father’s eyes, nor the visible wrinkle where the corner of his mouth uncovered his teeth in an involuntary tick.
Maggy had cleaned her face, she was still flushed, but she had made every effort not to show the tears she had shed minutes ago. Steve recoiled when he saw the massive bandage hastily tied around her arm, spots of blood showing through the many layers of fabric. He feared to know how she had hurt herself.
“I’ll have to go away Steve. We have to say goodbye now.”
The child ran up to her and grabbed her clothes. “NO! Don’t go mom!”
She was his family, she was his home, she could not go away from him! There… there should be a way to allow her to stay, there had to be! He begged her, and when she pursued her voice broke too.
“I love you my little boy, I don’t want to go. But I’d only hurt you. I… I won’t be able to help you become a man, but look at your father, he’s very good, you’ll make me very happy if you become courageous and caring like him.”
She held him against her for a long time, but as always, she ended by pulling him away. Her face had grown scarily pale and she trembled with fever. Blood almost entirely soaked her bandage. Seeing her son on the verge of tears, and aware that he understood what was happening, she forced herself to smile.
“It’s okay, boy, it doesn’t hurt. I’m only sad because I won’t be with you, but I know you’ll do good. I’m not afraid, you shouldn’t be either. I have to go now, you know how it is when *they* get someone, there’s no way to… there’s no choice… I love you, little boy.”
James had to drag him back to his room kicking and screaming and block the door. He then helped the weakening woman up and they walked outside. He took a gun on his way out.

He was alone when he allowed Steve out of his room. He was as disturbed as his son. His gun lay on the table and he avoided looking at it. Steve didn’t know if he should hate him for what he had done to his mom, or hate her for wanting him to do it. He didn’t think of bringing the gun with him when he said he needed to rest and went to his room.
Steve removed the magazine and took the bullets out. He knew how to do it, he had helped loading it many times. Then he counted them. And counted them again. And again. Thirty. It was full. His father had not dared to shoot. Now he didn’t know if he should love him for not shooting his mother, of hate him for letting her become one of them.

[Dodom]

James knew why his son kept looking out the window, and for the hundredth time, he ordered him to stop: “Your mom’s not out there Steve, come over here.”
But the boy disobeyed and kept his hands and forehead on the glass, holding his breath not to fog it. He hadn’t lied when asked about the reason he had messed with the bullets, and his father regretted more than ever lacking the courage to shoot his wife. Now the boy longed to see her, even though he knew the state she would be in would break his heart. It was hard to get past denial in a world where the dead walk.
The man picked him up and sat with him. Steve didn’t lean against him like he would have done with his mother, he stiffened and never quite relaxed.
“I’ll tell you something I heard at school, when I was your age. Back then, zombies only existed in movies, not in real life. But teachers still told us many things about what happens when we die. They said we went in the sky; they said it was the nicest place you could think of, where everyone is friendly and we can play all day long. I think that’s where Maggy is. She picked a comfortable spot right above us, so she can look and see how we’re doing anytime.”
Steve nodded, but James felt that he would never believe it. Wondering if he still believed in it himself, he found out that he didn’t know. It had lost its meaning over the years. Perhaps this is why they didn’t attempt to teach it anymore.
After a long, uneasy silence, he sighed: “We should go back to the Island. Staying alone will make us crazy. Next time Zombie Hunters stop by, we’ll leave with them. Lets start packing the nicest things we have so we can leave quickly.”

James kept himself from thinking by working all the time. He made sometimes reckless expeditions outside to get valuable things he could trade once on the Island. It was his only way to keep himself from crying. It didn’t work all the time, but at least, when he did weep, it wasn’t in front of Steve. Hopefully the boy obeyed him and kept busy as well. He just didn’t have the mental strength to be the ideal father right now, he had to get out.
He forced himself to more discipline one day, when he almost shared his wife’s fate. He saw a single zombie further up the street, and his first reaction was to hasten his pace to see if it was Maggy. Realising what he was doing, he started laughing hysterically, then collapsed and his insane laughs turned into sobs. When he remembered to look up, the zombie he had seen was crouching a few steps away from him, waiting for its cue to make its move. If it hadn’t been a Mercy, he would have died and Steve would have been completely alone. He aimed his gun at the creature, then lowered it. Only an asshole would shoot a Mercy.
Plus, he had a debt to this one. It made him realise how dangerous his attitude had been. He patted it on the shoulder and thanked it; maybe something inside of it understood his feeling. Then he headed home. His son was certainly even more grieved than him, taking care of him should have been his first priority.
Packing up must have given ideas to the kid, because when he made it home, he was already gone. One of the guns was gone, so were several boxes of food, but it was hard to tell for the rest, he didn’t keep a very precise inventory. Hopefully, Steve would have forgotten to take spare clothes. One night in an unheated building would send him running back home before meeting a crowd of Crawlers.

He had just learned that he loved Fred. Fred was a great boy compared to this one. He’d do anything to be with Fred right now. Or even Fred’s father! Fred wasn’t a Zerker!
The sewer’s maintenance tunnel had been open when Steve needed its shelter, and once closed above his head, it couldn’t be opened from outside without special tools. Now he crouched on the damp concrete as the noise tortured his ears. Aware of his presence, the Berserker was beating the steel trapdoor with all its strength. Steve looked through the stuff in his bag and pulled out the bottle of perfume his mom wore for special occasions. He poured a drop on his hand, curled up in a corner and covered his ears, trying to pretend that he was with her, and not so alone, scared and cold.
Eventually, he fell asleep there. Rain running into his shelter and soaking his clothes woke him up somewhere during the night. Shivering, he listened intensely but heard nothing but the rain and wind. The tunnel didn’t fill with water, but everything he touched was wet, and cold, so cold! The rain helped him with something though. The dirt it lifted kept the Berserker from smelling him, and after a while it forgot that he was there and left. Perhaps now was a good time to run for it, there were houses nearby, there ought to be a dry spot in them.
Pushing the steel door open was a great feat for his skinny juvenile limbs, and as soon as it was done, he found himself blinded by the night and rain – there was no streetlights here like there was on the Island – and furiously whipped by the hail. He frequently stumbled as he ran in a direction he hoped would lead him to a house, and laughed with relief when he began to see the welcoming silhouette of a building before him. The door was locked, but he didn’t hesitate to throw rocks at a window until it broke.
He wiped his face on a mouldy curtain, trying to get most of the rain out of his hair. Then he thought of it and found the kitchen, taking the pans out to collect rain. He had brought a powder that disinfected water for drinking, but it took reasonably clean water to begin, muddy puddles wouldn’t do. He then looked for clothes or blankets to keep himself warm while his things dried. Too bad there was no fireplace – although it would have helped little, his matches were soaked.
Everything was damp, but that was better than wet and finally, he could sleep a little more. The clouds were gone when the sun raised.
As he went out to collect his water, he saw that Crawlers had wandered there during the night. No trace of the Berserker, thankfully. He quickly grabbed two pans and retreated indoors.
Why was he there anyway? He wanted to see his mother, of course, but he knew he’d have to watch her from a distance, if he came close, she’d eat him. That’s all she knew now, roam until she found something alive to eat. She wouldn’t recognise Steve or his dad. He knew this all, but inside he couldn’t believe it. She was his mom, she was everything in his world since he was born, how could she forget him? Maybe she would have some memories; if he looked in he eyes, maybe he would see that a little part of her still loved him, and that would be enough. He just wanted that one look, then he’d come running back home, back to the Island.
He climbed to the upper floor and looked out the window. There weren’t so many zombies in the area; he had exited the green zone, but not by far. That group of Crawlers was probably the only one around, she had good chances of being with them. With the distance and their general dirtiness, it was hard to recognise any of them. It was better than usual; the rain had cleaned most of the blood off them and flattened the knots in their hair, but they were still pretty anonymous. He tried to remember what she was wearing when… when she went with them. Shapeless grey pants, and a white shirt. Now the white shirt would be as grey and shapeless as the pants. Her brown hair would be undone and hang over her face. Many of them sported that style, sadly.
They had little chances of seeing him at the window and he wasn’t planning on being loud. The rain had drenched him as thoroughly as them: it had washed most of his smell off when he entered the house. They couldn’t tell that a living boy had been there, but that wouldn’t be true for long. His bladder was threatening to explode, but as soon as he would let go, they’d locate him and break in the house. He couldn’t afford to stay very long and… he gasped in realisation: he had no way out!
He checked every window. Maybe it was one of those streets where there are no backyards and the houses are all next to one another, he hadn’t seen it on his way in, it had been too dark. No, there would be no way to travel from rooftop to rooftop, they were much too far apart and no tree formed a bridge between them. The house’s power line was far from the window, he’d never reach it.
As he reviewed the windows, his heart jumped: this Crawler down there, could it be her? The fat female form was looking downwards, he didn’t see his face, but she had the same proportions as his mother. Her only visible wound was on the arm, where she had worn a bandage before turning, and although they had gotten quite messy, her clothes matched the ones she had. It was worth taking a closer look. Now if only she wasn’t surrounded by all the others…

He took the pistol and made sure it was loaded. Then… it’s not that he wanted to attract them in, but there was no way he could postpone going to the toilet any longer. And he ran to a spot from which he could both shoot into the staircase and out the window. They were slow, and the first ones’ bodies piling up on the steps would slow them even further, he’d have the time to reload when needed, hopefully.
Since they had yet to find the stairs – from the sounds, they hadn’t even made it to the door yet, he took a few practice shots through the window. He aimed very carefully, but four tries didn’t fell his target. It got hit once in the chest though; it wasn’t too far off, at closer range, he’d get them.
It took time before the first one came in sight on the lower floor, but it moaned loudly and the others immediately headed toward the call. Steve managed to shoot them successfully almost every time, they were close enough, and they did grant him enough time to reload, although he couldn’t always add all the bullets the gun could contain.
Despite his quiet sitting position, he quickly tired. His weapon grew very hot and hurt his fingers, and he got desperate to see an end to their numbers. His aim lost precision and they made it increasingly close to him before he could shoot them. When he sighted the bottom of the box between the bullets he had left, he understood that he was losing the battle.
He couldn’t grab both his backpack and the spare box of ammunition, so he only took the latter and ran to one of the rooms. Instinctively, he had picked the one he had seen his mother from. Barricading the door would spare him a few minutes.
Amidst the bumping and beating on the door and walls, he looked out. She was still there! A few of them were still shuffling aimlessly along the wall, and she was one of them. Perhaps they couldn’t hear the moans and calls from the staircase from their position. Very few of them, he could take them out, and a lean tree nearby would probably allow him to slow his drop to the ground. He’d have his good, long look at her and run for his life, he’d make it out of there after all!
The first part or his plan went smoothly. The window opened without much resistance, he slid down and landed smoothly enough, and he didn’t lose the pistol. Quickly, he was ready to shoot down the unwanted zombies.

The others, now inside and many of them upstairs, would take a while to find the way to their expected meal’s new location, so Steve had enough time to see what he wanted to see. He was alone with his mother now, his mother who walked toward him with a painfully vacuous expression. He stepped back.
“Mom! Mom, it’s me, Steve! I came to see you, just… just look at me please. I know you can’t talk, it doesn’t matter. Just look at me, I… I love you!”
Her eyes were in fact looking his way, but remained empty and expressionless. They tracked his movements as he recoiled further, but they didn’t see the boy in the meat she hungered for. The kid would have had trouble shooting should another fiend come his way: tears blurred his vision so bad that he nearly allowed his undead relative to reach him before he found the fence’s lock and put its door between himself and his pursuer.
“Mom! Please look at me! Be my mom just one second. Look at me, love me again! Just once, please!”
He choked as his sobs grew uncontrollable. Her not reacting at all was something he was not ready for. He even tried bargaining:
“I’ll let you eat me! I’ll let you! Just look at me like before, I want to be your little boy again! Just one little second!”
She was leaning over the fence now, one arm stretched out to catch him. There was no violence in her motion, but no care either; she wanted his flesh, she tried to take it, her thinking didn’t go beyond that. He stepped a little further away, she leant a little further forward, until she toppled and landed on her face. She expressed no pain from the deep cuts some untamed bush had inflicted on her cheek and lips as she got back up in slow, listless movements. Even if she didn’t feel it, Steve didn’t like to see her hurt.
The boy considered giving up now. She would not see him, she would not see that he was her little boy! But years after the humans had gone from the Wastelands, vegetation grew tall and thick over previously neatly trimmed lawns; as he turned around, he caught his feet in some tangled stems and fell. It was his turn to get nasty scratches, but he ignored them, he turned toward his mother in a mix of fear and hope. He didn’t care if he died, if it could make her love him again, just a bit.
The gun shook as he aimed it at her head, shook with increasing violence until he dropped it without firing. He would give up life just to feel her embrace again.

He jerked his limbs back as she reached for them, but she soon caught up and then, instead of trying to crawl away, he moved toward her and locked his arms around her waist. He felt something close enough to joy when he felt her arms close around him.
But it was only to grab his hair and yank him upward. He was out of her mouth’s reach when he hugged her like that, and that’s the only thing she noticed. His struggling against that painful pulling threw her off her feet and before he knew it, he was laying in her lap, in a position he had often sought before but that now exposed him to her terrible hunger. She didn’t pause before catching his hand and pulling it at her; she was like a machine, nothing would distract her from what she wanted.
Steve was too small to fight back, as hard as he tried to resist, she was much stronger than him. He twisted his neck to try and find the gun again, but hadn’t located it through the wild weeds when the worst pain he had ever felt erased that concern from his mind. Her teeth easily broke through his tender skin, the thin bones shattered, in a single bite, she tore three fingers off his hand. If the other Crawlers still hadn’t located him, now they certainly heard his shrieks.
He tried as hard as he could not to focus on the pain. That was what they did, that was what he had to expect when he came here, she didn’t mean to hurt him, it wasn’t her fault! Even though she was the cause of his agony, he curled up in her lap and hoped to find comfort in her presence. Wasn’t she his mom?
But nothing he loved so in his mom was there. There was no warmth, none of the nice smells of hers – she smelled like garbage now – and he knew that no matter how hard he pressed his ear against her chest, he would not hear her quiet, reassuring heartbeat. She would not idly caress his hair, she would not look down and smile at him. All she had left to give now was what he was already getting: an evil way to die.
He could ignore everything, he could ignore how utterly she failed to be his mom, to be a person. He could even ignore the pain, although he couldn’t stop screaming. All of this was little, next to that other thing she failed at. She did not love him.
He tried to force her to look at him. As long as he didn’t take his hand away from her, she didn’t care how the rest of him moved, and she held that half eaten hand tightly, so tightly in fact that very little blood made it to the wound, her son would take forever to die. His free hand caught her hair and he pulled it until her face was turned his way. But she still wouldn’t look in his eyes. She was only interested in the next piece of flesh she would devour.
“Come on mom, I’m right there with you, I’m even feeding you right now, shouldn’t you be happy? Just look at me, show me that you know me!”
He was only thinking those words, he couldn’t stop crying and screaming long enough to talk. This was the most painful part of his torture: to see that she did not care about him at all.
She was soon done with the meagre flesh she could take from his hand and moved to his forearm. Blood poured out faster and the boy began to feel numb. He forgot that pressing himself against her would not make him feel less cold and alone. He even smiled weakly: after he died, he would be like her, and they would be together. That didn’t keep his last breath from coming out as a desperate sob.

The boy’s body wasn’t spared the hideous process that had nearly destroyed this world. When it should have begun to stiffen, it started to twitch instead, and soon enough was ready to walk. It heard its kind as they were walking away, resuming their aimless walk across the deserted land, and followed them. The fence slowed it much – it couldn’t think of such complicated solutions as walking around it, it had to climb it, but it eventually caught up.
Many times, the mindless creature he had become ran into what had been its mother. It didn’t look up, nor did the female figure seem to notice its presence. It didn’t care at all.

[BrainBlow]

 

*BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWW*

But I really liked the part about the Mercy zombie.