Alone

Seventeen year old Samira had never found it hard to be alone no matter where she was. Whether she had been in school - she would find a corner with a book and read. When she was at home, she would go outside and enter the woods behind the house and find a tree to climb up and spend hours there, reading, thinking and listening. She would sit at the dinner table with her parents and her two year old brother, Tootie, and daydream through their conversations.

She must have daydreamed right through the talks of what to do if zombies had taken over, though she somehow doubted they spoke of those things, not even when it had begun to happen. She remembered schools closing, reports from the news and other countries about an undead virus that no one seemed to know anything much more about. It happened fast, reports one week, schools closed the next, everyone on quarantine from daily activities and employment, but it didn't stop the virus, which spread easily and quickly to each border of Earth. Her family was frightened and as alone as Samira had tried to make herself be, leaving her to desire the company she had hid from.

One day when her parents were in the woods foraging for food and they had returned trying to make Samira their dinner instead. She had Tootie in the front yard with her, playing ball, and a shotgun in her left hand for protection. She had no choice but to shoot her parents in the head, but it was unfortunate that young Tootie had already ran to them for a welcome embrace and gotten bitten himself. Unable to take her little brother's life, Samira secured him to foundation post in the middle of their living room and put the playpen fencing around him, declaring to herself and Tootie, that they would always be together.

It was easy at first, feeding Tootie their beloved family pets, he seemed satisfied. After the mice, the snake, three cats and four dogs later, he had grown. It was curious to her and she wished she could alert some scientist out there that zombies continue to age as they live. He was growing just as a young child should, growing taller, getting hungrier and surprisingly smarter.

She had him shackled up with enforced chains, a few padlocks and had recertified the foundation with her own cement mixture. She knew then that he would not stay put forever and he would eventually abandon his post.

Over the next several years, they had to face a lot of situations together. Hunger being the first and foremost, because Samira had days where she could not go outside for fear of the walking dead wandering outside her doors and windows, hearing Tootie's hungry howls, growls and screeches. There was weeks when she didn't see any zombies at all and wondered if they had all died, but incase they hadn't she stocked up on the things that she could - water from the creek, plants from the ground, any scavenging animals that crossed her path. Tootie was now 7 years old but emancipated from hunger, appeared to be a fresh zombie of about 5 years. He seemed miserable, always plotting one escape plan after another. None were successful as no matter how fast or hard he would try to take off running, he would end up hurting himself and still glued to the chains.

Samira wanted to leave, to travel, to look for other humans that were still alive. She was tired of searching for food for her brother who could not be bothered to say even one word to her. She knew deep down that he couldn't help it - it was this blasted virus that had taken away his ability to speak- but she was getting restless and angry. She had tried to feed him normal food over the span of his zombiehood and he had gotten seriously ill and thrown it all up each time. She had sit with him, trying to teach him the alphabet and how to say words. She had read to him, drew him pictures, brought him toys. She had cried with him as he mourned being locked up like the animal he was. She knew she only had once choice - the once she should have made 7 years ago.

I can't, she thought, I can't take away my only companion. Tootie had taken to sleeping in a fetus position on the floor and seemed to stir awake as if hearing her thoughts inside his head. "I don't want to be alone!" She should out loud, causing herself and her brother to jump in surprise.

"Alone," Tootie moaned out, though it sounded more like 'all loon'.

"Alone?!" Samira coaxed him to say it again.

"All lone," he said, a bit throaty.

"Tootie? Are you there? Do you know who I am?" She asked, walking up the chained zombie boy.

"Alone," he said.

"I suppose I am," she answered back.

That night she spent an hour trying to get Tootie to do something intelligent, just as she was about to give up and call it a night, he had reached towards her, and said, "Tootie alone." Choking back tears, she reached towards him, mirroring his words as her own. "Tootie alone. Samira alone."

After 7 hard years, maybe her brother was coming around after all. Samira had a momentary lapse of judgement in her actions and allowed the zombie to grab and caress her hand. She was basking in the glory of education and love and how weird life was when Tootie pulled her into his pen with the ease of a 30 year old body builder and took his first bite of human, right on his sister's neck but not stopping there, moving to her breast then her arms, down her body.

Samira did not have a chance to fight back or resist, she had thought she was going to get her first hug in this zombie world, that there was hope for her and for Tootie, the bite had taken out her carotid artery and she had faded out quickly unable to hear her brother say, "Mmmmmm Samira," just like she taught him.