My version of Warm Bodies

From the book Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion                                                                  

"I'm dead, but it's not so bad. I've learned to live with it. I'm sorry I can't properly introduce myself, but I don't have a name anymore. Hardly any of us do. We lose them like car keys, forget them like anniversaries. Mine might have started with an "R", but that's all what I have now. It's funny because back when I was alive, I was always forgetting other people's names. My friend "M" says the irony of being a zombie is that everything's funny, but you can't smile, because your lips have rotted off." 

My day begins when the sun comes up, not because I wake up from a deep sleep, zombies do not sleep! but this is the time when all the humans come out of their hidings to practice their daily life, not knowing that they would most properly get eaten up by us, the zombies. Because we have been dead for a long time now, our legs are stiff, that is why we walk around in weird and funny way, and if you ever encountered a zombie, you can run with your life and live happily ever after because we can't run after you, unless you fell down and you got tackled by endless numbers of zombies then I feel sorry for you my friend. 

My friend "M" and me joined a group of other zombies to look for a new walking human flesh to hush our starvation. When we walked inside an abandoned building in the middle of the city, we sensed humans hiding from us, which is weird because we are supposed to be dead and not to sense anything at all, but I think that is one of the powers that zombies have. We all walked or should I say shuffled deeper and deeper into the building, the humans surprised us by attacking us with shot guns, which is quite stupid because we are already dead! And I don't think that you get to die twice in a life time, unless you got shot in the head. Luckily, I managed to get down on the floor and pulled "M" with me, we started to eat the pieces of flesh that were flying above our heads because we both were very starved. 

After the bath of blood have ended we got up and started to shuffle towards the fresher human bodies that were already dead and we started to eat off of it. Half way through, I couldn't help but to notice that teenage boy sitting in the corner and horrified of our horrible sight. I don't think that he is infected or bitten because I can still smell his breath, his normal human breath even though he was far away from me. I spat the piece of flesh I was chewing and I whipped my mouth with the green shirt sleeve, I got up and stared at him for quite sometime before I started to walk towards him. I thought that he was going to scream or shout or even to run away from me, but he didn't. He kept being still as if I wasn't dangerous, as if I was a normal human. 

I kept walking and walking towards him till I finally was standing right in front of him, the poor little kid wasn't even looking at me, he was still looking at the pieces of flesh on the floor that was once a human being. 

"My brother…. He was my… brother." said the little boy with tears filling his eyes but never falling down on his cheeks. 

Zombies do not speak, that what I used to think before I managed to say the words "I'm…. sorry." 

The boy was in a shock that he didn't even react when I spoke to him, the only thing that he did was to shake his head and cover his face with his both arms. He started crying, I knew it because I used to do the same when I was little, when I was alive. And I remember the only thing that made me feel better if someone patted me on my shoulder and said the words "It is going to be okay." 

I wanted to do the same to the little kid but that would have been pretty weird for a zombie to pat you on the shoulder and comforting you. But I didn't just stand there and stare at the little boy awkwardly, I collected my courage and said "Do you want to see something… cool?." The little boy finally raised his head and nodded innocently at me, I offered him my arm to help him up his feet but I think he broke my arm in the process, zombie arms are useless as much as zombie legs. 

Frankly, I had no where "cool" to take the little boy, I just wanted him to be away from his brother's corpse or what is left of it. We walked and walked for minutes now in complete silence and I felt like choking if neither of us spoke so I began:

"So, what is your name?." I said kindly and trying as much as I can not to seem like a zombie was choking on a piece of meat.

"Woah, I thought I was mistaken when I heard you talking to me inside. I thought I went insane after I saw my friend getting torn up by your friends." 

"They aren't my friends, I barely know any of them!."

"How can you speak?."

"I have no idea, I just do. somehow, deep inside I feel like I'm still alive, I can feel when someone is hurt and I want to cheer them up."

The little boy paused for a while and said "Most people who are alive wouldn't care less about me and out of all the things in the world, a zombie is trying to cheer me up!." 

I wanted to smile but my lips were so rotten they almost fell off. 

"So, what's your name?." the little boy asked.

" I don't remember, all I can remember is that it started with "R"." 

"oh I see, nice to meet you "R", my name is Harry." 

I liked Harry, I liked him so much. Not in the way that I want to eat him, oh no. He made me want to speak and crack jokes, he made me want to be alive for a while and forget about the apocalypse.

We kept talking and walking around the abandoned city till the sunset and for the first time since I died, I didn’t felt hungry, at all. I wanted to keep talking because somehow that is the only thing that made me feel alive. We found out that we have a lot of things in common, like listening to old rock and reading comic books, its really hard to find someone like Harry in your life, but here I am, I found him when I’m dead.

“I’m glad that I met a friend like you, “R”. said Harry laughing at one of my lame jokes.

I was surprised he called me a friend; I don’t recall having many of these when I was alive and now I have one. And that was it, we were the friends that people talk about, the dead and the alive one. I know it sounds very weird but we actually help each other: I defend him when other zombies try to attack him and he defends me when humans try to shoot me by calling out that I mean no harm, but they never understand!

It became Harry’s goal and mine too, to spread the peace between the zombies and the human race, instead of killing each other till there is no one left on this planet we once called home.