You stand up, joints creaking, and peer around through the darkness. As your eyes get used to being dead, you begin to make out a smoke-stained brick wall with "the end is extremely nigh" spray-painted upon it. There is another, similar, wall behind you, but this one merely displays various rude words in half-unreadable writing.
It's dark back here behind the shops, out of the way of the open town square, and a metal grille in the wall to your right blows hot air in your face. It smells of grease, the fried remains of what might once have been potatoes, and meat so processed it's practically vegetarian.
You shrug. To hell with him: he smells even worse than you do. Turning on your heel, you begin to lurch off toward the wider end of the alley.
The drifter's pleas fall on dead ears. You surrender to your hunger, launching yourself forward with surprising speed for a corpse and attaching your sharp little teeth about the crown of his head, you puncture his skull with ease and, ignoring his screams, secreting the special zombie saliva which will turn his brain into so much slurpable mush.
With an effort, you resist your brain-hunger, and tear your eyes away from the guy's head. "Okay," you say, "I won't eat you. But get out of here."
You turn as quickly as your creaking joints will allow, and stare directly into a face that is pale gray and sagging, with a white circle of little scars around her head. Her hair is greasy and tangled, and she wears a brown sack with holes torn in it for want of any real clothes.
You cry out in surprise and begin to run - or, at least, try to run. Remember that rigor mortis? Bane of the undead, that. Your stiff legs creak, and your stick-like arms wave, and then your knees give way and you topple onto a pile of burning rubble. Just before your eyeballs go up in smoke you notice that...
"Yes," you reply. "I just got bitten."
"Well, in that case, be off with yer," sneers the zombie, poking you arthritically in the chest with her gun. She lurches away, and disappears off between the blackened skeletons of a bank and a bookshop, leaving you standing alone in the deserted town square.
"What d'you mean, what do I mean?" she stares. "You been hiding under a rock this past month? Darlin', I'm talking about the bounty hunters. The bastards're picking us off, one by one. Ya don't want to be in the way if one o' them starts taking pot-shots, I'll tell ya that for nothin'."
"Well, then, I'll just have ta show you the ropes, won't I?" she says, seeming to enjoy the fact that she knows more than you. "Follow me."
You squeeze with difficulty through the narrow gap. You're getting more used to being dead now, but the going is still hard.
You start out at a brisk lurch down the dark and forbidding road, which winds and branches off until you are thoroughly lost. There are stairs to climb, ledges to tumble down, and crumbling, dangerous-looking walls to nervously avoid. You trip several times, and once your eyeball falls out, but you wipe it off and stick it back in, and...
You set off down the road to your right, which is warm and pleasant. The mossy bricks are springy underfoot, and against all the odds, birdsong fills the air, along with a scent of flowers.
You step onto the creaking ladder and start your nervous and wobbly descent.
You think the library used to be a church or something. It's certainly large enough, and the windows are long, though the glass in them has all been broken.
You step into the store, which is cold, empty, and dark - such a contrast from before this whole damn zombie business. You wander up and down the aisles, pondering the essence of mankind and similar philosophical debates, and helping yourself to the Easter chocolate. It's a bit stale, but it still tastes good - especially the dark chocolate, that...
Into the Thai restaurant you lurch, wandering through the kitchen door to where a huge oven stands open. The next thing you know, someone has shoved their elbow into the small of your back, propelled you into the oven, and closed the door. You can feel the sides red-hot already against your skin.
You shuffle over toward the kitchen, holding your chocolate bunny in front of you like a shield.
You are chewing on your bunny, enjoying the thick savor of the chocolate, when some maniac runs up behind and you sticks a weed-whacker in the back of your head.
