Smart Zombie

Braxton had slept for two weeks and become a Zombie. It was time to explore his new body. He wanted to what happened if he consumed more of those stones.

Every time he had imagined living in a zombie apocalypse it was all about sneaking around, and scavenging food. he would have tried to carefully clean the area and make a base and then he would have had to protect it against other Survivors and the zombie hordes.

Had someone told him before that he would start off with hunting Zombies for their brain fruits, he wouldn't have believed it. Who would have?

The sentient Zombie stepped out onto the streets and looked around. He took in the full scope of what was going on. Crashed cars filled the road with rotting corpses and walking ones filling the gaps.

Boardwalks filled littered with abandoned items, luggage, and less appetizing things. The houses in the surrounding had broken doors and windows. Some further in the distance were even burned out.

One thing he really couldn't understand where the burned-out houses. Sure, crashed and burned out cars were one thing, but how exactly did a zombie apocalypse hand up in house fires? Were these people killed while they were cooking meals or something?

Braxton shook his head and focussed on his goal. He had come out to hunt for loot- No, brain fruits-

Zombies! He came to hunt Zombies for the little stone in their head. Equipped with prudence and patience he approached the group of growling zombies that were occupied with ravenously feeding on a rotting corpse.

Despite his best efforts to sneak up on them, he was immediately noticed. When one of the beasts looked up, with its half-rotten face covered in rotten blood, he got ready for a fight. but nothing happened.

On the contrary, they even shuffled to the side and offered him a place at their table! Their blank dead eyes showed no hostility towards him. They welcomed him like a member of their family.

In his presence, their ugly rotten mugs and unintelligible moans were filled with nothing but innocence and goodwill.

Had humans always been able to seem so... amicable? looking at the undead like this gave him a bittersweet feeling in his chest. It was like looking at a crippled puppy. it was so cute and happy but at the same time, it was so sad to see that something so innocent had been harmed.

How could he just bash in their skulls when they invited him with utmost hospitality? He couldn't. He wasn't a monster. Well, technically he was but spiritually he denied that notion. he followed the philosophy of many books.

Humans are often the scariest monsters. it did not matter what race or being one became, it was one's deeds that made one a monster.

Braxton did not have it in him to just kill his fellow zombies. Not if they acted like this. Unfortunately, he was not into raw meat, so he had to deny their offer and keep looking. There had been three aggressive Zombies in his building, so there had to be a good portion of them out there.

A long as they attacked first, he had no qualms about harvesting them.

Because there were surprisingly few zombies on the street he started searching the surrounding buildings. Braxton would have thought that ordinary zombies were too stupid to use doors. This would mean that most people that got infected and died in their homes, would be locked in.

Unless something motivated to break out or a dumb survivor broke the door from the outside. then why were all doors of the first two buildings he checked either unlocked or broken open? There were neither Zombies nor survivors inside.

This was when Braxton had a different idea. What if something like Mr. Sawakis found out how to open doors? If mutants, that hunted their kin, became stronger and more intelligent by eating the stones, would they not try the same as him?

Was this why there were so few zombies around? Was Braxton late to the party and most of his prey had already been hunted? Just how strong would these Predators be if they had two weeks to hunt as much as they liked?

He went on to check several houses and finally found some aggressive Zombies in still locked rooms and apartments. Just measly five small stones, none like the one from his landlord.

Braxton had spent a lot of time on the search and the sun was already sinking and the street lamps had automatically activated. With a sigh of frustration, he could only shrug and would have to return to his flat for now.

Except, maybe he didn't? He was a zombie now, why did he have to fear the night? The zombie kept searching until the sun went down and was satisfied with his choice.

The next building he went to was slightly more in the back with an inner yard and only a gate that connected to the street. The thick wooden gate had signs of something trying to break it. there were scratches on the lacquer and the door handle was broken off but was still intact.

This raised his hope.

At first, he wanted to test his strength but he realized in time, that the gate was locked with a latch bolt on the other side. He just needed some trash to open it. He looked around and realized that the twilight did not impede his vision at all.

After looking around he unceremoniously broke off the radio antenna of a car and stuck in through the gap between the two wings of the gate. It took a little fiddling but he managed to lift the girthy latch bolt and unlock it.

Other Zombies had despaired at this lock, but he had easily dealt with it. He was such a smart zombie.

The freshly born burglar cheered a little and entered the inner yard. the first surveyed the building and found about 10 apartments. Half were unlocked with some rotting corpses inside, the others were still locked.

Inside these, he found two predators and five friendlies, which was how he decided to call the zombies that showed no aggression in front of him.

The building netted him two new stones, but the reason he was satisfied with it, was that one of the predators had a slightly darker stone because she... well the predator had a full family inside its flat it had fed off.

Braxton preferred not thinking about this kind of topic too much. Seven brain fruits with one of them beeing slightly darker seemed worth a try. He locked the gate again from the inside and went to one of the empty apartments.

Before he threw these small crystals he dug from the brains of the undead into his mouth, he gave them a good wash in the kitchen sink. When he swallowed the seven stones he once again felt the warmth in his stomach.

This time he could slightly feel a tiny bit of the warmth spreading in his body. he finally felt a tiny difference. The weird stiffness he had felt in his body and slightly lessened and he couldn't really tell, but it felt like his sight had sharpened.

"Interesting."

Braxton kept stretching back and forth as if he could find the difference to before that way.

Looking out into the night he decided to keep going. The results were intriguing and he wanted to see how far this would go. hee was not concerned about the darkness.

It was his newly gained night vision as an undead that gave him this confidence.

Braxton returned to the street and thought about his next steps. Currently, he was in the suburbs. If he was still a human he would probably try to scavenge for food and get out of the city as fast as he could.

As everyone knew, the cities would swarm with zombies during this kind of apocalypse which meant guaranteed death for a survivor. But he was not a survivor. The zombies were his people now.

Sooo, he would have to aim for the city center, obviously. more Zombies would mean more predators which meant more prey for Braxton.

The city center was a good distance away, he could probably get there within an hour if he ran. but something in him told him not to. All the buildings here in the surroundings had locked up zombies in them.

He couldn't leave behind loot. his brethren like this, could he?

Of course not! He needed to find each and every Zombie on his way to the city center and free them. The predators he would come across were just a bonus. Braxton definitely didn't aim for them.