Life Ain't Easy.

Now, I wasn't one to fall asleep in awkward places, but the alleyway down the street from my old high school? That was just bizarre. Normally I had no reason to wander so very far from my frequented stomping grounds, like that mall those people had holed up in.

Grunting loudly, I shuffled out of the dimly lit side street and onto Main Street, glancing around with paling blue eyes. I let out an enormous sigh. Ever since the attack, I'd decided that, well, things just weren't like they used to be. I didn't have the same desires, the same feelings I used to have. When I'd look down Main Street of Podunk, USA, I didn't get the rush of feeling alive. The fallen Autumn leaves were a little less golden, the Winter snow a little less beautiful.

It wasn't only the weather that had gotten to me, either! Just the other day, I was in Grant's Book Store and was sickened by the selections of literature. It almost seemed like nothing was changing on the shelves, it seemed like life was standing still in Podunk.

Hobbies and things to do when I was bored just seemed dull nowadays. I used to have such a good time running up and down the street with my dog, Tyson. I'd throw a ball, he'd fetch it. Now all he does is lay around, staring into space. Videogames? Bah, boring. Watching the screen was a test of my patience. I had better things to be doing.

Brains?

Those got tasty really fast.

Sure, it wasn't easy the first hour or so. You wake up with a chunk taken out of your leg after escaping a zombie horde and all you want is brains? That's just weird. Most people wake up with a knackering for Chick-Fil-A, or Chinese. I had to go out and hunt down a living, breathing human being.

Do you have any idea what that's like? Of course you don't! You're probably a survivor of the zombie holocaust. Lucky bastard. I had to walk into my mom's bedroom and decide if I wanted to let out a roar of hunger, y'know, wake her up and let her soil the sheets before succumbing to the dark embrace of the afterlife, or just go in for some brains and make it nice and painless.

Yeah, I opted for the 'wake her up and let her soil the sheets before succumbing to the dark embrace of the afterlife' option.

Plus, I'd say waking up a zombie one day is sort of like realizing that you're... well, gay. Mom just lays in bed, unable to do anything. Your brother ridicules you and runs out of the house to play basketball/runs out of the house screaming for his life... and your father? He stands there with a wooden plank, shouting at you to come at him.

Dad was always overdramatic.

His brains tasted like flan.

Oh, crap, oops. In reminiscing about the past, I just walked over Tyson. Silly laborador retriever. I told you he was lazy, never wanting to play... the big chunk I took out of his head might have something to do with that...

Being a zombie, you have your share of bullies, too. It was like being in high school all over again. There's days I can barely walk down a street before having a molotov cocktail thrown at my head as some punk kid of a survivor flies by on a skateboard. Lording over us undead with his... with his speed. His motor skills. He'll get his one day, believe you me. I'll eat that little sucker's brains so damn hard that he-... I digress. My apologies.

As a zombie, you face the ever-present issue of competition for food. They don't make Shufflethrus at McDonalds, for the Undead-on-the-go. You can't go to Starbucks and order a venti-sized cup of brains, with whipped cream and caramel. You have to hunt down survivors.

Here's the thing that gets me; if a zombie holocaust has occurred, being a reasonable human being, you should accept the fact that, hey, world governments have toppled. Chaos reigns supreme. Your Prime Minister might be chowing down on his wife's intestinal tract. Why even fight what's coming? You'll be turned into a zombie or eaten eventually, and you're just wasting time. Why barricade yourself inside of a house? Or, more importantly, a mall?

That's where I was going. The mall. Look, there's a bunch of us protesting today already. I can see my dad at the front, waving one arm.

Waving one arm with the other, I mean. I kind of ripped it from his torso when he egged me on.

Anyway, yeah, these people, they hole up in the mall. Great. Keep us from a great place to sit down, to think. To get a cup of coffee. Grab some designer jeans. Do you think I like roaming my barren city in blood-and-guts-soaked capris? No sir, not one bit.

I think most of you survivors think that we're an unpleasant lot. It's just not the truth. We're people, like you! Just, slower, undead people. We have feelings too. On a deep, philosophical level, we can compete in a battle of wits. We can reason logically about the existence of God and the importance of-

Oh, oh. They're coming out of the mall. Jackpot. I'm totally eating the fat white girl. I call dibs, guys.