Lucy turned the dark street corner, sandals splashing in the puddles of rain. Orange streetlamps carved out her path. By now, she was hopelessly lost - she hadn't the faintest idea where she was, right now, only that if she stopped running, if she took even a moment to try and catch her breath, she was dead.
Behind her ran a blonde-haired woman, arms outstretched in front of her. Under the dim, monochrome lighting, it was hard to make out any details about her. Her clothes, once a tasteful one-piece dress, was tattered and destroyed, torn open to expose her dripping genitals. Her left foot was bare, and from her right, a high-heeled shoe clung on by its strap, dragged along and not properly worn. In better lighting, her green-grey skin would have immediately given away her status as a zombie. Under these conditions, it was not so obvious, though her abnormal behaviour and state of dress may have offered some clues. Though, like all zombies, the most striking evidence as to her undeath was through her eyes - once a brilliant hazelly brown, now a dull and soulless white. Milky, foggy, hazy, and representative of her dead, parasited brain.
It had all started so suddenly. Lucy was at the bar - a dyke bar -, as usual, that night chatting up a hottie. Eve, a slim, silver-blonde woman with a lovely tight dress that showed off her curves, was a nursing student, who had just turned 20 last month. The pair of them were hitting it off nicely, and Lucy began to suspect they might have enough chemistry for a bit of a fling. She turned to the bartender, and was about to call for another round of drinks - on her, of course.
But there was a commotion. Something was going on, something she couldn't see, at the other end of the bar. There were too many people, onlookers, blocking her view. And then there was screaming, as a woman with grey skin and a monstrous look on her face began to rampage in the cramped space, pulling another of the clubgoers toward her and locking their lips in a lewd display as she gave her cursed gift to her still-human partner. Rapidly, the victim's skin began to discolour, and her struggle gave way to moans. She stopped trying to writhe out of the attacker's hold, instead pressing her thighs together as a rivulet of arousal dripped down the inside of her tights. Her right hand drifted down between her legs. Lucy didn't stick around to see what happened next, ditching the girl she was talking to and quickly running and locking herself in the bathroom, where, hands trembling with fear and confusion, she dialled "911".
...
She had tried three times by now. Still nothing - not even a dial tone. The lines were down, and the terror within Lucy's head had reached a feverish pitch. If the phone wasn't working, then there must either be something wrong with the phone service, or the lines were swamped. Judging by what she had just seen, that could very well mean that this thing wasn't isolated to the bar. There could be many more people like that all over the city. Maybe all over the country. Or even, as a chill ran through her spine - the world. But... maybe this was a prank, or a staged event, or-
All of a sudden the door to the women's bathroom loudly crashed open with an unceremonious clatter. Lucy listened intently, determined to keep silent - through the stall door, she could hear low, breathy moans, and arhythmic shuffling of bare feet. She chanced a peek through the gap in the door - it was another of the green-skinned women, but not the one she saw giving that public display of affection earlier. It was the one she was kissing - she could recognize the clothes she was wearing, and the look of her hair. But now her skin had become the same shade of olive as the first woman, and she was behaving just like her too. She had been infected.
A rush of giddy panic gripped Lucy. This really was the end of the world! Mundane concerns shot through her mind. What about her job? How was she going to make it in to her shift tomorrow? If she didn't have a job, she couldn't make rent! Who was going to take care of the cat? What was going to happen to the plane tickets she had booked for next month? Her vacation to Florida was ruined! This must be a dream, a horrible nightmare...
But then she gathered herself for a moment, and she pinched herself, and she drank in the lucid sensation of the air around her, and it struck her that she could very well be witnessing the end times, the final gasp of human civilization as she knew it, and that getting a refund on her flight was probably the very last thing she should be worrying about at that moment. As surreal as it all felt, it wasn't like any dream she could remember. She watched the transformed woman - the zombie, a voice in the back of her head that had just been reminded of some popular horror flick she'd seen, ages ago - aimlessly patrol the bathroom, presumably in search of a partner of her own. If Lucy wasn't careful, that could be her.
Intrusive thoughts popped into her head. What if she just surrendered now, went along with it? She'd be infected. And then she'd be changed. And she would go on to change more people to be just like her - but ultimately, she'd be on the winning side. The image of herself with a green-skinned face and glassy white eyes entered her brain. She shook it out of her mind; she couldn't betray humanity, betray herself, so quickly. She didn't want to die.