"Miss, are you alright?" came a deep, kind of raspy masculine voice, and I startled awake, and found myself in a decidedly unusual setting. I was lying on the pavement, and a tall, beefy older man in military fatigues stood over me, gun in hand. I blinked, and looked at him, a pale-skinned, ruddy-faced man with two days stubble. I was surprised to see apparent concern in his eyes. Such concern for a perfect stranger is unheard of these days...
The last thing I remembered was running to the roof of a nearby building, being chased by the Zombies. You'd think that since I'm a Vampire, they'd cut me some slack on account of being, technically, one of their fellow Undead, and you'd be wrong. I don't breathe. I lack a pulse. I am definitely not one of those sweet-smelling, constantly breathing and oh-so tasty humans. The Zombies wanted to mow me down and eat me, so I leapt off a building rooftop to escape them...
"I'm fine," I replied, and took the hand that the old military man offered. I thanked my savior, and took a look at the immediate area. There were eleven others around, six men and five men, all in military fatigues. I would soon learn that they were the last remnants of a detachment of U.S. Army soldiers sent to deal with a Zombie outbreak in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Boston had fallen to the ravenous hordes of the Undead, and the soldiers had been among the first victims of the unstoppable onslaught...
"We need evacuation immediately," said a blonde-haired, slender female soldier, speaking into her radio. I could have told her that she and her compatriots were the only human beings for miles. As a Vampire, I possess olfactory powers probably a hundred times sharper than that of your average dog. Part of being a creature designed to hunt, capable of thriving almost anywhere. Exactly the sort of creature you want on your side at the end of the world...
"I'm Sergeant Miles, this is Corporal Patricia Johansen, and what's left of our unit, what's your name, Miss?" the older soldier said, and I took a long look at him and his fellow soldiers. They didn't smell infected, which was a blessing. I haven't had much to eat lately. The Zombies are a frigging problem, chowing down on humans left and right, barely leaving anything for yours truly. I cannot feed on the blood of the infected, and with humanity in short supply, I am in serious danger of starvation. Ergo, I want the Zombies gone as much as you humans do. Perhaps more...
"I'm Zainab Ali," I replied without hesitation, and shook hands with Sergeant Miles. If the old soldier noticed how cold my hands felt, he didn't say anything about it. I tried to make myself as mundane as possible. Channeling what I appeared to be into a veil of ordinariness that would fool the sixth sense that so many ordinary men and women possess when it comes to the supernatural. Humans for the most part are foolish but many have good survival instincts...
"Good to meet you, Miss Ali, I thought you were dead for sure, no pulse, and your body felt cold, I thought you were a Zombie, but you didn't have bite marks," Sergeant Miles said, sighing with relief. When he looked at me, he saw a tall, curvy young woman with medium chocolate skin, long curly dark hair wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans. I didn't look a day over twenty five, even though I was born in 1715 in the environs of Mogadishu and became a Vampire in 1735.
"Well, I'm definitely not a Zombie, sir, glad you folks found me," I said with a smile, and I nodded gratefully at the sergeant and the men and women in his command. The other soldiers looked at me dubiously. They knew that I wasn't a Zombie, yet they could also sense something was amiss. I am forever weary around mortals. In my homeland of Somalia, centuries ago, my kind were once massively hunted. In the Western world, Vampires are considered the stuff of myth, and of bad novels and over-the-top television shows.
In Africa and the Middle East, the people have a healthy fear of us and destroy us every chance they get. Hence why I left the Horn of Africa in 1916, after roaming it for over two hundred years, and moved to North America. I've wandered across America, Canada and Mexico for over a century. I just happened to be in Massachusetts when news broke out about the reanimated dead walking the earth, devouring anything in their path.
"No one is responding, sergeant, I think we're on our own," Corporal Johansen said, and she looked at the Sarge, who shrugged fatalistically. We were near Ashmont Station, right on the line between Boston's Dorchester area and the City of Milton. In this area, brave men and women had mounted a last stand against the Zombies, and lost. We had to get the hell away from here. The place was crawling with Zombies, even if none appeared visible in the immediate area.
If your enemies know where you are, don't be there, that's a very essential survival tactic. I patiently waited for sergeant Miles and his people to decide to get a move on. Surely enough, they did just that. Commandeering a pair of Pickup trucks, they high-tailed it out of there, but not in the direction I had hoped. See what I mean about humans and their foolishness?
"We'll make our way to the Boston Harbor, with any luck, we'll find a boat, and make it to the open sea, if there's anything left of our military forces in New England, they'll be at sea, it's the safest spot away from the Zombies," Sergeant Miles said, and I looked at the old man and resisted the urge to throttle him. How did he rise to the rank of sergeant by being so damn stupid?
Alright, let me explain something to you, dear readers. Beyond Boston lie a bunch of smaller towns like Milton, Avon, Brockton, Bridgewater and Hanson. Those towns are full of places which can be easily fortified against the Zombies. They're more likely to have survivors than congested, overpopulated Boston. Where there are lots of people means there'll be lots more Zombies. Going to the Boston Harbor by car means going through Boston, and facing its millions of Zombies. Bad idea. Comprende?
"Sergeant, if I may, the Boston Harbor is likely to be choked with Zombies, perhaps we ought to consider an alternate evacuation plan," I politely suggested to Sergeant Miles. The old man took his eyes off the road for a moment, and shot me a look. Before he could reply, I felt a slender yet firm hand grip my shoulders, hard enough to make me wince, in spite of my superhuman physique.