My Zombie Romance

The sun rose, bathing the landscape with its eerie light. In what was once the City of Ottawa, Ontario, plenty of creatures were stirring. The rats, squirrels, feral cats, stray dogs and whatnot. Their numbers have skyrocketed since the humans vanished, and the dead metropolis has become their new domain. They like to run from me, and being super slow since The Event, I have a hard time catching them. Every once in a while, I actually get lucky. Like today...

I caught myself a rat, killed it and ate it. Its blood and flesh taste sweet, but nowhere near as sweet as human flesh and blood, which is what I crave. What I will always crave. At the beginning of The Event, human meat was plentiful. As my kind came back from the grave, hungry for the flesh of the living, the big cities were teeming with food. Until we exhausted our food supply...

I remember the early days, back when The Event was the furthest thing from everyone's minds. I was starting my second year of university, and life was good. People kept living their lives as if nothing was going on. When the first reanimate attacked a mortician, and that mortician died, came back to life and bit a forensics tech at the police station, people thought it was all a bad joke, or fake news. Until they learned better...and by then, it was too late.

As far as I know, us zombies outnumber humans by a lot. This entire city is full of us, and the few humans who survived the initial onslaught of undead that swarmed the streets during The Event have left. A lot of my brethren walk about aimlessly, but I'm an indoors kind of guy, which explains why I still look fresh, almost alive, unlike the majority of them.

"Nasser, you finally caught yourself a meal, good for you," comes a sarcastic voice, and I look up from my meager meal, and glare at Jenn Higgins. Five feet ten inches tall, slender, with blonde hair, blue eyes and alabaster skin that has turned ashy gray since she became a zombie, Jenn used to be a classmate of mine in the engineering program at Carleton University, before The Event. Seems like a lifetime ago, mainly because it was...

I met Jenn Higgins back when I was a tall, burly and dark-skinned nerd from West Africa, a stranger in a strange land called Canada. After becoming zombies, the newly undead are drawn to the people and places that once mattered to me. This explains why I've stuck with Jenn. Shrugging, I finish the rat's remains in one gulp, and wipe my bloody mouth with the back of my hand. As a zombie, I don't breathe, and I lack a heartbeat. I'm dead, essentially. The flesh and blood of the slain rat energizes me, but only for a little while. Animal flesh is alright, but human flesh is like champagne and caviar for us zombies...

"Guess every dog's got their day," I finally reply to Jenn, and I shuffle up the staircase leading to the upper level of what once was the Rideau Shopping Center, Ottawa's busiest mall. Once upon a time, this was one of my favorite places. It has fascinated me ever since I first set foot in the Capital, as an international student from my hometown of Kano, Nigeria. I hung out with my friends here. I brought dates here. And now, long after I stopped breathing, I continue to feel drawn to this place.

"You can have the filthy vermin, Nasser, I bagged myself a human," Jenn says, and I see a glimmer of satisfaction in her once-blue and now bright red eyes. I sniff the air, and I can suddenly smell it on her, the scent of the human she killed. The smell of humans is the most wonderful smell in the universe. As sweet as the fragrance of life itself. Jenn bagged herself a human male, and didn't even think to share. If I were the sensitive type, I'd be upset...

"Lucky," I reply, and I flash Jenn my most ghoulish smile. Jenn licks her bloody fingers, and it takes all of my willpower to stop myself from licking them. The two of us go way back, Jenn and I. Long before The Event, Jenn knew how to push my buttons. I used to date her best friend Sophie, and when that didn't work out, for some weird reason, Jenn and I kept in touch.

"Luck is my middle name," Jenn replies, and like the teaser that she is, she pulls out a human finger, plump and juicy, and dangles it in front of me. Jenn steps away from me and leans against the railing, her hole-ridden black leather jacket unbuttoned, revealing her dirty red tank top. Her dark blue jeans and cowboy boots are almost in tatters, but she looks beautiful to me.

"Luck has nothing to do with it," I whisper as I stand inches from Jenn's face, and I snatch the human finger from her hands, and bite into it. Blood squirts over both our faces, and I lick blood off of Jenn's face as she licks blood off of mine. I'm barely aware of my tongue sliding into Jenn's fetid mouth, but soon we're playing tonsil hockey. Jenn and I kiss, and next thing I know, we're tumbling on the mall floor, caught in the throes of undying passion...

"Some life left in you, I see," Jenn hisses, smirking as she straddles me, and just like that, we start to fuck. My callused hands feel Jenn's saggy breasts through her top, which she removes, and then she fumbles with my zipper. Out comes my dick, which is usually shriveled up but the bit of human blood I just ingested acts like Viagra for the undead, I swear. I watch, amazed, as my dick hardens and lengthens. Jenn smiles wickedly and strokes my dick with her cold, dead hands. Suddenly filled with passion, I thrust into Jenn, and she groans in ecstasy...

"Plenty of life left in me, babe," I cry out, feeling as lively as a dead man can, as my hands grip Jenn's hips. I bury myself in her, and Jenn locks eyes with me, swaying from side to side as she rides the hell out of me. Never let it be said that the undead have no passion. Jenn and I go at it until the leftover energies given to us by the blood fade...

"All too brief, alas, I live for moments like this," Jenn whispers, as she rolls off of me, and lies on the cold floor. I look at her, my constant companion, my sassy-mouthed babe, and I smile. Jenn smiles back, only it's a smile straight out of a nightmare. For every zombie, decomposition happens differently. Depending on how much food one consumes, it can be postponed almost indefinitely. Jenn hasn't had access to much food lately, and it's starting to show...

"Jenn, my pet, we're not alive, remember?" I reply, and Jenn says nothing, and instead looks upward, at the clear blue sky through the wrecked skylight. On a day like this, I almost wish for the chaos of the early days, back when the humans outnumbered our kind, and there was plenty for us to eat. Nowadays, we have to feed on vermin, since humans have become scarce.

"A gal can dream, can't she?" Jenn said, giggling, and she pokes me in the ribs, an old habit she had back when we were schoolmates. I remember her bugging the hell out of me after I'd struck out with Carmen, a hot Latin gal who used to frequent Oliver's Pub, our favorite on-campus drinking establishment. I was drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Alexander Keith's beer, when a sudden pain on my side almost caused me to spill my drink...

"I haven't dreamed since, you know, The Event, because, well, I haven't slept since," I remarked dryly, and Jenn rolled her unblinking eyes at me. Yeah, I have a penchant for stating the obvious. So what? Jenn seems like she's about to say something, but a sudden noise causes us to fall silent, and we stare at each other, astonished. For it's the unmistakable sound of gunshots...

"Food!" Jenn gasps, and with that, she rises and takes off down the escalator, taking the steps three or four at a time. As a zombie, she doesn't have to worry about falling. Becoming undead has rendered her body basically impervious to pain, and exceptionally resilient. I once saw a zombie who'd been cut in half by an oncoming truck crawl after prey for hours before catching them unawares and biting them. Our kind are definitely tenacious, that's for damn sure.

"Jenn, dammit, wait up," I called after her, but Jenn had already exited the empty mall, and emerged onto the street. I couldn't believe that there were so many of our brethren on the street. By and large, us zombies don't just roam about randomly. Mainly, we stick to the places that once mattered to us, such as our schools, workplaces, and favorite hangout spots. Driven by hunger, we can roam huge distances in our search for food, but we inevitably return to our favorite stomping grounds. We can't help it, you see...

I shuffled my way through the growing crowds of my fellow undead who were making their way toward Parliament Hill. That's where the sound of the gunfire was coming from. Walking at the back of the crowds, trying to catch up with Jenn, who was quite spry after feasting on human flesh and blood, I saw legions of my fellow zombies get mowed down by machine gun fire.

"Stop, you fools," I shouted, but no one listened to me. One by one, I watched them get shredded. Moaning loudly, their mouths wide open, their eyes bloodshot, their arms extended outward, zombie after zombie marched to its death. For what they faced was a tank, backed up by an entire squad of uniformed human men and women. What remained of the local contingent of the Canadian Armed Forces, I guess.

"All of these stink bags just walked right into gun fire, sergeant, this was too easy," said a female voice, and upon hearing it, I did what no zombie had ever done. I dropped and played dead, among a litter of corpses. The gunmen and women came down from their tank, rifles at the ready. As they walked on top of my fallen brethren, I remained perfectly still.

"Betsy, be careful, some of them are tricky," came a deep masculine voice, and I chanced a glance upward, and saw a tall, attractive young African woman in a green military uniform with a rifle in her hands. Standing right next to her, a tall, burly white guy with a reddish beard and a lot of tattoos. If I still breathed, I would have held my breath. The army had come back to Ottawa...

"Oh come on, Roark, those zombies are dumb as dirt," Betsy replied, and as I continued my unblinking observation of the two of them, the female soldier looked at me. Smiling wickedly, she gave me a swift kick you-know-where. I did not flinch, since, well, being a zombie, I feel no pain, but the burly red-haired man next to her actually flinched, if you can believe that. Humans are idiots, I swear...

"I'll show you how dumb we are!" Jenn cried out, and her words, while crystal clear to me, came out as nothing more than unintelligible grunts to the humans. They whirled around, guns at the ready, and fired at Jenn as she came for them, moving a bit faster than they expected her to. Certain that I was about to witness my Jenn's second ( and final ) death, I exploded into action.

"Surprise," I said as I heaved myself with what I hoped was a fearsome roar, and I grabbed the human female called Betsy from the back, and sank my teeth into the back of her neck. One bite is all it takes, folks. One bite, one deep scratch, or any exchange of bodily fluids between a human and a zombie, and the human in question will become one of the undead within twenty four hours...

"Ouch, let go of me!" Betsy cried out, and she foolishly sprayed everything in front of her with bullets, even as Jenn tackled her partner, the red-haired and bearded male whom I heard her call Roark. Now, Roark put up a fight and slashed at Jenn's throat and arms with his blade, but didn't manage to land a lethal strike. Jenn sank her teeth into Roark's arm, and the soldier howled in pain...

"We need reinforcements, some of these zombies are smarter than we thought," came a voice over a bullhorn, and I saw a ton of soldiers surging forward, firing at us. A bullet struck Betsy in the head, and she went down, dead for good. Jenn looked at me, her face bloody, her mouth still filled with bits of Roark the soldier's flesh, and she smiled. In that moment, I swear, Jenn was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen...

"Get out of here, Nasser!" Jenn shrieks, and I nod, and take off, as fast as I can. I can hear Jenn running behind me, and bullets tear into us. I feel a slight twinge of something as a bullet slams into my shoulder, but it passes right through me. I continue running, and I bet the humans are surprised to see two zombies who are smart enough to run away, instead of mindlessly marching into certain death like the rest of our fearless species...

"The bridge, it's our only hope," I cry out, and I jump into the Rideau Canal, which has become flooded since The Event, along with much of Ottawa itself. With no humans to tend to it, mother nature has reclaimed much of Ottawa in the decade since the reanimated dead began prowling the earth, devouring pretty much anything that moved.

I hit the water at speed that would kill a human, but I don't have to worry about the impact or the freezing waters because I'm already dead. Once in the water, I don't bother with swimming. I simply allow myself to sink, and I smile as a body thumps into the water, and I see Jenn. I see bullet after bullet zipping by, and though a few of them hit me, I don't make a sound, nor do I move.

Humans think that us zombies are slow-moving, brain-dead bozos with nothing going on for us. The truth is that we have sharp senses, much sharper than we did when we were alive. For example, our sense of smell sharpens once we undergo the transformation from human to zombie, and we hunt humans primarily by sight, smell and hearing. I can hear humans talking to each other as they stand on the bridge, looking at the water. After a while, they go away.

"That was close," Jenn says, once we emerge from the water, having reached the shores of what used to be Gatineau, Quebec, thanks to the currents. It's getting dark, but zombie eyes can see much better than humans in the dark. I look at Jenn, who seems to be in a sorry state, her body riddled with bullet holes, and her left ear is missing. In other words, Jenn is alright...

"That's the last time you rush into danger like that," I say angrily, and I get into Jenn's personal space, which would mean nothing if she were an ordinary mindless zombie, but she's like me, one of the few who are different. Jenn glares at me, face bloodied, a few teeth missing, eyes bloodshot, and she smiles, a ghastly smile that for some reason I like seeing. If my heart still beat, it would beat for her...

"Oh my, tough and taciturn Nasser was worried about little old me, I'm touched," Jenn says, taunting me, and I grab her and kiss her. I press my cold, dead lips against Jenn's and she kisses me back. We make out while standing on the shores of Quebec, on an early winter's night, a nearly frozen river behind us, like a pair of horny university students, only undead. No puffs of air come out of Jenn's mouth when she stops kissing me, and that suits me just fine.

"Damn right I'm worried, you never listen to me anyways, but I preferred you with your ears intact," I reply, and Jenn holds my face in her hands, and smiles, then shrugs. Even before The Event, Jenn was the thrill-seeking, adventurous type. In the months before the reanimated dead started walking the earth, Jenn talked me into joining the alpine skiing club. I had more fun than I thought I would, but it's not an experience I would care to repeat...

"Hmm, we should make those soldiers pay, and get some of their guns, give those bastards and bitches a taste of their own medicine, " Jenn says, and I look at her as though she's insane. Jenn smiles and shrugs, and then turns away from me, walking toward the water. I grab her and spin her around with all of my might, and Jenn looks at me, a look of hungry and amusement in her crimson eyes. I can never tell when this crazy zombie bitch is joking, I swear...

"You do that, you're on your own, Jenn, there are too many of them, and I'm not trying to get killed," I say firmly, and Jenn looks at me. She doesn't smile. I'm prepared to hear endless arguments from her, and I brace myself for a litany of bullshit about how the humans always underestimate us, and how different we are from the rest of our kind. Except Jenn doesn't say anything of that. Instead, Jenn throws her arms around me and kisses me, and then she walks away.

I watch as Jenn walks back into the freezing waters, and she goes under, fearless as always. I don't know how long I stood on the shore, but it was dawn when I finally left. Throughout the night, I heard the sound of gunfire coming from Ottawa. A few hours later, I return to Ottawa, to the Rideau Shopping Center, and I see that the tank is overturned, and I notice a few uniformed men and women among the zombies milling around the site of what must have been a fierce battle...

I must have walked around the whole area for days, looking at random zombies, both the mobile and those who got put down, hoping to see Jenn. Finally, I return to our old lair, inside the Rideau Shopping Center. I waited for days, but Jenn never came. I went to those places that mattered to her, such as the Carleton University library, and I can't find her. Increasingly desperate, I went into the river, and walked along the bottom with a special flashlight I got from a store, and scoured the underwater realm, but I didn't find Jenn.

As best as I can figure it, a horde of zombies, with Jenn probably among them, took on the last remains of the Canadian Armed Forces in the Capital, and laid waste to them. I don't know what happened to Jenn. I sometimes curse myself for not going with her, and tell myself that if I'd gone with her, she'd still be here. We've always made a good team, I was the cautious one and Jenn was the fearless one. Now she's gone, and I am alone.

Yes indeed, I am alone, like no one in the history of mankind can ever be. I am not like the other zombies. They have no minds, no fears, and shuffle along because they are driven by the instinct to feed. I cannot sleep, so I cannot dream, but I often think of Jenn, and miss her terribly. We were supposed to be together for all eternity, undead and in love. So much for a dead man's dreams, eh?

"I miss you, Jenn, and I did love you, may our relationship rest in peace," I said one morning, as I stood inside what used to be our lair inside the old mall. With that, I decided to leave. I don't know where I'm going. It doesn't matter. Jenn is gone and with her, any semblance of attachment I felt for our favorite mall, our old school, and the city we once called home. The other zombies are stuck in their endless routines, patrolling their old stomping grounds the way ghosts do, in those old horror movies I used to watch, back in the day...

Me? I'm different. My name is Nasser Ayorinde, and I am the only one of my kind. A sentient zombie. Part of being sentient, as in self-aware, is the ability to make decisions. I've never seen the vastness of Canada. I only know Ontario and Quebec, but that's about to change. I am going to see every nook and cranny in this vast country. Exploring Canada appeals to me. I'm going to enjoy its beautiful scenery, and hopefully come across some nice people...and eat them. After all, humans are the reason my dear Jenn is gone. And I'm going to welcome as many of you as I can into Club Zombie.