They are dead 3

7

Nomonde froze and couldn't get out a word. It felt like a nightmare and she struggled to open her mouth that was dry from vomiting earlier. She grabbed at his hand to pull at it because she could not muster any words from her mouth that was frozen in fear. Pulling hard at him, the undead hand just missed his jugular as his eyes widened in confusion. Luke fell on top of Nomonde as she kept scrambling to pull him further away from danger.

"What the fuck, Nomonde?" Luke said in confusion, his face almost eating tar. 

"B-behind you," she finally managed to release the words that were stuck in her throat. The paramedic that was bitten by Tracey previously seemed to have turned into the undead things that were everywhere now and were now reaching out to them with a bloody hand. They retreated a distance away from it, backing off quickly but trying to study it as they went. 

"What the actual fuck is going on?" Luke asked out loud and was sounding like panic and fear had finally gripped him too. 

"Do you think?" Nomonde started but didn't know if it were ridiculous enough to say it out loud. Could it be? Could her fears be coming to life? Zombies? Who would have thought? She had always enjoyed zombie movies and games, having spent most of her spare time on them. However, it was all just fiction, wasn't it? She knew of certain insects that had turned their victims into zombies and fungi that took control of ants. That was all fine but never had she thought that she would ever see it happen to humans. It was far too comforting of an idea that zombification of humans would never be a thing and that somehow fantasizing about killing the undead without a second thought had always been a thrill for her while playing survival games. But this was different. Her life was really in danger and she had seen so many people turn into uncaring monsters that she had not even recovered from the shock of it all. Luke breathed heavily as he looked at the undead man crawling on the floor towards them. His eyes were glazed over and blood dripped from his mouth and neck. A weird sound had radiated from inside his chest through his vocal cords that sounded like dead air being pushed through his windpipe by the pressure on it from crawling on the ground. 

"It's like their zombies, aren't they?" Nomonde finally broke the silence as the both of them had stared for as long as they can from a safe distance, trying to analyse what the creature actually was. 

"I don't know. I don't want to think like that," Luke said calmly and started looking around for some type of escape, "We have to find a way out of here and go back to the main city." he said now and wiped the sweat off of his brow. 

"Luke, we're in the middle of nowhere and most of the people have left," she said and looked around too as they walked away from the crawling dead man. Luke span around a few times, gritting his teeth as he tried to think of the best way out of the situation. His eyes darted across the parking lot and finally landed on the ambulance that was still standing stationary in the far end of the parking lot, close to where Tracy had turned. 

"There!" he said loudly now and egged Nomonde to run with him towards the van. Relief rose up in her as a ray of hope finally glimmered off of the ambulance van in the form of sunlight bouncing off of it. Untouched, it was almost the last and closest vehicle now and probably their last hope. Luke swung the driver door open and touched the ignition to see if the keys had been left there. 

"Shit," he said and looked around him as if the keys would magically appear on the ground next to him. Nomonde's hope started fading away and panic grew inside her chest. 

"It must be on one of them." she now exclaimed Luke nodding in her direction, thinking the same thing. They both moved slowly to the scene where the paramedics had tried to help Tracy, not far from the ambulance itself. Both Nomonde and Luke were now inching towards the bloody scene slowly. Somehow she had thought that she would have seen them there. The people who tried to help and Tracy. But all that was left of the ordeal was a pool of blood that had started drying. Nomonde's eyes scanned to where the undead paramedic had tried to grab Luke and pointed at him. Luke swallowed at the thought. 

"What if it's on him? It might just as well be."

"How are we going to go about searching him?" 

"I don't know! If they can't die of any physical harm how will we pin it down without risking turning into one of those... things." Nomonde replied out of haste as if time was running out and in a sense it was. A sharp inhalation of oxygen was forced into her lungs as she gasped at the realisation. A stream of zombies had now found their way out of the cave and was on their way to the parking lot. 

"Luke..." she said softly as if not to draw attention and pointed in the direction. He turned his face and the blood drained from his complexion at the realisation of the issue at hand. 

"We need to do this now or we're done for," Luke almost mouthed in fear of alerting the horde that had just made their way out of the cave. Nomonde nodded in agreement. 

"I'm going to hold him down, you search his pockets, okay?" Luke instructed and Nomonde was not hesitant. She waited eagerly for Luke to drop down and as he flipped the undead paramedic over, he sat on its back pinning its arms behind it. Nomonde scurried towards them when she saw that the zombies were incapacitated and moved in swiftly. She started digging in the pockets. Just then Tracey, or what was left of her, had stumbled through the bushes nearby. A screech erupted from her as she spotted the two of them and it had immediately alerted the horde. 

"Fuck." Luke whispered softly and Nomonde started searching faster. Her heart started to race and she could feel herself go weak at the knees and she sped to find the keys in the pockets of the paramedic. Tracey had started limping towards them now, at a slow but steady pace. Nomonde felt her heart racing and she feared that she would pass out from shock, her adrenaline keeping her from doing so. She had felt them, the keys, and struggled to pinch her fingers around them in the tight pocket of the jacket. Just as she almost had it, Tracey had lept onto them pushing Luke over and releasing his grip on the undead paramedic. Nomonde felt her fingers curl around the metal of the car keys now but it had slipped out of her grip as she rolled away from the two zombies. Luke had dodged Tracey just in time and kicked the undead paramedic in the face as he rolled over, now released from his grip. Nomonde saw the silver keys gleaming in the sun and crawled speedily towards them as Luke was fighting Tracey off now. With one determined swoop, Nomonde had placed the key in between her fingers and bored a hole into Tracey's temple with it, as she punched her in the side of the face. Tracey's limp body rolled off of Luke and he gave her one last kick in the face to make sure that she was gone. Nomonde helped Luke up as she now had tears running down her face, realising what she had done. She had killed Tracey. She knew that she was gone but she had given her the final blow and the shock had overtaken her body. 

Luke realised now that she wasn't going to be able to walk herself to the ambulance and grabbed her around her waist, holding her up as he helped her to the van. Her breathing and pulse increased and she could hear the blood surge through her head. Her skin felt cold against Luke's touch as he hoisted her into the passenger's seat and she threw up just before Luke had strapped her down with the safety belt and closed the door. The light from the sun felt like it was burning her skin as Luke got into the driver seat and he pulled away speedily as the horde that was chasing after them slowly disappeared in the side mirror.