Apocalypse: After Reanimation, I Became The Queen-Chapter 79: _ Rotters Don’t Talk

I can still smell the fire from last night’s raid. It’s nothing but a ghost now. It’s now ash and memory sticking to my clothes and thick in my lungs.

The trees are quieter today, almost reverent, like they know what we’re about to do. Or maybe it’s just me, holding my breath in this post-massacre silence.

Trish walks beside me, machete swinging low in her grip, fingers twitching like she’s hoping a zombie will jump out just so she can relieve some of this bottled-up tension.

Dom is unusually quiet. He is trailing behind us with a haunted look that hasn’t left his face since Vic screamed his last and was swallowed whole.

I keep reminding myself that we lost Benji last night. I don’t know why. Maybe it’ll help from thinking about Maggie’s safety.

Benji is the loudest mouth in the entire damn wasteland and we didn’t just lose him but a whole group of kids he was trying to save. It doesn’t make sense that their guardians ran off without giving a batshit about them too.

Benji was supposed to lead them down a hidden shaft beneath the cannibal camp, but we never saw him come out. We waited. We yelled. We cursed the sky and the ground. Nothing.

Now, we walk back into the lion’s mouth.

I glance at Trish. She’s chewing the inside of her cheek like it owes her money. "You okay?"

"I’m gonna kill something today," she mutters.

"That’s not an answer."

"I’m gonna enjoy killing something today."

Fair enough.

The path to the camp is littered with bodies; some are freshly dead, others are half-rotted and unrecognizable, but all of them are too still.

We learned the hard way that still doesn’t mean safe. Dom nudges a corpse with his boot. It groans.

Without hesitation, Trish sinks her machete into its temple. The squelch is grotesque. The blade snags for a second before she yanks it free with a grunt and flicks gray matter onto the grass.

"That’s two today," she mutters, wiping the blade on her pants.

"Not a contest," I say.

"It is now."

We move in silence after that. The woods close in around us. It is dense with the stink of decay and something fouler; darker, like rot soaked in gasoline.

It’s the monster. That thing from yesterday. The one that controlled the dead like they were marionettes on strings. I haven’t said it out loud, but it’s in all our minds.

Whatever it was, it’s not gone.

We kill three more rotters before we see the camp—or what’s left of it. The fort that was previously barricaded is a ruin.

The shanty walls are collapsed, smoke curling up from blackened beams. Blood streaks the dirt like a toddler had a tantrum with red paint. Some of the bodies are moving, twitching, and dragging themselves by their fingers.

I raise my fist and we instantaneously freeze.

From this vantage point, I count at least seven. Some are clearly the freshly turned cannibals from last night. I recognize one of them. It’s a big bastard with a tattoo of a crow on his bald head.

The rest are strangers. Old corpses that missed the monster’s migration.

I crouch low behind a burnt-out barricade and wave the others over.

"All right," I whisper, "Trish, Dom—circle left. Clear the left flank. I’ll take the right."

"What about Benji?" Trish asks.

"My first guess is that he must be where we told him to go—the shaft under the cellar. I need one of you to go find him once we clear the main courtyard. Trish, that’s you. You’re fastest."

She nods once, clenching her jaw. I turn to Dom. "You stay with me. No hero shit."

He gives me a solemn nod. "No hero shit."

We break.

I move like smoke. I mean, I move low and fast across the right flank. My boots crunch on bits of broken glass and charred bones. Every noise makes my heart hammer. One of the rotters jerks its head toward me.

freeze as it sniffs the air.

Then Dom lets out a yell and drives a fire axe into another zombie’s chest.

Well. So much for stealth.

The courtyard breaks out in a chaos of groans and snarls right after. I charge forward and ram my machete into the sniffing zombie’s throat, twist, and yank.

Black blood that is as thick as oil spurts across my arm. I barely have time to wipe my blade clean before another lunge.

There’s something raw about fighting zombies you used to know. That crow-tattooed bastard was a cannibal, sure—but now he’s groaning with a gaping hole where his stomach used to be and trying to bite my face off.

I slice him down the middle.

To my left, Dom bellows something unintelligible as he swings like he’s playing whack-a-mole. Trish has already disappeared into the cellar, her silhouette vanishing down the shaft.

Good.

A hand grabs my ankle. I go down hard, knees scraping raw against gravel. A rotted face inches toward mine, mouth wide and teeth clacking. I ram my forearm into its throat and scream as I dig my blade into its skull with the other hand. It takes two jerky hacks before it goes still.

I roll off, chest heaving.

"GARTH!"

Dom’s voice booms in the air. I stagger to my feet, wiping gore from my face.

And then I see it.

There’s something walking toward us from the tree line.

It looks like a zombie—hell, it is a zombie. It has pale gray skin and dried blood caked in the corner of its mouth, arms swinging limply. But there’s something wrong.

Or off. It’s walking upright, not dragging itself like the others. It moves with intent like it knows what it’s doing.

The shocker’s not over; it’s smiling.

It’s not twitching or snarling. It’s Smiling.

It has a crooked grin like it knows something I don’t. I grip my machete tighter.

"What the hell?" Dom breathes beside me.

The thing takes another step forward—and I see its face.

I get stuck into place immediately at the sight in front of me. That thing, that smiling zombie... it’s Vic.

My lungs stop working.

Vic. My friend. Dom’s brother. The same Vic who got torn apart in front of us not fifteen hours ago. I remember the scream. The blood. The way his body jerked before they dragged him under.

He’s supposed to be dead.

But here he is, standing in the ashes of our failure with that same stupid smile on his face, looking like death but walking like something more.

"Vic?" Dom whispers, voice cracking.

He takes a step forward. Dummy.

I grab his arm. "Don’t."

"But..."

"That’s not him."

"He’s—he’s smiling, Garth!"

"Exactly."

We’ve seen zombies do a lot of messed-up things. Crawl. Bite. Writhe. But smile?

Vic takes another step, and for a moment, I swear his eyes flick toward me. Like he knows I’m here. Like he remembers.

Dom jerks his arm free and takes another step forward.

"Dom, I’m telling you—don’t."

But he’s already walking.

And Vic? He stops... then lifts his hand.

It’s not a groan or a lunge. It’s just that smile and a wave.

Dom stops cold. His mouth opens, then closes again like he can’t decide whether to call out or cry.

Vic is now a zombie, but a zombie who smiles?!

His smile stretches wider with his decayed lips pulling back to reveal teeth that are more shadow than enamel. As clouded as his eyes are, they are unmistakably familiar as they meet mine. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The air reeks of blood and rotted bodies but it’s the surreal sight of Vic who is undead yet seemingly aware that sends a chill down my spine.​

"Hey, Garth," Vic says in a raspy whisper that sounds like wind through leaves.

I blink, half-expecting the apparition to vanish but it doesn’t. Dom stands frozen beside me, his mouth agape.​

"Did he just... talk?" Dom whispers.​

"Yeah," I reply, my grip tightening on the pistol. "He did."​

Vic takes a cautious step forward and by God, his movies are eerily smooth for someone who should be a mindless corpse.​

"Stay back!" I command, raising my weapon.​

"Easy, Garth," Vic says, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. "I’m not here to hurt you."​

Yes, like I’ll believe you.

"You’re a rotter," I snap. "You shouldn’t even be talking, let alone thinking."​

Vic throws his hands in the air. "I know how this looks. But I’m still me. I don’t know how or why, but I retained my consciousness."​

Dom steps forward, his eyes filled with hope and disbelief. "Vic? Is it really you?"​

"It’s me, Dom," Vic replies. "I remember everything. Our childhood, the time we got lost in the woods, your terrible cooking..."​

Dom chuckles and I see a tear rolling down his cheek. "Only you would bring that up now."​

I lower my machete slightly, but my mind is uneasy. Lucas told me last night about a talking zombie that fought his friends before tearing them apart. Could Vic be the same?​