25 Days of SyndiSparklez and Motanite

7: Z0Mb13

When you run out of one-shot ideas and one-shots to use so you sample from a story you're writing.

Prologue:

I am a scientist, no world renowned one at that. A chemist dragged away from his day job of interning and his nightlife of classes. Not that I need that on a resume during the zombie apocalypse. Instead I help other average joes with sciencey knowledge; we're here to on find a cure. Oh, you guessed it; none of us have any idea as to how to cure the infected. The disease is thus far labeled incurable, and instead our job is to gather field data and do our best to track their movements. Think of the zombies like a new breed of man-eating animals that just need monitored; they're no longer human beings capable of higher thinking and emotion. The worst part of the job is probably zombie genetics. I wasn't a real fan of dissection beforehand, and I tend to leave all the heavy duty cutting to my partner. We're hoping by the end of the year to make a vaccination. If we get a vaccine going, all that's left is killing the leftover zombies.

There's varying degrees of zombie, all based on the wave they were in and how they were infected. Wave 1 of the virus only hit about three hundred people in all of America six years ago. Wave 2 hit three and a half years ago and affected seven thousand. During the first two waves, the virus didn't spread outside the initial ones that were affected, but no one could recognize they were infected. The symptoms were slower to start and the initial craving to eat their own kind was small. Wave 3 hit less than a year ago and infected more than could be counted, by then, the virus was spreadable from the first three hundred.

Stage 1: Being shows signs of throat pain, inability to concentrate, desire to be always moving, decreased ability to think, loss of creative skills, loss of appetite, fatigue and headaches.

Stage 2: Beings show signs of Stage 1 accompanied with slurred speech, fragmented speech, broken diction, inability to recognize faces, inability to use logic or higher reasoning, inability to understand or perceive words and images and shows an appetite for human flesh.

Stage 3: Being has no pulse and has stopped aging. It behaves like a rabid animal and attacks others of its own kind for food. It cannot think for itself. Not sure how they remain animated, possibly a parasite in the virus or odd stimulant.

Stage 4: Not much is known on behavior. Unlike stage 3 the body is in a state of decomposition.

Stage 5: Dark black eyes, skin tainted with unnatural colors and odd behavior. Violent. Unpredictable. There have been rumors they show intelligence.

Never had I really come face to face with an active, still animated zombie. They did appear in my nightmares, but never before me. Honestly, if I ever came close to a real animated zombie, it'd be the end. It might be the science side of me, but it'd be nice if we could study zombies in their natural environment. Not that I want to come close to a dead--or in some cases still living--creature that smelt vile and reeked of death; it's just a behavioral study would be nice, ya know?

...

Bright light streamed through my small window and I blinked blearily. Rubbing my eyes tiredly I could already tell the rooms near mine were empty. The usual chatter and laughter that kept me from sleeping was gone and the air hung stale around me. The zombie hunters were always up earlier than us scientists. They could travel faster without zombies at their heels.
Zombies avoided the crack of dawn the same way teens did back before the catastrophe. Their hibernating hours are twilight and sunrise, something about the pressure in the air causes them to become dormant. One of the earlier scientists, that sadly isn't with us to this day, reckoned they mimicked patterns they followed earlier in life and their refusal to hunt during early hours was akin to a job or school they had to attend. I'm not the best when it comes to the neurological pathways, but this guy was. It's a shame he was infected.