Life After the Undead (Completed)

Prologue

We were the lazy generation. We had technology to make our lives easier, cars so we didn't have to run, email, smart phones, and the internet so we didn't have to interact with each other directly, and special effects so that our actors didn't have to act. We were the generation of excuses, for taking stupid issues and making them bigger than they were. We babied our children, spoiled them, and when they got too hard to handle we pumped them full of drugs instead of admitting we raised brats. Every problem you could have had a medication, side effects worse than the original symptoms. We were a generation of self absorbed toddlers who had everything handed to us on a silver platter and threw temper tantrums when we didn't get our way.

We were the generation that spent more time planning for hypothetical apocalypses and less time planning for our actual lives. And for a people who spent more time bragging about what we'd do if faced a zombie plague we sure did lose to them pretty fast.

In two months, what was an isolated incident turned into a pandemic. Four months, it had spread from the States to the rest of the world. Six months in the zombies had over run everything. Eight months and the power went out in the cities one by one. All except for Toronto, Canada.

For some reason the power in Toronto never fully went out. And it was because of that the remaining survivors flocked to the already overflowing city. The problem was that as the population increased, so did the zombies.  There were so many theories about why Toronto never went down, all of them pointed to one company who took it in their hands to keep one city alive. No one knew who ran Biocom, but they called this mysterious person "The Eye."

By the time a year had rolled by new trends were popping up. The people were trying to gain back a bit of the humanity they had before. It started with the farmers. Working with Biocom they put up miles of electrified fences and paid specific dues for the water supply. They started planting crops and raising meat once more. They accepted payment in useful items, as money had no meaning anymore.

The Collectors were uniquely twisted people. They ranged from collecting items, to people and even zombies. Most used the people for their own sick games, some were building sex rings, other's gladiator fights, others kept them as slaves or currency to trade when one of their special items came up for sale. Either way they were a dangerous lot of people, they'd easily cut your throat to get their way.

Drifters, basically bandits with cars, belonged not to the city but to the road. They took what they wanted from survivors looking for safe place to settle down.  They forced survivors to pay a tax to use what they deemed the major highways as their roads. They were the largest organization, connected by the highways and a hierarchy. Run by their King—Orion—out of L.A. their tyranny reached all the way up to Toronto and beyond.

The last group of people were the most important, we called them Traders. These were the brave people who went out into the zombie infested city, chancing the Collector's minions and the Drifter's scouts, and got supplies and searched for specific items to trade. These were the people who travelled the city looking for light bulbs, bottled water, and then brought it to the people for a fee, usually a different kind of supply. Sometimes they acted a go between for the Collectors, trading zombies between the establishments or just regular supplies. Most were exclusive to one Collector but many strived to get as many people to trade with as possible and of course they always kept the best for themselves.

But the most dangerous new addition was the Beast. No one got a good look at it and survived, those that did only saw a flash of green, heard the rumbling of something so much larger than it should be. No one knew what it was, or what it used to be, just that it ate anything it wanted to and was probably about the size of a semi-truck trailer.

The best trader in Toronto was Evelyn. A perky blonde who wore pink zebra stripped leggings and a faded green army jacket. Her blonde hair always glistened in the sun, and she was always skipping about and humming songs from before the fall of our civilization. She was important to my mission, and it's not for the reason you would think.

You're right in thinking that she has the best job. She trades with all the high up Collectors and Services. She was a go between for all the farms, had Michael Morton, the person in charge of the Brewery in her pocket, and she traded with three of the most dangerous Collectors, James Peterson who collected old music and weapons; Dorian Flemming, who collected females both alive and undead for his experiments and very odd fashion shoes; and Tiberius, who ran a Gladiator ring in what was left of the Skydome.  The only one she didn't trade with was Sierra who ran the Carnal Circus—a literal hole in the wall that ran sexual encounters for the sick minded people with both male and female; undead or alive—and no one could tell me why.

Evelyn also had the safest house, and in a world where safety was the number one concern you can see why everyone wanted to break into it and take it from her. The Shady Mansion was literally a fortress. It had a moat with spikes just below the surface, trigger plates under the fake grass, rigged with spikes that shot up or electric currents. It had reinforced steel shutters that clamped down on all openings when the place was attacked. It even had a draw bridge.

Sure she was also said to be a little crazy, I mean the girl did experiments on zombies in her house. She had a little maze underground that she would run them through and watch from the grating on the top. I had watched her push live victims in as reward for the zombies and punishment for trying to get into her compound. But as far as I could tell she was living alone, which was highly unheard of during this time. Being alone was dangerous, but so was being in a group with more than twenty people. I guess with a house like hers she probably didn't need people. I had heard rumors that her house practically ran itself.

Evelyn was a hoarder, kept all the good stuff for herself. I knew for a fact that she had more than one car and enough gas for all of them. She was rumored to have a whole basement filled with supplies and  She had her own electrical panel and fresh water. Not many places were still getting plumbing these days.

But that wasn't the real reason Evelyn was special. No, what made Evelyn special was that the zombies were scared of her.

You're probably thinking: What? Scared? Of her? And yes, that's exactly what I mean. Though no one knew why, Evelyn was the only person who could walk through a crowd of zombies and have them all part like the red sea for her. Sure she got attacked by the faster, stronger, zombies every now and again but for the most part the zombies left her alone. A talent like that was highly coveted. 

However, I didn't just want to know how Evelyn kept the zombies at bay, I wanted her life.

And I, Melissa Burrows, was going to be the first person to succeed in taking all that from her.