A Rational Zombie

I shot the prey with an arrow. When I did, it stumbled forward. Then it turned around, charged at me while shouting. How scary. It’s extremely good at killing others with knives. That’s why I ran. I should’ve aimed for its leg instead of its shoulder. I thought disabling its arm would let the others defeat it. How was I supposed to know it’d chase me instead?

Compared to the others, I’m harder to kill. I have a dome protecting my head, armor protecting my limbs. But the prey is confident, chasing me. If it didn’t have a way to kill me, it would’ve taken a different course of action. I’ve killed armored prey with a knife before. This prey can do the same to me. I have to run in a curve; that way, I’ll end up behind the group of others. If it continues chasing me, it’ll run into them again.

“Stop running, bastard! I’ll fucking kill you!”

It’s catching up. By running in a curve, I’m moving a little closer to it. All it has to do is adjust its direction. Then what do I do? Since when were prey this fast? No, it makes sense. Its legs are longer than mine. It looks like it’s carrying less than me too. If we continue at this rate, I’ll die. It already said it’d kill me after catching me. Now I know how prey feel when I injure their legs, take my time to hunt them. But there’s a difference. I’m not injured. I can fight back. This prey is chasing me because it isn’t scared of me. I have to change that.

I threw my bow to the side, grabbed the hole-digging tool from off my back. While running, I couldn’t replace them like I normally did. There’s no one around to take my bow. It didn’t matter if I discarded it that way. Once I grasped the hole-digging tool with both hands, I stomped down with my right foot, pivoted around it while swinging the tool. I almost fell over. But I didn’t. The tool hit the prey’s hip. Then I fell over from the impact.

“Fucker!”

Somehow, the prey was unfazed. The hole-digging tool had cut through its armor, causing it to bleed. Even though part of its leg was injured, it didn’t care. It didn’t care when the arrow hit its shoulder either. What was wrong with this prey? Now that I’m on the ground, I’m at a disadvantage. There’s no way I can swing the tool without my legs. So I let go, switched to the knives that I kept in my bag with the arrows. The prey stepped on my right arm, then it swung down at my head with its knife.

The glass on my dome cracked. The prey’s knife didn’t go through. I thought I was going to die. Before it could attack again, I used my knife with my left hand, stabbed the prey’s leg. It pierced its armor, sinking in firmly. Good. But the prey didn’t care. Its leg didn’t move off my arm. Instead it screamed, stabbing down at my head again. The glass shattered. Luckily, the knife missed my eye, stabbing below instead.

I pulled my knife out of its leg, then I stabbed again, higher. This time, its leg slipped off my arm. Without it stopping my movements, I dodged its next attack by jerking my torso to the side. Its knife sank into the ground. With the knife in my right hand, I stabbed up, striking its arm. With one shoulder injured by an arrow, its other arm injured by a knife, it can’t attack me so freely. Or so I thought. It stepped on my face. Vision disappeared from my left eye. It was already lifting its leg, about to stomp down again.

“Just fucking die already!”

If I could speak, I’d say the same words back to it. Instead of dodging its stomp by rolling, I brought my head up to meet its foot at its peak, stopping it from coming down. Then I stabbed at its calf with both my knives, stabbing repeatedly even as it pulled back. Injuries didn’t affect this prey as much. But they still had an effect. Lots of injuries had a large effect. It finally fell over. It screamed when the arrow in its back sank even deeper into its shoulder, appearing out the front side of its body. I stabbed the arm I injured with my knife. When I couldn’t tell it was an arm anymore, I moved on to the other arm. Then its legs. At that point, it stopped moving. But it was still shouting at me. Was this even a prey? Or was it a talking other? Why was it so hard to kill, able to ignore everything I did to it? Terrifying. I hope I never run into another prey like it.

I can’t see out of my left eye. I thought it was a temporary thing when its foot made contact with my face. But it did more damage than I thought. At least I’m not dead. If it had a knife on the bottom of its foot, I would’ve died. Maybe I should do that, attach knives to the bottom of my feet. But that’d make walking difficult. The prey finally stopped shouting. I stabbed its neck a few times to make sure it was dead. Then I took its dome off. It looked like a normal prey. Maybe there was something wrong with its brain. I wiped my knives on my pants, put them back into my bag. Then I grabbed my metal stick. With a few swings, I cracked the prey’s head open.

The prey’s brain looked no different from any other prey’s brain. It definitely wasn’t an other; it’s brain would be green if it was. I took its brain out, lifted my visor. But the visor was already broken, there wasn’t anything to lift. So I bit into the brain. How odd. Brains always taste the same. There really was something wrong with this prey. Its brain tasted spicy.