Ashes to Ashes

The first body I ever saw wasn’t moving.

That’s important, because it meant I didn’t scream.

She was face-down in the street, one arm twisted beneath her like it had forgotten where it belonged. Her hair—once blonde, I thought—was matted dark with something that wasn’t rain. I stood on the sidewalk across from her, frozen, grocery bag digging into my fingers, the smell of rotting fruit leaking through the plastic.

I told myself she was asleep.I told myself she’d fallen.

I told myself anything that meant I didn’t have to step closer.

The city was too quiet. No cars. No voices. No sirens. Just the low hum of wind through broken windows and the buzzing of flies already brave enough to land.

I took one step forward.

Her fingers twitched. That was when I learned the dead don’t need permission to move.

She rolled slowly, joints cracking like old wood. Her face was wrong—skin pulled tight, lips torn back to show teeth that looked too big for her mouth. One eye stared at me, cloudy and unfocused. The other was gone entirely, a dark, wet hollow crawling with insects.

She made a sound. Not a scream. Not a word.

Just a wet, hungry moan that scraped straight down my spine.

I dropped the grocery bag. Apples spilled across the road, rolling, bouncing, absurdly alive. The smell of blood mixed with rot hit me as she pushed herself upright, movements slow but determined, like gravity was the only thing she remembered.

I ran.

My shoes slapped against the pavement, breath tearing out of my chest in sharp, panicked bursts. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could hear her—dragging feet, the uneven rhythm of something that should have stopped moving days ago.

I didn’t understand it yet, not really.

I still thought this was a nightmare. Still thought I’d wake up.

I burst through the door of my apartment building and slammed it shut, hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the lock. The sound echoed too loud in the stairwell. I pressed my back against the door, heart hammering, waiting for impact.

It never came.

After a minute, then two, then ten, I slid down to the floor and laughed. A broken, hysterical sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

“See?” I whispered to the empty stairwell. “You’re fine.”

That was a lie.

I didn’t know it yet, but that woman was only the first. The easiest. The kindest the dead would ever be.

By nightfall, I would learn how hard a skull really is.

By morning, I would learn how much blood screams make.

And by the end of the week, I would stop apologizing when I killed them.

But for now, I sat on the floor with my knees pulled to my chest, listening to the city rot outside, still innocent enough to believe being alone was safer than being loved.

Night fell like a knife.

The city outside wasn’t quiet anymore. It was alive in ways that made my stomach twist. Doors banged in the wind—or maybe someone—or something—was hitting them. Glass shattered in distant streets. A child screamed once, then silence, the kind of silence that makes you realize screams are optional when teeth and hunger exist.

I pressed myself against the wall, stomach twisting, listening. Every shadow moved differently at night, stretching long and unnatural. My apartment, which had seemed safe in the afternoon, now felt like a cage.

I hadn’t eaten since morning. The apples I’d dropped were gone, half eaten by flies, half rotting into the pavement. I tried to ignore the smell. Tried to pretend hunger was worse than fear.

Then I heard it.

A soft gurgle, a wet, dragging sound from the street below. I froze, straining to see through the cracked blinds.

There.

A man. Not moving like the woman from before. This one… staggered upright too fast, jerking, twitching. A group of people—neighbors I recognized—stood in the street. They had cornered him.

“Michael!” someone screamed.

The man swung blindly, lashing out. Teeth sank into flesh. One of the neighbors—tall, strong—went down with a wet snap of bone and a scream that cut through the night.

I watched, frozen. Blood sprayed like a grotesque fountain, warm and dark against concrete. The man didn’t stop. He tore. He chewed.

Then it happened.

The neighbor who’d been bitten fell. Just like that. Staggered backward, trembling, clawing at his neck. Blood leaked fast, dark and sticky, and then—like magic, like some cruel joke—he stopped screaming. His eyes went blank, unseeing. Limbs jerking once, twice, then still.

And then he got up.

I couldn’t breathe. My throat closed.

The neighbor—dead, broken, bloodied—turned toward his friends. And they screamed.

I learned then that bites were not just wounds. They were the promise of death. The slow, irreversible transformation. The infected didn’t heal. They didn’t survive—they ceased to exist. And in their place… something else grew. Something hungry. Mindless.

I vomited. The sound drew attention. The creatures—both the freshly bitten and the old dead—heard me. They were slow, yes, but relentless. The man I’d just watched transform stumbled toward my building. Another screamed. Another collapsed into him. Teeth tore. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed into the night, the city turning into a canvas of red, black, and moaning horror.

I slammed the blinds.

And for the first time, I understood.

I was eighteen. Alone.

And there was no waking up from this nightmare.

The bite didn’t just hurt.

It killed.

And what came after… would leave nothing behind but teeth and hunger.

The blinds weren’t enough.

I heard it before I saw it—soft, wet thumps on the fire escape outside my window. A scratching, dragging, like fingernails on metal. My chest slammed against my ribs. My hands trembled so hard I could barely grip the baseball bat I’d found in the closet.

The first one—face pressed against the glass—looked human at first. I almost gasped. Then the nose broke. The jaw came loose. Teeth. Too many. Eyes milky, empty. The thing moaned. A low, wet, hungry sound that made my stomach lurch.

It was her.

The blonde woman from the street. Only… worse. Skin hanging in folds. Hair plastered to her skull with blood. She dragged herself against the metal grate like a spider.

I wanted to scream.

I couldn’t.

The bat shook in my hands. My mind screamed: Run. Don’t fight. Run.

But I couldn’t.

She reached through the bars. Fingers curling around my window frame, nails sharp, clawing at me. The smell—rotting flesh, iron, something sweet and wrong—hit me full force. My stomach turned. My throat closed.

I swung.

The bat connected with her skull with a wet, sickening crunch. Blood splattered across the wall and onto my arms. I gagged. She didn’t stop. Her head wobbled on her neck like it had forgotten the rules. I swung again. And again.

It took minutes. I lost count. Each strike tore something. Teeth splintered. Bone cracked. Flesh flew. I screamed finally, half from terror, half from the rage that burned in me because I had to survive.

When it stopped moving—truly stopped—I leaned against the wall and sobbed. Hands shaking, drenched in gore, tasting iron in my mouth.

And then I noticed the bite.

On her arm—the first I had seen up close. Tiny punctures. Simple. But enough. Enough to turn anyone into this. Anyone I might have known, anyone I might have tried to save.

I pressed my hands to my mouth. Couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop thinking.

I realized something horrifying: surviving wasn’t just about hiding.

It wasn’t about running.

It was about doing this.

Killing.

Slowly, quietly, until nothing else was left.

I cleaned up as best I could. Rags from the kitchen, water from the sink. Nothing would ever really remove it. The smell clung to me. My hands would never feel clean. My mind would never be the same.

I sat in the corner, bat across my lap, listening to the night. The thumps outside never stopped. The city groaned with hunger. Somewhere, a scream was cut short by the crunch of teeth on bone.

I closed my eyes.

And when I opened them again, I knew I would have to do it tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

Because the bite didn’t just kill.

It created.

It turned people I loved—people I didn’t even know yet—into monsters.

And monsters don’t stop.

I didn’t think the dead were the only things I needed to fear.

The apartment had seemed empty. Too quiet. Like the calm before everything ended. I had locked the front door, braced it with a chair. I had convinced myself the night was mine.

Then the knocking started.

At first, faint. Slow. Hesitant.

Bang… bang… bang.

I froze. Heart hammering, stomach twisting into knots. Whoever it was knew I was here.

And then the door to the kitchen burst open. The chair I had wedged against the front door went flying across the floor. Shards of wood skittered like tiny skeletons across the tile.

Two men stood in the doorway, guns raised. High-powered, military-looking. Black masks. Cold eyes.

I screamed. My legs gave out, and I ran—the only escape: the bathroom. Small, windowless. Claustrophobic. My chest hit the wall. I fumbled with the lock.

Click.

The sound of their boots on tile stopped just outside.

“Don’t move,” one said, voice low but calm. Metal scraped against tile as they shifted their guns.

I pressed my back to the wall, shaking. I wanted to beg. I wanted to run. I wanted to die.

“I’m not—” I started.

“Quiet,” the second one interrupted.

I could feel their eyes on me, piercing through the thin bathroom door. The smell of gun oil and leather filled the air. I was sure they were going to shoot.

I thought of the bite. I thought of the dead.

I thought of the blonde woman’s skull cracking under my bat.

And still, I could not move.

Then a voice—soft, almost human under the masks—said, “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

Safe.

I laughed. A short, hysterical sound that made my chest ache. “Safe? From what?”

“From them,” he said, and the other nodded. “We’re scavengers. Survivors. Same as you. But we… don’t kill unless we have to.”

I pressed my forehead to the cold tile, shaking. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to scream, to cry, to run—anywhere. But my body wouldn’t move.

After a long minute, they stepped back. One whispered to the other. Their guns lowered slightly. I could hear their boots retreat down the hall.

I collapsed to the floor, hands pressed over my face, trying to steady my racing heart. My stomach churned. My skin was slick with sweat and grime.

I had survived the dead.

I had survived my first kill.

And now—

I had survived men.

For the first time, I realized something terrifying: the world wasn’t just full of monsters that walked.

It was full of monsters that walked and thought.

And some of them could be scarier than the dead.

The city was worse than I imagined.

I left the apartment at first light, clutching a backpack filled with scraps I’d scavenged—cans, a half-empty bottle of water, a small pocketknife. My sneakers slipped over broken glass and dried blood. The streets were silent except for the occasional groan of something I prayed was far away.

Everything I passed reminded me of what I had lost. A collapsed fire escape with a hand stuck between the bars. A playground where a swing moved back and forth, empty, like a hand had just let go. Cars abandoned in the middle of streets, doors open, trunks ripped wide. The smell of rot and iron hung heavy in the air.

And then I saw him.

A man—or what was left of him—kneeling in the middle of the street, clutching his arm. Fresh bite marks on his shoulder, his neck slick with dark blood. He screamed, and I froze. Not because I wanted to help, but because I had seen this before.

It was fast this time.

One moment, he was alive, terrified, flailing. The next, his body convulsed violently. Foam bubbled at the edges of his mouth. His skin turned pale, then gray. Limbs jerked in spasms that made me step back in horror. And then, just like that… he was still.

I watched, helpless, as he rose again—blank eyes, slack jaw, the dead walking slowly toward the nearest apartment building.

A sob tore from my throat.

I had learned the hard way that there was no saving anyone once they were bitten. No begging, no bargaining, no tears. The bite didn’t just wound—it claimed. And the world didn’t wait for you to accept it.

I turned, running through the alleyways, every sense screaming at me. The smell of blood followed me, thick in the air. Every shadow was a threat. Every sound made my pulse spike.

I slipped into a small corner store. The door was hanging off its hinges, shelves ransacked. Cans spilled across the floor. A puddle of something dark and sticky pooled near the back. I gagged. I thought of the blonde woman. I thought of the man in the street.

And then I heard it: footsteps.

Slow, deliberate. Not human. But not far away either.

I grabbed a rusted pipe from behind the counter. My hands shook so violently I nearly dropped it. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that sooner or later, someone—or something—was going to corner me.

And I was going to have to fight.

Because survival wasn’t about hiding anymore.

It was about doing what I never thought I could.

I raised the pipe.

And the alley outside the broken window was empty.

For now.

But I knew the dead didn’t wait.I didn’t see them at first.

The alley was narrow, walls of brick pressed in on either side. Broken glass crunched under my sneakers. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might tear through my chest.

And then I heard voices.

“Stay where you are!” one of them barked.

I froze. My hands went to my face. My pulse raced. Guns?

Two figures stepped into the light, black-clad, masks covering most of their faces. One was taller, broader—Ryder, I would later know—but I didn’t know that yet. The other—smaller, younger, Jace—moved with a fluidity that was unsettling.

I screamed and turned, but the alley was blocked. I was trapped.

“Don’t move,” the taller one said again, low and calm.

I pressed myself against the wall, shaking. My eyes darted between them, desperate, imagining the worst. I thought of the dead. I thought of bites. I thought of my first kill.

I was terrified of these strangers—human strangers.

Then something strange happened. They lowered their weapons slightly. Not fully, just… enough to signal they weren’t here to hurt me.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the shorter one said, voice calmer, tinged with sarcasm. “Just… stay still.”

The taller one’s gaze didn’t waver. Cold. Intense. Protective. Watching me. Judging me.

I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to disappear.

But I didn’t.

Because outside the alley, the dead were starting to gather. A shuffling, moaning horde, slow but inevitable. Their footsteps crunching broken glass like nails on a coffin lid.

One of them—tall, broken, bloody—noticed us. A bite survivor, rising. Its eyes blank and dead, its teeth glinting.

I froze.

Ryder acted first. A gunshot cracked the air. The zombie dropped. Another fell. Two more. The shorter one, Jace, moved like a shadow, precise, lethal.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I watched as they cleared the alley, protecting me without a word.

When it was over, the city was silent again—except for my own ragged breathing.

“Are you… okay?” Jace asked, lowering his weapon but not taking his eyes off me. His voice was teasing, almost soft, but it carried authority.

“I—I think so,” I stammered.

Ryder stepped closer, his presence massive and controlled. “You should’ve stayed hidden.”

I swallowed hard. “I—I couldn’t.”

They didn’t laugh. They didn’t scold me. They didn’t make me feel small. But I could feel it—the weight of their eyes, the way they assessed me, measured me.

And for the first time since the dead came, I realized something terrifying:

I wasn’t alone anymore.

I didn’t know if I could trust them.

I didn’t know if I wanted to.

But I had no choice.The morning sun didn’t reach the alley.

I huddled against the wall, still trembling from the night before, when they spoke again. Ryder’s voice was calm, low, precise.

“You can’t stay out here alone,” he said.

“I… I wasn’t alone,” I whispered, knowing how weak it sounded.

Jace stepped closer, leaning against the brick with casual ease, though his eyes didn’t miss a single detail. “Yeah, well… alone isn’t exactly safe. Even for someone who thinks they’re careful.”

I wanted to snap. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. Something in the way they moved, in the way Ryder’s gaze lingered just a moment too long, told me they meant it. They weren’t predators. Not yet.

“You’re going to have to come with us,” Ryder said. His tone left no room for argument, but it wasn’t threatening. More… commanding. Protective.

I nodded because I had no other choice.

We moved together, carefully through broken streets. I kept my eyes on the shadows, my hands tight around the pipe I carried, ready for the dead, ready for anything.

The silence between them was strange. Not uncomfortable, but tense, filled with the weight of unspoken things.

Jace spoke first, breaking it. “So… you survived the first night. That’s impressive. Most girls… don’t.” He smirked faintly, but there was no malice. Only a little teasing.

I glanced at him, heart hammering. “I didn’t do anything… impressive. I… I just stayed alive.”

Ryder’s eyes snapped to me, piercing. “You killed. That counts.”

I froze. My stomach churned at the memory—the first kill, the blood, the teeth. I hadn’t thought of it as strength. I thought of it as horror.

“You shouldn’t have seen that,” I whispered.

“You needed to,” Ryder said softly. The first time his voice wasn’t commanding but almost… comforting. My chest tightened.

Jace chuckled, almost nervously. “She has a point. No one’s supposed to survive that alone.”

We moved in silence again, winding through empty streets. I watched them. They were careful, alert, but every once in a while their eyes flicked to me. Measuring. Watching. Like I was fragile, but important.

Important.

The word echoed in my head. I had forgotten what that felt like. Important to someone. Safe, maybe. Not just surviving, but… cared for.

A groan from the street behind us snapped me back. I froze.

Ryder raised his gun. Jace moved beside him, silent, lethal. The two of them together were unstoppable, and for the first time, I realized… I might not need to run. I might not need to fight alone.

And the thought scared me more than the dead ever had.

Because trusting them… trusting anyone… was dangerous.

But running from them? That might be even more deadly.The city smelled of rot, and the streets were empty—too empty. I followed Ryder and Jace through the broken roads, trying to keep my breathing steady, trying not to make a sound. Every step felt like stepping on glass, every shadow a threat.

“Stay close,” Ryder said, his voice low and commanding. I nodded without thinking. My eyes darted between him and Jace. Ryder’s tall frame moved with a predator’s grace, every step precise. Jace was quicker, lighter, eyes scanning constantly, ready for anything.

Then I heard it—a low, dragging groan coming from an alley to our right.

“Zombies,” Jace muttered. “Two. Maybe three.”

I froze. My hands tightened on the pipe I carried.

Ryder stepped in front of me. “Don’t freeze,” he said. His hand brushed my shoulder for a fraction of a second—a touch I wasn’t ready for, but couldn’t pull away from.

The first one stumbled into the street, slow, jerky movements. Its head lolling unnaturally. One of its eyes hung half-shut, the other milky white.

Jace fired first. A sharp crack rang out, and the zombie dropped. The other two moved faster than I expected. Ryder swung the butt of his gun, striking the second one in the skull. It fell, twitching.

I panicked, swinging my pipe wildly. One of them lurched toward me. Teeth snapped inches from my arm. I hit it with everything I had. Bone cracked. Flesh tore. The stench hit me, thick and iron-heavy. I gagged but kept swinging.

Jace moved beside me, guiding my arms, correcting my swings. “Don’t hesitate!” he yelled. “Hit it in the head! Hard!”

I obeyed. I hit it. Hard. Blood sprayed across my arms, my face, and the alley wall. The thing twitched once, twice, then finally collapsed.

Ryder was beside me before I could catch my breath, his eyes scanning, calculating.

“You did well,” he said, and for a second, the coldness in his tone softened.

I looked at him. My hands shook, slick with blood.

“I… I didn’t kill it fast enough…”

“You survived,” Jace said, smirking faintly. “That counts.”

I swallowed hard. My stomach still turned. My heart raced. But the terror that had gripped me before… it had shifted slightly. With them beside me, I could fight. I could survive.

And maybe… I could trust them.