Static

One never gets used to the smell.

Rot, is rot for a reason- Putrid, dead, and a cruel joke, to have turned the living into mobile, biting, snarling and shambling structures of... Rot.

What a cruel sense of final humor; one last flick in the nose of mankind. Or, in a specific man's nose.

My name is Walker.

It matches my own humor, which in some sense, may be as cruel as God's, since a man can't do much other than fucking walk anymore, but I'd rather be a walker than a shambler.

I miss my car. I miss my mediocre job as a pencil pusher. I miss people. REAL people.

"Gwaaar!"

"Shut UP, Steven! Can't you see I'm dramatically melancholy?! I'm looking out the window and everything!"

Another throaty "Raawrl," and the Shambler known as Steven, wriggled a touch too hard in his cozy, makeshift safety chair, the time eaten legs having cracked, then finally snapped, sending a mindlessly drooling and ever hungry Steven, straight to the peeling vinyl floor, where he wriggled against the ropes, his jaws clacking, his milky colored eyes holding me in all my snack-like glory. Classic Steven.

"You knock over my pork and beans, and I'm not gonna be a very unpleasant roommate, Steven!' I grumbled, moving from my place at the far wall of the studio flat, my shadow cast across the floor with the setting sun.

The world entered a deeper part of Hell when the sun went down, hence why I was here, in an apartment that didn't belong to me, and likely didn't belong to Steven either.

As my boots shuffled carefully past my slowly roasting can of Beanie Weenies, a delicacy in Hell, Steven snarled, snorted, and strained against the vinyl rope, his neck arching as he attempted a taste of my boot clad ankle.

"We talked about this, Steven," I said, sighing as I bent behind that chair, my hands upon the splintering slats of its back, "The Safety Chair is for BOTH OF us. You bite, and I am out of ammunition."

I grunted, planting the sole of my tattered boot against the floor as I lifted a whole two-hundred pounds of dead weight from the floor.

Heh... Dead weight.

"For a half rotten corpse, you're- Fuckin' heavy, Steve-," I grunted, halfway to getting my only company settled comfortably for dinner. A bump against my supporting leg had me distracted though, my whiskey-colored eyes snapping downward, top find a tattered leather wallet, and an old emergency radio, had fallen at my feet.

"Ooo!" I gasped excitedly past the puffs of exasperated breath, "You been holdin' out on me, Steven?" I asked, suddenly angry, releasing the chair, and allowing Steven to clatter back to the floor; His cheek slapped with a grisly smack against the linoleum.

"I thought we were friends," I said, bending, my raw, battered and gunpowder-stained fingers plucking those once pocketed goodies from the floor.

I decided Steven had earned where he lie, leaving him bound upon the floor while I carefully stepped over him and around my can of dinner, precariously perched upon a grill grate, my Bic lighter flickering beneath. I grinned as I sat cross legged upon the floor, my thumb flicking the radio on. The static filled radio waves were slightly comforting, especially over Steven’s constant garbling.

My first glimpse fell on a driver's license, my eyes skimming across the name.

“Blaine Van Holt,” I read, wincing and sympathetically looking over at my newest friend, “Thank God you can’t actually talk. Steven suits you so much better.”

I rummaged through that wallet, removing a handful of credit cards.

“I’m surprised the interest rate on those puppies isn’t what did you in,” I said in an irrelevant snark, laughing at my own joke, tossing each of those useless cards at Steven, attempting to make it into his unnaturally distended and thin jaw.

I won’t lie about celebrating when Mastercard made it into Steven’s mouth, his teeth noisily clacking against the plastic.

The tacking of Steven’s teeth on the card, and the static of the radio, were oddly harmonious.

One more dive into that wallet produced a small, heart-shaped piece of metal, pinched between my fingers. I smirked as a rolled that charm within the bowl of my palm.

“Steven, my boy!” I mused, shuffling that piece of locket in my hand, my grime striped nail beds pushing at the small clasp, working the bit of jewelry open, to reveal a creased and slightly aged photo of a woman.

She had smooth, carved features. A pair of thick, feathery lashes accented some of the most gorgeous sea green eyes I had ever seen, and the contrast of earthy brown hair against her milky skin..

My gaze trailed to an engraving upon the locket’s lid, the words, ‘Hannah Van Holt’.

“Stee-ven!” I jeered, a small whistle sounding between my teeth, “How’s your ugly ass land a girl like that?”

Steven snarled behind his half-chewed credit card.

“Daughter, then?” I asked, not that it mattered what Steven garbled.

I would only hear what I wanted to, anyway.

Closing that locket, I placed it back inside the wallet, when the sobering reality of my present life, came at me like a freight train.

Static and gargling, were the only things I would ever hear again.

Suddenly, that hum of dead radio waves, the throaty sounds of Steven’s hunger, and the sound of my own solitary heartbeat, thrummed in my head.

“Not again,” I grimaced, sliding back across the checkered floor to the far corner of that studio kitchen, my back against the cabinets.

My hands cupped my ears, my knees pulled to my chest as my heart raced within its cage.

The silence was so loud. Steven was loud. The static was isolating.

God, but I am alone.

Night is Hell. The day, the walking- It keeps me sane, busy, but the dark brought with it panic, and all the sober realities that were easy to forget in the day.

I am losing my mind. I feel it, but I have carried on, persevered, and all for a dusty corner and a can of shit food.

Steven’s gargling grew louder, the chair he was attached to thumped against the floor with his incessant squirming.

Static, gargling, squirming.

Suddenly, that static broke, and a voice flowed over those airwaves.

“Daddy?”

My hands slowly released my ears. My heart stopped its rattling within its cage, and my breath stilled. The static filled the air again, and for what felt like an eternity, that voice came again, “Dad, please, pick up the radio.”

I all but scrambled across the floor, crawling in the dirt and debris, my hands shaking as I swept that radio from the floor, rolling it around in my hands, my thumb pressing the response button.

Half a heartbeat went by as I fought for something, anything to say.

“A-Are you real?”

It was all I could manage to squeak into those airwaves.

It had been three years since Patient Zero became Patient Six-billion, and it had been well over six months since I had even heard the voice of another living soul.

“Dad, let me know you’re there,” that soft, feminine voice repeated, and my heart, sank into the floor.

“No. No, no!” I shouted, my fingers tapping that button repeatedly as I all but screamed into that radio.

Alive, but she couldn’t hear me.

“Dad, listen, It’s Hannah-,” that voice continued, despite the lack of response, my gaze shifting to Steven, the pair of us listening to that message, though only one of us would understand.

That voice began to quiver, choking up.

“Dad, there’s no one alive at the city’s quarantine zone,” Hannah cried, static breaking between her sniffles.

“You’re dead too, aren’t you? You can’t answer. Oh God, I’m alone..”

“No! No, Hannah, I am here!” I screamed, banging that walkie talkie against my palm.

“My name’s Walker, I’m alive, too!” I cried, begging for the static to carry my voice.

“I AM ALIVE!”

I slammed the radio upon the nearby counter, my hands stinging, my chest heaving, as my heart pounded in a way I had never felt.

I HEARD someone.

I swept through the room in all abandon, gathering that wallet, the locket, the radio, and I fled that apartment, running into the dark with all the strength I had left.

I never found Hannah.

I am hungry…

HUNGRY.