We were near the exit door of an ancient mining cavern, and our food supplies were dwindling very low. We ran up the wooden ladder to the platform at the top, where we paused for just an instant. One of the several in our small party held in front of me a sandwich one a white plate. "I've found a way to make zombie meat safe for human consumption."

I raised an eyebrow. A lump in the middle began throbbing and slowly getting bigger. "Ew."
"I think we'd better throw that away."
"Good idea."

We opened the door and crept across a sepulchre field of grass, somewhat darkened in its early stage of rot. The sky was completely overcast.

We came inside a brick safehouse, the place where one of the initial zombie attacks happened years ago. I remember it well. I was walking through this kitchen, with brick red walls and white cabinets. In retrospect, they kind of reminded me of blood. I was walking through a passage of these white cabinets, more like a tunnel of them, with a low-hanging ceiling and doors on all sides.

Inside the tunnel I came to a place with a metal sink and a stack of paper cones for filling with water, so I took one. A zombie dropped upside down from one of the ceiling cabinet doors and I screamed.

Here we were again, and allegedly the place had been sterilized and made a center for refugees. Many people stood around, and while the others were talking, I walked over to the sink again to get some water, this time knocking on ceiling cabinet doors all the way. I took a paper cup from the vending machine.

No zombie popped out, but a refugee with light blonde hair and a buzzcut turned to me. He said, "You know, Rachel, zombies don't have to partake of the whole human for you to get infected. You can just steal a heart, or a lung..."

He jolted and the whites of his eyes turned a distant grey, and his whole body took a pale demeanor. All the other refugees did likewise.

"But even then you can act like a normal person and lead a relatively normal life with complete control of your senses. But you'll be with us -- forever."

He leapt. I screamed "No!" over and over until I woke up.