Apocalypse: After Reanimation, I Became The Queen-Chapter 80: _ Talking Zombie

If that talking zombie indeed exists and it killed Lucas’s friends, what if Vic is trying to kill us too?

His voice echoes in my head.

"I remember everything. Our childhood, the time we got lost in the woods, your terrible cooking..."

And Dom? Dom’s just beaming. He looks one tear away from throwing his arms around Vic’s decaying neck and singing campfire songs.

That’s why idiots die first in an apocalypse. What the heck is he thinking?!

I, on the other hand, am gripping my pistol like a life preserver in the middle of shark-infested waters.

Something is wrong.

I feel it in the way Vic tilts his head just a bit too slow. In the way his mouth moves a moment behind the words. In the way he’s smiling even though his face is a buffet of rot.

Zombies don’t smile.

They also don’t talk, reminisce, or wave like they’re hosting a goddamn barbecue.

"Dom, step back!" I bark, raising my pistol with both hands.

He jerks toward me like I slapped him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Lucas warned me. A talking zombie. Pretended to be human, fought his friends and then tore them to pieces."

Dom glances at Vic who’s still just standing there—then back at me.

"You think Vic can turn into something like that?"

I don’t answer because that’s a lame question. If you want to survive in such a shitty world, don’t question threats. You shoot them down without a single bit of hesitation.

And thus, I fire.

The bang splits the air like thunder and sends birds flapping from the trees. But Vic yanks himself to the floor like a sack of bones before the bullet can kiss his forehead.

Dust and leaves explode behind him.

The bastard ducked. He ducked?!

My heart tries to punch out of my chest. I aim again.

"Don’t!" a family voice suddenly thunders from somewhere close.

"What the—?"

Benji crashes through the underbrush like a wrecking ball made of adrenaline and anger. He grabs my wrist while I’m still aiming and wrenches the pistol sideways.

"Benji?!" Dom shouts.

I blink at the absolute mess of him. Blood is streaked across his shirt, grime on his face, hair wild like he went twelve rounds with the forest and lost nine of them.

"Benji?" I repeat dumbly.

He glares at me like I just kicked his dog. "What the hell are you doing, Garth?!"

What the fuck did he mean? Is he also questioning my trying to gun that corpse down? I expect better from Beni. At least, he ought to know better than Dom who is ridden by emotions.

I snarl. "Trying to keep us alive!"

Benji doesn’t let go of my arm. "By shooting the one person who saved my ass?!"

"Saved your—he’s dead, Benji! Vic is dead! What you saw is just... a puppet! A meat puppet with a memory glitch!"

I hypothesize that whatever that thing was from last night, it turned Vic into this. Vic is its puppet and hell, I don’t know how he’s able to talk, but I’d be damned before letting him fool us and kill us after we dropped our guards.

"Wrong," Benji growls. "I saw him. I know it’s him."

I yank my arm free and take a shaky breath. "We can’t risk it. You don’t know what kind of thing he’s become."

Benji’s jaw clenches. His next words drop like stones. "All the kids are dead, Garth."

That silences me. I stare at him, words dying in my throat. Dead?

Dead kids. Dead grannies, dead men, dead women... dead everything. That’s what a fucking apocalypse looks like.

This is why Vic needs to go back to being dead. Because if he doesn’t, we will be added to the ’dead everything’ list.

Benji looks... older. Like the news aged him five years.

"They didn’t make it," he says quietly. "The shaft collapsed. I got some of them down. Then the supports went. We got pinned. I was the only one left breathing."

I swallow. "Jesus..."

"I was gonna die too. Then he found me." He jerks a thumb toward Vic, who is still crouched where he ducked the bullet, one hand raised like he’s waiting for the all-clear.

"He pulled me out. Dragged me through a dozen rotters. He kept me alive, Garth."

"That’s convenient," I mutter.

Benji steps closer with burning eyes. "You think I wouldn’t know if it was a trick? If it wasn’t really him?"

"I think you’re traumatized. I think you just watched a massacre. And I think you want to believe he’s real because the alternative is too painful."

"Boys!" Trish’s voice cuts in our debate.

She pops up from the cellar entrance, swiping soot from her brow. Her shirt’s soaked with sweat, machete swinging in one hand. She hasn’t looked at the group yet.

"Benji and the kids aren’t down there," she calls, stepping fully into the clearing. "It’s just..."

She stops abruptly. Her eyes land on Benji. She freezes like a deer caught in headlights.

Then?

She sprints.

"BENJI!"

He doesn’t have time to prepare. She slams into him with a force that would’ve cracked ribs if she wasn’t so small compared to him, hugging him like a starved bear. Dirt smears across both their faces as she buries hers into his shoulder.

"You’re okay," she breathes. "You’re okay..."

Benji nods into her hair. "I’m okay."

She pulls back, teary-eyed, and smacks him across the chest. "You dumb son of a bitch! You were supposed to come out the other way!"

He winces. "Yeah, I know. Plans changed."

She looks ready to kiss him and throw him into a pit. I understand her excitement and relief. We’ve lost so many people even way before we embarked on this mission.

Back at the base, from many other missions, we’ve lost a lot. Seeing Benji, whom the best of our gamble was on the stake, that he’s probably dead would have been as emotional for Dom and me had Vic not gotten in the picture.

Trish finally sees Vic. Her body tenses like a coiled spring.

"What is that?" she asks.

Benji stiffens. "Trish..."

"No. No no no." Her hand is already on her sidearm. "Is that Vic?"

"Technically..."

"Is that a dead Vic standing upright and smiling at me like he’s about to recite a TED Talk?"

Damn right, Trish. Damn right.

"He’s not dangerous," Benji insists. "He saved me."

Trish squints at Vic. He smiles nervously and waves again. Her survival instincts kick in like a reflex which is literally the mist rational thing in a world gone to shit.

The pistol’s out and then, Vic speaks.

"Hey, Tris. You look good. Bit muddy." He gulps.

She freezes. That half-second hesitation saves his life.

"He talks?" she hisses.

"He talks," I confirm grimly.

Trish’s gun is trembling in her grip. "Oh, hell no."

"Wait!" Benji says. "Just—just wait. He’s still Vic. Somehow. He remembers stuff. He knew things no one else would. I’d be dead if not for him."

Trish’s jaw works like she’s chewing glass. "So now what? We just... hang out with a corpse that remembers our birthdays?"

"I’m not just a corpse," Vic says mildly.

"Shut up, Vic," I growl.

He raises both hands again. "Fair."

I step forward and begin to speak in a quiet authoritative tone. "I don’t know what you are. But Lucas saw his friends ripped to shreds because of a talking zombie that lured them in."

"That wasn’t me," Vic says.

"I know, but it is something like you. How do we know you aren’t trying to save us up to munch on later?"

"You don’t," he admits.

I open my mouth but something about the honesty in his tone halts me.

Trish sighs and lowers the pistol a notch, still not holstering it. "This is bad. We’re arguing over whether to kill someone we already thought was dead."

Benji wipes a hand down his face. "We need to think."

Dom finally speaks up. His tone is soft and tentative. "What if... what if Vic’s not a puppet? What if he’s something new?"

I glare at him. "That doesn’t make it better, Dom. That makes it worse."

Vic clears his throat, like someone gently trying to interrupt a very tense family dinner. "Look. I don’t know what happened. I remember dying. The pain. The screams. Then... nothing. And then I was back. I was me. But not me. I know I’m not alive. I feel it. But I also know I’m not like the rest of them."

His words are just there. I can almost see them as no one picks them up. Because none of us... none of us know what to do with them.

"I don’t want to hurt you. I just... want to help." He finishes.

Trish looks at me. "Garth?"

Of course, when it’s time to decide whether to shoot our friend or not, they call Garth. But when I say to find Lucas first and Benji later, they don’t listen.

Now, we’ve come to find Benji only to discover he’s fine and kicking. Fine enough to defend a zombie.

Albeit a talking one.