[The Most Uncommon Cold 01] • Life in the Time of Zombies

“Wha…what…hap… happened t…to me?” She stuttered and slurred, but her words could be understood. Her eyes were still glassy as she slowly turned her head to look at me.

I took me a few seconds to respond. Replying to someone who was just a moment earlier to all appearances dead has a way of taking your breath away. Eventually, I managed to say, “Well, I don’t really know, I...uh...came in and there was a man in...airport coveralls named James and...”

“I f-feel cold,” she muttered slowly as if she had not heard me. Sluggishly and with difficulty, she raised herself at the waist. She looked down at her bloody body surveying the damage. Until this point, I had not noticed that her right shoulder looked as if a bite had torn away a chunk of the flesh and her left cheek had four parallel deep scratches as if fingernails had ripped down the side of her face. I couldn’t see other wounds, but blood covered most of her light green uniform making it look black.

“You shouldn’t move!” I yelled. “Don’t move! I’ll go find a doctor!”

I was standing a few feet from her, but somehow she managed to twist around a reach my leg. I felt her hand grab hard into the skin of my calf.

“No, s-s-stay here,” she hissed as I yanked my leg free and backed away.

“You need a doctor!” I cried out as I spun around to leave.

When I reached the doorway, I looked back at her. She was still struggling to stand even as she slid her body toward me. A trail of smeared blood stayed on the white tile floor behind her. “Stay,” she hissed again, but I was already out the door.

Imagine a world in which nothing is as it should be. Those whom we love do not recognize us. The basic laws of society no longer apply. And the dead do not remain still. That is the world in which reporter Kevin Turner finds himself. Now finding out the facts of the story do not matter as much as finding a way to stay alive.

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