A Rational Zombie

The deaths slowed a lot. The others are dying. But barely. A pointy stick stabs through a hole in the wall, killing an other. The corpse remains, not pushed away. Then the stick reappears from another hole, stabbing a different target. When the first corpse slides down, revealing the hole again, the pointy stick comes out. It’s not like before when the corpses would be pushed aside. And the others are more concentrated towards the doors, not as close to the walls as they were before. The others were supposed to die faster the less there were. What happened?

The closed door is thumping. Opening, closing, opening, closing. The others push; the prey push back. Did the others get stronger? No. They didn’t even eat. They couldn’t have gotten stronger. Then the prey became weaker. How? Why? Maybe their hunger is consuming them. I don’t think they had time to eat. Prey are sluggish at night. The sun just came out. The others have been pressuring them this whole time. The chances of them appeasing their hunger is slim. But that’s assuming prey’s hungers operate similarly to mine. I don’t see dumb prey wandering about, their brains consumed by hunger. Maybe it’s because the others eat those that do. That would explain why I don’t see them.

They were loud before, talking a lot. I couldn’t make out the words because the others groan too much. But the talking’s stopped completely. What exactly is going on? I wish I could see through the walls, inside the building. But I can’t. No prey have shown up at the door either, not giving me a chance to use my bow. And getting closer is dangerous. Even if it’s slower, others are dying. Then I’ll wait some more.

And it didn’t take too long for waiting to pay off. The door opened, pressed back by the others. The prey let out shouts and screams. The door pushed back. But it was too late, the others slipped inside. The prey at the door couldn’t shut it while fending off an other. Once the first other broke through, the rest flowed in with little resistance. But I’m too far back to get in now. I waited too far away, afraid of something happening that’d kill me unexpectedly. Because of that, the others will get to the prey first, maybe destroying something I could learn from in the process of eating. At least the others still haven’t figured out how to eat prey’s brains.

As expected, I was the last one in. The others took up a lot of space; I could barely walk around. They were crowding around four spots, four dead prey. Was that all there was? It seems like it. A few of the others didn’t try to compete for the prey. Maybe the mass of others blocked their view of the food. Their sense of smell was still blocked off; it makes sense if they didn’t see. Those others were in the back. It didn’t seem like there was any prey there since there weren’t any sounds of chewing. The back of the building had empty rooms. They smelled like prey. But it was only a lingering scent. The prey must spend a lot of time in these rooms, especially in these rectangular pieces of cloth. Is this where they spend the night during their sluggishness? Like the tents I saw back at the first camp with a fence. They had cloth rectangles inside of them too. The cloth rectangles are on top of a wooden frame above this springy box. A bed. Yes, that’s what it is. Prey rest in beds at night when they’re sluggish. I remember doing this before I lost my memory.

What else can I remember? There’s a box at the foot of the bed. Inside, there are clothes, the armored kind, black with green splotches. Not all of the prey were wearing these. Why? I’m not sure. But there’s no sign of the domes used to protect their heads. I already have armored clothes; it’s the domes I need. At the head of the bed, leaning against the wall, there’s a metal stick. And a pointy wooden stick. I already have a metal stick similar to this one. The pointy stick; these are what the prey used to stab through the holes in the walls. It’s a stick. With a sharp point. There’s nothing special about it. I can make something like this by myself. But since it’s here, I’ll take it. But where do I put it? Should I tie it to an other? Then I’d have to untie it. What if I stick it inside an other by stabbing it? As long as I don’t stab the other’s legs, it should still move. It works. But if the other wanders away from me, it’ll be out of hand. It’s fine. I think the metal stick is more useful anyway.

The other rooms inside of the building were similar to the one I was just in. A bed, a box, a stick. In some rooms, there were two beds. In the third room I went to, there was another openable brick. The letters were hard to decipher. I put the brick into my bag, saving it for later. In the room furthest to the back, I found something interesting: A shelf with jars on it. There was stink sauce inside some of the jars, a clear liquid inside of others. Underneath the shelf, there were bags filled with long grains of white sand. Rice was written on the side of the bags.

And then I smelled it. Blood. A wounded prey. The scent came from the window, untainted by the smell of others. From where I stood, I could only see trees outside. But the smell was definitely coming from outside. I went closer, sticking my head out. I heard a gasp from below. There was a pit, a trap with spikes. And inside of the pit, with a spike running through its foot, there was a prey.