Excerpt: The Caliber of Souls

Sarah was understandably starting to freak out just a little bit more now. What had she just done? And why were her hands still seeming sort of greenish? Dropping the can of soup, she ran into the bathroom, flipping on the most powerful light that they had in there. Her skin? Definitely a greenish tinge. And her eyes…. Her eyes most of all seemed, for lack of a better word, dead. Her eyes seemed dead. And they were always the part of her that got the most compliments on dates. Now what was she going to get complimented on? The particular puce shade of her skin? It would make her dates vomit before they did anything else.
“Okay, it’s okay, I’m just dreaming. I am hungry, and tired and I worked too long. As soon as I get some soup, I will be okay. There is just some sort of dream that I am having, and when I wake up I will be at work, and everything will be normal.” Closing her eyes, she walked, as quickly as she could without seeming to run from her own reflection, out of the bathroom and back into the small kitchen with its one weak light. She did not feel like turning on anything stronger, because then she could just see her green skin again. Something was wrong, and she knew it, but she was going to try and ignore it for as long as possible.
As soon as she raised the spoon to her lips, however, her stomach protested. Not just growled, but protested, and if she swallowed the small sip of soup on her spoon, then she knew that it would never stay down. But Sarah was really hungry, and she was not entirely sure what would feed her.
The soup was obviously a no go. For one thing, she had forgotten to warm it up. That was, she told herself, why she did not want to eat it, but she knew somewhere deep down that was not the real reason. Nothing in the kitchen seemed to call for her, which was odd enough considering that this was the one real time that the kitchen was full when she got home from work. It looked like it was Chinese takeout time again, but she could not stand waiting for it. Grabbing her coat, ignoring the flash of green skin that she saw, she walked out the door again, making the short walk to the Chinese food place right down the street.
It served her favroties, and it was always where she ordered when she got home at three in the morning, or even in this case even later. She loved, for one thing, that it was twenty four hours service. It mad eher life a whole hell of a lot easier. Wheere else was she going to get food that late at night?
As soon as she walked in, the night manager looked up and smiled.
“Got a three am special coming right up for, you, Sarah!” he yelled, making suire the people in the back could hear him. She nodded, thanked him, plopping down at the first available seat. She did not really think that she wanted this Chinese food that night either, but it was her normal meal. If she did not want that, then what the hell would she want? She could at least wait and see what they were serving, (which was not really a surprise, becuas thtey knew her favorites by heart there, and would always serve her the same exact thing) and then eat it just to be nice. She had to get some food in her system so the weird freaking dream would stop.
They always kept some food ready for her late at night, and they knew the nights when she was working. It was pretty convienient, but then again, she brought them a lot of business. She was ravenous always agfter work because they never expected an intern to need a break or anything really, to eat. She would always have to eat when she went home, and that was always at the Chinese place. Soon enough, a plate fo nice hot Chinese food was wafting her way, carried by the smallest waiter she thought she had ever seen at the place. It was a woman, and she had never before worked on a night when Sarah had just gotten off work. Mostly, though, she just cared about getting some food in her roaring stomach. It was finally starting to react to something in the air, because she was suddenly finally aware of how ravenously hungry she was. Maybe she really was hungry for Chinese food.
“Your food, miss,” the waitress said, setting down the platter in front of her. Suddenyl, Sarah realized what smelled so amazing. It was not the amazing food in front of her. It was the woman’s brains. Instead of taking the proffered chopsticks, she instead jumped on the woman, frantically biting her head, trying to get the delicious braisn out.
Nobody else in the shop was moving. What could they possdibly do against a zombie attack? When Sarah had finished attacking her first victim, all they could do was stand around horrified, as she went for the next. The night manager was second, because even as a zombie, Sarah knew that he was the first person who could identify her. Anyway, she was a weird sort of tech zombie. She still had a semblance of a brain, anyway. Soon, she would not. But for the moment, she did, until she started attacking more and more people. The brains were becoming more and more irresistible to her, and each one that she devoured or even bit was more delicious than the last. It was like the quest to Candy Mountain, and each one led her further on her path to zombie salvation. She was doing her sacred duty, her dharma wsa to spread the zompbie apocalypse even farther, as she was only the progeny, the one whose mission it was in life (or in death) to spread her one way of life (or, again, death).
Weird things were starting to happen to the people she had bit, too. The waitress was the first to come back, her eyes zombified, her stance and posture like she could only hold herself up long enough to search for more breains, although whether it was for her or her master, no one left alive in the shop could really be sure,.
“BRAAAAAIIINS, BRAAAAIIINS,” was all anyone heard, before she was leaping at them, too. The shop was quickly devoured. No one could be left alive, after the onslaught of zombies that had suddenly but ferociously appeared in it. The shop was a cop’s worst nightmare. There was blood everywhere, but what would a cop know about zombies? Presumably, little to none. They would never be able to figure out what happened there, or especially what happened to the bodies, which had currently decided to walk outside into the park to see if they could find any fresher brains, or anything larger and more delicious. Zombies could be surprisingly agile when they wanted to be, or at least Sarah could. The rest of the zombies were just sort of working on it. They had attacked a few victims on their own, but mostly needed her help to get the victims’ actual brains out.
They were getting the hang of it rather quickly, actually, considering that zombies never really used their rbains, and were not known for being the smartest living dead, that title having gone to the vampires a long long time ago. Sarah, if she could still think, was thinking about going back to the apartment, because she knew Rihanna would still be asleep and that she would probably be the easiest next target, minus whatever poor unlucky soul was outside at six in the morning on a workday. Wait. She actually probably had to be pretty careful. Someone was going to notice that there was some sort of massacre in the Chinese place. Raising her arm, she signaled to the rest of the zombies. It was probably time to leave, and they would have to take the corpses with them, too. They were going to rise again at any minute, but Sarah could not wait too long. She wanted more brains, and her hunger was not going to abate any time soon. She just had to get back to the apartment and get Rihanna first. She needed some sort of intelligent buddy, and she was not really sure that any of the zombies could speak. At least if it was someone that she knew, in more than a ‘yeah I know you, here is what you always order’ sort of way, then she could possibly have a real conversation with them, other than ‘Brains grrr arghh, I can’t walk’, which was all she was getting from the rest of the zombies. It was starting to really tire her out.