Somehow he was still not dead

This story has been written in response to L.C. Schäfer's proposal to spend 2024 losing my mind...sorry, I mean, choosing to write a microfiction story every day, making 366 stories for every day of this lovely leap year. You can check her original story out here:

Thanks to Alexander McEvoy for the prompt. You can check his work out here:

The prompt for this story is Somehow he was still not dead and so this is where the story begins.

***

Somehow he was still not dead. I'd clobbered him enough and still, he was crawling towards me, dirty fingernails on gnarled hands, inching to grab at me. I swallowed my panic but this was really not going well.

"How do I defeat you when you won't die?" I shouted in frustration.

And that's when everything got a lot weirder.

From the prostrate and frankly quite ingratiating position that the zombie had been in on the hard cellar floor, he uncurled his hand, leapt to his feet, brushed down his rather grubby and ragged attire and, looking quite alert and non-zombified said:

"Do you know nobody has ever asked me that?"

To say that I was completely taken aback by this would have been an understatement. I thought I was going to faint but no, I reached for wall, steadied myself and managed to produce a flat "What the fuck?"

The zombie, whose manners had become far more refined since it had become upright, winced a little at my swearing. I actually felt a little embarrassed, can you believe, now stars weren't flashing and my lightheadedness had receded.

And then, I remembered that I was in a dark cellar with a zombie intent on eating my brains and I was not able to kill him and I felt the adrenaline surge again. Fear is a great clarifier.

"Keep back!" To be fair, the zombie hadn't moved. He was still just standing then, quite upright, looking at me with half-bemusement, half-annoyance on his scabby face.

"Or what? You've just admitted you don't know how to kill me so I would say that I have the advantage, wouldn't you?"

He outstretched his hands and took two shambling steps towards me, resuming his less cognisant persona while I scrambled to position my trusty bat to hit his midriff if needed and hope it at least separated him out a bit. Although combatting two half zombies might be ill-advised too.

I trembled. My eyes bulged. This was it! I was about to lose my brains!

Then, black.

*

I opened my eyes. No brain leakage. On my chest, a single, dismembered, twitching finger and a note:

"Consider yourself saved...for now."

***

Exactly 336 words, I think, so just within the remit set. I often seem to end microfiction on a cliffhanger but I suppose, I can pick this up again further down the line with another story and link it up.

Never written anything with zombies before so that's a first. Quite enjoying this at the moment but I think that's because I feel ahead of the game. We'll see. I'm predicting ups and downs.

For the list of prompts that L.C. has provided for January to get you moving, if you want to partake, go to the link below. It also provides links to everybody else who has joined in the challenge:

Thanks for stopping by. If you've read this story, please do leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.

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