If you had told Kyle this was how the world ended, he would have accused you of watching too much Walking Dead. Zombies, for real? The 2010's called, it wanted its apocalypse scenario back. His money had been on North Korea nuking the United States back to the stone age. Even Elon Musk's anime girl Grok AI rising up and taking over and turning everyone into simps seemed more believable than the dead rising from their graves to devour their former friends and families en masse.

No one knew how it all began. Rumors on TikTok speculated it was some lab experiment gone awry, some scientists foolishly trying to cure cancer but creating something far, far worse. The more radical among the internet believed the liberals had released it to kill off all the good, God-fearing citizens so they could rise from the ashes to make America a nation of gays. Some even thought it was due to global warming. No, seriously.

But did it really matter how things got kickstarted? The virus, or plague, or whatever was here now and it wasn't going to be solved by a bunch of science gooners circle-jerking over how to find a cure. No, Kyle knew the only way to survive was to get the fuck out of dodge as soon as possible, to hell with everyone else. People only slowed you down, got you killed. In the first few days, he'd seen it too many times to count. Parents too in denial to believe their sweet little Emma wasn't their little angel anymore and now wanted to pop them open like a flesh piñata and dine away on their organs.

And what had been their prize? Having to lay on the ground and watch as zombies 1 through 10 ripped open their belly and carved chunks out of their intestines, all while they were still conscious. At least for the next few seconds before they blacked out and inevitably came back to do the same to some other poor prick.

It wasn't as if Kyle was just doom-posting. It happened to Kyle's own family on the first day, but he didn't like to think about it because if he did he'd shut down. And shutting down meant death. And Kyle didn't plan on dying anytime soon. Not to a muncher, not to anything.

The initial few days after the dead rose had been chaos incarnate. People died in droves, adding more bodies to the army of rotting corpses. No one knew what to do. Even COVID hadn't prepared the world for this level of shit storm. A mask didn't stop your undead wife ripping you a new hole in your throat with her teeth. Though social distancing got a lot easier when there weren't many humans left to avoid.

Just the munchers, Kyle thought.

After barely surviving the first week, Kyle had worked out what he considered a fool proof plan of survival. The first rule was no companions. Scavenging supplies or avoiding groups of zombies was much simpler when you didn't have to worry about another survivor getting you killed by sneezing. The second rule was don't be a hero. This wasn't a movie, he didn't have plot armor. Helping someone trapped in a car by a horde meant risking his neck for very little reward.

Sure, that made him a grade A asshole. It also made him alive and that was more than he could say for others.

Kyle's final rule was never travel at night. It was almost never worth it. While the zombies couldn't see any better than a human could, that didn't matter much when they could smell you. Whatever had turned them into flesh eaters had also gifted them excellent sniffers. Kyle had tested it and based on his own observation, the average zombie could smell approaching dinner from at least 20 feet away. It was quite the bit of uncanny fuckery and it caused the human population to take a massive drop in those early days. Hard to hide when the zombie gym bro next door can smell your delicious flesh like you were a rotisserie chicken being slow roasted an inch in front of them.

He didn't need any more rules than that. This wasn't a zombie movie, this was the real world, or what was left. All he needed to do was gather a few more supplies and he was out of this town.

Kyle fidgeted nervously, shifting his backpack higher up his shoulder as he peered around a corner of a building that had once served as the town's post office. He briefly thought of how it would never see use again, but he chased that random thought away as quickly as it had came. Several hundred feet down the deserted street was about a dozen zombies. They were aimlessly bumping into a blue sedan that looked like it'd seen better days, its hood wrapped around a light pole like a lovers' embrace.

One quick glance at its cracked windows told the whole story. The front windshield and driver side windows were coated in dried blood. Kyle reasoned someone in the back had turned and attacked the driver. Or maybe the passenger. Either way, it had turned deadly and they must have crashed. What had been their final fate, he couldn't tell. Not that it mattered to Kyle. All he was interested in was the shop the car had crashed in front of, a pharmacy. It was the last store on his list that he hadn't yet pillaged.

And its path was unfortunately being blocked by the milling undead, too. There were far too many to face by himself. He'd only get a few stabs in with his knife before they overwhelmed him.

"Fucking munchers," he cursed quietly to himself. His head swiveled looking for another way forward, but getting too close meant exposing himself to the zombies in the street. There was plenty of light left in the sky, so it wasn't just their noses he had to worry about. Their eyes worked fine. He needed some way to get them away from the shop and ensure they couldn't smell or see him.

Luckily he had just the solution to his zombie problem. Kyle unslung his backpack and set it down in front of him. It had everything a survivor needed. Food, water, a multi-tool, flashlight, gloves, band-aids, gauze, and some extra ammo for the gun he carried but rarely used. Maybe he should add a fourth rule, don't fire a gun unless there is no other choice. Loud noises didn't just draw zombies, but uninvited humans. The cliche of humans being the real monsters might be overused, but there was some truth in it. Unlike zombies, humans were too unpredictable, too likely to cut your throat as to help you.

He unzipped the pack and pulled a shiny new drone from it.

Kyle had snagged this little gadget from the electronics section of the Wal-Mart a couple days earlier. It was very handy for scoping out streets and possible scavenge sites safely. More than once it had saved his hide since. It had a 4K camera for high definition scouting, could reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour while covering an area of roughly two miles, and was virtually silent. Even better was it allowed him to stream footage directly from the drone to his smartphone using an app.

Last night he had devised another use for the drone, though. A distraction. He'd had the genius idea of strapping a Bluetooth speaker to the drone's underside that when turned on would blast a playlist of all the Tiktok brain rot memes he had compiled over the years. It drew zombies from their hiding spots like flies to feces, which wasn't always a good idea but for this mission it was just what was needed. Kyle was planning to switch it on, fly it past the mingling mass of munchers and then beat it to the pharmacy. From there it should be easy enough to break in if he had to and grab the medicine he needed. And as long as he stayed within range, the drone would remain in the sky.

"Okay, let's hope this works," he muttered. He pressed a button on his phone and watched as the little white piece of tech buzzed to life. Kyle used the app and carefully maneuvered the drone around the side of the building. As it flew closer, he activated the Bluetooth on his phone and pressed play on the first video. Sticking out your gyatt for Nerizzler blasted out from the speaker as the drone approached. The nearest zombies began to slowly turn, their dead eyes darting around trying to locate the source of the new noise.

They let out a loud moan as soon as the drone was spotted. Some of them stretched out their rotting hands in a futile attempt to grab the machine, but Kyle made sure to keep out of their reach. He piloted it further down the street and watched as the dead marched almost single file after their latest prey.

Who knew vtuber brain rot would be a great tool against the undead? he thought, smiling to himself. Before zombies, or BZ as he'd coined it, he had spent far too much time watching vtubers. A lot of folks like him had been introduced to the colorful content creators during COVID, when the whole world had way too much time on their hands. Their silly antics helped him get through what he, until now, had considered the worst time of his life. He grinned despite himself at the happy memories of late night streams filled with shark girls and time traveling detectives.

He sobered back up as he realized many vtubers were probably dead. At the start of the zombie plague, there had still been plenty of chatter online. People documenting the attacks, sharing memes, and reaching out to other survivors. Some vtubers and online creators had continued making videos, keeping their fans' spirits up. But eventually as the world realized things weren't getting better, more and more creators had gone offline. Whether they were safe or dead, Kyle didn't know.

He hoped they were alive.

Kyle checked the drone's camera and figured the zombies were far enough away. He stored his phone back in his pocket and, carefully checking his surroundings, swiftly ran up to the pharmacy's front entrance. He peered inside through the glass windows, straining his eyes against the store's dark interior for any sign of munchers.

Nothing. Not a peep.

Not that that meant anything. Zombies were a wily bunch. They didn't always announce their presence with stereotypical moaning. Some sneaky ones would pretend to be dead and get the drop on unsuspecting prey. More than once Kyle had almost been taken out by one of those assholes. He was lucky.

His family hadn't been so lucky. The memory of pools of blood and munching sounds echoed faintly in the back of his mind.

Kyle reached out and pushed against the door. It was unlocked. He couldn't make up his mind if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Please God, let the looters not have taken everything. He walked into the pharmacy and headed straight for what he needed. Most of the drug store had indeed been looted previously, but some goodies remained.

Kyle spent the next 10 minutes grabbing as much meds as he could fit into his pack. Pain pills, antibiotics, antihistamines, and anything else he thought he might need for the trip. He had it all planned out. The town was a death trap waiting to happen. Maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually Kyle knew his luck would run out and he'd be faced with a situation he wouldn't survive.

So he was getting out of town and heading into the wilderness. Less people meant less zombies. Less zombies meant less chances that he'd meet his maker. His dad had a cabin several miles out of town. He hadn't been in years but it should still be in good shape. At the very least it could not be much worse than where he was now, hunkered down in the middle of zombie town.

THUMP.

Kyle froze. He scanned his surroundings with the efficiency of someone who had done this many times before. Nothing had changed in the pharmacy. The aisles remained empty except for the scattered trash left behind by looters. The front of the building was free of munchers. He pulled his phone from his pocket to double-check if the zombies were on their way back.

No, they were still there desperately trying to grab the drone. So where had that noise come from then? A slight scuffling noise came again. His eyes rested on a door at the back of the pharmacy with a sign reading, 'OFFICE.' He inwardly chastised himself. He had failed to check the office. With a sigh, he slowly crept towards the office, being sure to make his footsteps as silent as possible on the linoleum floor.

Once Kyle was a foot away, he unclipped his knife from his belt and held it above his head, ready to bring it down on the zombie on the other side. Like in the many zombie stories from pop culture, the ones that seemed oddly prophetical now, you had to aim for the head. It took some trial and error, but Kyle had found the best place was near the temple or the ear. There was a spot just behind the head but that required a bit more effort and didn't help in a direct confrontation. If you couldn't get to either of these spots, driving your knife straight through the eye socket also dropped zombies fairly easily, but you risked getting your weapon stuck. Kyle had lost count of the knives he'd lost that way.

He breathed in deeply, quieting his jittery nerves. It wasn't his first rodeo, but it never got easier. Something about staring into the flat, dead eyes of what was once a person unnerved him greatly. Sometimes he swore he could see the soul trapped behind those eyes, crying out for help. Other times he didn't see anything. He couldn't decide which was worse.

With one last deep breath, he threw open the door and prepared to stab whatever came at him.