Shaking the metal chains of the cage door to make sure it was locked, you pocket the key to the greenhouse and turn around.

He’s a creature of habit, always limping by in the late morning. No one gave him clothes, so he kept his stripped red sweater and jeans, earning him the name Mr. Stripes. His pale flesh is getting smellier and his limp is worsening, thorny vines entagling the left shin. The man had enough brain matter to get a pair of crutches, but his rotting muscles are taking their toll on him.

You step to the side and walk past him, the expected weak rattle blending with the normal, bright summer morning. At least, the normal as of several months ago.

This isn’t what you imagined when the dead started coming back to life. No one did, really. Instead of total Humanitarians, they were mostly vegetarians and stupid-humanitarians. They ate plants. Every plant they could find. As if deer weren’t enough of a pest.

“Deer never broke into grocery stores in hoards to eat every fruit, vegetable, and grain-based product in sight.” You kick a pebble on the dirt path, watching it roll on the grassless earth. “Guess it could be worse.” Thanks to longer lifespans and the choice of cremation, there were only a few zombies in every town, as long as no more stupid yahoos bother them, get bitten, and turned.

It was worse in cities, but more were predicted to approach towns and the wilderness, where there was more green things to chew on.

Movement caught your eye and you look up to see... Mabunga.

“Hey, Symone!” She calls, jogging over to you from the side walk, her thick perfume barely masking the stench of her rotting grey flesh.

“Uh, hey. Is that a new bendana?” you ask nonchalantly, stepping back when she stops in front of you.

“Sure is,” she exclaims, fingering her neckerchief. This one’s design is a blue nebula design covering her neck, the rest of her figure hidden by a big grey trench coat, messy brown hair, and a bright orange biker’s helmet. “I got it in an area of Milan that didn’t try to kill me. You gotta talk to them first, you know?”

“Yeah.” Not really, but it makes sense. If dumb fuck rich people weren’t feeding the Brainless Undead, they were shooting them. The kind like Mr. Stripes are like deer and bears - wild creatures that can’t be domesticated.

Speaking of which, you hear the rattling stop.

“About tume he gave up today,” you mumble. Both of you watch Mr. Stripes limp away from your greenhouse. Probably heading for the community center downtown, which was since converted to the town’s newest garden-supermarket. Lord knows he can’t eat anything from this neighbourhood’s brown and uprooted fields. “Why don’t anyone just shoot him?”

“Probably because he’s already sprouting.”

“He’s what?”

“Sprouting. It’s something I found out while traveling.” Mabunga sat on the porch steps. “I don’t know how it works and neither do any scientists, yet, but at some point, zombies start to sprout some kind of flowers. It takes over them, killing them for good.” You feel her smiling at you. “Back to the ground from wence they came.”

“So I won’t have to deal with Mr. Stripes for much longer? Good.” You walk past Mabunga up the steps and sit on one of the chairs.

“Mr. Stripes?”

“That’s what I call him.”

“Ah. Well, yeah, it doesn’t look like he likes it. I think he’s getting roses.”

“Heh, well, maybe they can replace the eaten trees.” She stands and you both look at the row of holes seperating your neighbours property from your own. Used to be nice pines that shaded the house from the setting sun and blizzard winds, but now not even the roots remain. The only reason zombies didn’t eat your wooden porch is probably because of the layers of paint. A rose bush would look nice there.

“Here, Symone.” She hands you a lumpy bag with a strange but familiar smell to it.

“What is it?” She’s wearing gloves, but you got zombie-avoiding instincts hardwired into you by now.

“A Gift.” She puts it down and steps down the stairs. “I gotta run, now. See ya!”

You pick it up and open it to find... pinecones! You look up to the street to see Mabunga already riding away on her bike and look back down again.

“Real pinecones.” They were bigger from the ones that grew in your yard, but they were actual pinecones! You lean in a take a long whiff, the smell of endangered forests filling your nostrils.

Mabunga was always a weird one. She wasn't a bad kid back in school, but you and every other kids knew by highschool that she had connections to just about everything - drugs, concert tickets, study materials - while somehow staying quiet and in the background around adults. Was it really a surprise that she was walking around three weeks after a fatal motorcycle crash near town?

You met her by the highway three days on your evening jog.

“Mabunga, hey!”

As you approach her, she flips down her visor before turning to you and kicks a fruit core away.

“Hey, Symone. You jog?”

“Uh, yeah.” She smells better today. A natural leafy perfume. Have zombies ever tried to eat each people because of their perfume? Maybe that wasn’t a question to ask her, though. “It’s a nice sunset.”

“Yeah...” she mumbles and leans over the highways metal rims. Down the hill is a white tombstone with pink faux flowers.

“Something wrong?” You step closer and she shrugs.

“Just... Can’t believe that it’s been half a year since the crash.” She tilts her head up to look at the sky. “I always hated this town. There was nothing to do without money and if you did try to do something, you had to be sneaky. Saved up for this bike for ten years at the stupid grocery store after graduating just so I could leave. Then I go and die in a crash. At least the funeral guys put me back together before I was put in the ground.” She turns to you. “You never seemed to have that problem, Symone. You just fit in with everyone. Heh, I still don’t know how you do it.”

“Inherit the clothing store from my parents.” She laughs at that and you can’t help but join in.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What’s that?”

Mabunga carefully twists off her helmet, revealing dead eyes, rotting grey skin, and little green stems srouting from her mouth and forhead.

“I’ve been eating nothing but pears, so, when my time comes, I’ll become a peach tree.”

“And you wanted to ask me...?”

“When I sprout to the point when I can’t move anymore, can you help me find a place to rest?”

“Uh, I’ll think about it.” She smiles.

“Okay, thanks. I like to come back now and again, check out what’s changed. Wanna hang out next weekend?”

“Sure,” you smile back. She puts on her helmit again and gets on her bike, riding away into the sunset.727Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJuXtPvgnII