Kiera leaned on her car as they stood chatting out the front of Alicia's house in a circle. She occasionally gnced at him, and every time she did he felt a little twinge of irritation."I don't know how you see me, but I know you can see me, wolf." He said.Faith continued, "I don't know for sure, but... I think ?lic¤a m?ghε hδΦe ??Ξ"He paused, his ears ringing, "Wait, elf, say that again. I didn't catch that."Kiera's eyes lit up, "Oh! ???Ν????! Oh, that makes so much sense. But... what makes you think that?""There was a room upstairs... inside, there was ?TtDδ? and I think maybe... maybe yìξεΕ? ??ΖΡ Χζ???e..."He felt as though the words they were saying were so loud, and yet so quiet. His head started to spin, and he found himself making his way back inside. Rachel gave him an odd look."Are you okay?" She asked, "You look ill."He shook his head, "Where's Alicia? Who are you?"Rachel chuckled, "I'm Rachel, dummy. I told you that already."He reached out to grab her by the throat, but his hand passed straight through her."Wha- what the hell?" He said, "Why can't I touch you?""Oh, that's simple, silly!" Rachel ughed, "I'm a ghost."

  ***

  At the initial appearance of a brainless zombie, one would think that crowds would run screaming, terrified. That they might attempt to shoot the stumbling, shambling mess of decaying flesh, hit it with a crowbar, axe, or even as drastic as a chainsaw or sword. Typically in zombie movies a horde of zombies swarms a city centre, they eat everyone's flesh, there's a cut to news reports and a brief period of time ter the entire country, if not the world, has a zombie problem.In the zombie movies watched in the horror club, though, often the budget is too small for a horde, maybe a group, or a gang, a... handful? Zombie makeup could be expensive, practical effects often are, so three zombies is enough to make a movie, you just need a green screen, a little bit of editing work, and stock 3d animations for a person you can multiply into a silhouetted crowd. In any case, a zombie movie typically will not start with a lone zombie walking through a park, their neck snapped, their broken arm dislocated at the shoulder, and their face covered in dried blood.It will not start with said zombie walking over to a duck pond, carrying a bag of bread and feeding the ducks. It will not start with a small child running up to that zombie, perceiving the zombie's postmortem groans as friendly banter, and crafting the zombie a flower crown.No, what is more likely to happen is what indeed did happen to Alicia's corpse next. The child's mother saw the zombie, saw the side of life she had never wished to see, and it shook her to her very core. She kept her child away from that thing, because that thing wasn't a human. That thing wasn't alive, it wasn't like them, because they were so very alive and that was great for them, wasn't it? Perhaps, if that thing had a mind of its own, as it sat there feeding the ducks, causing more and more people to flee at the sight of it, perhaps if that thing had feelings, it might've pondered why. Why are people so afraid of me? Why do people flee at the sight of me?Or perhaps it would've known why. Because those people thought that there were only two ways a person could be. You can either be alive, or you can be dead, and there is no such "in-between". That would be completely unnatural, it goes against all ws of god and nature. Zombies cannot exist. They aren't allowed to. This world was not built for them, this society cannot take them, and so they must be eradicated. Yes. This is why they draw a gun. This is why they shoot to kill. Because they fear what they do not understand, and they do not understand because they cannot open their eyes and see a simple, caring, beautiful zombie was just feeding the ducks today.

  But zombies don't have minds of their own, as we're told. So it wouldn't have been thinking anything.

  ***

  When Kiera had heard Eliza's st name was Shelley, she'd recognised it, but the lead she had was a little more personal than she'd preferred. Besides which, Heidi was still missing, and seeing as she'd said J was her brother, he was their only lead to finding her. So they decided to split up. Jessica's house was pretty run-down, but Kiera had expected that. A single mother, grieving the loss of her only child, the same day that her former partner had taken his own life. She was just never quite the same after that, how could you be? It was like something in her brain had broken, like she'd lost the st piece of herself that was left. Kiera's family used to stop by, since they lived down the road and Tim and Kiera had known her kid, but after a while she'd stopped inviting them.The house was built on a hill, and the driveway sloped downward toward it. Kiera found herself having to brace as she made her way down, to stop herself from falling over due to the sheer incline, but she stumbled on a loose rock and tripped onto the pavement.There was a row of thick, dry bushes opposite the front door that forced people to walk down the driveway, but as Kiera picked herself up, she spotted something in the shrubbery; a backpack. Not sure if it was there on purpose or not, she picked herself up, wincing as she touched the scrape she'd just gotten on her face, and went to go knock on the door.

  "Hey dad!" J announced happily, "This is Faith!"The couch was positioned away from the entryway, and J's father, a rger, balding man with a well-trimmed moustache, pulled himself over the edge of the couch and adjusted his gsses."Oh! Is this that girl you've been telling me about, son?"This was the most uncomfortable situation Faith had ever been in, the night when Alicia had threatened them all with a knife included. She picked at a scab and felt her mind drift into fog as the two talked between one another in ways that made her skin crawl."Well, don't go breaking my son's heart," J's dad said to her, "Or I'll have to arrest you.""Oh," Faith asked, "You're a pi-uh-a police officer?"J's father nodded, "I'm actually a detective. Though, there's not much around here that needs detecting, sadly most of the mysteries I solve are paperwork. Still, it's pretty cool, if you're looking for a job once you're out of school."Faith let out a fraction of a cackle before catching herself, then both shook her head and nodded at the same time, "Well... you never know."With that, she dragged J away from the conversation and pulled him aside."Heidi said you had a science b in your house. She said that she'd go in there sometimes, but you would be around most of the time."J nodded, a little threatened by Faith holding him by the neck of his shirt, "Yes! Yes there is! Sorry. It's through here."She followed him through the hallway to a seemingly innocuous door, which opened up to a room that looked like it could've been in a sci-fi movie. The stairs went down to a retively pristine boratory, complete with steel benches, machines, a basin, and an office desk with a computer on it."Holy crap," Faith said, "So this is the b?"J nodded, "This is it!""Wow, this is... something. Heidi wasn't kidding.""It's still weird to me she knows about this pce. I don't even really talk to my parents about it. She must definitely be my sister, I guess. I still find it weird that Kiera forgot Eliza but not her, though."Faith nodded, looking at a fridge filled with test tubes."Yeah, it's bizarre. What's in here?"J sighed, "Oh, it's just my st failed experiment. It went uh... pretty poorly, I'm pretty sure I messed up the ingredients because I think I might've gassed myself. I passed out for a few hours, anyway, and I've been having memory issues ever since.""What were you trying to do?""Oh, that's easy, I was... uh... what was I doing?"

  ***

  "Yep. We're just on our way up now, I don't wanna be hanging around a creepy graveyard at night either."Heidi wrapped up her coat and looked over at Faith as she hung up on Kiera."This pce gives me the creeps..." Heidi muttered.Faith raised an eyebrow, "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts.""I don't," Heidi replied, "That doesn't mean a graveyard can't give me the creeps."Faith smiled, "Yeah, I guess not. But we're not going to be here for long, Kiera has to shoot off before it gets dark because of her curfew."The old church cemetery was over a hundred years old and for a long time had gone uncared for. It wasn't that it went unused, it was just that the old church had been in ruins for a long while and the nd rights were questionable. There was a pn to move the graves initially, but as the cost of re-plotting them was quite high it wasn't even seen through. Hell, a lot of people still buried their families here because of how expensive a grave plot could be, and while the local priest didn't recommend it because funeral companies would not bury the bodies here and there was no caretaker, he still held funeral services on the nd for anyone that needed the help.What this resulted in was the perfectly creepy cemetery Faith and Heidi had found themselves in, peering through the tall, thick grass until they saw Kiera off in the distance."Heidi!" Kiera said, running to hug her, "I'm so gd you're okay!"Heidi smiled, "Yeah, sorry about the scare. So... what did you want to show us?"Kiera nodded, "Well, take a look at this tombstone..."Faith knelt down, "M Shelley, beloved-"Before she could finish reading, a rumbling sound filled the air, as the ground beneath them all started to shake. Trees ripped from the ground and the dirt gathered as the crashing carriages of an old train appeared out of nowhere, forcing the three of them to run.