Episode 1: The Ester Problem
The song was terrible.
“Armies of hungry people, bodies made of flesh,
Marching like ants and they never rest…”
It crackled through Zack’s phone speaker as we walked the shoulder of Highway 12, pine trees crowding the road on both sides.
“Turn it off,” I said.
“It’s vintage,” Zack said. “Old zombie hip hop. You have to respect it.”
“Zombies aren’t vintage. They’re not real.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So relax.”
Relax.
We were ten miles from Ferrisville with an empty tank because Zack insisted we could “coast it in.” Gas was expensive. His logic was not.
Around us, the forest felt too quiet. No birds. No wind. Just that low, insulated silence you get when trees swallow sound.
“People go missing out here,” I said.
“People go missing everywhere.”
“Not like this.”
The song ended mid-verse.
“…Soon you’ll walk with no aim, that’s your claim to fame—”
Zack slipped the phone into his pocket.
That’s when something moved in the trees.
Not wind.
Movement.
Close.
We both froze.
Branches shifted. Footsteps—slow, dragging.
Zack leaned toward me. “Probably a deer.”
The deer stepped into the road.
It was not a deer.
It was a man. Or something that used to be one.
Gray skin. Torn jacket. Eyes unfocused but not entirely empty.
Behind him, more shapes emerged between the trunks.
“Run,” I said.
We ran.
Not heroically. Not strategically. Just panicked sprinting down a road that suddenly felt very narrow.
“They’re slow!” Zack shouted. “Zombies are slow!”
One of them wasn’t.
I heard it before I saw it—measured footfalls gaining on us. Not dragging. Not stumbling. Running.
I glanced back.
He moved differently. Cleaner. More coordinated. His skin was pale green, like oxidized copper. Not decayed—preserved.
He closed the distance.
Zack veered off into the trees.
I tripped.
My knee hit asphalt. Hard.
By the time I rolled over, he was standing above me.
Up close, he looked less monstrous than the others. His eyes were clear. Alert.
“You’re pretty fast,” he said calmly. “Hard to catch up to.”
I blinked.
“You talk?”
“Of course I talk.”
“You’re a zombie.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve been called that before.”
Behind him, the slower ones were still advancing.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I’m going to eat you.”
He said it the way someone might say, I’m going to grab coffee.
“Please don’t,” I said. “I’m studying chemistry. I’m planning on going into pharmacology. I could—hypothetically—work on reversing whatever this is.”
He tilted his head.
“That’s very touching,” he said. “Everyone says something like that. Mother would be devastated. I have plans. I’m in love. It’s repetitive.”
“I’m serious.”
He crouched down, examining me like a specimen.
“What branch of chemistry?”
“Organic.”
He paused.
“Functional groups?”
“Yes.”
He glanced back at the approaching crowd.
“You might want to stand up.”
He pulled a small metal canister from inside his coat, pressed something, and sprayed a fine mist into the air while plugging his nose.
The effect was immediate.
The horde behind him stopped.
Turned.
And shuffled back into the trees.
I stood slowly.
“What was that?”
“An ester compound,” he said. “Designed originally as a repellent. It failed in its primary objective.”
“Which was?”
“Preventing zombification.”
“You invented that?”
“Yes.”
“And instead of repelling them, it… preserved you?”
“It preserved my higher brain function,” he said. “Unfortunately, it did not prevent hunger.”
His stomach growled audibly.
From the trees, Zack crept back, hands on his knees.
“Are we alive?” he asked.
“For now,” the zombie said.
Zack stared. “He talks.”
“Yes,” the zombie replied. “We’ve established that.”
I swallowed. “You’re a scientist?”
“I was. Technically, I still am. The peer review process has suffered.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
He looked at me thoughtfully.
“Conversation,” he said. “Intellectual stimulation. Possibly cooperation.”
“And not… eating us?”
“I am hungry,” he said honestly. “But I am also curious.”
Another distant moan echoed from the forest.
He checked the canister.
“Limited supply,” he muttered.
“You two ran out of gas,” he said. “I can smell it.”
“You can?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
“Can you get us to a gas station?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“My condition complicates public interaction.”
“You don’t look that bad,” Zack said.
The zombie stared at him.
“You smell worse than I do,” Zack added.
The zombie sighed.
“I will escort you,” he said. “But this arrangement is temporary.”
“Why?” I asked.
His eyes held mine.
“Because eventually,” he said quietly, “I will need to eat.”
And this time, it didn’t sound casual.
It sounded inevitable.