NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: Meeting April
Robin was running low on fresh books. He groaned and flopped on the bed. This was the worst thing to have happened in the past few months. A world without video games was fine. They were probably better off without the Internet. Lacking books might as well have been the end of the world.
He peeked out of his blinds at the empty streets below. There were abandoned cars and cracks in the road. Shuffling about (well, walking with better posture than Robin did) in ragged clothes (actually, they looked a little better kept than his own wardrobe) were a bunch of mindless zombies. Sometimes they’d wave at each other, other times they’d stop and chat. Horrible.
Too many around at the moment to go out looking for more books. Maybe he’d go out tomorrow. Or the next day. Actually, that sounded exhausting. He’d go whenever his executive dysfunction let him.
Robin’s stomach growled.
“God, shut up,” he mumbled, rolling out of his little twin bed and onto the pile of clothes on the floor.
His clothes smelled terrible. One could be forgiven, given the world had ended, for just assuming that all water and power had been shut off. Therefore, it was okay that Robin hadn’t washed anything in a while.
When he got to the kitchen, Robin flicked on the lights and grabbed a cup to fill at the sink. Miracle of miracles, infrastructure hadn’t been wiped off the face of the earth despite nobody being around to maintain it. It was some kind of luck that nobody was around to call Robin out on his excuses.
The apocalypse hadn’t actually done much to change Robin’s life. He’d already lost his job by that point. The only thing it accomplished was getting rid of his landlord, so at least he didn’t have to move out when he ran out of money. Not that he was in danger of running out of money anymore. He thought. Nobody at the bank would pick up the phone.
Robin opened up the pantry and scratched his head. Once every two weeks, or three if he was in a depressive phase and couldn’t be bothered, he’d go out and scavenge for food among the wasteland. It was, admittedly, getting a smidge difficult to find new food without any more being produced and shipped into the city. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do in the long term, but it’s not like he hadn’t survived this long. Longer than some people had, at least.
Absent-mindedly, Robin flicked on the radio. He knew what he’d hear. Only one thing played on the radio anymore.
“Humanity will not die out in the wasteland!” came the crackle of survivor propaganda. “The human spirit will rise up and bring civilization back to the world and nothing will stop it! Join us, brothers and sisters! Return to the work ethic of a rural lifestyle where everyone depends on each other—”
Robin turned it off and sighed. He didn’t mind everyone leaving town to form their own little cult, but he wished it wasn’t literally right outside the city. Everything he heard about it made it sound like an authoritarian Hell. He didn’t want to have to put up with that. Better to just stay in his apartment and rot away slowly. Honestly, even becoming a zombie and rotting away quickly sounded better than joining a regimented society like that.
His stomach growled again and Robin sighed. He walked over to the pantry and opened it up. It looked like a crypt in there. There was a bag of chips, but he tried one and it was stale. Robin sighed. Even without a lot of food, he couldn’t be bothered to eat every day and the food he did have didn’t always last.
“It’s not the end of the world,” he muttered.
As soon as it dawned on him what he’d said, Robin rolled his eyes. That was something his mother would say all the time to downplay whatever Robin was struggling with at the time. He’d started saying it to himself ironically after the zombies first arrived, but more and more it was becoming part of his frequent lexicon.
“I guess you win, Mom.”
There was no helping it. He’d have to go out and search for food. Robin closed the pantry (he wasn’t raised in a barn)and returned to his room. He searched through some shirts and pants, giving each one a good sniff to see if they were fit to wear. Once he’d had something resembling an outfit, Robin locked himself in the bathroom to take a shower.
“Maybe I’ll find some caviar,” he told himself as the water was heating up.
Another thing Robin found was that he;d started talking to himself much more than he used to. He’d always been something of a loner, but it was really starting to weigh on him that he didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Robin did his best not to let it bother him, much like how he did his best not to look at his ugly body when he was in the shower.
Throwing a hoodie on and grabbing a backpack, Robin snuck down the stairs and out the front door. Here and there was the occasional zombie milling about. Robin stuck his hands into his pocket and kept his head down as he rushed by. Some zombies waved at him or tried to say hi, but Robin ignored them and they otherwise left him alone.
“Don’t even have the dignity to be scary,” he muttered.
For whatever reason, these zombies weren’t the rotting, shambling horrors that media always made them out to be. A few of them had stitches covering injuries, but no open and festering wounds. They looked like they showered, even. It was a bit of a relief. If Robin was living in a post-apocalypse, at least it wasn’t also a horror movie.
Robin’s stomach growled again. Right: food. There was a food bank that he’d been scavenging from. It was running low on supplies but it was the best place he’d been able to find so far for non-perishables. It was a bit of a walk, but it was definitely worth it.
Or, at least, he’d thought it was worth it. Robin ran his fingers across the dusty, empty storage shelves. The memory of clearing this place out the last time he was here had only just now wormed its way out of the back of his mind. There wasn’t anything here for him.
“Dammit,” he muttered. “What am I supposed to do now?”
A loud clattering noise made him jump and he spun around, raising his fists as if he knew how to defend himself.
“Who’s there!?” he cried at the empty doorway.
After a moment, a voice called back, “Hello? Is someone in here?”
“Yeah!” he replied, voice starting to shake. “You’re not… You’re not one of those people from the survival camp, are you!?”
“Survival camp?” the voice asked, getting closer. “You mean those raiders just outside town? Wait, are you one of them?”
“I’m not if you’re not,” he replied.
That sounded so much smoother in his head.
“I’m not,” she assured him, her footsteps just outside the doorway.
The stranger turned, filling up the doorway. Robin’s heart stopped for just a moment. Dark green skin and occasional stitching covered her body. Her coily black hair was in two big puffs on the side of her head and she was wearing a gorgeous floral sundress. Warm brown eyes complimented the little smile that was making Robin’s heart just absolutely melt with every second he looked at her.
“You’re a human!”
“You’re a zombie?”
The girl placed a finger against her chin and said, “I guess that makes your question about the raiders make more sense. My name is April.”
She was a zombie. Robin was talking to a zombie. She was undead. He wasn’t. Or, wait… No, his heart had started again. He was alive and she was dead. They shouldn’t be talking. It was a violation of the natural order.
“You okay?” April asked, tilting her head.
“Still breathing,” he said, before wincing and adding, “I’m sorry. Was that offensive? That was probably offensive. I didn’t mean——I’ll just go. You don’t want to have to bother with me.”
He took a step forward, but April was still standing in the doorway, only now wearing a baffled expression.
“Relax, you’re cool,” she said. “Let’s start with your name, alright?”
His name. Right. The only thing Robin had inherited from his parents that he didn’t secretly hate. Probably because it wasn’t overtly masculine and aggressive as the names that other boys had. He could have been a Bob. What a horrible name. Who was named Bob? Robin had only known six or seven Bobs in his life who were decent guys. The rest were probably assholes.
“My name is Robin,” he said.
“It’s nice to meet you, Robin,” April said, leaning up against the door frame before slipping and having to catch herself. “Do you live around here or are you one of those lone wandering types?”
“Oh, goodness, no,” Robin said, chuckling. “I can’t imagine traveling alone. I have no idea how I’d find food like that, let alone medicine. And I hate camping. At least, I hated being in the Boy Scouts. They’d always pick on me.”
“Relatable,” April muttered.
“Huh?”
April’s eyes widened and she started waving her hands, insisting, “Nothing! It was nothing! Please don’t read into that, okay?”
“Um, okay.” He wasn’t sure what he wasn’t supposed to be reading into, but it seemed important to her so he’d oblige. “Honestly, you’re really nice, for a zombie.”
“Okay, that was probably a tiny bit offensive,” April said, pointing at him. “Zombies are not mean by default and I’m not an exception to the rule. It’s honestly kind of racist——er, whatever the equivalent to that would be in this situation. I don’t think anybody ever agreed on what word we should use.”
“Ah, you’re right, I’m sorry.” Robin started wringing his hands. “I’ll try to do better.”
“Hmm… smart human.” There was a twinkle in April’s eye. “Maybe I will eat your brains.”
Robin’s heart skipped a beat, but she was already laughing it off.
“No, I understand,” she said. “Humans are always surprised to learn that we’re just ordinary people.”
Robin nodded, but asked, “Why do you say it like that? Aren't you still human? Or… weren’t you, at least?”
April needed a moment for the gears to turn in her head.
“I guess so,” she admitted. “Yeah, it is a little weird how comfortable most of us are at feeling divorced from our humanity after only a couple of months. I guess it makes sense that humans would be a little uncomfortable. You’re all so attached to the idea of being one thing forever.”
“I wouldn’t mind being someone else sometimes,” Robin admitted quietly. When a hunger pang ran through his gut, he winced and said, “I’m actually looking for food. Do you know if there’s any around here.”
April blinked in surprise, then said, “Yes, food! That thing you need to survive! I’d forgotten all about that.”
“You just said you’d eat my brains…”
“I’m sure there’s something around here somewhere. I’ll help you look.”
They left the pantry and began scouring the building. Perhaps someone had stored some food away in a panic when the apocalypse first set in. The two separated briefly to hasten the search.
“What am I doing?” Robin asked, finding himself staring into the empty tank of a toilet. “There’s nothing in here.”
“Found something!” came a cry from elsewhere.
Robin peeked out of the bathroom to see April running down the hall. She was carrying a large bag in her arms, clearly struggling under the weight. Then she tripped. His heart dropped as she fell forward, landing on the bag and causing it to burst.
“Oh no!” April squeaked, picking herself up off the pile of scattered cereal. “I’m sorry, Robin.”
Robin sighed and mumbled, “It’s fine.” His stomach disagreed. “It’s… getting late. I should probably start heading home. I’ll just look somewhere else tomorrow.”
April followed Robin to the front door, brushing off her dress. It was getting dark outside, but at least the streetlights were on. Robin started to walk away.
“Hey, wait a second,” April said, grabbing Robin’s sleeve. He turned. She was biting her lip. “Before you go… Do you want to go out?”
There was a very long pause.
“Say again?”
“I…” She glanced away. “Do you want to go out with me? Like, on a date.”
“…For real?”
April nodded.
Robin opened his mouth to turn her down automatically. Then he closed it again. Zombie or not, Robin hadn’t been on a date since high school. And April did seem like a really nice person.
“Yeah, alright,” he said.
April smiled and Robin’s heart leapt.