A Rational Zombie - Chapter 88

After I ate the brain, I replaced my dome with the prey’s. It broke mine with its knife. I’m lucky it didn’t kill me. I almost died. I don’t think I’ve ever come that close to death. The prey was scary. How can I identify prey with brain problems? It acted like an other, uncaring for its body, trying to kill me at all costs. If all prey were like that, I would’ve died a long time ago. By itself, this prey killed twelve others. If I didn’t shoot it with an arrow, making it chase me, it would’ve killed all twenty. The eight others are already eating the prey I left behind. It’s too late to preserve it. But that doesn’t matter. I didn’t wait for three days to catch prey. I have plenty of food. I have no wheeled things. The priority is obvious.

I’m injured. I can’t see with my left eye, a quarter of my vision gone. My body is also hunched over. My chest bones must’ve broken from the impact against the tree. It’s not a problem. But being permanently hunched will ruin my vision. I’m small enough as is. Seeing over others is already difficult. There’s no time to kill the others, preserve the prey. If another prey comes on a wheeled thing, I really will die if there’s no others around. Time is of the essence. I have to figure out how these wheeled things work, take them away first. If there’s any food left after, I’ll collect it.

But how do these wheeled things work? I saw the prey sit on it like this. I know it can move. But how do I control it? There’s a button near the handle on the right. I pressed it. I don’t think anything happened. There’s little levers I can pull near the handles too. They don’t do anything. There’s movable parts near my feet as well. I can step on them, raise them. But nothing is working. Is it because the wheeled thing is stuck against the tree. Can it only go forward? That’s dumb. There has to be a way to move backwards as well. One mistake, getting something stuck in front of it can’t ruin the wheeled thing. Prey don’t make such dumb things.

Too bad the prey are dead. They can’t teach me how to control this. The only thing I can do is fiddle with everything that moves. There’s a latch on the back. I can lift it. Inside, there’s supplies, bags of stuff that I’ve seen in prey’s buildings. This shouldn’t be it. Maybe. I’ll thoroughly explore. Underneath everything, there was something familiar: an openable brick. It was flimsier, not as sturdy as the one that taught me food preservation. But this is it, something useful. User manual. Odd. Why does it seem like it’s never been touched? It’s in perfect condition, almost as if the prey never opened it. The food-preservation brick was wrinkled, its edges rough. But this one, this brick is glossy, its pages pristine. Maybe it’s not useful?

That can’t be. It introduces the wheeled thing. A three-wheeled motorcycle. That’s what it’s called. Then the metal hunks must be four-wheeled motorcycles. This user manual isn’t thick. But the pages are thin compared to the food-preservation one. Though they both take up the same amount of space, the information in this one is much denser. The writing is smaller, almost as if it isn’t meant to be read. Not only that, the pages are thinner too. It took me a long time to go through the food-preservation manual. How long will it take me to control this three-wheeled motorcycle? Maybe I should’ve preserved the prey. The amount of time spent doing that would be miniscule in comparison to this. This isn’t safe. I should cut down trees, block the roads, prevent prey from traveling here. Yes, it seems like learning will take a long time. Fortifying this position is the smart thing to do. I’ll go back, call all the others here.

I don’t think more prey will come. There were only two that went to the right. Then there was only two that came from the right. They might’ve been the same prey. What are the odds that two different prey came back? After waiting three days, I already know prey with motorcycles are rare. But I’m not taking any chances. It was already dumb of me to come with so few others. No, I can’t be blamed for bringing too little. If the prey were normal, I wouldn’t have almost died. I didn’t know abnormal prey existed. It’s not a matter of stupidity; it’s a matter of experience. But now that I know, I’d be foolish to not bring others over to defend me while I learn to control the motorcycles.

But first, I’ll try to move the motorcycle without controlling it, pushing it along instead. It moves. Very slowly. If I were stronger, it’d probably move faster. Can I push or pull it back to the building at this rate? I’m not sure. The building is on a slope. Like the rolling trees, the wheels are round; they’ll roll down the slope, impossible for me to push them up. Then I’ll move the motorcycles into the woods, out of sight of the road. If prey pass through, they won’t notice. Then I have to get rid of the others as well. They’re eating the prey, making a mess on the road. Killing them will take time. Dragging their bodies into the woods, cleaning the blood stains too. How annoying. Maybe I should leave them there.

No, if prey come by, they’ll notice. When they see two dead prey on the road, they’ll realize their motorcycles are missing. If they search the area, they’ll find them. I can’t be careless, can’t be lazy. I already spent so much time, received so many injuries. I won’t let everything go to waste because of a minor inconvenience.