Undead Don’t Make For Good Coltfriends

The zombie stopped just short of Zephyr’s screaming face. It snorted once, lifted its head and trotted back down the corridor, a thump and creak resounding with every step it took. Zephyr’s screams died down to a prolonged ahh before stopping altogether.

He was thoroughly confused as to why he had not been ripped to pieces by the flesh-hungry monster. A quick check over his body with his wings confirmed that everything was attached and in the right place which only caused him to become further confounded by the situation.

Zephyr couldn’t figure out why the zombie hadn’t eaten him. Then he wondered if it was because he didn’t taste good. Then he became offended that he apparently wasn’t good enough for the zombie’s clearly unrefined palate after which he decided that he would take his complaints up with the monster in question who refused to eat his yummy self.

Following the sound of the zombie’s heavy hoof falls, he rounded the corner and watched his quarry slip into a room on the far end of a second hallway.

Trotting quickly down the hall, he stopped before the threshold of the room the zombie had entered. Said zombie faced away from him, their head hung low, wings folded tightly to their side. They were focused intently on something Zephyr couldn’t see past their large bulk.

“Excuse me!” Zephyr called out. “I have a complaint about your taste buds!”

The zombie ignored him, which only further encouraged him. He took a confident step forward only to flinch as he heard a crack under his hoof. Looking down, he stared at the strange red ice that had broken which covered the entire floor. It was weird but did nothing to deter Zephyr.

Pushing onward, Zephyr moved himself to be beside the zombie. He raised a wing to give it a piece of his mind but stopped as he saw what the zombie was staring at.

On a large bed was the corpse of another zombie, covered by several thin stained sheets. Shattered glass lay scattered across them, presumably from the broken window above the bed that cold air billowed through. Its eyes were wide open as it lay motionless on the mattress, its throat—

Finally cluing into the source of the red ice, Zephyr stumbled out of the room in a panic, racing back to the living room at full gallop as the stupidity of his actions finally came to bear.

He huddled by the blazing fire holding onto himself, shaking in fear as he waited for the zombie to follow after him.

It never came.

And thus began Zephyr’s strange time living with an undead.

Despite living with a flesh-eating monster, things were surprisingly peaceful for Zephyr inside the cabin. Once he had managed to acquire a mane brush from one of the spare bedrooms, he gathered up all the blankets and formed a nest in the living area by the fire. His next step was to bathe, however, the water stream froze when leaving the shower head both creating a very pretty spear of ice and making him incapable of using it.

He instead settled for manually washing the sap out of his fur and drying off within the confines of his fabric nest, sipping at hot water due to the uncultured swine that lived there not having any hot chocolate mix.

As for his cabin mate, Zomcolt, the nickname Zephyr came up with for the zombie, would periodically wander about the cabin listlessly checking on the windows and rooms before returning to stare at the dead corpse in what Zephyr determined to be the master bedroom.

This suited Zephyr just fine since he didn’t want to die, and he found a sensible way to use this to his advantage. Whenever he needed something heavy moved to the living room from one of the other rooms, he would just put it in the way of Zomcolt while he was doing his rounds who would happily push it all the way toward his living space. Sure it might be dangerous, but mattresses were heavy and he had a hulking zombie to move them for him.

And Zomcolt was in fact a colt as far as Zephyr could tell. Or rather a stallion between the squared-off jawline and hulking body. He hadn’t met a mare yet with that kind of physique so he felt safe in presuming the gender of the zombie in question without having to really pry into his biology.

Thus this uneasy coexistence continued for a time Zephyr didn’t know due to a lack of clocks and the ability to see the sun. Things would have continued this way for a long time if not for one thing.

Zephyr wanted cheese.

Specifically, the block he found wedged into the ice box under some useless bags of frozen brussel sprouts. It was a perfect square of gouda and Zephyr was determined to eat it. After he thawed it out.

A quick bite test that nearly broke his teeth had determined that it would need to unfreeze first and thus he had set it out before the fire. A slow process made slower by the cold wind that blew into the cabin through cracks in the walls undoing some progress every time it did. He had promised himself to wait, but patience had turned to impatience and Zephyr wanted cheese now.

So he placed the block on a cutting board in the kitchen and held it down with a hoof. A long newly sharpened knife was clutched in his wing as he eyed the block with his tongue stuck out in concentration, trying to discern how much cheese he wanted to start with. His portion size decided, Zephyr swung the knife down.

As was inevitable for an inexperienced pegasus with a weak grip, the blade bounced off the frozen block and sliced through his hoof.

“Yow!” Zephyr yelped, dropping the knife and stumbling back onto his rump.

He sucked on the wound as the knife clattered onto the counter, whimpering all the while. A heavy thump caused Zephyr to look up, seeing Zomcolt having stopped his usual rounds to loom over him.

Following his gaze, Zephyr realized in a panic that Zomcolt was staring directly at his wound.

Zephyr backed away, slamming his back into a kitchen cabinet with his hoofs raised to protect his face. “I know I’m delicious, but please don’t eat me!” He pleaded.

A cabinet slammed open. There was a light tugging sensation on his wounded leg as something soft was wrapped around it. Then, Zephyr heard the sound of heavy hoof falls as Zomcolt presumably left.

Risking a peek through an opening between his hooves, Zephyr caught the flick of Zomcolt’s tail as it rounded the corner.

Thoroughly confused, Zephyrs dropped his hooves and noticed that his wound was now loosely bandaged up with gauze. A glance upward confirmed that the upper cabinet he had backed into had been full of medical supplies he had never found.

Looking back toward where Zomcolt had left, he tilted his head to one side in confusion.

That was one weird zombie.