– Quick Time Events.

  – You know, make a mistake, die.

  – You're not Kratos. Be cautious.

  ---

  We all had different theories.

  Alex thought they were failed biotech experiments.

  Jules leaned toward the psychic-mutation-evolution route, like a darker X-Men reboot.

  Gail, ever the tactician, didn’t care what made them—just how to kill them.

  Harun suggested they might be the result of a cosmic joke.

  I personally believed they were the universe’s way of saying, “Hey, remember how you used to think Mondays were the worst? Try again.”

  But one thing was clear: they weren’t Romero zombies.

  They bled.

  They passed out.

  You hit them right, and they didn’t just stumble—they collapsed.

  Calling them “zombies” was more for convenience than accuracy. Like how we still say “dial” a number, even though no one’s used a rotary phone since the dinosaurs invented TikTok.

  Harun and I tried brainstorming new names once.

  “How about… Sanguivores?” he offered, flipping through a notebook.

  “Sounds like a vegan vampire podcast,” I said.

  “Bio-Mutants?”

  “I think that’s copyrighted.”

  “Revenants?”

  “That’s a movie.”

  We stared at each other. Then, in perfect harmony: “Zombies.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Yeah. We’re not linguists.

  ---

  What we could name, though, were the types. I had my own labels.

  The Normals – baseline. Fast. Hungry. No tricks. Pure instinct.

  The Variants – something’s always off. Or Unique. Misshapen limbs. Different senses. One had echolocation. One walked like a crab. One might’ve been a raccoon in a past life. One spits acid. One of them reeks. Maybe it's just me.

  The Leaders – not physically scary, but they coordinate. They command.

  And then there was Barbie.

  Barbie was… tall.

  Nine feet of muscle. Skin like stretched-out asphalt. Moved like a Greek statue that decided to skip art and major in violence.

  I named her Barbie because, well, Barbie the brand is iconic, right? Big, bold, impossible proportions. It fit. Plus it's either that or Mickey Mouse. And I don't know about you, but I think Disney's powerful enough to slap us with a cease and desist, even in the apocalypse.

  Alex wanted to call her Centerpiece. Too clinical. Harun pushed for “Queen Omega,” which sounded like a K-pop album. Jules just grunted and called her “the scary one.”

  Gail just wanted her gone. Or dead.

  But Barbie stuck. Like gum on a boot. Like trauma.

  ---

  We’ve known about her zone right after we saw her first when Alex and I first entered Cleveland. A slice of Cleveland gone silent. No gunfire. No screams. Just the slow, awful weight of presence.

  The zombies didn’t wander like usual. They gathered. A legion. Surrounding her like worshippers around a false god.

  So we got close and climbed. Thirteen stories up. High enough to see, but not so high we couldn’t bail if needed.

  Gail had binoculars. Jules had her notebook. Alex had her finger twitching over the trigger of a scoped rifle she wasn’t allowed to fire. Gail drilled the term Trigger Discipline in her head.

  Me? I had a bad feeling and a granola bar.

  We watched.

  Normals shuffled in shifting patterns. Not random. Rotating shifts, almost. Variants moved between them like odd puzzle pieces. Leaders stood further back, like supervisors on the world’s worst factory floor.

  And Barbie? She just stood. Eyes closed.

  I was just about to say something—probably dumb, definitely sarcastic—when Barbie opened her eyes.

  Then she looked up. Right at us.

  ---

  I froze.

  She stared.

  Roared.

  And pointed. Right at our rooftop.

  Thousands of heads turned in unison.

  “Oh no,” Harun whispered. “She’s doing the Mufasa point.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know. ‘Everything the light touches is our kingdom’—except it’s death.”

  “MOVE!” Gail barked.

  We moved.

  ---

  Barbie’s Legion charged. It felt like the city exhaled and forgot to inhale again. The ground shook with every step of her approach.

  “New name idea,” I panted as we sprinted for the fire escape. “Behemoth!”

  “Too late!” Alex yelled. “Barbie’s canon!”

  “Dammit!”

  We didn’t run back to the Fortress. We didn’t risk leading them home.

  We ran out of Cleveland.

  ---

  And then something happened.

  Time... slowed.

  Not literally. I wasn’t Neo. I wasn’t seeing code. But I felt everything sharpen. As we were chasing by Barbie and her cronies, I hear walls being ran through by Barbie like she's the Kool-Aid Man. Minus the "Oh yeah" and more "GRAAAAAAAHHHHRRRRRHHH"

  She was gaining on us. Her minions too.

  Harun tripped—before his foot hit the curb, I was already reaching.

  Jules slipped on loose gravel—I saw the angle, caught her backpack, adjusted her momentum.

  A variant came from the alley to flank us—I didn’t think. I just moved.

  This was new. Maybe adrenaline. Maybe instinct. But something else entirely as well. Like I was in a Quick Time Event, but without the button prompts. A state of total clarity in chaos.

  I wasn’t stronger. Wasn’t faster. Just… tuned in.

  We ducked, we weaved, we ran. Every near-miss felt like a test. Every breath was a countdown. I guided us through alleyways, over fences, through rusted-out bus frames and shattered gas stations.

  The Legion chased. But we didn’t falter.

  Not once.

  And then, finally—distance.

  Noise faded. The roars dimmed.

  We stopped only when Barbie’s scream became an echo. When even the bravest stragglers gave up the hunt.

  We collapsed behind a burned-out ambulance on the city edge. Gasping. Laughing.

  “You okay?” Jules asked.

  “Never better,” I said, my heart punching through my ribs.

  Alex nodded. “You… kinda saved our asses back there.”

  I shrugged. “I did."

  Harun grinned. “You were like... Amazing! It felt like you saw me trip beforehand and pulled me up!

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m jealous.” Harun says.

  "It's probably adrenaline though." Jules says.

  Maybe.