My Zombie Bestie and I Rule the Apocalypse

The apocalypse struck suddenly, plunging the world into chaos. My best friend was infected while saving me, and our group immediately threw her out of the safehouse.

On night watch, guilt drove me to sneak her some canned food. But as I touched the lock, glowing text appeared in my vision. It looked like live stream comments.

One warned that opening the door would let the Mother of the Infected in, getting the Male Lead bitten. Another defended me, saying I owed my friend. A third said this was a setup for romance. Without the bite, the MC would not nurse him and they would never fall in love. Someone added that after being bitten, the Male Lead lost his edge and got a prosthetic arm just to please the MC, while she lived a pampered life.

I pulled my hand back. My friend was destined to become the Mother of the Infected. That sounded fierce. As for the Male Lead, maybe he would make a good midnight snack for her.

The comments were still rolling in.

[LMAO look at the MC hesitating. What a useless damsel. She doesn't even have the guts to open the door.] [Don't open it! Opening it means dooming the Male Lead. Keeping it shut means they survive.] [Honestly, the best friend got done dirty. She saved the MC just to get tossed out to die. But whatever, she's just a plot device.]

I stared at the glowing lines floating past my eyes. My fingertips were still resting on the deadbolt.

The lock was freezing. It made my skin look ridiculously soft and pale, completely out of place in this hellscape.

It had been a month since the outbreak. These hands hadn't lifted a single heavy supply crate. They hadn't killed a single walker. I had barely even wrapped a bandage for anyone else.

Why?

Because I never had to.

My best friend, Sloane, took on every single dirty, brutal job.

When she was clearing out biters, I was hiding in the evacuation zone. When she was scavenging for food, I was resting in the safehouse.

Even her getting thrown out to die was because she shoved me through the safehouse doors during a massive horde attack, missing her own window to get inside by a fraction of a second.

She was so strong. She was so capable that everyone just assumed it was her job to protect the rest of us.

And I was so weak. I was so fragile that everyone assumed I was born to be protected.

My hand trembled against the cold metal.

The lock clicked softly. It sounded like the door was about to swing open.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Chris's voice echoed behind me.

I turned around. Chris had already sat up from his sleeping bag.

In the dim glow of the corner emergency light, I could clearly see the impatience written all over his face.

He was undeniably gorgeous. Sharp jawline, piercing eyes. He looked like an action movie star.

But right now, that handsome face was full of pure disgust for me, the so-called useless MC.

The chat was right.

In the original plot, I was just a pretty vase. I couldn't fight. I couldn't carry my own weight. My only purpose in this story was to play nurse when the Male Lead got hurt, fall in love with him, and fulfill every single romantic trope in the book.

My delicate, fragile nature only existed to add some spice to his post-apocalyptic power fantasy.

It was sickening.

I looked at Chris and answered with a completely flat voice.

"I want to give Sloane some food."

Sloane was my best friend.

Three hours ago, she took a zombie scratch to the arm while covering my blind spot. Chris was the one who personally gave the order to kick her out of the safehouse.

When Sloane was forced out, she looked back at me one last time.

There was zero resentment in her eyes. It was just a calm, quiet look that told me to stay alive.

She even smiled at me.

And then the heavy iron doors slammed shut in her face.

Chris furrowed his brows.

"Are you out of your mind?"

[Here we go! Classic bleeding-heart Mary Sue moment!] [MC, please use your brain! She's a zombie now! Opening that door is going to get everyone killed!] [I swear, how did someone this dumb survive a whole month?] [To be fair, I don't think the MC is wrong. The bestie literally saved her life. Giving her a snack isn't a crime. It's not like she's letting her inside.] [Get out of the chat, you bleeding-heart sympathizer.]

The floating text turned into a massive argument.

I ignored it. I turned my head and looked at the other people in the safehouse.

Seven people. All of them were awake.

Not a single one of them stood up to back me.

Garrison sneered, looking like he was holding back a string of curses.

Toby curled up in the corner. He didn't dare look me in the eye, let alone speak up for me.

Then there was the middle-aged couple. Martha clutched her husband's arm, while Marcus just shook his head at me like I was a clueless toddler.

"Sloane isn't a zombie," I said.

"She was just infected. She hasn't fully turned yet. She still has her consciousness, and she saved every single one of your lives."

It was the absolute truth.

Three days ago, the first horde hit our perimeter. A crawler pinned Garrison to the concrete. Sloane was the one who caved its skull in with a steel pipe, dragging Garrison back from the brink of death.

Two days ago, Toby caught a severe fever from a minor infection.

Sloane risked her life, looting three infested apartment blocks just to find him antibiotics.

As for Martha and Marcus, the only reason they made it to this safehouse was because Sloane acted as their human shield on the highway. She still had a half-healed gash on her shoulder from protecting them.

Every single person breathing in this room had survived because of Sloane.

I just couldn't understand it.

When Sloane was the one in danger, why was their very first instinct to throw her to the wolves and watch her die without a shred of guilt?

"That's completely different." Garrison spat, sounding incredibly annoyed.

"She's infected now. She could turn at any second. The rules are the rules. You pity her, but who is going to pity us?"

"Exactly." Martha chimed in from the corner.

"Monica, we know you have a good heart. But this is the apocalypse. Having a good heart gets you killed. Sloane was a great kid, but she's not human anymore."

I dug my heels in.

"She is still human right now. It's only been three hours since the scratch. A full mutation takes at least eight."

But they were completely deaf to reason.

"We can't take that gamble!" Marcus snapped coldly. "We have too many lives in this room. Your friend is just one person. If she dies, she dies! Do not drag us down with your suicidal empathy!"

Chris finally stepped in, delivering the final verdict with a voice made of ice.

"Bottom line. I am not letting you open that door.

"Think about it. If you open it, even just a crack, the smell of fresh meat will draw the biters straight inside. All eight of us, including you, will be ripped apart."

I looked at him like he had grown a second head.

"Hold on. Who exactly told you I was going to open the door?"

"I never said I was opening the door."

Chris froze.

The chat froze too.

[Huh? She's not opening the door? Then what was she doing at the lock?] [Did the MC actually grow a brain cell? No way, she's supposed to be a total simp for the ML in the novel.] [Wait, is she going to...]

I dug through my survival pack and pulled out a coil of heavy-duty climbing rope.

It was about fifty feet long. More than enough to reach the ground from our second-story window.

I went over to our supply stash and grabbed two cans of Spam, a bottle of purified water, and a pack of high-calorie survival biscuits.

I wrapped them tightly in a plastic bag and tied them securely to the end of the rope.

The main door to the safehouse was solid welded iron. It was completely airtight.

But the windows were a different story.

The second-floor windows were boarded up with thick planks, but there were gaps between the wood. Definitely enough space to slip a rope through.

Everyone in the room instantly realized what I was doing.

Toby was the first to speak, his voice practically a whisper.

"That... that actually works. We keep the door shut, just lower the food down..."

"Shut up." Chris shot him a lethal glare, and Toby instantly shrank back against the wall.

Chris marched over to me and grabbed the rope out of my hands.

"Are you seriously doing this?"

I frowned, keeping my voice dangerously low. "Let go."

"You want to waste our rations at a time like this?" Chris's voice dropped to a freezing register.

"You're giving food to a dead woman. What is the point? She takes two bites, turns into a monster, and all those calories go straight to hell. Our supplies are already running low. Do you have any idea how"

"I know." I cut him off sharply.

"I know supplies are low. I know she's dying. I know that once she turns, this food is completely wasted. But I do not care."

I glared right back into his eyes.

"She saved my life. She saved your lives. Even the food I'm giving away right now? She scavenged most of it. I refuse to sit here and watch her starve to death outside our walls just because you all lost your humanity."

My voice wasn't loud, but every single word hit the room like a sledgehammer.

Garrison looked away.

Martha's eyes darted nervously to the floor. She kept her mouth shut.

Chris's face turned incredibly ugly.

The floating text started flooding my vision again.

[Holy crap, the MC is actually standing her ground?] [Honestly, valid point. The bestie kept them all alive. Sparing a couple of cans of Spam is the least they could do.] [Logic doesn't exist in the apocalypse! You don't mix feelings with survival. The MC is just a bleeding heart.] [Bro, she isn't even opening the door. She's literally just lowering a snack on a rope. How is that being a bleeding heart?]

The chat went back to screaming at each other. I tuned them out.

Chris stared at me for a few long seconds before abruptly dropping the rope.

"Fine."

He looked at me, a mocking sneer twisting his lips.

"Do whatever you want. But let me remind you. The second you crack that window, noise and scent are going to leak out. Are you absolutely sure a couple of cans of Spam are worth the risk?"

I nodded without a shred of hesitation. "Worth it."

I walked over to the window and carefully pried two of the wooden planks just a fraction of an inch further apart.

The night wind immediately rushed in, carrying the foul, metallic stench of rotting blood.

I squinted, peering down into the darkness.

A small, familiar figure was crammed into the narrow space between a dumpster and the brick wall.

It was Sloane.

She was terrified that she would turn and attack someone, so she had forced her body into the tightest, smallest ball possible.

My chest tightened so painfully I almost choked on a sob.

Once the virus took hold, human senses became incredibly sharp.

Sloane heard the faint scrape of the wood. Her head snapped up.

Across a fifty-foot drop in the dead of night, our eyes locked.

I saw her pupils.

They hadn't turned into that milky, dead gray yet. They were still her beautiful, deep brown.

There was still light in them. There was still consciousness. Her human soul was still fighting.

I carefully fed the rope through the gap, lowering the plastic bag of food into the alley.

Sloane saw it. She struggled to her feet, stumbling forward a few clumsy steps, and grabbed the plastic bag.

She looked up at me.

She didn't make a sound, but I could read her lips perfectly in the moonlight.

"Dumbass."

Then she clutched the bag to her chest, slowly slid back down against the brick wall, and buried her face in her knees.

I turned away from the window and faced a room full of absolute silence.

Chris was sneering.

Garrison was sighing dramatically.

Martha was shaking her head.

Toby was secretly wiping tears from his eyes.

The chat was still arguing.

But I truly didn't care anymore.

I pulled the rope back up, sealed the wooden planks tight, and walked back to my sleeping bag to sit down.

And then, I waited.

The chat explicitly said my best friend was supposed to storm the room the second I opened the door and bite Chris.

But I never opened the door.

I was incredibly curious to see how this plot was going to fix itself.

The minutes ticked by.

At exactly three in the morning, the chat absolutely exploded.

[WTF WTF WTF!!! LOOK AT THE HORIZON!!!] [WHAT IS THAT?? WHAT IS THAT THING??] [IT'S A HORDE!!! A MASSIVE FREAKING HORDE!!!]

I shot to my feet and sprinted to the window.

Something was moving across the distant skyline.

At first, it just looked like a blur, like a thick, rolling wave of black fog swallowing the horizon.

But the shadows quickly took shape.

It was the infected. Hundreds, thousands of them.

A dense, suffocating swarm pouring in from every single direction. They looked like a black tide washing over the ruined streets and shattered buildings, heading straight for our safehouse.

They weren't moving fast, but the sheer volume of them was paralyzing.

It was true despair.

"A horde!" Garrison was the first to break the silence. All the blood drained from his face.

"How is this possible?! We scouted this entire grid! There were no major clusters for ten miles!"

"Something dragged them here." Chris's face turned completely pale.

"A sound? A scent? Or..."

He whipped his head around and glared at me.

Every single pair of eyes in the room locked onto me.

"It was the food." Chris's voice was absolute poison.

"You threw that food out the window. The smell drifted. You pulled the horde right to our doorstep!"

"That is impossible." I shot back immediately. "I sent down two sealed cans of Spam. The smell wouldn't carry far enough to"

"Are you seriously still denying it?!" Marcus suddenly roared. "Look at what is happening! You are still making excuses! I told everyone we couldn't let her open that window, but she wouldn't listen! Now look! We are all going to die in this concrete box!"

"Exactly!" Martha shrieked hysterically. "Monica, you selfish brat! You just had to play the saint, and now you've doomed us all!"

"I..."

"Enough." Chris held up a hand, silencing the room. His expression turned completely ruthless.

"This isn't the time to point fingers. We need a way out."

He shot me one final look. It was the kind of look you give a dead body.

The text floating in my vision went completely insane.

[Oh hell yes, Chris actually yelled at his future wife! You're gonna be groveling so hard later, bro!] [This plot is making my blood boil! The Male Lead did nothing wrong! It's all the MC's fault for being a stupid bleeding heart!] [Hold up. This wasn't in the original novel... The horde was triggered by something completely different in the book... Wait, is the timeline broken?] [Bro, you just noticed? The plot derailed the exact second she refused to open the door!]