But Ghost enjoys your chatter, the human part of his brain purrs at the sound of your voice. The undead bit remains restless though, he has to snack while you’re asleep, doing anything he can to keep the hunger at bay.

Dead animals mainly, there aren’t any survivors left to pick off round here. He doesn’t like to imagine what you might do, if you saw him eating raw meat greedily, blood and saliva dripping down his throat.

Ghost would rather you didn’t see him like that actually. Feral and rabid.

You sit down on a tree stump, wiping sweat off your brow.

“Wish I knew your name. I need something to call you.”

Ghost gazes at you blankly, pale eyes just watching.

“Skull face seems a bit obvious.” You concede, eyeing the mask he still hasn’t taken off. “You’ve got a UK flag on your gear, maybe I should call you Brit?”

The voice of Si sniggers in his echoing brain. From somewhere inside that muscled chest, he lets out a grunt.

You stare at him, it’s the first vaguely intelligible noise he’s made around you. Or at least the first sound you can interpret. Normally it’s gurgling or strained huffs.

“Did you just agree?” Your voice is shrill. “You want me to call you Brit?”

Ghost just looks at you again. One gloved hand clenches, then releases. It’s impossible to read his expression, mask and white gaze not giving anything away.

“No? Yes? Make that noise again if it’s a yes.”

He stays stonily silent. Then something odd happens. The part of him that still remains Si and isn’t consumed by the virus, fights for dominance. With a Herculean effort it seems, he beats a palm against the little pocket on his vest.

You eye him, then you shrug. This situation can’t possibly get any odder, so you might as well keep living it. Moving slightly closer, you examine his pocket.

Looking up, you see his pallor, the way his teeth look ashy white in their bluish gums. But there’s something in his milky eyes, a fierce determination that’s crystallised behind the opaque lenses.

Ghost lets out a tiny sigh. There’s no air in his lungs to expel, but he wants to communicate with you so badly.

When he was alive, he was a man of few words. Now, he wishes he could have at least some of them back, to use again for you.

Carefully you open his pocket. Inside are dog tags, the metal flashing as it catches the light.

“Simon Ghost Riley?” You smile at him.

The exertion of his small voluntary action has exhausted him. But he forces a low grunt from his mouth again, before Si recedes back under the weight of the virus.

You place the tags around your neck.

“Come on then Ghost, we’ve got ground to cover.”

As night begins to fall, you manage to locate an empty stone outhouse with a reasonably sturdy door. It’s the best you can do. There’s some stuff inside you can use to barricade yourself in at least.

Picking through the random tools and crap, you look up to see Ghost hunched in the doorframe. It looks like he’s keeping watch, your endless sentry, unblinking and chilling to behold.

It’s not rational to trust him. But you do. Inexplicably, you’re sure that whatever is going on in his subjugated mind, isn’t going to hurt you.

Unrolling your sleeping pad, you try and select a comfy piece of concrete. You wait for him to leave, as usual, before you settle in. But he doesn’t shift an inch.

“Need to shut the door now Ghost. See you in the morning.”

Slowly, he moves his head on a stiff neck and looks at you colourlessly. He’s so fucking stubborn, even dead, planting two booted feet firmly on the floor.

“Go on!” You encourage him, like he’s a badly behaved puppy who won’t go outside. “Stop being a ratbag!”

He lets out a huff, then grimly makes his way over to a corner. Obstinately he parks himself against the wall, misty eyes now staring out of the small window.

The panes of glass are dirty, but the virus has made his senses sharper. Useful in tracking the living, but now they keep you safe from the other monsters that roam the night.

Si knows he is a monster too, but surely the fact that he’s able to acknowledge that counts for something. Sets him apart from the others?

He doesn’t look like he wants to move. But you raise your voice and try again.

“Ghost! Please can you leave and let me sleep?”

There’s a tiny jerk, just a small hitch of his chin. It’s probably old nerves firing, but it sure as hell looks like he just shook his head.

Maybe it can’t hurt, after all if he disappeared in the night you’d be lost without him. So you lock yourself and your undead friend inside.

Sleep comes quickly, brought on by the miles you’ve put underneath your feet as you look for any sign of life.

Simon doesn’t rest. Obviously he doesn’t need to. He watches the evening blend seamlessly into the early dawn outside the window. Back when he first signed up, he used to do guard duty all the time, enjoying the peace and quiet of life before the world woke up.

It’s no different now. He likes the way the birdsong fills his sensitive ears. Every snap of a twig is registered and even the wind whistling under the door is peaceful.

You shiver slightly, tugging your sleeping bag up in the draught.

So warm and soft. Still alive, you can feel the cold. The virus howls for him to move closer, seek out that sweet body heat you possess. But Si reins it in.

He’ll scare you if he gets too near. Also, Simon doesn’t usually act without permission, a habit formed from years of service.

Simon had people touch him without permission in his former life, and the consequences of that were very nearly his undoing.

Instead he just watches, haunts you. Living up to his name. A tangible spectre.

Human Si would have loved the sight of you in his dog tags. The steel sitting close to your heart.

Even now, he’s fighting so hard to get some measure of control back over his body. Wanting to do more than just follow you around like a stray dog. Growling at any other infected individual that dares to come near you.

In death, Ghosts presence is just as commanding as it was in life. You told him yesterday he was the king of the zombies, after he warned off a particularly venomous looking corpse.

The chuckle inside his head at that statement, almost felt like it might burst out of his broken mouth.

Si has faced his own mortality so many times. Now he’s the reanimated incarnation of it.

There was a fleeting part of him, that wondered if he should try and turn you, so you could live out the remainder of eternity together.

But he just couldn’t resign you to that. Simon isn’t a selfish person, not in life and not in undeath.

Still, it’s getting easier to access the parts of his consciousness that are unaffected by the virus. Since he met you, the voice of Si has become louder.

There’s a glimmering hope inside him, that even if you both manage to locate civilisation in whatever form, you’ll let him stay with you.

You’ve come on leaps and bounds in a few weeks. Now you’ve let him watch you sleep, when you’re at your most vulnerable.

That’s a level of trust that would have had the old Si grinning from ear to ear. But as his face doesn’t seem capable of that anymore, he contents himself with humming instead.

You wake to the sound of Ghost, mumbling a croaky tune, the sound strained through a voice box that hasn’t been heard since he died.

It sounds a lot like Three Lions. So you sleepily sing footballs coming home, until a flicker of life flashes across his wasted face.

Masterlist for this series is here

It’s the strangest sensation, being trapped in his own body. The vague consciousness he still possesses, is now enslaved to a drive to consume everything in it’s path.

But Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley has always been tough. Even through everything life has thrown at him, he’s remained stoic. He’ll be fucked if this virus shit gets the better of him.

Carefully you squeeze out a sponge on his head, making his short blonde hair dark with water. He’s filthy, covered in blood, gore and mud. There’s absolutely no way he’s coming under your roof, smelling like death itself.

Because you can’t be parted from him now. Not since he found you, cowering in the ruins of a military base, surrounded by hungry demons itching to rip you apart.

Ghost snarled so ferociously at the corpses circling you, he sounded almost human.

This is it, you thought, watching him closing in on you while the others faded from sight. But instead of chowing greedily on your hot flesh, the giant just stared down at you.

Even when you cautiously stood up, legs trembling, he didn’t move. Ghost just gazed on with a strange familiarity.

Then he followed you home, the lost soul that he is. He always felt slightly rudderless in life, that was partly why he enjoyed being a soldier, but now he’s found a new purpose.

Looking after you.

At first you were completely unnerved, and you kept trying to shoo him away. He was so utterly menacing, trailing behind you, the undead soldier covered in crimson and darker stains you’d rather not know the origin of.

Unbidden however, he kept you safe, frightening off any dangerous creatures in your path with his indomitable presence. The more you moved into the darkness, the closer he got, like a bodyguard.

It didn’t take long for you to realise he could understand you, even if he couldn’t reply. Ghost huffed lightly when you shouted at him to fuck off and his eyes crinkled, like he wanted to smile.

It’s been so lonely since the outbreak took hold. You were travelling with work when it happened, alone in a foreign country as city after city fell. Desperately, you tried to get home as your companions died or turned around you. Then there was no one. Just you and your wits.

Given that he’s had plenty of opportunities to eat you alive, you made the decision to let him into the little cottage you’ve been using as a base.

At worst, he’ll kill or turn you, and your solitude will be over. At best, he could help you to stay alive.

Ghost doesn’t care why you’ve allowed him into your sanctuary, as long as you stay close to him.

So, with a creak of joints, he folds his long legs into the tub and lets you try to make him presentable. Ghost represses the urge to snap at you, when you gently rub the congealed blood from his cold white flesh.

He’s beyond pale, almost blue, frozen in time because blood no longer pumps through the veins spanning his body.

“Better!” You tell him happily. Ghost lets out a haughty gurgle in response.

“Hop out. I need to wash your clothes now.”

He glares at you like you’re an idiot, broken jaw hanging slack.

“Don’t look at me like that! I let you keep your boxers on.”

You’ve gathered up his gross tactical gear, along with some laundry powder scavenged from a long departed neighbours empty house.

He looked so concerned when you started to undress him. One freezing hand grabbing your wrist with surprising strength for a dead man.

When you attempted to encourage him to give you his briefs, he growled like a mutt, clouded gaze narrowing. So you let him keep them on, deciding it probably wasn’t worth losing your life over.

With freakish agility only one of the infected could display, he stands tall and exits the bath. Water drips all over the floor as you pat him dry calmly. Ghost shakes his head slightly, which makes the stagnant fluid in his spine crack. You wince at the sound.

It feels strange to have someone else touching him after so long. Not bad, just different. Your eyes move over his scarred torso, taking in the marks that decorate his bloodless skin.

There’s a deep wound on his neck, teeth marks, flesh ragged with angry burgundy streaks surrounding it. That must have been how he got turned.

Ghost lets out another low gurgle when you try and lift up his mask, batting away your hand. He doesn’t want you to see him, worried the sight of his sunken features will frighten you.

“Am I going to have to muzzle you? Or are you going to behave.”

Somewhere, deep in the human part of his brain still functioning, a voice that used to be Simon’s laughs. It quite likes the idea of you putting a muzzle and a leash on him. Or trying to anyway.

For the time being, you put him in a flowery dressing gown, located inside an upstairs cupboard. The disgust radiating from him at that is almost visible in the air.

Ghost stands perfectly still, while your fingers brush against his colourless skin, now almost translucent in the dark.

Unable to help himself, drool starts to collect in the corner of his mouth. It forms one long string of liquid, leaking over his chin. You wipe it up carefully with a cuff.

He sniffs, the thrumming pulse in your neck spreading your scent around him, his enhanced smell picking up on the notes in it. Your own personal perfume is yummy.

Ghost huffs, suppressing the viruses calls to taste you, find out whether your flesh is as delicious. It’s surprisingly easy to ignore his base impulses around you, even through the clamouring infection clouding his personality.

You look up into his face warily.

“Don’t do that.”

He groans in response, which isn’t exactly reassuring, even if he wants to tell you he’d never act on it. Unsure what else to do, you back away.

It’s weird. You know it’s so weird.

But still, the thought of having another body that doesn’t outwardly seem to want to kill you, is comforting.

You lock the door to the bedroom when you sleep, leaving him loitering in the dark hallway, a strange guard dog made of mutated flesh and sinew. Just as a precaution, you don’t think you could fight him off if he did decide you were a snack.

When you wake up, you wonder if it was all a fever dream. Then you hear a loud creak from the floorboards downstairs.

Ghost is waiting for you, almost exactly where you left him.

Masterlist to this series is right here

Nudging a rock with your toe, you glance around your shoulder uneasily.

The nearest bridge is swarming with the undead. Too many even for Ghost to frighten off. It’s the only crossing point for miles and the longer you stay still, the more at risk you are of encountering problems.

Every morning, you wake up with Ghost next to you. He’s abandoned almost all pretence of keeping a respectable distance, but you’re used to those pale eyes gazing at you now.

You barely even start when he pokes you with a cold finger, or you feel his chilled breath on the back of your neck.

In truth, Ghost watches you most of the time. His favourite occupation is lying next to you, while you’re tucked up in your sleeping bag. Especially in that perfect period just after you fall asleep.

You always look so peaceful, not minding that sometimes he places a hand on your arm or cheek, to feel the warmth radiating from your body. A few times, he’s felt the pulse beating steadily within your wrist, enjoying the vibrant hammer of it against your skin.

He’s thinking hard at the moment, brows bent inwards with concentration. Sometimes you forget he’s made from the same rabid material as the other corpses. They aimlessly trail from place to place, whereas he seems more man than death everyday.

Purposefully, Ghost grunts. He bends down and scoops up a massive fistful of mud. Then, with no warning whatsoever, he dumps it onto your head.

“What the fuck!” You sputter, grit filling your mouth.

He laughs croakily, then goes in for another attack.

“Stop it! You’re an animal!” You shout, wriggling as he starts slapping dirt on you, like he’s plastering a wall.

Even as you try and get away, one firm hand drags you closer to him. It’s impossible to escape, he’s so strong, rubbing muck over every inch of you.

You consider punching him in the face, but you doubt that would make much difference. He’s on a mission, wheezing as he decorates you.

Eventually he releases his grip, so you stagger away, glaring at him. Ghost stands back admiring his handiwork, then he leans in and sniffs.

You still smell vaguely enticing. He needs something else to cover it.

“Dickhead!” You snap, trying to wipe your eyes. He slaps your hand away, then begins to tug off his vest, still covered in dry deers blood.

He slips it over your head, as you suppress a gag. Ghost inhales once more, nodding approvingly. Your scent has been satisfactorily replaced with his own.

“If you weren’t dead already, I’d do it for you.” You tell him crossly, almost heaving at the thought of the bacteria now pressed against your skin. “Stop laughing!”

But Ghost can’t stop. It leaks out of him, after such a long stretch of forced silence.

After you threaten him several more times, he finally gets a hold of himself. He points to the bridge in the distance, then to you and himself.

Comprehension starts to dawn on you.

“Okay.” You nod, fear bubbling in the pit of your stomach. But there’s no other way across. It’s this or swim and you don’t fancy your chances against that current.

Ghost starts to pull you towards him, bending slightly and putting your arms around his neck. It’s a good job you smell vile, because otherwise the proximity of your body to his, would make thinking straight a challenge.

He hoists you onto his back easily. It’s not comfortable, jutting along with his uneasy gait beneath you. You cling on, watching the bridge get nearer and nearer.

You pass several infected. They don’t even look at Ghost, circling vacantly. More and more start to appear, all preoccupied with their own endless existences, not noticing you.

You’re holding your breath as Ghost treks through a thicker section of them, heading up onto the bridge. Anxiously, you clutch him a little tighter.

Still nothing.

Their faces are all sunken, skull like. Some are covered in blood, others look unnervingly normal, until they turn and you see those milky eyes.

When you get to the midway point, an aggressive looking monster watches you both move by. Then it begins to lumber towards you.

Fuck.

It smells the air hopefully, eyes blank and hungry. Ghost squares up to it, letting out a low hiss. But it’s not deterred, approaching mindlessly.

You can’t watch, burying your face into his muscled back, hiding from the sight of it. A hushed whimper leaves your lips. That thing could tear you apart and you’d rather not see doom approaching.

Ghost snarls, reaching down to squeeze your legs reassuringly. Si is urging him forwards, telling him to run if necessary, get you out of there as quickly as he can.

Heeding the warning, the creature turns away at the last moment, deciding it’s not worth investigating something that sounds so feral.

Together you plod off the bridge and onto safe land. But he doesn’t put you down, not until there’s as much distance as possible under his feet.

What feels like hours later, he places you on the soft floor of a small barn. Your tired body feels like lead, eyes drooping.

“Your back is harder than a virgin’s dick at the thought of a honeymoon.” You tease sleepily, making him let out another rough bark of mirth.

Heavily, you remove his vest. It doesn’t smell so bad now. Or maybe you’re just used to it. Who knows.

There’s a small water butt just outside, you spotted it on your way in.

“Gonna wash.” You tell him with a yawn. “Don’t peek.”

Ghost huffs, frosted eyes blinking once in acknowledgment. Si’s softer voice thanks fuck that his plan worked, that you’re safe. He rests against the creaking wooden wall, watching the moonlight rise over the sky.

Your smaller form is wrapped in a blanket, hair wet as you lay out your clothes to dry. Ghost can’t help but be drawn to it, your figure outlined against the dusk. He can see you shivering, even from here.

Before he died, Si always ran hot, sleeping under the thinnest layers so he didn’t roast alive. Now he would give pretty much anything on earth, to cuddle up with you and warm your sleeping body with his.

In the middle of the night, you grab his hand as you talk in your dreams. Si wonders what you’re seeing?

If fate had bought you together while he was whole, would you have given him the time of day? Necessity is clearly why you keep him around now, but say you’d met him in another timeline…

So many questions he can’t articulate. Would you both have shared these small, tender moments? Would the old Simon Riley have been this happy simply to hold your hand?

He used to struggle with intimacy, feeling unworthy of it.

Simon never really had significant others when he was alive. He was married to his job. Also, after the endless assaults inflicted on him by Roba amongst others, he found physical touch difficult.

Sometimes he craved it. Other times the thought of being close to someone, made him feel sick. He’d had one night stands, but he didn’t let many people get closer than that.

It’s different with you though, he’s different.

Tags: @cutiecusp

Masterlist for this series

Ghost grunts. Everyday it gets closer to a laugh, like his vocal chords are waking up from a deep sleep.

“Blink once for arms as legs, twice for legs as arms.”

Slowly, he blinks once, lids sticking over his dry white orbs slightly.

It was beyond exciting to Si, when he realised he could flutter his blonde lashes at will. He seemed to have complete control over that, no input needed from the virus.

You were bloody slow on the uptake though, not twigging the hidden messages behind his timed blinks.

Eventually he grabbed your arm and stuck his face in yours, damaged jaw working furiously, so he accidentally covered you in spit.

But ever since you realised Ghost could give you basic replies, he hasn’t been able to shut you up. You’ve chatted at him non stop.

The piece of Si trapped inside the prison of his cadaver loves it. It reminds him of the 141, normality and being with friends.

“Yeah I’d go for arms as legs too.” You beckon him down, from where he’s been standing as a look out over you.

With a huff and a dubious clicking of his knee caps, he sinks onto his heels in front of you. He doesn’t usually get this close.

The virus kicks up a notch, sensing living tissue to infect, but he firmly forces it into submission.

As you put the daisy crown on his head, his glare suggests he’s just about tolerating it.

“You look so cute!”

But you sound happy, and that makes him happy too. Even if he does look like a complete twat, a walking corpse decorated with whimsical flowers.

Your stomach rumbles loudly. Supplies are low and you haven’t had a decent meal in a few days. A flicker of something close to concern passes over Ghosts face.

He’s known hunger, in this life and the previous one. It’s not pleasant. Si’s voice nags at him; You could catch something to eat, don’t be a useless git.

It’s true, he could, but it would involve unleashing a part of him he doesn’t like.

When he watches you crunch the last of your stale crackers however, looking thoroughly miserable, Si takes the reins.

As night falls and you’re fast asleep, tucked away in an abandoned jeep, he lets the infectious parasite in his mind loose.

All that survival training pales into insignificance, when confronted by the inhuman nature he now possesses. The urge to feed, backed up by the senses and strength to bring that instinct to fruition.

At dawn, he returns with a deer slung across his broad shoulders. With fumbling, uncoordinated hands, he starts to skin it from pure muscle memory.

He was a butcher’s apprentice after all, though that feels like an age ago.

Softly, Ghost leans over you, snoring in the rear seat. One gloved hand reaches out to play with a piece of your hair.

“Fuck!” You wake with a start, to see his opaque eyes inches from your own, while one clumsy finger twirls a strand back and fourth.

Scooting away from him as quickly as possible, you nearly yank the chunk he’s gripping clean out. He lurches back slightly, trying to give you space.

Ghost pretends it doesn’t hurt his feelings, to see you react like that. He can’t blame you though, distorted face and the stench of Bambi's blood fresh on his dead skin.

“What is it?” You ask anxiously, looking at the dark liquid covering him.

Slowly, one cold hand reaches for you. Still rubbing your eyes, you hesitate, his gloves are drenched in the worst smelling fluid.

Sensing your reluctance, Ghost pulls one off roughly, then gives you his bare palm. He looks almost hopefully at you, then down at his arm.

So you take his outstretched invitation. His flesh is freezing, solid like marble because all his muscles are in fluctuating rigour mortis.

Proudly, he shows you the meat he’s prepared for you.

“Jesus Christ, please tell me that isn’t a person?” Your shaking hand is covering your face, eyes peering through the gaps in your fingers.

Ghost shoots you what can only be described as an old fashioned look, then shakes his head with a jerk.

His mouth starts to work furiously, low groans and gurgles spilling over his thin blanched lips. But words just won’t come, so he ends up blinking twice for no at you, wishing he wasn’t drooling so heavily.

“Can I eat it?”

One lethargic blink.

Eventually, you decide you’d rather not know exactly what it is. As long as it’s not a human, you’re hungry enough to light your camp stove and cook it.

Ghost sits happily beside you, tearing raw strips of meat off the bone with two big hands, aiming them towards his mouth and slurping. He’s becoming more dexterous, along with clearly wanting to speak.

“That’s grim. You know that right? If we find any other survivors, you’re gonna have to improve your manners.”

“Heh!”

It’s a laugh, clearly a laugh! Admittedly it sounds like a strangled donkey bray, tearing through his throat, but still.

Ghost looks surprised. Then does it again.

“S’not funny.” You reply, belly now full, thinking about his gentle gesture earlier.

You haven’t touched another hand in ages. It was strangely comforting.

“Thank you for looking after me.” Your voice is soft.

He huffs in response, lopsided face trying to curl into a genuine smile.

Ghost might even have blushed at that, if blood was capable of flooding his cheeks.

The masterlist is here <3