The tag was holding well. Liz reminded herself to thank Hank for the idea of a shark tag to track them. It was a little dicey spearing them, but she had really good data on their feeding and migration patterns now, totally worth the change of underwear.
Ms. Lonely Heart was heading back to the high school. Over the last month, since the tag was active, Lonely Heart followed the same loop through town, ending at the school every seven days. Exactly seven days.
Of course it was dangerous, following her, but Liz hadn’t seen a herd in ages. They moved on weeks ago to where the food was. But Lonely Heart stayed. why did she stay? She was thin, almost emaciated. Fresh blood on her, probably a small animal. No real predation left for her here anymore. Just the school. Liz followed her inside, hearing the whole team screaming in her head to not be so fucking stupid. But she was on to something.
It explained the high school, the pattern, the lack of will to live. Unlive, whatever. Liz smelled breakthrough, so she ignored her training and screaming team and followed Lonely Heart deep inside the cavernous school. All the way to the theatre, around backstage, behind the wardrobe. Their secret place. This is where they would meet, secretly, privately, to be together.
And they were still together. He must have come here looking for her, when the infection hit the school. And she was here, waiting for him. Liz couldn’t tell for sure what happened, he was too decomposed, too.. incomplete. But he didn’t turn, he had to have died before she first bit him. He probably struggled, fell back, hit his head on one of the clothes hooks, fatally. And then?
She ate him. But only some of him.
This was the breakthrough. Liz had never witnessed one feeding on an old corpse. Once decomp began they were no longer food. But Lonely Heart wasn’t just an empty drone. She didn’t know or remember how to express emotions anymore, but she still had them. So she did the only thing she knew how. She ate. Lonely Heart came back here to see her boyfriend, once a week, and ate a little bit of him each time. To show him how she felt.
This zombie was in love.