Zombie Speed Dating (Spoiler: They're Not Great Conversationalists), a Goth with a Grudge, and a Highway to How-Did-We-Get-Here?.
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Author Note: Buckle up, buttercups, because this joyride just took a sharp left into the apocalypse! Sawyer's having a really bad day, Bonny's channeling their inner getaway driver, and Melinda's bringing a whole new meaning to "road rage." Hold on tight – it's about to get bumpy (and possibly undead).
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Three words throbbed like a mantra in Sawyer's frantic mind, each one more surreal than the last—zombies, car chase, and angry goth girl.
The last part, of course, was his own bitter joke. A way to keep from unraveling. If he didn't laugh, he might scream. His face, usually composed and pale in that effortlessly cool way, now felt hot with sweat and fury. His black eyeliner had smudged, his breaths came in tight bursts, and his pulse thrummed like a war drum in his ears. This wasn't a movie. This wasn't some occult dream he could wake from. This was real—messy, chaotic, blood-slicked reality.
The car—an old, dull-blue sedan that looked like it had already seen one apocalypse and come back with attitude—shuddered as it bolted down the cracked highway. The steering wheel vibrated beneath his grip, and the gas pedal, pressed to the floor, trembled under his boot. Its engine howled in protest, threatening to give up with every gear shift, but still it ran. Somehow, it kept going. Somehow, so did he.
Behind them, the soundscape was pure horror. The sickly chorus of the dead clawed its way into the car, even through closed windows. Groans rose in waves, low and guttural, like creatures in pain—or hunger. Bones scraped and clacked, an eerie percussion to the chase. Wet, sticky sounds like meat being chewed added a grotesque rhythm to the nightmare. And it was getting louder.
These weren't the slow, stumbling corpses pop culture had trained people to joke about. No. These things were fast. Not Olympic-sprinter fast, but unnervingly quick for beings that shouldn't even be standing. Their movements were jerky and wrong, like puppets pulled by broken strings—yet they never faltered. They didn't tire. They didn't stop.
Their bodies told the stories of their deaths in hideous detail. One had no lower jaw, just a gaping hole of crimson and cracked teeth. Another dragged one leg, the bone gleaming clean where flesh had been ripped away. Some had gaping wounds through their torsos, others lacked arms or had limbs bent backward at impossible angles. Their skin—what was left of it—hung in gray sheets, pulled taut in places and slack in others, splitting open like rotten fruit.
Bonny stole a glance in the rearview mirror and regretted it instantly. The horde spilled across the road like a dark wave of nightmare. Their eyes—if they still had them—were glazed and milky, but locked on him with a chilling intent. Not blind hunger. No, something deeper. Something knowing.
He tightened her grip on the wheel, knuckles white, the ache in her hands ignored. His jaw clenched. Whatever force had raised these things, whatever magic or curse or cruelty was responsible, it was chasing them—and it had no intention of letting go.
And neither did he.
Despite the grotesque decay of their bodies, the undead moved with a terrifying speed that defied all reason. It was the kind of unnatural motion that made Bonny's skin crawl, like watching something that should be dead refuse to stay that way. Limbs that should have crumbled under their own weight pumped with jagged, jerky strides. Bones protruded from open wounds, and yet they ran—loped, stumbled, lunged—with a savage momentum that ignored every natural law.
There was no grace in their movements, only violence and desperation. They were driven—not by instinct, but by a sinister compulsion that reeked of something older, something dark and deliberate. Hollow sockets glowed faintly with an eerie red shimmer, a sick parody of life. That glow pulsed faintly with every step they took, as if each surge of hunger brightened their unnatural fire.
The sound of their feet—the broken slap of bone and sinew hitting pavement—was gaining rhythm, syncing into a grotesque beat that hammered against the sanity of those inside the speeding car. It was the sound of death approaching, not with a whisper, but with thunder.
In the backseat, Sawyer clung to hand guard with all the strength his trembling arms could muster. His face was pressed into her side, his pale cheek streaked with silent tears. He didn't sob, didn't make a sound—only shivered violently, his fear palpable in the way he gripped it like it was the last piece of solid ground in a collapsing world.
Bonny didn't speak. his hands were clenched so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles had turned a bone-white shade, stark against the dark interior of the car. Every muscle in his arms was rigid with tension. His eyes, wide and dark, darted between the road and the rearview mirror, calculating every second of distance between them and the nightmare on their heels.
A figure lunged into their path.
It came out of nowhere—what had once been a man, now reduced to something monstrous. The remains of a business suit flapped in the wind as the creature staggered onto the road. One shoe was missing, the other scuffed and split, the tie around its neck hanging like a noose. Its jaw hung loose, the skin barely holding on, revealing brown teeth and rotted gums. Its eyes—those burning red hollows—locked onto them with terrifying precision.
Bonny gasped, a sharp inhale that cut the silence like glass, and jerked the wheel hard to the left.
The screech of tires shattered the stillness of the afternoon—a jagged, high-pitched wail that tore through the silence like claws against steel. Rubber skidded violently across unyielding asphalt, the car convulsing beneath them like a spooked animal. It bucked once, then again, the steering wheel jerking in Bonny's hands as he fought to regain control.
For a moment that seemed to stretch beyond time, they hovered on the brink of the road's edge—caught between balance and chaos. Outside the window, the world blurred into streaks of green, brown, and sky. Trees, grass, sky, dirt—spinning in wild confusion.
A brutal jolt threw Sawyer sideways, his slender frame slamming into the car door with a bone-deep thud. A sharp, hot pain flared along his right hip, blooming like fire beneath his skin. He gasped, clutching at the seat, the air knocked clean from his lungs.
Beside him, Bonny's grip on the wheel was iron. His jaw clenched, teeth gritted, eyes locked forward with the kind of focus born from raw instinct and fear. His face was taut, his knuckles white, veins popping against the strain of trying to hold the car steady.
But not even Bonny's willpower could rewrite the laws of physics.
With a metallic groan, the car surrendered to momentum and gravity. It tipped, slowly at first, then faster—rolling over as though time itself had bent to prolong the horror.
The sky vanished. Then the earth. The inside of the car spun violently, and the noise—glass shattering, metal bending, Sawyer's own heartbeat crashing in his ears—was deafening.
When the vehicle finally came to rest on its roof, everything was silent.
Then, Bonny moved.
A raw surge of adrenaline pushed him into motion. He kicked at the warped door with everything he had. Once. Twice. On the third try, the frame groaned and split, the metal giving way just enough for him to drag himself free.
He didn't stop.
With one arm bleeding and his chest heaving, he turned back into the crumpled interior and reached for Sawyer. His fingers found the boy's arm and yanked him free with a grunt of exertion.
Sawyer stumbled into the open air, coughing, shaking, his mind struggling to piece together what had just happened.
"Are you okay?"
Bonny's voice was hoarse but urgent. Not barked. Not shouted. Just real.
Sawyer looked up at him, dazed. His eyes were wide, unfocused. The ground beneath him felt unreal. Like a dream after a bad fall. He nodded—but it wasn't confident. It was survival. Just a reflex.
Bonny's shoulders sagged in relief—but only for a breath.
"Good," he snapped, his voice hardening. "Because I'm going to need you in one fucking piece if you're going to tell me what the hell is going on!"
He stepped forward, his expression tense, torn between frustration and fear.
"Why is the Bone Witch after you, Sawyer?"
The name hit the air like a curse.
Sawyer blinked, confusion flickering across his pale face. His lips parted, dry and trembling.
"I... I don't know," he whispered, eyes darting to the wreckage as if the answer might be hiding in the twisted metal. "I should be asking you. How did you even know—?"
Bonny didn't answer.
He turned suddenly, eyes narrowing as a low, inhuman sound reached them. A grotesque moaning. Feet dragging over gravel. Bones grinding in joints that no longer worked right.
And then they came into view.
Figures.
Bodies.
Dead things.
They limped from around the bend in the road, their forms mangled and decayed. Limbs twisted unnaturally. Faces slack and rotting. Empty eyes locked onto Sawyer like a beacon in the dark.
Bonny's breath caught.
He looked around frantically, scanning the roadside like a trapped animal. Then—he saw it.
An old, rust-bitten motorcycle. Parked crooked against a leaning fence, half-eaten by weather and time.
He didn't hesitate.
In a blur of movement, he sprinted toward it. His boots thundered against the gravel, urgency pushing his body faster than pain could slow him. He straddled the bike, fingers trembling as he jammed the key into the ignition.
The engine sputtered. Coughed. Then roared.
It was alive.
Bonny turned back, yelling over the engine's growl, his hand outstretched.
"Are you coming or not?!"
Sawyer didn't move. Not at first.
The undead were closing in—moaning, groaning, swaying with horrific purpose. Their presence drained the warmth from the world around them.
He froze.
Every instinct screamed run, but his feet refused.
Then he saw Bonny's hand—reaching, waiting. Not just for his body, but his choice.
"Fuck it!" Sawyer shouted, voice breaking with fear and resolve.
He ran.
He leapt onto the back seat just as the first corpse reached the roadside, its outstretched fingers brushing air where his jacket had just been.
And the bike peeled off into the distance, smoke trailing behind them, leaving the dead to scream at the dust.
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The suited zombie lunged—its rotten mouth wide open in a silent snarl, arms stretched toward the vehicle—but missed by mere inches. It spun away with the momentum of its failed attack, crumpling to the ground in a heap of limbs and shredded fabric as the car surged ahead.
Bonny's breath came in sharp, ragged draws now, His chest rising and falling like he'd been holding in panic for far too long. He didn't speak. There was no need. Every glance in the mirror told him the same thing: they weren't safe yet. And the road ahead was long, dark, and full of horrors yet to come.
"Fuck, I don't get paid enough for this," Bonny hissed through clenched teeth, his voice tight and raw. Panic warred with focus in her tone as he yanked the motorcycle hard to the right. The old thing skidded dangerously close to the crumbling edge of the asphalt, the tires shrieking in protest as they fought for traction on the uneven road.
The world outside blurred into streaks of color and chaos, but around them, every heartbeat felt like a countdown.
"You got her angry," Sawyer said from the backseat, his voice thin and quivering. He clung to the seatbelt across his chest like it was the only thing anchoring him to sanity. His eyes were huge, glassy with fear, fixed on Bonny like he was the only person holding the line between life and death.
Bonny didn't look at him. He couldn't afford to. But his jaw clenched, his knuckles white against the wheel. "Yeah, well, you're welcome for saving your ass," he snapped, his words sharp—not out of malice, but out of sheer desperation. Sarcasm was the last mask he had left, and he wore it tightly, hoping it would keep the fear from showing.
"You cut off her hand, man." Sawyer's voice dropped slightly, his fear mingling now with something closer to awe, or disbelief. "Even by my standards, that's messed up."
Bonny exhaled through his nose, sharp and bitter. "Maybe you should tell her that next time she tries to kill you," he muttered, his tone dry with a dark humor that was quickly becoming his coping mechanism. "I'm sure she'll appreciate the feedback."
With one hand still firm on the bikes wheels, he reached with the other—fast, fluid, familiar—and grabbed the shotgun resting against his back. His fingers curled around the grip like they were born for it.
Without a second of hesitation, he aimed at the charging undead beside them and fired.
The blast echoed like thunder through the narrow streets. A split second later, the creature that had been clinging unnaturally to the brick wall—a corpse with stringy gray hair and the ragged remains of what might have once been a wedding dress—exploded in a wet, horrible spray. Bits of bone and blackened flesh splattered the wall behind it, sliding down in gruesome ribbons.
Sawyer flinched at the sound, the reek of rot and gunpowder flooding into the car. He coughed, gagged once, and then buried his face in his hands, the adrenaline crashing over him like a wave he couldn't outrun.
Bonny didn't flinch. He didn't breathe either—not for a second. His hands returned to the wheel just as the motorcycle began to veer slightly to the left. He corrected instantly, eyes forward, mouth tight.
There was no time to rest. No room to think. Just the road, the screams in the distance, and the endless pressure of survival closing in.
Sawyer's hands trembled as he clutched the edges of the seat, his eyes locked on the rearview mirror like it was a window into a waking nightmare. His heart thudded violently in his chest, louder than the roar of the engine, louder even than the screaming wind rushing past the car. He swallowed hard, trying to calm the growing lump in his throat as a shape came into full view behind them.
Melinda.
Or what was left of her.
She was riding one of the monstrous Hounds again—massive, hellish creatures that looked like they'd clawed their way straight out of a twisted fairytale. There were three of them now, their grotesque bodies thundering across the broken terrain of this surreal world, their eyes burning with a sickly, unnatural light. It wasn't just a chase anymore. It was a hunt.
Her arm—Sawyer stared at it, unable to look away—was a bloody stump, the flesh mangled and raw where her hand had once been. She clutched her wand in her remaining hand, though awkwardly, like it no longer felt like a part of her. Her face was locked in a grimace of fury and pain, a terrifying combination that twisted her beautiful features into something barely human. She was struggling to aim, her hand shaking violently with every bump of the hog beneath her.
"Where… where are we?" Sawyer asked. His voice came out in a breathy whisper, barely audible above the chaos outside. His brain couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. None of it felt real—like the world had folded in on itself and spat them out into some dark parody of existence.
"Mundus Fictus," Bonny replied, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She didn't look at him. Her jaw was set, her focus stretched thin between navigating this strange, otherworldly terrain and keeping them alive. The name fell from her lips like a curse, heavy and alien.
Sawyer blinked. "A false world?" he repeated, frowning, searching his memory. "She… she mentioned that before."
"Yes," Bonny said quickly, but his voice was tight, almost reluctant. There was no time for deep explanations, but he knew he needed something—some kind of anchor. "It's an ability only those with high-level magic can use. They create it—a subspace. Entirely fabricated, like a pocket dimension."
"Like a world inside a world?" Sawyer asked, still trying to keep up, still trying to grasp what should have been impossible.
Bonny finally risked a glance at him. His eyes were intense, flickering with fear, but also with a strange respect. "Yes. And whoever creates it—they're called the instigator. Think of them like…" he paused, avoiding a sudden bump in the road that sent the car jolting, "…like the principal of the world. The author of its rules."
Sawyer turned back to the melinda, his breath catching in his throat as he saw the hogs gaining ground. "And everyone else?"
Bonny's hands tightened on the wheel.
"They just play along," he said, voice low. "Until they lose… or find a way out."
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"When you say 'lose,'" Sawyer asked, his voice barely steady as the reality of their situation began to weigh on him, "you mean… like die, right?"
Bonny's eyes didn't leave the road, but his lips curved into something caught between a grimace and a smirk. "What gives you that idea?"
There was a beat of silence between them, heavy with the roar of the engine and the howl of wind rushing past. Sawyer swallowed hard, glancing once more into the back window. The shadows of Melinda and her monstrous hogs were still there, relentless, like death chasing them down on three bloodthirsty legs.
"What about everyone else?" he asked, shaking his head slightly in disbelief. His voice cracked under the strain of confusion. "The cars driving by, the people on the sidewalks... they don't see it. They don't react. It's like none of this is happening."
"They can't," Bonny replied. His tone softened slightly—not out of comfort, but because he understood how jarring this must be for someone like him. "Normals have a very weak magical frequency. Think of it as… a kind of natural resistance. Their minds reject what doesn't fit their reality, especially when it's wrapped in magic."
He swerved gently to avoid a pothole, his hands steady on the wheel despite the speed they were going and the horrors they were fleeing. His focus didn't waver, but there was something else in his voice now—a thin thread of doubt. Or maybe it was curiosity.
"That's why I'm wondering why you're still here," he added, her gaze flicking sideways to steal a glance at him. "You should've been pushed out the second this world formed. But you're still inside. Still... active."
Sawyer didn't answer at first. He was too busy trying to figure out if he should be afraid of that, or terrified.
"I wish I knew," he finally said, his voice low. There was a tension in his throat, a weight behind the words that spoke volumes. It wasn't just confusion anymore. It was unease—deep and gnawing, like something was crawling beneath his skin, just out of reach.
He looked down at his hands. They were trembling, and he hadn't even noticed. He clenched them, trying to ground himself, trying to hold on to anything that still felt normal.
"But I have a more pressing issue right now," he added, lifting his gaze to the front windshield again.
The world outside looked anything but normal. The sky had begun to warp slightly, the clouds above twisting unnaturally, as if the laws of physics were bending at the whim of someone unseen.
And just behind them, still closing in, was a bleeding witch on a hellbeast, with a broken wand and murder in her eyes.
"The zombies aren't just growing in numbers," Sawyer said, his voice cracking slightly with alarm as he kept his gaze fixed on the rearview mirror. He leaned forward unconsciously, tension making his body taut like a drawn wire. "They're getting faster... and stronger. Look at them!"
His words were breathless, urgent. Every time he blinked, there were more of them—more snarling faces, more twisted limbs pounding against the pavement like a stampede of nightmares. The horde wasn't just chasing anymore. It was evolving.
"True," Bonny muttered, his jaw tightening as he adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. His eyes, sharp and calculating, flicked between the road ahead and the chaos behind them. "The longer we stay here, the more control Melinda has over this world. She's adapting it to her will. This place isn't just a trap—it's a weapon she's customizing in real-time."
His voice was flat, but laced with something darker beneath the surface—an edge of fear he wasn't used to admitting out loud. He knew what this meant. Melinda wasn't just playing witch; she was becoming a god in her own made-up world, feeding off it like a parasite with a personal grudge.
"It's like she's drawing power directly from the fabric of this false reality," Bonny continued, his knuckles turning white on the wheel. "This is her domain now. The longer we're inside it, the more it bends to her."
"And the only way out?" Sawyer asked, though he already had an idea—and he didn't like it.
"We either crack the rules she's playing by," Bonny said, his tone hardening, "or we get forcefully ejected by something stronger than her will."
"Like what?" Sawyer asked, more to himself than to him. His heart pounded louder with every passing second. the world twisted like a bad dream—everything looked vaguely real, but off, like a reflection in broken glass. The sky had a sickly hue now, and the air seemed to shimmer with tension, as if the dimension itself was straining under Melinda's influence.
He glanced back again.
The Hounds had multiplied.
What had started as three monstrous beasts had grown into five. The last two were grotesquely large, their frames broader, their feet thundering like hammers against the warped terrain. Their mouths dripped with bile and rot, and the glow in their eyes burned hotter than before—feral, intelligent, and hungry.
"She's not just sending more of them," Sawyer murmured, a chill crawling up his spine. "She's making them worse."
"They're evolving because she's willing them to," Bonny said through gritted teeth. "She's shaping the danger based on our fear. The more afraid we get, the worse they become. That's how this place works."
Sawyer stared, transfixed, as one of the larger Hounds leaped over a wrecked vehicle on the road with inhuman grace, its rider—Melinda—barely flinching despite her injury. Her severed arm was still a mess of blood and torn fabric, but she held her wand tightly in her remaining hand, her face twisted in cold, burning fury.
"From the look of things," Sawyer muttered, his throat dry, "I don't think she'll be offering us a friendly explanation of the rules... even if we asked nicely."
Bonny didn't laugh. He didn't even smirk. He just pressed harder on the gas, the motorcycle roaring forward as though sheer speed alone might outrun fate.
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Notes: The Department of Transportation would like to issue an advisory regarding unusual pedestrian activity on Highway 17. Please be aware of individuals exhibiting symptoms of reanimation and maintain a safe following distance. Do NOT attempt to offer assistance or engage in conversation. Seriously, they just want your brains.