No one ever thought that this was going to happen to us. Some people craved it, some people mentally prepared for it, and others were the normal part of society where they only watched it on the big screen. But it came all the same. It happened slowly overnight and then spread across the nation that morning. By midnight, there was something wrong with the people in the United States. Some people came down with symptoms that doctors couldn't diagnosis: killer migraines, unending nosebleeds, and a strange appetite for meat. Later that week it was reported to be taking over Europe as well. The day the sickly patients ripped out of their hospital rooms was unforgettable. It seemed like all their actions were lined up together as if they ha been practicing a horrifying play.

The patients weren't seen as humans anymore. They were barely the same color as any human; they were the color of gangrene. It was a if their bodies rotted while they slept in their hospital beds. Their hair was falling out in uneven patches and their words were slurred or moaned.

While random attacks happened from above amd the country was in panic, down below in the sewers was a colony of rats that couldn't help but enjoy their peacefulness. Of course the shirlling screams of the nearly deceased was bothersome; they knew there would be food for later. Since the apocalypse, houses have been left unattended, giving the rats free reign over its contents. Lately, they have been getting fatter and lazier with no one to swat at them or chase them back underground.

But one particular rat fights to stay in shape. He runs the sewer's length, scurries up pipes, jumps over debris, and chooses a better diet than his fellow rats. He knows that when it is time, there will be an apocalypse for their species just like there is for the humans, and he needs to be ready.

Arlo curled up in his little nest of ripped uo clothes and trash after his workout and fell asleep. He dreamed of saving the world from the undead that plauged it.

He woke up early the next morning for a walk. Everyone else was still sleeping, so he slowly skittered around the sleeping masses. Once he got out into the main sewer, he exhaled and put one paw in front of the other and began his day.

"Zombies..." he muttered when he heard screams and gunfire from above. There must be a well-supplied survivor group facing off a mob of those horrid creatures, he guessed. Arlo was quite up-to-date with the happenings of humans and zombies. He liked to go up to the top and study them for hours. Zombies only seemed to like human, but that might be because zombies were only humans. If one were to bite a rat, then they'd have the zombie rat apocalypse. Those things would be the end of human civilization... what's left of it anyway.

Arlo sighed and turned off into a small pipe that led slowly upward but not quite towards the top. He jumped down and onto a broken cement floor. He was in the subway; the only place that suprisingly didn't smeel too strongly of decaying flesh or sewage.

A high pitched squeak interrupted Arlo's concentration on the smell of the subway. He looked over to his left and saw a young girl, about the age of fourteen, pressed up against the wall behind a metal trash can. She held a ferocious looking metal bat with dents, dried blood, and pieces of flesh adorning it. He turned his body fully to look at her.

Why is she down here where it's easier to be corner? He wondered. He walked closer to her but she let out another squeak. Her eyes were trained on him and her hands firmly gripped the bat in a way that made Arlo back up a bit.

He was already irritated by the girl. She had to fight the living dead at close range and, without a doubt, saw grotesque things everyday and she was scared of a little, innocent sewer rat. He sat down and swatted his tail back and forth in annoyance.

A few minutes passed and she looked away from Arlo for a second and scanned her surroundings. There was nothing there, or at least not to be seen.

Arlo scooted a little closer to the girl  and when she looked back, she didn't notice the change.

A sudden yell from above and loud, unearthly noises caught the attention of both Arlo and the girl. They looked towards the stairs in anticipation. After awhile the noises died down and the two relaxed to normal alertness.

"I wish those things would just die," the girl said with such passion that made Arlo question why he was sitting so close to her.

He got up and started to walk back to his tunnel when the girl called out to him.

"You don't have to leave," she said.  He stopped and looked at her but saw that she realized she was scared of rats, or just disgusted by them. "It's nice to have someone to talk to around, even if it is a rat."

Arlo started walking back to his tunnel again. "Fine," she pouted. "By the way, I don't need you, Rat."

Arlo jumped back into the tunnel and slid downward. He was back in the sewer in no time. As he walked along the sides of the tunnel walls, he thought of the girl all alone with only her bat to protect her. That wasn't very nice of him to leave and he felt the guilt weighing down on him. It was as if an invisible cat was pushing its paw down on his back.

A growl echoed from behind him, making him spin around. With his ears, he estimated where the noise came from, and with a stone setting in the pit of his stomach, he raced back the way he came.

Arlo jumped back up the pipe and scurried through it to the other side. He was back in the subway, and what he saw distressed him.

The girl was still wedged between the wall and the trash can, but she was squatting on the balls of her feet, ready for action, and where Arlo witnessed from his perch, she was going to get some.  

Fumbling down the stairs was most likely the remains of the mob that was being fought above moments ago. There was only three and Arlo guessed the girl could handle it by herself, but he didn't want to just stand by and be wrong.

He jumped down and skittered over to the girl. She was too concentrated on the zombies to notice him. Her hands gripped nervously at the bat; she clenching and uncleanching the handle with sweaty palms.

The three zombies shot forward in the direction of the girl and Arlo. The girl stood up quickly and once the zombie was close enough she kicked the can and it rammed into his waist. Before he could even get out a grumble of pain, she was on the side of him, hitting his head with the metal bat. Even when the first blow made the side of his face cave in, she kept it going until he fell limp on the ground. 

The other two weren't phased at all. She spun and was about to have the bat connect with one of the zombies side, but he put out his arm and caught the bat. The girl was shocked at the reflex that this zombie still had. She attempted to yank it back but he wouldn't let go.

Arlo, without even thinking about it, ran across the way and jumped on the zombie's leg. He crawled up his body and once he reached his shoulder he started biting his face and neck. The zombie swatted at Arlo, letting go of the bat.

The girl quickly gained control of the bat and looked around for the third zombie, but she didn't see him anywhere. The other zombie was groaning and backing up quite rapidly. She looked at him and couldn't understand. Even when her and her various groups were hacking into them they wouldn't look like that, like they were scared.

The zombie's flying hand finally sent Arlo off his shoulder and onto the concrete with a smack. The zombie started to run off but the girl caught him with the bat to the back of his head and he went down for good.

She ran over to Arlo and hesitated but picked him up anyway.

"You okay, Rat?" she asked. She took in the zombies' limp bodies and the absence of the other one. "I think you scared it off." She had a puzzled look on her face. "I guess rats really are scary."

Arlo sighed. Good. He fell limp in her hands and blacked out.

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It has been a few months since the minor zombie showdown with Arlo and the girl, Carmen, but it was a huge breaking point in the apocalypse. Rats have been treated like royalty after they learned that rats scare zombies. There's more to it, but that's rumors going around. With the help of the rats, the human population can continue to survive and have a better hope for their future, and can even have a future.