“STOP! He’s nice!” Jamie yelled, but I didn’t process what he said. The zombie jerked back and bared its rotten teeth in my direction. I was about to whack its head off, but Jamie jumped in between us, spreading his arms to keep us apart. 

Basically, I flipped out. “What are you doing?! Do you want it to kill you?” I shrieked. “I can’t believe you right now!”

“He’s not going to kill me, just hold on a minute!” Jamie turned to the zombie. “This is Ellie, I know she wants to kill you right now, but she’s a friend. I’m Jamie, and I’m also your friend.” His tone was soothing, as if he was talking to a small child. The zombie seemed to calm down for some reason. It stared at me. I couldn’t tell if it was curious or hungry, and the uncertainty was starting to freak me out. 

I shouted, “I am sure as hell not this thing’s friend!” I couldn’t believe what was happening. I mean, I always knew Jamie wasn’t the brightest, but this? 

“He’s not a thing! He’s… Sammy,” Jamie said, apparently hurt. “Sammy is friendly!” Sammy nodded as if it could actually understand what was going on. “Come on, give him a chance!” Jamie added.

I let out a long exhale, and I did what my mother always told me to do when I was young: I stopped and thought before I said anything. “Say we did keep it. What do you suppose we do once it gets hungry? When we’re sleeping? Have you considered that?” I challenged.

“Well… he could go in the bunker when we’re out. We could get him animals or something,” Jamie replied hesitantly.

“We don’t even have enough food for ourselves, we’re certainly not giving part of our supply to this creature,” I said dismissively. Jamie crossed his arms stubbornly, and I sighed and shoved my face into my hands with disbelief. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

Jamie replied, “Absolutely not.” I already knew he wouldn’t, but I guess I just had to ask. “Maybe he could protect us or something?” Jamie suggested.

That gave me an idea, which was good since we’re both so stubborn that this would never be resolved without some sort of compromise. “How about we let it eat our enemies?” The word ‘eat’ grabbed the zombie’s attention, and it finally stopped staring at the ground. Jamie stiffened in response. “Come on!” I argued. “I thought you wanted to keep this thing around!” 

“That’s… that’s not-” Jamie stammered while trying to think of an argument. “That’s wrong!”

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to leave it here,” I finished. “It would be cruel to bring it along with us with no way to feed it. Come on, let’s go back to the bunker.” I walked a few steps, but Jamie wasn’t following me, he was just standing there with clenched fists and an anxious expression.

“Fine,” he said reluctantly after what felt like minutes of silence, staring coldly into my eyes. “But we don’t have enough food. This will only last us, like, two days, probably not even. We really should search while there’s still daylight.” He started walking in the opposite direction, and I followed him because I didn’t want to make him even more upset. “Sammy, you coming?” He called a few times when the zombie lagged behind, but other than that we didn’t talk much.