My name is Chase. That was one of the first facts I learned in the apocalypse. It was on the nose for me, but it fit. Much better than… that other name that my parents gave me. Far too girly. Not my name. Chase though, that had a nice ring to it. I knew I could be Chase. 

Though I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s zoom out a bit, shall we?

I’ve always been a runner. From the moment I could stand on my own two feet, it’s been my life, my escape, my reason for living. I jump from rooftop to rooftop, rolling and vaulting my way towards the last safe city I know, a small walled outcropping of civilization right in the center of a ruined city, covered in living corpses. The same living corpses who chased me at this very moment. 

I smiled. They wouldn’t catch me.

This was just a simple herd and kill mission, one of several tasks to the runners of the city. We run to a certain destination and fire off a single gunshot to attract a horde, then run like hell back to the city so that the wall’s guardsmen could take them out. It was our primary way of thinning out their numbers, even if it seemed to do little. Really I could care less about the actual mission itself, today I just wanted to look for any kind of binder or even a sports bra that didn’t dig into my damn ribs like the one I made for myself before the apocalypse started. The two lamentable shits on my chest weren’t big as they were, but they still hurt like hell if I wasn’t wearing something while running. Not to mention I hated the idea of having two bumps on my chest in the first place. God I wish more surgeons survived, let alone ones who could give me top surgery. I’d accepted I wouldn’t be able to find any testosterone in this damn city–probably looted by other trans mascs or hopefully cis people who needed it, and not cis men who looked at a bottle of T and thought “haha big muscle time,” –I shiver at the thought.

Though once again, I had no luck on my way out here, and fired the gunshot about… a minute ago? Less? Time always seems to get weird while running. Best gauge by distance. Currently I was still far into no man’s land, the walls of the city almost seeming small to my eye. That wall was not small. The fact that it even exists is a miracle of post apocalyptic human strength. Somehow, albeit wasting almost all of the resources available in the city in the process, the survivors were able to build a city within a city, smack dab in the middle of hundreds of thousands of the undead. And these fuckers aren’t jokes either! Some of them shamble like in the old flicks, but the ones that really needed exterminating were currently hot on my tail.

There was no official name for the classes of zombies yet, but I had taken to calling the slow ones shamblers, and the ones that run… chasers. Look, runners were already taken by humans ok? It’s not a good name. But at least I can make a tongue twister out of it. 

“Hey… uglies! Wanna- hear a joke?” Jesus christ I’m out of breath. Force it out man, let the audience hear it! “THE CHASERS CHASED CHASE SO CHASE GETS CHANG- OW!” I bit my tongue at the end there. I didn’t taste any blood, so good! But damn, no laughter? I’m sure if I looked behind me they would be keeling over in laughter. Too bad I’m doing parkour. 

I ran up a wall onto a porch, hoping to thin the herd a little bit. Yes, they could climb, but they were also stupid enough to not know to try and surround me or wait their turn up the wall, and I was a much faster climber than literal decaying bodies anyway. Silly chasers. I pulled myself up onto the roof from the porch and began a series of leaps from rooftop to rooftop. The architecture in this area wasn’t consistent at all, so I had to constantly jump lower and roll and then immediately jump across to a higher roof and climb again more than once. This is why I hate the North fucking side! It was fun when there isn’t a horde of the undead chasing you at least. 

Too bad there is a horde of undead chasing me. 

I jumped back down onto the street and rolled back into a run. The sounds behind were a bit thinned out now, enough that I wouldn’t overrun the wall patrol. Which is good since the city was very close now, only about a mile to go. The street has its own problems though, considering how packed they are with shamblers. It got worse the further out you go, so it was only mild here, but I still had to jump from car to car left on the street. And god these fuckers are disgusting. Clothes tattered, smelling of disease and blood and sweat and that characteristic dead shit smell that almost everyone knows. Not to mention a good amount of them were missing limbs, or parts of their faces, some of them were so decayed that they literally crumbled bit by bit as they moved. Chasers looked more or less like your average zombie, but shamblers were just… sad. So far gone that even a cure wouldn’t help them if one existed. If you were bitten, then either you died with your humanity, or “live” long enough to become a shambler. That is, unless you were a chaser that liked the ass of yours truly enough. Oh eugh I’m not making a sexual joke regarding zombies ever again.

The gates were in sight now. I pulled out my flare gun and fired into the air to single my approach. Luckily these things weren’t too loud despite being bright, unlike guns. Zombies didn’t care about bright light all that much, unless it was direct sunlight. Shamblers were used to their sun baths, but other types didn’t enjoy it as much.

Another flare from around the wall shot up into the air. Good, no problems. I’d be dead if there were problems. Close enough now I could see the rifles on the wall in sight, and they began to throw down glass bottles full of conductive liquid. I stopped on a dime next to the gate, where a red button laid in wait for me. The chasers were right behind me, now soaked.

“See ya later guys!” I pressed the button and immediately they all stopped, their bodies convulsing under the weight of deadly amounts of electricity. Behind me, the gate opened, and men in blue suits carrying an assortment of different types of DIY melee weapons from cool looking spears that sparked with electricity to simple crowbars. Their job was to take out the stragglers.

“Nice job Chase, you can head inside. Marcus will have your reward for you in the outpost, like always.” One of them told me. I couldn’t remember his name though… Bob? James? I’m just gonna go with nothing.

“Thanks man, good luck with my running buddies here.”

A few of them laughed and he replied, “Thanks, but we won’t need it!” They stepped past me and turned off the electricity, getting to work on the few that survived. Time to get your reward and head home. God I’m tired. 

I was a little bit sullen on my way to the guard outpost. Still no better binding options. The sports bra I have now is way too undersized, and while it makes me look flat, I can barely breathe in this thing, and it left marks on my ribcage for hours afterwards. Dysphoria is mostly gone, sure, but I kinda need to breathe when running this much. My stupid fucking tits and their stupid fucking existence. Die in a fire please. Sincerely, Chase.

Marcus was standing outside the outpost as he usually did when meeting me. Most of the time he meets the other runners inside, but for some reason he insists on waiting for me outside. I don’t mind though, his smile when he meets my eyes and starts walking to me made it more than worth it. He’s way too cute.

“Chase! What’s up brother!” He met up with me, just a few steps away. Close enough I had to crane my neck up a bit to meet his eyeline. Why must I be so damn short? Why must he be so damn tall? And blonde, and have those pretty green eyes… focus Chase FOCUS.

“Hey Marcus! Just got back from my H and K. It went well.”

“Did you get that thing you were looking for? It was like… a piece of clothing or something right?” He didn’t know I was trans, but I pretty often towed the line between coming out and being stealth with him. He was the only one who even knew I was looking for anything on my runs. Most runners just satisfy themselves with the missions and whatever the guard outpost can give them as rewards. But I still tried to scavenge what I could from no man’s land.

“Nah. I was just looking for something that would… reduce chafing. Make my runs a bit more comfortable.”

“Yeah I know what you mean, running that much can be killer on the thighs and the guys.” Oh. Oh he meant that. Yeahhhhh no. 

“Totally! Killer. Yeah… haha.” That didn’t sound awkward at all Chase, great job. 

“...Anyway, we’re running a bit low on money to give out right now for jobs, so instead my boss told me to offer runners a weapon instead.” I didn’t often carry weapons besides the pistols every runner has for some distractions and emergencies. A small melee weapon could be nice though, something I could run with.

“Do you have any good knives or machetes? One’s with a sheath that I could either tie or clasp closed for safety while moving?”

“Actually yeah, quite a few. A lot of guards use weapons they make themselves since they can be a bit more specialized to their own needs. One with a sheath like that may take me a minute to find though, do you think you could come back in an hour or two?”

“For sure man! You and the guys drinking tonight?” Pretty often Marcus and the other guards he was closer to, and sometimes some runners would run to a bar near the center of the city called “Haven.”

“You wanna come? You’re not gonna cheat at poker again, are you?”

“Hey, I don’t cheat! It’s not my fault I have good luck!” 

“Keep telling yourself that, pretty boy.” 

“W-what?” 

“Pretty boy? It’s a compliment coming from me.” I gathered that, dingus. Being called a pretty boy by a handsome guy does weird things to a trans man’s brains. Dysphoria and euphoria and a pinch of horniness all wrapped up into an emotional molotov cocktail.

Recovery Chase, recovery. “You better take a guy out to dinner before calling him pretty.”

“Oh, uh, I don’t swing that way.” Oh bullshit I can see it in your eyes, I’m not that dumb! But fine.

“That’s cool, but if you change your mind, you know where to find me. See you in a few Marc.”

“Uh- bye, Chase.” I gave him a cheeky salute and jogged a little to make distance before slowing into a walk. Back home I go. Kill time until I can get my weapon. Generally having anything sharp on hand will be useful for not just zombie killing reasons. You’d be surprised how much random shit you have to cut through now that nature is slowly growing its way back into the remnants of our society. 

It was prevalent even here in the walled city. Practically everything here was made out of wood, from windmills, to homes, to shops, even big parts of the wall. You’d think it’d be dangerous because of bandits or something, but humanity is a lot less out to get each other than you might think. We all just want to survive, even when we dislike one another at times. 

Which is why I didn’t immediately murder the person I was about to meet. 

“Miss! Miss!” A feminine voice called from behind me. My short haircut and features were always generally boyish, even after puberty tried to get me, so I mostly passed, even without medical transition. At this point if I heard the word miss, I would not think it was directed at me. “In the green pants!” You have got to be fucking with me. The one day I wear these green sweatpants? Seriously? 

I turn around and am met with a fairly young looking woman. With long brown hair and deep blue eyes, even I would probably consider her attractive, despite being very, very gay. “Hello there! My name is Chase, and sorry I didn’t answer you right away, the proper title for me is ‘Mister.’” 

I could see her subtly roll her eyes, but nonetheless she grudgingly gave in. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Chase. My name is Lila. Are you a runner?” Aaand of course she needs something. This better be good, I’m cranky when misgendered.

“I am, do you require my services?”

“Oh thank God. It’s my brother, Nathan. He ran out of the city all alone!” My eyes narrowed. This is important, but why doesn’t she sound more worried?

“What happened, where do you think he went, and do you have a description?” My usual three questions in a missing persons case.

“We got into a fight, a sibling thing. He’s my little brother, I’ve taken care of him ever since our parents got bit. We had to run from home and ended up here in the city. I think he would’ve gone back to our old house, 1225 Jade street, do you know it?”

I nodded. “The South part of town. I lived in a neighborhood not too far from there.” Don’t think about it more than that Chase. Don’t think about the past. Chase the future. “And his description?”

“Short brown hair, blue eyes, like me. He’s about 13 now I think, hard to keep track of dates.” 

“Clothing?”

“A-an old dress of mine. Gray.” 

What are you doing wearing your brother’s clothes? 

Dad… I’m a boy. I’m your son.

You’re not my son or my daughter you fucking tranny! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!

I clenched my shaking fist and breathed deeply, fighting back the tears.

“Mr. Chase? Are you ok?” Am I ok? AM I OK?! I kept these memories buried deep for a reason. And now I see it happening again to someone else? Even after the end of the world?

“I’m fine.” I snapped. “I’m going to get back your sibling, and if I find out that they’re your sister and not your brother, that you drove them away with your selfish behavior, then we will have words Lila. Do you understand?”

She shrunk back in fear and nodded. I turned and pulled out my radio.

“Marc, you there man? It’s Chase.”

“Go for Marcus.”

“Can you get that weapon for me now? It’s an emergency.”

Authors note:

Hello! I hope you enjoyed part 1 of Chase, a short story I wrote for one of my college workshop classes. This is my first time writing a story with a trans masc character! This story is heavily inspired by the Dying Light series of games. 

Readers of To Be Myself, I'm really sorry for the unexpected hiatus! I've been really busy and stressed, and now I have to work on my classwork for college finals, which mostly involves lots and lots of writing, so I'm a bit creatively exhausted to focus on my personal projects right now. This version of Chase is actually a rewrite I'm submitting for a grade in the same class after I got it workshopped earlier in the semester, so expect part 2 and maybe part 3 depending on how long it is very soon!