The Night We Didn't Die

Marcus stopped at third base, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his face like he'd just run a marathon instead of rounding the bases. "Bro, you okay?" I asked, tossing him the water bottle.

He caught it one-handed, like the baseball player he used to be before everything changed. Before the incident. Before he became a zombie.

Not the brain-eating kind. The Marcus kind - the one who showed up to school pale, eyes bloodshot, moving through the hallways like he was underwater. His phone was always blowing up, but he never replied. His friends (including me, apparently) had become background characters in his personal horror movie.

"Fine," he said, but his voice cracked. "Just tired."

Buster, my golden retriever, chose that moment to bound onto the field, tennis ball in mouth, tail whipping like a metronome on caffeine. He dropped the ball at Marcus's feet and looked up with those eyes that said, "Remember when we were puppies and everything was simple?"

Marcus hesitated. Then he knelt, ruffling Buster's fur, and for a second, I saw old Marcus surface. Not the zombie version who'd been ghosting everyone for three weeks.

"He missed you," I said softly. "Me too."

Marcus stood up, baseball cap pulled low. "I know. I just... my phone, it's been blowing up since Friday. And I'm not talking about normal drama. Someone posted something, and now—"

"Now what?"

"Now half the school thinks I'm something I'm not." He kicked at the dirt. "My phone's basically a grenade right now. Every notification is another explosion."

I looked at him - really looked at him. The shadows under his eyes, the way his hands kept shaking like he'd had too much coffee or not enough sleep. This wasn't just drama. This was my friend drowning.

"So turn it off," I said. "Literally. Power it down. Come inside, we'll order pizza, play FIFA, and let Buster destroy another one of my socks. Tomorrow, we deal with whatever mess this is. Together."

Marcus stared at me for a long moment. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and powered it down. The screen went black, and something in his face relaxed.

"Yeah," he said. "Together."

Buster barked, tail wagging like he understood everything. And as we walked toward my house, I realized something: the real zombies aren't the ones eating brains. They're the ones letting their phones consume them alive. Marcus had been one of them - until tonight, when a dog and a baseball game brought him back to life.