So...I finally gave in and wanted to write a zombiestuck fan fiction.

And here it is, with of course my OTP: KatNep.

This story takes place in the present day, and I did my best to explain what the two characters so far looked like and how the infection works. If you're still confused on how it does work or are seemingly interested in it, I will leave the info for the infection I have made up at the end of this chapter.

Ya know what, I'm just gonna shut up and let you guys enjoy this chapter before I start giving spoilers.

Both trolls are humans by the way, and yes there will more than likely be other ships happening besides KatNep. What ships? I won't say because I haven't gotten that far with deciding. Just know other characters will come at a point, or be mentioned at least.

Alright I'm shutting up now, enjoy this chapter.

0 day(s) have passed since the infection first started

It was a normal day when it all started.

A young girl about seventeen years of age was in the grocery store with her mother, going about picking up the usual groceries for their dinner that night.

It first started with a child crying, and everyone simply ignored it; the kid was probably around four or five years old and didn't know better.

The crying progressively turned into a high pitched screaming, some shoppers got aggravated while others still continued to ignore it; thinking it was the same annoying child everyone kept hearing.

Until everyone noticed it wasn't the child screaming.

It was a weird, half-bent-over-half-not looking creature that was screaming, screeching almost. It seemed human to most; well, looking back on it now; that thing wasn't human.

It was gray, eyes black and dark. It had blood in its mouth, on its jaws; dripping, oozing blood. A dark blood was mixed with the red everyone knew and had in their veins. The things entire body was rotting and decomposing, and it was limping; at first.

Everyone in their sane mind decided to back away, seeing as how the entire family, two adults and three children, had its dark blood on their throats and bodies along with multiple bites along their necks. They were slowly morphing, it seemed, into that non-human creature.

The one creature screeched again, followed by the five others it had taken as its victims.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

The thing charged at other shoppers, tearing their throats out as it began to feast; some victims started turning into the creatures themselves. The family behind, looking exactly the same as the non-human creature, began attacking shoppers; doing the same thing as they took victims.

Shoppers ran; the things ran after. Blood spilled. It oozed. It was disgusting. People were either dead or slowly being turned into those creatures.

And all Nepeta Leijon could do was hide and hope none of those things found her. She had been separated from her mother during the chaos, and she had no idea where she was. All she could do was hope and pray that they would both get out of this alive.

The creatures continued to run after shoppers, all of them seeming to run past Nepeta's hiding spot. They hadn't noticed her, and for that; she was glad. She immediately ran from her hiding spot, grabbing things off the shelves on her way to the front doors.

That's when Nepeta saw her; her mother. And she instantly dropped her supplies she had been carrying.

Dead.

Her mother was face down dead in a puddle of her own red blood along with that new dark blood.

Nepeta wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel all these emotions.

But she couldn't.

The only thing a seventeen year old could do was run. Just run away before the things noticed her presence and come for her blood as well; and that's what she did.

Nepeta managed to escape outside, keeping her sobs choked in as she ran far away from the grocery store. There were more of those things outside, but they were too preoccupied with the other people outside to notice Nepeta.

All but one of them.

One zombie, Nepeta had now started to call them that in her mind, had reached out from its place on the ground and grabbed her ankle.

The girl tripped, now falling onto the ground and scraping her arms and knees on the ground. She looked down, and saw the dark eyes of the creature.

It looked at her hungrily, and Nepeta screamed as loud as she could, trying desperately to kick it off or scream for help.

To her surprise, someone answered her call. A male around her age, probably eighteen really, had clicked a bullet into place on his handgun; and shot the zombie in the head as it prepared to bite into her ankle.

It fell limp.

Nepeta looked up and saw her savoir; a boy with dark brown hair, almost black, with, strangely, red eyes. He was wearing a black vest, with a gray cancer sign stitched onto it in the upper right hand corner, and a black long sleeve shirt under it. He was also wearing gray jeans and black converse, and on his left side pant leg was a gun holster along with a pouch next to it; probably to hold ammo.

He was still holding his gun, aiming it at her. "Are you hurt or bit?"

Nepeta shook her head, her voice and body trembling. "N-no…I'm not bit. A-a little scraped up…b-but I'm fine."

The male nodded, putting away his gun in the holster as he pulled her to her feet. "Come on. We've got to run. We'll catch up with names later."

He ran ahead of her, pulling her along ever so slightly as he had a sharp grip on her arm. Nepeta could only follow, thankful that this strange boy she had literally just met had saved her life from those things.

"W-what happened?" Nepeta choked out the words. The realization that her mother was dead at the hands of…zombies was finally setting in, and it made her almost sob. She kept the sobs choked back; she didn't want to bother the strange male with her tragedy, and she certainly didn't want to come off as weak to him.

He, at first, didn't answer. Then finally, "I don't know."

She was quiet for the rest of the time, no matter how much she wanted to ask more questions, no matter how much she wanted to cry and scream; she was quiet.

The two of them had finally gotten out of the city, after god knows how much running. The city was chaos, and the government didn't know how this particular thing had happened everywhere around the country at the same exact time.

He was currently carrying a certain passed out girl on his back, and he sighed to himself.

God Karkat…what's wrong with you? Why did you save this girl? You don't even know who she is, much less her name. You knew this was going to happen one day, and you knew people were going to die because of it, and you said you wouldn't save a single person from it; that people could take care of themselves on their own. Yet…why did you save her? Why did you suddenly decide to take her with you? What's wrong with you you dumbass?!

Karkat could only sigh as so many thoughts took over his mind. Why did he save her though? He had heard from the news that people in the grocery store down the street from his apartment complex had changed into these things, and were tearing people's throats out and others were becoming them as well.

He had only decided to check it out to see if he could eliminate some of the damn things before others started turning. But he knew that the numbers would steadily grow from ten to a hundred to a thousand as more people became victims of this deadly infection.

And as he arrived at the grocery store to at the very least take care of some of the damn creatures about fifteen minutes later, that's when Karkat saw her.

The girl on his back was running from the grocery store and she looked like she was holding back sobs. A zombie, yeah he started calling those things that too, had reached out from its place on the ground and grabbed her ankle; yanking and tripping her.

He almost left her, but her screams for help tore his heart to pieces. He couldn't leave her there.

And that's when he moved, shot it as it almost bit her, and all that lead up to this moment with him carrying said girl on his back.

Why did you move…? Why did you save this girl you don't even know?

Karkat sighed again, shaking his head as he ventured into the woods about seven miles away from the city they had previously come from.

There was a cabin here that his family had bought a while back; two summers ago in fact. It was about ten miles away from where they were now, and after learning of this whole "zombie apocalypse", he had taken it upon himself to start stocking up on food and medical supplies for himself and himself only in that damn cabin.

And again his thoughts drifted to the sleeping girl on his back. She had fallen asleep when they had stopped to rest about two miles back; roughly translating to about one and a half hours of walking time. Karkat didn't mind carrying her, and picked her up when she refused to let him do so. Soon after, her complaining stopped as she drifted off to sleep.

Karkat had to admit: this girl was actually pretty cute. Her chocolate brown hair fell messily above her shoulders, the ends of it curling to fall perfectly onto her face. Her green eyes were closed at the moment, but he had managed to catch a glimpse of them when he had aimed the gun at her head.

He didn't mean to scare or frighten her when he had done so, but he had to be ready to defend himself if she had been bitten.

Luckily she hadn't been.

The girl on his back was really light: she probably weighed about 112 pounds, maybe a little less even. Her blue skinny jeans were a bit dirtied from where she had sat down in the dirt many times to catch her breath as they were running. On her top half she wore a black short sleeve shirt and black and olive green sleeves snaked down her arms from underneath said shirt. He figured she was probably wearing an undershirt just like him, and she was also wearing converse.

Huh, guess they had the same fashion choices.

The two of them arrived at the cabin about two hours later. Karkat was exhausted to say the least. While carrying her, he had to fight off about three of those god forsaken creatures. He was surprised that she didn't wake up through the fight, and that he was able to fight with her on his back.

Karkat walked through the door, shutting it behind him and immediately locking it: he didn't need one of those damn zombies getting in here.

Alright yes he started to call them zombies. What else was he supposed to call them?

The male walked over to the couch, placing down the sleeping figure and tucking a pillow underneath her head. She immediately nuzzled her head into the pillow.

That left Karkat to his own antics. He looked outside and saw that it was nearing sun down, the sun itself about to dip over the orange horizon.

The seventeen year old smiled slightly; such a rare occurrence that he ever did smile. He would have kept that smile on his face as he continued to watch the sunset, but the girl stirring behind him made him turn his head away from it to watch her eyes flutter open.

And dammit did she look adorable doing so.

Wait, what the fuck?!

"H-huh…?" her light voice stammered out as her olive green eyes adjusted to the light that plagued her vision.

"Evening." He said casually, turning his back to the girl as he looked back at the sky. Huh, guess the sun disappeared.

The girl looked at the back of his head, then right into his red eyes as he turned his back around again to look at her after observing outside. "G-good evening…u-um; h-how long did I sleep?"

"A couple of hours. No big deal. You deserved it for everything you probably went through in that grocery store. You looked like you were about to cry when we were running the first few miles."

She looked down sadly, almost as if she were about to cry right then and there. But before Karkat could even think of asking if something was wrong or go to comfort her, she brushed off the sad expression just as quickly as it had come.

"W-Where are we anyway?"

"A cabin in Capitol State Forest. My family bought it a couple summers ago…but seeing as how all of them are dead, I guess it really belongs to me now."

At the mention of his dead family she once again let a sad expression go over her face. But before she could brush it off like last time he finally got the words out he wanted to say, and what she wanted to hear.

"You're not okay, are you?"

That sentence broke her, and she dove into his arms; sobbing as her whole body shook. Karkat didn't know exactly what to do. He hesitantly wrapped an arm around her, gently rubbing her back as she sobbed into his vest.

"I-I'm sorry…I-I'm so sorry…m-my mom…s-she…s-she was killed by those things…those zombies…she may even be one of them now…and I…I don't know what to do…w-where to go…a-anything…"

Karkat listened to her speak as he continued to rub in small circles on her back. He knew what she was going through; he himself had gone through it about a half hour before he had found her.

He had been forced to kill his parents. They turned, and he heard the screams of agony as they did.

It was either he didn't shoot his parents, or he did. And he went with the smart choice; shoot his parents in the head so he could live.

"Hey." The male lifted the females head up after she finished, wiping some of her tears away. "It's alright. I understand. You have to be strong for her, alright? Grieve now, so you can live and be stronger later. You and me, though we just met; we'll stay together okay?"

She nodded, wiping the rest of her stray tears away. "T-Thank…thank mew, fur saving me."

Did she just use a cat pun? Two cat puns to be exact?

What in the ever loving fuck?

"It…It's no problem." Karkat lied under his breath. He didn't want to tell her that he almost left her there to die; that would be a great way to make a fucking first impression huh?

The female smiled a little, not noticing how he was lying. She must not be very good at picking up on that sort of thing; much to Karkat's relief. "So…what's your name?"

He looked at her, leaning back on the arm of the couch. "Ladies first."

"Nepeta…Nepeta Leijon." The now named girl reached a hand toward him, and Karkat took it as sign to shake hands.

He extended his arm, and they shook hands.

"Karkat Vantas."

I hope you enjoyed it :33 Also, if anyone can guess where in the U.S. this story this takes place; you get a pap on the head from me.

Obviously it takes place in Washington State, but if you can guess the city where this whole infection thing started; you get the pap and maybe some candy too.

I tried to make this story seem as realistic as possible, even looking up how long it would take to walk from said city to Capitol State Forest. I came up with 7 hours and 30 minutes on foot from city to forest.

So, for anyone wondering how long it took them on foot to reach their cabin; decrease that number above to 5 hours and 30 minutes.

So (if you're confused about all the time; let me explain), when were in Karkat's perspective and he's carrying the cat girl on his back, about three and a half hours have passed since them first leaving the city. The reason for this being three and a half hours is that they might have had to run into some zombies, obviously this is a zombie apocalypse AU, and they had to stop to take rests.

Then, as we move along, we get to them finally arriving at the cabin two hours later; thus making the total it took to get to the damn cabin is five and a half hours.

So, they traveled seventeen miles on foot in five and a half hours to get to the cabin.

I hope that clears that up.

For The Infection and how it works:

When you get bit by the infected, you have no chance of surviving like yourself; and you'll slowly succumb to being one of them. If you get their blood on your skin, you have a chance to survive. If the blood itself does not get into any wounds or cuts that you may have open, you will not turn and can wash the blood off with water; make sure to change clothes as well. However, if it does get into the cuts or wounds that are open; you are infected and will slowly start to turn. You won't turn immediately, but you will over time. Over a couple of hours, you will gradually start to turn until you fully succumb to being one of the infected. Basically, the infection acts and behaves like you would expect it to; it takes over a host, completely and utterly degrading their human skills as they slowly succumb to it. And how you get infected is pretty similar to what others do for zombie stories, as I explained above.

I hope that clears that up too.

I hope you also enjoyed this first chapter, as I will be preparing to write more.

And I hope everyone is happy, because I got paint today to do my Homestuck shirts; and I skipped out on painting them to write a new story.

Of course I enjoy this story so far and was willing to skip out on painting shirts to write this.

I just hope everyone enjoys it and doesn't get too confused with the time, travel distance, and the infection. :33

See you next chapter!~