At first he assumes the voice behind him is human - same Living fluidity in the sentences, the understanding of words and ideas and vowels. But then R wobbles around, his chin sagging so far down it brushes against his collarbone and he fixes a thousand-yard stare on the guy.

Looks human from here with that posture. Sounds human. But when R instinctively inhales, ready for that lavender Life smell to electrify his senses, he doesn't get it. What's there is a grand total of nothing, a familiar void that he's sensed from every zombie and Boney out there. It's the same thing that drew him to M way back when (??? years ago) and it's the reason that zombies usually don't try to feed on each other even if they've just turned. The difference is this one....talks. Really talks, talks the way he's ached to once he discovered how to mold his groans into concepts. He's never met another zombie who could talk - even M could only do a kindergarten sentence every other day or so and he was the quickest one he knew.

A little flicker of something that could be envy bubbles up and then fades.

"S...om...." R gulps for air, shoulders hunched in as he wobbles a foot closer, wanting to make Dead eye contact. "thing.....like....th-thu..."

R runs out of words. He makes up for it with a shrug and hopes the other corpse can fill in the blanks.