Might sound sick, but – on some level — I’d always hoped this would happen. Not the dying part. To put it mildly, that kinda sucks. But everything leading up to it had always been tucked away in some little corner of my mind: if I was taking a walk on a Sunday morning and heard the wailing of sirens in the distance, I would think, This is how it begins. I’d see smoke billowing on the horizon and feel a little rush of adrenaline hit my veins as I took stock of everything around me, searching for potential weapons and what have you. But it never amounted to anything more than a house fire or a three car pileup on the interstate. So, I just went about my life waiting for the unthinkable to happen.
See, in my previous life I was just Carl Teegarden: three-time employee of the month at the Pit Stop down on Route 47 and two-time loser where it really mattered. But in a world turned upside down, I thought I could be somebody; I thought I could make a difference and be the one who busts through the door at the last possible second to save the day.
After all, I’d seen all the movies. I’d read the books and even played some of the games. I thought I knew the rules, ya know? Which is more than I can say about life. One of those bastards gets too close and a round to the head takes them down, plain and simple. You listen outside of doors before opening: if you hear moaning in there, then you either leave that sucker closed or bust right on through with all guns blazing.
Turns out it’s not always quite that simple. Sometimes a single bullet to the forehead will drop one of those suckers, but sometimes you hafta pump in a couple more before they finally drop. And they’re so damn quiet it doesn’t matter how long you listen outside that door. You might hear some scuffling on the other side, but is it really one of them? Or just some schmuck trying to be as quiet as possible because he hears you out there and thinks you might be one of them? You go in like Rambo and there’s a good chance you won’t accomplish anything other than killing some poor bastard who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For a while, I traveled with a fellow who went by the name of Doc. Big guy who looked like maybe he played a little football in high school. A lot of people we came across seemed to assume that Doc wasn’t too bright right off the bat. Maybe it had something to do with the way his brow and beard made him look a little like the caveman in those insurance commercials. I don’t know. But, truth be told, that man had one of the sharpest minds I ever come across.
The way he saw it, a single shot didn’t always work because the bullet would tear through different parts of the brain. He told me about a chicken he’d read about named Miracle Mike: apparently, back in the forties or fifties, some farmer tried to cut off this rooster’s head. Only he botched the job a bit. Mike’s head came off all right, but there was still some of the brain stem or something like that left over which kept this headless chicken alive for a year or so as he toured across the country in sideshows.
Doc said he reckoned the zombies are a lot like ’ole Mike: if you don’t wipe out the part of the brain that’s in control, they’ll just keep coming at you until you do.
He also said it makes sense, when you really think about it, that they don’t make much noise. To get sound, you’ve got to force air over the vocal cords. And these bastards definitely aren’t breathing. Oh, you might hear some gas pass out of them every now and then. Sometimes that gas might even bubble up through their windpipes and cause this soft, little wheeze; but they don’t moan and groan like I always thought they would. Hell, I’ve been doing more moaning than they ever dreamed of.
And you don’t need to be bit to become one of them either. Don’t get me wrong. Bites like the one I got right here speed up the process, that’s for certain. But sooner or later we all die one way or another. And when you do, you’re coming back. Plain and simple.
Pain tends to make the mind wander, doesn’t it? I was originally thinking about how I always thought I was prepared for this. Truth be told, even though that little part of me always half expected this to happen I still didn’t recognize it when the news reports started rolling in. In the beginning I thought, like plum near everyone else, that this mystery illness I kept hearing so much about was some sort of terrorist attack. It just seemed to make sense, ya know? People getting sick in New York, DC, Los Angeles: pretty much all the major cities, all at the same time. And then the reports of what they originally thought to be riots and widespread violence. Sounded like some sort of nerve gas or biological agent. Al-Qaeda type shit.
By the time the infection, or whatever the hell it is, hit Harrisburg there wasn’t anything that could really be done. It spread through our town like the clap at a whorehouse, I tell ya. One minute it’s just another dead-end hole in the wall and the next all Hell’s breaking loose.
I remember looking back over my shoulder at the Pit Stop, watching the flames licking at the night sky like the tongues of hungry demons, the smell of wood and burning rubber; I watched from a distance as the pumps finally caught ablaze. A big orange fireball shot up so high the tops of the pines out back started burning as well and even from afar I was buffeted by this wind so hot that it nearly took my breath. A few seconds earlier, I’d heard tires screeching and turned just in time to see a pickup plow into the station. There was just enough time for me to start recognizing some of the people piled into the bed of the truck before they were all engulfed by the explosion.
But even then one of them was still coming for me. He was all lit up, covered from head to toe in flames and leaving burning footprints in his wake. If he felt any pain as the skin and muscle crackled and dripping fat hissed like frying bacon, he didn’t give any signs. Just kept staggering down the middle of the road. Like something from one of those movies I used to love so much. Only this wasn’t some stunt man in a special suit covered with flammable jelly. It wasn’t even really a he: this human shaped torch was all that was left of what had used to be Bob Hightower.
Me and ’ole Bob had grown up together. We played little league and went fishing and shared most of the same classes when we finally hit junior high; the first sip of beer I ever had was filched from Old Man Hightower’s cooler… the first breast I ever saw was from peeking through the keyhole as his sister undressed for the night. But if he coulda made it to me, he wouldn’t have been reaching those fiery arms around me for a brotherly hug. I knew this as surely as I knew that no living man could be so engulfed by fire and live longer than a minute or so.
And, at that moment, I knew things would never be the same again.
Shit, I’m cold. So fucking cold it feels like I should be able to see my breath. At the same time, though, there’s this sheen of sweat on my chest and my hair is so damp it’s practically plastered to my skull. And that damn gash just keeps right on oozing.
I’m almost out of clothes to use and flies have started buzzing around the ones I’ve thrown to the side like it’s a flippin’ buffet or something. When I switched out the t-shirt for the sweater I’ve got pressed against me now, I stole a little peek at the wound. Can’t believe I’d actually almost convinced myself that maybe it wasn’t really so bad. That maybe it was just a flesh wound that was bleeding like hell.
But looking into that bite was like gazing into a canyon of meat. Crags of torn muscle jutted out from the walls of the chasm and I could see glints of bone down there, like the fossil of some extinct beast preserved for all eternity. And at the bottom of the canyon there was this crimson lake that seemed to throb and pulse with subterranean forces.
I saw a fish leap out of that pool, it’s scales flashing brilliant silver in the mid-day sun before splashing back into the thick, red liquid. And, nestled between a clump of gristle and a severed artery, a lizard poked its head out as if making sure no predators were circling overhead before committing itself to basking on the canyon walls.
And then I felt like I was falling, the wind buffeting my hair and whistling in my ears as the bottom of the chasm grew closer with each passing second. There was no fear, no moments of regret or wishing my life had turned out differently: I saw myself reflected in the lake of blood below and was perfectly content to simply watch as my scarlet twin grew ever larger.
When I hit bottom there was a blinding flash of pain that dissolved the world into an infinite field of white. I heard screaming, the sound distant and hollow like it was reaching me from the far end of a cavern or tunnel.
The scream grew louder and I began to feel a burning in my throat; at the same time I realized that the voice calling out in such agony and torment was my own the blank whiteness shattered like an exploding light bulb. These tiny shards of reality pierced the wound in my side, brought everything back into sharp focus real quick like.
But for a moment, delirium and substance must’ve bled into one another: and in that fraction of a second I thought I saw Josie standing across the room, her entire body glowing like a lantern in the fog, as beautiful and serene as in those final moments of her life. Maybe even more so.
“Josie”, I croaked as I stretched my hand toward her, “Josie, baby, I l…. ”
But then I saw him as well: the boy. I saw the flesh peeling away from his small round face, hints of bone and teeth where lips should have been. And his eyes, glaring at me, challenging me, hating me with every ounce of his being.
“I… I’m sorry.” Tears spill from the corners of my eyes and I wrap my arms around my stomach as if I can somehow hold back the tide of blood flowing from my body. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Funny thing is, if anyone was around to ask, I couldn’t really say if I’m talkin’ to Josie… or the boy.