Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tyler, 26
Matt, 37
Slump, 25
Friday, August 21, 2009
Fred Valance, 19
His friends all do the same thing. They have their own special nickname for it. "Going AWOL," "Searching For Sunken Ships" "Visiting Relatives" and the most honest of the answers: "getting high and crying myself to sleep." Stacy was the only one who said that. She was direct. In a group full of people who spend their time trying to find new and more eloquent ways of describing how shitty everything is, no one could cut the carcass open faster and display the offal better than Stacy.
Fred believed Stacy had this power because she was a true believer. When she told you the world was nothing more than a rotting husk of biomatter you could see that she believed it. She made you want to believe it, too. But Fred knew he didn't believe and neither did most of the others. The last time Stacy told everyone she would be taking an evening alone, George and Amy had spied on her all evening to make sure she didn't try to kill herself again. When Fred heard about it he thought to himself 'Posers' and then volunteered for the next watch.
He was a poser too, and tonight he was going to revel in it. He never stopped to think about why he had to hide the things he loved from his friends. He wasn't that perceptive. If he had ever looked at himself he might have seen someone who shows all the signs of being deeply repressed. He made out with Stacy one night and she kept pausing to say 'I thought you were gay.' The third time she said it he hit her. A slap, not hard, but in anger. Things were awkward for a while after that. George and Amy never told Fred when they were going on suicide watch.
Fred put on his headphones, flipped up the hood on his sweatshirt, fixed his stare on the pavement and left for the concert. He never looked up except to cross a street, which were all empty. Every once and a while he would pass someone who seemed excessively drunk. They stumbled into him and tried to grab on to him to steady themselves, but he danced around their grasp without ever looking them in the eye. He could hear them groaning as they fell over. Fred held up his fist so they could see the big black X on the back of his hand. Straight Edge For Life, you Mindless Drunk Assholes, he thought to himself. I Have Places To Be.
The next zombie Fred stepped over grabbed his ankle and dug in with its nails. Finally coming out of his reverie he looked at the creature in horror. He kicked at the creatures head coming up to bite him. Fred's boot went all the way through the softened skull.
He looked around. For a moment he saw what he knew was a dark sort of perfection. The apocalypse was now. The world was indeed rotting, and the rot was alive.
The zombie he just killed (and whose hand still hasn't let go of his ankle) has a bloody pack of cigarettes in his back pocket. He grabbed one. He took out his Jonas Brothers concert ticket, lit it on fire and used the flaming ticket to light the cigarette. He didn't think he was a poser anymore.
As the zombies surrounded him, he wondered if Stacy still wanted to die.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Angel Perez, 44
Angel Perez was a rapist.
There were about four hundred people living here. It had originally been a gated community on the westernmost edge of what used to be the state of Washington. It had been built overlooking the Pacific Ocean on two sides, the north and west. Beyond the West and North walls were about fifty feet of treacherous slopes, then a sheer rock face, then the ocean. Beyond the South and East walls, death. The East and South walls were secure already, but they further fortified them and posted a rotation of sentries, usually just men between 25 and 40 who had good eyes and could stay awake for eight hours at a time. These four hundred or so travelers had discovered this place before things had gotten too out of hand, but it was clear how things were going to turn out and they all knew that if they didn't find a place to settle soon, they'd be dead in a few months. From what they could piece together, the people that had lived here before had all been obscenely rich and left soon after things went national, leaving most everything intact. Why no one had settled here already was anyone's guess, but it didn't matter to them. They'd found a home.
Seven weeks after they had arrived, twelve year old Alicia Moore went missing. At first people just assumed that she'd snuck out for some reason and been killed by the walking dead. Her mother, who had already lost her husband and baby boy to them just crumbled under the weight of everything and went semi-catatonic. Two weeks after that, however, seventeen year old Claire Howard went missing. This raised questions. A twelve year old might not understand the enormity of what exactly was going on, but Claire was smart and her family had, somehow, remained intact through the trek. They said that, one night, she just didn't come home. Things continued along these lines for about three months until that night Roberts saved Marissa's life.
Something happens to survivors of a great cataclysm. Plagues, wars, terrorist attacks...they alter something fundamental inside a person. In most cases, life actually does go on, eventually. There is progress, healing, rebirth; but living in the world as it was today, there was none of that. Every day, the people would look outside the gates and see themselves...their flesh shredded, their eyes dusty, their bodies torn and desiccated...walking, moaning, feeding. When a human died, they became one of Them. And They would not die, They would not tire, They were forever. There was no way to truly adapt to what was going on. One merely developed survival skills. One of those skills was the ability to numb oneself, to kill a part of you; the part of you that feels. On the road, people learned just how fleeting life was. At literally any second, your mother, father, lover, child, sibling could be taken violently away from you forever. So they learned to kill that part of themselves. In some horrible way, they had grown used to this numbness. They couldn't hurt the zombies, they couldn't punish them. But that urge was still there. Underneath the numbness...that urge was still there.
What happened to this man over the next five weeks might have been categorized as "indescribable", but, the thing was, it was describable.
Did Angel Perez deserve it?
Friday, June 12, 2009
Paul & Phil, 28
“Do we have an exit strategy?” asked Paul, some time later over their umpteenth meal of spaghetti bolognaise.
“To be completely honest, no. I always thought we would just travel during the day so we can see them coming and all that. If they get too thick, we’ll climb something or go up some stairs.” answered Phil.
“Works for me.” said Paul.
He paused, then said, “You know, this is going to sound a little weird I’m sure, but, since all this happened, do you feel that things have…well…simplified a bit?”
“Oh absolutely,” responded Phil, “ think about it, we don’t have jobs or obligations or anything like them anymore. We have to stay alive and that’s pretty much all that’s required of us.”
“It’s very freeing, isn’t it?” asked Paul.
“Very. The stakes are higher, but the rules are simpler.” answered Phil.
They continued to eat in silence for a bit.
“You know, I was always curious how the whole power situation would go down during a zombie apocalypse. It’s weird that we still have power but we don’t have cable or phone service.” said Paul.
“How is that weird?” asked Phil.
“I don’t know. When you hear ‘zombie apocalypse’ do you think of power and running water and all that? Do you think, ‘oh, can’t text or check my e-mail, zombie apocalypse’? No, it’s all screaming and dying and dogs and cats living together…MASS HYSTERIA!”
Phil smiled, “True.”
“I thought for a moment that it was because there’s no reason for zombies to seek out power stations and fuck with them, but then again, there’s no reason for them to seek out anything else either, right? So why do we have power and water but no phones or cable?”
“Good question. Maybe since power is more of a priority, some disaster protocol was set in place? I mean, so much of our Internet is in Atlanta, but this might just be a problem with our local Time Warner place, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m glad this happened with Obama in the driver’s seat.”
“You think he has some sort of zombie apocalypse contingency plan?”
“Maybe. From what I hear he’s smart as fuck. I’m just saying that Bush would have just nuked everything in the name of his asshole Texan God probably.”
“Probably. One thing I am 100% certain about is that I’m happy these aren’t 28 Days Later zombies.”
“Fucking shit, yes! We wouldn’t last a week.” replied Paul.
“Anyway, as far as an exit strategy, not really sure. We should remember to take World War Z and the survival guide with us.” said Phil.
“Definitely. Ha. I wonder what Max Brooks thinks of all this shit. Do you think he’s as surprised as everyone else or do you think he’s feeling sort of smug?”
“I think it would take a major asshole to feel smug about something like this.”
“True, but think of everyone who said something like, ‘Oh, how’s the zombie book coming along! Yeah, that’s reeeal useful! Stupid kike!’”
“Why throw in the racial epithet?” asked Phil.
“Because deep down the person saying it knew that what Brooks was doing was right on and would not only sell millions of copies, but would also become utterly indispensable and be utilized by most of the literate human race as the sole guide to not being eaten by the risen dead before long.”
“I’ll accept that.” answered Phil in a neutral tone. “Although I think the point is moot. This guy is the son of Mel Brooks. The guy who wrote Spaceballs. I don’t know how seriously he took all this stuff.”
“Probably a bit more seriously than we did.”
“Mm.”
“What about weapons?” Paul asked.
“We don’t have anything here, do we?”
“Just some small knives. Are you proficient with anything?”
“Nope. Although I might create a weapon.” said Phil.
“Really? Like what?”
“Okay,” said Phil, leaning forward in his seat and holding his hands up, “I would have a pommel, like the handle of a whip.”
“…okay…” said Paul, a dubious smile growing on his face.
“Attached to the pommel would be eighteen loaded Desert Eagles with fishing line attached to each of the triggers.”
“Safety off.” said Paul, not asking.
“Safety off.” agreed Phil.
“Then, whenever there was trouble, I’d swing them over my head, and when I was ready, just jerk the whip handle, triggering all eighteen guns at once.” he looked at Paul, “What do you think?”
“Sounds good, but we only have sixteen Desert Eagles.”
“Oh, well then forget it.” said Phil abruptly.
“Maybe next time.” said Paul in a comforting voice.
“There might be some tools and stuff in the Superintendent’s place.”
“What’s that thing Brooks says is the ideal weapon?”
“It’s called a ‘trench spike’. They used it in World War One or Two. He says it’s like brass knuckles with a knife on the end.”
“Where in the fuck would we find one of those?”
“Max Brooks’ house?” suggested Paul.
“Probably those other two Desert Eagles as well.”
“Probably.”
“Any idea where he lives?”
“Probably not on the way to B.J.’s.”
“Maybe later then.”
“So when should we leave?” asked Paul.
Just then, all the lights in the apartment flickered, then brightened again, then flickered again, then went out. A few seconds later, there was a loud pop and they came back on again.
“You know, I can’t, with any real conviction, blame that on you…” said Philip, looking around the living room.
“But….?” asked Paul.
“…but I’m going to.” finished Philip.
“Excellent.” said Paul in a satisfied tone. “Shall we pack?”
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Reggie Chilt, 34
Monday, May 25, 2009
Kwashon Blumenthal, 28
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Robert Enwalis, 39
Friday, May 22, 2009
Paul & Phil, 28
I.
“Shit.” said Paul, looking out the window of the third story
“20/20 hindsight and all that.” responded Phil, flipping through the seven hundred and fifty three channels of unique static on the television.
“No,” insisted Paul, turning away from the vista of shambolic death outside, “I mean we, you and I, should have seen this coming.”
“The thing is, Paul,” replied Phil, looking up from the screen, “we, you and I, are the type of people who are always expecting this to happen, all the time. Therefore, how can we, you and I, be blamed for not seeing it coming? Technically speaking, we’ve seen this coming for about, what, twelve years or so? So did Will, so did Sunir, so did a lot of people. But Will never petitioned NASA or the X-Prize or Lockheed-Martin to do anything about it, did he? Sunir went to med school, I taught those little punks in
Paul thought for a moment. “Not really sure…I guess. Gone survivalist I suppose.”
“Exactly my point. And what the fuck do we know about being survivalists?”
“We can both grow a pretty respectable beard.”
“There is nothing respectable about our beards. Besides, we should be happy we know so much about zombies. We’re better off than most. Some people didn’t figure it out until they were being digested. We know they can’t climb stairs with any degree of speed, we know to ‘shoot for the head’…if we had guns.”
“We really should do something about that.” sad Paul, half to himself. “I’ve only fired a gun once in my life and I was four. And that ended badly.”
“Well, not for you,” said Phil, turning back to the TV, switching on the Playstation 3.
“Who gives a four year old a .45?” demanded Paul.
“A Republican?” opined Phil.
“Zing.” answered Paul.
“So what do we do now?” asked Phil, picking up a controller and handing it to Paul.
“Well,” mused Paul, taking the controller from Phil, “I’d always thought if this all ever happened that you and Will would be the ideal people to be with, but since Will is off in
“Go on” said Phil, initiating a two player game of Wipeout HD.
“So, like any good hypothetical survivalist, I stroked my unruly beard…”
“As one must,” added Phil.
“And I considered an alternate third, in case Will was already ensconced in some NASA fallout zombie shelter and had neglected to tell us. And, based on his level of experience and insight into this particular situation, I would have to say B.J.”
Philip raised his eyebrows.
“As a matter of fact, the place he’s living in
“All right. Then we’re off to
“Unless you have any better ideas?”
“It’s a shame we can’t bring the TV and Playstation. I’m getting quite good at Wipeout.”
“B.J. has an Xbox 360, so it’s not a complete loss.”
There was a pause in which they played the game, the sound of "Firestarter" sans lyrics filled the room.
“This really is the only fitting music for this game,” remarked Phil after a moment.
“Agreed.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Jessica, 27
"Oh my God, Roger's dead!"
"Come on, we can't help him now!"
"Dave—"
"RUN!"
"Barbra, are you—"
"I'm fine...let's just...get there..."
They had started out as a group of nine.
Now three were left, almost four, but Roger hadn't been paying attention and had slipped in a puddle of something unmentionable, gone to one knee and, ostensibly, ended his life.
None of the final three had really known Roger, but even if they had, they would have been...not okay with his demise, but merely...less devastated.
Except for Jess.
Not to say that Barbra and Dave were stone cold, heartless mercenaries for hire or anything, but Jess was just more empathic than most people. Even after three months trapped in this nightmare, she was still unable to detach herself from all the death and pain and horror surrounding her. In a way, it made her more human, holding onto these vestments of emotion, but in another way, it made her more vulnerable.
Barbra saw this, but she had asthma, a much more evident vulnerability than empathy. Dave saw it too, but that was one of the reasons he loved her so much. Even amidst all this, even at the end of the world, he loved her big heart and it hurt him to see her in this situation. This was killing her and there was nothing he could do about it.
But she was surviving.
They were all surviving.
Well, all except Roger.
And Sarah and Ben and Noel and Graham.
Phil and Paul?
Who knew?
They’d had a skewed vision of reality before the dead had stopped dying and started eating.
They'd run into them a few weeks ago and they'd had this air about them...something...not quite right...but they had survived this far and that was what mattered right now.
They left, on their way to
And now Roger.
"Get inside!"
Dave had found an unlocked door and they all piled in, Dave last, pulling the door shut behind him.
That sat in the musty dark, panting.
Barbra's inhaler went off.
After what seemed like hours, they heard the moaning from outside the door, moving slowly toward them.
This part always terrified Jess. She knew from experience that these things had no logic or reasoning capabilities, that the zombies would never know they were hiding in this particular place unless one of them made a sound and even then they still might not find them, but that noise...just moving slowly closer in the dark...
Jess silently thanked Roger for his accidental sacrifice.
They may have gotten away with no problem, but with Roger as a...distraction, it was a certainty.
They would wait here until the zombies outside had passed and then either further explore this place or head out again.
This had become the routine: find a place, assess its positive and negative attributes as a temporary hideout and then either stay for as long as they dared or gather what useful items they could find and move on.
This was
Eventually, the sound faded and then there was silence.
After one more blast from Barbra's inhaler, Dave said "All right, let's find out where we are..."
At the moment, they each had a nice, sturdy MagLite with them, plus a backpack that had granola bars, Balance bars, dried fruit, nuts, jerky and as much bottled water as they could carry without overburdening themselves. Unlike the fiction that Jess had been working with for the past few years, this whole thing hadn't happened like in the books. Yes, there had been some rioting and some looting and some places were indeed stripped clean of every single bit of food and water, but the fact was,
Food and water hadn't been a problem, so they had decided to flee on foot; they would find an adequate supply of food and water, hole up for a while and see what developed.
So that's what they had done.
The problem was that the dead were everywhere. And although they didn't consciously hunt or form large groups, these things just happened. They were always awake and "looking" for food. Sadly, things had developed in a manner that left the three of them with very limited options. At this particular moment, they were toying with the idea of making their way to the
"All right," Dave said from the top of the stairs at the end of the darkened hallway, "there's an open apartment up here, looks pretty good. There's a fire escape outside the kitchen window so we have a way out if we need it."
Barbra and Jess followed Dave up and entered the apartment.
Dave was right, it was pretty good; a bit musty, but much better than some of the other places they'd walked into.
The door opened into a large living room with two bedrooms directly in front of them, a kitchen to the right and a bathroom to the left.
There was a love seat against one wall and a cheap looking Ikea standing lamp next to the door. Jess twisted the switch out of habit and was rewarded with a dry snapping sound, but no light.
They halfheartedly searched the kitchen for food or anything useful but found nothing.
They each ate some food in silence, and then Barbra and Jess made their way to the bedrooms while Dave set some glasses in front of the door and took his place as sentinel for the evening.
"Jekka..."
Jess smiled in her sleep.
She'd fallen back asleep again and they'd probably missed Brunch.
Oh well.
They could just order in or maybe see if the Brunch place had dinner.
It wasn't too strange to think that they would, was it?
She was pretty sure she'd seen them open after dark...
"Jekka...Barbra's dead..."
...she remembered seeing a neon sign in the window... a hand or something.
Maybe it was a fish?
She'd have to ask Dave.
"Jekka, we have to go before..."
Wait, the place was called Manus!
That's Latin for 'hand' so--
"JEKKA!"
Jess sat up and looked around the dim bedroom.
Dave was grappling with Barbra.
"JESS! FUCKING WAKE UP!"
Jess was alert and on her feet before she knew it, looking around the room for something, anything to—
Dave screamed.
Jess whirled around just in time to see Dave slam his fist into Barbra's face, sending her stumbling back into the wall. He then clutched his neck just below his left ear.
Barbra was slowly righting herself.
"Jess..." Dave grunted, "Let’s fucking go..."
He held out his right hand and she grabbed it.
They ran from the bedroom through the unfamiliar dimness of the living room and were just at the door when they heard the noise.
It sounded like a fist hitting a coffin full of glass bottles and for a moment, they simply stood, unmoving.
Then it clicked.
The glasses against the front door...
"All right," Dave started, "out the wind—"
And there was Barbra, tottering towards them, arms outstretched, chin and chest slicked with Dave's blood.
Dave glanced around the room quickly and grabbed the nearest weapon, the segmented standing lamp, from beside the door.
"I'm going to hold it off; you get the window open..."
That plan seemed to work for Barbra who began stumbling toward Dave. He cocked the lamp back and swung as hard as he could, base first, at her head. There was a metallic snap and an organic crunch as both the lamp and Barbra's skull broke.
Jess was frantically tugging at the window which wasn't budging an inch.
There was another, more insistent thump from the front door.
"Dave! It's not opening!" Jess nearly screamed.
"Locked?" Dave said in a clotted voice.
"Fucking idiot!" Jess said aloud to herself as she reached for the latches on top of the window. They clicked and one of the glasses fell over.
She raked the window up on its tracks and, thankfully, it stayed open.
Dave was looking down at Barbra, who was twitching minutely on the floor and another glass fell over.
"Close one." he mumbled, walking into the kitchen.
Jess was standing on the fire escape and looking down into the alley below where there was no sign of the things.
She helped Dave out as best she could and they unfastened the ladder which made a horrible screeching, clanging noise as it lowered.
They both made it down without incident and were just taking in their new surroundings when Jess gasped, "The fucking packs, Dave!"
He looked slowly up at the ladder when they heard the door inside open, shattering the rest of the glasses.
"Too late now..." he croaked.
It was almost dawn and, in the growing light Jess was able to get a look at Dave's neck for the first time.
It looked horrible. The flesh was shredded around the wound and, in the weak light, the insides gleaming wetly.
"Dave...are you..." asked Jess in a small voice.
"I'm in trouble, Jekka. She didn't severe the artery or we wouldn't be having this conversation, but I've maybe got an hour. I'm already fading..." he trailed off, looking down the length of the alley.
"Dave," Jess was trying to keep the tremor out of her voice, but she was failing. "Dave...I don't think I can...I can't..."
Dave turned back to her, the dazed, dull look gone from his eyes.
He grabbed her shoulders.
"Jess, if you don't, I'll turn into one of them and come after you, you know that! You don't have a choice!" He paused, "And I don't want to be one of them."
"Dave..." tears were streaming down her round, shocked face and dripping off her chin.
He silenced her with a small kiss and smiled.
"I'm not dead yet, Jessica. Let's find a new place before we deal with this."
One end of the alley was a brick wall, topped with razor wire and the other ended in a gate. They made their way as quietly as they could and paused for a moment at the mouth of the alley.
They could see the tail end of the horde that had entered the apartment just entering the building now.
"God, there must have been fifty of them..." Dave breathed.
They opened the gate slowly which, for a wonder, didn't make a sound and were about to make their way up the street away from the zombies when Dave stumbled and fell against a cluster of trash cans.
The noise was explosive in the early morning silence and less than a second after the noise had stopped, the moaning began.
Jess saw the last form that had entered the building pause, turn, pause again and then come shambling out into the bluish street.
The others were following it.
"Dave!" Jess shook him.
His eyes fluttered, opened, looked into hers.
"You gotta go..." he whispered.
"No! You said that you had—" Jess was very edge of the precipice.
"Might have been wrong...might have nicked the artery after all..."
Jess felt like a sunbather who opens her eyes just as the shadow of the tsunami engulfs her; paralyzed, unable to think or even comprehend the enormity of what is about to happen.
"Dave..."
His eyes slipped shut.
She had just enough time to trip behind a Dumpster at the mouth of the alley as they fell on him.
The last conscious thought Jessica had was:
at least I can't see...at least they're in the way...and I think he was already d—
Then Dave shrieked, an unending eruption of sound that told Jess her world had ended.
Jessica began to scream in response.
Their screams merged; his of agony, hers of terror and utter, abject loss.
There's something to be said for the human mind. How elegant. How multifaceted. How awe inspiring. It has the potential to create the most beautiful art, the most intricate formula, to be as complex as a galaxy and as unique as a snowflake.
It also has the potential to run binary.
Black or white.
On or off.
Fight or flight.
Underneath all the trappings in which society has swaddled the human mind, there lies the true Human Nature.
The killer, the survivor, the beast.
It was witnessing this horrible act of violence that finally cracked the facade, which had grown thinner and thinner as the world slipped faster and faster down the jagged slope into the Abyss. Seeing the person she loved most in this world torn limb from limb while these demons feasted on his still living, still breathing, still screaming body had shattered the veneer meticulously built over the past three decades.
What was left was not some cute, inoffensive woodland creature.
What was left was Hell Itself.
And It wanted vengeance.
Jessica stopped screaming. The tears stopped coursing down her face. She rose and looked around her, as if for the first time. The creatures in front of her were busying themselves by stripping the last remnants of Dave from what was left of his frame and did not take notice.
If they had, even these unfeeling, uncomprehending monsters may have known fear.
Jessica's eyes landed on the tangle of bodies which marked Dave's final resting place. She uttered a grunting bark that was just masked by the groaning, snapping noises coming from the zombies in front of her. She then drew in a breath and loosed a bloodcurdling noise, barely animal, nowhere near human. The things paused, looked up and beheld.
Before they even had a chance to totter to their feet, she was on them, tearing with her hands and teeth like a rabid dog. She didn't even register what she was slashing and biting at and in a matter of seconds, the seven zombies that had heard the trash cans and ended Dave's life (and, in some terrible way, renewed hers) were nothing more than seven piles of limbs and rags and muck.
She stood in the center of this massacre covered in gore and gobbets of red jelly and white, green and purple flesh from head to toe, the foul meat she'd torn from their forms sliding from her mouth onto the ground (for some part of her knew, even in this state, that to ingest any part of their filth would mean agonizing death). She turned and saw the rest of the groaning monsters begin to stumble out of the building back onto the street, roared like the Apocalypse and charged at them.
She hit the first one, which was standing in the doorway, with her entire body and, because of sheer momentum, knocked it and the dozen or so that lined up behind it like necrotic dominoes over in a row. Then she descended upon them like a buzz saw, morsellating their putrid, leathery bodies with every ounce of her being. Her rage had brought her to the foot of the stairs where she caught sight of another throng standing at the head of the staircase. It was over in a tissue and bone filled instant. And then she was at the top of the stairs, looking into the apartment which had served as the merest bit of respite for the past hours and contained the remainder of the horde that had caused such turmoil in the last few minutes.
Jessica caught sight of Barbra toward the back of the mob.
Her shriek was soul rending and nearly tore her throat to bloody ribbons.
She saw only Barbra, the cause of this tragedy, this cataclysm.
Jessica clawed her way through more than thirty undead bodies and, less than a minute after catching sight of Barbra, was standing before her.
Of course there was no recognition in Barbra's clouded eyes, how could there be? But Jessica wasn't here in the same way she had been five minutes ago.
Barbra saw only meat and Jess saw only enemy.
She shot her hand out, lightening quick, and tore Barbra's jaw from her face with a sound like a chicken being ripped in half.
Jessica felt the vibrations go through her body and liked it.
She dropped the jaw on the floor and began to systematically tear Barbra apart: her hands, arms, ears, eyes, head...it was the truest form of catharsis she'd ever experienced.
After utterly dispatching with Barbra, Jess fell, unconscious, to the floor in a slurry of undead bits.
When she woke, the sun was shining bright, making the fetid meat in the room produce an almost physical stink. She rose shakily to her feet and stared about her at the chaos she'd created. Then she began to weep, her small body pulsing with the sobs that escaped her. She half sat, half fell to the slick floor and cried, her tears cutting clean tracks through the crusted ichor on her face.
Dave was dead.
They were all dead but her.
The world was dead and it only kept spinning because it hadn't yet realized the fact.
After a while, she stopped crying and took in a deep, cleansing breath.
At least she wouldn't have to be a part of this farce much longer.
She looked down at herself and saw the dozens of tiny cuts and scratches covering her hands and arms.
How long had Dave said this stuff takes to change you?
She couldn't remember, not that it mattered, she wasn't going to sit here and turn into one of those things, feeling herself die and be reborn as some hideous cannibal. She slowly staggered to her feet again. Her body ached all over and her mouth tasted of unspeakable foulness. She reached the sink and washed her mouth out with the rust tasting water from the tap. She rinsed her hands, arms and face in the cool water and stood for a moment, dripping and just staring.
Then she nodded almost imperceptibly, walked over to the oven and turned the knob. The faint hiss told her there was still gas in these pipes. That was good. She found their abandoned packs in the bedrooms and located the pack of matches at the bottom of Barbra's.
Barbra had been a smoker.
An asthmatic smoker.
Brilliant.
She made her way back to the kitchen and closed the window. The air was already taking on a wavy quality. She went back to the bedroom she'd spent her last night in and changed out of her filthy rags into a clean shirt and pants. Back in the living room she dragged the love seat over to the kitchen and placed it diagonally against the cabinets under the sink and the wall with the window set into it, forming a small barricade. Then she made her way carefully through the abattoir in the living room, down the slimy stairs and outside.
She saw a small group of the things milling around at the end of the street, looking up at a pigeon perched on a lamppost and another larger group further up the street. None of them had seen her so she just sat, feeling the sun, warm and fresh, on her battered body for a few quiet moments. Eventually, she opened her eyes, and stood, taking note of the stiffness that was settling into her bones and muscles already.
She walked down the street, moving at a fast walk past the small group focused on the bird until she was in between them and the group further away.
Then she yelled at the top of her voice.
Slowly, very slowly, the group at the lamppost and the larger group began to stumble towards her, moaning and clutching.
Within five minutes she'd managed to attract about a hundred of the things, always being sure to stay well in front of the horde and well away from any tight spaces. She led them back to the apartment, the stiffness slowly turning to numbness throughout the trek.
Finally, she'd led the majority into the apartment building. They filled the entry way, the hallway, the stairs and the living room.
She took her place behind the love seat, still a good ten feet from the nearest one and went for the matches on the counter, knocking them onto the floor. She sat down, tried to pick them up again and failed. Her third attempt was successful. She looked around the room and everything appeared underwater; whether this was the gas or her vision, she wasn't sure.
She opened the matchbook and tried to tear out a match, but she couldn't make her fingers close on it. Her index finger did what it was told, but her thumb just twitched feebly.
"No..." she croaked.
She took a deep breath, which caused the world to strobe in purple and black, and tried again, but this time the thumb only trembled the faintest bit.
"No...no..." she said again.
She suddenly clamped her teeth down on her tongue and the world instantly flared with color.
As she tore the match out and flipped the pack over, she registered that her blood didn't have the rich, vital, iron taste it usually did.
She scratched the match against the rough strip but it wasn't hard enough.
The world was turning purple and black again.
Jessica bit her tongue once more, much harder this time and felt part of it separate from the rest.
It lay in her mouth like cold rubber and she choked it out.
She wasn't bleeding anymore.
Her stomach knotted painfully and as she pressed the match head to the strip one last time, she was swallowed by their shadows.
"No...Dave...n-"