What was powerful enough to cause such tremors?
But that was just the beginning. Instead, the walls began to shudder from an outside force. The shelves rattled in their brackets, dropping objects carelessly on the floor. The lights flickered. At that, the terror she held at bay came flooding in. She remembered another time, not so long before, when the lights flickered. They had died, after, leaving everyone in the dark. So when the lights in the bunker started to dim, she tried not to scream. But she knew there was no way she’d be able to hold on to her sanity if she was trapped there in the darkness deep underground for the rest of her life.
She scrambled up, still holding the whimpering Ginny, and started to claw her way around the room. Her hands searched frantically, following the path her eyes began in each flash of the overhead bulbs. She was searching for a handlight, but encountered nothing. She left her room, leaning against the wall for its deceptive safety, and made her way to the living area. A particularly strong tremor pushed her to unprotected knees, bruising them because she still held Ginny close. One hand went out, searching for support, and she encountered the low table in the center of the room.
The table where she’d left the melted candles from her solitary New Year’s celebration.
She placed Ginny on the ground between her and the table and reached out blindly, hands searching for the warped and twisted waxen stumps and nubs she’d let melt down out of sheer defiance. Surely there was at least one with a wick.
One, two, three – four! The fourth candle jutted up proudly, half again as tall as the first three, the hollow in its middle more shallow than the others. Her shaking, sweating hands found the wick just as another roar shook the complex. With one hand, she grasped the candle tightly, peeling it up from the fake wooden table. With the other, she felt around the table’s edges for the lighter she remembered leaving there. When her hand encountered the smooth, oblong shape, she was for a moment able to submerge her fear in the triumph she felt at the thought of producing light. Quickly, she flicked the ridged edged with her thumb, gazing desperately towards it, hungry for light.
A tiny flame shot up, no bigger than the edge of her pinky finger, a sliver still hot enough to burn and push away the edges of madness that gripped her. Carefully, she brought the candle to meet the lighter, the wick to meld with the flame and create a sphere in which she could, at last, see.
Using the candle, she located the rest of the almost-melted candles and proceeded to light as many as possible. Soon, the glow lit a good portion of the room. Despite the tremors that continued to shake the complex, she felt the insanity begin to recede inside her. Perhaps she would die, crushed under the weight of unknown tons of earth and twisted metal – that she could contemplate, could understand. Her only regret would be her inability to protect Ginny. Still, better to die – better that - than to live on, years and years, alone in the dark.
Just then, the lights flicked back on, though they were weak, as if whatever machine powered them could only generate enough light to remind her just how ephemeral and fragile a substance it was. Light – untouchable, yet able to burn and terrorize in turn. An undeniable force that by its very existence changed all that it invaded, surrounded, uplifted. To her, light suddenly equaled life, or at least, her willingness to continue struggling, continue fighting the dark tide of her fears and aching, empty loneliness.
In the same instant the lights flickered back on, her thoughts ran in a thousand different directions in the space of a few heartbeats – long enough for them to converge on two inevitabilities: she had to locate more light, and after the shaking and tremors stopped, if she still lived, she had to leave. Because she realized she had to know, finally, if anyone else was alive. It wasn’t just a belief inside her, it was a tangible need. The new purpose to her existence – find others. Mangled, broken, alone, starving, cold, afraid – but alive. She refused to believe she was the only one left.
All through the long hours – though it might have been days had she bothered to look at the clock – she waited with Ginny. She retreated inside her thoughts as she absently ran her hands through the curling fur. She was, deliberately and precisely, divorcing herself from the construct and restrictions of believing in time, which for her had always been divided into concrete, absolute blocks she understood – decades, years, months, days, minutes, even seconds. But time was, in truth, merely a stream of moments.
She wondered if she would have felt differently had she understood how to work and fix the machines that ran the underground chambers, which lit them gently and sent air floating through their halls. Would she have tried to stay longer, to fix what had broken, to repair the tiny cracks that had started to appear? Each contributor had a field of specialization. Why had she thought that botany and food was the most important aspect of survival?
Man could find a way to survive off any combination of nutrients – mold and excrement and recycled urine if necessary. But man needed, more than food, sustenance for the soul – light and air. Why hadn’t she insisted on learning how to work the machines that turned and pulsed their endless miles of cogs and nails and welded metal. Of wedges and pulleys and levers and screws and inclined planes and axles, simple machines that combined and compounded each other into a complex whole that produced life-giving air and light. That – that – was worth more than any precious knowledge about surviving the end. Because surviving the end was not a single step – it was a process. And not everyone would make it through all the steps. It was akin to surviving a plane crash in the middle of the ocean – safety became ephemeral, life so much more brittle and easily shattered. Only once the shore was reached, would surviving the crash became a true reality.
The only step left was to live through the rest of the endless tragedies that plagued mankind.
So when the shaking died down, she lay down on the floor with Ginny in the middle of the room, which was barely lit by the overhead lighting and sputtering candles. She listened to true silence, uninterrupted by the static background blend of humming sparks and electricity that had sustained life before. No, it was too faint now for her to hear or even feel with her cheek pressed into the cold, concrete floor. She slept, eventually, for hours or days - she never knew. She had, after all, sacrificed time in order to preserve her sanity.
Eventually, she woke up in stillness. The room was nearly black, but the faint glow of the dying generators was still visible, enough to let her return to her room and prepare. She dressed carefully, packing her pockets with supplies and tools. She filled her backpack with medical supplies and protein bars and bottles of water.
Purpose filled her. She was ready to pull the survivors out of the ocean and away from the clinging debris of the crash, all the way back to safety. And someone would know how to work machines, how to teach her. Would know how to make the underground complex live again. And along the way, she would find and bring back as many as she could.
She turned and made her way down the long corridor that ran for nearly a quarter of a mile, inclined upwards increment by increment. She moved slowly, unhurried and calm. At long last, she reached a small alcove from which a metal ladder ascended. She placed little Ginny – who had pranced and sniffed her way eagerly forward - in an extra bag that was slung across her front and began climbing toward the unseen light.
She didn’t want to just live, but thrive.
That was the true epilogue to survival.
~*~
Me Zombie, You Food
By
C. M. Bratton
Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy. Or unbelievable. Or maybe just plain gross. But I swear it’s true. All of it, every word painfully scratched on these pages. So just hear me out. See, I have this irrational, mindless, crazed, often uncontrollable urge for fresh meat. Really fresh.
Yeah, I admit it.
I’m a zombie.
But I swear it’s not just some crazy lifestyle choice! And since I can’t really talk so great anymore – I think I
’m speaking but people just hear these awful groans - I’ve decided to share my story before my brain degrades to the point where I can no longer hold my pen.
Not to mention the fact that I keep getting distracted by all this… food, just walking around in front of me.
Now for those of you who think I can’t possibly remember becoming a zombie, think again. I remember every detail. It sucked. It chewed. It hurt.
And it started on a Friday night when I went out drinking.
Boy, alcohol can really do you in.
Yeah, okay, I’ll stop with the puns, for now.
Anyway, I was at this bar that had just opened up in the neighborhood. It was tiny and kinda’ worn out looking already for a new place, and it reeked of smoke and spilled beer – just my kind of place.
They had this drink special, called the “House of Horrors.” Get this, it was billed as guaranteed to help “turn you and your night into a raging good time in ways never imagined.”
Ha! Long, corny, and oh-so-right.
Of course I had to try it! I mean, I had one of those weeks. You know, the kind where work sucked, I was late paying rent, I got two speeding tickets, and I just wanted to get trashed. And since the new place was within walking distance, I thought, what the hell?
Man, I drank a whole lot of those specials. Which means the next part is a little blurry, but that’s not ‘cause I’m the stereotypical zombie who can’t remember what it’s like to be human. It’s because, well, alcohol does funny things to your memory. At any rate, with every glass I downed, I found myself getting angrier at everything and everyone but the bartender. So what do you know, I picked a fight with someone I vaguely recall as being a little bigger than me – okay, a whole lot bigger. I managed to get in a few punches and kicks. And then, well… then I got hit a whole lot.
Somehow, I made it out the door – or maybe I was kicked out (but surely they wouldn’t do that to the person who lost the fight, right?) – dragged myself down the street to my dingy efficiency, hit my couch, and passed out.
I woke up late in the afternoon sick to my stomach. My entire body was throbbing from the beating. I rolled my way off the couch and shuffled over to the tub to turn on the shower. It was there that I finally saw myself in the mirror.
My face was a mess. It was sickly yellow - almost grey, really - underneath the large black bruises on my cheekbones and eyes.
Great.
But when I got undressed, I saw that the real horror was just above my collarbone. Apparently, the other person in the fight decided to bite me. Hard. It was ugly, the skin raw and puckered, teeth indentations jagged and purple, and steadily oozing blood – although I was still pretty full of the “special” so the flow was pretty sluggish. Or so I thought at the time. I got into the steaming shower and tried to clean up, but before long, my arms and legs started to shake. The sick knot in my stomach had apparently decided to unravel and spread its evil tentacles throughout my body. It was like someone had stuck me with a needle full of icy soda and injected it into my veins where it proceeded to sizzle and bubble and pop its way through my bloodstream.
I fainted.
When I came to, I was lying in the tub, my head awkwardly bent over the edge. The water, now freezing, was still running. And I was a zombie.
Course, I didn’t get it right at first. But there were plenty of clues. Like my neck. When I picked it up from its unnatural angle against the tub, I didn’t pay attention to how unnatural it was. And the window in the bathroom showed the sun just starting to rise above the nearby window – which usually happened around 9:00 am, and I remember distinctly getting up around 4:00 in the afternoon. Then there was my shoulder. Even though it was still open and new and looked awful, it didn’t really hurt. In fact, my body felt a little distant. The icy shower water didn’t raise a single goose bump.
But the biggest thing was my stomach, because boy was I starving! I turned off the shower and stumbled my way out of the tub, eyesight bleary, tummy grumbling. I needed food. Badly.
By habit, I headed for the fridge, but it was empty. Just as I discovered this devastating fact, there was a knock on the door – I know, classic, but seriously, it was perfect timing. It had to be my landlord, because, you know, rent was waaaay overdue. Although, at the time, all I could think about was, satisfying my hunger.
Limbs twitching and feeling oddly weak, I shambled over to the door. But the second I opened it, the smell hit me: meat. It was dark and spicy, with a hint of cardamom, curry, and saffron.
Just what I wanted.
“My goodness, what happened to you? Your shoulder – where are your clothes?”
Yeah – you forgot that part, right? But nope. That was me, new zombie, no clothes.
So what else could I do but reach out, grab my landlord, pull him in, and start chewing.
Yeah. Sorry about this, but man, he was simply delicious.
Later, after I was done – still hungry, because apparently zombies are always hungry, so done for the moment – I remembered my desire to shower the day before. I shuffled to the bathroom, turned the shower back on, and stepped in to wash the blood and bits off. While the cold water was streaming over me, my head started to clear from its hunger-induced fog. I thought I would be horrified – after all, I’d killed my landlord. And no matter how much he deserved it, the slimy cheat, it was still a pretty lame way to go. But I didn’t feel disgusted. I wanted more (because it’s supposedly not murder if it’s done for survival, right?).
And then it hit me.
I still don’t know if it was the bite or that damned drink special, but at that moment, I realized what I had become. And since then it’s been nothing but running – albeit slowly – from one place to another, fighting the rising body count, and trying to get help while giving in to my urges several times a day.
Which, yeah, seriously hurts the whole “getting help” part.
And that was before I started to stink! ‘Cause reek I did. No matter how much I showered, I still smelled, well, dead. And Dove is no easy fix for decay, trust you me. See, the stench doesn’t just sink in – it’s the state of my skin itself.
Surprisingly, that’s been my only vanity. The hair loss, the grey, mottled skin, the yellow teeth, the red eyes, the gaping, unclosed wounds – no problem. But geez, talk about bad body odor, because my nose works just fine.
Anyhow, when I realized I wasn’t getting better on my own (as in less hungry), I decided that I really needed serious help. So I did what any homeless, degenerate, low-life, non-self-respecting zombie would do – I stood on a street corner with a sign. It read:
NEED WORK
I’M A ZOMBIE(so don’t stand too close).
ANYTHING HELPS.
Surprisingly, the sign got me lots of attention. Just not always the kind I wanted. See, people can be pretty stupid. For instance, lots of them didn’t even bother to read the whole thing. That cut my potential help in half right there (though I got a lot of free meals).
Another problem was that lots of them didn’t even acknowledge I was a zombie! I mean, look, it’s true that there’s not a whole lot of us, but I like to think we tend to stick out – the smell alone should get some notice. Call me narcissistic all you want, but I shouldn’t have to work this hard to get a little therapy. Because let’s face it – I don’t want to be this hungry all the time. I have pretty much no self-control and I’d like to think that maybe, if I learned a little restraint, I might start to change the negative image that zombies have out in the press. That’s why I thought working a street corner would be a sure thing.
Now, you may be wondering why I didn’t go to my family. But the truth is I was ashamed. Yes, I know, I said I wasn’t vain about my appearance, and honestly, I thought my parents could live with the whole zombie look. But it was the sense of failure that I brought with me. I’d never been really successful, floating from one job to the next, drinking and smoking my days away. I liked rock and heavy metal and didn’t really care that I
didn’t know what I wanted to be when I finally “grew up.” But after the whole change thing, it was different. I just didn’t expect to become a zombie, you know? And so to have to tell my parents that not only did I not have a job or a place to live anymore, but that I’d fallen even farther down in society from derelict to official enemy of the people – well, I just couldn’t. They’re just not strong enough for that kind of disappointment.
And then I’d think about how much they’ve pissed me off in the past, and eating them started to sound pretty good, too.
So I stayed away.
That’s when I got the idea to become a reformed zombie.
But becoming reformed didn’t just happen like that. It took a lot of work – and a lot of help. So let’s talk about my therapists.
The first several were the result of me standing on the corner with my awesome sign. I remember the first time I met one, it was a blistering summer’s day and most of the other bums on the street were cowering under the bridge (although that might have been because of my stench instead of the sun), so I had a whole corner to myself. This car pulled over and this nerdy guy rolled down his window. He smelled amazingly delicious, but I reminded myself that I had a mission, so I didn’t immediately reach for his throat.
“Hey, you need some water? It’s pretty hot out here.”
I nodded my head and said; “Thank you, sir,” only the guy just heard an ugly moan.
“Are you okay?”
Yes, this was just the opening I needed! I shook my head no and pointed at my sign. Then I pointed at my face and the big gash in my neck. Finally, I waved my hand in front of my nose, pretending to pinch it closed.
The guy nodded in sympathy and looked me up and down.
“Well, that’s a spectacular make-up job, so you’re obviously willing go to some lengths to get some help. Why don’t you hop in the car and we’ll head to my office. It’s not too far.”
Just then a car honked and I saw the light had turned green. Afraid of losing the potential help, I shuffled as quickly as I could around to the passenger side of the car, creaked my way into through door (which the guy had conveniently opened), and sat down. As I shut the car, my ridiculous body odor immediately saturated the small area. The poor guy actually started coughing.