I’m about a third of the way down the second wall now. But you know that, don’t you? I started much higher this time so I wouldn’t have to crouch so soon. Also, I’m making an effort to keep the lines straight this time. You’d be surprised how difficult it is—I could really use a ruler. No, a ruler is a king. A rule is what I want. Christ, more trivial memories. Where did I pick that up? High school tech drawing I think. I was so bad at that subject. I chose it back when I had some fanciful idea of being a builder. Me with my delicate hands and regrettable tendency to daydream. Real builder material.
I wonder how many pages this idiotic scribbling would take up in a book?
***
It’s night again. Been down nearly the whole day with abdominal cramps. Never had them before. It’s like someone trying to staple the walls of your stomach together. I was on the floor curled into a foetal ball, and whenever my head or back touched the door, those smelly fuckers outside would have their mongoloid conniptions. The knife pains have stopped now, but all I can think about is my schoolgirl response to Elsie’s first feather duster attack. If I’d had even a pea-sized set of balls then, I wouldn’t be lying here now, gradually dissolving in my own stomach acid.
God I’m light-headed. As I looked up to write that last line I felt like I was going to topple over backwards. Who knows, maybe the light-headedness will develop into euphoria.
Surely that’s not too much to hope for.
***
My watch stopped during the night. It’s like it knew it was useless now and gave up. Nine in the morning, nine at night, what difference does it make? Vitamin D deficiency is coming my way whether it’s a scorching forty-one degree day or pitch midnight in the dead of winter. Of course, carbohydrate and fat deprivation will get me well before vitamin deficiency. How long can a person survive without eating? That sounds like one of those stupid pub trivia questions. From memory, it’s two weeks. Shit, another twelve days of listening to the Tuneless Zombie Choir and fantasising that my leg is a prime roast. This is not how I thought my life would pan out.
But then how did I expect my life to turn out? Is one end really better than another? If I’d led the ‘perfect’ life, got married, had a couple of kids, retired on the waterfront, what difference would it have made? It’s all relative, really. Just depends how you word it. Got chained to some nagging harpy, sacrificed the best things in life to bring up a couple of ungrateful brats who helped overpopulate the world, then became the owner of a riverside property I was too old and lazy to use properly and saw out my days half drunk and watching football on TV. More enjoyable than slowly starving to death, it’s true, but not worth many more points on whatever scale measures a life.
Fuck, look at me rambling on. I’ve got two options: stay in here and die alone and malnourished like some third-world child or go out there and get ripped to pieces like a zebra cantering across a plain of lions.
Decisions, decisions.
***
Last night I tried sleeping on the floor with my suit jacket spread out underneath me, and my head propped on the trusty old tie-pillow. It smelt of urine and fading disinfectant down there, but at least it helped block out the odour of rotting people. I awoke with a stiff neck, but it did not even approach yesterday’s revelation in agony. I drank some water and spent a good forty minutes squeezed up in a tight package, fighting another bout of stomach cramps. When they finally started to abate, I looked up at the toilet walls through a film of tears. Blurred, my pointless scribbling almost seemed artistic, like prehistoric cave drawings or hieroglyphics.
I began to prickle all over with a peculiar ecstasy. Perhaps it was just my body self-medicating, but under the influence of that natural narcotic I saw I had a third option…one that didn’t involve gradual starvation or being the main course at the inaugural Lester Place Zombie Picnic. I’m pretty sure I will give it a try. When I put this pen down, I’m going to sit and think for a while. I’ll no doubt arrive at the conclusion some autonomous part of my brain has already reached. If the third option goes wrong...well, this will likely be my final entry.
***
Elsie did it.
Sorry my writing’s a bit shaky—it’s only going to get worse, I’m afraid. Oh, and it worked, by the way. Things happened more or less as I predicted.
I put my pen away and sat down to meditate on my position. I concluded that if procreation, the possession of material goods, and happiness were all fleeting—mere symptoms of living—then the point of life must be the experience itself. Meander down every path, explore every open avenue and maybe even trample into a few that are barricaded up or look dark and dangerous.
Right or wrong philosophically, it’s done now. What I did was, I jammed my foot up against the door as hard as I could and turned back the latch in almost imperceptible increments. The zombies didn’t notice—they just continued their ceaseless moan-drone, the soundtrack of my life for the past three days. I turned my attention to the door handle, easing it down as smoothly as I could, no more than a millimetre every few seconds. Their hands continued to squeak and scrabble over the door, and I thought for sure they would get wise to me, but I drew the handle all the way down, leaving only my foot to repel the passive pressure of bodies.
Wiggling the heel of my shoe, I opened the door a crack. For what I had planned, it didn’t need to be much ajar, only a centimetre or two. The zombies didn’t appear to notice this either—sounds and smells motivate them, I think, more than sight.
When everything was steady, I stuck my index finger out through the crack. Their response was electric—it was like dangling a worm into a pond of carp. Their insipid moans wound up into throaty howls and snarls, and before I could chicken out one of them latched onto my finger. I knew it was Elsie, because she snapped down with her four front incisors—the only real teeth in her head. I yanked back my finger (one of her rotting teeth came out with it and dropped to the floor like a brown marble) and charged my shoulder against the door. Bodies hit the door like polluted floodwaters, but I twisted the latch back in time. I kept my foot-doorstop in place until the commotion died down, breathing through my mouth so I wouldn’t vomit.
Well, it’s for real this time. The wound on my finger is no splinter scratch from the door. Even if I hadn’t seen Elsie bite down, the indent that gradually faded to a small, bloody cut was undeniably that of a human tooth. I wonder how fast the infection will spread from a tiny nip like that?
If nuthing else at least I’m getting out of this on my terms. wonder wat being a zombie will be like?
Geting cold now. Fingers num. Hard to think to, feel like Ive just woken up. Wen will thay eccept me as wun of them? Hope I no how to tern the latch
Stephanie Kincaid earned a Master’s degree by studying stories written by dead people. She now writes stories about undead people. Is it coincidence? Or just a quirk in her tasty brain.
continue to accelerate * EWZN * ‘Zombies’ are global as reports
All in Your HeadReported By Stephanie Kincaid
8/18/2011
Patient appears frightened and has a difficult time sitting still. Despite continuing to report vivid hallucinations, she is currently lucid and articulate; there is no trace of the sedation that was apparent last week. Her speech is clear, even eloquent; her vocabulary remains above average in spite of her obvious agitation. Patient claims she has been compliant with medication regimen.
Most of the session was spent discussing patient’s hallucinations. They have escalated to a degree that is beginning to interfere with daily life by causing avoidance. At this time, I do not believe patient is a danger to herself or others.
Patient reports that the bat she has been seeing in her bedroom has become a “bat colony.” Patient became flustered when asked to estimate number of bats, answering, “I don’t know how many there are, but they all have evil glowing purple eyes.” Patient was unwilling to engage in rational discussion about the inability of an animal’s eyes to be “evil”
as opposed to giving the impression of “evil.” Patient has refused to enter her bedroom since the bats “multiplied exponentially.” She has slept on the couch for the past three nights. She has worn the same dress for the last three days and reports considering buying new clothes rather than facing the bats to retrieve fresh clothes from her bedroom closet.
Patient also reports one instance (last night, 8/17) of a new hallucination, more vivid than any she has previously experienced and featuring visual, auditory, and olfactory elements. Following through on last week’s assignment to challenge her fear of leaving the house at night, she took a walk around her block just after sunset. (Patient lives in a safe, well-lit neighborhood where an evening stroll poses no danger.) She reports hearing “crunching and slurping” from behind a Dumpster. Upon investigating, she saw a “zombie,” which she describes as “stinking worse than the garbage.” The “zombie” was engaged in “eating brains from a decapitated human head, slurping them like soup, while gore dribbled down its chin.” At this point, the “zombie stood up and stumbled toward” the patient. She ran home. She says that the “zombie” was unable to chase her due to its being “uncoordinated” and “slow.”
Patient was receptive to the idea that the vision was a phobic response, in essence, her own brain attempting to validate her fear of venturing out at night. She agreed that she may have heard some small animal rummaging in the Dumpster and magnified the sound of the creature and the smell of summertime garbage to enhance her hallucination. Patient seemed flattered when I mentioned that her capacity for creative embellishment may play a role in the vivid nature of her hallucinations.
Patient agrees to challenge her fears by entering her bedroom and by taking another evening stroll. Daily dose of olanzapine increased to 10 mg.
***
8/18/2011
Dr. Wood says I have to start a journal. It’s this stream-of-consciousness deal where I just write whatever comes to mind and let it lead me...somewhere? Nowhere? I don’t know. Sounds like a load of bull to me. But here I am doing it, obsessive people-pleaser that I am, right? I thought I was supposed to stop doing that. I guess I’m only supposed to stop engaging in people-pleasing with people other than Dr. Wood. Here’s a diagnosis for you, dear doctor: hypocrisy.
He thinks this will be good for me because he knows I write. The very important detail that he’s missing, however, is that I write fiction. I do not share my real thoughts, much less my real feelings, with the page. Needless to say, this is not a welcome little experiment.
Dr. Wood also says I have to confront my fears. I’m supposed to write about the experience, and somehow that’s supposed to make it easier. All I have to say is that if I knew there was going to be this much homework, I’d have gone into a PhD program instead of therapy.
I’m supposed to start with the bats. I know that they’re not real, that they’re just in my head. Dr. Wood wants me to keep telling myself that, like if I say it’s just in my head when their creepy little eyes are glowing like nasty purple fireflies, they’ll agree with me and go away. The problem is, maybe Dr. Wood knows the bats are just in my head. Maybe I even know the bats are just in my head—sometimes. But I don’t think the bats know they’re just in my head.
And what the hell was with that zombie the other night? It…he…do zombies still get a gender? I suppose it depends on how long they’ve been dead and how much has rotted off. Anyway, this zombie wasn’t just in my head, it was in somebody else’s head, too, and making quite a pig of itself in there, I might add.
Evidence. I’m supposed to come up with evidence that it wasn’t real. First off, zombies don’t exist. If they did, they’d be all over the news. There’d be some kind of federal emergency. Unless, of course, the infection hasn’t spread very far yet and I’m the only one who’s seen one of the zombies. Then again, who am I kidding? Just because the zombies in the movies infect people and take over the world doesn’t mean that’s what would happen in real life. If it did, though, I’d love to see how many walking corpses Dr. Wood could bludgeon to death with his bust of Freud before they overwhelmed him. Would he feel sorry for dismissing what I saw? Or would he insist it was all in my head right up until they got into his head?
Okay, okay, I’m supposed to be coming up with evidence that the zombie wasn’t real, not fantasizing about it bringing its hungry, smelly buddies over to Dr. Wood’s office for shrink sashimi.
Let’s see. Well, I guess there’s the fact that if there really had been a zombie chowing down on a human head behind the Dumpster, somebody would have found some evidence like … oh, say the rest of the body? Or the big bloody mess the thing was making? It didn’t exactly possess exemplary table manners. But what if there were no evidence left? What if the zombie cleaned its plate? What if it ate the whole damn victim in one sitting, bones and all and then went back for the scraps? Would a creature that slurps human intestines like noodles—fecal meatballs and all—have a problem licking the juicy remnants off the street?
Crap. I just realized what I’m doing. Besides creeping myself out, I’m avoiding. I’m supposed to be dealing with the damn bats, and here I am arguing with my zombie-negating evidence. No more stalling now. It’s time to deal with the flying rodents of death. Wait, wait. I’m not supposed to call them that. It’s “hyperbolic,” and it’s “my negative filter talking.” Sorry, Dr. Wood. How about the flying purveyors of rabies? Is that better?
Silence. Of course. Because unlike everything else that I see, Dr. Wood is not in my head. Therefore, I’ll just have to assume that flying purveyors of rabies will do. We’ll go with that.
***
8/19/2011
Much as I hate to do it, I have to give Dr. Wood credit. Testing the existence of the bats was the right thing to do. They were there when I opened the bedroom door, the nasty purple-eyed bastards—hanging from the ceiling, be-guanoing my bed, hurling obscenities that I can’t even understand because, damn it, they know I don’t speak echolocation. Rude little things, aren’t they? Simply terrible houseguests, particularly the way they literally—and I do mean literally, because unlike Dr. Wood who uses it when he really means virtually, I know how to use the word in a sentence—swooped in and took over the bedroom. I wonder why my head would plague me with such uncouth beings. Could it be my displaced desire to give in to the occasional moment of rudeness myself? Maybe if I could tell people how I really felt instead of trying to make everybody happy all the time, I wouldn’t create a patchwork of screwy visions out of the scraps of my own frustration.
Or maybe I’m just batshit.
Either way, when I forced myself to walk into the room, the glow from the bats’ eyes intensified. I was shaking all over; my heart was palpitating so crazily that I thought it might sprout its own wings and join the evil rodents on the ceiling. But I stood my ground, repeating to myself over and over that it was all in my head. After all, I had evidence that a bedroom full of bats was ridiculous. How could there be enough bugs in that one room to feed all those critters? And how did they get in to begin with? And why wasn’t I ankle-deep in bat crap by now? And, of course, what kind of bats had glowing purple eyes?
The bats were agitated by my presence, and even more so by my attempt to disprove their existence. As I watched, those awful eyes swelled in size as the creatures grew exponentially. They swooped down, beating their great leathery wings right in my face, and I knew Dr. Wood was right. They were all in my head. For no matter how close they got, I felt no disturbance in the air, no flap-induced breeze, no brush with fur or claw. I waited them out, and one by one they gave up and disappeared.
I triumphed! I beat the bats! I slept in my own bed—albeit with the closet light on—for the first time in over a week. I wonder if Dr. Wood will recognize my hard work or if he’ll think the bats went away because of his wonder meds. I certainly can’t tell him that I haven’t been taking them. I just couldn’t stand being so lethargic all the time. I was like a big slug, which was the last thing I co
uld afford to be when I had a bunch of insectivores for housemates. He might catch on, though, if I’m too alert. Maybe I should act groggier next session—throw in a well-placed yawn or two and slur my speech a little.
Right now, though, I feel great. I’m much better rested than I’ve been in a long time. It really showed, too. I banged out three chapters today, and I might even go for that evening walk later. Maybe. That zombie hallucination is still burned pretty vividly into my memory. And while I know that it is no more real than those bats—those vanquished bats that I banished without pharmacological help—it’s still scary. I can still smell it rotting if I think about it too hard. I can still hear it grunting its appreciation of its grisly meal.
Urgh, I’m getting the shivers. I have to change the subject. I think I’ll bake some cookies. The smell of vanilla floating through the house will chase away the ghost of the scent of death.
Yeah, yeah, Dr. Wood. I’m sure that last image was far too melodramatic. That’s what you get when you tell a writer to journal. And you’ll never get to read this anyway, you pompous ass.
I’m starting to feel better already
***
I should have let the bats stay. The flying purveyors of rabies were better than this. No sooner did I get the first batch of cookies out of the oven than I saw more zombies, right outside the sliding door in the kitchen. There were two of them, pressed up against the door, watching me bake and drooling all down the glass. Good thing they were too stupid to throw a rock at it; they could’ve come right in and had a nice dinner, then capped it off with fresh homemade chocolate chippers. That is, if they were real, of course. Which they aren’t. Which is a very good thing, because every time I poke my head into the kitchen, I see them out there. But they can’t hurt me because they’re just in my head. Which is also a good thing, because I can smell the second batch of cookies burning, and I’ve got to go in there and pull it out before it sets off the smoke detector.
Eye Witness: Zombie Page 8
