by A. Giacomi
Attacking her proves to be quite difficult; with every effort, I see flashes of my own children. This is the virus using my humanity against me, knowing full well I wouldn’t hurt my own child, so why would I harm this one? The most I can do is push her back into the trees.
A set of hands claw at my back and pull me to the ground with an unimaginable force. The girl had merely been a distraction, and this much larger and stronger zombie was here to finish me off. He glares down at me and presses his foot to my chest, even without stomping down it feels like a house rests upon me and I am unable to move. I struggle underneath him, a faint smile crosses his face, or perhaps this was a trick of the moonlight?
While thinking of ways to quickly free myself, I hear more groaning and shuffling trees. From my vantage point, I can see at least six more of them approaching. Eve still lays on the ground twitching and cursing. They begin to surround her.
“Don’t touch her!” I yell at the undead crowd.
They merely glance over at me, half curiously and then continue to move toward Eve at a snail’s pace. I continue to struggle under the weight of my capture and when I can’t free myself, I decide to grab his foot and twist until I hear a loud “crack.” His foot detaches from the rest of him and I am left to hold it as he travels to the ground like a fresh cut tree.
I would have yelled “timber” if I’d had the time, but before I can get up, a fist nearly greets my face. I had perhaps a second to roll out of its way before the zombie made a nice dent into the ground beside me. If I hadn’t gotten away in time, that crater would have been my face!
Jumping to my feet, I realize that there were more zombies here than I had thought. A circle of them surrounds me, reaches out to me, seeks to destroy me, but I still can’t figure out why. I was one of them, wasn’t I? Clearly not. Something or someone had deemed me the enemy and enemies were made to be destroyed.
A couple of zombies dive and grab at my legs. Desperately trying to kick them off, I stumble into another zombie that securely wraps its arms around my neck. My arms are still free so I try to peel the zombie off of me. That proves futile when he lifts me into the air with the other zombies still clutching at my legs. I am immobilized as the others begin to close in on me. The voices in my head begin to chant, “Goodbye, goodbye…” All I can do is close my eyes and hope it’s quick.
Loud snapping can be heard and thuds to the ground. I was expecting to be ripped apart, but when seconds pass and I’m still intact, I open my eyes to find bodies piled in front of me. Behind them is Eve. A grin finds me, she must have won that battle, or else she wouldn’t be helping me now. I see her clutch at her head and scream, the voices were unbearable until you learned to simply live with them and tune them out from time to time.
The zombies that have me suspended drop me to the ground and begin to approach Eve. It seems that I wasn’t the one they were after, but I was definitely the one in their way.
Eve removes her hands from her head, but her screams continue as battle cries. She runs at them with arms outstretched and takes them all down to the ground. One of them cracks their head open like an egg when it hits the ground. Its brains spray out upon the ground and Eve stomps on them with her boot just to make extra sure. The other two rise again, but Eve is ready for them. She kicks one in the chest shoving it into the other zombie. They collide and fall to the ground again. Eve runs at one of them and viciously jumps upon one of their skulls, which explodes upon impact, showering the other zombie in black brain goo. The final zombie struggles to its feet, but Eve doesn’t give it a moment, she grabs its head and twists until a pop is heard. Surprisingly she takes the head over to me. “Want to pop the balloon?” she says innocently enough.
I nod and quickly stomp on its head, crushing it to pieces.
“Eve, we need to go! There are more out there, I’m not sure we can take them all on!”
She nods and follows me at a sprinting pace. It was good to see her strength back. I could tell she was fairly happy about it herself. She took pleasure in defeating those zombies, thank god for that, because there would be many more!
When daylight strikes, we decide it’s time for a rest. It had been a long night and if we were to continue at full strength we would need some food soon. I tell Eve I will go hunting for something, but she shushes me and listens for something. I smell it too. Humans nearby, survivors looking for safety.
“Eve, they are innocent. We can’t,” I say firmly.
“But I’m so hungry, Vincent,” she says tearfully.
I was well aware that the hunger was painful, that’s what the virus wanted. It wanted to make it so painful that you couldn’t resist feeding.
“Eve, I have a better idea, hunt with me, you have a keen sense of smell now, better than any animal. So let’s go find some breakfast ok?”
She nods weakly.
During our walk through the forest, Eve is the first to sniff out prey. She sniffs a nearby deer. That would be plenty for us. I warn her that she would have to be stealthy with a deer, they bolt at any sudden sound or movement. Eve asks to take this kill, and I oblige, she had to practice.
I watch as she slowly and carefully approaches the deer as it sips from a nearby stream. Her actions are so quick that I can barely believe she captured it. She holds it steady and invites me over. We both glance at each other proudly for a moment and then tear into the living flesh with absolute pleasure.
When the meal is finished, I decide to ask Eve how she managed to fight off some of the virus. I was curious to know what she held dear and what made her strong.
She shrugs. “I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy. The voices can be very convincing. Even now as we speak they’re asking us to, ‘Join them’, practically begging really. The voices kept promising me that I would see all my loved ones again if I just gave in, and for a moment there, I almost did because all I wanted was to see everyone again. It overwhelmed me with such sadness that I found it hard to be strong. The voices even bribed me with my child, the one I lost back at the CSIS lab, they said they could bring the baby back. I felt myself losing the battle then. My savior came in the form of my mother. She brought my lucky locket to me and told me to stay strong and to never stop fighting. I did it for her, I promised her I would stop all this.”
Even grabs a fistful of her hair and starts pulling. I could understand her pain and her desire to right her wrongs. I only hoped I could help her in all this. Offering her my shoulder, she takes it and leans upon it allowing me to comfort her with this small gesture.
“Vincent?” she asks softly. “I have a question.”
“Yes Eve, go ahead.”
“Why did they attack us? We’re like them!”
I stare down at her. “No we’re not, not yet.”
CHAPTER SIX
CAM
Zombie hunter training has proven to be quite fun. I got a gun, and a lot of respect from the locals. It altogether felt very familiar, almost natural. Perhaps I had been in the military before this? Those sorts of questions still plagued my mind. I wanted to know who I was so badly that I found myself lying awake at night forcing myself to squeeze anything out of my brain. Who is Cam? And who exactly is Eve? I had said her name while in my coma, but I had no idea who she was! My gut told me she was important somehow.
Today’s mission was a simple one. I had done it a few times already. We would go into a neighboring town in search of food and supplies. I usually took Jim with me, but today James offered to tag along. James wasn’t as good a shot as Jim, but hopefully we didn’t need to use our guns today.
James drives while I stare out the window. Up ahead I notice a few zombies wandering around and decide to hop out of the truck for some firing practice. I fire and miss the first one which leaves James howling with laughter. He was only laughing to make himself feel better about his crummy shot, so I ignore him. My second shot takes him
down. He crumples to the road and the other two zombies begin heading toward the source of the shot. Target practice was much easier when the targets came closer to you. When the next head was in range I fired, blowing the body backward while the top of its head sprayed through the air. I let James have the final zombie, figured it might be fun to see him struggle.
He fires three rounds and only grazes an arm. He throws himself back into the car and grumpily shouts, “You do it, we need to hurry up and quit fooling around.”
I agree and put a bullet right between the last zombie’s eyes.
I hear James mumble, “Showoff,” under his breath as I hop back in the car.
When we reach the town, I sense something strange. There weren’t any zombies hanging around, but something simply felt wrong. I don’t share those feelings with James, instead, I just continue on with the mission. First stop was Main Street, there were still a few stores we hadn’t checked out yet to see if they had any food left. James and I split up and take different stores. I got dealt the crappy hair salon and James got to go inside the café. Didn’t seem worth our time to search for food in a hair salon, but I went along with it and followed instructions.
I threw a few pairs of scissors in my backpack. Those would help groom people in our town, but also worked well as a weapon. In the back room there were cases and cases of water bottles. I suppose for the staff at one time. There’s nothing in their mini fridge like I’d suspected, just an old rotten salad.
I’m about to check for toilet paper when I hear James screaming for me. His voice sounded absolutely petrified which made me sprint all the more. I couldn’t lose one of our leaders. That blood would be on my hands. I was supposed to protect our community!
When I get into the café I see James standing on top of the counter, he was trembling and holding his gun at something below.
“Easy now, James, what is it?”
“Have a look for yourself,” he says angrily.
I slowly approach the counter and glance over it to find one of those things tied up and glaring at James with fiery eyes. This one seemed different somehow. She wasn’t attacking, or even trying to chomp at the air like most of them. She still seemed, sort of human.
I don’t know why, but I feel an urge to talk to her.
“Hi,” I say waving at it.
James looks at me dumbfounded. “Are you nuts? Why are you talking to her? Just grab the stuff we need. I’ll keep the gun on her in case she gets too friendly.”
“Sorry, James, it’s just, she seems, you know, not like the usual ones.”
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m jumping over the counter to get a better look at her. Turning her head away from me she grunts, she seemed frightened? Revolted? I wasn’t sure which.
“Hey,” I say softly, “are you alright?”
James chimes in again. “Man let’s get the hell out of here, stop talking to her, you dumbass, you’re going to get yourself killed!”
Maybe James was right, but I still ask him to “shut the fuck up” while I try to understand this creature.
She turns to look at me and whispers, “You should listen to your friend. I’m not safe to be around.” She shakes her head ferociously as if trying to fight a bug out of her hair.
Before I can ask any further questions, she sneaks the gun out of my pocket and holds it toward me. I back up as far as I can in the small space, I hadn’t even noticed her hands had gotten free. Her eyes continue to glare at me as she screams. “Stay away from our kind, we’re not safe, we’re not to be trusted, and if you get bitten…follow my lead.”
She says that last part with a grin and without having time to blink, she places the gun in her mouth and fires. I had never seen brains splatter quite like that before! “Why has she done this? Why wouldn’t she let me at least try to help her?” I say to myself.
“She’s smarter than you,” James smugly chimes in. “They all go that way eventually…all the bitten ones, some of them are smart and shoot themselves as soon as they’re bit, some let it go too long and suffer before they finally shoot themselves and some are too chicken and become those brainless things that we have to kill. Lazy bastards, if only they would do what this one just did and help us out, we’d have a lot less on our plates.”
My jaw nearly drops at James’ lack of compassion. I don’t say anything since he’d seen so much more than I had. He must know better, but it still seemed wrong to speak of these poor people as stupid or lazy. I couldn’t even imagine how I’d react if I were bitten, but I take it James would most likely make the choice for me and put a bullet in me without remorse. I learned a lot about James today, I learned that I didn’t trust him, and he probably didn’t trust me.
***
After bringing some food and supplies back to town, everyone seemed more chipper. I guess the common feeling was hope. The supplies were the only thing they could depend on at a time like this, and every time they came through it felt like Christmas. I watched the townspeople day in day out, it seemed like most of them still had loved ones, and relatives to spend time with, which often left me wondering if anyone I knew was still out there. If only I could remember where I was from, I’d go off in search of them, but then what were the chances of anyone being alive? Rachel had told me that the cities were trashed and abandoned. Jim and James had told me that the surrounding towns were either ridden with zombies or ghost towns, and I had seen that all for myself. Part of me just wondered, was there a part of the world still safe from all of this?
Rachel soon shows up to save me from all my questioning, and thank goodness because all the unanswered questions could drive anyone mad. She greets me with a large smile, perhaps the biggest one yet.
“Ok, ok, so what am I in for?” I say grinning back.
“No nothing, honest. I’m not here to put you to work. I made something special for dinner and I wanted you to come and try some.”
Before answering she grabs me by the wrist and drags me toward the house, not that I would have protested, but I play along, I loved her playful manner.
When we’re in the house, I smell something sweetly intoxicating.
“What is that?” I say as I sniff the air.
“Close your eyes and follow me,” she insists.
I take her hand, it’s clammy. Perhaps from all the running over here.
“Cam, thanks to all the supplies you brought back, I was able to make something really special in the stone oven out back. It’s something I haven’t had in a long, long time and I’m excited to have some myself.”
I can hear the grin on her face. “Can I look now? Please? You’re killin’ me here!”
“Alright fine,” she huffs.
When I open my eyes, I see Rachel’s excited glance move from me to something sitting on the counter. It was a pie, from the looks of it a blueberry pie. My mouth waters as I approach it. “You know I can’t remember if I even like blueberry pie, but that sure looks and smells good.”
That gives Rachel a good laugh. “Well, shall I cut you a piece? Maybe food can link to memories somehow?”
“Heck! It’s worth a try!” I say winking at her.
She brings over a sliver of pie and insists on feeding me the first bite. I oblige allowing the sweetness of the berries to overwhelm me. I close my eyes and am silent a long time, too long perhaps because I hear Rachel stomping her foot and demanding, “Well?”
“Sorry Rachel, got lost in the flavours. It’s incredible!”
Rachel grins. “Oh good, oh good! I haven’t even tried a piece yet. I was too nervous that it would be awful!”
“Well it’s not! It’s perfect! Here try a bit,” I say as I shove the slice toward her on the counter.
It doesn’t take her long to dig into the pie slice. She shoves a rather large piece in her mouth and moans with delight. “Oh my god it is freakin’ good,�
� she says with her mouth full.
She had blueberry stains and crumbs at the corner of her mouth. I innocently wipe them away, but touching her lips is electric. She feels it too because she’s looking at me with different eyes. My pulse quickens as we stare at each other, my fingers never leaving her face, they continue to brush the soft skin of her cheek, and when she can bear it no longer, she brings her face up to mine and we kiss. First kisses are usually gentle, but this one comes furiously and I’m shocked that I return the ferocity. Rachel was still a stranger to me, but something about her made me weak. Just looking at her had that effect on me, and under the weight of her kiss, I can’t breathe and I don’t want to.
We are soon interrupted by James walking through the door, when Rachel hears him she throws me back and turns from me. Something about him had her scared. I sit at the table trying to hide the heat in my cheeks. My head is dizzy and ignore James’ greeting at first because my thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
“Cam, you hear me? You ok? You look a bit ill.”
“I nod, yeah feel a little woozy today, maybe just tired.”
He pats me on the back and heads toward Rachel. “What do we have here? Is that a pie?” James nearly dances out of the room after seeing it. I hear him call out to Jim, “hey! Guess who’s having pie for dinner? We are! Woo hoo!” and with that, he’s gone.
Even though we’re alone again, Rachel doesn’t turn around. I can tell she’s embarrassed, but I’m not sure why and I hoped it wasn’t regret, because I sure didn’t regret it.
I walk over to her, but she rapidly turns and places her hand out. “Stop,” she says bluntly.
“But why, Rachel? Is there something more I should know?”
She nods. “Yeah, we can’t do that again.”
I move closer to her, it makes her uncomfortable and I immediately understand.
“So Jim and James. You sort of belong to them don’t you?”
She’s silent for a long time, biting her lip nervously, but I await an answer and refuse to leave without one.
