Dead Eyes: A Tale From The Zombie Plague

by Dwyer, James

  The number of undead attacks multiplied rapidly; soon survivors were outnumbered by the walking dead. Humanity was unprepared and it was nearing extinction.

  Overnight the country was abandoned. All flights in and out were cancelled. Docks were closed, warships patrolling the waters for anyone trying to escape. I was not a citizen of the infected zone. No choice but to fight for my life until I could fight no more.

  You wouldn’t believe it, but I was one of the lucky ones. Survival of the fittest had been programmed into my head from an early age. I had no family, my friends had all disappeared. I was on my own. Forced to fend for myself.

  I packed myself a kitbag using anything useful I could get my hands on, all those years in the boy scouts finally becoming useful. Then I took my grandfather’s service pistol, a relic from WW2 that still worked.

  Prepared, I left my hometown and headed into the countryside, away from what was left of civilisation. I was out in the wilderness on my own. Meeting no one. Helping no one. Relying on no one. Just my survival instincts and me. Alone. But alive.

  And then Libby walked into my life.

  ✖

  Ever since we parted ways, I have been retroactively trying to paint her as the bad guy. Someone who abandoned me, left me to die, and was a nuisance from the start. But that isn’t honest. Truth is, when I first met her, she was in the process of saving my life.

  It was three months since the first zombie rose from the dead, and I was scavenging at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Hadn’t seen any undead for days and my guard was lowered. The farmhouse seemed deserted. No vehicles parked outside, darkened windows filled with cobwebs, the farm animals wandering free. In truth, I had enough supplies to keep me going. Stopping at the farmhouse was something to do, to help break up the day. It was boring walking through the countryside all day. I needed something to distract my mind from those lonely thoughts that creep up on you and threaten to drag you down into depression. Looking back, it was fate that took me to the farmhouse that day.

  I made my way round the building, checking the perimeter. It seems strange looking back that I did some things right. Just made the most dangerous mistakes.

  The back door to the main building was unlocked. It opened into a kitchen, a well stocked kitchen. Seeing all the supplies there distracted my mind, and I went straight to searching through the cupboards, trying to find some prize contraband like chocolate or beer. I should have cleared the house first, checked each room to make sure it was safe. But I didn’t, I just started rifling through the cupboards, searching for anything useable. Canned food, medicines, bottled water. Three months since the zombies first appeared, one month since civilisation had collapsed completely. It was getting so desperate, that I would take anything without an expiry date. Bottled water was always useful, no matter what the date on the label said.

  I wasn’t searching quietly, and the noise I was making must have woken up the zombie in the house. I didn’t hear it coming, which in many ways was a good thing. You see there are three types of zombie; at least that’s what I’ve seen so far.

  The first type I call “Scratchers”. These are the fresh ones, only recently turned or came back. It’s often hard to tell that a Scratcher is a zombie. You see, when someone is attacked by zombies and they escape with a few bites or cuts, then they will turn within twenty-four hours. If you’re expecting the usual zombie that’s falling apart, huge cuts and wounds all over the body, it doesn’t happen. If a zombie captures you, it will devour you. Just tear you apart, leaving nothing behind except your chewed bones. If a zombie catches you, you don’t come back. You get eaten. That’s why the fresh ones look normal, often with their wounds bandaged and dressed. It’s just the eyes that give it away. The whites of the eye turn red, all the blood vessels bursting.

  The zombie in the farmhouse was a Scratcher. They’re quiet. The disease inside not taken full control, the hunger not driving the creature just yet. The other two types are noisy. Thank fuck for that.

  Type two I call “Moaners”. You hear them before you see them. This low pitched long groan of horror. Whatever is causing these zombies to walk around is unknown, but if you ask me it’s hunger. Moaners have been turned for a few days and so the hunger is growing. No matter how much they eat, a zombie is never satisfied. The hunger is never sated. Moaners are a little bit rougher than Scratchers. The bandages fall off, skin turns pale, loses its colour. Looks don’t really matter; it’s the sound that gives them away. Moaners aren’t so tough; their cry gives them away. They often move around in groups though so any warning you can get is welcome. As long as its not the “shriek”. That brings us to type number three. Daisies.

  Daisies are old zombies, having been turned for at least a couple of weeks. As time passes, the hunger grows stronger. More intense, more urgent. The zombie’s body starts eating itself, attacking all the non-vital body parts, parts that don’t help it hunt. This leaves them as these wiry, skeletal ghouls with hair falling out, what remaining skin they have sagging from bones. And then there’s the “shriek”. The scream they utter when they are about to attack. I’m no biologist, but if you asked me why they do this, I reckon it’s to give their prey a shock. The first time I heard it, it nearly gave me a heart attack. They do it to make you hesitate for just a moment before the Daisies attack, to give them the advantage. Daisies can run. Sprint even. When you see a Daisy, its drop everything and run like hell. Don’t stop for supplies; don’t go back for your friends. Just run away and hope that your friends escaped too. Daisies are terrifying. When you see one, everything goes out the window. Just run away as fast as you can.

  Libby and me came up with these names one night. To try and help us when we’re scavenging, giving each zombie we meet a class so we know its danger. That way if one of us shouted out “Scratcher”, “Moaner”, or “Daisy”, we would know what to do. These codenames were her idea. Everything worthwhile was her idea.

  Back to the farmhouse. I’m searching through the cupboards when a floorboard creaks behind me. I turn in time to see the Scratcher launch itself at me.

  Thinking quickly, I reached out to a kitchen knife on the counter to block its attack. The zombie lunges, impaling itself on the blade, leaving my face inches away from its snapping mouth.

  When I see the undead, I try not to think about who or what these zombies once were, but with this one I had no choice. It was an old man, a farmer dressed in his green work coat, trousers and muddy boots. He had a gaping bite mark on his neck, the wound festering with horrible blackened blood. He stared at me as he attacked, his eyes seeming to be oblivious to the actions of its snapping maw. They almost seemed sad. If I had to guess, I would say a zombie had attacked him. He knew he was done for and had sent his family away, to protect them.

  Its easy, and dangerous, to start imagining the lives the undead had before they were turned. You can’t humanise them, because this leads to empathy and pity. The undead have no such feelings and will happily devour any bleeding heart that tries to help. Escape or kill. That’s it, the only options.

  The knife keeps the zombie off me but it won’t last long. I can already feel the weight of the dead man bending the blade, pushing me down onto the floor. I stumble under his weight and fall back, towards the open door. My mind starts racing, considering my options. There’s nothing to hand for me to bash the thing’s brains out, I can’t reach my pistol as its tucked into the back of my waistband, and if I could push the zombie off and make a run for it, then I would have already done it.

  You see, the undead have an unnatural strength. No matter how battle scarred or wounded they may appear to be, there is something inside them that gives them a power that outmatches any living person.

  The zombie must have sensed my unease. It starts going crazy, grabs hold of me and pulls itself forward, impaling itself further on the blade. I can feel its rancid breath on my face, the horrible spittle splashing on my cheek. Looking into its bloodied eyes, I started to feel that
sinking feeling that I had pushed my luck too far this time and soon what was best of me would be rotting away in the creature’s stomach.

  And then there’s this thudding sound, and the zombie’s eyes go dark. I had never noticed it before, but the light in their red eyes fades as they die. I could see this black cloud filling up the inside of its eyes, a cloud that didn’t reflect any light.

  The zombie struggles for a moment before becoming deathly still. The weight of the thing eases and I can finally push it off. As I do, I can see the long shaft of an arrow penetrating the zombie’s skull. Bullseye.

  Two feminine hands reach down and help me get the zombie off of my chest. Finally free from the zombie, I looked up and into the eyes of my rescuer. Libby. Standing there with a bow slung across her shoulders, hair tied up into a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, dressed in combat fatigues from an army surplus store. In short, she looked like a goddess.

  After the farmhouse, we stuck together. Began working as a team. It seemed we were both bored of wandering the countryside alone. Having someone else there to talk to and watch your back was something we both wanted. Made it easier to keep focused and safe. It was fantastic.

  We travelled the countryside together scavenging, foraging for food, saving each other from zombie attacks. We never counted how many times we rescued the other. I like to think I saved her more times than me, but it would be a lie. In truth, we worked so well together that we never seemed to get into trouble.

  In many ways, I had never been happier. Even before the zombies came, this was what I wanted. Deep down. I hid this dream from my grandfather, he wouldn’t have responded well. He wanted a simple life for me, free from anything remotely dangerous. He hated me joining the cub scouts. Who knows what he would have said if he could see me now. Pun unintended.

  Being in the great outdoors with Libby, it was heaven. Everything I could have wanted, I had. Thoughts of romance were starting to form in my mind. I had no idea if she felt the same. How could she not? We were alone, trapped together almost.

  In the end it didn’t matter. We were together for three months. And then it was over. Libby and me had an argument, a huge argument, over what to do about some other survivors we met. When I went to bed, I was sure she would be there in the morning. I was wrong.

  A few days after she left, my eyesight started playing up. I guess the first stage could be described as night blindness. Soon as the sun set, so did my eyesight. Whatever the cause was, I knew it was getting worse and that there was no cure. The curse of the family XY chromosomes continues.

  So I was alone in a world where the dead have come back to life just to feed on the living, and soon I would be blind.

  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the dead, I will see no evil. Which would be great, if the dead weren’t coming to eat me.

  In summary. I was fucked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was about a mile away from the motorway when I stopped running. I was pretty sure that I had lost the Daisy half a mile earlier. Even so, stopping to check wasn’t worth the risk. You had to be certain. The shrieks had stopped long ago, but I had continued running anyway. When I finally stopped, my heart was pounding heavily in my chest. The adrenaline still fired through my veins, filling me with that nervous electricity. Like I could take on anything. These periods were always dangerous. Filled with this energy, risks you wouldn’t normally take, you started taking. I gave myself a minute to calm down before assessing the situation.

  My escape from the motorway had taken me into some dense woodland. I had lost all track of the route I had planned, or where I was for that matter. I looked around for any landmarks, something to give me an idea of where I was. My watch beeped with the change of the hour, another warning that the sun would be setting soon. Time to find someplace to stay for the night. Supermarket or no supermarket, I would have to find shelter soon.

  I decided to keep heading west away from the motorway. I knew that my target destination was in that direction and, after a quick look at my map, that the forest ended before it reached the supermarket. My only concern was becoming disoriented amongst the trees. With the sun setting, I guessed that the forest would get dark quicker than outside. The last thing I needed.

  Despite my fears, there was a sense of peace in the forest. No zombies around, no trace of humanity. If I had more time to set up a camp, it would have been a nice place to rest for a while. My eye problems quickly put paid to that little fantasy.

  As I continued through the forest, my mind turned to the future, as it often did during these quiet solitary moments. What would I do when I turned blind? I had no one around me, no family to spend my days abusing, and no group of survivors to look after me. No Libby. I considered the limited options I had. Make my way to one of the huge refugee camps that are rumoured to exist close to the south coast. Libby and me had seen survivors making pilgrimage in that direction, towards the promise of sanctuary. I never trusted the idea. After all, we had been abandoned completely by the government. Who was running these camps and why should I put my life in their hands? And if a zombie outbreak started there, wouldn’t it spread faster than anywhere else? Maybe they would have a medical team, a doctor who could help prevent my blindness. Gene therapy or something similar, anything to postpone or prevent the coming darkness. Darkness. Maybe I was being overdramatic, but it filled me with a sense of poetic doom. That this was going to happen to me, like my father and his father and seemingly everyone else on the paternal side of my family. No matter how poetic, going blind alone was not a possibility.

  There was a second option. That eighth bullet. The idea made me shudder once again. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t do it. That the fear would freeze my finger on the trigger, my arm going stiff and rigid when the time came to place the barrel against my temple. Did this count as cowardice? I hoped not.

  Whatever happened, I couldn’t become a zombie. I had to be better than that. To not let the infection that had torn my world apart claim me as its final victim. Well, the final victim in my own personal story. I had to be better. I would not feel the hunger.

  I distracted my mind by looking at the forest around me. The peace truly was amazing. If only I had more time. I looked up through the branches above me, hoping to judge the position of the sun. Something unusual was happening amongst the branches. A strange sort of dust cloud seemed to be floating amongst the trees. It looked like large clumps of pollen, or the seeds from a dandelion dancing on the breeze. Beautiful in its own way.

  The edge of the forest appeared ahead of me. I quickened my pace, not willing to waste any more time. I emerged from the woods into the soft amber light of sunset. Time was running out. Soon as the sun dipped beyond the horizon, I would be blind.

  I looked around and spotted a small road up ahead. As I approached, I noticed a road sign up ahead. “Franks Industrial Estate - next right.”

  I could hardly believe my luck. I had run in exactly the right direction. What were the chances of that? I didn’t like to think of what would have happened if I had not had the Daisy chasing me. Would I have been moving quick enough to get where I was now?

  The road wound away from the forest, entering into greenbelt territory around the industrial estate. I could see the big square buildings up ahead, a combination of DIY stores and sofa warehouses. The supermarket was on the far side; I could see its big red sign ahead. “Supa-Sava”. Beyond that, I could see a small town, lingering amongst the hills. Holding an invisible menace. Populated areas were a no go. If you wanted to avoid zombies, you avoid villages, towns and cities. Especially cities.

  Getting closer to the estate, I started to wonder if there would be any survivors there. It seemed like the ideal place. Lots of supplies nearby, big sturdy buildings that were easy to fortify. Seemed like a rational place to set up camp. Then I remembered that this was not a rational situation. No one was thinking things through when the dead started walking. It was run or panic. In many ways it was the m
ost irrational that survived. I mean, was it rational of me to just pack my things and go, not trying to seek help or find any familiar faces to stay with? Definitely not. And yet, here I was. Still alive.

  I reached the edge of the estate and entered “stealth mode”. I wasn’t going to let my guard drop now, even if it was just survivors and not zombies waiting for me. You can’t trust anyone, especially if you were carrying as many supplies as I was. One of the few advantages of being alone. Not having to split the rations.

  The estate was set up with seven huge buildings surrounding a large open car park. There weren’t many vehicles left behind, just one or two resting peacefully in the open. There was no sign of the carnage that had taken hold of the towns and cities I had passed. It all seemed relatively quiet, as if the estate had been forgotten completely. I decided to walk across the centre of the car park, giving myself a good viewpoint of all the different shops around me. If any zombies appeared, I could see where they were coming from and take evasive manoeuvres. I would also be visible to any survivors, should they be hiding somewhere close by. I wasn’t really looking to meet any, despite my sight problems becoming more severe. I wasn’t ready to become dependent on anyone just yet.

  The crossing was uneventful. My footsteps seemed to echo around me, filling the silence that filled the area. Reaching out like pulses of sonar that found nothing to report.

  I looked towards the DIY store and saw the doors torn open, windows smashed. I guessed that scavengers must have passed through here. I decided that I would take a look in the morning; see if there was anything left worth taking with me. All the other stores seemed unaffected. No one needs a new three-piece suite during the apocalypse.