The Ghosts of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Kayes, Greg

  A noise from above drew Henrietta’s attention to the sky. There were a few airplanes in the sky. She hadn’t seen an airplane flying in the sky since she had died. Something big was going down. No really, something big was coming down. And then it landed.

  The whole world exploded into fire. Henrietta didn't know what it would look like from inside the blast of an atomic bomb but if she could imagine what it would be like it might have been something like that. Waves of flame, ash, and wind threw debris around and through her. She sat comfortably in the air as the world blindingly burned down and towers of spiraling flame shot up into the sky. After ten minutes of that the world started to only resemble Hell.

  A noise from below Henrietta caught her attention.

  "Bull shit." Henrietta said as she saw the man craw out of a rubble covered man hole.

  He looked around the hell scape for a second then ducked back into the hole.

  "Now this I gotta see."

  Henrietta flew through the ground to find the man cowering in the dark sewer. She wondered how much long he had to live with all the radiation around. But he hadn't been around when the bomb went off. Does that really matter? Radiation is radiation after all. He may be alive now but that doesn’t mean he will be for much longer.

  Good god. Henrietta thought. Why am I really this interested in how this man will die? Oh no...What about all those corpses above ground?! Ooooo, Margaret is going to be so pissed if she losses her corpse that way. What about my corpse? Wait...Does that man really have several snakes on him? When did that happen?!

  A number of snakes were in fact entwined loosely around his limbs but they didn't seem to be trying to constrict him in any way. They seemed to treat him as some kind of moving tree or something before they slithered off him rattling their tails.

  "Ok what does it take to kill this man!? And where did rattle snakes come from in a sewer? What the hell is going on here!?"

  Suddenly the man stopped for two reasons. First he was blind and feeling his way through the sewer when he tripped and fell into something squishy. Second, a low moaning started to fill the air. Then another moan joined the first, then another. A chorus of moans began echoing throughout the sewer.

  The man lay frozen in a pile of filth as the hoard closed in on his location. So this was it...this was how he was going to die. It had to be it. Nobody was that unluckily lucky. For some reason that made Henrietta sad.

  This man had come out like a fantasy of slapstick in a dull repetitive world, tore Henrietta away from her corpse and had been the best quiet company she has ever enjoyed. When those corpses turn him to ghost she was totally going to give him the best welcome she had ever given anyone. But that didn’t feel right somehow. She rather liked him being alive.

  Henrietta felt helpless and lost and not entirely understanding why as the hoard approached...and walked right past him. Her jaw dropped. He was completely invisible to them. This blew her mind because she had seen corpses chase after the sounds of bugs and rats[7]. The hoard quickly wandered on as the moans died down in the distance. As the moaning faded away she heard another soft sound. The man was crying. That and it seemed she had a silent audience.

  A crowd of ghosts were watching her watch him.

  "Henrietta?" Tom said. "What are you doing here?"

  "I...I don't know..." Henrietta said

  "Where is your corpse?" Lucy asked

  "I...it got lost. I lost it somewhere...yesterday. What about yours? Where’s Billy?"

  "We all got disoriented in the blast." Tom said shaken "Some of us...lost our corpses to the fire."

  "...So sorry to hear that Tom. So whose corpses were those?"

  "We don't know. We were trying to catch them up when we found you and...What is that?" Tom said

  Henrietta looked to where Tom was indicating and saw the man curled up into a ball whimpering.

  "Oh…He's some guy that can't seem to die."

  "He looks pretty dead to me." Lucy said

  "What are you talking about? He is clearly a surviv-" Henrietta said cutting herself short as she looked at him.

  "No,” Henrietta said in disbelief “he's not dead. I watched him eat cheese and put a fire out. There is no way that he’s dead."

  "Hey I just call them like I see them. He's just another ghostless corpse. It’s not like we all haven’t seen any of them before. His ghost must have got lost somewhere."

  "No, I'd have noticed that."

  "Whatever. Nothing really matters anymore. Anyways we are going to catch up to ourselves or something. Coming?" Tom said a little uncertain about what to say to her.

  "No, I kinda wanna see how this turns out." Henrietta said. "Keep up with yourselves."

  "Suit yourself. Come on fellas!"

  The group of ghosts quickly left Henrietta to follow after the zombie hoard. She quietly sat next to the man and looked at him closely. He didn't look dead to her, just...insignificant, maybe a bit pathetic but defiantly not dead.

  The man eventually stood up, wiped away his tears, and made his way in the opposite direction of the hoard. Henrietta followed close behind him. That was starting to really grate on her nerves. She had, and still has, a very real chance to rejoin the others and maybe find her corpse but she chose not to. She was beginning to wonder if curiosity alone was the reason she kept following him. But deep down she knew it was because Lucy say he was already dead and she wanted to know why.

  They continued along the sewer as manhole covers from above burning with bright blue flames lit up the way. Eventually they reached a dark dead end. Frustrated the man sat down heavily and exhausted. The sewers were eerily quiet and only filled with the sound of his breathing and the occasional drip. A cracking noise from above began to echo out around them. Almost as if on cue the ceiling caved in as a bus fell through it narrowly missing the man by slamming into the wall just above his head.

  Henrietta was beginning to suspect that the world was not in fact ignoring this man but was more actively trying to kill him. That concept didn’t really make sense but surely the things that happened around him were more than just coincidence. Sure all those things that had happened were understandable things to happen due to the current circumstances but just how could this man still be moving after all that, dead or not. Thinking about that kinda made her head hurt.

  The man carefully climbed out from under the bus and made his way above ground. Apparently this part of the city wasn't on fire for some reason but it was still a smoldering wreck of rubble and debris. The man looked around as he stood out in the fresh air and took a deep breath. Just beyond a nearby knocked down building the glow of fire illuminated the deafeningly dark cloudy sky as billowing smoke and embers climbed up high to block out the sun.

  Ash crumpled gently under the man’s footsteps like snow as it fell gently from the sky. It was beautiful. Henrietta closed her eyes and pretended that it was winter with a bright orange sunset on the horizon as she walked gleefully through some ancient ruins of a long forgotten civilization. When she opened them again the man was standing still at the edge of the city.

  The man sighed with relief as he crossed over the threshold of the city’s border and into a blanket of open fields...as he fell flat on his face. It looked as though he had tripped by accident but when Henrietta looked down at him he was hugging the ground happily.

  For the rest of the day the man walked steadily away from the city toward a mountain range in the distance. Surprising enough, there was a large lack of things trying to kill him out in the field. Well there was that land slide that sent him sliding down into a raging river full of rapids which threw him out on the other side just as wild dogs started barking at him from the opposite bank where he fell in. After watching that kind of thing happen all day was beginning to make Henrietta feel kinda desensitized.

  Watching this man dodge mind blowing danger by happenstance lost its thrill when you finally accept that he isn't going to die by any normal means. Invulnerability really h
ad a way of killing the fun of danger when there wasn’t any real consequence. It wasn't that she wanted him to die now, it was more she was just exhausted from being on the edge of her seat that he might die at any time. It was like watching daredevils do mind blowing stunts all day without incident. She understood that the stunt is suppose to go off without a hitch but the thrill of it all depended on the illusion that everything could go very wrong at any time. That’s what made danger exciting.

  As the sun was setting behind the ash swollen world, Henrietta found that they had made it all the way to the middle of a forest. The man looked exhausted from all the walking and surviving he had to do today. She had to admit that she was beginning to admire his resilience, especially for being the most interesting uninteresting man in the zombie apocalypse.

  As a ghost that tells and listens to stories for her entire afterlife so far, the only real story they really had left to tell were their experiences. Henrietta reasoned that if this man could ever find anyone to talk to he would be crazy interesting simply for surviving this long even before he got into surviving all the extra crazy stuff he had been through. In a weird way she was suspecting that the universe was making up for such a lack of personality for him by dumping every experience on him all at once. The universe was starting to appear weird like that.

  In the twilit of dusk the man stumbled his way over some roots to a nook in a nearby tree. He then laid down comfortably in it and closed his eyes. Henrietta sat there watching him until he fell asleep. There wasn’t any stars out tonight due to the ashen cloud cover so she got up and started to walk around the forest. It was then that she realized that the city wasn’t hit by a nuke. This forest wasn’t that far from the city, if it had been nuked these trees would have been splinters. That realization just made her ask the question; who would want to fire bomb a city this late in the apocalypse?

  Henrietta floated up above the tree canopy and sat in the branches as she looked out and watched the city burn. The city’s flames had died down to a softer orange glow. It felt strange to watch it burn down to the ground. She had spent most of her adult life in that city and all of her death. She was very attached to that city but part of her was also glad to see it gone. It was a feeling that she didn’t know she had. Death was weird.

  Henrietta sat all night staring out at the orange cityscape until the sun began to peak its head over the horizon. She began to yawn as she stretched her arms purely out of habit before she descended to the forest floor. Landing with a *fwoof* that made the ash and leaves scatter, she began to look around for the tree that she left the man at last night. When she quickly spotted the tree she found the man still asleep where she left him. He looked so peaceful as he slept curled up into a ball like an adorable soot covered puppy.

  With the man clearly still exhausted from yesterdays exploits Henrietta decided to go and look around. The forest was green and lush with ferns and moss. After a bit of wandering she found a flock of deer. As she approached them they looked up and bolted away as if spooked by her.

  “Well that’s something new.”

  As Henrietta wandered around some more it became apparent that the forest felt so alive, more so than she could think a forest would normally be. It may have been her ghost eyes messing with her but everything had such a healthy glow irradiating from them. Up in the distance she spied a lone cabin. It stood out but only so much. It really looked like just another part of the forest.

  Making her way over to the cabin Henrietta felt full of curiosity. It was small and charmingly covered in moss. As she stepped up to the front door it burst open as a gunshot burst out through it instantly striking the man behind her who she thought was still asleep in that tree. Somehow he had noiselessly made his way here which unsettled her just as much as it did to see him get shot. As he fell to the ground a curmudgeonly old woman came out holding her shotgun ready. She kept it trained on the fallen man as she cocked it sending a spent shell bouncing away.

  "Oh my God!" Henrietta shouted out of shock "Why did you do that!? He was still alive!"

  "Really?" The old woman said with more youth in her voice than Henrietta expected “He looked pretty dead to me.” She went over and nudged him with her boot.

  “Looks even more so now.”

  Henrietta stared dumbfounded at the old woman as she patiently glared back at her with one eye while the other one watched the fallen man like a hawk.

  "Well?" The old woman said "Aren't ya gonna say something? It's ain't every day you get a response, don’t ya? At least not from the likes of me now anyways."

  "Lady." Henrietta said flatly after the shock passed "After the yesterday I had following this man...not a lot is gonna surprise me today."

  The lady grinned at her and cackled. It was a proper cackle too. The man started to moan which made her re-aim her shotgun with purpose.

  "He's not dead." Henrietta said "I'd bet anything on that."

  "A bit special is he?" The lady said not taking her eyes off the man for a second.

  "Survived two building explosions, a fire bombing, accidentally forged a high river through some bad rapids, and no zombie pays attention to him."

  "Sounds dead enough to me." The lady said ready to fire

  "...and cries to himself."

  The lady hesitated. She was looking a lot less old now and a lot more like a lady.

  "Ah hell." She said lowering her gun. "You better come inside while I fix him up."

  The lady went inside and shut the door tightly as Henrietta followed her through it. The cabin was neat and clean with a lot of assorted things hanging on the walls. A good portion of it was covered with strung up drying herbs.

  "My name is Mist." Mist said as she grabbed some assorted herbs off the wall. "Invincible your man is, is he?"

  "Not in the normal sense but yes. It’s that or he is one crazy indestructible zombie who likes to gaze out at the stars and sleep out of the wind."

  "That don't mean he hasn't turned in between now and then you know. Tricky thing zombieism. By the way, where is your corpse? I only ever seen ghosts following their own flesh now a days."

  "I sorta...lost track of it when he fell out of a window and distracted me..." Henrietta said as she looked and felt embarrassed by this.

  Mist gave her a long glaring look.

  "So it seems..." Mist said making it sound like it meant a lot more than the sum of her words. "Anyways here hold this."

  Mist handed Henrietta a bowl and suddenly let go of it. Henrietta leapt out to catch it but it flew threw her fingers as if they weren’t even there. The bowl bounced on the ground while a series of emotions crossed Henrietta's face, mainly bewilderment, shock, irritation, embarrassment, and most importantly surprise that she tried to catch it. Mist just stood there studying her.

  Henrietta looked up at Mist annoyed "You know I'm dead don't ya!"

  Mist glared at Henrietta just a second longer than what she felt comfortable. "Sorry about that, it must have slipped my mind with me being so old and alone out here. Nothing to worry about though. The bowl was empty."

  Mist picked up the bowl and put in some herbs when she began to meticulously grind them up.

  "So when did you die?" Mist said conversationally

  "It was about...four months now...I think."

  "Bad death was it?"

  "I thought it was until I seen a hundred more like it. It happened before I knew about the outbreak...it was before any of us knew. We...I mean me and my friends. We were out jogging when we were…over ran. Some of us were run over by cars trying to escape as we tried to out run…all of them." Henrietta said as she stared at her feet.

  "You never talked about it to anyone else yet, have you."

  It wasn't a question. Henrietta shook her head no.

  "We, I mean the other ghosts and I, don't talk about our own deaths much. We save our swan song for when we get desperate. Mostly we focus on other stories."

  "Like ones about the survivors your corpses kill.
"

  "Yea...like those." Henrietta said as she felt put on the spot. Oddly she felt responsible for her corpse’s actions for the first time ever.

  "Don't look like that. No one can blame you for what your disembodied animated corpse does with its free time."

  Henrietta looked a little relieved.

  "But I can blame you for taking pride in what it does. Really, you all should be ashamed."

  "Well it's not like we can make up our own stories now can we!" Henrietta said defensively. She felt ashamed and angry that this woman was pointing out her secret shame.

  "Is that what you all think? Goodness gracious."

  "What!"

  "Nothing, nothing. Here smell this."

  "Smells like peppermint."

  "Really? Needs more rosemary then."

  "No. No! Don't change the subject! Go back to what you meant."

  "Oh you mean about how ghosts are made? Well when one ghosts love another very much-"

  "-What!?" Henrietta interrupted "No! I mean about the-wait what? How ghosts are made? What are you-? Uh...What? I...I think...I think. Whut? Uhhh…I'm getting kinda...tired."

  "Well go have a nap and I'll tend to your totally not dead friend outside. There is a nice ghost bead in the attic that you can rest in."

  "That...What?...That sounds...sounds nice? How do you...*yawn*…make a…*yawn*…a ghost…bed."

  Mist took Henrietta gently by her ghostly arm and lead her upstairs.

  "You make it out of spirit wood and moth silk cloth.”

  “That can’t *yawn* possibly…be a real thing.” Henrietta sleepily said skeptically.

  “It’s not, but it makes a good lie.” Mist said bringing her to a small hand carved wooden cot.

  Plush white sheets covered the mattress and looked invitingly soft as Mist helped Henrietta lay down on it.

  “Sleep tight.” Mist said motherly before she left the room.