Decaying Humanity

by James Barton

  “I’ll do it,” I said firmly. What did I have to lose? I could feel myself slipping. What did I have, a week, maybe a month? Plus, I was out of movies anyways.

  I was transported to a big hospital in Medina, NC. I remember taking the elevator to the top floor and walking through a security door with a big, burly white guard. The sign read, “Mental Health Wing.”

  The doctor had been talking almost non-stop since I arrived. He was spouting lies, as if the lies alone would save my life. He kept telling me that I had a mental break-down and they were here to help me. I passed through the doors and they sealed shut with a cool sci-fi air-lock sound.

  “Mental illness is a good cover, I like it,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “I just hope your new serum gives me psychic powers, like in that one movie. That is if it doesn’t just turn me into a vegetable outright.”

  “You have an active imagination, young lady.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m crazy, so no one will believe me if I talk about the experiments. It’s all good, let’s stop beating around the bush and do this.” I didn’t have time for these games. I was about to roll the dice on my life and I was feeling lucky.

  They administered the injection as soon as I got to my new room. After the injection, they strapped me down.

  At this point, I just laughed. I had accepted my death long ago and I never figured this would work. How many people do you know actually get the chance to try out an experimental drug? Maybe I had become too filled with fantasies of psychic powers or super strength, but it was all I had left.

  I don’t know if everyone in the hallway was getting the same serum or different ones; all I knew is that most of them were being wheeled out on stretchers throughout the day. The doctors would come in with their face masks and take samples and ask me how I was feeling. They would never answer any of my questions and man, did I have a lot.

  They stopped tying my hands down due to good behavior. One morning I woke up completely invigorated. I ran my hands across my head. Short hairs coming in. It was coming in thick and I couldn’t help but throw an excited kicking fit of joy. The doctor came by more often after that day and the tests ensued. That last visit, the doctor and his nurse looked pretty sick. I told them they should try the serum they gave me, but they failed to find the humor in that.

  One night there was a fight outside and I heard gunshots. There was yelling from the staff to “lock this place down.” I wasn’t sure what was going on, but nothing could ruin my mood. I was finally winning my fight. The day before the hospital had been nice enough to bring me a small TV with basic cable. Then I could enjoy Golden Girls reruns and terrible TV movies with lines like, holy schnauzer, and bump you.

  Then the president interrupted my TV version of Die Hard, yippee ki yay. It was the broadcast that asked us to stay calm as they shot up someone outside their door.

  That day I had heard people walking back and forth in the hallway, but no one came to check on me. The porthole in the door was a two-way mirror, so all I saw when I tried to look outside was my own lively face. It made me smile as my hair had already grown down to my ears. There was a month of hair growth in just a few days, a positive side effect of the drug if you asked me.

  After almost a day of just lying there waiting, I had to, well, relieve myself. My room didn’t have any facilities and usually I was ushered to the bathrooms by Jack, the security guard. After the first few days I hadn’t really been restrained. I was free to wander in my tiny cell. I danced around trying to hold my bladder and banged on the steel door. I screamed out to them. I could hear them walking around out there. After a minute without a response, I decided to stop playing nice. I slammed my shoulder into the door and it bent in like an old tin can. “Wow, these doors are cheap,” I thought aloud. I finished it off with a good shove, sending it clambering into the hallway. My doctor was standing slightly adjacent to the collapsed door and he had his back to me. Twelve other people were wandering the halls in a trance. Some of them were in gowns, while the others were in uniforms. Even Jack, the security guard, was just milling about aimlessly.

  I grabbed the doctor by his shoulder and spun him around. His face was discolored and dead. He uttered a single moan. I had seen enough movies to know what he was and cried out, “Zombie!”

  I giggled a little out of excitement. Don’t judge me; you have to admit it was kinda cool. I jumped back and lost my footing and fell on my butt. Doctor Zombie ignored me and wandered away, completely disinterested. I would have tried to grab a weapon, but this was a mental health wing, so the best I could find was the TV remote.

  Confused, I got up and walked down the hallway. They were definitely textbook zombies, you know, wandering around, just staring blankly into the distance. I poked at them and even stood directly in front of one, but they simply ignored me like I was invisible. “This feels like high school all over again,” I said to no one in particular.

  None of them would even acknowledge me. Now, I wasn’t complaining, it was just weird. It would have been ironic to beat cancer and then be eaten by your doctor. I went over to the window at the end of the hall and I could see more people wandering the streets. They were coming out the front door in a somewhat steady stream.

  I examined the exit and it was locked with a key card reader. Before leaving, I grabbed my file and an assortment of other important looking documents from the doctor’s desk. I even printed some of his most recent emails and shoved them into my folder.

  “Come on doc, I need you to open the door,” I said while walking him to the exit.

  “Rargh,” he replied.

  I grabbed his keycard out of his pocket and swiped the reader. It turned green and made a hearty beep. “Doctor, you saved my life, but I think your other serums might be flawed.”

  “Ungh!” he said as he pushed his way out the exit.

  “What ever happened to ladies first?”

  “Ahhooouuu,” he mumbled.

  “Well, bump you, too.”

  I had found a few of my personal items and then looked around for some much needed gear. I was ready to transform myself from a patient in a gown, to a normal civilian. I borrowed a nice backpack from a female zombie stuck in the elevator. In the lobby there was an undead girl wearing headphones; she was my size and even had a decent fashion sense. I don’t want to talk about the finer points of undressing a zombie, but I can tell you that it is not pleasant.

  I managed to make my way onto the street and there were undead everywhere. People were running and driving away like lunatics. There were shootings and people stealing from stores. I just walked invisibly through the chaos, feeling like I was in a dream. I walked for quite a while, until I came to a highway that ran back home. I didn’t really have anything that tied me to that small town, my parents least of all. It was cold and heartless, but part of me hoped they had already turned … I guess I was just being an ungrateful bitch.

  A man in a small blue hybrid-car pulled over on the side of the road and called out to me.

  “Are you crazy? You are going to get eaten or shot out here. Hop in.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “Does it matter? I’m getting out of Medina before they lock us down. I’m going to the beach. I own a yacht.”

  “I need to get to Freeport. It’s on your way, but I don’t have anything to pay you.”

  “That isn’t important, get in. We all have to help out, now that there are real monsters roaming the streets.”

  I got in and we drove off. Some small talk and eight country songs later, I finally broke away from the conversation and pulled out my records.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “I was sick and I escaped the hospital. I grabbed some records on the way out. The way things are going, I might need to change doctors.”

  “You could say that again. If you had been to the hospital today you would have been eaten. Locals are saying that
is where it all started, you know, black ops weapon research gone bad,” he said while coughing.

  “You don’t say?” I responded while thumbing through records and picking out the most important entries.

  The patient Tiffany Mason has survived the initial dose. This is surprising as the other nine subjects had fatal reactions. We will monitor her condition.

  Mason has shown great signs of improvement and seems to be fighting off the cancer. This is amazing as she was noted to have been beyond recovery upon admission. Regeneros-8 seems to be curing her without side effects.

  Mason has been cured of her cancer, an amazing feat of medical science. There seems to be issues with the lingering Regeneros-8. When we take blood samples from her, it becomes difficult, as her body is trying to push out the needle and heal over the injection site. Regeneros-8 was supposed to combat illness and then die off naturally in the body. We are afraid that continued existence of the good virus may cause unknown side effects. Requesting additional testing.

  The patient is exhibiting signs of increased strength and reduced appetite. She has asked questions about conversations the nurses had at their station, six rooms down. There have been trace quantities of a modified form of Regeneros-8 in the air of her room. We did tests and found that her breath actually contains minute quantities of an airborne strand. This is disturbing; due to the fact Regeneros-8 was created to die off instantly when removed from the bloodstream. Additional testing is required and all medical personnel should don all protective gear upon entering the room.

  Patients in this wing are infected with a new strand of Regeneros. It seems to have spread into the air ducts. It is still mutating and evolving inside her body. Some of our patients have died, while others have turned into what could only be described as a dead but functioning cannibal. The time frame has been incredibly varied. Additional testing required.

  Mason has infected everyone. I tried to contain it and the ventilation system was supposed to keep the air contained, but failed. Four of the nurses on the ground floor have displayed signs of infection. There is no telling how many people have come into contact with this virus now. This virus will spread rapidly and I can even feel it in my own veins. The hallways are filling with those creatures. I have emailed everyone I could think of at the Army medical division. They need to take her. She has become a carrier for this new virus, its host. It has made her stronger, but seems to infect anyone nearby. Injecting her blood directly into the infected has caused them to practically explode as the virus becomes neutralized. It basically re-kills the undead. Her blood is no cure, but it is lethal to those already infected. My time is over, but if the Army can do enough testing they might be able to modify her virus. It keeps changing so there is no telling what it will become if she escapes. I have locked the building down. They should get here soon. I will just rest until then.

  The car began to jerk violently to the side and I slammed my head against the passenger window. “What the hell are you doing!?”

  “Ungh,” the driver responded clutching the wheel like a mannequin.

  “Oh shit!” I yelled as I tried to remove his grip from the wheel. The car accelerated and slowed down randomly as his legs moved sporadically. I cringed as I yanked on the emergency brake causing us to skid across the road. We finally came to a stop and I ran around to his side and pulled him out of the car. He stumbled to his feet and began reaching at the oncoming traffic. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to him as he wandered into a speeding 18-wheeler. I climbed into the car and drove to Freeport.

  It was a stroke of luck that I made it as far as I did, the gas mileage in that toy car was great. The highways were drivable, even though people were going over 100 mph. There were so many cars that had lost control and found themselves in the ditch. People were trying to wave me down for help. “You don’t want my help mister,” I thought to myself.

  The town of Freeport was a slightly different story. People had become gridlocked in most of the major stores and gas stations. The road was difficult to traverse, simply from all the obstacles. I was thankful that the man, who had given me a ride, chose such a small car. I bobbed and weaved through the streets and gunshots could be heard in the distance. Wow, if Medina was the birthplace of this virus, why was everyone losing their minds?

  The car began to tremble as the gas needle rested on empty. It came to a sputtering halt right on Main Street, just past the old building that used to be my job. Well I’m home, but I hadn’t really come up with a plan past that. I knew that I was a danger to everyone, that I should go kill myself in the woods. I just couldn’t, I was being selfish. I just wanted to live. The records had said that I was a carrier, so I wasn’t the monster, but it was living inside me. They also said that it kept changing, so maybe in a couple days, I wouldn’t kill people with my breath. Wow, that was something I never thought I’d have to worry about.

  In the passenger seat a book had fallen out of the girl’s backpack. I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I rummaged through the bag. There sat Tale of the Black Sun. I had started reading that book before I was diagnosed. I didn’t get very far, but I remember falling in love with the character, Shay. She had fought against everything to be with someone she loved. She died for him and by the power of his love (or his necromancy magic) she was brought back to life. They could be together forever, except she came back as an undead shell of herself. I didn’t have someone that would give their life for me; hell my parents sold my life for a few wire transfers. Both Shay and I had been brought back to life with some dark power. Now there was a dark hunger that slumbered inside of us.

  There was a black man in the middle of the street swinging a carpenter’s hammer at a small group of people. He had a large grey backpack on and he looked completely exhausted. The four people had surrounded him and two of them had guns while the others had hunting knives. They were a mismatched group, each with varied attire. There was the hunting outfit, the cop, a man in a black T-shirt and jeans, and someone wearing a blue Auto-Fixit jumpsuit. I sat in the broken down car, watching as he tried to keep them back.

  I cracked the door and I could hear one of them yelling, “Just hand it over.”

  “No! You already have a truckload, just leave me alone,” the black man shouted.

  I took a deep breath; he was going to be killed if I didn’t help him. Then again, if I got too close he might die. “Sir, I have to take a chance I can save you.”

  I walked out of the car, slowly moving towards them. “Hey, leave him alone!” I yelled at the men. They turned and looked at me and one of them just busted out laughing.

  “Hey little girl, best you turn around and leave. We are just collecting bags of food for the needy,” the hunter said.

  “Just so happens we are very needy,” said the punk in the black T-shirt.

  “Guys, just let her go, all we need is the backpack,” the cop said to them.

  I shook my head in disgust, “You’re a cop and you are stealing from people on the street?”

  “Shut up, I’m tired of taking care of everyone else. I’m not dying for these people. Are you going to die for this stranger?”

  “No, I won’t … but you might,” I said as I walked closer.

  I was walking toward them with confidence, but deep down I started to get very scared. What the hell was I doing? The stark realization that I had no weapons, made me start to panic. A single shot blasted through the air and I felt a dull pain go through my cheek.

  “What the hell man, she’s just a girl!” the man in the jumpsuit yelled out.

  I touched the hole in my face and cringed; then, as the seconds crept by I could feel it healing over. There was suddenly a bone breaking pain in my hands. I held up my hands to examine them and they had become disfigured claws. I can’t lie to you—it hurt—but at the same time I felt so powerful, so different. I looked at the men and smiled.

  “What are you!?” were the last words I heard them say.

  It felt like a d
ream, my body moved with a fluid murderous instinct that I had no control over. I was watching from within but could not speak out or control myself. When it was over I stood there panting, surrounded by the corpses of men. I looked at the man I had defended, intently waiting for his next move. Part of me expected him to attack me. “Attack me and you will die, I’m trying to save you,” I thought to myself. He just looked at me with an amazed expression.

  “Hi,” I said awkwardly. My hands snapped back to normal as I held them to my side.

  “Hey,” he responded.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Desmond.”

  “I just couldn’t let them hurt you. You can leave now I guess,” I said calmly.

  The man looked side to side like I was crazy. “Leave? I ain’t stupid. Girl, you a super hero, I’m gonna stick with you till the end,” he said, smiling.

  “Really? You aren’t afraid of me? I’m a monster.”

  “Hell girl, a monster that saved my ass. I don’t know you, but you saved me when you could have walked away. That’s good enough for me.”

  “You need to know that, I may be contagious. My breath might kill people,” I warned.

  Desmond looked at me and laughed. He walked up closely and started to give me a hug. I tried to reject his embrace, but he grabbed me and lifted me off the ground briefly.

  “I hope your badassery is contagious,” he said. Desmond put his face right up to my mouth and sniffed loudly. “Phew, you right. Your breath smell like old people shoes.”