by GJ Zukow
hunting. Meat is really a rare thing now. I’m not sure, but some of the dried blood looked like it was layered on top of each other, like the killing had been dispersed months apart. The butcher block, a thick hard wood slab, was covered in the dried gore and shows signs of repeated use. Smaller blood tracks went through the back door, across the dock to the lake itself. I guess if I really want to know what was butchered here, I could swim down to the bottom of the lake and look for the bones. I don’t really want to know that badly though.
I keep getting this feeling to just take what I can and get out. I’m sure it’s because I feel that this is too good to be true, what with the experiences of the last two years coloring my mind. I keep trying to tell myself that eventually luck would finally favor me, that eventually I would have to find a safe haven, but it still feels to me like this place is somehow haunted.
Enough of that for now. Tomorrow I’ll resume my telling of what happened. Today I’m going to go fishing. I’ve seen a couple of nice ones jump out of the water and I’ve got a craving for some fresh fish. It’s been so long since I had any real meat, let alone something fresh. Wish me luck.
8
It was my old friend hunger that made me leave my apartment. Until I found this place, hunger had been my constant companion. Always was I hungry, always I had to ration every scrap and morsel of food I found.
Even though I knew of the scene that lay just outside my doorstep, I wasn't prepared. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was the scent of rot and death. Inside my apartment it hung in the background but it wasn't overpowering like it was when I opened the door. I don't know if it was the strength of the smell that assailed me and made me involuntarily retch or the sight of my door and the surrounding wall. My door was covered in the blood and pieces of my neighbor’s brains, dried and stuck firmly to it. Thankfully I hadn’t much at all in my stomach, or it all would have come out instead of the thin dribble that did. What did come out landed right smack dab on what was left of my neighbor’s head.
I had never really seen death this close up before, and the puke reflex had bowed me over, bringing my own face that much closer to his. What was left of his head was flattened, being just his face, lying there like a mask with a small hole in the forehead. Everything else that wasn’t his face was, I suppose, splattered all over the walls and my door. I remember I had to force myself to close my eyes and regain my composure before I could continue. Now though, neither the sight nor the smell bothers me.
There were footprints in the blood, both coming and going through the scene, as if people didn’t care at all. The apartment manager’s body was gone, along with the shotgun that killed him, but to where I had no idea. I didn’t care to linger but before I left the apartment I remember I made sure to lock my door. I never made it back to my old apartment, nor do I have my keychain anymore.
I carefully stepped my way outside and was grateful to be outdoors where the smell of death wasn’t so cloyingly thick. The gray, muted quality of the light drew my eyes skyward. Dark heavy clouds covered the sun and the whole part of the sky. Pieces of ash and soot fell down like rain. The world was burning and I could smell it.
There was a dead cop lying in the parking lot. Whether he was one of the police that responded to the altercation between my neighbor and the manager I don’t know. I do know that he had been shot in the neck and bled out soon after just by looking at him. He was clearly dead and I about jumped out of my skin when I saw his fingers flex and twitch. It didn’t help at all that the cop spasmed as I was checking for his weapon. I didn’t know at the time if it was rigor mortise or my imagination or what. Now I know that it was the parasites regaining control of the body. There was no weapon though, somebody had gotten it already.
I made my way over to the side parking lot thinking I would just get in my car and drive to Wal-Mart. Yeah, I nervously laughed aloud when I saw it. It was crushed under a big yellow school bus that had somehow ended up laying on its side across the top of the row of cars. So much for that.
My stomach growled, urging me to walk to Wal-Mart if that’s what it was going to take.
My apartment complex wasn’t really that far from Wal-Mart. It only took me about 20 minutes to walk there. As I was walking I don’t remember seeing anybody or anything moving, except for the occasional corpse twitch. I do remember thinking that even if I had my car it would be worthless anyway. Autos and trucks were strewn around the roads and every intersection was an accident scene. Traffic signals were still changing from red to green and I caught myself actually reflexively waiting at one of them until the pedestrian crossing light flashed that it was legal to cross.
The Wal-Mart parking lot looked as though a major riot had taken place there. Burned out cars and trucks, a military troop carrier (I think it was a deuce and a half, the kind with the canvass covering the rear bed), a fire truck and two police cruisers were interspersed with decaying bodies of every age, sex and color.
The inside of the store wasn’t any better. Every once in a while one of the dead would twitch and I hurried around the store getting what I could.
I had grabbed a camping backpack, one of the nicer ones that I would have never have been able to afford before. After gathering a bunch of other items from the camping section I made my way to the food isles. It was there, while I was stuffing Spam and chili and whatnot into my new backpack that I realized I was going to have to carry all this weight around with me as I had no car. I was lost in concentration, trying to decide what I wanted to carry with me on this trip, as I thought for sure I could make my was back here again, when I heard a mechanical click behind me.
“Stop right there...,” said a distinctly female voice.
There was a hard edge to her voice and I slowly turned to face her.
“Put your hands on top of your head, nice and slow, or I won’t hesitate to kill you.” She said it nice and calmly, like she had said it more than a few times already.
The barrel of an M16 was in my face so I decided to comply with its owner’s wishes. She was looking me over and I knew she was scrutinizing my face and skin for those tell-tale red marks to see if I was one of the infected. I was doing the same to her, noting that she could barely be out of High School, if she had even graduated yet.
“Lift up your shirt and turn around. Show me you’re not affected and you can live.” Her voice was steady and I had no doubt she wouldn’t hesitate to murder me if I didn’t do as she said.
“Ok, good...,” she said as I finished turning around for her.
“Now drop your weapons to the ground nice and slow...One fast move...,” she said as I interrupted her.
“I don’t have any weapons.” I stated nervously.
“What? Bullshit. Who the fuck walks around anymore without a weapon?” Anger was starting to tinge her voice and the M16 was being leveled into a firing position.
“I don’t...I been in hiding ‘til the shit blew over, now I’m just hungry...,” there was a pleading tone in my voice as I tried to talk her out of shooting me.
“Turn around and place your hands on the shelf. I’m going to give you a pat down and if I find a weapon on you you’re dead. If you don’t submit you’re dead. Do ANYTHING I don’t like and you’re dead.” Her voice was flat and monotone.
Not wanting to be dead I let her give me a pat down. I could tell that it seemed incredible to her that someone would actually be running around the apocalypse unarmed.
Her stance changed a bit then, and I could tell she relaxed a bit, which made me relax a bit.
“Where the hell have you been hiding? The shit hasn’t blown over, it’s getting worse dumbass.” She looked at me as if I was a retarded, red-headed step-child.
“What do you mean worse, the streets and the whole city’s fuckin’ empty except for the corpses.” I thought there was some insanity lurking in the girl yet.
“Yeah, the corpses...You seen any of them twitching on your leisurely stroll here?” Her eyes narrowed as
she spoke.
“Well, yeah, so what?” I replied. As I had stated before, I had no idea of what that twitching and spasmodic flexing was from. For all I knew it was completely natural.
“So what?” she asked in reply, and then let out a little dark laugh.
“That means the dead will rise shortly. That‘s so what.” The words came out of her mouth with the sharp ring of truth to them.
It was clear that she believed what she was saying, but I thought she had lost her mind and started to back away, slowly.
“It’s ok, just stay calm and let me go.” I carefully picked up my backpack and continued to put some distance from her, slowly backing away.
Her eyes went cold as steel then and she raised the rifle and sighted down the aisle towards me.
I didn’t know what to do so I spread my arms wide and stopped walking backwards from her to show her I had no weapon or intention of harming her.
“Get down dumbass!” She yelled at me.
That’s when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I instinctively started to drop down like I was ordered as I turned to see who had crept up on me.
It was a close thing too. This horror that used to be a human being had started to grab me close and I could hear its jaws bite the air where my head was just a moment before.
I felt the hairs on my head swish as the
