I awoke with a start as I heard a loud bang out in the street. I HATED noise before 8:30 AM. I have OCD, so the tiniest things can set me off.

Annoyed, I pulled on my bathrobe and walked out the front door to see what the commotion was. I stopped to fix a flower that was drooping to the wrong side. Immediately, I was assaulted with the world’s imperfections. I gave a silent yell as I surveyed my block; it looked like a disaster zone. A house down the street was on fire, and people were running out of it, screaming. Overturned trash cans and makeshift sand bag barricades lined the sidewalk. I gave a small “humph” and turned on my heel back into my house, locking all 4 of the bolts on my way in. I checked to make sure all my windows were boarded properly; everything seemed ok.

I moved over to the living room, grabbing the orange juice container and pouring myself a glass before I sat down on the sofa. I flipped on the television, and the hum of the backup generator kicked up as power usage increased. For the 4th straight day, the state’s emergency broadcast system was airing. I sighed, and returned to the kitchen to make myself a piece of toast. I was tired of the broadcast. I was hoping they’d be back on schedule with the morning news soon.

“The governor has issued a state of emergency. This broadcast has been tailored to your area.” A short pause. “Residents of San Diego and Imperial Counties are urged to make their way to the Red Cross centers in San Diego and El Centro. If you are unable to leave your home, lock and barricade your doors and windows. Arm yourselves with any weapons you can. Firearms are most effective, especially when aimed at the head. Remember to stay hydrated if infected. The CDC has so far been unsuccessful at finding a cure, but it is noted that staying hydrated keeps the immune system functioning properly. If an infected has already passed and returned in your household, do not hesitate to euthanize them. We repeat, DO NOT HESITATE. Remember, the Red Cross has centers in San Diego and El Centro. The military has camps throughout the state. Please stay safe.”

I recognized those closing words, and switched off the TV to conserve power. Another loud bang could be heard outside. I jolted, alarmed at the noise. I swore under my breath, I straightened the sofa pillows as I stood up, making my way back to the front door. Another bang. Looking through the peep-hole, I saw a disgusting figure knocking its head into my front door. It was one of the zombies, with rotting gray skin and yellow eyes. There was a festering wound on its neck; its dirty, blood-stained clothing accentuated its repulsiveness. Horrified, I stepped back. I had only seen the zombies on the television, never in real life. I wasn’t sure what to do.

Suddenly, a gunshot roared across the street, ripping into the zombie’s skull. It fell immediately, its brain and blood all over my porch. I nearly fainted. So much mess. I heard a loud whoop, and then the rippling sound of a motorcycle engine. I realized that I wasn’t safe in my home anymore. But with OCD, I found safety in what was familiar. The crowded, dirty city was not familiar. I knew it was foolish, and later I regretted it, but I chose to stay home.

I could hear the zombies becoming restless outside later in the evening, wailing late into the night. A few times I heard screams as the living tried to escape. One sounded like Mrs. Avery from two houses down. Another like Mr. King from around the corner. I vowed to try to escape while I still could the next day. With the thudding of zombies against my door, I fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, after gathering everything that would fit in my car and my Smith & Wesson, I backed out of my driveway for the last time. The air conditioning in the car cycled in the putrid stench of decay and vomit. The smell was overwhelming. I glanced around, trying to see if there was anyone nearby. Only zombies. They rushed over to my car, banging their bloody fists against my beautiful Lexus. One smeared entrails all over the window. I gave a small yelp, and floored the gas pedal to get away.

Minutes later, I was driving down the freeway. Overturned cars littered the road, with a few struggling bodies trapped in the wreckage. I hoped that those struggling were the undead. I passed a hospital with a large, crude banner reading “No help here, Try Mercy,” written in black paint. I shuddered at the thought of hospital patients, trapped in their beds, as the undead came limping down the hallway. I was amazed that everything had gone to ruin so quickly. Pent up inside of my perfect house, I had no idea what the rest of humanity was facing out in the world.

All of a sudden a zombie came trundling out in front of my car. Noticing it, I instinctually swerved to avoid it, which proved to be a mistake. I slammed into the center divide at about 65 miles per hour, flipping a few times before coming to a stop upside-down. My arm was twisted in a less than glorifying position, and I had multiple gashes and cuts from broken glass. Worst of all was the fact that I couldn’t move my legs. I didn’t know what was wrong. There was blood all over the place, gushing like a fountain. So much crimson, disgusting blood. I began to hyperventilate, and soon I was hysterical.

“Help!” I screamed. “Oh, God, someone help me! Please!”

Bad idea.

The zombies, hearing my loud cries, began to migrate over to my car. Where I couldn’t move my legs. Where I was defensless.

I screamed more. I wildly attempted to get myself free, but I simply couldn’t. Eventually, as the first zombies began to reach in through the window, I accepted my fate.

Delirious with blood-loss, I found myself with a childish grin. I felt dizzy as I said my last words.

“Just don’t make a mess.”

The cold was the first thing I felt.

Even before my eyes were open I felt a very deep chill in my core, a thousand spindles of ice sewn between my tissues. I blinked, my eyelids slowly bringing and stealing back the darkness, and with it the desire to keep them closed forever.

I was lying face down on the floor, the tiles speckled with browned blood. I moved my arms to push myself up, but my muscles were stiff, almost too stiff to bend without breaking. I feebly pushed myself up, forcing weight upon deadened legs. I began to wonder why I felt the way I did. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been laying there. There was the most peculiar feeling in my stomach, a sort of dissolution. Perhaps I had ingested something that knocked me out?

Wait. Where was I? I looked around the room I was in. It was a kitchen, mostly everything in order except for the few traces of a hurried exit. The back door was open, barely bolted to the top hinge. Cabinet doors were left open, and it seemed only the food readily edible was taken. A knife set was knocked over, with a few blades missing. There was blood splattered on the floor, in which I was laying. I could see a putrid stream of it running down my shirt, but after a quick search I couldn’t find, nor feel, any wound.

Each window I saw had the blinds drawn, and the lights turned off, as if the house’s occupants were hiding. I went into the living room, barely bending my brittle knees into an awkward walk. It was dark, but I could see outlines of furniture well enough. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except that the front door had been barricaded with a desk. There was a bedroom towards my right, the door closed, and then a hallway near the front door. The entire house was dark, and empty.

Except for me.

Where was I? Whose house was this? And then, then I realized I didn’t know who I was.

I thought and thought and thought upon it, trying to bring up some memory of a name, a friend, an activity, my face. I didn’t even have a vague image of my own face, and the feeling of facelessness was eerily disconcerting. Trying to access my convoluted memory banks, I realized I couldn’t remember anything other than the cold of waking up on that kitchen floor. I slowly became more and more sure that I had been poisoned, or perhaps had an allergic reaction. What makes one amnesic and unconscious? It had to be some sort of chemical.

What if I lived alone? I checked for a wallet in my pocket, but found none. I tried to call out, but something was wrong with my voice, as it felt and sounded like my vocal chords were shredded. The only thing to come out was some sort of strangled noise, mixed with a phlegmatic sputter. I spat out a gob of blackish-red blood caught in my throat. I couldn’t taste it, but it looked disgusting on whoever owned the couch in front of me.

Since no one had responded to my vocalization, I decided to leave. Going to the front door, I pulled the heavy desk aside. It was difficult, not because of the weight, but because of my limbs. My arms felt encumbered by hundreds of pounds, and the rest of my body had been struck by from sort of torpor, like it was being pulled towards a super-massive black hole in the opposite direction I tried escaping to. Trying to grip the hulking piece of furniture was difficult as my fingers wouldn’t cooperate, but the desk gave way easily, more easily than I thought it would.

I’m not sure how long I spent trying to open the door. Time seemed different. I couldn’t tell how long a moment was, as I was completely grounded in the present. Trying to recall waking up in the kitchen was slowly becoming more difficult. After what could have been hours of failing, I orchestrated all of my fingers together into a twisting motion and opened the door. The difficulty of something seemingly simple perplexed me, but I lost interest and soon forgot about it.

I had heard of concoctions that paralyze, but were there some that caused memory loss as well? I knew of the Haitian zombies that forgot themselves entirely and served whatever voice they heard after they resurrected, but there was no voice to command me. My experience wasn’t quite as dramatic, but someone’s blood was in that kitchen. Maybe I survived an assassination? I had been subdued on purpose, and I could still feel the results in my rigid muscles. But if amnesia was an intended side effect, what would someone stand to gain from it?

I walked out the door, into a suburban neighborhood, trying to figure this conundrum out. The sky was overcast and gray, a constant threat of some sort of foulness to rain from the heavens. The wind was strong, blowing various trash and debris down the street. I could see black smoke on the horizon, rising up to coalesce with the dark clouds.

Step by step, I moved the dessicated-feeling body I was in down the drive way. I didn’t see a single person, just the signs of exodus. Front doors were broken down or left open, windows smashed, burnouts from tires throughout the street, and the strange feeling of not being alone. I could sense someone was around, I could hear their heartbeat, I could feel their warmth. I needed to find them, I needed to know what was going on. Someone would help me, I was sure.

A too-thick saliva began to form in my mouth, a very foreign saliva. I spit, a purple slime tinged with red hitting the ground, along with something white. The purging of a toxin?

So I began to walk. I made horrible progress, walking down the street on a pair of dead legs. I didn’t mind it, though. I was lost in a sort of mindlessness, not uncontent to just be wandering. The whole time, the possibility of other people probed my brain, insisting I find them.

Walking down a street through the eternal maze of neighborhood, I came across a dog. A big Doberman. At first, he caught my attention in an interested way. I looked at him, enthralled. But then he caught a glimpse of me, and started barking. The barking became louder and louder, and I began to grow irritated. The way the dog stared at me, fangs bared, caused my reservedness to subside. I could feel the fury cauterizing my body, crawling up my spine, making my hands shake. This animal was challenging me. My prey.

I strode over to him, oblivious to the deep growling. The dog readied himself to pounce, and the thought of this pathetic thing posing a challenge was amusing. He jumped forward, biting into my calf, hard, hard enough to cause a crunch to sound. But I was so full of rage, so full of hatred that my whole body was numb. I threw myself upon the dog, wrapping my hands around his neck tightly. I slowly began twisting my iron grip with as much power as I could muster, and nothing in the world would stop me from breaking his neck. He managed a whimper in such a saddening manner that if I could feel sorrow, it would’ve hurt me inside. So I made it excruciating for the dog, finally breaking his neck after his head was twisted a hundred and eighty degrees. Then I picked his corpse up, slammed it in to the street, and started punching in his ribcage, grinding his flesh and innards against the cement with my fists, until just the head and hind legs remained intact, connected together by a spine and fur matted with the dog’s bloody remains.

When I was done, I asked myself what I had just done. I now felt nothing, I was calm, I was collected. My mind analyzed the situation and it deduced my anger as a fair reaction, though I had a subconscious feeling that what I had just done was sickeningly wrong.

What if I had brain damage? I had heard a story of how a man had brain damage in a specific area, which caused him to fly into a blind fury at the smallest sleight. What if it happened to me? Enough oxygen deprivation can cause both brain damage and unconsciousness. Was I even mentally fit to be a human being anymore?

I needed to find someone quickly.

I continued on, eventually reaching the end of the neighborhood. Two cars were crashed into each other, and I walked up to them. One was empty, while the driver of the other car was resting his head on the steering wheel. I walked over, opening the door and lifting his head up by the hair. His forehead was caved in, pieces of skull broken off in his brain. He didn’t smell particularly good, so I picked him up and threw him into the street.

I sat in the car, looking at it. I was sure I’d driven cars many times before, but as I sat in that seat, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do. I grabbed the wheel, turned it. Nothing happened. There were a ton of buttons next to the wheel, and I began pressing them. One of them made a terrible noise come on, and after forgetting which one it was, I left.

I was on a main street. There were cars parked in the lots out front of derelict shopping centers, the occasional sign of violence streaked upon the pavement or wall in a bloody fashion. The lights of miscellaneous shops were still on, though I could see no one inside. Automated traffic lights went through their cycles, unaware that they did nothing to serve the people who weren’t there. The place was a ghost town, void of anything that might be alive.

Then I saw someone. I was in front of a grocery store, the entrance destroyed by a flipped car. The person I saw appeared to be a man. He limped, and it seemed like every time he put weight on his right leg it would almost snap out underneath him. He was making his way into the apartment complex from the other side of the street. I tried yelling out to him, but all I could make was a groan.

He continued on to the complex grounds, and I decided to follow him. When I passed the surrounding fence, however, I saw a group of people running up a flight of stairs into an apartment. One of them was holding a gun towards the man trying to follow, who seemed to beseech something of them by holding his arms out. From the look of it, he needed medical aid.

And then they shot him. I immediately took cover behind the fence, peeking around the corner. The last person to go in was a woman, who made the strangest feeling rise in my chest. I took a look at her as she stared at the corpse of the man her friend had just shot. She couldn’t see me, however, and went inside.

There was something peculiar about her. She contorted my chapped lips into a goofy semi-grin. I had a feeling like I knew her, like I needed to know her again. Perhaps she could help me sort this whole mess out. Maybe I could find out who I once was.

But I wasn’t going to be able to approach them if they were just shooting random people. I made my way towards the grocery store. My muscles began to grow flexible, and I could move a bit more smoothly now, though the calf the dog had bitten wasn’t as strong as my uninjured one. I began to hope that whatever chemical was in my system was starting to wear off, and that there might not be permanent effects after all.

I walked through the parking lot. The place was abandoned, though it didn’t seem voluntarily. Some of the car doors were open, some were painted red. One trunk was open, half filled with groceries and a carton of eggs smashed upon the concrete next to it. Dozens of carts were left astray. The car that had rolled over had smashed the glass doors leading into grocery store. It appeared the car was resting upon a few people, their blood and organs forced out of their bodies all over the cement. The wind blew. It was cold.

I got to the dumpster behind the store, and opened it up. I grabbed a piece of cardboard, and underneath was a small child, face gnawed until it was unrecognizable. I could see the bone of the nose, though the cartilage was gone. There was an ear spat out next to his head. The lips were eaten in a particularly vicious way, exposing smashed-in teeth and purple gums. The eyes had been slurped out, leaving this eight-year old child staring into the sky with a lifeless gaze. The skull was smashed in and the brain was served at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The body had pieces picked off of it in varying degrees, in some places to the muscle, in others to the bone. This was the work of something wild, something extremely voracious. The child was small enough to be an easy meal for a pack of starving dogs. There was even a news report about cases like this a few months ago. Wasn’t there? Or did it seem like something that would be on the news? Regardless.

I reached my hand into the emptied stomach, digging up past the remains in search of wet blood. After getting some, I wrote “I’m not an enemy, don’t attack!” on the cardboard. The body gave off a foul stench, and it wasn’t the sight so much as it was the scent that deterred me. It wasn’t decomposition, but there was something definitely wrong with the corpse.

So I left, utterly forgetting the small child. I arrived back at the opening of the apartment complex. The door the group had entered was shut tight. I waited, not sure how long it was, but completely content with passing the time doing nothing. Then I thought it would be better to see them coming before they could see me. So I took my sign and went to the cemetery across the street from the apartments, where I would be able to properly observe them.

Night came. Everything was quiet. Not a single car passed. No one walked along the sidewalk. There wasn’t a single person out picking up fast food, visiting the grocery store or renting a movie. Orange glows on the horizon kept me company.
Anything that a human being might once do was never to be done again.

I lay there, silently, watching, alone in a yard full of corpses. I had the same sensation I had in the neighborhood I woke up in, that there were people around. I knew I could feel the ones in that apartment. So I waited for them.

The only uncomfortable part was the cold. I couldn’t get warm at all. I wished my body would metabolize whatever was in me. I just wanted to feel alright again.

I was slowly beginning to forget what exactly I needed metabolized from my body. Was it something bad? It couldn’t be, as I felt perfectly fine. I had the vague feeling that I should wait for the people who went into the house, that maybe that woman I saw could tell me what I needed out of my system.

I spent the night next to the grave of Chris Redfield.

Then day came. It seemed slow, but I couldn’t be sure. My mind was only conjuring up blanks when I tried accessing the last few hour’s images. The clouds stayed, like a dark harbinger hiding whatever might be bright, whatever was left that could be warm, if there was anything that could make me warm again.

Finally, I saw them come out. A few, including the woman. I made as much haste as I could, holding up my sign, until I caught one of their eyes. It was a man, thin, gaunt, bones quite prominent, like an undead skeleton. He had a handgun, and as soon as I came into his vision he pulled it up, aiming it at me, yelling out a warning. The other two looked at me, and the woman I had seen gasped.

I got a better look at her. She was beautiful, even angelic. Blonde hair, of a very light color. Green eyes, the color I imagine Mother Nature herself might have. I could see an aura around her, of a bright white. I saw it shoot towards me, and I was instantly soothed. My leg felt alright, my spirit was healed, my being rejuvenated. I loved her, and I’m sure I loved her even more back before, when I knew who I was.

She looked at me, mouth agape, expression stunned. The skeleton covered in flesh took a step forward, but she stood in front of him. I held my sign out, and she read it. I could see a tear run down her face. They muttered a conversation to each other, but the man let me continue on.

“No, how can you trust him?” The man yelled as the woman I loved started walking towards me.

“We’re going back, right now, with or without you.” And the other two started running back up the stairs. They meant nothing to me, however, so I didn’t care.

I dropped the sign. This woman, a complete stranger to me, yet so familiar I felt that if I lost her now I would lose my entire life. She came closer, and stopped.

“Is that you?” She whispered.

“Yhhuss.” I managed to articulate with difficulty. For this woman I could remember nothing about, this woman that I loved, I would do anything.

She walked up to me. I extended my arms to embrace her, and when she fell into them I ripped her fucking throat out, the flesh in my mouth one second and swallowed in the next. She started choking on blood, trying to scream and failing, falling to the concrete. She was mute, the same way I was.

I got down to my knees, making a fist and smashing through her ribcage to get the best-tasting organs. I broke the skin, broke bones, gripped her heart, ripped it out and started savoring it. I had no idea why I was doing any of this, as I was now a mere victim of my instincts. This drive took over my hands and jaws, this inherent rage encoded within my existence. I know knew the purpose of my existence.

The only thing I loved right now was the way her flesh tasted, the first thing I had been able to taste in so long. It had the perfect texture, the right amount of chewiness, and the blood was a perfect compliment. I felt an elation, I felt an amazing high I had never known as I consumed her carcass. I felt a tooth get stuck in a particularly calloused piece of hand, but swallowed it anyway.

I would regret this later, if I could still regret. If I could still regret, I might regret that after I had my fill, this woman would get up, only to suffer the same bewilderment and estrangement from reality as I had. I might regret that I was purposely going to let her reanimate, so she could do infect others. I might regret the deaths of the others she would eat. I might regret letting the corpses of children be thrown into dumpsters after her victims did their part to spread this disease. If I could still regret. If I even cared to regret.

I might regret succumbing to the results of my twist of fate. I am now the plaguebearer, I am now the one I used to despise in horror movies.
I am the downfall of my former race.
I am the apocalypse.

And then I began to feast.

–
I walked down the stairs of the safe house, a volunteer to collect supplies. Ash and Leon accompanied me. We made it down the stairs and walked over to the car. All of a sudden I heard a yell from Ash, and turned. He was holding his gun up towards one of the dead–

It wasn’t just one of the dead. It was my husband.

The tumultuous storm of negative emotions I’d experienced these last two days had just ended. Ever since the genetic switch within humanity’s junk DNA was pulled magnetically, there was no place more like Hell than home. Each one of us were now another’s apocalypse.

One by one, countries fell. The Northern Hemisphere was hit, then America, then our state. It was one swift sweep, like God waving his hand across the world to clean up a mess he had let grow too big. I knew it was the end. The beginning of that end started when one of the undead broke into our home and bit my husband in the back of the neck. Life became meaningless.

Until this moment. Now he was back. Back from the dead, not completely, but close enough. My reason to stay alive was resurrected in the form of this corpse in front of me. I could see past the glaze in his eyes that he could remember me, that he had been searching for me. He stared at me, the way he used to stare before he would tell me he loved me.

Ash stepped forward, and I quickly stepped in front of him. I read the sign my husband had made, painted in some sort of red, which said, “i m n e me) doet atak”. His spelling was never very good anyways, but this meant that he was still cognitively functioning. And even though he was a shambling corpse with a shin bone piercing through his calf, I still loved him. I tried to stop myself from crying.

“What’re you doing?” Ash asked.

“That’s my husband.” I told him.

“That’s NOT your husband, he’s a corpse, a zombie hungering for your flesh. He probably walked in from the same cemetery as the other cadaver.”

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“No, how can you trust him?” But I had already started walking towards my husband.

“We’re going back now, with or without you.” I heard Ash yell, and then their footsteps up the stairs. I didn’t need them, though. The only person I needed was him. The man in front of me, the one with the dilated, newly-pigmented pupils that were as ghostly as the full moon, the one with the blanched, sickly pallor, whose jaw hung slightly slack and leaked a purple fluid. He was missing one of his front teeth, but with the bloody and rotting gums he had developed, it seemed like they’d all fall out soon anyhow. He was covered in dried blood, and smelled of decomposition. But death was the final barrier, and he had broken it. Now we could be together forever.

I stopped in front of him.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“Yhhuss.” He rasped, like his vocal chords had been cut with a scalpel and then sewn back in by a high school special ed student with a cleft hand.

I walked up, he opened his arms, and he embraced me.

–

The cold was the first thing I felt.

Such an overwhelming cold. I opened my eyes with difficulty. I was staring up at the sky. Massive clouds, dark and menacing, were sailing through the firmament. Lamps lit the area I was in with an orange glow, creating an eerie otherworldly sensation, as if I were in some reality that never existed until this moment.

With as much strength as I could muster, I tried moving. My muscles were stiff, and bending them was almost impossible. I finally got up, though. I took a look around. I was in the parking lot of what looked like an apartment complex. Where was this? Where was I?

Wait a second. Who was I? I began to try and recall something, anything from my memory. Nothing came up. I tried calling out, but the only noise I made was a strange gurgling, as if my throat were full of a liquid.

Then I looked down. There was a corpse next to me, laying face up. I had the strangest feeling that this man was important, that I had known him. He was missing a tooth, covered in blood, and obviously killed by a bullet to the head. He gave me a very peculiar feeling, and anyone who could feel sorrow would have been saddened by this man’s condition. So I started walking away. I had an instinctive feeling that there were people nearby, though where, I wasn’t sure. But I needed to find people. They would help me, I was sure.

Credit To – Lichtjunger

Alone, he stood in the middle of the room. Surrounded by dark walls with nothing but a dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling right above him. Blankly staring at the light, he was trying to put together the events that had led up to his captivity. He was just a scientist who was trying to find a cure for the outbreak, but the government thought otherwise. They thought that it was he and his team who had spread the disease even further. The government was looking for someone to blame to ease the minds and voices of the population, and who better than the only remaining scientist left who had anything to do with their project?

“..on! …mson! Samson!” The scientist took his fixed gaze away from the light bulb and looked towards the reinforced door. It was too dark to see on the other side of the room, but he had heard the heavy clank of metal, indicating one of the guards had opened the slot on the door. “Are you ready to talk?” Samson kept quiet for a moment. They’ve kept him here in this dark room for four days, deprived of food and water. Being a scientist, he knew what deprivation of food and water does to the human body. He was dizzy and fatigued; simple everyday tasks became hard to do.

“What’s the point?” he said calmly with a dry mouth. “I will tell you nothing new. Everything I’ve already told you is everything there is to-” the door slot slammed with that same heavy clank of metal. He took a deep breath and walked towards the wall behind him, slowly, with his hand outreached trying to feel for the wall. He sat down in the darkness and stared back at the dim light. He then closed his eyes and thought about his wife, for it was the only thing keeping him sane and alive. Her beautiful face and the memories they shared; he must survive.

He had sent his wife, Emily, to France before joining the team of scientists who were trying to find a cure. He sent her there in fear that his wife would join those who have been infected by the disease. That was 3 months ago. He missed her so; she was the only person he had left in his life. Everyone he knew was gone. His neighbors, his parents, the old couple who ran the flower shop. The flower shop he thought.

He remembered buying his wife flowers for their anniversary a few days before the outbreak. He and his wife were very good friends with the old, lovely couple that ran the flower shop. The old couple would tell Samson that he and his wife reminded them so much of themselves when they were younger, and that Samson was taking the right path to a happy life.

Samson held back tears as he started reminiscing about that day he had gone in the flower shop for his anniversary.

——————————————–

“Samson, your wife is a very lucky woman!”

“Thank you for your kind words Mrs. Ramos, but it’s nothing much. Really!” Samson exclaimed, blushing.

“Oh, nonsense! You come here every week. You always have something for her to show your love. These aren’t just words, Samson. This is the truth,” said Mrs. Ramos with a delighted smile.

“Look who we have here!” a voice said excitedly. It was a powerful, but calming voice. “So what will you be getting this time ‘round Samson? Same thing as last week?”

“Good afternoon Mr. Ramos. Actually, I was thinking about getting her something a little different today. It’s our anniversary and I wanted to get her something extra special.”

“Ahh. I’ve got just the thing for you, Samson. Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back,” Mr. Ramos made his way to the back of the store. Within a minute, Mr. Ramos came back out with the most brilliant bouquet Samson had ever seen. They were vivid, exotic, everything he could’ve imagined; Samson was speechless. “We just got these yesterday,” he said with a smile.

“W-wow. This is just amazing! It’s perfect! But… I don’t think I can afford th-”
“Stop right there,” Mr. Ramos interrupted him. “Now who said anything about you having to pay for this?” Samson’s eyes widened with happiness. Mr. Ramos looked at his wife with a smile. She smiled back. He handed the bouquet to Samson, “Think of it as our present to you and Emily. Happy anniversary.”

———————————————

Samson opened his eyes. He realized that he let out a few tears after all. What a lovely couple he thought. He hoped that he and his wife would be just as happy as they were when the time came for them to be their age. He closed his eyes again and imagined the old couple being so happy. He had a light smile, but it soon faded. He had almost forgotten what happened.

When the outbreak came, Samson checked on the old couple to see if they were okay, but was instead met with the Diseased feeding on Mr. and Mrs. Ramos’ corpses. The image of the lovely couple was soon replaced with the horrifying image of their half-eaten bodies and expressionless faces. Memories of that day started filling Samson’s mind; he remembers everything.

———————————————–

“Mr. Ramos! Mrs. Ramos! Hello?! Is anyone here?!” Samson was pacing quickly outside of the flower shop. The Diseased had reached their city and Samson wanted to bring the old couple with him and his wife to some place safe. The front door of the flower shop was locked, so Samson started looking for another entrance. After a little bit of searching, he came upon the back entrance of the shop. He grabbed the door knob and was relieved when it opened.

Samson entered the back room carefully and started calling out for the couple, but more calmly this time. “Mrs. Ramos? Are you here? We need to get out of this city,” Samson felt like he was just talking to himself, but he couldn’t just assume no one was here. As he walked through the room carefully, his eyes fell upon a bouquet of flowers. It was the same set of flowers that the old couple had given to Samson and his wife as a gift. This motivated Samson even more to find them.

As Samson was making his way towards the door that led to a small hallway, he called out again, “Mr. Ramos? Mrs. Ramos? It’s Sa-” suddenly, his heart dropped. When Samson entered the hallway, he saw the Diseased, three of them to be exact. They were crouching, feeding in the corner of the hallway. Samson went quiet and felt fear like no other, for it was the first time he’d ever seen one, let alone three. His heart started beating faster and faster. Samson turned around and as he was about to start walking back, he started to wonder just who the Diseased were eating. He was desperately hoping it wasn’t the old couple. Samson swallowed his spit and turned back around.

Determined to find out, Samson carefully made his way towards the corner of the hallway. He was going carefully from one room to the next, making sure he hardly made any noise until he reached the last room. He peeked out very cautiously to not let these creatures know he was no more than ten feet away from them. Samson strained his eyes to at least catch a glimpse of the corpse. Soon, his gaze was met with the expressionless face of Mr. Ramos. There was another body next to the corpse, but Samson didn’t need to check to know who it was. Samson couldn’t believe it.

Samson pulled his head back into the room and put his back up against a wall. He sobbed for a few seconds until he heard the growls of the Diseased. Samson quickly covered his mouth. The Diseased stopped eating, scanned the hallway briefly, and then went back to their meal. The Diseased snarled, blood dripping from their mouths. Samson was frozen; he dared not to make his presence known. So he stood, listening to these creatures eat. The gushing of blood, the breaking of bones, and the tearing of muscles; soon, Samson finally got the courage to move his body and ran from the flower shop. He didn’t want to look upon the corpses of the couple again.

So he ran. He ran nonstop through the city until he got home. While doing so, he was hearing screams and cries for help. He so desperately wanted to help those who were crying for it, but he feared for his own life and his wife’s. Why he thought. Why is this happening? What have we done to deserve something like this? Why Mr. and Mrs. Ramos? They were such good people. Why?

—————————————————

Samson woke up to a familiar banging sound coming from the door. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep, but was thankful for being woken up. He didn’t want to think about them anymore. Still weak and weary, Samson stayed seated and waited for the guard to open the slot. To his surprise, it was not just the slot on the door that had opened this time, but the whole door.

Samson squint his eyes; the brightness from the outside of the room was something his eyes were not used to anymore. Still, he looked towards the door. He saw the silhouette of one of the guards standing right outside of the room. Soon, two more figures had joined the guard. One of them was another guard, but he could not figure out who the third figure was.

The third silhouette looked very frail and seemed to have a bag over his or her head. Perhaps another prisoner? He asked himself. He then noticed a sort of chain coming from the guard’s belt and into the figures neck. The guards pushed the figure inside the room hard enough to have let the figure hit the ground. The guards came inside the room and removed the bag from the figures head. Samson’s muscles tightened all around his body. This figure, or more so, thing on the floor snapped its teeth in the air. It started twisting and writhing, moaning and groaning. The guards have brought in one of the Diseased.

The guards then released the creature from its chain and ran out quickly. Right before the door slammed shut, Samson heard faint laughter from the guards. Those bastards he thought. Who in the right mind would do something like this?

Samson stood up weakly. He mustered everything he had in him to stand up. He was stuck in a darkened room with a single light bulb that didn’t even illuminate the whole room with one of those creatures. His eyes, moving quickly, were scanning the room left to right nonstop. Though he was exhausted, Samson controlled his breathing; it was tiring to stand and he didn’t dare to sit back down. So he stood just waiting and listened to the creature sniffing around while moaning and groaning. Its stench soon filled the room, like a mixture of vinegar and human waste. The stench made him gag, and it heard him. The creature snapped its teeth again and gave a quick snarl towards his direction and got louder, hungrier; it knew that there was food in the room. Samson had given away his position. The groans were getting closer and closer, until it gave a fierce growl not more than five feet away from him. Samson ran frantically, dodging blindly from one corner of the room to the next. He could not see it, only hear it, but the creature could smell him; It knew exactly where to go.

Finally, Samson decided to run towards the middle of the room where the only source of light shined. He ran and stopped at the edge where the light reached its end. He turned around and finally saw the creature for the first time walking quickly towards him; it was a woman. Light gray skin, an open stomach, a nasty gash from her right eye going down to her lower lip and her whole left cheek missing. Her nose was missing along with part of her right ear. Her face was contorted of pure hunger and violent rage. Her eyes, which were once a different color, are nothing more but shades of yellow. Anyone who would’ve known this woman before would not be able to recognize her now.

Come here, you ugly bastard, Samson thought. She snarled louder as she was finally able to see her dinner. She jerked forward and reached violently for Samson. With all the energy Samson had left, he grabbed both of her forearms before she was able to get a hold of him. He almost wanted to let go, he had never actually held one before, and the feeling of this woman’s body was not what he had expected. Her skin felt very, very soft and cold. It felt as if her skin could be ripped off any moment. It was as soft as a baby’s blanket and as cold as ice, but she was incredibly strong; the Diseased had no threshold for pain.

He struggled with the creature. He was trying to kick her down so he could give her head one big stomp, but she was continuously snarling at him and trying to bite him, snapping her teeth towards Samson. The stench of her breath was worse than the previous. The saliva dripping from her mouth was thick and brown. Samson could hear the dense “plop” noise it would make when it hits the ground. He could barely handle the creature and he was losing hope. He couldn’t stop her, and unlike the Diseased, humans get tired. He closed his eyes for what he thought would be the final time he would, but an image of his wife appeared in his mind. Memories flooded him. With renewed resolution, Samson tightened his grip on her forearms, lifted his right leg, and gave one final kick to her chest. The skin on the creature’s forearms and hands ripped and slid off into his own, but he couldn’t be disgusted by this now. She snarled and wailed loudly as she looked at him with angry eyes from the ground.  With a loud yell and all his might, he drove his foot right into the middle of the creature’s forehead. One. Two. Three. Four. Four stomps and it finally stopped moving.

He stood there, once again, under that same light, but staring down this time with anger in his eyes and staggered breathing. Samson stood above the creature for a while, making sure the deed was done. His arms were tense and shaking, full of fear and rage, ready to attack again if needed. After a few moments, he had calmed down. It’s over.  He wiped his shoe on the floor and his hands on his clothes to rid of himself the skin of the creature. As he wiped his hands, he heard a small, metallic sound. A sound that a coin would make if dropped on the ground. It was a ring. It was stuck with the soft skin that was pulled off of the creatures hands. Curious, he picked it up and sat a few feet away from the creature. He cleaned off the ring and examined it. Inside of the ring, something was engraved. His eyes widened with disbelief.

“Together forever – Samson & Emily”

Credit To – Ismael Zuniga

–VOICE RECORDING: TAPE 1 FEBRUARY 15, 2006; TOP SECRET; evidence for cause of death – Michael Mayback, Josh Horn, Kevin Mitchell–

Michael: Dude I don’t even know why we’re here. This is fucking stupid.
Josh: It’s only one night. Stop being such a fucking chicken. It’s not that serious.
Michael: Don’t you know in the movies when the people hear about something being haunted or dangerous but they still go? They end up dead you know.
Kevin: But this isn’t a movie. This is real life. We just go for tonight, sleep and get the money the next day. Easy.
Michael: Which is more important, money or life?
Josh: Michael shut the hell up and hurry up. Get your clothes and let’s go.

–30 MINUTE PAUSE–
–RESUME–

Josh: Wow guys look at the place. It doesn’t even look that scary.
Kevin: They have a TV. And cable. Who wants to watch ESPN?
Michael: I don’t care how nice this place looks.
Kevin: Dude would you loosen up? It’s only one night. We’ll be out tomorrow.
Josh: Yeah. Stop being such a fucking pussy about everything.

–FOOTSTEPS–

Kevin: Let’s watch some TV. Just because I feel a bit bad for you, you can choose the channel Michael.
Josh: Yeah big Mike. Choose the channel.
Michael: Shut up. I hate it when you call me that. Gosh, you guys can be so annoying sometimes.
Kevin: No wait. Let’s go upstairs first.
Michael: why?
Kevin: So we can see where everything is. You know, bathroom, bedrooms, that stuff. You aren’t scared are you?
Josh: Of course he is. Big Mike is scared of everything.
Michael: Shut the hell up.

–FOOTSTEPS; STAIR CREAK–

Michael: Okay I am not going down that hallway.
Kevin: It’s not that serious. Come on, who has to take a leak?
Josh: I do. Where the hell’s the bathroom?
Michael: I’ll just wait here. There is no way in the mother of fuck that I’m going down that hallway.
Kevin: You know what? If you want to stay, fine. Give the recorder to Josh. Let’s go. If we stay any longer I’m going to piss myself.

–FUMBLE; ECHOING FOOTSTEPS–

Josh: What’s Michael’s problem? He’s such a fucking scaredy cat.
Kevin: I don’t know. He’ll get over it. He’s always like that at first.
Josh: What are you going to do with that money when we get out of here?
Kevin: I don’t know. Sex, beer, drugs. What are you going to do?
Josh: I don’t know either. Show it off or something.

–PAUSE–

Kevin: There’s the bathroom. Who’s going first?
Josh: You are. Go.

–FOOTSTEPS ON TILE FLOOR; ZIPPER UNZIPS; DRIPS; ZIPPER ZIPS; FOOTSTEPS–

Kevin: Your turn.

–FOOTSTEPS; ZIPPER UNZIPS; DRIPS; ZIPPER ZIPS–

Josh: Holy crap!
Kevin: What’s wrong? What’s going on?
Josh: There’s like, a nest of ants over here in this corner.
Kevin: Ants? You made it seem like there was a dead body or something. The house is old.
Josh: They look weird. They’re bigger than most ants I’ve seen.
Kevin: Just get out of there.
Josh: Right. I’m already getting some major goosebumps. Let’s get back before Michael has a heart attack.

–FOOTSTEPS–

Michael: What took you so long? Gosh I thought something happened.
Josh: You always expect the worst. The bathroom is down there, so unless you plan to hold your pee the whole time, I suggest you get over you fear.
Kevin: Come on. Let’s go watch some TV.

–FOOTSTEPS DOWN STAIRS; TV TURNS ON–

Kevin: What are we watching?
Josh: Go to ESPN. Let’s see what sports are on today.
Michael: No way. Sports are boring. Why don’t we go to CNN and see what’s on the news?
Josh: Sometimes you can be such a loser. What highschooler likes watching the news?
Michael: This one.
Kevin: We can watch a movie.
Josh: Alright.Just make sure it’s not scary. Michael might wet his pants. Isn’t that right, big Mike?
Michael: We could watch a movie.

–PAUSE–

Josh: Hey stop. There goes the Terminator. Let’s watch that.

–PAUSE–

Kevin: It’s about halfway through. This is the part when Reese and Sarah meet.
Michael: We already watched this movie like ten million times. I already know what everyone is going to say.
Josh: Whatever Michael.

–TV BLARES; 20 MINUTE PAUSE–

Kevin: Dude what’s that at the edge of the TV?
Josh: what? I don’t see anything.
Kevin: Look. On the bottom right corner. Ew, it’s moving!
Michael: It looks like some giant cockroach thing. That’s nasty.
Josh: Oh I see it. Ew. Somobody kill it.
Kevin: I will. Here, hold the recorder.

–FUMBLE; FOOTSTEPS; PAUSE–

Josh: Why aren’t you killing it?
Kevin: Dude, that’s fucking creepy.
Michael: What is?
Josh: What’s wrong?
Kevin: The bug is like, it’s in the TV.

–PAUSE–

Josh: That’s not funny. Just kill it. You know I’m scared of bugs.
Kevin: I’m dead fucking serious. The bug is in the TV.
Michael: Let me see.

–COUCH CREAKS; FOOTSTEPS; PAUSE–

Michael: oh my god. How is that, how is that even possible?
Josh: Quit joking guys. Seriously.
Kevin: Come look.

–FUMBLE; FOOTSTEPS; PAUSE–

Josh: lord. Why is it in there?
Michael: I don’t know.
Kevin:What do we do?
Josh: Maybe it’s part of the TV channel. Give me the remote. Let me try changing the channel.

–FUMBLE; CLICK–

Kevin: I think it’s in there. It didn’t work.
Michael: Hit it.
Josh: I’m not hitting that. You hit it Kevin.
Kevin: No way. That thing is fucking creepy.
Michael: I’ll hit it. It’s not that serious.

–BUMP–

Josh: Oh my god. It’s moving.
Kevin: That’s just nasty. Hit it again.

–BUMP; PAUSE–

Kevin: What’s wrong with the TV?
Josh: Did you hit it too hard Michael? It’s brlinking now.
Michael: No. I just tapped it.
Kevin: Um, maybe we can just ignore it and keep on watching the movie. Can you do it Josh?
Josh: I guess.

–FOOTSTEPS; COUCH CREAKS; FIFTEEN MINUTE PAUSE–

Kevin: Dudes, do you hear that?
Josh: Hear what?
Michael: I don’t hear anything.
Kevin: Put the TV on mute. Hurry up.

–FUMBLE; CLICK–

Kevin: Listen up. I could have sworn I heard something.

–THUMP THUMP THUMP–

Michael: What the fuck is that?

–THUMP THUMP THUMP–

Josh: It sounds like it’s coming from upstairs.

–THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP–

Kevin: It sounds like someone is running.

–THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP–

Michael: Holy crap.

–DOOR SLAMS–

Kevin: Oh my god.

–UNKNOWN VOICE GIGGLES; PAUSE–

Michael: What the fuck was that?
Josh: Shit I don’t know.
Kevin: This is crazy.
Michael: We should just leave. Let’s go home.
Josh: No way. I need that money.
Kevin: Yeah. I bet there’s another TV up there. Nothing to worry about.
Michael: Don’t be stupid! There’s something up there.
Josh: Stop being so scared big Mike. It’s nothing dangerous.
Michael: You know what Josh? If you really believe that, why don’t you go up there yourself.
Josh: sure. I will. I’m not a fucking pussy like you.
Kevin: I’ll go too. I really don’t think it’s anything. This is reality, not a movie. You coming big Mike?
Michael: No. I’m staying down here.
Josh: Fucking pussy.
Michael: Look, I’m not a pussy. I’m just being smart. If there is something up there, I don’t want to find out what it is.
Kevin: That’s because you’re scared. If you weren’t scared, you’d go up there too.
Michael: fine. Just to show you that I’m not scared, I’ll go. But as soon as something comes up, of it seems too dangerous, I’m out of here.
Josh: oughta boy. Come on.
Michael: I have a bad feeling about this.

–FOOTSTEPS UP STAIRS; FOOTSTEPS DOWN HALLWAY; PAUSE–

Kevin: Look in there.
Josh: You look in there. Open the door.

–DOOR CREAKS OPEN–

Michael: It’s just a computer room.
Josh: I wonder if that computer works.
Kevin: It looks like its from the 1800s.
Michael: Computers weren’t invented back then, you idiot.
Kevin: Shut up.
Josh: Come on, let’s go to the next room.

--FOOTSTEPS; PAUSE–

Kevin: Okay it’s your turn to look Josh. Just open the door and poke your head in.

–DOOR CREAKS OPEN–

Josh: Holy shit!
Michael: What?! What’s wrong in there?!?
Kevin: Don’t have a heart attack Michael. What’s in the room Josh?
Josh: It’s like, some little girl’s room. There a lot of toys on the floor.
Michael: So why the fuck did you say ‘holy shit’ like that?
Josh: Why don’t you guys look?

–FOOTSTEPS TO THE DOORWAY; PAUSE–

Kevin: Gross. Bugs.
Michael: It’s like they’re eating something.
Michael: There are so many.
Josh: They look like the one in the TV. But smaller.

–DOOR SHUTS–

Josh: I’m sorry. I can’t stand bugs. Can you see the goosebumps on my skin?
Michael: Let’s keep going.
Kevin: So Josh, who’s the pussy now?

–FOOTSTEPS–

Kevin: I don’t think there’s going to be anything in this last room.
Josh: Me either. Those two rooms were all clear.
Michael: Weren’t you the one just freaking out over a nest of ants?
Josh: Shut your trap big Mike.

–PAUSE–

Kevin: Okay, I don’t want to open that door.
Josh: Why not? It looks like every other door in this house.
Kevin: I think something is in there.
Michael: Isn’t that what I’ve been saying this whole time?
Kevin: Yeah but I really think that there is something is there.
Josh: Pussies. Alright big Mike. It’s your turn to open the door.
Michael: Oh come on. Why me?
Kevin: Open it..

–DOOR CREAKS SLOWLY OPEN; PAUSE–

Josh: It’s only a bedroom.
Kevin: Are you crazy? It looks like Dracula’s bedroom.
Josh: Is this what you so apprehensive about? I thought it was going to be some weird shit.
Kevin: Well at least now we know that nothing was up here.
Michael: I don’t think so. So you’re saying that nothing ran up here, no one slammed the door, and no one giggled. We all just had a group hallucination.
Kevin: Well no. But now we know that it probably went somewhere else.
Josh: Let’s go back downstairs. The Terminator should still be on. I want–

–RUSTLE–

Kevin: Dude,I just saw something move under the bed.
Josh: What? You saw something move?
Michael: I didn’t see anything. Okay, I know I was paranoid, but I don’t think a spirit or whatever would hide under the bed.
Kevin: I just something fucking move under that bed. I’m dead fucking serious.
Michael: Come on. Stop trying to scare us.
Kevin: You know what asshole, why don’t you look under there and see if the coast is clear?
Michael: Fine. I will.

–FUMBLING; THUMPS ON FLOOR–

Josh: Now put your head under.
Michael: Alright.

–SHUFFLING; PAUSE–

Kevin: See anything?
Michael: No.
Kevin: Are you sure? Say something.
Michael: Hello? Anyone there? You can trust me.

–PAUSE–

Michael: See? Nothing there. You’re the pussy, not — HOLY SHIT!
Kevin: What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you yell like that?
Michael: Something just fucking stroked my foot. I don’t what it was. It just stroked my fucking foot.
Josh: Okay, that’s not funny. Get from there Michael. Let’s just go back downstairs.
Michael: Something fucking touched me. I swear.
Kevin: Forget it. Let’s just go back.

–SHUFFLING; THUMPS ON FLOOR–

Josh: Now that you’re up, let’s go. I don’t want to stay here any — FUCK! WHAT THE HELL!?
Michael: SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
Kevin: MICHAEL MOVE YOUR FEET!! THERE ARE FUCKING HANDS GRABBING YOUR FEET!!

–GIANT THUMP–

Josh: My god! They tripped him! They fucking tripped him!
Kevin: Grab his hands! Pull him up!

–HURRIED FOOTSTEPS; PANICKED SHUFFLING–

Michael: Guys? GUYS!!! HOLY SHIT SOMETHING’S PULLING ME!! IT’S FUCKING PULLING ME BACK:
Kevin: Josh, pull! God damn it, PULL!!!

–UNKNOWN VOICE GIGGLES; RUSTLING ON THE FLOOR–

Kevin: They’re too strong!! Josh PULL!

-NAILS SCRATCH FLOOR–

Michael: GUYS GET OUT OF HERE!! RUN!!
Josh: We’re losing him!

–STRUGGLING–

Michael: AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

–DRAGGING; HEAVY BREATHING; UNKNOWN VOICE GIGGLES–

Kevin: Oh my god.

–RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DOWN HALL; DOOR CREAKS OPEN; SLAMS SHUT; PAUSE–

Kevin: We need to get out of here. It’s not safe.
Josh: Dude!! Something just dragged Michael under that bed!! He might be already dead!!
Kevin: Yeah well that makes one of us. We need to get our stuff and get the fuck out of here, or else we’ll be next.
Josh: What the hell was the giggle we heard?
Kevin: I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just want to home. Fuck the money! Let’s just go.
Josh: But, but what about Michael? He might still be, you know, alive.
Kevin: It’s either him, or us.
Josh: But, we can’t just leave him here.
Kevin: He told us to get away. We should listen to him.

–PAUSE–

Josh: I’m not leaving without him.
Kevin: What?
Josh: You can leave, but I’m going to save him.

–SILENCE–

Kevin: Okay. I’ll stay too. But let’s make it quick.

–CREEPING FOOTSTEPS; PAUSE; DOOR CREAKS OPEN–

Kevin: Okay, so now we have to look under the bed.
Josh: I’ll do it.

–SHUFFLING; THUMPS ON FLOOR–

Kevin: Is he there?
Josh: There’s no one here. It’s just an empty place.
Kevin: Get from there. Let’s go look for him.

–FOOTSTEPS; DOOR SLAMS–

Kevin: Where could he be?
Josh: downstairs?
Kevin: No. It’s a bit too bright and open down there. We would hear him go down the stairs.
Josh: So where?
Kevin: Let’s keep looking.

–FOOTSTEPS DOWN HALL; CREAKING–

Kevin: Look. It’s another door.
Josh: Think he’s there?
Kevin: It’s the only place left. He has to be there. Let’s go check it out. Here, I’ll open it.

–DOOR CREAKS OPEN–

Josh: Man, this is a big room. What was it for?
Kevin: Maybe it was a storage room. You know, to keep things.
Josh: Dude, do you see that?
Kevin: See what?

–RUFFLE–

Kevin: Is that him?
Josh: I think so. Why is he crouched like that?
Kevin: I don’t know.
Josh: Hold the recorder. I’m going to go to him.

–FUMBLING; FOOTSTEPS THAT BECOME DISTANT–

Josh: Hey Michael.

–FOOTSTEP–

Josh: Hey are you okay?

–FOOTSTEP AND PAUSE--

Josh: Come on Michael. We can leave now. It’s going to — FUCK!!!
Kevin: What the — HOLY SHIT!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!? JOSH!!!
Josh: Oh my god, MICHAEL!! Let go, please PLEASE!!

–FURIOUS SHUFFLING AND RUSTLING–

Josh: MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

–HIGH PITCHED SHRIEK–

Josh: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Kevin: Holy shit. Holy fuck. Holy…..holy SHIT!!!

–HIGH PITCHED SHRIEK; RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DOWN THE HALL; SKIDDING; DOOR SLAMS SHUT; HEAVY BREATHING; PAUSE–

Kevin: Okay, I’m just going to talk to the recorder now. So Josh went and grabbed Michael’s shoulder and turned him around. I’m in the bathroom right now and I’m scared as fuck. Oh my god I don’t think I’ll make it through this. Josh turned him around, and Michael, he, he looked like a monster. There were dark circles under his eyes. He had like, bruises all over his face and arms and, and he as deadly pale. His teeth were, were pointed. His eyes were rolled up. He opened his mouth, and all those little bugs crawled out them. They, they crawled out of his mouth and and his eyes and his ears. Oh my god, oh my god. Then he screeched like some kind of animal, and pounced on Josh, and bit his hand. Michael, Michael bit his neck and ripped the skin off. Oh my god.

–HEAVY BREATHING; DOOR OPENS; TIPTOEING FOOTSTEPS–

Kevin: I’m going to check it out. Oh my god.

–PAUSE; GASP; PAUSE–

Kevin: Oh lord. Fuck. Michael’s eating him. He’s ripping Josh apart. He’s, oh my god.

–RAVENOUS CHEWING; DRIPPING; RIPPING–

Kevin: Oh no. Please.

–RIPPING FLESH–

Kevin: Holy shit. He just, he just ripped the heart the out. He’s, he’s eating it. Oh my god.

–SHUFFLING–

Kevin: I just pulled my head out. I’m scared as fuck. I need to get out of here. I need –

–TEARING FLESH; SATISFIED GROWL–

Kevin: What’s he doing now? Hold on, I’m going to look one more time.

–RUFFLING; PAUSE–

Kevin: Holy shit. Holy f –

–UNKNOWN VOICE SHRIEKS–

Kevin: HOLY FUCK. OH MY GOD!!!!!!

–RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DOWN HALL; UNKNOWN VOICE SHRIEKS; HARD THUMPING–

Kevin: HELP!! HELP!!! OH MY GOD, HOLY SHIT, HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

–HARD THUMP; CLICK–

Kevin: NO PLEASE! DON’T — AHHHH!!!!! HOLY SHIT HE’S BITING MY LEG. OH MY GOD, NO PLEASE.

–TEARING FLESH; UNKNOWN VOICE SHRIEKS–

Kevin: OH MY GOD. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

–GIANT THUD; STATIC; PAUSE–

Kevin: Oh lord. He just threw me over the stairs railing. My legs are broken. Oh my lord. He bit me. He bit me and it ate a piece of my leg. Oh my god. It’s broken. I can’t move. It hurts like –

–THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP; CREAK–

Kevin: I think he’s, oh please no. I think he’s coming down the stairs. I think he’s, oh no, PLEASE NO!!!!!!!!

–GIANT THUD; UNKNOWN VOICE SHRIEKS-

Kevin: OH GOD!!! HELP!!!! SOMEBODY HELP!!!!!

–RIPPING FLESH; GUTTURAL SNARL–

Kevin: AHHHH!!!!!!

–FURIOUS RUSTLING; DRAGGING; NAILS SCRATCHING FLOOR–

Kevin: SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

–SILENCE; TWO MINUTE PAUSE–

–THUMP. THUMP. THUMP; PAUSE–

–UNKNOWN VOICE GIGGLES–

–STATIC–

Credit To: Keji

Dear Trusted Ally,
If you receive this, you have a duty to fulfill. You know about our predicament by now, and you’re alone, with nothing to do but be scared, so forge ahead and read. Read the whole thing. The WHOLE thing. Please.

I sat in one of the black leather chairs provided at the gate, shivering in my threadbare coat. I looked at my watch, noting the time (5:27 PM), and tapped my foot nervously. My seat would be called to board in approximately three minutes.
I’d spent almost all of the money I’d had left after purchasing my small apartment in Hastings, TX on this flight there. I needed a new life. The one I had here in New Orleans was not safe. And it held memories I wanted to forget.
A shifty looking woman walked in front of me and took her seat three down to my left. I pulled my small, worn carry-on closer to me.
In this weathered bag rested my only possessions in the world, save whatever came with the tiny apartment I’d purchased.
A Bible, more worn than the bag it lay in. It had been given to me years ago by my father. It was my only memory of him, as he’d died three years ago. Cancer. It was his love for cigarettes that did him in, in the end.
A small photo album, half full of pictures depicting a happy, smiling family. I barely recognized myself in them anymore.
Two pairs of pants- jeans and khakis. The khakis were for a job interview, if I could secure one.
Two shirts- a T-shirt and a polo.
I could buy more once I got there. Depending on the price of food.
That was it. All that I owned fit in this tiny bag. All that defined me, all that was left of the life I’d had before. I didn’t want to forget the good parts. Only the bad. That’s why I was leaving, after all. Right?
I watched closely as the lady behind the booth walked up to the intercom and called my zone to board.
I stood up, shaky from having missed breakfast and lunch today to compensate for the price of gas it would take to get here. I turned in my ticket and walked down the hallway to board the tiny, cheap plane, wary of anyone who came too close or looked too suspicious.
Nothing could ruin this now.
Nothing.
Suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder and I cursed myself, mentally reviewing every move I had made that might have led someone here after me. I’d done everything, everything to shake anyone off my trail, yet-
“Sir? Can you hear me? Sir I really need your help.”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
I shook my head. Not everyone was after me, I realized. There were nice people too. But I couldn’t help anyone right now. I couldn’t even help myself.
“Sir, please,” the voice pleaded with me. I turned sharply, my eyes darting around for any stragglers who might serve as witnesses. Then they landed on the man. He was shorter than me, and bald. He looked foreign, and extremely wealthy, which made me hate him almost off the bat, then I chided myself and decided to give him a chance.
“What do you want?” I demanded rudely, anxious to get on my plane. The man seemed unfazed by my harsh tone of voice and proceeded to place a small, brown, paper package into my hands. He started hurriedly giving me instructions, his eyes flicking back and forth even more nervously than mine had been a few moments ago.
“I just need you to bring this on the plane. Hide it in your carry-on, they won’t suspect a thing. Once you get on the plane you’ll need to-”
“Wait man, hold on,” I interrupted, “What the hell is in this package?”
A sudden though occurred to me, and I hissed at him angrily, shoving the package back into his arms.
“Is this a bomb?!”
His eyes widened frighteningly large, to the point where I began to feel concerned he would pass out right here, and he shook his head vigorously.
“Nothing of the sort, my friend!”
His voice had become suddenly high and squeaky, and he started talking again, even faster than I’d ever thought possible.
“Sometime before you arrive at your destination, leave the package in the plane bathroom, somewhere hidden. Do NOT open the package. You can leave the plane and forget that any of this ever happened. Unless you open the package. Do not open it under any circumstances.”
“And why the hell would I do this for you? I don’t even know you. What if you’re lying to me and it is a bomb? What if it kills me? Man, I’m not that crazy, what in the hell is your pr-”
“It is obviously not a bomb, or anything else illegal, as it has already been through customs,” he pointed out.
“When you arrive at your residence in Hastings, you will find that a substantial sum of money has been added to your account.”
This made me pause, and I stared at the man, my eyes wide as I contemplated his offer.
I needed this money so badly. The funeral costs had just about wiped out my savings, not to mention the airplane, the gas to get here, and the apartment I was heading for. I needed food. Clothes. I needed this money. But money did not come free. Everything had a price, but leaving this package, parcel, whatever, leaving it on the plane.. What could it hurt? He had a good point, it was totally legal. I could leave it all behind and not experience any of the repercussions that hiding whatever was wrapped in this paper may entail.
It seemed like a dream come true.
“How substantial are we talking?”
“There will no longer be the need for you to go without meals in order to pay for gas ever again.”
The man grinned weaselly, knowing he had me.
The call for the zone after mine came, and I knew that soon, people would be coming this way. I had to make my decision, fast.
“Okay,” I whispered, barely audible.
I took the package. I shoved it into my carry-on. And I boarded the plane.
I did not look back, so I didn’t see the man grinning widely, turning, and walking confidently away from me, muttering something into the collar of his expensive looking coat.
_____

I had the aisle seat, and the lady next to me was sleeping. Her fair hair and freckled complexion reminded me of my daughter, not a reminder i would like to have to experience in an enclosed aircraft, as i was prone to tears when this subject came up, but what could i do?
This was only an hour and a half long flight. But already a lifetime’s worth of doubts and regrets had piled up in my head, causing me to sweat profusely and rethink my entire life.
Two details of this whole package thing kept nagging at me. First, how had this stranger known my story? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was lacking in the money department, speaking euphemistically, but he knew where I was going. My exact destination. And my exact destination was about fifty miles off from the airport this plane was headed to. This kind of information was not open to the public. Though this man was obviously not the public.
It bothered me. He’d obviously chosen me for some reason.
Second, about five minutes after takeoff, I’d realized that I recognized this man. He’d come to my house on that day, the day my life had changed, four months ago.
It had started normally on a morning like any other, me heading off to work in this very coat, but back then it was newer, fashionable, sharp.
I’d been frustrated because I’d thought it was my day off but they had called me in anyway. Said the machines weren’t working. Said I was the only one who could fix them. I couldn’t believe I was the only engineer in the whole plant that knew how to get the machines working again. So I’d grudgingly cancelled my family day and tried to cheer myself up on the way to work.
I fixed the machines in about five seconds. The damn things were only unplugged. I had been going to go straight back home, but then my boss had found some paperwork that apparently could not have waited until the next day, and I had to stay and fill it out.
By the time I’d finished, it was around three in the afternoon. I’d gone home, anxious to see my wife and daughter again and apologize to them that I’d had to leave.
But I never did get to.
By the time I’d gotten there, the place, or what was left of it, was crawling with police officers.
My house had been reduced to nothing but smoking rubble, and my wife and daughter had been shot.
The official statement was given to me by the man, the same man who had given me this package. The face just hadn’t immediately surfaced because of the blur of that day. What stuck the most in my head about it was the statement, not the man giving it to me.
These are the memories that haunt me, the ones I must escape from. And if whatever is in this package helps, all the better.
____

The plane had landed about three hours ago. I’d followed the man’s instructions, and he’d come through. According to the ATM outside my apartment, I was about two million dollars richer than before I got on the plane.
What was so important that it was worth TWO MILLION DOLLARS? Hopefully, I never found out.
It was two weeks later when I did find out, and I was watching the news for the first time in about a week from my armchair, considerably better dressed than I’d been at the time of the flight, but still in the same apartment, as I was searching for a job.
The anchorman came on looking flustered and frightened.
“It seems that we have located the origin of the virus.”
Virus? I thought, What virus?
“For those of you who have just joined us, or who have been completely out of touch with society for the last few days, here is a quick review.
“Approximately two weeks ago, it came to our attention that a virus had infected a few people, a virus that medical professionals have never seen before. The effects of the virus include loss of all verbal functions, decaying skin, bloodshot eyes, hairlessness, and a complete loss of human ethics. Killing, eating raw meat and human flesh, and maiming for pleasure are the only effects known to occur in every victim. The final outcome of every case is death.
“This virus has spread at an alarming rate, and people are now being asked to stay in their homes. All flights have been cancelled, as well as school and any other large social gatherings.
“Now, back to the current story, the exact origin of this disease has been pinpointed to New Orleans. On a flight from here to Dallas, Texas, an aerosol was released, containing this virus. We do not know the identity of the perpetrator as of yet, but every effort is being made to do so. If you have any information, please call the number on the screen. Remember to wash your hands, and we will be back shortly.”
I stared dumbfounded at the screen.
The man they were talking about was me.
I’d effectively secured the fate of surely over half of America.
I’d released a virus that was turning people into zombies.
What was worse was that I’d done all this for money.

That was all last month. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in this town still unaffected by the virus. Maybe I’m immune or something. I don’t know. But being alone is worse than I could ever imagine contracting the virus would be.
It’s about to get dark, and I’ll have to lockdown my house again soon. They’ve started to attack recently, but only under cover of night. They obviously know I’m here. I’m thinking of letting them take me soon. I don’t have anything left. There’s nothing I can do. But you, if you find this, then read carefully, and do what you can.
There is a cure. It appeared on my windowsill this morning and I’m going to put it in this giant Gatorade bottle with this message.
Please, only you can save us now. I will be infected or dead, hopefully, by the time you start curing people on a massive scale. I can’t take knowing that this whole thing is my fault.
Do your best.
-Jack

The man scratched his belly and came away with a hand covered in hair. Another side effect. He knew that the virus would take him soon, so that’s why he was not concerned to be strolling past the river in the middle of the night. Another few steps and the man stumbled over something. He leaned down and picked up an old Gatorade bottle with something in it. Intrigued, he took the bottle back to his home and emptied it out. A medicine bottle and a sheath of papers fell out. He read the papers first, by candle light, then turned excitedly to the bottle full of liquid. It was really small, about the size of his thumb, and ready to be drunk.
Perhaps, the man thought, if I survive this, I could rule the remains of America.
And with this greedy thought, the man downed the liquid in two gulps. Nothing remained in the bottle when he set it back down.
And, a year later, nothing remained of the human race on earth except for metal structures, and even those were beginning to slowly rust away to nothing..

Credit To: kpanda

“15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.” Job 34:15

People yell and run around me. Papers fly everywhere from the nurse’s charts and the doctors knock down the patients as they run to the stairwell. What’s going on? Why is everybody in such a hurry? I stumble aimlessly through the halls without a guide. I smell the cleanness of the building.
“Jason.” I hear from Lacey. She stands still amidst all the chaos as I walk towards her. The doctors and security guards are running around me.

“We need to get the hell out of here. They’re coming. Forget the patients. We need to think of ourselves. They’ll only slow us down.” A guard says to Lacey as he tries to jerk her away. I see the fear in his eyes. Damn him.
“We can’t do that.” I say.
“Shut up” The guard pushes me into the wall.
“Maury, don’t do that.” Lacey yells at the guard as she helps me up.
I don’t want her to leave. I want to be around her. Lacey grabs my arm and drags me into one of the cells. I grab her nurse’s dress and tug and shake my head. “Just stay. Stay here with me.” I say. I don’t want her to go.

“Jason, stay here and stay away from the door. You need to stay quiet while I’m away. I need to get out of here. From the open door, I see a pale person hold Maury against the wall and bite into his flesh. Blood spurts cover the walls and spray into the cell. Lacey runs and closes the door. She puts her weight into the door.

The doctors say it is all in my head, because after years of living poorly with the stress and not being accepted in the community I lived in, my mind broke down. Now I’m here, but I’m not crazy. I’m just a broken man.

Some of the dead continue to walk the halls, but they don’t know we’re in here. “Jason, listen to me, how are we getting out of here. I need you to help me.”
“I don’t know. We could just walk out into the hospital. I don’t know.” I run my hands through my hair.

Moonlight pours light into the room through the barred windows. I can’t hear anything from the outside. Silence is like the sound of doom. Nothing survives in the end. Everything dies. It was silent when my brother died.

Lacey and I walk out of the cell door. She looks both ways before stepping out. “It’s okay. You can come out.”

I walk out warily and looks around. There’s dead people everywhere, except I think they’re really dead. They’re not moving.

We walk to the exit. She’s leading me by the hand.

Moaning comes from the side corridor.I look and there is one of those things ripping into someone’s intestines. Steam comes from the dead body. It must be a fresh kill. The thing raises it’s head. It’s the security guard. A large teeth marked gash drips thick blood down his neck. In his teeth a piece of intestine hangs and he chews on it like gum.

“Jason get to the stairs.” Lacey opens the door and pushes me into the emergency lights of the stairwell.
She follows and slams the door shut behind us. I can hear the dead guard hissing behind the door. “Lacey, Are those things still human?” I ask.
“No, I don’t think so. They’re kind of like ice in water. Ice is water, but it floats instead of sinks. So in a way, those things are like us.”
“They only have the appearance of us, but they’re not us?”
“Yea, keep moving.”
She grabs my hand, but I pull away. “I’m fine. I can walk myself. I just had a breakdown. I’m not like the rest of the patients.”
“Okay, it’s fine. I just thought you’d want to hold my hand.” She looks at me.
I break the gaze and put my hand around hers. “You’re right. I do, it’s just…I don’t know.” Her thumbs rub over my knuckles.

I don’t know what exactly should be done, but I should do something. What can I do? There has to be solution here. “Let’s walk to the roof.” We can block that door and see what’s going on at the street level.”
“Good idea.” She says and we walk.
The cool night air rushes past us into the stairwell. We close the door. “I hope nothing decides to stroll up here. There isn’t anything to block the door with.”
“We’ll be fine.” She says. “Let’s go look over the edge.”

We walk over and look down at the destruction. Vehicles on fire, light poles tipped over, are all just indicators of the wasteland. Smoke rises into the air and curls into nothingness. This is the end, or is it. What’s so bad about being one of those things? If we’re the water and they’re the ice, then… I don’t know. Forget it. I can think about it later.

We sit on the edge of the sanatorium and dangle our legs. The night is cold and clouds obscure the moon. We sit next to each other. She puts her arm through mine and rests her head on my shoulders.
“Other than this, how was your day?”
“Still making small talk, huh Jason?” She looks at me.
“Yea, I mean what else is there to talk about? The world’s just ended and as far as we know, we’re the only two left in an anarchist’s garden of Eden.”
“There’ll be someone pop up and try and make some order out of this mess.” She says quietly. “That’s the way things go. Like the guard, he loved being in power and now he’s dead. Someone will come to replace him as it goes.”

This is one of those times when I regret being so reserved. I wish I could tell her that she’s wrong. This destruction has led to the downfall of civilization as we know it. It probably isn’t the time to worry about politics, or society as it is now. “Forget it. How are we supposed to get down from here?”
“I don’t know. We should stay up here and just watch the fires.”
We sit for a while. I’m trying to focus on the feeling of her next to me, but it seems impossible. I don’t know what to do. I want to save her from this, but it seems that there is nothing to do.
The fires crackle and an errant scream emanates from the night from time to time. People who didn’t make it out in time. A car speeds past the sanatorium, the driver hits one of the things in the street. Like a blood stained pinwheel, the thing flips over the hood of the car and collapses in the street. It slowly gets back to its feet and shuffles aimlessly.

“Do you think we’ll make it out of this?” I ask.
She looks up at me. “I don’t think so. Eventually, those things will come up here and we’re stuck here. Maybe we should try to stay in this moment and just enjoy the last bit of each other’s company.”
I stand up. “I don’t like that. We have to try, don’t we? What’s the point of going on if we don’t try? That’s all life is originally. And the ice/zombies and us/water, you know we’re more than that, aren’t we?”
“You’re not making any sense, right now.”
“They’re us and we’re them. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know what to do and it’s frustrating.”
She stands up and rubs my arm, “Calm down. Calm Down. You don’t need to have the answers to everything.”

Staring into her eyes, I think, This is all that my existence has come to? Four years of college and a nervous breakdown to die on a roof with Lacey. No white picket fence, no dog, no kids, no dreams of anything more than death’s embrace?

Banging comes from the door. Lacey and I run to it and push our bodies up against it. We struggle to keep our footing, my slippers do nothing for traction and Lacey’s slipping too in her nurse’s shoes. I grab her and pull her away from the door.
“What are you doing?” She struggles against me.
“They’re not fast, right? Let them out and then lure them to the edge of the building and push them off.”
“That’s…ahh.” One of the things bites Lacey’s arm.
I can see it ripping the flesh of her arm and tearing the sinew and muscle. It rips a large chunk from her forearm. It chews the muscle and blood pours like a faucet. Lacey falls down and a large crowd of them swarm her. They rip and tear at her flesh.

She reaches towards me. I stand there watching. There’s nothing I can do. She spits blood like a geyser. They tear into her abdomen and her intestines fall out as she struggles. One of the things grabs her hair and rips off a scalp. She screams a rabid scream of pain and then silence.

I back away from the pack slowly. I slip on the rooftop gravel and fall. I scramble up and leap forward my leg gets caught. One of those things has my foot and is trying to take a chunk out of me.

I’m hopping on one foot trying to pull my foot away when my other foot slips and half of me goes off the edge of the sanatorium. The thing is losing it’s grip on my ankle. Dangling on the side of the building you were once committed in, isn’t as glorious as it would seem. I still don’t know what to do. In the end, that’s all of us. We really don’t know what to do, the lucky ones get to follow the crowd. The ones like me get destroyed or watch the ones we love get destroyed. I guess, that’s the only guarantee, that life goes on regardless of everything else.

Credit To: Ben

Water.

Water is the cornerstone of life. It nourishes us, irrigates our crops and waters our livestock. Water is vital for all known forms of life. We rely on it to wash our cars, clean our food and produce our power. It has an effect on almost every activity in everyday life. Without it, civilisation would cease to function. Governments would collapse, crippled by an undefeatable enemy – drought. It would be a matter of days – no longer than a week – before every living being on Earth perished. In short, we cannot live without water.

Two days ago, we were forced to begin doing just that.

I don’t know how it began. Nobody left alive does. During the initial hours of it, theories ranged from the barely plausible, like a new form of greenhouse gas, to the ridiculous, such as a new type of light, one that only evaporated water. I remember those hours fondly – the true enormity of what had happened had not yet sunk in and hysteria had not yet clutched the human race.

What happened?

I’ll put it simply.

The first was that every single drop of freshwater on the entire planet evaporated instantly.

I don’t think I can do this event justice, but I’ll try.

Can you imagine every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water drying up instantly, without rational explanation? I doubt you can, but that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t restricted to natural sources, either. As far as I can tell, all the bottled water in the world also evaporated, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It also disappeared from other substances, including soft drinks, creating foul sugar compounds that would make those that consumed it quite ill. There was not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink.

But by far the worst result of the lack of water was the nuclear reactors.

Without pressurised water, most of the nuclear reactors in the entire world – those that utilise purified water as coolant – had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The resulting effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy.
International communication ceased after almost exactly twenty-four hours after it began.

But there was a second effect.

The saltwater poisoning.

Many people flocked to desalination plants in the first few hours, hoping for salvation.

They found none.

At approximately the same time as the worldwide evaporation, saline increased by fivefold in every sea or ocean on Earth. Desalination plants were able to cope with this load for approximately twenty hours. Then, fuel began to run low – and with the imminent collapse of civilisation thanks to the multiple nuclear catastrophes, no more was delivered. Thus, the last ever drop of freshwater on Earth was pumped out no later than midnight yesterday.

After the drought came the collapse.

With no water available, civilisation soon descended into anarchy. Governments, typical of authority to the very end, tried maintaining order. It didn’t work. Soldiers rebelled, shooting rioters and runners alike. Those who didn’t die were brutally executed moments after. They turned on each other soon enough, with only a few militaries intact from the carnage. The deserters fled, unwilling to stay and watch the extinction of Earth.

But then came the worst, far worse than anything before it.

There was, in fact, one source of water that hadn’t been touched.

I’m so lucky I realised before anyone else in my town.

It was blood.

Blood, which is over 90% water, was the only remaining liquid fit to drink.

And so some did.

At first, I didn’t believe it. It was too horrific.

Animals went first. The desperate drank the blood of cats, dogs, pets and feral animals of all kinds. Many offered too little blood to be of any value. The situation was made worse by the fact that I live in a rather large metropolitan city and beyond domesticated pets and the odd feral animal, there was no animals to catch and drink from. Perhaps those in the country fared better – I have no way of finding out, and frankly I don’t really care.

I knew then that humans were the only other option.

I first saw it twelve hours ago.

An elderly man, dressed in nothing but a torn dressing gown, slowly made his way down the street that ran in front of my house. He called for help desperately, croaking out that his entire nursing home was dead or dying, that the nurses had fled and that he was looking for help. He was so pitiful that I almost opened my door, if only to offer him some respite from the midday sun, and some of my sparse rations.

If I had been a second faster, I would not be writing this.

Before I could open the door, three people – two men and a woman – pounced from the shadow of a nearby tree. The poor old bastard had no chance. They leapt upon him, frenzied in their dehydration, and set on him with makeshift tools. It was the most terrifying spectacle of my entire life. One of the men had a hammer – he set about bashing the man’s joints in, one by one. Crack. Crack. Crack. I retched bile each time the hammer slammed into bone, so sickening was the crunch. The other had a gardening hoe. He hovered above the elderly man, bringing the makeshift weapon down once, twice. The tool cut through the man’s ankles like a knife through a steak.

The metaphor made me vomit. After I did, I looked back, if only to satisfy my own growing horror.

Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.

The woman, who was weaponless save for her own two hands, had straddled the man’s chest. Her hands were spread on the screaming man’s face as her own companions butchered him. Then, even as I watched, she dug her thumbs into his eyes. He howled like nothing I had ever heard before. She dug harder, pushing inwards and outwards simultaneously. When they were pulled free, blood and some even less discernible liquid splattered all over her. She grabbed them and ate them like fruit. I could hear the chewing sounds from my door. They bent to consume the precious blood and I turned away.

I call them the Drinkers.

There’s one thing I want to make very clear about them. They aren’t zombies. Nor are they affected by some external force that forces them to drink the blood of humans, such as a virus or disease. They are entirely human. I suspect that dehydration affects them worse than it does others and this forces them to drink from humans in a form of pseudo-cannibalism or perish. They represent the dark side of humanity. The Drinkers also seem to recognise each other through some subtle signal. Not being a Drinker, I wouldn’t know it.

As fast as I possibly could, I took my meagre supplies, some small comforts, this journal and my .357 Desert Eagle up into my bedroom. I pushed the bed against the door with my rapidly fading strength and piled furniture on it. The Desert Eagle has a full clip of seven, and I have one spare. Enough for thirteen Drinkers and – well, I’m sure you can imagine.

—

Another six hours have passed. I can really feel the dehydration now. My tongue feels numb and my skin feels like sandpaper. I tried to eat some bread before and I almost choked, with no saliva to moisten my throat. Now I’m hungry as well as thirsty. I don’t even know why I’ve kept writing this. Maybe it’s something to occupy me during the final hours of mankind. Maybe I hold some hope that a solution will be found and somebody in the future will read this and remember what it was like. Maybe I’m just delusional.

—

It’s getting worse. I’m breathing heavily and becoming more and more lethargic. This room feels like a sauna. I can almost see the heatwaves bouncing across the room, becoming more and more intense until I am literally cooked alive. It’s not a pleasant vision. My pen keeps slipping from the page as I suffer random bursts of weakness. I’m scared I won’t even be able to pull the trigger if the time comes.

—

I’m so terribly thirsty. The last time I urinated it burned. I haven’t defecated for a long time now. My vision’s fading in and out and my head feels like it’s going to split open from the intense pressure inside. My skin is so dry and leathery. I know I’m dying, but I’ve still got the Desert Eagle. Maybe I should kill myself before I lose the strength to do so. God knows it’s better than dehydrating to death or letting the Drinkers get me.

—

so thirsty
its dark and i’ve lost the gun
vision almost gone
so THIRSTY
i’m going mad
i’m dying
wait
what’s that
so thirsty
somebody’s knocking at the door
they want to be let in
they say the drinkers are coming
should i
i don’t know
maybe i’ll go get a drink.
i’m so thirsty.

//
Credited to Archfeared.

The freak meandered through a group of the undead. It was nearing nightfall, and he began to head back home. His pack had plenty of food in it, and he shouldn’t have to leave his house again for another week or so. Unless one of the zombie bastards punched its way in again. He didn’t carry a gun anymore. He had figured out a while ago that they couldn’t see him. It wasn’t necessary for him to carry a gun, because if they did realize he was there he would be dead long before he could pull out any kind of weapon whatsoever.

He did have to carry a weapon, in the earlier days, back when he was normal. Back before he became a freak. The people back then would try to steal food from him, attack him in delirious, starving rages. He killed quite a few people, in self-defense, but managed to detach himself from emotions. If he hadn’t, he would be dead right now. Or insane. He was free of the burden of emotions now, and all he ever felt was contentment. He used to be afraid, he used to hate himself, but now there was no reason for either. He hated himself for not being normal. He used to be normal, but now he was just a freak, a freak in a sea of normalcy. He was only content, not feeling too strongly towards positive or negative emotions.

In the early days, the infected, the zombies, the monster, the ghouls, the beasts, were the minority. They were the freaks. They were the repulsive ones. Now it was him. He was the freak. He was one of the last of his kind. He was the last of his kind he had seen in some time now. When the virus first hit, it wasn’t that big of a deal, just a few hurriedly covered stories in the local news, stuff like that. It wasn’t close to home at all, it was in little jungle villages in Africa. But it spread quickly. This sickness was spread through the air. Coughs, sneezes, bodily contact. It all spread the disease. The symptoms were subtle. And by the time you died and returned, it was too late, far too late.

When they first started to attack, when he first became a freak, he was with a few more like him. Hunted. They all stowed themselves away in a child’s treehouse. They had pulled the ladder up behind them, but they knew where the freaks were. They always knew. They were sitting, waiting. There were seven freaks in the treehouse total. Cramped, moist, afraid. A few of them had guns, and were firing wildly at the remade below. The freaks with guns were panicked, didn’t know how to shoot, and didn’t know to shoot for the brain. They were out of ammo and they had only destroyed one.

The reanimated shuffling men couldn’t see. Their eyes were either closed, filmed over, or missing. They smelled, felt vibrations through the air, heard, or maybe some unknown new sense. Nobody knew. It didn’t matter. You were dead if you weren’t immune. If you were immune, they couldn’t sense you in whatever way it was they used. But if you touched them, they would feel you. They would feel your warmth. And they would take it away. One of the monsters in the treehouse wasn’t immune. The rest were. The one who wasn’t immune was showing symptoms already, and they all knew it. They planned to push him down sometimes soon, but he was too overactive right now.

They had watched as he shot up on heroin a few minutes ago. He was too violent and unpredictable now. His rifle was now firing dry. He kept pulling back the bolt and firing anyways. Crazy bastard. The plan was to push him down when the opportunity was there, distract the re-living enough for the rest of them to get away. They didn’t know how smart the undead were yet, though. About twenty minutes later, he had finally begun to crash. Three of them exchanged a glance, and shoved him down. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and the undead closest to him stood up, walked over, broke his neck, delivered a swift blow to his skull and left him there.

That was when the monsters realized how smart the undead were. Maybe not completely genius, but they knew. They had killed the addict, and destroyed his brain to make sure he wouldn’t come back. They needed the food, after all. They had heard two rifles firing at once, and knew from experience a man could only fire one at once. They knew there was at least one other up there, probably more. They were surrounding the tree, waiting. The survivors were at a loss. “I…I think I know what to do,” a small, fortyish balding man piped. He was still wearing a button-up shirt and khaki pants, but he had ditched his dress shoes long ago. They only slowed him down. Everybody turned to him as one.
“I think…since they can’t see us…since they can’t see us we could maybe go down and try to sneak through. A few of us will…won’t make it. But it’s a better chance then we would have.” They had all died but the freak. Now he was alone, and was glad. If he saw another survivor, he would probably kill it in disgust. And he had done it before. A few months ago, he had found one more survivor, dying of dehydration. He slit his throat. They couldn’t be spared to live. And now this. He had just mounted a crest, to see about twenty immune people hiking down the highway. He grimaced. The freak reached into his pocket.

Do not suffer a monster to live. He pulled forth a well-made pipe-bomb. He had made it over the course of a week. Why hurry when he had all the time in the world? He pulled a lighter out of the other pocket, and then stuffed the pipe bomb into his belt, covering it with his “Welcome to Margaritaville” shirt. He held the lighter in his left hand, hidden, then began to tromp down the hill, holding his hands high in a gesture of peace. They were all overjoyed to meet another like them. There was a child with them, but the rest were either middle-aged or in their early twenties. He awaited an opportunity to use his weapon, but none arose until later that night. And he didn’t even need the lighter. There was a fire in the middle of the camp, and they were all sleeping.

They had rigged up an alarm system consisting of soda cans on a string. They all slept soundly. He stepped outside the limits of the camp, and pitched the pipe bomb towards the fire. It detonated almost immediately. He ran from the blast of heat and smiled. He had stopped them from trying to overturn the world, how the world worked. They were re-organizing. That was not allowed. He had ended them all. He giggled, and headed back home.

–
Credited to Coby I.

I’m in between.

One of them bit me. The bastard took a chunk out of my upper arm. The fool probably didn’t even know it was an arm. He probably saw me as a walking turkey leg or something. Oh, but he got his dues. I whacked his useless head off with a crowbar I stole when shit got serious.

It got serious about a month ago, and let me tell you, it happened just the way everyone thought it would happen. Some “contained” little outbreak, then BOOM, everyone I know is staggering around like kangaroos tripping on dextro. Not me, though. I knew I was going to fight it. I did well until about a week ago when Mr. Slobbermouth munched on my bicep.

It amazes even me that I’m so coherent. God, I wish I wasn’t. I’m not like them, but I’m just like them. I have the hunger they have, but I have all the guilt and love of humanity that is going to keep me from surviving.

I’m not even sure that I want to survive anymore. I see them do horrible things, things that are starting to drive me mad, and I either get sick to my stomach or find my mouth watering. I don’t want to live if living means I have to watch the destruction of my kind every day.

But then, this means no more hiding. It’s as if they can sense something in me, like they scan for a zombie membership card and find it on me. They leave me alone. I can walk freely among them.

You know how I said I’m just like them? Well, I’m better than them. I’m smarter and have the ability to gain the trust of humans. I found one yesterday, I know where all the good hiding spots are, you see, and Lord was it happy to see me. It grasped my arm and looked into my eyes, saying it was happy to have found someone to fight with. Making sure none of the no-brains were around, I took it with me and hid with it in a storm cellar. I let it fall asleep, then I broke its neck, busted open its head like a coconut, and tore into its meaty brain. The blood complimented it nicely.

For a few moments, I felt bad for what I had done. I saw his body in that stagnant pool of blood, looking as if he was still sleeping, and felt some remorse for the poor, trusting boy. I wondered about his life before the disaster. Was he happy? Did his family love him? Would he have survived anyway?

That acidic guilt rose in me, a constant reminder of my humanity. But there’s at least one thing zombies and humans have in common: the will to survive. And I’m about to do a much better job than either one of them will.

–
Credited to Clarissa

It’s been 2 weeks since this whole thing started.

It all started with a tanker accident. It was all over the news. Everyone thought it was just another oil spill. There were plenty of volunteers. Plenty of people wanting to help the poor defenseless animals. Plenty of victims. Within hours of the tanker accident, it started happening. The animals had gone crazy, they were scratching and biting the clean up volunteers. They said that it was an adverse effect to whatever was in that tanker.

Rescue workers were still trying to get the crew out of the ship. They could hear screaming inside. Screams to open the doors. But that’s when it all went to hell. As soon as they cut the door out.

There was 6 minutes of broadcast before it went silent. 6 minutes of screaming and agony. The ship crew attacked the rescue workers like rabid baboons. Breaking bones and tearing flesh. The people on the shore weren’t fairing any better. Those that had been attacked by animals were attacking everyone else. It was worse than any war zone report, it was sheer brutality, and yet the broadcast still went on for 6 minutes. 6 minutes and then blank faces. Nobody could explain what was happening. They tried to continue with regular news, the economy, the weather, a cute human interest story, but they couldn’t make us unsee what we saw.

I tried to continue with my regular existence but every time I switched on the news or walked by a news stand it was there. This big mystery. They had some explanations, some kind of infection, brain parasites, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t an infection we were afraid of, it was them.

4 days after the initial report, a state of emergency was raised. And yet we’d all seen this before. Every zombie movie ever. People didn’t know who to trust. People were stockpiling food and weapons. Some tried to flee but it seems every zombie movie was right. They didn’t make it. 3 days later they arrived in my town.

I expected moans, shuffling corpses, dismemberment, but that’s where the movies lied. They ran through the streets, screaming. I remember running to my front door as fast as I could, locking, barricading, doing anything to make sure it would stay shut, and then I headed for the window. I was on the second story and I could see the carnage. They were unstoppable. They were aware.

A group of them made there way through a building across the street. They jumped straight through plate glass windows. Even the shards slicing through them made no difference, they just kept coming. My barricade wasn’t going to hold. I rushed around my flat, grabbing supplies and jamming them into the most secure room of the flat. I went back for one last look across the street, and I wish I hadn’t. In a second story window, my face met one of theirs. They knew where I was. I quickly dashed into the room and locked the door.

I don’t have any kind of panic room, or a secure basement, so the safest place I could think of was my bathroom. No windows, one door with a lock. I had filled my sink and bathtub full of water, So I could stay for a while. So I sat there in the dark room, with the distant screams in my ears.

I began to feel like I may have over-reacted, it had been 2 hours and no sign of them. It actually got quieter and I thought they had moved on. Maybe I could leave the room, get to the kitchen. Grab more food to wait it out. A crash came from the front door. The sound of someone running full force into the door and knocking down the barrier behind it. There was a couple more crashes before I knew they were inside. Rapid footsteps moving around the flat, a couple screams and then a bang on the wall beside me. My eyes were open to their widest, even in the pitch black darkness of the room. Another bang, and another. They knew I was there and they knew I was scared.

This was the zombie nightmare I had been expecting from the start. I had nowhere to run. There was only so much time before they would break in. I sat with my back to the door, hoping my extra weight would make it harder for them to get in. And then it got worse.
“why don’t you open the door?”

A voice on the opposite side of the door. No screams or moans, just a quiet, whispery voice. And then more of them.

“we’ve come for you.”
“you’ll be happier if you open the door”
“it’s not so bad…”

The whispery voices, became a cacophony of noise trying to persuade me, to break me, to fool me. I had heard that the moaning of zombies would drive people insane but this was worse, a siren call. I sat in the darkness and hoped and prayed that they’d get bored. But they don’t get bored and they don’t leave. I managed to use the mirror to peak under the door, only to be greeted by horrible unblinking eyes, blood smeared faces, screams and more horrible whispers. That was two days ago…

I don’t know what to do anymore… maybe it won’t be so bad…

–
Credited to Chris Stewart.