...do it right, do something original or at least with a bit of inspiration behind it besides eating brains. Use
your brain, shake it up!
You all know I could give a flying squirrel about zombies in general, but...but...occasionally, I go slumming and something like this happens.
;-)
This is the beginning of a long piece on the backburner while I deal with the Weird stuff in progress--probably about four stories down the line, though new stuff can shuffle that around, as well as needs some editing, proofreading, tweaking, so bear with me--but I can see completing this one sooner than later, because where it's headed is shocking and unexpected. That's actually why I decided to start writing it, because the ending--oh dear! The tentative title is
Aftermath, though
The Reawakening is in the running, too.
Enjoy!
***
I woke to
screams…
Harsh light
made my eyelids repeatedly blink; the mere recognition of light as harsh
stumbling through my brain. Along with
the waking and screaming, two things I had not registered in I don’t remember
how long.
My breath
hitched, as if caught in my throat, as if imprisoned and now paroled, finally
allowed to leave, to escape into the stale air, and die.
I coughed,
the abhorrent smells and steamroller crush of all-around input knocking me for
a loop.
Everything
around me felt as if it was being experienced for the first time in too
long.
The dawn
seemed too new, too fresh, too unreal, its brightness ravenous, as if I had not
witnessed a sunrise or the morning itself in, again, too long.
Everything around
me pummeled me with input that I understood but felt as though it was more
something understood from my past, and not from any time recent; like
reacquainting oneself with an old friend.
It made no sense--these perceptions--and the fact that it made no sense
and I recognized this thought as it took shape in my head, clearly, and with
conviction, made it even more confusing.
What is
going on? That is the next thought, not
linear, no, the thoughts and sensations were ricocheting about in my head, and
it was too much, too much--
Stop!
Another
breath, this one controlled, take it in, feel the lungs expand, feel it, hold
it in, hold it--release. Sigh, crinkle
the nose, focus the eyes--the light had startled me, the way it seemed to sizzle
on the orbs, acid burning a hole to the pit of a truth I did not
understand. This thought was not
understood, but it stepped aside quickly as another thought swaggered into
formation, and another, more, congealing without design--
Stop!
Deep breath
this time. Hold it longer, gain control,
sense if the adrenaline will simmer, see if it’s possible to think one thought,
then the next, work it, control the influx; control was the key.
The rush
had whittled away my reserves, as if I had reserves, it whittled away the
calloused armor that my existence for some undisclosed amount of time had
demanded as protection, as necessity, in a world gone…simply gone…
Not knowing
the circumstances of my present situation, not understanding anything as it
unraveled before me, and the fresh-peeled quality to my senses, I was at a loss
as to what to make of any of it.
From
somewhere back in the recesses of a reality I used to know, the reality that
was my life, the memories slammed into me, memories that signaled direction,
from whence I came:
Jenna on
the sofa, smiling; Brianna in her pink Winnie the Pooh one piece, crawling
across the floor, nonsensical noises coming from her throat, happy noises as
well.
I’m
strumming my pitch black with red trim Ibanez guitar, fingers loosened for the
show a couple hours later.
I am
happy as well, smiling as I slide my fingers up the fretboard; I’m ready. All we are doing is waiting for the sitter,
Jenna’s cousin, Elise, who is also Jenna’s best friend, but she’s not into
concerts, the crowd, the noise, and is always glad to watch Brianna and veg out
with a couple rental movies while hanging out with Brianna.
I glance
up to take in this good life, to see my wife and daughter, and the look on
Jenna’s face signals something is shifting, something in this reality, this
good life, as she watches the news, yelling in my direction (more a stepped-on
puppy yelp), “Michael,” and that was all, pointing, for the first time since I
had known her she was mute in observance, no words to convey her shock as she watched
the local news.
On the
TV, a newscaster flailed at a disheveled person grabbing at him, his jacket
tearing in the grasp of this person---intruder--the female sportscaster to his
left shrieking, “Somebody. What’s
happening? What’s--” and is cut off as
another person, this one not so disheveled, this one also in a sports coat and
tie, pinstripes thin and thick, and he grabbed a hank of her hair and pulled
her toward his mouth, as if--
He bit
into her face, the camera shook, bodies flowed toward the front of the lens,
and we watched as blood spattered and screams clipped and something was very
wrong, this was not the movie channel, this was real, more real than any
reality TV could ever imagine being, and Jenna put her hand to her mouth,
covering it, wanting to scream…
I set
the guitar down, sensing the vibe of something tangible flow through me, like
an airborne rash, like many mosquitoes landing stinger first on my flesh,
turned to the window as I heard metal on metal crunching, more than once, a
destructive rhythm like what one might hear in an industrial song.
Accordion
crunched cars line the streets.
“Michael,”
Jenna says, her voice now a shattered mirror (reflecting what?), picking up
Brianna, something clunky about her physicality, but I assume it’s because
something has slipped out of sync, this moment, and the moments that
follow. I take in the atrocity as it
unfolds, first on the TV, and now on the streets below us, two floors down,
people are climbing out of the wreckage and attacking each other, not out of
anger, but something more vile and incomprehensible: they are attempting to eat
each other--and succeeding.
But
already the screaming has stopped, there’s something different in motion. As if a wave of desensitizing mist has washed
over them all, and the screams that would normally be emitted are now somehow caught in the throat and
rendered unnecessary.
I turn, slight angle toward the TV,
not sure what to say. The camera on the
TV is laying on the studio floor, sideways glimpse of the frenzy drenched in
blood and more, viscera thick and steaming, piled on the floor, disemboweled
and re-inserted into mouths slobbering as festering wounds.
And I
sense it again, the rash flushing over and within me, a momentary flux of
something, my throat constricting and then a desire--
--and
then back to myself, me, Michael Varanolle, watching as I turn all the way to see
my wife, Jenna, mouth caked in blood and flesh and Brianna laid open and--
--I
sense, momentarily again, the flux of something primal and it scrubs any
thought from my head, not cleanly, I still have seconds within the
transformation, this sinister metamorphosis, but it scrubs the humanity from me
and the last thing I remember until this moment, right now, is tearing my
daughter, Brianna, from the frothing, masticating frenzy that is my wife’s
mouth, and sinking my teeth into the ruptured body.
And joy.
And blank. Nothing.
Until now.
I roll
over, not even standing yet, and heave.
It pours out of me, the memories and pain and knowledge that something
deep and abysmal had taken over my soul, all of our souls, and somehow, cruelly
and with no mercy and with blunt force certainty, that something had finished
with its stay in this body, my body, and maybe more like me, and had not
deleted the memories that mattered, the memories that sting and drive me to
heave again, the floor spattered with more of whatever I had digested last, chunks
of meat and blood and I heave one more time, teeter and fall to the side, my
body hitching, the act of vomiting burning my esophagus, my throat, my brain
for the inspiration.
Tears
follow, the knowledge too much to comprehend, none of this makes sense: this
day, this moment; my life.
I cry
because I know how to and it is unstoppable.
Because I
am human--again--and not whatever creeps through my thoughts as the grim
messenger of what has transpired. A grim
messenger whose message is encrypted, a code beyond breaking. Perhaps, perhaps not, but right now--right
now--I heave again and it’s dry as dust, but my stomach still begs
catharsis.
I don’t
know what has happened, but I do sense that something is again in transition
and--
Pain.
My tears
for the loss and the madness, eclipsed by the pain, the physical veracity of
being human--again?--of feeling again, it seems, and I hurt, Christ
(Christ? Where for art thou, Christ?),
the pain ratchets up to a never imagined level, and I open my moist eyes to see
me, actually see me and my surroundings, and take in the sounds and smells and
sensations for the first time in I don’t know how fucking long.
The screams
surround me, everywhere, pain dominates, it is the God that remains. And it is not just screams, it is death that
is being expressed, realized, and experienced.
I hurt, I see on my flesh the tattoos of a battle not
remembered. I have scabs and gashes,
wounds long ago healed still leaving their impression; wounds more recently
acquired, it seems, still caked in filth and blood.
Breathing
hurts as well. It’s been so long (I
think; I think).
Seeing is a
torment that fills me with such dread as to make me wish for blindness again
but I expect it--whatever it was--was not blindness. It was the empty pages between the last
memory and now, written in invisible ink, thankfully, but the question demands
asking.
What has
happened?
What has
happened to our lives, our world?
I want to
crawl into myself and cry, let out all the emotions within, the unconfirmed but
obvious knowledge that everything I have known up to…that point, those
undefined few days, weeks, months, years back, everything…is gone.
Jenna.
Brianna
(What did I do?).
My life. Our life.
All gone.
I remember
a quote from an old Science Fiction movie, something about memories being lost like tears in
rain, but it’s obvious, as I take in the world around me, the sounds and sights
and smells, that any memories I had have not been lost like tears in rain, more
like tears in blood. Gallons and oceans
of blood.
I stand,
legs wobbly, feeling like a baby again--how do I do this?--but the function is
by rote, and I stand and it takes control again, and I shuffle toward the
window of the thrift store it seems I am in--everything broken, everything--and
I stare out on to the street, and it is an abattoir.
There are
bodies everywhere, death and dying and--
A hand
yanks at my pant leg.
“Help me,”
says the mouth attached to the body attached to the hand that is below me, the
body only a torso, the lower half a red slug trail only a few feet in length.
He has just
awakened as well.
“Hel--” But the word dies, as he
spasms and vomits on my bare feet, and the warmth is as much a shock as the
mere watching him die right there at my feet.
And the
smell. The vomit seems something
inhuman, and yet there is every evidence that the acidic pool at my feet, on my
feet, is most probably the digested remains of something that was once human.
Was once
human, I think.
The shock
of my expulsion, of the similar smells then, emphasized by the smell, now. The smell is gamey; I choke and gasp; I
wobble but keep my balance.
I shuffle
again, this time away from him, tearing his fingers from my pant leg--his grip
had grown vice-like in death--and step on some of the broken glass from the
shattered window.
I scream a
little, “Ouch, fuck,” and hearing my voice, this thing that reminds me of what
a desert would sound like if it was given voice. It causes me to pause, stop
everything, stop, please stop.
I am alive,
and that which signifies living has taken control of my senses again, and the
control overwhelms as the senses come back into focus, and my body is filled
with pain and understanding that no man should ever feel or know, and I drop to
the floor and dry heave, knowing what I have done for some time now, what I
have subsisted on, and I buckle and dance as a flame-lit ant as nothing pours
out of me. I already am empty. I want it all to pour out, but nothing comes
but more tears.
Nothing is
the same.
Nothing can
ever be the same.
Why can I
sense this, all of this, again?
Why allow
me to understand again when there will be no making sense of any of this, no
matter the understanding?
Jenna. Brianna.
Why?
***
Fun, eh? Not your average zombie fiction...?
Shameless Self Promotion:
If you haven't yet, perhaps you should check out my collection,
The Dark Is Light Enough For Me. No zombies--well, okay, that one story veers in their direction a bit--but dark, horrific fiction well worth your attention. Here's the
Amazon link, check the reviews, buy one for yourself, one for your friends, Romans and countrymen and, er...Enjoy!
As for a photo? Yeah, Zombie Uncle Sam works just fine for me in this politically charged season.
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