Our Undead (3 page)

She opens the door, enters,
closes it and clicks her seat belt in place without saying one word
to her father. He makes a comment about it, and she throws him a
sympathy salutation. He sighs in response to her
attitude.

The ride home is silent for
the most part. He wants to talk to his daughter, but the only thing
on his mind is that damn skirt. Every time he looks over, thinking
about taking a shot at conversation, he sees his daughter’s thighs
blatantly staring at him. They are almost fully exposed as she sits
there, and he can't get it out of his head, the image of her
sitting at her desk, surrounded by all those perverted adolescent
savages, all of them gawking at her. He can't help himself, and the
next thing that comes out of his mouth is about her skirt and how
she could ever wear something like that. Doesn't she know that
these boys have selfish intentions? Doesn't she have any respect
for herself? She responds with the notion that he just doesn't
understand her; times have changed since he was her age, and she
isn't stupid. She isn't about to get taken advantage of by some
guy. He tells her that he believes her, but some of these boys can
be aggressive. Give them an inch and they take a mile. He just
doesn't want her to get herself into any situation where some
douche thinks she's open for business like some floozy. That skirt
she's wearing might give them the impression that she's ready to
act like some sort of hooker.

He didn't mean to say it.
He knows that his daughter isn't a hooker, not even close to being
or having the same personality as one. He didn't mean it in that
way, it's just that he gets a bit passionate when it comes to his
daughter's sanctity. He didn't mean it that way at all, but it is
too late, the short-haired blonde firecracker is exploding in the
passenger seat beside him, hollering about how she can't believe
that he compared her to a street walking whore. She can't believe
that's what he thinks of her. He tries to interject, to explain
what he was trying to say, but she leaves no break for the
opportunity. The last thing he wants to do now is attempt to talk
over her, not while he is in full-out rage mode, flinging her arms
around and shaking her head fiercely back and forth as she yells.
Her hair soon becomes a fluffy blonde mess, and her father decides
to retract into silence for the rest of the ride.

When they get home and pull into the driveway, his daughter
gets out of the car, slams the door and scurries off to the front
door of their house. As she does, a short gust of wind rolls
through and blows up the back end of her black skirt, exposing her
light pink cotton undies to her father. He rolls his eyes while
disappointedly shaking his head again, and gets startled when she
slams the front door of the house. He sighs to himself and gets out
of the car.

HARD TIMES

When he opens his eyes
again, nighttime has fallen upon the city. Instantly upon regaining
consciousness, he feels the monster inside of him callout to be
fed, and he obeys it now, willingly. He gets to his feet, but is
welcomed back by disappointment. Most of the streetlights are still
functioning, so visually things can be seen quite clearly. The
reach of the infection must not be that grand, but still, there is
no sign of human life. The chaos has died down considerably in
these, his surroundings that now lay in the early stages of
ruin-hood. However, a diverse population of dead walkers are still
patrolling and wandering around, a complete replacement of the
citizens. Trying to find a human in this can be compared to trying
to find Waldo, but Waldo is most likely a corpse, one of the many
scattered about, and most likely in pieces.

With nothing to eat, some
zombies fight over the left over meat on the bones of the
slaughtered. There isn't much of it, but nonetheless, they claw and
bite at each other to get a taste. Some zombies are staring into
broken store windows, at products and appliances as if
window-shopping, and some stand around the fires, staring intensely
into their pits as if hypnotized. Some zombies don't even need a
meal to fight over. They naturally seem to dislike each other and
push and shove one another, like over-excited young men wasted in
the bar scene. In this city, they have actualized their
sovereignty, but to what end, when the land is barren of
sustenance?

Our zombie looks around at
the layout of flowering blazes and blinking car lights, shining
through and over the zigzagging heads of his people, under the
night sky where the healthier stars have put themselves on display,
despite the interfering lights of the street. It's almost beautiful
in a sinister sort of way.

Perhaps he doesn't sense
the human essence in the atmosphere anymore. Maybe he is drawn to
something in the metaphysical. Perhaps there is some memory
swimming around in his grey matter, beckoning for him to travel to
a place lost in his internal oblivion, a place he used to know. Or
maybe the city is just too crowded for our claustrophobic zombie.
Any of these reasons could be the one to explain why he walks
ignorantly past the space-cased ghouls gazing blankly; past the
fires, crumbling buildings, and broken down cars, their alarms
wailing as if crying out for their missing owners. He walks past
them all, dodging the dog fights, while at the same time managing
to avoid tripping over the many bodies laying about the ground. He
walks until he is no longer surrounded on all sides by moving
bodies, until he doesn't have to push any zombie out of the way. He
walks through neighborhoods that have been just as devastated as
the inner core of the town, if not worse. He goes even further,
past the neighborhoods and far off from where the death had been so
concentrated; he walks past it all and finds himself on the
outskirts of the city.

Out here, there are not
nearly as many of the cursed ones. Still, if he wanted to, he
wouldn't be able to look in any direction without seeing one or
two, even with the cloak provided by the night. There are even a
few standing dead still on the highway he comes to. Walking past
them all as well, he is the only zombie who seems to have some
place to go. On this highway, cars outnumber the amount of zombies
and humans put together. The roads are lined with them as far as
the eye can see. Most of them are empty. Some contain dead bodies,
recently killed. There is evidence all around of people who have
tried and failed to escape. The less brave ones have locked
themselves inside their cars. One hopeless woman has herself
crouched down on the floor where the front of the passenger's seat
has her crushed in between the glove compartment. Her dead
boyfriend or brother is sprawled out on the driver's side. She
cowers when our zombie walks by his window, but only passing and
paying her no mind. Perhaps, she would survive the night hidden
there. He walks by another car with an abandoned man who has
turned. The poor trapped soul bangs half-heartedly on the window as
if saying, "Let me out of this car!!!" Sadly, he would stay in
there forever, for our zombie ignores him as well, and continues
walking.

He walks for a long while
down this highway and soon the sun rises, bringing light to the
morning. Being about six to eight hours into his journey, our
zombie begins to show signs of getting tired. His pace has slowed
significantly. The sun is so blazing hot, even for the morning
time; it can wear out even the undead with its heat. The rotting of
his flesh is definitely being helped along, being cooked by the
heat wave as he travels. If one would listen closely to his skin,
they might be able to hear a sizzling. He walks by a dozen more
cars until he hears a sound that brings him to a sudden
stop.

He waits for a few
seconds, and then hears it again. It sounds like the high-pitched
whine or whimper of a dog. He turns his head to the left and heads
in the sound's direction. It seems to be coming from the far side
of the car our zombie is standing adjacent to, and when he gets to
the other side, he sees that it
is
actually a dog. It looks either seriously injured
or extremely tired and hungry. It's understandable. With no master
to feed it any longer, the domesticated animal is completely
disoriented in the wild. At the sight of our zombie, the canine's
whimpering becomes much heavier. It tries to back away when our
zombie approaches to pick it up, but can't make it far due to its
frailty. It gets lifted up by it's front under arms, much like a
baby or small child and is held there for a moment, in the air, by
our zombie. He examines it, eyeballing it quizzically up and down,
trying to decide whether or not this mutt is fit to be eaten. The
dog doesn't want any part of it. It has seen what these "new human
beings" can do, so it gnaws frantically at our zombie's hands and
wrists, however, with inactive pain receptors, our zombie can't
feel it and makes his decision patiently.

After a few more seconds of
thinking about it, he sinks his teeth into the dog's neck. It
squeals in agony as its throat gets ripped out from beneath its
fur. It is a gruesome scene, our zombie dining on the dog. It
doesn't take too long for it to fall silent, and then our zombie
eats in peace. The dog is nowhere as flavorful as the human flesh
had been. Not to mention, the fur that is getting stuck in his
mouth and on the sides of his face. What a troublesome meal, but it
would have to do.

When he is through with the
carcass, he simply drops it and continues on down the highway. A
couple of late-coming zombies close in on the leftovers as he
leaves the scene.

He spends the rest of this
day walking, from when the sun sits on it zenith, to the
commencement of its descent, and then one more day. He walks until
the highway becomes a country road and then further, until the road
comes to an end. By the time the sun has set, the concrete road has
been replaced with dirt, twigs and leaves, and he has obviously
lost some weight.

Moving forward at a steady
but leisurely pace, our zombie starts the third night of his new
life, trudging through the woods. It's relatively easy to make his
way through the trees and their protruding limbs, but he can't help
but run into a trunk every now and then, or get a big mouth full of
leaves from time to time. He never bothers to avoid them, just
barrels through them, until something catches his eye.

Through the thicket, he
thinks he sees something, and then is sure of it when the object
moves and makes a rustling in the bushes. He pushes his way through
more trees, making his way closer to the thing deeper inside and
exits the thick into a small clearing, wherein he discovers a doe.
Unfortunately, it was not the female deer that he saw, that was
making all of the noise. It has already been caught and is pinned
down on its side, the lower portion of its belly being eaten out by
another zombie. It looks like the kill has been recently made.
There aren't many bite marks on it yet, and the feeding wound isn't
that large. As he gets closer, he notices that the deer is actually
still alive. It's head and mouth make small movements, but no
sounds escape it.

Our zombie doesn't hesitate
in kneeling down and taking a place on the opposite side of the
deer, closer to the prey's head. A full-grown deer should be big
enough to share, not that this is his reasoning. He only wants to
feed, more for the nourishment now than for the taste, as it
usually goes. He gets in there and starts making his own opening,
biting and pulling at the deer's hide. To this, it releases a short
but impassioned bleat, and the noise alerts the first zombie, who
looks up and is surprised to find that he is now sharing the prize
he caught by himself. Irritated, he shoves our zombie's head
roughly away, and proceeds with eating.

Food is scarce for all
zombies in this region, and this one is not willing to share, but
our zombie is not willing to give up this find, and plunges his
head aggressively back into the gash of flesh he created. The deer
bleats in pain again, and once more, the other zombie sees that he
is sharing, so he once more, pushes his intruder's head away.
Again, he feels he has made his point and proceeds with eating. But
he hasn't, and this time our zombie retaliates, pushing the first
zombie back. It looks up and flings its left arm as hard as its
uncoordinated body can manage, delivering a heavy backhand to the
side of our zombie's face. It doesn't hurt, but it triggers the
rage response in him, and our zombie sends a warning to the other
in the form of a low growl. When the other one returns the growl,
our zombie pounces over the deer and tackles it.

They begin wrestling and
rolling about the ground for a minute. First, one is on top of the
other, then the other way around, until they finally settle with
our zombie in the dominant position. He sits perched atop his
selfish aggressor in a full mounted position, like an undead
Ultimate Fighter. The other zombie struggles from below to get
free, but can't manage to get our zombie's "dead" weight off of
him. What makes it even harder are the cold hands gripping him
tightly around his neck, keeping his head down. For all of his wild
arm waving and enraged screaming, he cannot get free.

Growing tired of these
shenanigans, our zombie clasps his hands to each side of his foe's
face, squishing his cheeks together in an effort to shut it up.
However, it doesn't stop the beast from roaring and verbally
arguing in their own incomprehensible language. Probably something
like, "Get the fuck off of me, you thief!!" in a sputtering gargle.
Even when our zombie, tries to physically cover it's mouth, it
continues to bellow, so he grabs the sides of his face again and
digs his thumbs deep into each of the laid out zombie's respective
eyes sockets. He pushes until he hears a popping sound, and then
pushes his thumbs in even further. Slime and crushed eyeball ooze
all over the sides of his thumbs the deeper they go. It doesn't do
much to curb the screaming, but it does cause explicit
blindness.