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I`m sick of living like this. I hate the running.
My whole life`s a bust, really. I`ve done a grand total of nothing important, and the notches on my bedpost are only slightly more than average. I`m a proud creature by nature, but lack the base confidence to back it up, and, more often than not, I just end up looking like an idiot.
Supposedly, this is cute. But then again, all the guys who`ve said that just ended up leaving me high and dry a week later. I`m not sure if you can still count it, but I usually do. The least they can leave me is their compliments, if they seem to be unable to give their unconditional love.
I would have called you an idiot if you said that phrase, "unconditional love," you know, before.
The graffiti flower, a constant on the many brick walls in the city, dances in the horrid Arizona heat, and, scowling, I wonder for the fourth time that day why any idiot would create a big, important city in someplace no one even liked to live. I missed the cool Michigan summers, and the pretty hibiscus flower sarongs my friends and I used to wear.
Here, it was so damnably hot, the only thing you could wear were things that often passed for underwear. I`ve seen quite a few guys wearing nothing but those little Speedo bathing suits, always a disturbing sight, especially when worn by a man old enough to be my grandpa. Who, incidentally, hit on me, but I wasn`t really that flattered, as he hit on every other girl he passed, too. Honestly, it was one of the odder things that`s happened to me, even including the whole "zombie apocalypse" thing.
I continue to stroll towards the little grocery store on the corner. The sign reads "open," and I push on the door, evoking a soft clank of the bell that rests against it.
"Manny?" I call, the heels of my shoes click-clacking against the floor, a mishmash of scraps of linoleum Manny got from his cousin the carpenter. "You here?"
My faces squishes up like a grape. Where could he be? The sign says open. I scowl and sigh. He`s probably drinking himself silly again over the lose of his on-again off-again girlfriend Jennifer. I`ve had some pretty ugly breakups, but really, this is ridiculous. I couldn`t comprehend why he kept taking her back when she kept cheating on him. It kinda sucks, really.
"Look, Manny, if it`s about Jennifer, you`re too good for her anyway. She doesn`t know what she`s missing out on. You`re a great guy..." I stop singing his praises, choosing to devote my energies to finding him before he blacks out like last time.
"Manny? Are you going to come out or not?" I ask. No reply. "I`ll take that as a 'no,'" I mutter darkly. "Coulda just said so."
I hear a sound like the scuffling of feet coming from the walk-in meat fridge, and I grab at the handle.
"Manny?" I ask. He`s there. I scream, falling back on my a**.
His eyes are bloodshot, and his skin is slightly green tinted. But what assures me he`s a member of the undead is his face: the skin is peeling, and in places, you can see the muscle beneath it. There`s a big bite mark where his ear should be, and dried blood clumps there, some flaking onto his constantly greasy black hair.
He`s limping towards me, grabbing his leg with his hand like it`s the only thing holding the appendage together. Upon closer inspection, it is.
I scramble back up, no easy feat in heels, and run out the door, grappling for my phone. "Policía!" I screech into the phone, the panic making my English dry up like an egg left in the sun. "Policía!"
"Excuse me, ma'am, I can`t understand you. Do you know any English?" the operator asks in a voice smooth as silk.
"There`s a zombie! Oh god--"I drop my phone, and it shatters to pieces. "********."
There`s a whole fleet of them, undead soldiers hungering for flesh. There`s got to be a good hundred of them and, unlike Manny, they`re not slowed by a leg broken to pieces. A woman screeches, grabbing her baby out of its stroller and running. Within seconds, a zombie hand catches her by the hair and bites open her skull. The baby is dropped headfirst on the ground, its entire body bleeding profusely. A few of them stop to lick up the blood and eat the remains. The woman collapses, losing the support of the zombie`s hand and even from this far away, I can hear her whimpering--in pain, in fear, I`m not sure.
I chuck my heels, once my greatest pride in a life long ago, managing to stab a nearby zombie in the eye with the point, and flee. I don`t have Ryan to save me now.
They`re setting the buildings on fire, trying to flush out the people inside. A few people stay locked inside their houses, preferring to die aflame than be eaten. Old Mrs. Francine, eighty years old today, is one of them. I try not to think of all the times she`s made me something, a cake, or a casserole, or sometimes apple pie, when I didn`t have enough money to buy food. I knew that everything she made me, she stole from her own plate. She kept getting thinner and thinner as my funds slowly dried up.
The zombies seem to be leering at me, at all of us. You pathetic humans. Food, that`s all you are, food. You thought you could escape us? Never.
One of them was my ex-boyfriend. If I wasn`t so damn scared out of my mind, I`d laugh. It was poetic justice.
I wonder why none of them are running at me. They swat at those stupid or slow enough to get close to their advancing line, but never chase, even though they`re clearly able. I soon see why.
Around the perimeter of the city are rows and rows of zombies, an undead fence. The people nearby, fleeing for their lives, don`t seem to realize.
"It`s a trap!" I shout. "Don`t run that way!" Terrorized by their own screams, they don`t hear me. They continue running in that direction and, I know, in less than a minute, they`ll all be dead.
The stupid things are herding us right into their trap. If anyone strays from the designated path, a little herd of zombies is sent after them, eating them or dragging them along, depending on how hungry they are, it seems.
I turn and run down an alley, zombies separating from the group to chase me. I know this alley well from an encounter with an attempted rapist. Just at the end, there was a little crack, big enough for a large child could fit through. Being short of stature, I could just fit. I only had to get there before the zombies caught me, or else I was doomed.
They`re fast, quickly gaining on me. I sprint, glad for the year I wanted to get on the cross country team. When I wedge myself through the crack, they`re just centimeters behind me. One sticks a hand through it, grabbing my hair, slowly pulling me back. They mash their lips together hungrily, and I can feel doom pressing down on my shoulders.
"No, please! Let go," I whimper, appealing to whatever flickering humanity remains in these decomposing husks. I have nothing left to fight with, my shoes abandoned, and the things in my purse I have to hold on to, if I want any chance of survival. Even if the things could save me, although, barely bigger than pencil sharpeners, I doubt they could, I`d be killed for treason the second the officials could get their hands on me.
I was so lucky Ryan had saved me that time, oh so long ago, I thought. And now I just had to go and ruin it by dying. Ryan...my heart gave a nasty lurch and I yanked my head forward abruptly, bashing the thing`s hand against the brick wall with a loud smack.
The hand fell off its wrist, falling to the ground. The zombie growls, then bends down and eats it. It has no qualms with eating its own hand. Its partners scratch at the crack with their blood-crusted nails, howling like wolves. One of them attempts to steal the hand and eat it itself.
Shaking like a leaf, I run, hoping to escape the hoard.
The city is littered with corpses, thousands of dollars fluttering in the breeze, abandoned in dead women`s purses. Some part of me, the part that owned high heels and sparkly dresses, and enjoyed, in some sick, twisted way, the attention dating a douche bag brought, wanted to stop and pick it up. I`d be rich, and I knew it.
I`d be more soulless than the worst of the zombies.
A few people are picking the corpses, those lucky enough to survive. I`d like to say I pity them, or I hate them for their lack of restraint. I could say neither.
There is a chorus of screams, sickening crunches and the snap of broken bones. Flinching, I move on.
Near the edge of the city, I find a middle-aged man with a shotgun laid on his chest, dead as a doorknob. Saying a quick prayer and begging for the saints` forgiveness, I grab it, hugging it to my chest.
Outside of the city, there`s only desert. It`s almost unbearably quiet now. My mind hungers for sound. Even the screams were better than this.
For hours, there`s only sand. The sun begins to set. Slowly, I drift into a tortured sleep. When I wake up hours later, I feel nauseous and light-headed. I slowly begin to rise to my feet.
My left leg won`t move, feeling numb and swollen. Upon closer inspection, there`s a little set of fang marks.
I spin my head to the side and puke. Out in the distance, I can see the zombies slowly searching for escaped prey, spreading farther and farther out from the city. It`s only a matter of time until they find my little patch of sand.
Antagonistically slowly, I drag myself into a nearby cave, not even bothering to check for predators or venomous snakes. I`m already doomed.
My sister wanted to be a nurse, once. I`m not sure if she still wants to. Communication and transportation between cities is non-existent because of the zombie problem.
She taught me how to tell when you`ve been bitten by a snake, at least. And from years of being "over prepared for anything," I can recognize the signs of Anaphylaxis.
I`m going to die.
I just hope it`s not by the hands of a zombie at this point.
Really, it sucks. I came this far, escaped the city just to be bitten by a snake.
I prop myself up against the back of the cave, scanning the horizon.
It`s another couple of hours later and nothing has happened. I`m glad. I`ve already passed out once, and my head feels as high as a teenage pothead. There`s a pile of vomit building up in the corner, smelling like death itself.
By some sort of miracle, my purse stayed firmly put on my shoulder even as I had dragged myself here, and I reach into it, pulling out my Walkman.
We`ve been told to keep it on us, no matter what. The radio stations have taken to talking about news events involving the apocalypse instead of the newest Hollywood celebrity, but they still play songs.
I turn to my favorite radio station. It used to be our station, back when Ryan and I both lived in Michigan, before we were shipped off to college and before this whole apocalypse s**t. When I listen to it, I feel like he`s listening to it too, like we`re still connected with this invisible line that just keeps stretching and stretching. I miss him. I wonder if it`s too much to ask to see him again, before I die.
I pass out again, and when I wake up, there`s a zombie just twenty feet away. Panicked, I shoot.
"Sanchez!" it croaks out, pained. Its golden hair glints in the Arizona sun.
"Ryan!" I gasp. I drag myself towards him, scratching up my knees against a particularly sharp rock.
It`s him. I remember his hair, golden as the sun, that I used to run my hands through, and his eyes, a beautiful shade of brown I could lose myself in. It`s been a year since I last saw him.
His beauty is marred by the bullet wound, an ugly tear over his heart that seems to be bleeding, unlike most zombie injuries.
"S-Sorry," I say, my voice wobbling, shocked.
"It`s okay," he says weakly, smiling, with one side of his mouth quirking more than the other.
"You couldn`t have known I`d be turned into one of...these, right?" He laughs, then stops, coughing up blood. "Nice shot, though."
It was. A zombie`s weak spot was its heart and, if you could penetrate the thick skin, the zombie would die within an hour.
I felt myself smile and I try to stop it. It seems so wrong to smile at a time like this.
"No, it`s okay. I realize I`m a comedy queen--s**t, I mean king," he revises. I laugh, then stop to puke my guts out again. "Doesn`t look like you`re doing too good yourself, Princess." His eyes are sad.
I think it`s worse for him that I`m dying than that he is. He always told me if he ever became a zombie, he`d just shoot himself. They were soulless beasts, he told me.
I told him if he ever became a zombie, I`d still love him. I figure it`s time to live up to my promise. I have nothing to lose.
I kiss him, ignoring the smell of death that clings to him now, replacing his former ever-present scent of peppermint. I missed this, missed him.
The sun caresses us, a final goodbye before the end.
Mascara Maniac · Sun Jul 10, 2011 @ 07:12am · 0 Comments |
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