Zombie Files: The Cadence of the Dead Part Two

48 months ago:

Every time I closed my eyes I saw flashes that started when Jacob and I left the city. The flashes began as nightmares, and then they slowly approached the surface as lucid dreams, becoming instant memories of constant surreal images. Some of those images were fragmented and blurry, but some were clear as day. Nothing made sense anymore, between slipping into REM and waking to real life. Everything began to blend together and I frequently forgot what was real. When I slept, I saw a little girl with a blurry face surrounded by plants as she crouched down, holding her knees. I could hear her laughing and whispering, “You found me!” I saw her again in the backseat of a car, with a pacifier clutched in her hand. I saw a crib with a yellow blanket in it and a voice in the background singing her to sleep. I saw many things that didn’t make sense, but they slowly started to seem oddly familiar and peaceful. When I woke up, the electricity was out, the food was gone, the smell of rotting flesh never ceased to be incredibly rancid. Gunfire was rapid and constant with screaming in between, hospital buildings were evacuating and burning, and the local animal shelters freed their animals out into an even crueler world than they were brought into. People were running and Ferals were chasing them, but eventually there were no more people to chase. Every movement turned into shuffling and every sound turned into low grumbling. There was no more order to the surrounding chaos. After fleeing the city and staying in a nearby town didn’t suffice, eventually there wasn’t even ONE place the Ferals couldn’t get to. The only temporary getaway was the mountains, so Jacob and I packed our bags once again.

Present Day:

That damn gas station seems like miles away now. My eyes just see a cluster of objects moving towards me and nothing more. I begin to accept what awaits me. No weapons on me and no way ou---. Oh shit, hold on a second! I see a door with a lock on it about 10 feet away from me that I might be able to break into! The Ferals haven’t gathered too much on my left side where the door is located. I have to go in there whether I want to or not. It has to be better than the situation I’m currently in! I run into the door and it doesn’t open. I kick it a few times and it still won’t budge. I think the dead knows what I’m up to. Suddenly, a hand reaches through and fiddles with the locks to open it. A human hand has to be doing that so I yell, “Hurry the fuck up!” Finally the door bursts open and I’m pulled in, with the door being slammed behind me. There is no time to lock the door again from the outside until they back off. There’s three large men pressing against the door, trying to keep it closed and stay quiet at the same time. I’m motioned to stay silent as well by a woman looking at me and pressing her index finger on her lips. “Shhhhh.” About 30 minutes later, we don’t hear any more banging from the outside. One of the men by the door slowly opens it to check. He cracks the door the put the outside lock back on and then quickly closes it within a minute. He walks toward me with a blank stare on his dirty, unshaven face. “What are you?” the man asks. I reply, “Um, excuse me?” He’s getting pretty frustrated at that point and slightly raises his voice. “Are you human or a damn Puppet?” Instead of wanting to answer him immediately, I look around real quick to get a glance of how many people are in this little group. He yells again, so I finally answer, “Human.”

42 months ago:

It had been about six months since we came to the mountains. Without Jacob’s help, I watched him and how he fired a gun, how he made and used a crossbow, and how he caught food and I mirrored those actions and got pretty good at them myself. It was like traveling back to the simple Paleolithic times, except I as a woman didn’t just gather, I learned to hunt as well. The survival skills I learned were incredibly useful, but even more so at the time. Most nights, I didn’t dream as frequently as I used to, but after about three months in the mountains, the familiar dreams started coming back but with more detail. One night, I dreamt that Jacob and I were fighting and throwing things at each other. There was a child crying in the background but I couldn’t get a visual on where it was coming from. I just heard yelling and sobbing and unbearable loud noises. I tried lying down and covering my ears to escape the dream, but it wouldn’t work. Finally, I hit Jacob. I never dared to touch him in real life, or even in my dreams..but I hit him, and I hit him HARD. He fell to the ground with blood pouring out of his head. Then I woke up. Jacob was sleeping in the tent next to me as I went out to use the bathroom. The moon and stars were still beautiful and I remember wishing to be up there among them; to co-exist with that huge black blanket full of glimmering white holes, than to be down here with such destruction and mourning. In the middle of urinating, I heard slight rustling. I had been out there long enough to be aware of any sounds, even if it was the leaves dancing in the wind. I turned around suddenly to a dark, moving figure approaching me. I was already holding my gun, ready to aim and fire with my pants still down. Without thinking any further, I pulled the trigger. Just before the bullet left the gun, I heard, “Wait!” 

Special Guest Writer -Celeste