Reach for the Rot

The world has been taken over by zombies, obviously zombies, what else would pull out a beating heart and eat it? Sam is a survivor. And he knows exactly where to get a cure.

Zombies are possessed shells that stalk living human beings, only seeing them as an animal to tear apart to satisfy their need for flesh and blood. They are mindless abominations who lurk in the darkest shadows of your nightmares, waiting silently for their time to come. They are creatures without a conscience, only made to kill and feast on the innocent. Though some humanity survives in them, it only cowers in a dark corner pushed in by the taste of flesh. This is the story of a man who fought against the contamination that was happening inside him. Though he was inevitably being backed into a corner, he would stay standing longer than the others.

I felt new life, or death, flood my body. My fingers numbed and my legs felt heavy. My body felt like a prodigiousness weight, titanic to push. All strength left my body and my vision darkened. I could see my wife run over to me and plead for me to get up. She was only a shadow with vibrant orange hair to my vision. But in my mind I saw her rosy cheeks, plump and healthy. Her thin soft lips, that I had pressed my own against many times. And her deep blue eyes, I could lose myself in those eyes, dreaming of the world before the zombies took over. I collapsed on the floor, panting; only harsh dry breaths with no life came out of my lips. I tried to feel the smooth floor of the hospital, but it felt more like a padded cell, in which I would die. I heard my wife whisper in my ear, her soft calming voice that had a sense of alert around her. Why? I'm just a dying man, why be so alert? I push those thoughts out of my head. It's the disease taking control. It was starving my mind of humanity, I could see the soft marks in my wife’s neck that would be perfect to bite into and get into the meat. I screamed but only a gurgle came out of my mouth. The dull pain aching through my head subsided and all I could hear was a high pitched scream. Thinking it to be from my wife, I summoned all my strength and cried out of the effort. My legs felt they were no longer part of my body, though when I looked down, there they were, just paler and thinner. I struggled onto my feet and my eyes wandered until they met a young child, young fresh meat, perfect. No, the young child was my son, not a pork chop. I took a step forward to hug him, but he stepped back from me and shouted something in a weird language. I looked to my right to see my wife, I smiled to see she was fine. Though it felt I was snarling more. She pointed a stick like thing at me, no, a rifle. She was pointing my own rifle at me. I was about to take it from her when I noticed slumped shadows stumbling toward us over her shoulder. I yelled at her to run when I recognized the bodies walking toward us. Zombies. And quite a lot by my guess. Though my sight had less depth as usual. My wife turned around and saw the zombies. I heard her gasp and stagger at the sight of so many. I noticed that these zombies were faster, stronger, more human looking. These zombies were fresh; I recognized some as my friends. I had been able to round up a group of survivors and we had survived for months. It was only when I decided to head to my lab in the Austin Central Hospital. Only then did we get into trouble. Austin was heavily populated by zombies, and I had been fought against on the idea of going. It was too dangerous, but if we succeeded it would be revolutionary. It would be the torch that would penetrate the darkness. We headed in and my wife and son and I, were the only ones who survived. I stared dumbly at the advancing horde, the sounds of their moans echoing around the clean hallway, vibrating in my head making my eyes water from the sound. The hallways were unusually clean for a post-apocalyptic area. No gore marks, scratch marks, the only dead bodies were the ones walking toward us now, and they weren't truly dead. I called for my wife to follow me, and I turned and headed toward my lab. I could vaguely remember where it was; door No. 337 if I could remember. I could hear my wife and child's feet pounding the floor behind me, what I would give to turn around and hug them, and maybe take a nibble out of their heart, while it steal pumped blood across the clean floor. Where were these thoughts coming from? I hit myself, intentionally hard, but it felt more like a slow clinch. I was weaker than I felt I realized, though I was still able to run as fast as my family. My legs were still dead and heavy, but it felt like they had their own motor, their own will, pulling along this unresponding body that it carried night and day. I turned a corner and made my way up the stairs. I climbed the first step then stopped; I turned around remembering about my wife and child. I looked around the corner and they were following, I beckoned them to hurry up, they turned to face the horde behind them, their dirty claws reaching out, calling for its meal. They sped up and were a safe distance from the zombies; I turned back to the stairwell and made my way up. I reached the third floor, the 300’s; my lab was on this floor. I cried with joy and ran down the hallway, another unusually clean hallway. I found my door and put my head to the glass, peering in, I sighed with relief, the storage cabinet was still intact, I took the key from my pocket and went to unlock the door. I heard the mechanism click into place, and I entered my passcode, remembering only the images of the numbers in my head, not what they represented. I leaned against the door as it unlocked and swung open. I stumbled inside, all my equipment as gone, probably taken by my colleague. I couldn’t remember his face, or his name, but I could remember how much I despised him. I glanced at the far wall where my lab coat hung; I saw my name embroidered onto the pocket. Sam Hutton. The name sounded strange to me now, as if I had used to belong to it but now was as distant as a dream of a world without zombies. On remembering my name I tried to remember my wife and son’s name. I felt less human inside me, less emotion. And I turned to face the storage cabinet. My wife and son burst through the door and ran toward the storage cabinet. I only knew they were my family by the ring around her finger, and how closely she held to the child. I threw the storage key to them but it fell short at their feet. My wife picked it up and looked at me confused. I smiled and she smiled back. She took the key and opened the cabinet; she then took out a syringe with the DRACO medicine in. The DRACO was mine and my colleague’s idea; we wanted to create a miracle medicine. Of course we knew that it was impossible to make a medicine that could cure all diseases. So we just tried to make a medicine that could cure enough diseases to be counted as a miracle. Our medicine would revive a “dead cell” or a cell contaminated by the disease by supplying it with ATP, giving it the energy to reproduce and continue production. DRACO would specifically target white blood cells, enhancing their reproduction rates and efficiency. Hence taking the disease out of the body. We were going to launch DRACO after it being confirmed working for common diseases and some more serious ones but then the dead started walking.  My wife held the syringe in her hand and looked at me. I cocked my head at her and peered round her shoulder. This was the only syringe. Curse my colleague, he must be lying face down in a ditch with the DRACO medicine spilling all around him. Our original plan was to capture a zombie and test it with the DRACO medicine. Then with the remaining supplies we would produce more and use them on the zombies in small towns, then distribute when the economy grew again. Now that there was only one, we could only use it on a zombie and hoped that it worked; I had long forgotten how to make it, so making more without studying it first would be impossible. And making more when we don’t know whether it worked would be pointless. I let my head drop and started studying the floor, such a little thing to grab my attention in this hopeless void. I felt a sharp sting in my arm and a burning sensation. I looked up to see my wife sticking the DRACO syringe into my arm. I lashed out and screamed at her causing her to jump back in fright. Why would she do that, at least use it on a zombie to see if it worked! I walked over to the wall and banged my head on it, and I felt blood rush into my body, I felt more human, I felt the pain of several cuts and bruises on my body. My legs no longer felt like a dead weight and I could feel the cool air blowing in from the window on my fingertips. I could remember my wife’s and son’s name. Danielle and James Hutton. My family. I smiled at the sight of my healthy looking hands. I turned around to my family and my life was filled with joy. They ran up to me and hugged me, but I was so confused, why did I feel so different? I asked Danielle what had happened, and she told me on how I had become a zombie, but she could still see some humanity left in me so she didn’t shoot me. I was dumbfounded at this, I had stayed in control. I had been able to continue to steer the vessel and fight back thoughts off cannibalism.  I heard a bang on the door and we all turned around, up against the glass were several zombie faces squashed, their teeth cracked and bloody. I didn’t want to know how many were behind them. I turned back round to Danielle, and was surprised to see her crying. I stepped toward her to reassure her, but she just stepped back and whispered, “Hun, I’m sorry.” I looked at her confused just as the first zombie broke the glass and reached its bony ragged arm toward me. I turned back to James this time, he was surprisingly strong for a teenager, and I mean emotionally, not physically. He had become so solemn since the apocalypse. I went to take his hand but he just dove into Danielle’s arm more. I stepped back and questioned them on their behavior. At once they pulled up their sleeves revealing bite marks, fresh and bleeding. I cried as the zombies broke down the door and flooded the room, avoiding Danielle and James, heading for me instead. I wiped my tears and stood proud as a claw ripped my flesh apart like a grape. I lost all sight of Danielle and James as the zombies surrounded me. Another zombie grabbed my arm and attempted to pull it off, breaking my shoulder, making a sound like a Batter making a home run. James’s favorite sport was baseball. A zombie ran it’s forefinger down my middle cutting me open, how strange it was that the doctor was being “worked” on. They made their way feasting on my meat, I hoped they enjoyed it. A zombie pulled my lungs out and spread them in front of me, so I was to die an angel. Danielle stepped through the crowd, different now. Fanged teeth and hunger had embedded itself in her soul, fresh meat clung from her teeth and I feared the worst. She reached in, took out my heart, and just as she took her first bite my vision went dark. Darker than ever before.

 

Author's Note

there may be a few grammar errors