“You wish!” I roar. “Nah. I likes the girls.”
Well, that answers the question about wither the scotch is doing its job.
“And she wasn’t a zombie afterwards? Wait!” he suddenly blurts. “It’s the end of the world out there and you’re getting some ass? How the hell did that work out?”
I roll my head on my neck and look at the wall. “Well,” I began, “I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”
The hall behind us erupted in screaming. In a moment we were both on our feet making our way toward the door. As I leaned against the frame, holding myself steady, I looked at Michael and realized had consumed more than I thought. He looked cartoon drunk and I wasn’t thinking clearly. Down the hall, trays and glass and bodies were crashing.
“Breach!” Michael screamed, and ran toward the clatter. “Run!” he bellowed. “Breach!” A zombie appeared from a side room and seized him by the shirt. “David?” he asked as the zombie fell upon him. I shuddered and backpedaled at the sight. The zombie looked like some middle school kid.
While the tiny shuffler tore at my drinking buddy I turned and ran for Stephanie’s lab. I burst through the door and spotted her bent over a counter, apparently looking at a sample.
“Stephanie? Dr. Carver? There’s been a breach. There are zombies in the building. We have to leave. Doctor?”
“I… I don’t know what to say…” she said, unmoving.
“Doctor, we can discuss this when we are safe…”
“But I’m not going to be safe, Kyle,” she said, holding up a spent syringe.
“The hell is that?” I blurt.
“It’s you, Kyle. It’s your blood. I shot myself with it several hours ago.” She pushed herself off the counter and turned to face me. Her skin looked unhealthy and dull, and she was sweating freely. “I can feel it…”
“Doctor, we need to get you out of here.”
“You don’t get it, Kyle. I am infected. You blood didn’t protect me. It killed me! I’m going to be one of them, now, Kyle. Your blood has done it. Oh god, I can feel it burning in me. I’m hungry Kyle, but I want to vomit. Oh god, I can feel it! So hungry! It’s burning! It’s burning! IT’S BURNING!”
For a moment I debated burning the whole lab down; Stephanie and Michael and all the others, myself included. I didn’t want to live if I could do this to another human.
The banging behind me brought me back to the present.
“Burn it down!” Stephanie screamed at me. “I’m so hungry! Burn it down!”
Obediently, I grabbed several bottles of alcohol and drenched the room. Then I lit the counter torch. I turned the gas supply on, threw the torch into the alcohol and ran. I blasted through doors and hallways, listening to the sounds of screaming, destruction, and death behind me. The hall shook when the gas ignited and the screaming changed its pitch. I blasted out a set of doors and into the street. I was on the other side of town, and the evening air was filled with the moans of the dead. I had no weapon. I had no transportation. I was good as dead.
All in all, it was an average day.
◊◊◊
The boy swung his arms at the flames. The hunger told him to run. The hunger ordered him to flee, but he couldn’t. His leg was melting under him and his arm was actively burning now. There was no pain in the wounds, just hunger. He found a piece of a leg and fell upon it, flames fighting him for the flesh. He chewed on the charred limb and savored the sensation as the fire took him into the blackness.
CHAPTER 9
The Sheriff
It turns out that I’m allergic to alcohol. Not that I experience anaphylactic shock or anything, I just break out in asshole behavior. The normal run of the mill drunk experience. I yell. I throw things. I attack animals and scare people. I feel depressed. I take unnecessary risks with zombies. I crash cars.
In short: I get sad. I break things.
The last great example of this behavior was after I discovered I was immune to the bite of a zombie because I was a carrier of the Z Gene. I had just learned that my blood contained the genetic mutation that had caused the people of the world to transform into decomposing consumers of living flesh, mindlessly wandering the countryside until they rot. All the devastation in the world, all the chaos, all the disorder, the end of the postmodern age, all came from blood like mine. The doctor that told me this tried to use my blood to cure herself. She injected 10 cc of my blood into hers.
She became infected.
My blood killed her.
Her lab at the university became overrun and had to be put to the torch. I made it back to the safe house, but just barely, and not without the help of Bertha Mason.
It was late and I was on the run, trying to find a safe route home. Four slow shufflers sprouted behind me. I had no weapons and facing them bare-handed would be suicide, so I kept plugging along, keeping my eye on them to ensure they were not getting too close.
Then something changed.
The shufflers started to increase their speed, and soon we were running. It made no sense. I had never seen a deadhead behave this way before. It was as though the hunger was becoming more intense, driving them to push and to strain harder for food. Zombies that were in such a state that they should not be able to do more than lumber along were galloping clumsily at me.
I panicked. I saw them staggering excitedly at me and I panicked. I was sprinting a straight line in the opposite direction, not caring where I was going or what path I was taking.
