Fear of the Dead (Novella): Contagion

by Woods, Mark

  For me, having lived through my own Zombie story, I feel as though that author was so obviously missing the point. The truth and reality of our situation here, right now, is that there is no hope, and to pretend that there is would only be giving false impression. Life is bleak. Life is grim. Sometimes life is also depressing.

  That IS life.

  And sometimes, good writing should reflect that.

  I do not know if I am still going to be here tomorrow. I don’t know for definite that any of us up here will. I don’t even know whether I am going to be able to find any more paper on which to keep on writing and jotting down my thoughts and even if I do, what’s the point when in a few weeks, a few months, there might not be anyone left around to read it?

  Since Z-Day, we have seen no other survivors – either here from the top of our tower block, or out on any of the supply runs we went on.

  Does this mean all humanity is finished? That there is no-one else left alive out there? It’s difficult to say – I mean even on our supply runs, we never travelled that far from this building – but judging from all the available evidence, it seems very likely that the answer to that question is probably yes.

  Surely to believe anything else would to be live our lives in denial?

  I remember reading this story once about a never-ending rain storm that caused all humanity to turn against each other. To become violent, and that dissolved all shred of humanity from the minds of those who came into contact with it. A group of survivors attempting to stay dry, become determined to keep fighting this unnatural disaster that has befallen them, right up until the end when eventually they all start to realise it is hopeless. That no-one is ever coming to rescue them, and that they are all that us left. The book ends with the survivors finally choosing to step out into the rain and lose themselves.

  At the time I read that story, I wondered how the characters could even consider doing this, but now...

  I wonder. What would it be like to be one of THEM? What would it be like to be a Zombie, to become one of the Living Dead? To not know or care anymore about what happened around you, only to be focused on one thing: your own continued survival with no other worries or cares? Would it be so bad? In all honesty, aren’t the Living Dead really better off than us, trapped up here, knowing that our days are numbered and that sooner rather than later, we are all going to die?

  I have been thinking about this a lot the last few days. About how maybe the best thing I could do for all of us might be to remove the barricades from downstairs...to let the Walking Dead in!

  If I’m honest, I not sure I would ever have the bottle but still...

  I can’t be the only one who has thought about this? Surely? Dante still maintains he has faith that we will all survive this. Somehow. Mr. Singh feels the same and I’m sure they are not the only ones. But who is to say they are not the ones who are deluded?

  Are we not just delaying the inevitable?

  I guess only time will tell...

  Chapter fifteen: Dead is the new alive

  ‘What’s it like being dead?’

  There’s no-one left around to ask that any more, but if there were anyone left alive, then that’s the sort of question I imagine they might ask.

  ‘What’s it like being...well...dead?’

  To be perfectly honest with you, it’s not that different really from when I was alive; just a little less...interesting. Monotonous actually...yeah, that’s the word. Dull, boring, repetitive – those are all good words to describe what it’s like too. But then, those are all words I could’ve used to describe my life back when I was still alive too.

  Every day is always exactly like the one before, whole days blending into one as you continue to stagger and stumble along, your body just going through the motions, slowly continuing to rot from the inside out, until one day, your body just gives up the ghost so to speak and you collapse.

  Even when that inevitably happens, I’ve seen plenty of evidence to suggest that’s not the end. From what I’ve seen, even then part of you still remains self-aware - conscious still of everything all around you, even as your body continues attempting to survive.

  I’ve seen rotting skeletons, nothing left but a few scraps of flesh on bone, still animated and struggling to pull themselves along in search of that next elusive meal – long after food or sustenance would do them any good

  At which point does all that cease?

  At which point does our consciousness switch off and our souls finally pass over into the next world?

  I don’t know.

  I can’t answer that.

  Maybe that never happens. Maybe the whole concept of a soul and an afterlife is all just a myth, doesn’t really exist.

  Maybe it’s just something that humans invented to comfort themselves, and to give them one last breath of hope, even in their final moments?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t think I will ever know.

  My only hope is that when I eventually get to that stage, I just bug out; switch off, go crazy or flip on over into some kind of blank mental fugue state or something long before I ever reach that point when I can feel my last few scraps of flesh starting to deteriorate and am forced to acknowledge that this is finally it; this is the end of the line, and that I am now about to become just another of those pitiful, decaying corpses that I have always mocked here in my head whilst still remaining trapped, locked inside this prison that is my mind.

  ***

  It never used to be like this.

  Once upon a time, dead meant dead.

  Once upon a time, back in the day, it always used to be that when your number was up, that was it; your number was up. Your soul, your personality, whatever it was that made you what you were, would dissipate, move on, pass on over or whatever, and that would be the end, no more.

  Everything would all just fade to black and if you were really lucky, you might just get to see a bright, white light and some old, familiar faces one last time, before everything went boom.

  Lights out, baby.

  Not anymore.

  Now, just when you think that it’s all over, something always pulls you back, holds you hostage, and suddenly you find yourself trapped like a prisoner in your own body; unable to respond other than through groans and moans and forced eternally to hunt down anyone that comes your way – be they former family, friends or even random strangers - driven by an insatiable need, a desperate hunger that you can never satisfy; an irrational and insane craving that forces you to eat and consume the flesh of the living – irrational and insane because, quite simply, you are dead.

  You have no more need of sustenance.

  It is not going to do anything for you anymore.

  It’s just going to pass straight through you – quite literally in some cases if you have an open wound to your stomach - leaving you eternally wanting, desiring, needing more, but never quite achieving any kind of satisfaction and never capable of understanding or knowing why.

  ***

  We were always brought up fearing death - humanity that is – and, as it turns out, there is a reason for that.

  Death is scary.

  Reanimation though is even scarier.

  It’s not like it is in the movies.

  It’s not like Night of the Living Dead or any of those other numerous other Romero clones that always attempted – and failed - to repeat the classic formula.

  We are not dumb, mindless monstrosities lumbering along like cattle, reduced to a semi-catatonic state and hunting down the living in some crude semblance of our lost humanity. I mean we do mindlessly lumber and stumble along, but at the same time, we are not stupid. We are still in here, we just can’t communicate anymore.

  It’s not like that other ridiculous film either, Warm Bodies.

  No-one’s love is ever going to bring us back.

  We are not going to respond to any kind of emotion – not even emotional blackmail.

  Pleading, crying and beggi
ng us to remember who we were isn’t going to work on us.

  You can try to make us fall in love with you, try to fuck us back to life, but all that is ever going to happen is that we are going to try and eat you – probably even mid-copulation if you’re really lucky.

  Then you and I are going to end up sharing a bond alright, just not the sort that you might’ve been anticipating, because sooner or later, you are going to wake right back up again, and then you and me are going to be a whole lot closer than you might ever have been expecting.

  Chances are, if there’s enough left, you are probably going to wake up just like me.

  Only slightly less dead.

  Fresher.

  And all that means is that failing any accidents, blows to the head or such like, you are probably going to be around one helluva lot longer than me too.

  Good luck with that, by the way.

  Being dead, and reanimated, isn’t much like that remake they did a few years ago either.

  You know the one, Dawn of the Dead.

  The one with the fast zombies.

  I remember watching that with a group of girlfriends one night, while we all shared a couple of bottles of wine, and having a discussion afterwards about which would we rather face?

  Fast zombies or slow ones?

  Which was more realistic and which of them was more likely to actually happen?

  Well, now I know the answer.

  Shame all the rest of the girls are probably all dead now too, otherwise maybe I could enlighten them.

  First hand as well. Lol.

  Truth is, being dead and all, my running days are now far behind me.

  Even should I wish to run, all the blood in my body, now it’s stopped being pumped around by my heart, has all gathered somewhere down in all my lower extremities.

  My feet are now like two lead weights, my legs not much better, and it still remains a mystery to me how my body can even keep itself standing up – let alone propel itself along anymore without falling down.

  Whatever it was that brought us back, whatever wicked curse or magic or science it was that might have been responsible, it is also apparently the same thing that keeps us moving - against all odds and defying any and all logical scientific explanation.

  ***

  Sometimes I think I see people that I know.

  Or rather used to know, back in my former life.

  Sometimes I hold imaginary conversations with them, deep inside my head.

  I imagine I can hear them speaking to me and who knows, maybe they actually are? Maybe it’s not my imagination and we really are communicating telepathically.

  But somehow I doubt it.

  If it is them responding, then they do it in my own internal voice – or at least, what I think is my own voice.

  I mean it’s not like I can actually be sure of anything anymore.

  Hell, some days I’m not even sure if all of this isn’t just some kind of bizarre, spaced-out, drug-infused dream.

  But then, even I’ve never been that stoned.

  Maybe what I think is my imagination talking is really them speaking back to me.

  Hell, if something can reanimate the dead and keep them moving around, then why the Hell not?

  I confess, I don’t even know anymore. It’s hard enough trying to get my head around the dead coming back to life, let alone anything else.

  Yesterday I thought I saw one of my former girlfriends, back from when I was still alive.

  I say yesterday, but it could’ve been three weeks ago, a month ago...with no visual reference of time any longer – no watches, no clocks, no sense of time passing - it’s difficult to tell anymore how much time has passed any more between episodes of lucidity.

  For we are not fully conscious all the time – just for the majority of it.

  There are whole, large stretches of time when we see, feel, sense, nothing – then suddenly we wake up again and we realise that actually, this is not a bad dream.

  This is reality now.

  Reality for us, at any rate.

  This is our life...death...whatever...and it’s the only one we’ve got.

  At least that is how it is for me.

  Obviously I can’t speak for anyone else.

  Hell, I can’t even speak for myself, for fuck’s sake.

  We are also very easily distracted.

  Like now, for example...

  Where was I?

  Oh yes, one of my former girlfriends.

  So yeah, I thought I saw her, did my best to try and communicate with her, give her some kind of indication I was in here.

  All I managed to do was flex my hand.

  Almost like a spasm.

  All that useless effort expended and all I got to show for it was...nothing.

  I couldn’t even manage to take back enough control of my body to give her a little wave.

  How pathetic is that?

  I think she noticed me though.

  In my peripheral vision, I thought I saw her nod her head – kind of like she was trying to play it cool or something.

  Our feeble attempt at communication went a little something like this:

  Me: ‘Urgh.’( Flexes hand in spasm.)

  Her: ‘Urgh, aaaaarggghhh.’ (Twists head and rolls to right - might be random movement though)

  Me: ‘Urrrrrgggggghhhhh.’

  In my head though, it all played out much more differently than that.

  In my imagination, everything went a whole lot smoother.

  Me: ‘Hi, Sophie, hows it all going?’

  Her: ‘Oh, hi Melanie. Not so bad, thanks. How’s you?’

  Me: ‘Oh, you know, still dead…’

  But of course, none of that happened. It was all just in my head.

  In reality, that was about as close to communicating with any of the other Dead as I have ever got.

  Hell, it might not even have been her...

  But I like to think it was.

  ***

  Her name was Sophie.

  She was tall, almost as tall as me, blonde, slim, petite, and mischievous – which is why we got on so famously in the first place.

  She was there the day I died.

  I thought – nay, hoped – she might’ve gotten away.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  Maybe.

  If it even was her the other day.

  We were trying to get out of the capital – panic was just beginning to set in and whilst no-one knew exactly what was going on, there were mass reports of violence and looting going on all throughout the city in what looked like a repeat of the Brexit riots from a few years before.

  Just on a much grander scale.

  Similar riots were happening all up and down the country.

  All across the world in fact.

  Whatever was happening, it was not just exclusive to our country.

  It was a global worldwide event.

  Whilst it looked uncertain whether anywhere might be truly safe the way things were going, we both knew London was a powder keg just waiting to go off and had no intention of being anywhere near the city centre when it did.

  Traffic was backed up all along the motorway.

  Everyone had the same idea, it seemed.

  Fighter jets kept roaring overhead and on the radio, all that we could pick up now was the same old story about a series of Terrorist attacks that had happened all across the globe, being repeated endlessly in a loop along with warnings to stay inside, and to continue to observe the lockdown that had been in place the past few weeks because of the H1N1-Z pandemic.

  Twitter and Facebook kept crashing something rotten too, like a gazillion times, so we had no joy trying to find out what was happening there either.

  So we made a decision.

  We took what we could carry and we left the car.

  A few horns blared behind us as if the drivers were asking what the fuck we thought we were doing, but we ignored them.

  It’s not like anyone was going
anywhere – we hadn’t moved in over an hour.

  Me and Sophie started walking.

  She had an aunt living out in the sticks somewhere, a couple of hours drive away in Norfolk. I had no idea how long that would take us to walk, but it was better than sitting there, back in the car, waiting an indefinite amount of time only for who knew what to happen.

  It was mid-morning.

  I figured it would take us most of the day to reach Miranda’s aunt’s house if we carried on walking into the night, so figuring we were all out of other options, we started off.

  Much of what happened after that is blank. That’s about the last thing I remember.

  Maybe it’s PTSD or whatever they call it, you know?

  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

  Or maybe it’s some kind of defence mechanism. Like the brain’s way of preventing us from remembering the exact way we died or something.

  I remember bits – but it’s like having only a few pieces of a jigsaw that fit together, but with no box and no picture to guide you.

  I remember figures coming at us, out of the woods and the trees by the side of the road, and them grabbing hold of Sophie, and me forcing them away. Then I remember them coming after me, Sophie screaming, and me telling her to run.

  Several days had passed, by then. We had found her aunt already dead, having killed herself, and had ended up banding together with another group of survivors; determined to stick together, wrongly believing that there was safety in numbers. I have no idea now what happened to the rest of our group, all I remember of that final day is me and Sophie alone again, wandering down these deserted back roads.

  Deserted, that is, except for them – the Dead and the Infected.

  Hell, maybe they were our former comrades.

  Our former travelling companions.

  I don’t even know anymore.

  If I ever did.

  All I know is that the next thing I remember, several of them were lying on the floor, stirring but not really moving; a bloody branch in my hands, my knuckles sore and bleeding from where I’d tried to defend myself.

  A few of them began rising to their feet again – just as I suddenly realised I had been bit – and that’s when I remembered one of the last things I had heard on the radio, just before we had abandoned the car.