by Gayle Katz
I am so tired. I have to sit down. Just for a little bit. No. No. I can’t sit down. I have to get up. I have to make my way back upstairs. Right. Right. That’s what I have to do. My fellow zombies begin to gather around me, but don’t prevent me from moving or leaving. Maybe they’re just curious about the crashing sound just like a dog turns its head when there’s a noise. It’s just instinct.
Up close, these zombies look horrible, but they aren’t as frightening as I remember them being. To me, they look lost, like they’re wandering through life without a purpose. Maybe that’s too deep. They can just be on the hunt for fresh meat. I look down at myself. The last word to describe myself right now is fresh. My skin has lost its glow and color. My nails are turning black. Just like Jason’s back at the station.
“Are you hungry?” I hear a voice from behind.
“Huh? Who’s talking to me?” I mumble as I turn around and stare at the zombies stumbling around our kitchen.
Confused, I guess my mind is playing tricks on me again. I try to figure out my next steps. What am I doing again? Uh…
I have to get back to… Uh… Back upstairs. I see the box I’m holding in my hand. It’s cutting my palm, but it doesn’t hurt. My breathing is becoming labored and I don’t know where to go. No. I remember now. Upstairs. Uh-huh. That’s right. I stumble out of the kitchen into the hallway. I’m exhausted and fall to the floor. I crawl forward a few feet. Looking around, I’m lost again. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. My mind is blank. Think. I’m supposed to be doing something, but what? It’s then that I hear a faint voice, almost like someone calling out from the bottom of a well.
“Jane! Up here,” the voice says. “Climb up the stairs.”
The voice sounds familiar. I sit up and manage to get to my feet. I amble over to the stairs. The first step looks challenging. My legs don’t seem to be working right either. I finally muster up enough energy. I lift my leg and put my right foot on the step. Then I use my left leg. I stop to take a break. Good thing there’s a wall next to the stairs. I need to lean on it in order to get to the top. Once I’m on the second floor landing, something opens from the ceiling. I see eyes peering at me and I hear that familiar voice again.
“Jane!”
I look up to where the noise is coming from and see something. It reaches out its hand to me. I see another set of stairs unfold from the ceiling.
“Quick. Jane. Take my hand.”
I stand there, staring.
“We don’t have much time. If the others notice, things aren’t going to be OK. Take my hand. Now!”
I reach out for the somewhat familiar hand. It pulls me up the stairs. Once at the top, it pulls the stairs up and closes the door. We are alone.
“Jane? Jane!” The human waves his hands in front of my face. I stare at him.
“Oh shit. Don’t worry, Jane,” he says. “Here. Drink this,” and he hands me a bottle of liquid.
I can’t grasp the bottle. My hands aren’t working properly. One hand is still clutching the aluminum foil box and the other one is hanging loose. The human uncurls my fingers and I let go of the foil. Next, it puts the bottle in my hands, wraps its fingers around mine, and helps me put the bottle to my mouth. It tips the bottle over and the liquid spills into my mouth and down my throat. It’s tasty. And I’m certainly thirsty—so thirsty. While I’m drinking the delicious liquid, a good portion of it dribbles out of my mouth and down my chin. I drop the empty bottle.
“That’s good. Very good,” he extols me. “But next time we need to get more of it in your mouth.”
“Uh-huh,” I try to agree through my daze.
“Can you open your mouth wide for me?” He uses his fingers to pry my lips apart and pops a little white object in my mouth. Next, he grabs another bottle and puts it in my hands. This time, I grab the bottle.
“Good girl!” he lauds.
I drink the second one quicker than the first and, in the process, I swallow the object he placed in my mouth. What is this magical liquid? My thoughts start coming back to me.
“How are you feeling? Any better?” he wonders.
“Better,” I admit.
“What happened down there?” he asks.
“I don’t know. What happened?” I’m confused, my mind still dancing between worlds trying to focus on what is real and what is imaginary.
“John and Mallory were watching you on the cameras. They said you were doing fine until you sat down on the kitchen floor. Zombies were all around you. I thought I lost you,” he recollects.
“I got confused. And tired.”
“Did they bite you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Can I take a look?”
“Yes.”
With permission given, he starts to scan my hands, arms, neck, legs, and the rest of my body. Besides the original bite, he sees the new bloody cut on my hand.
“Where’d this come from?”
I point at the box he removed from my hand. The box has blood on it.
“OK. I understand. You gotta be careful of the sharp edge. It looks like it hurts. Take these,” he insists.
He pops two pills in my mouth along with some more of that tasty liquid. “Swallow,” he says.
I try to swallow, but it’s difficult. I gag. I choke and cough up the pills. Like projectiles, they shoot out of my mouth and land somewhere on the floor.
“Well, that didn’t work. Maybe we’ll try again later if you’re still in pain. In the meantime, let me wrap that up for you.”
He rubs a wet wipe over my hand. It burns a little and I pull my hand away. He smiles.
“It’s just a little something to clean your cut.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because. If that hurts, it means you’re still human and that’s very good,” he says. His voice sounds stronger, more certain.
He then covers up my hand with a bandage. It feels better. I feel better.
“Jack?” I’m finally able to recall his name.
“That’s me,” he smiles again.
“I know. I just forgot for a little bit. I was trying to remember. It finally came to me. I’m sorry,” I lament whatever it is that’s stealing my mind.
“It’s OK,” he took no offense. “It’s not you. It’s the virus or whatever it is that’s inside you. You were down there too long. It started taking over. That’s why we need the aluminum foil. To fix the antenna. To call for help. To kill whatever sickness is growing inside of you.”
“I understand,” it was starting to come back to me. “Let’s get back on the roof so you can fix the antenna.”
Jack kisses me. Together we go back to the attic hatch and emerge onto the roof. Jack goes through first again and then helps me up. “Are you sure you’ll be OK to hang out here while I fix the antenna?”
“Yes. I’m not going to move.”
“And make sure to drink another sports drink if you need to, OK?”
“Uh-huh, I will.”
I twist off the cap on the next bottle and start to drink. Meanwhile, Jack is making his way back to the broken antenna. From where I’m sitting on the roof, I can see everything he’s doing. He takes the broken pieces of the antenna and carefully connects them again using sheets of aluminum foil that he tears off the roll. Once he wraps the pieces in foil a couple of times, he then wraps his patch job up in duct tape. The foil tears easily, but the duct tape helps to keep it together.
Jack turns around and heads back to me. He’s smiling.
“I think that should do it,” he sounds relieved. “Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?” I question him.
“Yes. You’re so brave. You got the aluminum foil from the kitchen. That takes guts.”
“Right. I forgot.”
Jack hugs me. “I promise you everything will be OK. Let’s see if the CB radio is working now.”
Jack presses the talk button on the walkie-talkie
. “John, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here,” he answers. “How is she? Things didn’t look good before. She looked like she was changing.”
“Maybe, but I was able to bring her back... for now. We still need to get help. Try the radio now. Remember to use the emergency station 9.”
“OK, let me see if I can reach anyone.”
Jack puts the walkie-talkie down.
“How are ya feeling?”
“A little better now.”
“What happened down there? Can you remember?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it or if I even can.”
“Please.”
“I’ll try. I was fine for a bit, but then it was like I was in another world. I was someone else. And everything I knew was a fleeting memory that I couldn’t quite remember. I had trouble walking, thinking, and speaking. At one point, I thought the zombies were speaking to me. It was horrible. It was like I lost part of myself. Like I forgot myself. Left it behind.”
“But you’re feeling better now?”
“Yes, but that uncertainty, that other life isn’t far away and it keeps getting closer. It’s going to come back.”
“Maybe not. Now that the antenna is fixed, it’s only a matter of time before John gets help.”
“That’s the problem, Jack. I don’t know how much time I have left. Even now, my mind is already drifting again.”
“Drink some more and try to relax. We’re gonna figure this out together.”
“We only have a few more drinks up here and then what are we going to do?”
“When that time comes, we’ll make our way back down to the basement. We have a stash of drinks there. We have plenty, at least for the next couple of days. Maybe a week’s worth.”
“Getting to the basement isn’t going to be easy with all those things running around down there.”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“How are we gonna make it?”
“We’ll find a way.”
I am silent.
“You believe me, right?” Jack seeks my continuing support.
“Yes, I do.”
When I look at Jack, I see a man who really cares about me. I guess I’ve seen it all along, but this thing inside of me is dragging me away from him. At some point, I’ll be helpless to fight the pull and succumb to it.
“That’s good. Attitude means everything when you’re sick. Let’s get back inside the attic. We’ll give John a few more minutes to try to reach someone, and then we’ll check in with him again.”
Jack jumps down to the attic and turns around to help me down. Once inside, Jack hands me another sports drink.
“It’ll help. Drink.”
“We have to make them last. I can’t drink all of them now. Not to mention that I also have to pee again.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a bathroom up here. We’ll figure it out. Just keep a spare one with you then. For when you think you need it. So you stay completely lucid.”
“OK.”
“In the meantime, why don’t we start planning our wedding?”
I feel my blood pressure rise. A shot of adrenaline gets me lightheaded.
He gets down on the traditional one knee stance and takes my hand in his.
“Will you marry me?”
“Marry you? Our wedding? We don’t even know how much longer I’m going to be around.”
“I thought you said you believe me... that we’ll find a way out of this.”
“I do, but...”
“But what?”
“But so many things, Jack. If I turn into a zombie, there won’t be a marriage. I won’t be me anymore. I won’t even be human. Are you just proposing because we’re in a tight spot and you think you’re going to lose me?”
“That’s what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. My mind is just a jumble right now. All I know is that you never wanted to talk about getting married before, so what’s changed now?” I say as I sit down on the floor to compose myself, hands shaking. I’m the one arguing against getting married now.
“I hear you. What’s changed is that this whole mess has really put things into perspective for me. I love you more than anything else in this world. And that’s more important than getting ahead in my career, my job, and everything else.”
“We’ve been through this before. The whole zombie thing.”
“That brought us together. This will bind us together forever. Sometimes people just need a jolt to their system in order to wake them up to what’s important in life. You’ve been important to me since the day we met at the radio station. I love you, Jane, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” he asks again.
“If you’re sure, then yes. I’ll marry you,” I reply, smiling, as I get to my knees too. Face-to-face, he kisses me. I kiss him back. And then I grab another sports drink and chug it down.
“I can’t turn into a zombie before my wedding, right?” I joke.
Jack smiles.
Chapter 19
________________________________________
“All kidding aside, I still have to go to the bathroom. Bad. I feel like my bladder is going to explode.”
Jack looks around the attic at all of our old and stored belongings. After a few minutes, he returns holding a somewhat large plastic bucket.
“This might be your only option right now. Zombies are roaming the house, so I’m not sure when we’ll have time to use the bathroom.”
“I hear ya. Gimme the bucket,” I take my new makeshift porta potty into the corner of the attic. Making sure Jack can’t see me, I lift up my stained skirt and pull down my dry, urine-stained panties. I look down at them and feel embarrassed that I peed myself. It’s a shame I didn’t grab a new pair when we first got back to the house and now I might not get another chance. I squat over the bucket and prepare to do my business.
“Are you OK over there?”
“Yes. I think so. Don’t worry.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Pretty gross. How about you?”
Jack walks over to me in the middle of going to the bathroom.
“Don’t look at me. I’m so disgusting.”
He comes closer.
“You might think that, but I don’t. You’re beautiful and very brave.”
I finish peeing and smooth my skirt back down. With no toilet paper in sight, I guess I have to air dry. I can’t put on my panties. They just dried.
As I compose myself, I see Jack coming closer. He reaches for me. How could he think I’m still pretty with a bucket of my own urine still siting in the corner? He gets even closer and I can feel his fingertips touching my skin. It feels nice to have contact with him.
Without warning, his fingers slowly clasp my throat. They’re hot against my cold skin. I feel pressure building against my neck. I look into his eyes and the man I love isn’t there anymore. Only this monster remains. I try hitting him, but he’s stronger than me. I know I have to be quiet, but I feel the need to scream.
“Stop hurting me!”
“Jane! What’s wrong?”
I open my eyes and Jack is standing in front of me, but he’s not trying to kill me and his hands aren’t around my neck. They’re holding the walkie-talkie.
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. My mind is playing tricks on me, I guess. It felt so real.”
“What felt real? Who was hurting you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It makes me uncomfortable. Forget it.”
Jack puts down the walkie-talkie and helps me to the floor. “Sit down and relax for a minute, OK? You’re under so much stress right now. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through.”
Once I’m situated and safe on the floor, he picks up the walkie-talkie again, hits the talk button, and starts pacing back and forth.
“John.”
No a
nswer.
“John! Any luck reaching help?”
“Not yet,” John finally replies, “I’ll keep trying.”
“Please do.”
“How are you two holding up?”
“Not so good. We’re running out of sports drinks up here. We might have to make our way back down to you.”
“If that’s the case, you might want to start planning your way. It’s getting hairy in the house. More zombies have joined the party.”
“Ugh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“You should see what’s happening on the security monitors you set up. It’s not good at all.”
“OK. Well, we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do soon and let you know. For now, just keep trying to reach someone on the radio.”
He sits down next to me. Situated on the floor of our attic, we nestle closely. Our heads are cocked together and we’re holding hands.
Jack breaks the silence.
“We only have a couple more bottles of sports drink up here.”
“Uh-huh. I know.”
“We’re gonna have to make our way back to the basement. I just don’t know how with those things running around the house.”
“I don’t know either.”
“Stay here. Let me get back on the roof and see how things look outside. It might be better if we climb down the trellis and get to the basement from the outside door.”
Jack passes me one of our last sports drinks, gets up, climbs through the roof access door, and he’s gone.
I hold the bottle in my hand, turn the cap to open it, and, instead of chugging, sip instead. Maybe it will last longer and I’d adjust better if I have a consistent intake of fluid instead of it all hitting my system at once. I can’t believe we’re in this situation. I can’t believe I’m turning into a zombie. I thought we were prepared for another zombie event if it happened, but I guess we weren’t. I look around the dark attic and there are two light bulbs hanging. Both are shining. I stand up and move closer to them. I look at my skin and it’s pale—really pale. I sip my drink some more. I start to feel tired and sit back down. I feel dizzy, like the world is spinning. I’m beginning to get nauseated. My hands are shaking. I drop my drink. It falls to the floor.