I had the power.
Now, instead of the soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich my mother actually made me, the school bought me hot pizza from the cafeteria and a large chocolate milk. You may ask, “Was there any guilt for causing an innocent boy to suffer?”
Nope. Not a lick.
As I grew, I learned from reading about sociopathy, and the traps and perils of my kind. To avoid the alcohol and drug addiction that tended to be a weakness in those like me, I avoided them at every cost. In fact, I replaced them with something much more dangerous. Sugar. High fructose corn syrup. Coca-cola! The rush that I got from sweet saccharine-laced treats was pure bliss. I made it a point to never chance any drink or drug that might weaken my mind and let the real me become exposed to the public. Hiding was what I was best at.
The other distraction from crime and drugs was equally addicting. Women. Not only was the chase a narcotic for me, it was an excellent practice of my manipulation skills.
Before you get all high and mighty, let's not pretend like you are any better. Think about how relationships work. Everyone manipulates someone to get laid or find "love." Women put on too much makeup, stuff themselves into Wonder Bras, and they laugh shrilly at jokes that aren't funny. They bat their eyelashes and look helpless to make a man feel needed and secure. Then men make up stories of massive conquests, drive expensive cars, or flash other expensive lures to reel in an acceptable partner. In short, you’re all full of shit.
“But what about love?” Really? Love? Love is an illusion. A weakness. I see how it affects people. Feelings? Trust me, I've spent my life watching you feel. You know what? I'm not missing shit.
I've seen what emotions do to people, and frankly, you can keep 'em. You break up with your boyfriend, and you cry for a month. You eat your way through two pant sizes and chop your hair off to the point that you look like a man. You tell yourself that cutting your hair made you feel “free" and “happy.” Then you get out of the shower one night and catch a glimpse of your Ben and Jerry's riddled body and mannish hair. You can't believe this mess is actually you. Then you crumble to the ground in a heap of snot and tears.
Guys don't have it any better. They get dumped, and they lock themselves away so nobody can see them cry because of some ridiculous man code. They drink beer and punch a wall or two, then try to go about their business like nothing ever happened, but the truth is they are miserable.
Emotions? No thanks. I’m fine.
The bottom line is I have an extreme lack of emotions, so when the dead began to rise and eat the living, I didn't have a strong opinion either way. Self preservation tells me that once enough people get eaten, the zombies will outnumber the living and reduce my chances of survival. However, if I stay where I am, I have enough food to last for months, clean water, and a journal to keep my mind active. If I can just wait long enough, the zombies might starve to a second death, or just decompose enough that they are simply reduced to a pile of stuff on the ground that I don't have to run from. So I'm staying where I am.
Well, there you go. If you don't like me, fuck off and give my journal to someone else. For anyone else... Enjoy.
Chapter 1
I live alone. I really enjoy living alone. My lack of humanity was always something that I had to hide from the rest of the world. Most people have a small part of them that they always hide from the world. People hide what they view as their flaws, or embarrassing traits, so that the outside world thinks they’re perfect.
I hide my very existence.
I don’t hide who I really am out of embarrassment. I hide who I am because monsters like me have to hide in order to exist in your world. A false face, a smile, a nice outfit, bright eyes, and the personality that everyone loves are what make up my most perfect disguise. I had to put on that mask every time I walked outside to keep my true self a secret. If you asked my coworkers, they would tell you, “Jeffrey Wayne is a really, really nice guy.”
The truth is, nobody has ever known Jeffrey Wayne.
When the dead began to rise and devour the living, it was as almost as if I could breathe a little easier. You probably couldn't understand that, but frankly, I don't care if you do or not. The bottom line is, suddenly, I didn't have to put on a show every time I walked outside. No fake smiling at the neighbors or listening to a coworker tell me about the funny thing her infant did.
If your baby rolling from its back to its stomach is your idea of an accomplishment, that kid will always meet your expectations. If your baby does a flip, or spontaneously speaks Latin, then I'll be impressed. But all you really have is a smaller version of you that shits itself and cries.
Now that zombies were eating their way to the top of the food chain, I didn't have to deal with humanity and their stupid habitual societal exchanges. I didn't have to leave the house, so I didn't have to interact with anyone. Life during the zombie apocalypse was pretty good.
Now, you know that I am basically a monster. But did you know I was married once? It's true. Someone with my exceptional condition has to do whatever we can to try and blend in with polite society. What does society expect from a man in his thirties? A wife and children. It's really sickening. So I did what other monsters in my shoes would do. I found a woman and made her fall in love with me. More importantly, she believed that I loved her, too. She didn't know or expect that I am completely incapable of love. So I faked it. I said all the right things at all the right times. Being married was the ultimate test of my skill in impersonating a human. I had to be "on" at all times. I could never allow the artificial veneer to fall or crack and show my inner monster. I relished the times when she would work late or go to visit her family. I was able to relax and shed my disguise. I could walk around my house as the inhuman creature I really am.
We got divorced after nine years. It was like losing a gym sock. The most difficult part of being with someone for so long is dealing with their emotions. I eliminated mine so long ago. It seemed unfair that I would have to deal with your emotions now. And women are extremely emotional creatures. The frustration I would feel every time she would cry from some innocuous life event, or the anger she would exude about the "bitch from the office” was palpable. I played my part of the caring husband fairly well, and I would have kept up the charade for much longer had other parties not intervened.
And so I lived contently alone.
When the first wave of the undead came through town, nobody really expected to see them. Seriously. My part of town isn't really booming. We aren't close to any airport, hospital, or office building, so we all assumed the chance of this thing ever reaching us was pretty remote. But I guess this whole thing was bigger than expected. The first person on my block to be attacked was Mr. Clark. He was an eighty-five year old veteran, who spent his days taking care of his flower garden. To tell the truth, it was always a shitty flower garden. About six months ago, he was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live, so, he spent his remaining time tending to his flowers. Pulling weeds and watering daisies seemed to be how he wanted to spend his remaining days. Who would have known how accurately that doctor’s estimation of his remaining time would be? It seemed like six months on the nose when he was killed. He was bent over his flowers when a little girl covered in blood came up behind him and took a bite into his ankle. I was watching from my living room window, and I have to say it was fascinating to watch. Sure, I could have called out, but it’s not like my warning would suddenly have given him the nimbleness to escape that age had already stripped from him.
So I observed.
About an hour after he was bitten, he was standing in his garden once again. This time, he wasn't watering the flowers. He just stood there with a blank expression on his face. He looked as confused as most people his age, but there was something else in his eyes.
Emptiness.
Susan Peters lived right across the street from him. She walked outside to see if Mr. Clark was okay, and when she got about 30 yards from him, he lurched towards her
. He moved slow. His movements looked painful and jagged. He opened his mouth and croaked out the the first moan of his new life. The language of the dead.
I don't think it's an actual language, but it is some rudimentary form of communication. When one dead fuck lets out that moan, every dead fuck within earshot comes running to the feast. So are they discussing the finer elements of popular culture? No, but, they are ringing a dinner bell for any other shambling ghoul in the area. I watched it happen too many times. Someone would be running through the neighborhood, and all it takes is one zombie to see them, and before you know it, a wave of zombies would pass through about five minutes later. They could see pretty well too, some more than others. Back before there were too many to count, I got bored and went on my roof to check them out. I used to throw stuff at them, like a bizarre carnival game. You know, any old shit I didn't care about. I just wanted to see what it took to take one out. I threw golf balls, dinner plates, glasses, even loose roof tiles (I was actually due to get my roof redone before all this happened). One day, I was up on the roof throwing Christmas lights at some of them in the streets. One in particular looked familiar. I mean really familiar. His name was Carl, and he was the guy my ex-wife left me for. She said he made her feel "safe.” I had to laugh when I thought of that. Hell, I laughed again just writing it. He was a car salesman. Okay, that’s not being fair. He owned a local dealership. He was the guy on the commercials who held up a cardboard sign with the 800 number, and told you that if you could find a better deal anywhere, he would eat his hat! Now, he would literally eat your hat just to get to your delicious brains.
That fucker.
I came home one night from work to see her bags packed. He was there with her for protection. Like I was going to beat her or something. At first, I thought she might have seen through my disguise. I thought perhaps I lowered my guard and accidentally let her see me for the emotionless creature that I am. But if she really knew my emotional range, she would know that I didn't and couldn't give half a shit if she stayed or left. The only thing that even twanged anything in the emptiness of me that closely resembled anger was the fact that she left for someone else. I'm kind of a competitive person, so I didn't like the idea of losing anything to anybody else. So her leaving me for him was equal to someone stealing a really good parking space at the mall on Christmas Eve. It just sort of pissed me off. She told me that she and Carl were in love, and that they have been together for almost a year.
Ain't that some shit?
We bought a car from him a year ago. He gave her his card, “in case we had any problems with the car."
That fucker!
But he just gave her his number. She had to call it for anything untoward to start. Either way, it ended, and I had a lot of fun portraying the role of the "grieving ex." Hunting season was open again...
Wow, I got off topic.
Anyway, I saw Carl wondering down the street. He was wearing his cheesy suit that told everyone at the dealership that he was in charge. Only, he was missing a shoe.
And a sock.
And some toes.
I threw probably the single greatest throw in the history of throws. He was about 40 yards away, and I chucked a red Christmas light as hard as I could. The light pegged him right in the side of the head. It was beautiful. I wish more people were alive, so that somebody could have seen that! His head rocked to one side when the small bulb shattered. He didn't fall over. He didn't grab at the injury and scream. He simply turned his head and looked up at me. I would have sworn that he recognized me, but I know that’s impossible. He started walking towards my house with that slow shuffle they all have. When he got to the curb, he fell and cracked his head pretty bad. It sounded like someone dropped a hard-boiled egg on linoleum. I laughed hard.
Look, I grew up watching reruns of the Three Stooges. I was hardwired to find it funny when some asshole got hurt. The fact that it was this asshole was just icing on the cake. He got up (slowly) and made his way to my house. He was right under me. I was two stories up, what was he going to do? So, I did something I wasn't proud of…
I whipped out my dick and peed right on his head.
I know what you're thinking... What am I, twelve? I had to go. Anyway, midstream, he starts waving his arms around like he was drowning. One of his arms hits my living room window, and I hear it crack.
That motherfucker!
I ran into my storage closet and grabbed my toolbox. I went back out onto the roof, took out my hammer, looked down at him, and took very careful aim. I was going to throw that hammer through his fucking skull. They said on TV (back when it still existed) that destroying the brain was the only way to kill them. I took a deep breath and reminded myself: I was doing this because he was a zombie. NOT because he took "property" from me.
I threw that hammer so hard it went three inches deep... into my lawn. I missed.
Motherfucker again.
I had a heavy monkey wrench, so I threw that down. It connected, but it didn't do anything but split his head open and give him a confused look. So I lifted the entire tool box and leaned over the edge. It was pretty heavy. I tried to line up the toolbox with his head as best as I could. I was always pretty good with those claw games at the arcade. He looked right up at me and let out one of those moans. I smiled a bit imagining the damage that this toolbox would do to his rotting skull. Then, like something from a horror film, my foot slid out from under me. The tiles were loose because I kept pulling them off to throw at zombies. For a brief moment, I danced like a cartoon character slipping on ice. I tried my best to get my balance, but gravity would not allow me the courtesy of remaining upright. Both feet shot out in front of me, and I slammed my ass on the roof before falling two stories. The toolbox hit Carl on the head, but I hit the ground hard. My ass was killing me and I was sure I had broken my tailbone. I popped up faster than I thought I could. Carl was on the ground, but he wasn't "dead.” His eyes were moving back and forth, and his mouth was moving, but that was it. Then I saw the partial spinal cord sticking out of the side of his neck. He was paralyzed from the neck down. I kicked him in the ribs to see if there was any movement, but there was nothing. His jaw kept moving like he was chewing taffy, but no sound came out. I picked up my hammer to finish the job.
Then, curiosity got the better of me. I shoved the head of the hammer into his mouth, and I could hear teeth breaking as he tried to eat it. I straddled his chest and looked at his face. This was the closest I had ever gotten to one of these things. I felt pretty confident that he couldn't bite me with the heavy head of the hammer as far into his mouth as I was pushing it. His skin was pale. Really pale. I guess you could expect that with him being dead and all, but when you looked really close, the blood vessels under the skin were all visible. Like tiny blue spiderwebs just under the surface of the skin spreading over every square inch of his ugly face. All of the blood vessels in his eyes were shot too. Small crusts of blood in the corners of his eyes were probably from when he could still bleed. Then getting as close as I could, I could see into his eyes. They looked a little gray at first, then I got close enough to see that they weren't gray. They were just covered with dust and scratches. I guess that's what happens when you stop blinking, and your eyes don't tear up. Could he see me at all? I left the hammer in his mouth, jumped up and went to my front door. It was locked.
Dammit.
So I broke the window that Carl cracked when I was peeing on him. I crawled inside and took a cup full of water from the toilet and a hand towel. I ran back outside and straddled him again. I poured some of the toilet water into one of his eyes and used the towel to see if I could clean any of the dust off of his eye. Surprise, surprise. Some of the shit actually came off. I rubbed the towels around on his eye balls in small circular motions. Like I was cleaning a tiny window. The light gray color of his eye got a little darker. If he could see, now he could see a little better.
Maybe I should've used Windex.
I cleaned
the other eye as best as I could and just stared at him. If there was any chance of him seeing me and remembering, I wanted him to see that I was still alive. I wanted him to know I had won. What did I win? Not being dead. Could he even comprehend anything anymore? Was gloating to a zombie a completely pointless gesture? I thought for a second about bashing his head in, but for some reason I didn't. I pulled the hammer out of his mouth, taking a few teeth with it.
I looked up the street, and I saw two more of the "living challenged" wandering up the street towards me.
The Inhuman Chronicles (Book 1): Inhuman Page 2