I sobbed uncontrollably, my body shaking, unable to look away from my husband dying in front of me. Powerless to comprehend the deader coming toward me.
“Ben.” I cried out his name and shot at the deader that was still eating him, but the gun clicked on empty and I let out a wail of anguish and threw the useless piece of metal at the monster instead. It ricocheted off its head, but the deader was unflinching in its frenzied progress.
“Go…”
My eyes darted back to Ben on the ground, my eyes meeting his. He coughed up blood as he tried to speak. The deader’s hands were burrowing deeper into the depths of his stomach, and when they pulled a tumble of guts and blood were in their grasp. Another howl of anguish leaves me. The deader buries its face into the mass of internals, smacking its lips with greed.
“Go… Nina…” Ben’s eyes widened as the monster tugged and pulled at his insides again. “Go!” His voice screamed at me, the pain finally too much. He released me from his gaze and I realized how close the other deader was to me. I took a step back, crying out as it growled at me and as the scent of my husband’s blood filled my nostrils.
“Ben,” I moaned out, even as I found my feet and fled to the side of the truck. I dove into the driver’s side, Ben’s seat, and slammed the door shut behind me.
The keys were still in the ignition, and my hand wavered on them, unsure of what to do. I couldn’t see Ben, but I knew he was there. Right in front of the truck, being eaten alive. Begging for the pain to stop. Dreading the moment that he turned into one of them. I scream louder, slamming my hands down on the steering wheel and sobbing until I felt blinded by the misery.
Hot tears streamed down my face. “Ben!” I screamed his name and hit the steering wheel again, “Ben!”
The deader banged on my window, growling at me, equally angry that it couldn’t reach me. I wanted to get out and kill it—to kill all of them, to make them suffer for taking him from me—but it was pointless, and I knew that.
I wasn’t strong enough to kill them.
I was weak.
I was pathetic.
And I had let my husband die.
My heart thumped in my chest, my blood rushing through my veins, but through it all I heard Ben begging me…and I knew what he would want, what I would want if it were me. And I knew that I would never be the same again after that day. That I would leave a small piece of my soul behind with Ben.
“Go, Nina. GO!” he cried out, his voice forceful.
I started the engine, revved it hard, and slipped it into gear before I had any second thoughts. I released the handbrake, and the car shot forward and I felt and heard the crunch of Ben’s bones under the truck’s wheels as I drove over him, hopefully preventing him from ever coming back to life.
As I drove away, I looked in my rearview mirror and watched as more deaders came from the tree line and knelt down in front of Ben.
I could only pray that he suffered no more.
And I could only pray that I did enough to kill him and to stop him from coming back from the dead and becoming one of the deaders, the monsters that killed him—the very thing that he feared more than anything.
The sun was setting in front of me, and it was as beautiful as when it first rose that morning, only this time I could not admire or appreciate its beauty.
Tears continued to pour down my cheeks, warm and salty, but they did little to relieve the aching in my heart or in my head. I had been driving for over two hours and the ache in my chest hadn’t relented once. At times I could hardly breathe through the pain and I steered the truck toward the edge of the road, ready to give it all up—to end it. But then I continued onward, like Ben would have wanted me to. I had promised him I would survive, no matter what. That was the last thing I had said to him. How could I take that back now?
The sun slipped below the houses in the distance, casting an orange glow over the landscape. Up ahead I could see trucks and people moving. Could this be it? Had we been this close to being saved? Or were they just more of the deaders? I felt numb, too numb to care what it could be. So I drove toward them, unflinching for my own safety. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. Not without him—without Ben.
As I got closer, I could see a wall being built. Everything from bricks to boulders to iron pillars were being used to help the wall grow taller. And people—soldiers—were fighting, killing the few deaders that were close.
At the moment the walls were standing about twice as tall as Ben used to be, making it impossible from where I was to see inside. And it was huge, too: as long as a football stadium in length and width. Every able man and woman was helping to build it, and I pulled the truck to a halt and climbed out. The surrounding landscape was slowly being cut back, too—the trees chopped, the ground flattened—and there was surprisingly little noise, considering what was being done. There were a lot of men on guard, from what I could see—all with knives and guns of varying sizes.
This was it; this was sanctuary.
I brought the truck to a stop and I sat for a moment in silence, watching what was happening in front of me. A soldier watched me, his gaze calm and unfaltering. He was patient and he waited with his rifle in hand, never pressing me to get out of my vehicle, and I was so very grateful for that. It took several minutes for me to compose myself enough to open my door and climb out on unsteady legs, and several more before I could find my voice to speak, but I did, eventually.
“What is this place?” I asked, my voice hoarse from crying.
“This is safety—a safe compound for all. Are you staying, ma’am?” he asked, his voice stern. “We could use more help, if so.”
“A safety?” I repeated the words, but I couldn’t get my mind to wrap around the meaning of them. “There is no safety, we’re already dead.”
He frowned, but his gaze never left mine. “What we’re building here should keep us all alive, ma’am. We will keep you safe.”
I looked away from him toward the wall they were constructing, and for just a moment I let myself dare to believe it—that this might be sanctuary, that it might keep us safe.
I looked back the way I had just come—toward my past, toward the hell I had left; and then I looked toward the walls being built—toward the future, and I made a decision. I couldn’t go to Ben’s parents and tell them that he was dead. I just couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t ever forgive me, and neither could I.
“The name’s Carter. So, are you staying?” he prompted.
Another guard came forward, younger than the first one. He had a thin moustache across his top lip and a rifle in his hand. Most of these men were barely men at all; they were just kids, but at least they were trying. At least they were trying to save us, to protect us. Kids or not, they were banding together to save people.
“Are you sure we’ll be safe here?” I asked again, needing to be certain.
“The United States Army is here, ma’am, we’ll keep you safe.” He paused, his features softening, “I’ll keep you safe.” He tried to smile but didn’t quite make it.
I nodded and took a deep breath. “Then, yeah, I’m staying,” I said, slamming my truck door shut. I took one last look behind me, toward where I had left Ben, and I silently apologized to him. I knew by not going to his parents’ cabin that I would be letting him down, but on my own I knew I wouldn’t make it. And no matter what, Ben would want me to live.
He had, after all, made me promise to try and survive, no matter what I had to do.
Life After Death: Part Two.
Chapter Eleven.
One year later.
The klaxon blares to life, making me jump. A shiver darts up and down my spine and I sit up and peer into the blackness surrounding me. The whispered voices of my sleeping companions tell me that everyone is feeling the same fear.
Deaders.
Goddamned deaders, they’re here, knocking at our door again.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Just cuddle into Mama and close your eyes.”
&
nbsp; I listen to the mother to the left of me talking to her little boy. I can’t remember what he looks like or what his name is, though we have been living in the same bare bricked room for over a week now. The mother, again I have no clue what her name is, is on her own. Somewhere along the line they lost the father and husband. Somewhere along the line. The little boy is whimpering and she starts to hum to drown out the noise of the loud gunfire outside.
With every shot fired, I flinch. I flinch like I’m the one being shot. Like each bullet is driving its way into my body, tearing through my muscles and fat, bone and sinew, and killing me. Because yes, I want to die. I’m just too chickenshit to let it actually happen. Self-preservation is an annoying trait to have, and yet, as humans, we all seem to have it instilled in us. We hate what this world has become…that it now belongs to the undead. Because after a year, there has still been no sign of the tide turning, of mankind taking back what was stolen from it—life. No, there will be no coming back from it, and even if there is, things will never ever be the same again. Yet we can’t stop fighting the good fight. We can’t stop trying. And we can’t stop breathing.
None of this is a new revelation to me, and it also isn’t an old one. It just is. I don’t want to be in this world, a world where deaders rule. Where we lose loved ones to death only for them to come back to life and try to eat us alive. I don’t want to live this life of poverty and homelessness, and yes, I’m well aware that I sound like a spoiled rich bitch, but whatever. I have nothing and no one to prove anything to anymore.
I’m depressed. Well and truly depressed. We all are, but my thoughts are selfishly on myself more than anyone else. I’m surviving, just like I promised Ben I would, but I’m surviving at the cost of my humanity.
I grip my blanket and pull it around myself—an attempt to block out all of the depressing thoughts that are currently rampaging through my aching, tired body, no doubt. But of course it’s impossible. You can’t block out what I’m feeling, what I’m experiencing. You can’t block out this life because it insists upon being heard, being known, and being felt.
Death insists on being lived.
The kid next to me continues to cry, the gunshots are getting less and less sporadic, and the klaxon is still blaring loudly. I want to cover my ears, curl up on my side, and sink away to somewhere else, because everything is just so damn loud. I want to scream at it all to stop—the noises, the fighting, the fucking world. I just want to make it all stop.
The sound of footsteps come our way, the heavy stomp stomp stomp of army boots on concrete, signaling that they are coming to move us. I hate this part. When you have nothing, you hate what little you do have being taken away. My small three-foot square of cardboard, my blanket, and my pillow are pretty much all I have in the world now. Some people have army-issue cots, and there’s talk of some real beds somewhere in this place, but so far all I’ve gotten is a shitty piece of cardboard.
I begin folding my blanket up in anticipation. I like this room. It has a hole in the roof and I I’m awakened by the rising sun each morning. The walls are solid enough to keep us warm at night, but not so warm that it’s stifling, and so far, at least, we haven’t had any rat issues. But whatever, time to move. Again.
The door opens and the shadow of one of the army dudes—yes, army dudes…don’t judge me—fills the space, his rifle in his hands and ready to shoot in an instant.
“Get up and report to bunker C. You know the drill, people. The colonel said he can’t spare any bodies to take you over there himself, but we’ve done this enough times now for it not to be a problem. Keep the noise down, no running, stay calm, and lock the doors when you get inside. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out.”
And with that he turns and goes, on to the next room, to the next floor of people waiting in dreaded anticipation of what’s next. All people, sitting up in the dark and listening to the army fighting for humanity’s survival while the entire time they cowered, as I did, under their blankets, hoping that death would be swift and painless.
I stand up, gathering my meager belongings. “I fucking hate bunker C,” I grumble. And I do. Bunker C is probably the worst of them all. It’s too small for how many people get put in there and it stinks of piss.
“Language, please,” the woman next to me says quietly.
I turn to glare at her, but since a glare is only as powerful as the person on the receiving end of it and the room is dark as all hell, it’s pointless, so I choose to snap out my response. “Lady, I think my bad language is the least of your kid’s worries right now.”
“When this is all over I don’t wa—”
“This will never be over,” I interrupt angrily.
Angry. I’m always so damned angry these days. The anger burns through my veins every damned day.
I turn tail and stomp toward the door, not waiting for her response. I’m being mean—cruel, even—but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore. Because there is nothing and no one left to care about. Ben would be ashamed of me, and yet I don’t care about that either. That’s the ironic part. He would hate me being this cold, this cruel and uncaring, and yet he’s the only reason I’m still living. The only reason I choose to get up in the morning and report to my daily tasks. He is my only reason for anything.
Compared to the darkness inside the room, it’s relatively light outside. I don’t stop to examine the heaviness or the brightness of the moon lighting our way, and yet I note it all the same. My subconscious is still trying to cling to anything normal, still trying to keep me alive. My subconscious is an asshole, clearly, because there is nothing normal about this or anything else anymore. My life has become a horror story, and it isn’t even a good one. It’s more of a straight-to-DVD horror movie.
I continue across the courtyard on my path toward bunker C, trying my best to ignore the groans and shrieks of the undead just outside our walls. Sometimes it’s almost as if they are talking to each other, advising one another on the best way to get in to us and the fresh meat they know was just beyond their reach. They know we are here, and they are relentless in their pursuit of us. In some sick way I can even understand that…them. My heart is heavy with the burden of life, and theirs is full with the weight of death. Together we are opposites, and yet sometimes it’s like I can almost feel them calling to me, begging me to go outside, to nourish them and to end my own suffering.
Someone barges into me, making me stumble forward a step or two. I flinch and look around with a scowl, realizing that I have come to a complete stop. I shake my head and continue onward. Bunker C is bizarrely nowhere near bunker B, which makes no sense and has always irritated me. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that bunker C is next to bunker A and D should not even be on my radar. I mean really, what does it even matter? And yet it does.
The bunkers are set out in a ridiculous zigzag pattern, away from the outer perimeters and right next to the pig sties. Yes, we have pigs. Skinny, malnourished pigs, but pigs all the same. Of all the animals we could have had in there, we got pigs. I shake my head in disgust as I pass their sty and push open the bunker door.
We should have cows—they have multiple uses. Or chickens—again, multiple uses. But no, we got pigs. They weren’t exactly something that was chosen, either; they were brought in with a family of farmers. All of their other livestock had either succumbed to the undead on their way here or they had gotten eaten in the first few weeks behind our walls. Now all we had left of that family, barring the family of course, were their damn stinky pigs. And the way the food rations are being handed down, I have a feeling those little piggies will be receiving their last rites any day now.
I make my way to a space against the back wall and begin to make up my makeshift bed. I hate these bunkers. There are no windows, no holes in the ceiling, and no free-flowing air. It’s like being trapped in your own tomb, because once those doors shut behind us, no one will open them up until we get the all clear. Someday the deaders wi
ll overcome the army and get inside the compound, and we will be left to starve to death inside.
We used to all be segregated: families and single women all together, and single men on their own. It was safer that way. But recently we’d lost a lot of soldiers to the ongoing battle with the dead, and things like separating civilians had become redundant. I don’t like it—some of these women were extremely vulnerable—but I understand it. And if I’m honest, my first priority is always to keep the soldiers shooting at the dead rather than arranging us civilians into a more pleasant sleeping arrangement.
“Wonder how long it is before they get this shit sorted out.”
I glance to my left to a man not much bigger than me. “Excuse me?”
“I wonder how long we’ll be in here for this time.” He says it slowly, perhaps thinking that I’m either deaf or dumb.
“It depends how big of a horde there is.” I shrug noncommittally.
The man goes silent, and in the dim light I see him look around us before glancing nervously back to me. “You ever think this is all some crazy experiment?”
I roll my eyes—not that he can see the action, but I do it all the same. “No,” I reply bluntly.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, thinking how it all came about, and some things just aren’t sitting right for me,”
I turn my back on him, not wanting to listen to any more of his nonsense. And this right here, people, is exactly why I keep to myself as much as possible. Cranks. Nutjobs. Whackos. The end of the world is riddled with them. It’s like all the normal people got killed and all the assholes managed to survive. I’m not sure what that makes me, but I’m not the type to shy away from admitting my faults.
Some may say I’m an asshole, but they will never say I’m a nutjob. I know what the end of the world looks like, and it doesn’t scream “crazy government experiment.” I also don’t thrive on the abandonment of rules or the breakdown of society like some do. I don’t believe that the government is behind some secret conspiracy, or that it’s all a test of some sort. I also don’t believe that God or the devil are to blame for any of this hell. My beliefs are simple, and I don’t try to tame them or shape them into something they aren’t. I don’t try to blame anyone or anything, because what good is any of that? None of it matters, because after everyone is done trying to work out the who, the where, the why, and the what ifs, we are all going to die anyway.
The Dead Saga: Odium 0.5 (Nina's Story) Page 7