10 Zombie Stress by David Duperre
Dashing into my apartment on the fourth floor, I slammed the door behind me and knocked my tablet off the table, causing it to kick on. “This sucks!” was all I could think. I was going to turn into a mindless, flesh-eating monster. The torrential music of the Violent Wasps blared through the portable speakers, adding to the chaotic thoughts in my mind. “This can’t happen to me! I’m a vegan for God’s sake!” It was true. I had not so much as looked at a piece of meat in months. My girlfriend Jennie was a vegan, so by default I was a vegan too. You do that when you are hard up for a girl and trying to impress her. “Oh, God! Jennie!” What the hell am I going to tell her? Who am I kidding? I’ll be a biter within an hour or two. She’ll get the hint when I try to suck her brains out… and not in the good way.
Moments earlier, I had been downstairs on the stoop waiting for my buddy Pete. I was going to wingman for him down at the Venus Purse this evening. I was standing there, watching the last shadows of the sun drop below the crowded urban skyline. I took another slug from a fifth I brought down with me and tossed my cigarette butt over the stair railing into the rubbish pile below. That’s when it got me. The thing jumped straight up and latched onto my left arm. It must have been slumped down in the garbage. Rubbish had gotten stacked so high lately there could have been a undead orgy going on in there and I wouldn't have noticed. I couldn’t even smell the thing because the whole area already reeked of filth and rot. Before I was able to pull my arm back, the rotter chomped down on my forearm. I smashed it across the head with the bottle in my free hand, cracking its skull and causing one of its eyes to pop from its socket. The decaying beast let go and stumbled backwards. Still holding the broken end of the bottle, I stabbed at its face several more times until it collapsed. I had killed it, but it had essentially killed me as well. Only after looking at my bloodied arm did I finally feel the rush of pain and the realization that I was doomed. Panicked, I ran back into the building.
“Downtown is a terrible place to live,” I had been told over and over. “You got to get yourself out of there.” But, did I listen? No. The zombie apocalypse breaks out and I’m in a run-down, five-story brownstone by the tracks. Sure, it was incredibly dangerous, but living near the club scene downtown made me the envy of the “in” crowd. The danger factor made this place all the more popular. I was on the bleeding edge of existence. Hipsters everywhere would give their left arm to live in this neighborhood. Ironically, things had become rather literal for me now.
I never took this zombie problem issue too seriously. I mean, sure, undead corpses shuffled around these days, craving human flesh and all that. But, it’s not like they were hard to run away from, or you could cave their skulls in with a handy metal pipe or even set them on fire. I watched Pete once set a rotter ablaze using nothing more than a lighter and a can of hair spray. “Biter Bar-B-Q!” he exclaimed as the zombie lit up like a dried Christmas tree. You don’t realize how flammable these things can be when they’ve been out in the sun too long. It was awesome to watch but got out of hand when the flaming corpse wandered over and set Pete’s car on fire. That’s also when I learned that insurance doesn’t cover zombie attacks. Stingy bastards!
So, it was never that big a deal in my mind. I was more worried about the rats in the halls of the building than the occasional rotter shambling nearby. The cops did a decent job of clearing out the biters when reported and the military would napalm the shit out of areas where heavy mobs were found. Hell, I felt safer in the inner city, since the government was hesitant to bomb out large populations of the uninfected. Burning up large portions of the voting public always caused a significant dip in the polls. But the feds wouldn’t think twice about bombing a rural farm or remote survival encampment.
I did my best to calm down and consider my remaining options. I was about to become one of “them.” A menace to the people around me and a danger to the neighborhood at large. Not that I gave a damn about most of the losers around here, but I really didn’t want people seeing me all slacked-jawed, drooling, and wandering the streets for meat like some kind of homeless junkie. The way the rotters smell, their grotesque hair style, and all their clothes eventually becoming so dated that it would be impossible to stay fashionable. Hard to stay hip when no one cares about the band name printed across your shirt anymore.
I thought I should do the right thing and end it all before I turned. A quick note to anyone who might find my body and a gunshot straight through the head, simple and effective. Now, if I only had a gun… or bullets… or the balls to carry it out. “Time to grow a pair,” I said aloud, trying to instill some courage in myself. “But first I’ll need to write a note!” I began to scramble around for paper and something to write with. Tossing through a couple of drawers filled with junk, all I was able to find were some note pads with kittens on it that Jennie had left behind. Kittens definitely do not provide the gravitas you expect in a suicide note. I’d have to find something else.
Yeah, stall and let the inevitable happen. Everyone would understand. “Seems like he was going to kill himself but he just couldn’t find the proper stationary to write his note before he turned”: that’s what they’d say. Bullshit!
Then came a heavy pounding at the door. “Oi, mate?” a voice called from the hallway. “You in there?” Before I could move an inch, Pete threw open the door, his hulking frame filling the entryway. In one burly arm he held a wholesale-size tin of pork and beans that was now half empty. In the other hand he wielded a spoon more appropriate for serving than dining. Pete ladled huge helpings into his mouth even as he spoke. “What gives? I head downstairs, look around, and you’re still up here. You flakin’ on me tonight?” He noticed the deep gash marks and blood running down my arm. “What’s that? Biter get you or somethin’?”
I didn’t know how to answer or even if I should. I had seen Pete twist the head off a rotter like he was opening a beer bottle. Not sure if he wouldn’t do the same to me. It would, however, solve my current dilemma. Meekly, I answered, “Yeah… got bit…”
Pete furrowed his brow and paused. It appeared as though he was sizing me up to see how easily I would fit through the window he was about to toss me through. Instead, he responded, “So, you are flakin’ on me tonight?”
“What am I going to do, Pete? I’m going to die!”
“Don’t worry, mate. You’ll come back,” he joked, as he let himself in and headed towards my kitchen.
“Oh, thanks. I won’t exactly be myself by then.” I was in no mood for jokes.
Pointing the sloppy spoon at me, “You thought about killin’ yourself before you turn? That’s what most people do. I can help you with that.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing? Updating my status on social media?”
I was cut off by a terse rapping noise emerging from the floor. It was our troll of a landlord, Mrs. Vanderhoff. She was a crusty old woman who had inherited the building from her husband when she lost him to the zombie scourge. She was just under five feet tall and built like a bowling ball. She had no patience for younger folks like Pete and myself, cursing our entire generation as the cancer that put an end to the human race. You couldn’t hand in your rent without a lecture on the ills of society today: “In my day, we had people, doctors, scientists, people who got things done! Guys who would find a cure for these diseases. And what do you people do? Nothing! Drugs, sex, drinking, more sex, that’s all you people know. Worthless kids these days. You’re all worthless!”
I had the extra special privilege of being located in the apartment above hers. She had no tolerance for loud noises, strange smells, or anyone she didn’t recognize in the building. Yet the place was infested with rats. I could only assume they were her pets, as she did nothing to get rid of them. The pounding continued until I managed to turn off the music.
“Fucking bitch, that Vanderhoff,” Pete grumbled. “I still haven’t doled out to her on me flat for last month. Rotters I can handle, b
ut that woman gives me the creeps. She’s like a human tick, all bloated in the middle but with these spindling arms and legs. I can’t stand to even be in the same room as her. Swear I’ve actually seen zombies move away from her. Becoming a rotter could only improve her looks. Betcha the old bag’s somehow immune.” Opening the fridge, Pete began to fill his arms with my precious stash of crafted micro-brews. “Seeing as you are not going to be needing these anymore…”
“Hold on, wait a minute,” I began. “What if the bite didn’t take? What if I’m not infected? Maybe I’m immune? It could happen, right?”
Pete briefly thought about this possibility. He took a second look at the vicious bite on my arm. “That bite there, hurt much?”
Surprisingly, while it did before, I no longer noticed any pain. This was odd, as I have been known to cry over a splinter in my finger. “It’s not that bad anymore,” I noted.
“Sorry, mate, you’re turning,” Pete stated matter-of-factly and returned to raiding my refrigerator.
“No, no! This can’t be happening to me. I’ve always been careful. I’m cautious about everything.”
“That’s for certain,” Pete added, his voice echoing from within the fridge. “How many times you hook up with that same bird… ah, Jeana…”
“Jennie,” I corrected him. “We’ve been taking it slow. I wanted more than just some hook up. I was changing for her. I bought her clothes, I ate her awful cooking, and I even rummaged up that specific brand of makeup she demanded. Things were going to be different with her. I gotta give her a call.” I searched the room for my phone.
“Special?” Pete pulled the armload of loot from the fridge and piled it onto the kitchen table. “Seriously, mate. No one is into that anymore. Have you not looked around, it’s the fuckin’ apocalypse out there. Ain’t no one got any time for a relationship. Chicks are willing to hook up with any man who still has a pulse and looks like they can fight off a rotter, if only to have a safe place to sleep for the night. You’ve been setting yourself up for heartbreak.” A quick scan across the cluttered apartment: “Oi, that tablet there, I’m claiming that, too. Oh, does that have your collection of Sweat Party on it? That’d be epic.”
“You’re not taking that.” I pointed at the digital tablet as I grabbed the two-way off the table. “I want Jennie to have it. Something to remember me by.” Pete shrugged, twisted open one of my brews, and commenced to finish off his tin. “Jennie, you there. Pick up!” I yelled into the receiver. I called for her again and again. What if I couldn’t get hold of her in time? Answer, please!
“Hello,” Jennie’s sweet soft voice came across the radio.
“Jennie! So glad I was able to get a hold of you.” My heart pounded, the urgency in my voice was evident.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You sound terrible. Were you in an accident? You didn’t wreck your car, did you?”
“Jennie, I don’t know how to tell you this.” I hesitated. The news would devastate her but I simply didn’t have the time to ease her into it. “I’ve been bitten.”
“Oh, God!” she exclaimed. “Is it bad? How long do you have?”
“I don’t know.” I turned to Pete, who had more experience in zombie-related matters, “How bad am I? How long do you think I have?”
He gave me the once-over. “You’re starting to look a little pale. I’ve seen this happen way too many times. I would say you’ve got about an hour. Hour and a quarter tops before you’re fully ripened.”
“I’ve got just over an hour,” I repeated over the air waves. “Honey, this is it. If you see me again, I won’t be the man you remember.”
“Well, that’s for sure,” she answered, surprisingly unfazed by the dire update I just gave her. “Is that Pete I hear? Is he over there?”
“Um, yes. He’s here with me.” I imagined that she was thankful that there was someone familiar to be by my side during my final hours. At least that’s what I wanted to believe.
“Ask if he can pick me up tonight and take me to the Venus Purse with him?” she said, without a hint of alarm.
“What?!” My heart practically stopped.
“Yeah, tell her I can swing by her place about nine,” Pete piped, easily overhearing the conversation. “I’m gonna need the keys to your car, mate. I’m kinda light on wheels these days. Heh, remember that night? Zombie Bar-B-Q!”
“What the hell, Jennie?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My body hadn’t even turned cold yet and she was already making plans. For Christ’s sake, I was still talking to her on the phone! “I love you and you’re already moving on?”
“Aw, don’t be that way,” her voice cooed. I had heard this tone before, often accompanied with another crazy explanation as to why she absolutely had to have some new shoes or some brand of jeans she saw in a store window that was teeming with biters. “I loved you too and we had some fun times together. But you’re a zombie now and I just can’t see a future with us, especially once your skin starts to fall off. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Introduce you like, ‘Here’s my undead boyfriend. He doesn’t talk much, kinda gross to look at, and terrible in bed but, hey… he’s a keeper!’ I don’t think so.” Her cold sarcasm hurt more than the thought of joining the ranks of the walking dead.
“So, that’s it? It’s been swell but time to move on? Is that all there is?” I was devastated.
“I guess so,” she summed up, before adding, “Tell Pete nine tonight would be great. Oh, and have him bring me your vinyl collection over since you won’t be listening to much of anything anymore.”
“I’m on it,” Pete yelled back and immediately headed towards my box of mint condition records.
“Great!” Jennie replied over the radio. I wasn’t even part of the conversation. I had already become a ghost in my own home. “Gotta run, babe. Thanks for everything. Love you! Bye!”
That was it. Jennie was out of my life for what little remained of it. Our life together was so meaningless that she was able to move past it during a two-minute phone call. On the other hand, maybe I should have been happy that she wasn’t suffering. I didn’t know what or how to think.
Pete hefted the crate of albums with a grunt. It had taken me nearly a decade to build that collection, filling the crate so full that I struggled to drag it across the room, and now here was Pete balancing it on his shoulder with one arm. I ignored everything, standing there staring at the black screen of the phone. Pete ported the cargo out and dropped it off in the hall. He then returned to the beer he had opened and stood next to me, placing his heavy hand on my shoulder. “How you feelin’?”
Overall, I didn’t feel much of anything. I wasn’t overly cold or warm. My arm didn’t ache and the confusion and panic in my head began to clear. The realization that Jennie so easily moved on without me should have brought me to tears, but there was nothing. My heart wasn’t beating hard anymore, I wasn’t flushed with anger and frustration as I would have expected. There was nothing save for a small twinge of hunger in the pit of my stomach. “I’m a little hungry.”
“Yeah, you ain’t got much time. You come up with a plan yet?”
“I was thinking of doing the honorable thing, save myself from infecting anyone else. That was the plan before, but now… now, I’m not sure what I want to do.” I was dumbstruck. So many things left undone, where to start.
“You better come up with something quick. How about I take you up to the roof? One jump and it’s all over. Bonus points if you land on that big crab Vanderhoff, taking her out as well. I’d owe you for that one.”
I wasn’t listening. Instead, I wandered over to the couch and slumped down on its worn cushions. “This isn’t how I thought things would end for me,” I heard myself moan. “I had plans… dreams. I wanted to be remembered for more than… well, for something. My life sucked. My unlife will probably suck as well.”
“Listen, mate, I hear you. Not everyone gets what they want and people rarely get to write their own ending.” He cros
sed the room and towered over me on the couch. “What you want? To go out with a bang, be remembered? It’s still not too late for you to make a lasting impression.” He polished off the beer in his hand, downing nearly all of it in a single swig. “Now if it were me in your situation, I would accept my new role. If I am to be a rotter in this new zombie land, I’d bloody well be the scariest fuckin’ rotter this city has ever known. I’d doll me up in some heavy gear, helmet and all to protect me soft noggin. Toss off one last time before me prick fell off and then go place meself in an area where no one would suspect a biter to be. Wait for the turnin’. It would be epic!”
I didn’t doubt for an instance that zombie Pete would become a menace to society. I could picture his hulking build in riot gear terrorizing what remained of the living. Those huge arms of his tearing into helpless saps like myself, rending the flesh from their bones… rending flesh from their bones… “What’s left in the fridge?” I asked.
“Not much,” he replied. “I saw some ketchup packets, jars of green stuff, and what appeared to be a container of tofu or some veggie shit. All of that rabbit food you’ve eating.”
The vegan diet, the crap I put up with to try and impress Jennie. What a wasted effort. “You got anything more substantial at your place? Something more… well, meaty?”
“There it is.” He bent over to get a closer inspection of my face. “Your eyes are beginning to glaze over now. Won’t be long before that ‘meaty’ urge consumes you and you start sizing me up like a steak dinner. Tell you what, you should put on some shredded jeans and that heavy leather jacket you were wearing last week. Slick up your hair and head over to the Purse. That pale skin guise you’ve got going on is the dog’s bollocks. Head into the mosh pit while you still got a mind to do so and dance the rest of your life away. You turn there, start tearing into those pricks and posers. It would be a good hour before anyone knew what was going on and by then it would be too late. They would all be zombified. Brilliant! Fuckin’ legendary!”
Apoc Series (Vol. 1): Whispers of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Page 22