Diary of a Gay Teenage Zombie

by Justin MacCormack

  11 May 2014

  I'm still a little torn up about Friday. I feel bad about what I almost did. I've been so angry at Shane for what he did for almost a year, and I was so willing to do the same thing. I'm a monster. That's what it really comes down to, and I don't mean just being infected. I mean that the things I wanted to do, it was awful. Is this really what it's turned me into?

  Well, damn it, if it's going to turn me into a monster, then that's just how I'm going to treat it. But I'll put it to good use. Just watch.

  12 May 2014

  Mr Price walked home the same way every night. For the last few months, I'd caught sight of him from the school bus as we drove past Euston Road.

  Nobody will miss him.

  13 May 2014

  Right, let me lay this down and get my mind straight on this.

  Mister Price is a monster, every bit as much as monster as I am. He's beaten his wife multiple times, he's chased her and threatened her repeatedly. He's shown utterly no remorse for his actions. While I had sat in my room, he had hurt her just on the other side of the wall. She had to move out and find a small apartment on her own, her life had been destroyed. Meanwhile he walks around without any shame. The worst part is that while he was doing it, he pretended to be normal. He made it all seem so normal. He didn't look evil, or act evil, or brag about what he did. It's as if he was lying about it, telling us that he was another person entirely. I feel somehow, in my gut, that this makes it all worse.

  If anyone should be eaten by zombies, it should be him. Shouldn't it?

  14 May 2014

  I spoke to Shane tonight. I asked him "Have you ever eaten anyone?"

  He replied "I'm not sure I want to talk about that. I'm sorry."

  I'm not stupid, I know what that means. It means that he has, and he feels bad about it. Or maybe he doesn't feel bad about it. Maybe he's done what I'm thinking of, but feels bad about it. Will I feel the same way?

  15 May 2014

  I realise that it wasn't my intention to kill Mr Price. That's not what I'd wanted to do, but I didn't realise it at the time. I thought that I wanted to make him pay. But more than that, I think, I wanted to see if I could resist the urge. Challenge myself to fight the hunger. To see if I could get up really close to him, scare him, but not lose control of myself. I think I wanted to prove to myself that I'm not a monster. That the hunger doesn't control me. That I'm not just a beast.

  I got off the bus a stop early today and walked. I knew that I'd see him walking down the street, as he did every day. I could feel my head swimming. I kept telling myself that I was going to eat him, that he was going to deserve it. I didn't really mean it, I think I was just meaning to scare him. I caught sight of him before he noticed me; short, dumpy, dressed in his usual brown slacks and grey shirt, his hair short and combed back, looking so entirely unassuming. I walked onwards, towards him. He didn't notice me, not until I was standing almost five foot from him. He glanced up, a look of surprised recognition crossing his pale face.

  He was trying to think of what to say. I wanted to say something first, I didn't want him to have the chance to say anything. I gritted my teeth. I felt the words come up into my throat. "You should stay away from her" I spat.

  I could see the next few moments unfold in my mind. I'd grab him, pushing my face towards his and growl the words again. He would pull back. He would whimper. Then he'd turn and scurry away as quickly as his flabby legs could carry him. He'd be scared. I'd have helped. More than that, I'd have felt bad that I couldn't bring myself to eat him, but I'd have known that I was in control. I could see it all so clearly.

  "Excuse me?" he asked, flustered. He looked nervous now.

  I inhaled, and tried to shore myself up. I pictured myself standing my ground, and my hands clenched tighter into fists, my fingernails digging against my palm. "You should stay away from her" I rasped.

  Mr Price looked so confused. Behind his glasses, his eyes wide as a deer's. And that was it - I knew that this was it. This was the furthest I could go. I couldn't bite him, I certainly couldn't kill him. I wasn't a monster. I could threaten him, sure, but only because he was the bad guy. And I wasn't a monster.

  He glanced around, quickly, almost furtively. We were alone, I realised. The street was empty. And Mr Price noticed it as well. Immediately, his expression changed. The look of innocence across his face melted, sliding from his features as they changed into sharp and bristling rage. His eyes narrowed, his lips pursed, I could see his teeth grit and he seemed for a moment to grow larger. His hand shot out and grabbed around the front of my shirt, faster than I could see it. His grip was harsh, violent. Before I knew it, I was stumbling backwards. "You little shit!" he rasped through his teeth, pushing me backwards between two buildings, into a small brick-lined alleyway.

  My back slammed against one of the walls and I tried to pull myself away, but Mr Price was still towering over me, my shirt pulled into a thin scruff in his fist. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he hissed, and all I could think at that moment was that this was exactly what Mrs Price must have felt so many times. He yanked me closer to him, away from the wall, and then drove me back against it with all the force of a punch. I felt a sharp snap as something broke, and my left shoulder lost all sensation. Was it broken, I thought? Won't someone see? No, nobody would see. He knows how to be careful about things like that.

  He pushed himself close, loose specks of spittle landing across my face. I could see the red, puffy skin beneath his eyes, and he snarled at as his voice rose to a bellow, "You little shit! You want to keep out of my business, you little shit!" I felt another impact somewhere in my stomach, but I didn't even notice the pain as he punched me. It seemed distant, alien. I wasn't thinking about it, couldn't focus on it. He was standing so close. My thoughts were growing dim. But my senses were not, they were becoming sharper. I could see the pores in his skin, the blood vessels in his eyes. I could smell his flesh.

  He pulled back to punch me again. I latched my hand onto his throat, and bit into his neck. I felt his blood hit the roof of my mouth, and my teeth clenched down on his skin. I pulled my mouth back, and his flesh peeled from the sinew.

  When I managed to pull myself away from the darkness that clouded my senses, Mr Price was laying on the floor of the alleyway. His head lay back, the tear in his throat grinning up at me like a second mouth. His midsection was torn open along eager, frantic rips, like the wrapping around a Christmas present. My hands were covered with what was inside, and so was my face. My mouth was caked in blood, like a monster's mask.

  16 May 2014

  The body was where I left it.

  I left the house early this morning, almost four o'clock. I couldn't sleep. I had washed repeatedly when I got home, trying to scrub the feel of the blood from my face. My dad had been speaking with someone on the phone about his plumbing business, and my mother was watching a documentary. They were just continuing with their lives as if everything was normal.

  I slipped out of the house this morning, the sun hadn't even started to rise yet. I moved quickly through town. It was dry, and a little cold, and I soon came to the alleyway. The body, what was left of it, was still where I had hidden it, pushed behind a narrow row of green wheelie-bins. The blood had not washed away, though. I had hoped that it would have rained, that the rainwater would have washed the blood from the ground, but it had not. The discarded mattress that I had pulled over the blood would not hold, I realised. It was a temporary solution at best.

  I didn't want to look at him again. Well, what was left of him. The torn and tattered pieces of what was once Mr Price, stashed away like some kind of half-forgotten memory, repulsed me. But I couldn't leave him there, where anyone could so easily stumble upon it.

  By the time I had ripped the limbs free from what was once the body and stashed them into so many black bin bags, the sun had almost woke.

  I must have been crazy to go into school, but I did. What else was I meant to do? The whole world
had gone crazy, and all I wanted, needed, was some scrap of normality. I wandered from class to class, barely even noticing the other kids around me. The day descended into a dull, hazy blur. I could barely think, barely feel. Megan, an arrogant little blond in English class who is convinced of her own status as a special little princess, mumbled something about me being a space cadet, probably on drugs. I heard it, but I didn't want to reply. It was clear what she really meant - I didn't belong here, among them. I belonged down in the dark, with the monsters.

  When I got home, my mother told me that she had made white chocolate cake for me, just like she did when I was a kid.

  17 May 2014

  I don't know where to go from here, what I should do. Should I call the police? I don't know what to tell them. I don't know who I can discuss this with. Have they even found the body? Is anyone even looking?

  I want to talk to Archer, but I really can't. I mustn't. He cares about me, maybe even loves me. I don't want to destroy that. Maybe Shane will know?

  But do I really want to risk asking him? Jesus, I really don’t know. I’ve been putting that off for weeks now.

  18 May 2014

  Archer called. I didn't answer. I know that I said a few days ago that I wanted to feel normal, but what does that even mean? I'm not normal, I'm a zombie. And even if I weren't, I'm gay. I'm hardly the picture of what normal is. That's the hardest thing for me to grapple with. So yeah, I talked to Shane.

  He told me that talking about eating people make him uncomfortable, but he recognises that it's part of who he is. He has to struggle with it, like how people who live in the closet have to struggle with being gay.

  That's a bad metaphor. I mean, yeah, I suppose that the desire to eat human flesh is kinda like the desire to get down and nasty with another dude - they're both urges, lustful and powerful. I think that they're part of my duel identity, too. It's natural for a gay man to want another man, and maybe it's just as natural for a zombie to eat people. Maybe.

  In that case, if I follow that metaphor to its logical conclusion, me and Shane are both zombies in the closet about eating people. And I've just cheated on Archer with Mr Price.

  Yeah, this is a stupid metaphor. Sod it.

  19 May 2014

  There's still no word in the newspaper about Mr Price being missing, or about any bodies.

  School is... It just 'is'. It's faded into the background. Megan keeps making snooty comments about me being whacked out on drugs, but I could not bring myself to care about the opinions of a prissy little girl whose only possible future talents will be as a baby factory for sleazy old men. Comments from the other guys actually almost penetrate the shell around me at times, because they tend to work the gay angle into their insults.

  None of them have any ideas what I did. What I am. If they knew...

  Jesus, what would happen to me if they knew?

  20 May 2014

  I'm checking the news on my phone almost constantly. It's been a week and there hasn't been a word about what I did.

  I went out this afternoon to go to the alleyway. I checked the bins. The blood has been washed away, mostly. Just a few full brown, ugly patches remain. The bags with Mr Price in them has gone.

  When I got home, my dad told me that Archer had been over to see me. I had missed him.

  21 May 2014

  I had a dream tonight.

  I can't remember the last time I had a dream, especially one as vivid and realistic as this one. I don't think I've been able to remember a single dream that I've had since I was turned.

  Turned? Really? Gay people don't 'turn' other people gay. But, a lot of guys do realise that they're gay only after they meet other gay people. The realisation of meeting another gay person gives them a sense of permission to listen to who he is. As if it's saying "hey, it's okay to be who you are, really". It's more of an awakening. Not every gay man awakens like this, but it does happen. It's another way in which the whole zombie as a metaphor for homosexuality falls apart.

  But I still had the dream.

  I am lost in a forest. The trees are thick and old and covered, wrapped, in thorns. The ground is a well-worn track between the briars. It is night, and I am not alone. There is a beast there with me.

  The beast is like no other animal I've seen. It's larger and more untamed than a wolf, sleeker and more predatory than a lion. It was as vast as a dream, and as dangerous as an unrestrained desire to harm and hunt and hurt. It crawled its way through the undergrowth, and I knew what it was. I knew it, without having to ask it, without having to fear it. It's eyes burned with hunger, and their firelight lit its path onwards, burning and crushing and devouring.

  It was the hunger, and it was the Beast. And it was me.

  It turned its gaze and, through the briars and the bracken, it glared at me, threatening to devour me too. To snap me up in its eager jaws and make me part of itself.

  And I had awakened it. By my actions, by the moment of weakness that had ended in the taste of blood smattered across my lips, I had stirred the beast from its slumber. In its eyes, I could see a promise - a threat, maybe, or a destiny. He would make me one with himself. He would devour me, crushing me within its glistening teeth. And, in doing so, turn me into what he was. It wanted me to become just like him - a hunter, a predator. A beast.

  22 May 2014

  They have found the body.

  I found the news report this evening. Dad had left the newspaper on the dining room table, and the story sat nestled on the fifth page. Not even a headline on the front page. He was found when the rubbish men unloaded the garbage truck at the recycling plant, and the police were requesting anyone who could help identify the body to come forward.

  Identify the body? That means that they don't know who it is yet. The article didn't mention any of the injuries to him either, though. Maybe they thought they were done by the truck? I don't know.

  Dad seen me reading it and looked at me strangely. "You alright?" he asked me. I wasn't, I felt sick. I told him that I just wanted to lay down for a bit.

  23 May 2014

  Archer came over to see me and do lunch today, sat down, and told me to tell him what was wrong.

  I couldn't think what I should say. On one side, I feel as if I'm lying to him. On the other, I feel as if I'm a danger to him. But above them all, I feel like he completes me.

  I told him that I was sorry, that I didn't want him to think that I was avoiding him. He learned over and took my hands in his. All I could think was, he was so warm. He asked if I was scared. I said that I was, because that's true at least. I was terrified.

  He said that I shouldn't be. That he will be here for me.

  That's what I'm afraid of.

  24 May 2014

  Mrs Price was over at our home when I got back from school. She was talking to my mother. From what I was able to overhear, I learned that the police had been over to talk to her, because Mr Price had been reported as missing. It seems that his office called in when he didn't show up for work for several days and, because she was the next of kin, the police asked her questions. She told my mother that she was worried that they suspected her of something. My mother told her that he "probably slung his bloody hook and pissed off up north or something". That seemed to make her happy.

  25 May 2014

  History class. I was sitting at the back, while the teacher discussed the Tudors and their wars. I wasn't listening. I was barely even thinking. Nothing about school seems right any more. Being around so many people seems to be just inherently wrong.

  I was scribbling in the back of my book. Large circles of ink, round and round. The teacher called one of the other kids up to read. I could barely focus on him. I haven't slept in days, I know.

  As the readers voice faded out and became a dull, empty whisper, I caught a smell. Just fleeting at first, and then it became overpowering. Meat. That was when I realised that this was all that I could smell. The musty odour of the classroom was gone, overtaken by the pow
erful scent of human flesh. It brought to my mouth the memory of the bitter copper taste of blood, and with a dawning understanding I came to realise that the smell was coming from all around me.

  Then I felt it. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it, dark and black and eager to hunt. I knew it without even looking up from my desk - I knew it because it was there, right there, just sitting out of the corner of my eye, just as it had hid in the briars behind the trees in my dream.

  I started to turn my head, the hairs on my neck bristling, yet still eager to see it. I wanted to see it again, I realised. I looked, and there it was. The beast, giant and impossible, it's meat-scented breath flew from its squat nose and landed hot on my face, it's eyes cold and wild and impenetrable. It sat infinitely huge, it's glistening, matted hair filling the room behind me.

  I slammed my book shut and leapt to my feet, ready to flee. Not today, I said. I wouldn't give in to it today. But I knew that one day, I would. I'd have no choice. As I stood, the beast was gone.

  A chuckle rose from the other kids in the class. The teacher asked if anything was wrong, and I muttered something about a spider. The chuckle rose to a laugh, and I slunk back onto my chair.

  I have to get out of here. I can’t be around people, not like this. It’s just too dangerous. I’m not sure what part of my messed-up psyche is dreaming up this crazy thing, but if I don’t get as far away from the people around me as I can, it’s going to hurt them as well.

  But where, or what, am I supposed to do?

  26 May 2014

  After giving it as much thought as I can, I have decided. I'm going to run away from home.

  27 May 2014

  Dad told me today that his plumbing company should be up and running by the middle of summer and he expects to start earning a profit shortly afterwards. He seems so full of hope for this, so determined to make it work. It's strange to see him like this after so many months. I actually really hope that it works out okay for him.