Eve (or: 'How to be a Zombie and not Murder Everyone')

by Cesar Vitale

  "I'm fine mom," said Eve, dragging her feet from the blanket and carefully using it to push her backpack -- resting dangerously by her mother's side on the floor -- under the bed.

  Written in magic marker across the front pockets and the backpack's logo was the word 'Freak'.

  "Principal Erikson told me you punched a boy today."

  '-- first confirmed case outside the state of Pennsylvania. New York governor says –'

  "Well, tell Principal Erikson thanks for putting the word out," Eve replied, still staring at the ceiling.

  Her mother chuckled. "Eve… come on."

  "I'm fine mom, really." Eve turned to face her mother at last. "I can take care of myself."

  "Oh, it's not you I'm worried about. It's the other kids."

  Eve smiled, and her mother ran her hand through her hair.

  "How's Damian?"

  Distracted, Eve fumbled inside her pocket for the golden locked, playing with it between her fingers.

  "He's in Philadelphia," she replied, trying to sound casual. "His father is working with the UN on that whole virus thing."

  "Are you worried?"

  '-- referring to the city of Philadelphia as 'ground zero', an attitude which some people deem –'

  "No," lied Eve, releasing the locket and getting up from the bed. "No, he'll be fine. He can take care of himself too."

  I peek through the cover at the downstairs level, just to get a sense of the place, you know? See if it's still filled with zombies.

  Yup. Sill packed like a Taylor Swift concert down there.

  Levon's holding my arm so tight it might break. I turn back and write on the notepad:

  Quiet.

  We barely had time to hide. After bearded man and his partner ran away, I managed to lift Levon from the floor and, like a Disney prince, carry him towards the far end of the warehouse, push his fat ass up the ladder and hide him under an old polyester boat cover, squeezing myself in right before the influx of hungry demons came through the door. We're lying down pressed against the wall of what is less a second floor and more of a platform – like the upper level of a barn.

  A herd… that's the term for it. Incredibly large packs of zombie roaming around like storms across the whole country.

  I hear the noise of wood cracking, and Levon presses my arm tighter.

  "Grrr," I whisper, telling him to be quiet.

  Peeking through the cover again, I spot a rotten hand reaching out for the last steps of the ladder.

  Oh, yes, zombie fact number fourteen: Zombies climb ladders. Some even carry half-conscious fat idiots up them.

  Still keeping an eye on the hand, I reach for the notebook and write:

  Zombie. Upstairs. Shut. It.

  Levon lets out a high-pitched murmur. I turn back to face him and underline the words 'Shut' and 'It' before turning back to –

  The zombie's up on his feet now, looking and sniffing around, and a second pair of hands appears on top of the latter. Soon enough, four fully-grown, grey skinned zombies are roaming around the 10 by 20 square feet second level of the warehouse, looking for the source of Levon's meat smell.

  Downstairs, I can see the place is still packed enough for a stage dive. I hide back under the cover.

  "There's something here," one of the zombies whisper. "I can smell it."

  They are getting closer. This is bad. Really bad.

  How bad?

  These are the things currently resting on the second floor of the warehouse:

  An old rusty bike by the left corner.

  Me and Levon under a boat cover.

  They are going to find us. And I can't fight off a thousand zombies.

  Across the polyester, the contours of four zombies darken the light from outside. The shadow of their hands reaching out for the cover starts growing and growing and grow --

  "No food here," I reply, pulling the coat over my head and then back down in a hush, hiding Levon. "I checked."

  The zombies stop. I have one hand still hidden under the coat, the rest of my body sitting crossed-legged out of it, staring up at the creatures.

  "We smell meat," the zombie says.

  "Not here," I say. "Downstairs. That dude that was knifed."

  They step forward, closing in on me. I search around in the dark for my notepad under the cover.

  "Why are you hiding here?" one of the zombies ask.

  "Cause… you know… you're zombies," I reply, with a faint smile.

  I find Levon's eye under the cover and poke it. Levon goes, "Outch!"

  The zombies go in alert mode instantly. They start looking around and behind me, searching for the voice.

  "That was me," I say, cringing. "There's no one here, really."

  "FOOD! FOOD!" One of the other zombies grunt. Now two more have come up from the ladder, scanning and sniffing like dogs. "THERE'S FOOD HERE!"

  My hand touches the pad, finally, and, without looking, I scribble:

  Jump. Window.

  I hope it makes sense, at least. The zombies close in, and I feel their hands grabbing me, trying to pull me away.

  Looking behind at the window just above the cover, I'm hoping my writing made sense. I'm hoping Levon could read it.

  The six zombies now all have their hands on me, and they pull my body forward hard like they're trying to move an obese person from bed to bed. I tumble forward, leaving the way open for the cover. They close in on Levon's shape under it.

  "FOOD!" I yell, desperate. "THERE! FOUND IT!"

  The zombies turn to look at me, and I point downstairs.

  "Shut up," one of them reply. They turn back. They grab the boat cover and, in a swift movement, pull it away.

  Nothing. Levon's gone.

  "Told you, assholes," I say, letting out a big breath of air (well, not really, but you know).

  The zombies grunt and start penguining their way back downstairs, one by one.

  'There has been no reports from Philadelphia since Monday, says our correspondent from New York. The high-risk zone demarcation has been extended to Maryland, Delaware and parts of Eastern Ohio. Secretary General of the UN Humberto Rodriguez has stated that --'

  "Eve! Eve, come on. We gotta go!"

  Eve kept her eyes on the TV, where amateur cellphone footage displayed explosions, army trucks filled with soldiers and injured people roaming around the outskirts of Cleveland. Aerial shots of Philadelphia showed most streets deserted, with herds of ragged dressed people roaming around like penguins across the few neighborhoods that didn't look completely abandoned.

  "Eve!"

  A sudden crash brought Eve's attention back to real life. Out the living room window to her right, a big piece of sidewalk was lying in a circle of broken glass under the frame. Through the crack, Eve could see fire and chaos on the street outside.

  "Eve!" her mother pleaded again. "Come on, we gotta get in the car! We need to leave now if we're going to make it to L.A."

  Eve looked up at her mother. Fishing inside her pants, she grabbed the locket again, gripping it so tight her fingers went numb. She couldn't focus. She couldn't think. The only thing on her mind all week had been Damian. He hadn't called, he hadn't texted. He wasn't answering Skype. Eve didn't even know if he was still –

  "EVE!"

  All right, tell me you've made it, Levon. Come on, tell me you weren't eaten by these assholes, please. If you were going to die anyway, at least I could have been the one to eat you. I'm starving.

  I elbow my way through the herd like I'm in a nightclub, trying to get to the warehouse exit. Finally managing to pop out of the crowd into the sunset outside, I look around. Nothing. No Levon.

  I go through a couple of lost zombies separated from the herd, making way towards the side of the building. Most of them, though – I notice, with relief – are still inside looking for meat.

  "Levon!" I yell, spotting him just as I turn the corner to the side of the warehouse. "You're ok!"

  He's sitting with his back again
st the wooden wall, looking up at the sun. I bounce my way to him.

  "I jumped," he says, in a faint voice.

  "Yeah, you did, you animal nerd, you!" I say, momentarily forgetting he can't understand me.

  Then I notice.

  His leg. The jeans are a dark shade of red around the right thigh. I take a step forward, trying to get a better look against the sun.

  A big, round metal bar – something out of an old fence, it looks like – is stuck above the back of Levon's knee and sprouting out through the other side, like his leg is a kebab.

  "I jumped, Eve," he says again, with effort. "But you gotta help me get back to the car now. Tommy Gina must be lonely."

  I look from Levon's wound to the highway by our side -- the Porsche is still letting out smoke, turned sideways by the car pool lane.

  Over our heads, two zombie heads peek downstairs through the window. One of them grunts.

  "Food."

  CHAPTER 7

  "Stay with me, Levon. Levon. Levon!"

  I keep forgetting he can't understand me.

  "Grrrrrr!" I say, meaning the same thing as before, but louder.

  In a startled movement, Levon raises his head back up, blinking the road back to sight. The car steers back into the highway in a clumsy turn.

  "That's it. Come on," I say, pressing the gas again. "Come on, Levon. With me. Grrrr. Grrrr."

  "I'm fine," Levon mumbles, blinking repeatedly. "I'm all right."

  I couldn't risk touching the metal bar. Back outside the warehouse, I managed to pull Levon on his feet and, an arm around his shoulder, drag him back to the highway, just as the zombies started oozing out of the warehouse looking for us. But the metal bar is still in his leg.

  The Porsche was useless, but it was far enough away that I was able to hide us both behind it until the herd dispersed. We retrieved Tommy from the backseat and, after a long (and I mean looong. Like 'dragging a fat dude with a hole in his leg' long) walk, we managed to find a Pickup truck with some gas still in it.

  "Levon! Open your eyes!"

  He blinks awake again, pulling the car straight. I scribble fast, pushing the notepad in front of his eyes.

  Tell me about you before this.

  I have to keep him awake. Levon's eyes are opening and closing at a pretty alarming rate for someone who's in charge of driving a car.

  Well, half-driving. I'm at the driver's seat in charge of the pedals – he's leaned against me, taking care of the steering wheel.

  My coordination is bad enough that I can barely write – can you imagine trying to drive?

  I bump the pen on the pad, calling his attention.

  "Before this? Well, I was at a warehouse, and a crazy zombie bitch told me to jump out of a window, so I –"

  Before the outbreak, idiot, I write on the pad.

  "Oh, the usual," Levon mumbles, zigzagging the car out then back to the highway as he tries to keep it together. "Captain of the football team… fraternity parties… that kind of stuff."

  "Grrrrr!" I say, meaning "Hahaha."

  Zombie fact number fifteen: Grunting is not sexy.

  (Please note that this is not the same as zombie fact number nine. This time it's in italics. Thank you.)

  "I think I might die, Eve," Levon gasps, still bobbing his head up and down like keeping it up is a huge effort.

  "You're not going to die, Levon," I say. "You'll be fine, I –"

  "If you're trying to tell me I'm not going to die, write it down, Eve. I don’t speak zombie."

  I scribble:

  Too dumb. To. Die.

  Then:

  Dumb guy. Always. Lives.

  Levon chuckles, pulling his head up one more time as the car starts drifting.

  "What's with the necklace?" Levon asks, turning lazy, half-closed eyes towards my chest.

  I brush my hand through Damian's golden locket.

  Long. Story.

  He nods, then goes back to silence.

  The road grows dark and wide around us, with the moonlight shinning bright over wind farms and dusty planes of sand and cactuses (cacti?) all around. Snaking along the I-10 to our right, the old Amtrak railroad follows us, sprinkled here and there with abandoned wagons eerie like haunted house rides. The occasional human body greets us by the side of the road, here and there.

  On the backseat, Tommy sleeps.

  After a while, the howling sound of wind blasting through the windows and the loneliness of the landscape is hypnotic enough that even I feel sleepy. I glimpse at Levon – he's keeping his eyes open in five second intervals at a time.

  "We should stop for the night," I whisper, quietly. He raises his eyes up to me.

  I scribble:

  Sleep.

  We spend the night in the car, parked by the highway on a dirt path under some dead trees. Levon falls asleep before I even pull the handbrake, letting out a loud snore.

  I don't tell him, but his leg looks pretty nasty.

  Out on the highway, a turned over skeleton of what was once a truck rests under the moonlight just in front of us, its side windows painted dark red in something that looks like either rust or dried blood. I feel my thoughts drift and break, like they're connected to each other by an increasingly thin piece of thread.

  "Zombiegirl," Levon mumbles.

  "What?" I ask. Under his sweaty forehead, his eyes move quickly behind his closed eye-lids. He turns his body away from me, tucking himself between his seat and the door.

  "It's no big deal," sleeping Levon mumbles. "We've been going out for a couple of weeks. She's cool. What? Yeah, she's a zombie, but she's really pretty. You'd like her, mom."

  With a sigh, I brush the sweat off of Levon's forehead, turning the other way to face my window. Giving up on trying to get my thoughts straight, I let the overwhelming silence of the road lullaby me to sleep.

  It takes shaking him hard as I can and Tommy Gina liking his nose for a good ten minutes to wake Levon up. It's still dark outside, but we have to go. Levon's bruise is looking worse by the minute, and his whole body is hot like an exotic dancer named Star.

  We drive in silence for something like twenty minutes. Past a pack of turned-over, burnt cars spread over a hundred feet stretch of highway, our flashlight shines against a green, rusty sign:

  Coachella City Limit. Population 40,517

  I wonder how many are left, I think releasing the pressure on the gas as we start driving into the outskirts of the city.

  "Ugh..."

  Levon's forehead is bathed in sweat, and his eyes are red and swollen. He's giving in.

  "Just a while longer, Levon," I say. "Just a little while longer."

  Levon's head falls down again, and this time it doesn't go back up. The car steers off the highway and I manage to hit the brakes just a second before we crash into an abandoned Taco Bell.

  "Levon? Levon?"

  I shake him. Levon mumbles something, but his eyes don't open. Tommy is up, barking and jumping at us from the backseat.

  And my own head too. That hazy feeling from before, it's back now, but stronger. I need to eat.

  Well, I did eat canned meat not a half-hour ago, but it's not really helping. I don't know how much longer I can go without eating... something more substantial.

  But I won't. I will not eat anything with a name.

  Well… maybe a cat. Or an old dog. A Limp Bizkit fan.

  Focus, Eve.

  "Levon, I'm going to get you some antibiotics, ok? You wait here. I'll be right back."

  He doesn't answer. I step out of the car.

  Looking around at the deserted, dark street, I try to find someplace useful. A hospital would be perfect, but why would the universe suddenly start liking me?

  I rush past fast food joints, old houses, banks, Seven Elevens –

  CVS Pharmacy.

  Bingo. It looks like the universe might have a soft spot for me after all.

  Making way to the right side of the street, I scan the store's front entrance: it
s glass door are broken like a baseball player's backyard window that has been broken. Through the cracks I can see the shelves are not all empty.

  With a little luck, I can find something here.

  All right, I think, stepping in through the door. Thanks, universe.

  "Are you a real zombie?"

  A little boy, not more than six years old, stares at me from between the Paper Goods and the Cough Syrup aisles.

  Careful, I take a step forward, putting my hands in front of my chest in a sign of peace.

  Then I remember that putting my hands in front of my chest is also a sign of 'zombie'.

  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" the kid screams, disappearing down the aisle. A second later he's back, dragging by the hand a fat bald dude with a shotgun.

  The man cocks his gun.

  "Ok, this is going to sound weird," I say, "but can I just grab a notepad before you shoot me?"

  I throw myself behind the Mountain Dew display as he fires the first shot.

  CHAPTER 8

  "I'm a good zombie! I'm a good zombie!" I scream, as the shotgun blasts again and again all around me. The bald dude takes a step forward, and I peguincrawl my way across the self- checkout computers. Cringing under another blow of the gun, I roll down behind the main counter.

  "What the fuck is it doing?" the man asks. I raise my hands above the cashier, one touching the other perpendicularly for 'time out'.

  "Grrrrr!" I grunt. The shotgun blasts again, and I pull my hands back down in a hush.

  "That's the weirdest freaking zombie I've ever –"

  "She's.... ok."

  I turn around. By the tumbled Mountain Dew display, Levon is dragging his body past the broken glass doors, forcing words out of his mouth like a baby squirrel trying to puke a submarine.

  Behind him, Tommy is all jumps and barks.

  "Dad, there's a zombie boy there!"

  The bald guy turns the gun towards Levon. Hastily, I grab a piece of receipt paper and a pen by the cashier and start writing.

  "No… zombie. Normal… boy," Levon gasps, from the floor.