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

by Cesar Vitale

  I raise the pad up to him.

  No. New. York. Colony.

  "What?"

  I close my eyes. In my head, it's like every moment is a drawing in those Ech A Sketch boards – disappearing as soon as they are formed.

  "That's not true, Eve. They're there. They're waiting for survivors."

  I scribble again.

  Go.

  "I can't -- what are you saying?"

  Struggling to keep the writing end of the pen on the pad, I force another word out.

  Leave.

  I can't do this anymore, Levon. Damian's gone. My parents are gone. My mind is going. There's nowhere else to go and there's no one else to turn to.

  Just go away.

  "You don't mean that."

  Dropping the pad, I make way past Levon and head back to the plane, checking under the wings and behind the chairs.

  "Eve… come on. We gotta get out of here."

  The field around me starts fading out of focus, and I'm not even sure where I am anymore. My legs give in, and I slide my back down the side of the plane to the ground.

  "Eve, what's wrong? Here, write it down."

  Levon pushes the pad and pen my way.

  "Leave me alone, Levon, for the love of God."

  Summoning whatever's left of my strengths, I put the pen down on the pad again. It takes me almost a full minute to write.

  Leave. Me. Alone.

  Levon looks up from the pad with teary eyes. "Eve… no."

  He grabs my hand and tries to pull me up. "Come on, we gotta go. We gotta –"

  "Grrrrr!"

  I hear my voice grunting, but I don't make the decision to do it. It just… happens. In front of me, Levon lets go of my hand, fear and confusion all over his eyes.

  "Grrrr!" I go again, narrowing my eyes at him.

  He takes a few steps back, frowning. Eyes still on me, he crouches, reaching his hand to Tommy Gina. "Come on, Tommy."

  "Grrrrr!" My voice goes again, and I feel my back leaning away from the plane. I get up from the ground, raise the pad and pen over my head and throw it against them.

  Levon casts one last scared look my way. "This way, Tommy," he says, leading the dog away from me. "Let's go."

  Heading back to my spot, I watch as Levon limps down towards the highway, Tommy jumping by his side. I slide down to the ground again, closing my eyes.

  Peace. I don't have to think. I don't have to talk, I don't have to care. I don't have to babysit stupid nerds who make me lose Damian's locket.

  All I need to do is let go. Let this haze take over my mind and close my eyes.

  Even the hunger seems to be fading. There is nothing but static in my head now. Nothing but a swirl of incoherent thoughts and a sense that all I have to do is close my eyes. Just close my eyes and feel this sunset wind against my zombie-wrinkled-pale body. Just close my eyes and listen to the birds up in the sky.

  All I have to do is close my eyes. Everything is going to be fine. All I have to do is let go.

  Just let go.

  Let go.

  CHAPTER 11

  I wake up and I'm wandering aimlessly through abandoned gas stations and empty roadside dinners.

  I wake up and I'm walking down a dark, midnight highway.

  I wake up with blood dripping down my mouth, no memory of how it got there.

  My body's taking over. And it wants food.

  Flashes.

  All I have is flashes.

  I wake up on the road at night, cold and alone, and I'm strolling past a green sign that reads 'DON'T TRUST THE ARMY – WHERE IS OUR FOOD?' spray-painted white against the words 'Philadelphia City Limit.'

  I wake up and it's morning. I'm penguining alongside dozens of zombies through half torn buildings and houses with no roofs.

  Ground Zero. It's not a pretty sight.

  I don't know how I got here. Walking past collapsed bridges like peninsulas over then Schuylkill River, I have no more than glimpses of rational thoughts sparkle here and there in between the haze.

  If I didn't know this was where it all started, the landscape would have let me in pretty quick. Philadelphia looks like a city that's been on crack for the past six months and refuses treatment.

  I wake up behind a dumpster in an alley, feeding on bits and pieces of what's left of a smelly carcass.

  I wake up on the third floor of a building, looking down at the desolated view under my feet through windows framed by pointy, broken glass.

  I don't know how long it's been. How long I've been wandering. Could be days. Could be weeks.

  I make way past the Rocky Steps, decorated from bottom to top with corpses and limbs and blood. I penguin purposelessly through the afternoon. Everything is grey.

  Other zombies pass by me, now and then. I hear their voices. Sometimes they make sense. I'll catch a 'Holy fuck, I'm hungry,' and a 'Where are all the humans?' and a 'Dear God, Jenna is a bitch,' as they bobble their way past me. Other times it’s just noise. Screams and mumbles and grunts.

  Past the Sylvester Stallone statue, I stop under a tree. I see something, through the haze in my head.

  Lying under an old fur blanket just a few feet from me are the contours of a woman, nested under an archway by the side of a building. I step closer. Her head sprouting from the blanket rests dirty flocks of blonde hair on the floor, and her body moves up and down softly with the breathing of something alive.

  My stomach growls.

  That's all it would take. Just this once. Just this once and I'll be back to who I am. I'll be back to being Eve.

  I'll be able to focus. I'll remember things, I'll be able to think.

  I step closer.

  Just this one time, just so I can stand up straight without feeling like I'm about to collapse, twenty-four hours at a time. Just this one time so I can sleep without a hole in my stomach.

  I step closer. She's not even sleeping somewhere safe. She's probably too weak anyway. If I don't kill her, someone else will. I'm probably doing her a favor.

  My body draws a distorted shadow across the woman's body. I crouch, careful not to wake her up.

  Just this one time.

  My hand reaches forward and I pull the blanket from her body. I lean towards her –

  "Grrrr!"

  I look up from the ground, confused. Where I was standing a second ago, three zombies have their backs to me, their mouths buried in the woman's body.

  She screams, but then she grows quiet real quick.

  I struggle to get up, watching the figures feast on what was supposed to be my –

  "Damian?" I whisper, my voice drowned by the sound of ripping flesh and grunts.

  He doesn't look up, but there's no mistake. It's him. I watch as he tears the woman's body apart, bite by bite, roaring savagely.

  "Damian," I try again, but they're too focused to notice me. Bits and pieces of flesh fly away between them as they eat.

  As they feast on someone who was breathing a second ago. As my boyfriend bites onto a human being until she is dead. Like I was about to.

  From somewhere lost in the haze of my mind, I see a face. Smiling from under a Coachella window in a lost midnight sometime in my past. A fat, dorky face steering the wheel as I take care of the pedals, telling me about his past and his Mortal Kombat tournament.

  The haze pushes hard against my thoughts, trying to take over. The hole in my stomach aches like there's a very angry porcupine being electrocuted there. Not five feet away from me, blood is dripping down Damian's mouth as he chews with pleasure.

  Human blood. People blood.

  A face with a headphone, smiling above the clouds, up in the sky. I see a face asking me to please come to New York.

  I press my eyes shut. Distorted images and thoughts spin around my head, interrupting each other like a newscaster montage at the start of a bad zombie movie.

  I am a person.

  I am Eve.

  The haze pushes against me again, tearing my thoughts apart as I tr
y to put them together.

  I am Eve.

  I want to eat so bad.

  I am Eve.

  I am Eve.

  The sun's almost fading behind a thick layer of grey clouds in the sky as I open my eyes.

  "You think there's more people inside the building?" Damian asks the other zombies, still not looking at me. His voice is different – scratchier. Darker.

  "Maybe," one of them replies. Under their bloody faces, the woman is already no more than a carcass of bones and loose skin.

  The face rises above the turmoil of my swirling thoughts. That fat face. I turn around and take a step away from Damian, just as they finish eating and rise from the ground.

  Levon.

  I take another step. A scooter is turned over a couple of feet in front of me, its handlebars leaning against dirty gutter water.

  I push my feet forward one at a time, struggling with each step, my mind screaming for me to go back – to eat whatever is left of that woman's body. To find someone else to eat. To kill.

  Like I'm trying to lift a fat Panda from under a slightly fatter Panda, I crouch down and pull the bike up.

  Levon.

  Closing my fingers hard against the handles, I push my body to the seat.

  Please. Please, work. I don't have the strength to try this again.

  I try the ignition. Nothing.

  Please. Please, I think, my mind already drifting. My body begging me more and more to turn back.

  Again, I turn the key.

  Nothing.

  Again.

  Damian's voice disappears somewhere behind me.

  Please. Please. Please work.

  With a loud roar, the engine comes alive, and the handles start trembling under my fingers.

  Yes!

  All right. While I'm still somewhat in control of myself and conscious enough, let's put this in zombie facts:

  Number seventeen: My coordination is bad enough that I can't even write anymore, let alone drive a scooter.

  Number eighteen: I can only think straight in five minute intervals at a time. My body is losing the battle to starvation, and it's trying to take my mind with it.

  And number nineteen: It's a two hour drive from Philadelphia to New York City.

  Sounds good.

  Let's go.

  CHAPTER 12

  Do you have any idea how much of a bad mood I am in?

  You don't.

  Times Square is quite a view, though, I have to admit. As I cross through Broadway, following the few 'TAS -- TEMPORARY ARMY SHELTER' arrow signs that are still up and readable, I check the landscape out.

  Not 'quite a view' as in 'pretty', mind you. Quite a view in the sense that it looks like someone put the whole block inside a bag filled with hungry pumas, shook it for about forty minutes, set it on fire then released it back to the city.

  I made it, though. It only took me eight hours, but I made it. I'm here. My mind drifted more than the scooter all the way through, and I only have flashes of memory of what the fuck happened.

  I'd wake up eating a dead cat somewhere around Jamesburg.

  I'd wake up staring into nothing, half a mile away from the road on the outskirts of Newark.

  I'd wake up penguining around with other zombies, the scooter forgotten three blocks behind me.

  It sucked. But I made it. And I didn't eat anyone on the way. I pushed the hunger and the bad thoughts away, got back on top of Little Bitch time after time and kept going.

  (Quick zombie fact: I named my bike).

  And I only crashed seventeen times. Which is nice.

  I drag my feet past another sign pointing me towards the TAS. Struggling every second against the hole in my stomach, the tiredness and the general feeling that stupid Levon is not worth this, I keep going.

  I keep going, because I still want to be Eve.

  I keep going because I have nothing to go back to.

  I keep going because I don't want to be everybody else. I don't want to be like Damian.

  The sign reads E 38th St, and I drag myself past it and down the road. The sun has set long ago, somewhere around Allentown, by the time I learned that the best way to steer the bike when I needed to make a left was actually leaning my whole body against the handle, falling down to the pavement, straightening the bike back up, manually steering it to the right direction and mounting again.

  Also, innocent zombie-girl that I am, I thought the clouds might clear away with the night, but no.

  It started raining.

  For real. Bad mood.

  Down E 38th, another sign:

  TEMPORARY ARMY SHELTER.

  But no arrow. Under it, in a smaller print:

  Present Yourself for Infection Scan Immediately Upon Arrival.

  I look up at the building the sign is fronting. It's large and greyish, ten stories tall and at least twenty windows wide, most of them broken. There's graffiti all over the front entrance, and a foul smell of rotten meat coming from the inside. Forcing myself to focus, I pull my gaze down at the sign again, then at the door bellow it. I push it open.

  Inside, tumbled rows of plastic seats glued to each other and broken down wheelchairs pave the way to a large marble reception, where someday a woman named Beth would tell you to fill out a form and wait for your name to be called, maybe.

  A hospital. Or, rather, what's left of one.

  I browse by, my attention and coordination waving in and out of tune with every step.

  Everything is broken. Everything abandoned.

  If this was a shelter or a safe haven one day, I think, pushing open a door that reads 'EMERGENCY STAIRS', that day is long gone.

  Up the stairs, I listen for… anything. Talking. Screaming, crying. Levon being annoying to some soldier, maybe.

  Nothing. Nothing but the distant drumming of rain outside as I step by step my way up. Here and there, I have to dodge cinderblocks and tumbled over gurneys, squinting to see through the darkness.

  Focus. Don't let your mind wander. Don't fall down. Pull your weight – you're pretty skinny, already, stop being a bitch.

  I am Eve.

  I am Eve.

  I am Eve. And I have to find stupid Levon.

  The second floor looks just as abandoned as the first as I pass by. I keep climbing. Third floor doors are blocked by metal chairs and wooden bars. Over the fourth floor door, I notice a sign:

  'INFECTOLOGY CENTER'.

  I try pushing the door open. It comes loose and crumbles to the ground like it's made of cardboard.

  The Infectology Center is a mess of broken everythings. Chairs, gurneys, bodies… pieces of broken metal and wood so battered you can't even tell what they originally were. Everything looks burnt, and the walls are painted black with chalk like the aftermath of a fire.

  No sound. No movements. Just silence.

  I'm reaching back to the stairs when I hear the gunshot.

  "Who's there?" I ask, pulling my eyes up as I realize only a zombie would answer my question.

  Another gunshot. Coming from above.

  Climbing faster, I make my way around and reach the fifth floor. A sign on top of the exit door reads 'RADIOLOGY.'

  "Is there anyone there?" I ask, forgetting again that only a zombie would –

  "Who's there?" comes a very familiar voice from the other side of the door. "I have a gun!"

  Pulling strength out of me like cold peanut butter with a plastic spoon, I push the door open with my body, projecting myself into a wide, white room, encrusted all around with big, square windows opening up to the rainy night outside.

  At first, the room looks empty.

  Then I hear it, no more than a whisper, "Eve..."

  There, leaning against the far wall between metal wheeled carts filled with rubber gloves and surgery equipment, Levon's body rests, a smoking gun lying on the floor by his right hand.

  "Hey, Eve," he says. As I get closer, I notice he's smiling. "You can't get enough of me, can you?"

 
A few feet away from his body, near where the rain hammers down on a closed window, the grey and flakey lifeless body of a zombie rests, half its head blown off.

  I finish penguining my way to Levon, crouching to his level as I notice the pool of blood growing under his body on the floor.

  "Levon," I whisper, pulling his head from the wall and straightening his back. "Are you ok?"

  "I'm fine, Eve," he says, in a faint voice, raising his eyes at me. "Just had a little misunderstanding with Braineater over there."

  "Are you ok? Did you get –" I pause, frowning. Levon's face is pale, and his eyes look bloodshot like he's drunk or high.

  "You can understand me?" I ask, in a whisper.

  "Yeah, I can," Levon says.

  As he slips back halfway to the floor, I notice the rip on his shirt's right shoulder – and the nasty bite sprouting from it.

  "You have a pretty voice, Eve" Levon says. "When it doesn't sound like grunting."

  CHAPTER 13

  "It's going to be ok, Levon," I lie, running my hand through his hair. "We're gonna be ok."

  Levon's drifting -- somewhere between asleep and half-awake, his eyes going in and out of focus like crazy.

  I remember when I got infected. The first few days are a nightmare of fever, incoherent thoughts and the sudden realization that you can understand zombies. Bad enough that you'd want to die even if you hadn't just found out the last safe haven on Earth is destroyed.

  TUM.

  I turn my eyes to the window, startled.

  TUM.

  "What's that?" I ask, as fading, distant voices start oozing at us from the street bellow – yells and screams and grunts, mixed with the rattling sound of approaching footsteps.

  Herd.

  I turn to face Levon. "We gotta get out of here, Levon."

  "I'm a zombie too, now," Levon whispers, his eyes closed. "It's fine. The cart. Read the --"

  "No, Levon," I say, trying to pull him up. He barely moves from his spot, I'm so weak. "It's too soon, they'll still eat you if they –"

  "Th-there," Levon coughs, forcing himself awake. He breaks free from my grasp and slides back to the floor. His hand waves towards the metal cart to his right. "The log. On the cart."