by Samie Sands
My feet are slapping against the concrete, my heart thumping loudly, a chronic dull pain radiating through my body, but determination pushes me forwards. I’ve focused for such a long time on getting out, I’ve been planning this for what feels like forever, but I haven’t really considered what’ll be waiting for me on the other side. I’ve had vague ideas how I want to live my life, but with no money, no food, no place to go...and now no sweater, maybe this won’t be as easy as I assumed it would be.
Anyway, enough negatives. One thing at a time. Get over that wall, I can figure everything else out afterwards.
I heave, I shove myself, adrenaline helps me to defeat nature, and I do it. I get myself over the wall, and into the big, scary outside world.
As my body hits the ground on the other side, extreme pleasure consumes me, but so does a weird fuzzy sensation in my head. Maybe I hit it on the way down, I’m not too sure, but whatever’s happened, I can no longer see. Admittedly, losing the one, most important, sense does spike panic in me, it sends me tumbling into a place I never wanted to visit again. I feel that unwelcome balled up hot terror unravelling in my chest. This is wrong, I shouldn’t have done this, I’m mental for trying to leave that place, I might have hated it but at least it was safe...
Monsters!
I feel something brush past my arm, and my body reacts accordingly. I jump backwards, curling into a ball, tears pricking my eyes. The fear, the real terror, the panic about monsters coming for me is back and I hate myself for ignoring it for so damn long. I allowed the hospital to weaken me, and now I’m out here, living my worst nightmare...
“Hey,” a very human voice whispers, grabbing my attention. “What the hell are you doing?”
I glance up, able to see once more now the head pain has passed, and I find myself faced with a woman who looks like she’s been to war, or through an assault course...or maybe through a bad breakup that’s sent her a little kooky, I can’t quite tell.
There’s a friendliness though, in her eyes, a kind heart that draws me in. Maybe she’s been sent by a divine intervention to help me, maybe she’s my saving grace. I’m going to have to trust her to help me get away from that building quickly because there isn’t anyone else around.
“I...I just escaped,” I indicate behind me, hoping she’s going to get my point. “I don’t belong there, but they won’t let me go. I need...I don’t know, some change for the bus, maybe? I need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“Bus?” she sneers as if I’m making a joke. “You’ll be lucky.”
“Erm...why?” I feel compelled to ask since she’s offering me no other information. “This is New York, right? Doesn’t public transport run all night long.”
“Yeah, maybe before.” She’s hardly even looking at me, it’s as if she’s waiting for something to happen. I try to examine her closely, to work out what’s so weird about her but I can’t quite tell. Maybe my judge of character has been skewed by spending so much time with only medical staff and other people...like me. Or not like me, but in the same position as me. Locked up because their brain let them down.
“Before what?”
“Oh God,” she shakes her head bemusedly at me, her dark hair fluttering around her face as she moves. “Don’t tell me you don’t know. How long have you been locked up in there?”
“A fair while,” I’m cautious now as I speak, wondering what huge, monumental thing I’ve obviously missed out on. They let us know a little about the outside world while we’re in there, but clearly not everything.
“So you don’t know about the monsters, then?”
Monsters? At the mere mention of that word, I find my feet falling backwards. Monsters, this woman, she had to be a construct of my crazy imagination. Monsters aren’t real, I’ve spent ages making people understand that I’m aware of that, and now...well, this is either a practical joke, set up by the hospital staff to punish me, a horrible coincidence, or...or I belong back in there, in the building I’ve been trying to escape forever.
I can’t bear that, it’s too awful for words.
“No,” I mutter manically to myself. “No, no, no.”
“Oh come on,” my new worst enemy grins at me. “It isn’t all bad. At least it won’t be when we can get inside there. Come on, let me show you.”
As she grips tightly onto my wrist and drags me along with her, I can’t help thinking that if she is something I’ve created in my mind, then she’s much more realistic than anything else. I can feel her, smell her, sense her. This is all so bizarre. It’s almost completely true.
“Look.” As she indicates wildly in front of her, I follow her eye line to see a sight that claws at my very soul. It has to be fake, the set of a movie scene or something, but it seems so real too. This isn’t anything like the monsters I created in my mind, but since things have obviously stepped up a notch maybe this is just the way my brain works now.
I step closer, fascinated, my arm outstretched in front of me. These beasts, they’re disgusting but somehow wonderful too. Greyish skin, white irises, black blood and lumps of gross flesh falling from their bodies. There are bones and organs on display everywhere; disconnected jaws, arms hanging loose, guts spilling...and the smell. Wow, that is something else! The smell of rot and death is unparalleled to anything I’ve experienced. It’s almost making me want to throw up, but the knowledge that it’s just my mental brain is making it okay.
“Careful,” the woman behind me scolds. “The monsters bite you, you die.”
“What do you mean?” I ask in a hazy voice. “Not for real though.”
“Not real?” she storms closer to me and slaps my hand down. “If they aren’t real, then I guess that isn’t my best friend, Amber.”
The woman she’s pointing at is sad and pathetic, with nothing human about her left. Her arms are both gone, her teeth almost tumbling from her foaming mouth, her matted hair is filled with gunk and blood. She can’t be real, but no movie set makeup could create that mess either. Her body is in far too awful a condition to be living, but I can’t have made up all of this, could I? I’ve only been off the meds for a few hours. I would assume my brain could hold out for a little longer than that.
“We’re keeping them here as collateral.” She grins at me, looking mightily pleased with herself. “You’re quite lucky you got out when you did actually, or you might have become one of the civilian causalities along the way.”
“Civilian causalities, what the hell are you talking about?” I’m getting sick of this now, if this is my mind I’d rather have the facts than hints, that way I can decide if I want to just succumb to this weird fantasy or fight it.
“Oh God, I really am going to have to spell this out to you.” She slaps her palm against her head which sparks a loud round of groaning and moaning from the gross monsters behind the fence. “These monsters are everywhere.” I don’t like her tone one bit. I might be a little behind when it comes to this scenario, but I’m not a child. I can’t exactly help it anyway, it’s not my fault I’ve been locked away for ages. “Like, all over the world everywhere. I don’t know what they’ve been telling you during you cushy time behind those four walls, but that’s it now. There is no world, it’s just them. We want what’s in there...” She points behind her, indicating towards the building which strikes such intense fear into my heart. “There’s a big wall, security, protection. Hell, you guys even have electricity and running water, a generator I presume?” I shrug, totally lost now. “Food too, it’s been so long since I’ve eaten properly. So now, we’re gonna take it. Of course, we need to do it right, we need to act smart, but by the end of the week that place will be ours. You should join us, help us in the fight. After all, you know the ins and outs of that place better than any of us. Actually, you could be a real badass asset to our team.”
“Who’s us?” I focus on totally the wrong thing, but this is all so...much.
“Well, there’s me. My name is Lorna Lewis, I’m actually from New
York, then there’s Hank and Burt, Mary-Lou too...”
“Do you not trust Mary Lou?” I only ask this because her expression darkened as she said her name.
“I don’t trust anyone easily.” She pops her gum loudly once more, and I get the impression she does this when she’s uncomfortable. “In fact, before the monsters started walking the streets, I wouldn’t talk to strangers at all. You’re lucky I had to get out of that or...well, put it this way, you’ wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“So, wait a minute, let me just clear this up so I know exactly what you’re telling me.” This has been going on for too long now, I need some solid proof. “You’re telling me that these monsters have taken over, that if one of them bites me, I’ll die...”
“Well, you’ll either die by getting eaten, or you’ll become one of them.”
“...and the only way you can survive is to get back in there, to take over.”
“That’s the gist of it.”
“Nope.” I step away rapidly, unable to tolerate another crazy second of this. “No way, not a chance. This is all in my mind, this is just the monsters manifesting into something more tangible. I’ve been scared about running away and that’s created all of this.” I wave my hands like a manic person in the direction of the beasts. I can’t look at them anymore, it’s all too horrible. “And now, for some reason, my crazy brain is trying to find a reason to go back in there. I won’t do it, I can’t, it was hard enough to get away. I won’t go back, I can’t.”
“Oh you will,” Lorna reassures me with a slightly twisted smile. “Once you’ve seen what’s out there you’ll be running back in a heartbeat. Just do it before the end of the week, that way you can still fight with us. If you aren’t back by then...well, you’re on your own.”
I turn and run, my breaths shallow because of her words. She’s insane, she should be inside there not me. I can’t deal with any of that anymore.
Hopefully everything I saw and smelled was just the drugs leaving my system, hopefully, in a moment I’ll be okay again and I can start on the mission of getting my life back on track...
***
I can’t stop looking around the room in amazement, I can’t get my head around the fact that this is my life now. It’s just so strange, everything is so much different. Okay, the setting of my existence hasn’t changed, but that’s the only similar thing.
“Hey, you hungry?” my new best friend, Lorna asks me. I can’t believe how much she scared me on our first meeting, how little I wanted to trust her. Now, I absolutely adore her and I’d jump in front of a bullet for her. Well, actually I should probably be careful about making that promise, in this world, I might actually have to. “Hank is back from a run, apparently he found some awesome stuff.”
“Sounds good.” I smile wearily. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”
I’m still in the New York Institute for the Criminally Insane, still sleeping in the same bedroom, only this time it’s voluntarily. This time I wouldn’t leave even if someone paid me. What I saw out there, what I experienced in the world...it was like the stuff of nightmares.
It didn’t take me long after running from Lorna, to stumble across more monsters. I assumed they were all part of the same gag, so I ignored them, I tried my best to totally dispel the panic they sent coursing through my system, but the closer I got to the city center, the higher the numbers of them became. They were in varying states of decay, and it soon became clear to me that if it was an illusion, then my brain was on another level of crazy.
I didn’t want to panic, I didn’t want to turn back, but it was clear that the world had gone to hell, it was obvious there wasn’t anything left. At least, not in New York. I admit I was too scared to keep on alone, especially when I knew there was a group waiting for me, at least one of them wanting me to go back, so I turned. It would only be until I knew more about the situation, I told myself. Not forever, just until I could figure out what to do.
Yet I quickly got swept away by all of them. I listened to their tales of the end of the world, growing increasingly angry that the medical staff had kept it all away from us. Maybe some of the patients wouldn’t have been able to handle it, but I think we should have been given a choice. What was the point in dosing ourselves up with meds and getting better...when there wasn’t anything to get well for?
I joined them for the fight, I was riled up and keen, ready to attack, to get my revenge. I can still see the awful things I did that night every time I close my eyes, particularly to Mr. Baker. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened. But now, we’re safe, now we have everything we want. It might not be an easy life, and it certainly doesn’t give me the freedom I went out hunting for, but it’s better than the alternative. It’s better than out there.
I guess it’s ironic, I came here to escape the invisible monsters, I left here to run away from the meds, and on the way back in, I became what I feared the most. I became the monster.
Still, we all have to do what we need to, to survive, I’m sure I’m not the worst. I just hope we don’t ever have to encounter anyone worse than me, I hope that no one else thinks to hide out the apocalypse in a psychiatric hospital!
At least we still have the collateral, I suppose...
Mumbai
My arm.
I’m acutely aware of my arm, more so than I’ve ever been before. It’s like it has a life of its own, as if it isn’t fully attached to me anymore. I don’t know what to do with it, I mean, what do I usually do with my arm? Does it normally just hang next to me, so uselessly?
The heat, that’s bothering me too. The intense, overwhelming heat that threatens to turn my insides to dust. I can feel it creeping through my system, shriveling up my organs, stripping me of every single drop of moisture inside my body.
It used to be busy here. Through the foggy blood lust in my brain, I can still just about recall that. It was a marketplace, filled with endless people as far as the eye could see. It would always be bustling, filled with color and noise, a hum of activity, wonderful smells to get the senses rolling. Me and Sandeep used to come here just for the tasters, and the way it’d instantly lift our spirits and make the world feel like a more exciting place.
It was an oasis in the never-ending humdrum of everyday life; work, housework, struggle, sleep. And repeat. This place put a smile on my face, no matter what.
The life it used to inspire within me is no more. The only evidence that it used to be anything is the chaos and mess strewn along the floor, like a moment frozen in time. If I was a historian I could try and piece together what happened when things went to hell, I could paint a wonderfully terrifying picture with my words, a warning to anyone reading it not to make the same mistakes again, telling the human race that this could easily happen once more.
But I don’t need to make that report because the warning is still here, we’re nowhere near recovering from this disaster of apocalyptic proportions.
Now my lovely marketplace isn’t anything.
No one is here.
Well, not no one.
My head slowly, agonizingly, moves to the left where I see another person like me, hungry, desperate for something to satisfy this need inside. We move in unison, one goal in mind but no clue of where to find it. It’s like we’re communicating with something other than words.
We aren’t the only ones either, there are others. I can sense them even if I can’t see them. They’re everywhere, like an infestation. I suppose this place is still the bustling wonder it always was, but just in a very different way.
I mean, I’m not exactly like the rest of them. A lot of them having no humanity about them left at all. They look like the mindless monsters who started this mess. All sickly and sallow, bloody and grimy, terrifying but a beast to be pitied all at once. They smell too, not that I can notice that as much anymore. Maybe I’m desensitized because I’ve been in the middle of them for far too long.
To be perfectly honest, I’m jealous. They’re th
e lucky ones.
I know what I’m doing. At least, in parts. The times where my brain checks out and I ‘wake up’ somewhere completely new are becoming more frequent, and possibly longer, but I wouldn’t class myself as dead or monstrous just yet. I’m just…changing. I know what the end result is, and it isn’t pleasant, but I know from seeing it too many times that there’s no point in trying to fight it, it’ll railroad over me, no matter what I do.
I might as well accept it now.
Of course, I have the matching bite wound as the others which makes me the same, I’m certain we all have one of them. Mine’s on my ankle, but my neighbor has a huge gaping one on her neck. That’s how we’ve turned into this, how we’ve become these undead raakshasons. The bite comes first, then the sickness, then you lose who you are and you become nothing.
No better than dead.
You don’t die before you become this, like some reporters suggested in the beginning, but the end result is exactly the same. You’re a monster, a raakshason, everything that was once you dies and all you need is to eat. You want to consume things that you’ve never desired before, blood and flesh become the most tempting smell of them all.
I feel that deep inside, but I hope I never act upon it even when I’m gone. I’d love to be able to hold onto that one small part of myself, even after.
I’m not sure how it works, but I don’t think it’s like that.
I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to succumb, maybe it’s because the wound is so low down on my body, or maybe it’s because I’ve always been a very stubborn person. Either way, I want to cling onto this in between stage for as long as I can. It’s horrible, it makes me very uncomfortable to know what I’m becoming, but I’m scared to lose myself completely.
Then again, isn’t everyone scared to die?
“Save me, please!”
I force my head up into an upright position as I hear what I’m sure is a voice. I could just be my brain playing tricks on me, it wouldn’t be the first time since this virus started ravishing my body, but since all the other raakshason’s around me turn and walk in that direction I have to assume that maybe this time I’m right.