We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  To top it all off, they looked like they had a predatory hungry look in their eyes. He said that he had seen the look before, he just couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It looked like they were crying something red, something that resembled blood. He made a mental note to investigate it later. Things were not looking good around him, so he silently prayed to God to allow him to make it home safely to his family.

  With God’s help, he made it through the war zone that used to be his neighborhood with ease. He got within a block of his house when he noticed two strange looking guys lurking around the side of his home. It looked like they were trying to look in a side window. From his angle, it looked like they were wearing bloody, torn clothes. They were rough looking, like they had just done a lot of drugs and was in a gang fight.

  He slowly cruised up to his driveway and tried to keep an eye on the two guys. Unfortunately, they noticed him pull up and turned towards him. Artie saw for the first time what was truly wrong with them. It looked like something had chewed on them, like they were chew toys and when they were done, they had spit them right back out.

  One walked with a slight limp that favored his right leg. Artie noticed a huge bloodstain on the right pants leg, just above the knee and assumed that it must have been severely damaged. The guy’s shirt was shredded, displaying a wide-open gash in his left side of his chest. It looked like most of his ribs were exposed. Wide eyed, Artie kept asking himself, “How is that guy still standing?” Artie couldn’t believe what he was witnessing.

  His attention shifted to the second guy, who was trailing the first guy with a more severe type of limp. He noticed that the second guy’s appearance looked even worse than the first guy. Artie saw that the second guy’s left arm was missing and that the left side of his shirt was stained with blood. His clothes appeared torn to shreds in certain areas.

  Logically, you had to ask yourself how those guys could still be standing much less walking. Artie sat in his car as he watched the two crazed looking men come towards him. Just watching them caused a primal fear to rise in him. He didn’t know what was entirely happening to him, but he had to fight back his instincts to run away. He fought the uncharacteristic urge. He knew that he could not leave. He knew that he needed to make sure that his family was safe.

  He quickly turned off the car’s ignition and pulled out the keys. He then placed them on the floorboard at his feet. It was his way of fighting the ever-growing temptation to run. Now that he was determined to stay, he needed to do something about the two guys. After quickly thinking about it, Artie knew that he didn’t have a weapon in the car. Well, except for maybe the tire iron located in the trunk. That meant that he would have to get out of the car and get to the trunk before those guys got to him. Other than the tire iron, he knew that his options for a weapon were very limited.

  Artie decided that he would use his car door as a weapon, his first weapon. He quickly worked out that if he waited inside the car until both men made it up to the door, then he could force it open as hard as he could. He would use it as a battering ram. So, he sat there and waited patiently.

  He watched as they inched there way closer and closer. When they were just about to the door, he noticed a few more details about the men. He noticed that they weren’t acting excessively violent, but that didn’t stop them from beating on the roof and the driver side window. Since they were just inches away, he could see the full details of their bodies and faces. He could see that their faces were mutilated to the point that it looked like chew marks. Their bodies looked the same way. He knew right away what they were and that they were never going to be human again.

  Without waiting another second, Artie used all his strength to push open the car door. It slammed into the legs of the two zombies, simultaneously with enough force that they collapsed backwards onto the ground. He took advantage of their momentary situation by jumping out of the car and racing towards the trunk (he made sure that he pushed the trunk release button on the door as he jumped out of the car). He arrived at the back of the car just as the trunk began to open.

  Artie knew that he didn’t have a lot of time before the zombies got back up. So, he worked as fast as he could just to get his tire iron from under the spare tire. He succeeded in loosening the nut that held the tire in place but failed to remove it before the first zombie reached out for him.

  He was able to keep out of the zombie’s reach by stepping backwards around the back bumper of the car. The zombie didn’t follow Artie around the back of the car, instead he leaned over the trunk to try to reach him. He was between the lid and the trunk. Since the zombie had over stretched himself, Artie slammed the trunk lid down as hard as he could. The trunk lid never closed all the way, but it did end up cutting most of the zombie in half, around the stomach and back area. Artie became frustrated that he couldn’t close the trunk all the way.

  While he had been preoccupied with the first zombie, the second one had managed to go around the front of the car. The zombie had almost succeeded in sneaking up from behind, almost. Luckily for Artie, he’d had a bad feeling that something was behind him. He managed to turn his head around just in time to see the zombie reach out for him. He quickly backpedaled around the bumper of the car once again. He quite changed his mind about the trunk lid when he reached inside the trunk and pulled out the still moving mostly attached upper bloody torso of the first zombie. He dropped the flailing first zombie on the ground in hope that it would be enough to slow the second zombie down. Luckily, it did.

  As Artie pulled the half chopped up zombie out of the trunk, it’s arms had been flailing around wildly. He was able to use that towards his advantage. The second zombie had just stepped around the back of the car whenever he dropped the first zombie in front of the second zombie. It caused the zombie to trip and fall. Artie took advantage of his opportunity by jumping into the fresh, bloodstained trunk. He pulled the lid down quickly trapping him inside.

  Ever since we had started training, Artie had kept an emergency kit inside the trunk that contained a flashlight. Once he found the light (it took him a few minutes of feeling around in the moist and stinky dark for it), he turned it on and noticed how horrific the trunk looked in the light. He tried his best to ignore the blood and smell as he searched for the quick release latch that would lower the back seats, which would allow him to escape. The second zombie must have gotten up because Artie could hear something banging on the trunk lid.

  Once he found the release latch, he tried to pull it as quietly as he could but ended up failing miserably. It made a loud click sound that seemed to echo around in the trunk. The zombie must have heard the click because the banging increased. Artie slowly lowered both seats and stuck his head out. He looked around for any sign of danger. Once he felt that the ‘coast was clear’, he decided to crawl out.

  He turned around as quietly as he could and slowly backed his legs out of the trunk until he had enough room to work on the tire nut some more. Once he had successfully removed the nut he pulled the spare out of the trunk storage apartment as quietly as he could, again he failed. Every time he made a sound, he would freeze until he thought that it was safe to continue. When the spare tire was fully out of the trunk and in the seat next to him he crawled back in the trunk to retrieve the tire iron.

  With the tire iron in his hand, he slowly back out of the trunk until he was sitting next to the tire. He looked over the back-seat headrests towards the trunk trying to find the zombie and noticed that it had already seen him. Artie realized that his movements must have caught the zombie’s attention. Before he knew it, the zombie was already making his way towards the side of the car.

  Seeing the zombie coming around the side of the car, Artie knew that he didn’t have time to work out a plan of action. He hurried up and opened the door. Without hesitation, he jumped to his feet and swung the tire iron as hard as he could.

  His aim was true as he struck the zombie on the upper left side of his head. Artie had hit the zombie w
ith enough force that the tire iron left an indentation. The zombie’s neck snapped as his head went sideways. It immediately collapsed.

  Artie stood there over the zombie with the tire iron in his right hand. His adrenaline was pumping. He fought to control the primal urges to continually hit him. Even though he was ex-military and trained in hand to hand combat, he had never experienced anything like that. His mind raced as it tried to make logical sense of the urges that he was feeling. He had been so focused on those feelings that he had completely forgot where he was.

  That was until the first zombie’s halfway severed upper torso grabbed the back of his ankle from underneath the car. Artie literally jumped ‘out of his skin’ from the unexpected touching. He looked down to see what had touched him. With his adrenaline still pumping and his military reflexes, his actions became a blur. He yanked his foot forward, turned, and dropped to his knees in one motion. The momentum of him yanking his leg free pulled the torso mostly out from under the car. It pulled him just far enough so that it allowed Artie to stab the back of the zombie’s head with the sharp end of the tire iron.

  Standing triumphant about the two dead zombies, Artie’s adrenaline started to subside, causing him to get dizzy. He was forced to sit on the ground next to the dead bodies while his head spun. His mind was still trying to make sense of his feelings when he remembered where he was and quickly jumped to his feet. He turned ninety degrees and sprinted towards his front door.

  He was disappointed in himself. How could he have forgotten about his family? With his thoughts solely on his family, he launched himself from the ground to the top of the porch. In his rush, he had ignored the steps.

  He stopped just short of the door as his logical mind fought to once again gain control. He knew that he had to calm down and make rational decisions. If he didn’t, it could cost him everything. Well, that was if he hadn’t lost them already.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was only when he was calm that he realized his possible mistake. What if he would have gone in ‘guns blazing’ and there would have been more zombies around? He didn’t want to even think about it.

  He slowly reached out and grabbed the door knob. He turned it to see if the door was unlocked. Luckily, it was still locked. Hope began to rise inside of him. Maybe, just maybe, his family was still safe after all. Artie reached into his pocket for his house key and realized that his keys were missing. His eyes became wide when he remembered where they were, they were still in his car.

  Artie slowly turned back towards the car and was about to take a step whenever he saw his greatest fear come to life. His wife was limping her way around the back of the car towards him. He could tell from all the blood and exposed tissue around the left side of her neck that she was no longer among the living.

  Tears began to run down his cheek as his eyes moistened from the shock and horror of what he was witnessing. It looked like half of her hair had been ripped out by something, the other half looked tangled. You could visually see her bloody scalp in places, especially on the left side of her head. Her clothes were bloody and torn.

  If his wife was a zombie, what about his kids? Artie’s knees felt weak. He wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and cry. The thought of his family being dead was too much for him to bear.

  Artie decided that if his family was dead, then he would die too. He was so consumed by his own thoughts of death that he barely heard the tapping on the window behind him. When he finally heard it, he froze from fear.

  He was too terrified to turn and look behind him. What if it was his kids and they were also zombies? What would he do? Could he kill his own kids? He knew the answers to his own questions before he was even done asking them. He could not kill them, just like he couldn’t kill his wife who was still limping towards him. Artie lowered his head as he accepted his fate.

  The tapping became more frantic, not only that, it sounded like there was now two tapping noises. Could he hear his children’s voices? Was his mind playing tricks on him? Was this to be his own personal Hell?

  Artie force himself to turn around to see who or what was tapping on the window. What he saw took his breath away. His kids were alive and yelling something that he couldn’t make out. They were frantically pointing at something behind him. He was so relieved to see his kids that he had completely forgot about his wife. It wasn’t until they started jumping up and down and screaming that he snapped out of his bliss. He turned around to see what they had been pointing at and immediately wished that he hadn’t. To his surprise, his wife was reaching out for him.

  Without thinking about it, he had stepped backwards, just enough to be out of her reach. He knew from our zombie survival training that he had to kill her, but it was not something that he wanted his kids to witness. He turned and started walking towards the far corner of his house, the same corner that those other two zombies were at when he arrived home.

  His children thought that he was trying to escape from their mom and decided to help him by getting their mom’s attention. They didn’t know that his plan was for her to follow him. The kids banged on the window loud enough to get her attention. Their plan worked.

  Artie went around the corner of the house and turned his head. He wasn’t aware that his wife had stopped following him. It was only when he turned his head to see how far back she was, that he realized she wasn’t behind him. Where was she? She should have been right behind him.

  Confused that his wife was missing, caused him to lose focus on where he was walking. He literally bumped right into another female zombie. Lucky for him, she had been looking the other way.

  He realized his mistake just as soon as he made it. Artie quickly backpedaled. Without a moment’s hesitation, the zombie turned around and began moving in his direction. He was thankful that his wife wasn’t behind him. Otherwise, he would really be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

  Not wasting any time, Artie turned around and raced back towards the front porch. He was a few feet away whenever he heard his kids scream loudly for help. He leapt to the side of the porch without breaking his stride. He arrived just in time to witness his wife crack the window glass.

  He knew that he had run out of time to protect his kids from any danger or even witnessing their mother’s death. He also knew that their screams would most likely attract more of them, it was just a matter of time. Time, he knew, was something he couldn’t afford. He got within a few feet of his wife and swung the tire iron down as hard as he could.

  He hit the side of her head, causing her head to snap at strange angle. Her body followed the motion of her head and rolled awkwardly to its side. He let go of the tire iron as his momentum carried him next to her body.

  His eyes teared up at the thought of what he had just done. With his feeling and emotions in overload, he collapsed into a sitting position, next to her body. He lowered his head in shame as he silently told his wife goodbye. He stayed in that defeated position for a few minutes, refusing to look at his children. He stayed next to her body, ashamed by what he had just done. He was afraid that his children would think that he was monster for killing their mother.

  Artie sat there in his self-pity, hoping that it was all just some kind of nightmare. He just sat there oblivious to their screams. He knew who they were screaming at. He knew who they were angry with and why. Who could blame them? He had just killed their mother. He deserved their backlash.

  He just sat there, working up the nerve to face his children. He listened to their screams and noticed that something was off. They weren’t filled with anger like he expected them to be. They were screams of fear. Curious, he looked up at them and immediately noticed that their eyes were transfixed on something behind him.

  His eyes widened when he remembered that there was another zombie. In his grief, he had completely forgotten about her. He saw movement out the corner of his eye and for the first time, he saw her reflection in the broken window. It was hard to make out what she wa
s doing until she leaned towards him. He completely forgot about his grief as his survival instincts kicked in once again.

  Using whatever technique was available to him, he quickly dropped from his sitting position to his stomach. With his body stretched out, he rolled towards her. He caught her completely by surprise as she was reaching for him. He hit the lower parts of her legs, causing her to become unbalanced and fall directly on top of his wife’s body.

  Artie continued to roll until he cleared her feet and stopped. He used the opportunity to quickly rise to one knee. He noticed that the zombie was also starting to rise to one knee. He refused to give her the chance to get back up. He quickly stood up and rushed towards her. Before she got to both knees, he kicked her as hard as he could in the face. He kicked her so hard in the left side of the face that her head snapped sideways. The momentum from the kick caused her to roll off his wife and onto her back.

  He walked up to her and stood above the zombie. He noticed that he had kicked her so hard that he had severed most of her lower jaw from her face. It was a gruesome sight because the upper jaw looked indented while the eye above her jaw had popped out. Artie then leaned forward and grabbed the tire iron that was somehow still firmly implanted in his wife’s skull. It took a little effort, but he was able to pull it out.

  The female zombie had started to slowly roll to her side. She was sluggishly worked on getting to her knees again. Artie knew that she was trying to get up and he wasn’t about to give her the chance.

  He held the tire iron with both hands and stabbed the pointed tip down as hard as he could through the back of her skull. It popped through the front part of her forehead. Blood sprayed all over the porch below her.

  He held tightly to the tire iron with two hands as gravity pulled her head down and off the tire iron. With a loud plump, she fell the short distant back to the wooden porch. He stood there over her body, breathing heavy as his adrenaline began to subside.