Tess could not shake that thought from her mind—an infestation of vermin—as she waited for Brett to come back with the blankets they needed to bring back to the camp. They had already run into six or seven zombies but they were all too busy eating to notice the two teenagers on their bikes and even if they did, they were far too slow to catch them. But there was something about standing in the darkness of the abandoned city street—a place that had once been brimming with life and noise—that set Tess on edge. She kept her back against the truck, standing by the wheel to feel completely protected while Brett rummaged through the truck, looking for the blankets the other camp had sent them. Winter was coming and their camp had no way to heat the rooms of the tenants so these blankets were their only ticket to surviving until the spring.
And not everyone would make it, she had to remind herself. So many of her friends had died last winter… How many more would she lose?
A bump shook the truck back and forth, knocking Tess back to the present—how could she have been so careless as to let her mind wander while she was out in the open? She could have been killed.
Or worse, she reminded herself of why she was alone in the middle of an abandoned city—practically an abandoned world—risking her life for a couple of blankets.
She pushed herself away from the cold metal of the truck’s side and called out, “What is it?” as she turned toward the back of the truck. “Brett?” she called out, looking around to find her best friend. “What the—“
She leapt back in a panic as she bumped into someone, or rather—she realized almost too late—something. She should have smelled the rot and decay before she even walked to the back of the truck; she hated herself in that moment for being so stupid.
“Jesus Christ!” she screamed as the milky eyed ghoul reached out and grabbed a hold of the nearest thing—her arm. Tess tried to reach for her gun tucked into her jeans as the zombie continued to squeeze her arm; she had heard stories of just how strong these things were but as its strength tried to break her arm, she found herself less impressed and more terrified.
It felt for an instant as though time slowed down. Tess always heard stories from zombie attack survivors—the moment one of them opens their mouths and bites down on human flesh, it feels as if the world has stopped to show you the exact moment that your life was ruined—but she never really listened to them… that was, until this very moment. She watched in horror as the zombie’s yellow, rotten teeth broke through the skin of her left arm. Layer after layer of skin was torn apart until it hit the bone.
A gunshot filled the deafening silence in her head as the zombie’s head exploded, some of its blood spitting down on her cheek. She looked up at Brett who stood in the truck, his pistol still held in his hands as he looked back and forth between the ghoul and the girl.
“Brett,” she whispered in a panic as the pain suddenly swept through her, causing her legs to trembling and fall out from beneath her.
It was in that instant from when the gunshot sounded to when she was sitting on the freezing cold ground that the moment seemed to catch up with her—like time was speeding up extra fast to try and catch up from when it had slowed down. The pain in her arm was unimaginable; Tess hit her head against the truck to try and make her forget about the pain in her arm.
Tess tried to silence her scream… she tried so hard. She didn’t want any more of those things to find them. One was more than enough and more than she could handle it would seem.
“Where the hell did it come from?” Brett ripped his scarf from his neck and began to wrap it tight around her arm. The blood was already soaking through. “We did a complete perimeter search.”
It's been over two years since the zombies first attacked. Two years since my life had changed. Now it seems to be changing again, and, once more, it was changing for the worse.
“Can you feel your arm?” Brett placed his hands on her cheeks and looked into her eyes, searchingly. But searching for what? An answer? The truth? Any signs of the Change?
“It tingles a bit but I’m fine,” Tess pushed him away, trying to blink away the dark spots from her vision. “We’ve got to get the blankets back to camp.”
“Always the soldier.” He patted her on the back but Tess couldn’t help but notice how he kept his distance. A zombie had just bit her… They both knew what that meant.
“We should try to get back as quickly as we can,” Brett said as they both climbed back onto their bikes.
And try to beat the infection. Maybe if we get back sooner rather than later, the elders might be able to do something other than point a gun at me. Or at least that’s what he’s thinking.
“We should get back before the ghouls and feds find us.”
Tess shivered. If there was anything in this god-forsaken world more terrifying than hordes of zombies, it was the feds—the soldiers sent in to fight the infected…. And right now, that included her.
“You can ride, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” she sighed kicking off and speeding down the road.
The world had changed greatly in the two years since the zombie apocalypse, and that changed world was eerie the moment the sun went down. The big city was silent; the avenues empty. The solar powered street lights were the only illumination left in the city, guiding them along.
The silence is what frightened her most. Having always lived in the city, Tess didn’t really know what to do with herself in the silence. Her thoughts always got the best of her and right now those thoughts revolved around the doomed sequence of events just after a bite.
She glanced down at her left arm as she continued to pedal. Blood had already soaked through the bandage in the perfect outline of teeth marks.
How long does it take? An hour?
Her brother had been bitten about six months ago and he had changed pretty quickly. Less than twelve hours later, he was completely gone. Her older sister had killed herself from the grief. Just Tess and her Uncle remained of their once happy family.
A blinding light pulled Tess out from her morbid thoughts from the past. She pulled back on her brake and swerved to the side just grazing the side of the big white van that had appeared out of nowhere. Thrown off balance, she toppled over onto the cement just as two feds jumped out of the car, armed from head to toe.
“Tess!”
She could hear the panic in Brett’s voice. If the feds saw her bite mark, she would disappear into their van for good.
“I am so sorry!” the younger of the two men called out, the driver. “I didn’t even see you!”
“He’s new—first night out,” the older one explained, pushing his dark hair out of his face. “Are you hurt?”
He knelt down and helped to pull Tess back up to her feet.
“I’m fine.” She tried to shake the man off her arm.
“We’re just trying to get back to our family,” Brett was suddenly by her side to help explain.
“It’s dangerous to be out past curfew,” the fed said before he glanced down at the blankets strapped to the back of Brett’s bike. “Pretty big family if you ask me.”
Well if you ask me, survivor camps shouldn't be illegal.
Brett tried to smile as Tess climbed back up onto her bike. He tried desperately to keep up the façade. “Tell me about it.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment, tense, before the fed looked down at his hand… sticky with blood.
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you said that you weren’t hurt.” His gaze came to rest on the loosened bandage and the infected bite peeking out from beneath the scarf.
Brett and Tess exchanged a glance.
As the fed moved to grab Tess, Brett threw out a punch to defend his friend. “Tess, go!” he screamed at her.
She used all her strength and energy to pedal her bike down the street, suddenly wishing for the lights to go out and help hide her in the darkness.
The van revved to life somewhere behind her and a gunshot nearly gave her a heart attack. Whether the bullet was meant for Brett or for her, she wasn’t sure, but Brett had not caught up with her so that was enough to answer her question.
“Holy shit!” she screamed before chancing a glance behind her.
No Brett. Just a van barreling down on her.
Another gunshot and Tess knew this was no joke. She had to do something and fast or risking being another of the feds’ nameless and faceless victims.
She quickly turned down a small street not sure where it led… but at least it was dark.
A screech of tires and the glow of headlights were gone just long enough for her to ditch her bike and start climbing the fire escape up the side of one of the old buildings.
She smiled from her perch as the two feds ran into the alleyway. Her smile faded when she spotted their guns.
She froze and remained completely still, watching the two men, praying to whatever god might listen to an Infected that she would remain unseen.
Her hopes were dashed when the young driver looked up and spotted her.
“Rick!” he called out as he shined his flashlight on her.
Without a word, Rick aimed his gun and fired, the bullet hitting the wall just above her head.
Panic.
“Holy shit! Holy shit!” she muttered to herself as she climbed the rest of the ladder and threw herself over the ledge, hiding on the roof.
Pulling her handgun out from her waist band, she leaned over and sent down two shots blindly. One of them must have hit its mark because someone cried out in pain.
“Take that, assholes!” she screamed as she ran across the rooftops towards her safe haven.
“And you’re sure they didn’t follow you?”
“Pretty sure,” Tess winced as the doctor cleaned her wound.
“We have more pressing problems,” the doctor interrupted. “She’s been bit. We need to put her in isolation for the next twenty-four hours.”
“What about Brett?” Tess demanded. “He’s still out there with those monsters!”
“And the zombies,” her uncle tried to joke.
Why can he never take things seriously?
One of the three leaders of the camp, Joyce, placed her hand on Tess’s shoulder. “We’ve sent some scouts out to look for him. If he’s out there, they’ll find him.”
Tess didn’t want to think about why he wouldn’t be out there. Anything could have gotten to him—dogs, zombies, feds… if he was even still alive.
“The boy is most likely dead, or worse.” The doctor finished wrapping her arm in clean white bandages.
“Oh thanks. That’s reassuring, Doc,” she sighed, jumping down from off the table.
Her Uncle Norman led her down the hall, suddenly all business. “We’re not too sure on the incubation time—for some it’s minutes and for others it can be days. Richard,” they both stopped at the mention of her brother’s name, “his Change was average: ten hours and thirty-six minutes.”
“So you’re thinking I still have a few hours left.”
“I just hope you can make it through the night.”
Neither of them wanted to mention the great big elephant in the room—by this time tomorrow, she would probably have a bullet in her head.
They walked down the isolation chamber’s hallway to the clean, empty room. It was similar to a hospital room—cream walls, a bed, and even a toilet. There wasn’t a need for much else. No one stayed for long.
The events of the night finally began to catch up with her.
I am dying. This is my last night on Earth. My family is dead, my best friend is dead, and soon I'll be dead… I’m going to die here, alone.
She turned to face her uncle. For the last two years she had been a soldier and he had been her commander. After her sister died, they were all they had left in this world. Tears filled her eyes and panic filled her chest as she threw her hands around him.
“I love you, Uncle Norm.”
“I love you too, baby.”
This is the last time I'll ever touch another human… and not want to eat them.
“Be strong.” He placed a kiss on her forehead before locking the door behind him, leaving her, once again, with her terrified thoughts.
Forty-eight hours have come and gone and I still feel perfectly normal.
The doctor shook his head as he took back the thermometer from Tess. “I’m just dumbfounded. Two days is the longest anyone has ever gone without Changing.”
“Could it be that she’s immune?” Norman asked, still sitting next to Tess. She appreciated his courage.
The doctor sighed. “I don’t think so. You told me you had stomach cramps and you do have a fever, however slight it may be. Those are the early stages—the very early stages. Usually they take minutes… But for you, Tess, it has taken nearly two days.”
“So I’m still Changing.”
Doc nodded his head. “Just very slowly.”
Any hope that Tess had dared to hold onto vanished with the nod of Doc’s head.
Norm wrapped his arms around her just as the message chime sounded over the PA.
“Attention: illegal campers—“
“That the hell?” Norm leapt up to his feet.
Tess froze in fear. He hadn’t said much to her but she could still recognize his voice. It was that fed—Rick—the man who was also probably Brett’s murderer.
“I must say your little hideout was quite tricky to find but it is time to go. We have surrounded you and I am holding the register of every man, woman, and child in your little establishment. You have fifteen minutes to pack the things you want to bring with you to the reservation before we incinerate this place. Your time starts,” he paused for dramatic effect while everyone in the building held their breath, “now.”
“I thought you said they didn’t follow you!” Norm turned to his niece.
“They didn’t!” she defended. It had been two days ago. “I shot one of them for Christ’s sake!”
“It’s too late for that now,” Doc calmed both of them down.
“Well what should I do?” Tess asked the two men nervously. She looked down at her bandaged arm. The right thing to do—the honorable thing to do would be to let them burn her alive… but her very human mind still feared death. “Should I stay or should I go?”
“They will find you and put a bullet through your head if you stay.” Norm shook his head.
“But we cannot risk infecting others.” Doc shook his head in response.
“Everyone out! Now!” An armed fed appeared in the doorway, guns pointed their way. The group raised their hands innocently as if they had nothing to hide. “Up to your bunks and get your belongings now!”
Terrified and thoroughly confused about what she should do, Tess lowered her eyes and pulled her hood up over her head and followed the two men out of the isolation chamber.
“What should I—“
I tried to ask Doc. I really did.
The members of the camp were running through the halls, bumping into one another and trying desperately to avoid the feds.
Caught up in the moving sea of humanity, Tess realized that her uncle and Doc were nowhere it be seen and she was being ushered away from her room.
The camp that Tess had called her home for the last two years was really an old apartment building, four people to a room with a mess hall in the basement and the isolation chambers in the upper rooms.
She slipped into the line of illegal campers and slowly began to make her way down the winding flight of stairs.
Holy shit. Holy shit. What am I doing?
Very rarely did Tess look to her uncle for permission (you needed to be able to survive on your own in this world) but now she was like a lost little girl looking for help with every step.
She stopped in her mindless march.
“Hey! Watch it!” Someone bumped into her.
Eyes wide, she looked down to the next landing and spotted the dark hair and darker face of the fed from the night of her bite.
Knowing her stillness would draw his attention, she quickly started to follow the line of people once more and pulled her hood down over her face, hoping to shield herself from his eyes.
The closer he got, the harder it was for Tess to breathe.
She closed her eyes as she brushed past him and dared to release a sigh of relief, but a hand firmly grabbing her arm made her scream out in pain instead.
Everyone turned to look at the cause of such a horrific sound. Tess spun around to find the fed holding on tight to her, his fingers digging into the bite wound.
“Gotcha.”
His smile sent a shiver down Tess’s spine as she tried to pull away. Her fingers just wrapped even tighter as he pulled her away from the hoard of campers.
“No! Please!” Tess screamed, looking to her comrades—her friends—for help. “Please!”
“Out of the way!” the fed, Rick, barked, kicking a man down the stairs. “Move!” He continued to drag Tess behind him.
The crowd did little to help him pass.
Maybe it’s their pathetic way of trying to help me.
With a sigh that sounded more like a growl, he pulled one of his many guns out and sent a warning shot up into the air.
The staircase filled with screams and everyone fell to the ground, their hands covering their heads.
“Nobody move unless you want a bullet through you!” he ordered, pulling Tess along behind him.
Tess looked down at the people huddled along the bannister, their wide eyes watching in horror as she was dragged behind the fed and, with one final scream, she disappeared into their van.
Tess was ashamed of the tears running down her cheeks as she laid on the floor of the van, screaming for help.
“Shut up!” the fed pressed his gun to her head. “Let’s get out of here!” he called out to the driver banging on the window. Without any hesitation, the van roared to life and sped away.
"Where are you taking me?” Tess tried to not sound too terrified.
The fed didn’t answer her, didn’t even bother to look at her. “Eric,” he called out to the other fed in the van.
Movement from beside her caught her eye as she spotted the young blond fed that had almost run over her, now aiming his gun at her.
“I should have shot you dead when I had the chance,” she spat.
He smirked. “You should have worked on your aim a bit more.”
“Well not all of us are privileged enough to have the government fund our training.”
“Shut up!” the fed named Rick shouted, taking her wrists gruffly in his hands and fastened them together with ziptie handcuffs. “An Infected bitch should show some respect to the soldiers sent to protect you ungrateful lot.”
“Protect?” she scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh. You feds have done nothing to protect me. You’re just expensive hitmen—paid murderers! You’ve killed my best friend, destroyed my home, and took me away from the only family I have left. You’re not soldiers… You’re just a bunch of assholes with guns.”
Rick hissed as he grabbed a hold of Tess’s hair, pulling her in close to look into her eyes. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you.”
“What are you going to do?” She mocked him—he had already taken everything away from her. “Kill me?”
“Not yet.” He pushed her back against the wall, his eyes never leaving hers. “But I can’t wait until the order comes in.”
“You’re a bastard.” Tess hated him already.
“And you’re a little girl stupid enough to still be walking around after being bit by a zombie,” he spat as he pushed her sleeve up and ripped the bandage away to reveal the infected bite that was bleeding once more. “Did you really think we would let you escape and infect your camp?” He looked down at her as if she really was a stupid child.
“I haven’t Changed yet,” Tess said softly, her eyes locked on a trickle of blood falling down to her wrist, slowly.
“What was that?” Rick looked as though he did not have time for this.
“I got bit more than two days ago and I haven’t Changed yet,” she nearly shouted.
Rick held her gaze for a moment without revealing a thing—he didn’t seem confused, concerned, surprised, or intrigued.
Tess jumped back nervously as he leaned in close and pressed something over her mouth.
Oh my god.
It was a muzzle, she realized as he fastened it around her head.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Changing at a normal rate or not. You’re hot to the touch and your skin is yellowing.”
Tess looked down at her bare skin. How had she not noticed her pale skin Changing?
“It’s how I spotted you,” he explained, void of all emotion. “No matter what—you were bit and you are Changing.”
Tess leaned back against the wall of the van, a sense of hopelessness overwhelming her. The only people that knew what was happening to her were gone. She was the feds’ prisoner… soon to be lab rat no doubt.
The muzzle bit into her jaw, keeping the feds safe from her. The metal and leather around her head, clamped her mouth shut and reminded her that Rick was right, she was Changing… however slowly.
Sooner or later, she would be a zombie.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sorry this one was so long! You actually just read the first ten pages of a story I've been thinking of writing for almost a year now! I call it, "Love in the Time of Zombies." Get it? Any Gabriel García Marquez fans out there?
My love for Halloween and zombies grew into an obsession when I first started working at the Ghostlight Theatre almost ten years ago. There, I met people who loved Halloween just as much as I did (if not more) and I met my dear friend, Paul McGinnis, who taught me everything I now know about zombies.
I tried to incorporate different aspects of zombie culture into this story--origin theories, calling zombies ghouls, killing the brain, etc.--while also adding a new twist to the story.
What if someone was bitten but began to Change slowly? They have all this time to think about their fate. How much more torturous would that be? But they also have a chance to figure out how to stop the infection from spreading. And what if a living human fell in love with an Infected? A doomed romance from the start!
We always think about what we would do in the case of a zombie apocalypse (don't lie--you have your survival plan). We always think we could kill the brain and kill the ghoul without any hesitation (after all, "they're dead... they're all messed up.")... but could you kill someone you love? And could you look into someone's eyes--someone you know is Changing and will one day be a brainless ghoul but is still very much human--and pull the trigger? If so, then maybe we need to look deeper at what makes a human, human, and what makes a ghoul, ghoul.
a.r.w.
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