This Isn't the Zombie Apocalypse

14. Bloody Mary-Sorry, Sarah

Ana screamed.

I think I might have, too, if I could. But I couldn't.

Most likely, it was simply because I was in too much shock. Because the body... the body... the body... was Sarah.

Sarah who waved. Who smiled. Who laughed. Who did this to a random stranger through her window. Who seemed so sweet.

Sarah who lived in the hospital. Who had cancer. Who was in agony.

Sarah who jumped through her window.

Sarah who was now a bloody mess in front of me.

Right next to her smashed metal baseball bat, now rolled around in a puddle of blood.

Ana's screams, though faint through the pounding in my ears, must have been loud, because it alerted a medical team to come rushing out. One woman knelt down by the body, drenching herself in blood, to hold the head.

The red climbed up her swishy white skirt.

A group of men lifted the body—Sarah, I reminded myself roughly—into their arms, holding her together, and nothing but those arms, now soaked with blood, kept her intact. Without those arms that lifted the limp form up, that began to carry it to the door, that squeezed just enough, the figure would have fallen apart, all the pieces that were once connected hitting the ground at different intervals.

The sticky liquid drip-drip-dripped down to the ground.

The body—Sarah!—was broken. She was broken. It was nothing like what was in movies. Her organs weren't spilling out, and her body wasn't bent in unnatural angles. There was the crunching sound of broken bones. But, mostly, there was blood. It stained her skin, her clothes, her once angel-white hair. (I numbly wondered if it was bleached, and why) Could a body contain that much blood? (Five liters is a lot more than I thought it was.)

There was a scarlet painted path splattered on the sidewalk.

Everything was unreal. Moving too fast. The world was blurry, altering from sharp and bright—there, like the dark shade of red—and disappearing, like the men carrying the dying figure.

Sorry—the dead one.

Why were they taking the body—Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, SarahSarahSarah—into the hospital if the only thing in their arms was a corpse? It had to be a body. They didn't even bother with a gurney.

My body moved although my mind was blank. Arms constricted and relaxed, opened the door. A foot propped it open so the men could pass. I didn't move after that. Ana stood frozen in place, mouth dropped; she also didn't move. It was as if we only did when absolutely necessary. So we didn't; we did not move.

Neither did the body.

Until it did.

Tears mixed in with the blood. The thick liquid thinned and rained down faster. It was as if the figure were sobbing bloody drops from all over its body, even from inside. It was sucking in wet air, coughing and choking on its own vital body fluid. Breathing more in; coughing even more out. The chest heaved, fell, rose again, stopped, started again.

Over and over and over. As if it were dying and coming back alive.

Or maybe it was never dead.

Maybe the body was Sarah the whole time—never dying, always there.

oOo

The men with their arms that held all the fractured puzzle pieces together were inside now, along with the lady with her drenched, not white, not as swishy skirt.

Sarah was inside, too.

Sarah, who jumped from a hospital window.

Sarah, who wanted it to end.

Ana collapsed, and I made my way over to her, carefully avoiding the pools of red even if it was impossible because they were everywhere—the blood was everywhere—to help her back to her feet. She did not fight, didn't give the impression of wanting to like I had, and was dazed the whole time I led her around and over the puddles and to the entrance.

I tried not to touch the splatters on the doors as well, but I knew my hands were as contaminated as my feet and legs and—and everywhere.

I've had blood on my hands for a long time. I don't know why I suddenly cared.