After the End

Miracle

I'm a miracle.

At least that's what everyone tells me. I'm the first person to ever be cured from full zombification. You'd think this would be something that I'm supremely grateful about. You'd think that I would love the fact that I can have a normal human life again.

Why would anyone want that?

You see I remember everything. I remember the fear and horror as I felt myself turning into something from nightmares. I remember the faces and screams of the people I literally tore apart with my hands and teeth. I remember the death and destruction that fell around me like a red storm.

The reality is that none of them were really thinking about me. They just wanted the horror to end. They wanted to be able to return safely to their homes without worrying about being overcome in the middle of the night by the walking dead. They wanted to know that their loved ones could be saved if it came right down to it.

Everyone I already knew and loved was already dead. There was nothing waiting for me on the other side of the red fever. No brilliant reunion in the sunlight with my family crying around me.

People are forever asking what was it like when the virus was finally cured? How did I feel? When the cure started to work inside my body, I registered it with horror. It was like when you lose your temper and destroy something expensive before coming to the realisation of what you had really done. Except the expensive thing that I had destroyed were humans. Lots of them. Their torn bodies running rampant through my consciousness.

I was in the middle of Haydown Road in Elizabeth Vale right outside where I was completing my nursing practicum at Lyell McEwin Hospital. I remember having been alerted by a noise. What I now realise must have been the helicopter. I'd felt it when I breathed in the gas and the tremors from when the cure started to violently work within me. I had collapsed on the ground shaking whilst my brain fought back against the impulsions to eat and destroy.

When it finally stopped, and I was in control enough to move into a sitting position I was covered in blood. Dried caked blood that looked like I had been wearing it for days. It was all over my comfortable sneakers. My nursing scrubs looked like I had been assisting in a surgery that did not go well.

All around me were bodies. Some zombies were still lurching and ambling about, but it looked like the majority had been overcome by the gas like myself, with less fortunate results. One of the bodies had collapsed half on top of me so I had to wrench myself up and push to get my legs free. As I strained my muscles it slowly rolled off with a sickening squelch.

When I looked around at the carnage, now that the rage and need to feed had receded, I was again overcome with a remarkably familiar emotion. Fear. I was in the middle of a zombie infested area with shambling zombies all around me. I slowly pushed myself up making sure I looked unsteady like a zombie. As soon as I was standing, I was caught in a moment of indecision. How do I get out of here? Where would anyone who could help me be? I knew it had been days since I had seen another living human being.

Suddenly a yell pierced the weird stillness.

"HELP!" a woman cried, "HELP ME!"

I turned around with agonising slowness and started to shamble toward the voice making sure I imitated the zombie movement as best I could. After all, with all the blood on me I was pretty sure I looked the part. Around me all the other zombies were reacting to the sound. Slowly turning to the noise and lurching in that direction.

I could see where the sound was coming from now. A woman was lying next to the scattered remains of several zombies. Her hair was limpid and flat, falling on either side of her head like a dead thing. Her clothes were ripped and covered in blood and gore. Her face was dirty and lined with tear tracks as she sobbed uncontrollably. She was struggling to get up because her right arm was completely gone.