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CHAPTER FOUR. ━━━━ KNIVES OUT. BEFORE THE EVENTS OF THE SHOW. EP 0.
SOMEWHERE IN GEORGIA. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 21ST. YEAR 2010
DAY 12. TESS
WARNING: animal death, ptsd episode.
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. . .
—— IF THERE'S ONE thing Tess could be optimistic about in this new stage of life, it was that the dead were fucking stupid.
It was a cold sort of comfort; the only form of consolation she could offer herself.
The infected operated on base instincts; on base functions. Eating, killing, dying. A constant cycle of repetition and recycling. They shambled more than they shuffled, moving like sluggish molasses through every tiring inch of their day —— no destination or end goal in sight, just an internal inclination to keep moving. They went wherever the wind took them, wherever the current pushed them —— their mindless souls still attached to whatever invisible thread guided them towards their inevitable end.
The dead were living contradictions waiting to rot and disintegrate.
Tess didn't know much about human biology but she knew enough from her biology classes —— and just basic common sense —— that there was a limit to how much a dead body could take before it no longer looked 'human', or no longer could 'function' like a human. She made an effort to not think of them as such, but it was difficult not to. There was no doubt they were people once before, but now their eyes were vacant and leaking black rot, their brains were fried on a deep and irreversible level, and black necrotic flesh was missing from their bodies. They were like an empty vessel with a motor attached to it, with a single gear.
How did decomposition work on a body that still moved?
As far as Tess's knowledge went, when you die, your body's vital functions cease operations. Your brain, your heart, your muscles, your bones, your lungs —— they no longer have a meaning, they no longer have a need to be used. So, you melt away. You rot. You become fertiliser. But what was so special about the infected? Why were they fighting against the natural cycle of life and death? The only explanation she had was that there had to be something lingering in the enzymes of the virus that somehow allowed the dead to retain some form of neuron activity despite their rotting bodies.
