Fragmented Zombie

Vere's Not-So-Great Wake-Up Call

I was sleeping quite well for the first time in years. It was nice until something woke me up. At first, I wasn't sure what it was that woke me up. It was strange since it took a lot to wake me up. I lifted my head just enough to check the time on my phone. The time read 4:30 A.M. I guaranteed someone or something was looking at me as I put my phone down. While rubbing my eye, I pushed myself off the bed enough to turn around. Sleeping on my stomach was a habit I developed when I was fifteen. Tonight wasn't any different.

I looked around the room, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then I saw it. No, not it-her. I saw her. In the corner of my room stood my on again off again girlfriend, Alexus. With me being Genderfluid and Abrosexual, it was hard for me to stay in a committed relationship without breaking up or losing a friend. I'm surprised Alexus survived a lot of my changes in gender and sexuality. But that didn't matter anymore. It had been a few weeks since I said I was nonbinary and attracted to men. However, that wasn't the point.

"Alexus? Is that you?" I questioned, wanting to be sure that the person I was looking at truly was her.

She didn't answer, though. All she did was grunt then let out a short growl. I turned my bed side lamp on to get a better look at what I was seeing. It in fact was Alexus, but she didn't look human. In fact, she looked like a zombie. I wasn't sure what happened to Alexus or how she got into my house. I vividly remembered taking her home before going to bed.

I slowly got out of bed and made my way over to my fire axe. The second my hand touched the handle, Alexus started shaking violently. I stood in shock, incapable of figuring out what to make of the situation. Just as I picked up the axe, Alexus started vomiting on herself and the floor. In that moment, I gagged at the sight of it. I didn't think twice about cutting her head off. In one swift motion, I sliced Alexus' head off, the blade of the axe grazing the walls behind her.

I didn't care much for the floor. I was planning on changing the carpeting anyway. I put the axe on my bed and opened the window enough to let the smell out. I sat down on my bed and picked up my phone. Normally, this would be where someone would check the news for a virus outbreak. I wasn't one of those people. I, instead, Googled why my ex-girlfriend was vomiting and shaking violently. The first thing that came up when I hit 'enter' was a news article talking about a virus outbreak. It didn't really answer my question, but I figured I'd check it out anyway.

The virus was described as a mutated strain of the rabies virus. I couldn't pretend to be surprised. After all, viruses tend to mutate and change. The problem was, the more I read the article, the more I realized that Alexus was infected with the virus. "Well shit," I whispered to myself. It was better her than me, right? The last thing my eyes landed on was a warning not to get too close to the infected and to evacuate as soon as possible.

Damnit! I didn't think it'd be that bad. Setting my phone down, I got up to figure out what I was going to do. I double checked all the infected areas, finding that the town I lived in was one of them. I would've kept reading but I had to use the bathroom since I hadn't done that yet. While in the bathroom, my first thought was to grab my first aid kit.

I grabbed my first aid kit after using the bathroom and headed back into my room. I wasn't one to watch the news, or read anything news related. But I went ahead and looked more into the virus to see what was going on. Seeing the words "guns" and "self defense" wasn't a good sign. What were these people turning into? How did the virus get this bad? The infected people weren't really zombies, right? How could the first aid kit not be enough? It didn't make any sense. I didn't want to believe that the world was going to shit because of a virus that basically turned people into zombies. But what other choice did I have? Well, there was one way to find out.

I threw my first aid kit and phone hap-hazardly onto my bed. If I was going to find out if the news was telling the truth, I would have to see it for myself. I made my way into the crawl space in my den. I rummaged around a bit before finding a duffle bag. It wasn't much of a gun bag per se, but it was better than nothing. Thank god it was big enough to fit two guns, a fire axe and a shit ton of ammo. I took the bag, which now had two guns and ammo in it, and went back to my room. Once in my room, I put the bag on my bed. I grabbed my axe and put it in the bag then looked over at my med kit. I wasn't sure if I was able to fit it into the bag when considering the amount of ammo in the bag along with how large the guns and axe were.

I decided that the med kit would be left out of the makeshift gun bag. I took the med kit and gun bag to my car. I was barely able to see what I was doing since it was barely 5:46 in the morning. Looking around, I noticed three things; the sunrise, the concerningly small amount of cars in the neighbourhood, and the fact that it was dead quiet. Two thoughts came to mind; Was anyone home? And why would anyone be up at this time? It didn't make any sense considering that no one in my neighbourhood left for work until 1-2:30 in the afternoon.

I snapped myself out of my daze and proceeded to my car. I opened the trunk of my car and put the duffle bag and the med kit in it. I went back inside to grab my phone and charger. I wasn't thinking about the food or water since I wasn't sure how long I'd live for. While grabbing my phone and charger, I took the time to change. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of the faint vomit smell. I wasn't going to miss it. Then again, no one would ever miss the smell of vomit. Why would they? It's gross.

I went back out to my car and got in. Out of habit, I double checked for any kids. I didn't want a repeat of almost hitting an eight-year-old kid. There was a part of me that should've checked the rest of the town to see if anyone else was still around. But there was also a part of me that didn't want to. I just wanted to get out of town. Before I left town, I stopped to get gas. While my car only had a half gallon of gas left, I didn't want to take any chances.

The moment I got back into my car, I noticed something strange. Off the corner of my eye, there was a figure lingering off to the left of the gas station. Upon looking at it, I could see that it was a person. But it wasn't an ordinary person. It looked the same way Alexus did. Except, this person was taller, and male. The person's hair was also shorter and darker. Alexus' hair was longer, curly and blonde.

I didn't hesitate to leave. I didn't want to know what that thing was doing there or why it was there. And I sure as hell wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out. The figure turned around to look at my car as I pulled out of the parking lot. Though, the figure didn't chase me down. Thank god for that, right? It was already bad enough that my car was old. I didn't need a zombie making it worse.

I drove twenty minutes out of town when there was a loud pop coming from my car. My car slowly rolled to a stop. "Shit," I said to myself. I knew full well that my car hadn't run out of gas since I had just filled it. I got out of my car to figure out what happened. However, as I was getting out, the first thing that caught my eye was that I had a flat tire. Was it because I ran something over? Or was it because I forgot to check the tire pressure?

"Damnit!" I cursed under my breath. I wasn't so much as upset over the flat tire as much as I was over not having a spare. I rubbed my face and looked around. My attention landed on a group of people standing around. One of them looked like they were talking. Another looked like they didn't care much for conversation. I only hadn't noticed them because I was focused on my car. I decided to approach them. Seeing how two of them also had a car/truck, I figured I'd see if either of them had a spare tire. Now the question is; Where did these people come from? Why were they here of all places?