Immunity

4

I blink. Everything is pitch black. I'm not sure how long I've been... awake, I'm not even sure if I've actually got my eyes open or closed. I feel cramped and uncomfortable. Is this what it's like? Being a walking corpse? Just pure confusion?

If it is, I'm frightened. Do I have to stay inside my mind, conscious and thinking, while my un-piloted body rampages around?

I remember the days when me and my friends were only eight and the 'F911' thing was still just a rumor. We would talk about it like a joke, wondering if it was actually true and what would happen if you were bitten.

"Maybe you dont feel anything except hunger, thats all that goes through your mind 'hungry,hungry,hungry,hungry,' " Was a suggestion,

"Or maybe your soul goes somewhere else, and its just your brain doing everything,"

And we'd laugh about the stupider suggestions, but that was before the supposed myth became a harsh reality. But still, out of all those conversations and the many theories we came up with, this was'nt one of them.

I decide to try to control myself. If I cant, then well its certain I'm infected.

I fumble around, finding two little... ledges and pushing myself up.

I'm now standing. I reach out infront of me and feel nothing, so I cautiously try to walk.

Wrong. My legs hit something shin height and I plumet face first to hard ground, after I smash my front teeth into something that felt like a stack of bricks. The back of my head screams, and I cuss.

Is this all it is? A maze of invisble obstacles?

What I'm ontop of now seems long and smooth, so I crawl, until my head gently bumps into a... wall?

I fumble up that, feeling a small plank protroding from that and next to in a tiny cube with something in the middle. I press on it and everything explodes into light.

I was still in the tiny bathroom. Judging by the smear of blood on the toilet lid that was closer to the bathtub, that was what I face planted onto.

I look over to the bath, where it looks like blood has been poured down the side. I remember my head.

I fly to the mirror where I see my grey t-shirt is soaked in red.

I shut my eyes and try not to gag. I dont want to feel the back of my head again, so I slowly turn my head infront of the mirror where I see a gaping holes of flesh, its definatley cut an artery.

I reach into the cupboards above the mirror where I find a neat medicine kit, inside a rolled a length of bandage.

 I wince a pain runs down my neck as I begin to wrap in the clean white bandage. Why do they make bandages white? So, you can watch your own blood get soaked up by its soft material? Its pretty dumb if you ask me.

With the left over band-aids and bandages I fix up my mauled arms. I study each of the bite marks carefully. All of them were deep, so the zombie spit definately made it into my blood-stream. So why havent I turned yet?

This made me torn about whether I should leave the nice house and look for survivors or stay in the cold bathroom a little longer.

I unlock the bathroom door and peer through the crack. Nothing has made it inside the bedroom and no growling reaches my ears from the outside.

I begin to ransack the large bedroom, pulling open draws and wardrobes.

I slide open the door of a cupboard and a mouse panics and runs across my foot and under the bed. I never liked mice. They freaked me out.

My eyes catch something dazzling and red at the back of the cupboard.

A stunning red evening gown hung by one spahgetti strap off a coat-hanger. Backless and covered in diamonties, I imagine whoever wore it instantly became beautiful.

I liked how things like this didnt matter anymore. Everyone was now equal, because money wasnt usefull with noone to give it too and noone was alive to preach their religion.

Still, it didnt stop me from running my fingers over its silky fabric and imagining myself four years older and wearing this dress, dancing with a cute guy at my graduation. That was just a fantasy now. I would be lucky if I even made to to eighteen.

I keep looking through people-that-used-to-live-here's things, finding ties and fancy italian shoes.

It wasnt hard to figure out the story of the people that lived here. A rich family containing a Workaholic husband and father, who had a wife who was having an affair with the neighbor because her husband didnt give her enough attention and a daughter who he bought all the latest stuff for so he didnt have to spend time with her. It was simple, really.

I find a back-pack and some more casual clothes that were about my size.

I change into them, pulling the long sleeves of the shirt over the bites in my arms. The jeans were a tiny bit tight, and probably never worn before, but I was going to fix that.

I stuff more chages of clothes into the back-pack, along with the medicine kit, a few cans of food that somehow stayed inside the kitchen cupboards, a knife and a sleeping bag. I was ready to continue.

I push the furniture away from the doors and get outside. A slight breeze tuggs the ends of my hair and the sun smiles down on me, a few fluffy clouds moving across the sky.

It was the excact opposite of what was on the ground. The bodies had already begun to decompose. A few had disappeared, most likely zombies now.

I tried my best to ignore the dead, ignore the flies buzzing around them, landing on their glazed and open dead eyes, and focuse on the changes to the outside world in the last six years.

In all the commotion yesterday and the day before, I didnt have time to see my surroundings.

Everything now had a wild side. Vines crawls up the large concrete pylons and weeds grow from the once busy road. Actually, plants had taken over nearly everything, growing out of the gutter of the abandoned homes, growing out of the carseats inside of old and rusty cars. The world was almost a jungle.

The large building of the libary approaches. This has actually survived decently, apart from a few smashed windows and knocked over book cases. I try to walk through the glass sliding door but remember that sensors dont work anymore. Old habits die hard. I smash the glass with a peice of metal and carefully climb inside so I dont cut myself on the shards.

The libary felt almost warm inside. It was wonderful yet strange. I begin to explore. I knew that I should stay here, I mean it was safe and I had entertainment. I've loved reading since I learned how to, but since the disease broke out I havent really had a chance too.

I lone door past all the book shelves stands out, its the only door on the other side of the libary.

I walk over to it, my feet grinding on the dirt covered carpet.

I pull it open, and am kid of disappointed. Its just a long, narrow room that was probably used for business meeting and whatever, with chairs stacked at the back.

Wait a minute, are those beds?

I squint through the dim light and step into further into the room.

I feel something grip around my ankle, and before I can look down, my leg is flying past my face and up towards the ceiling, where a rope is being pulled through a metal pully.

I am flipped upside down, dangling in the air like a pinata at a kids birthday party, my shirt falls down over my eyes, I'm blind now too. Great. I scream and kick around. I feel the back-pack begin to slide off my shoulders and then drop to the floor.

Then I hear noises, scuffling and... giggles? They get closer until I feel something cold being pressed against the back of my head.

"You've got some explaining to do, girly."