A Bible For the Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter 4: Desperation

My grandparents got richer, thanks to my grandfather's hard work and ingenuity. But his success meant very little to him with his wife's mental health in such a terrible state.

Grandfather was at a loss. He and my grandmother were young and rich and relatively safe, now that the religious tolerance laws were in place. But Grandma was practically dead from guilt and grief over Emma. My grandad tried ignoring her condition, hoping she would eventually come to her senses and snap out of it. But the months without change began adding up to years.

Removing the weight of guilt my grandmother carried over not only not saving Emma, but actually helping to orchestrate her execution, would require a miracle. The burden of her guilt was so heavy she couldn't walk. She could barely sit up in bed to eat.

I mean, I carry a lot of weight myself, so I understand it a little, though the weight on my back is more tangible than what my grandmother carried. And while I have a pack and a tactical equipment vest to help me carry the 100 or so pounds I lug around every day, the only help my grandmother had was my grandfather, and he'd run out of ideas.

Food, weapons, ammo, a spare set of clothes, a first aid kit, a mess kit, a small portable cook stove...I've collected and refined and upgraded this stuff over who knows how many weeks, since the plague plucked me out of my old, orderly life and thrust me into this bleak existence. Every upgrade, every painstaking decision is about improving my chances at survival on the road, on the run.

I can picture myself a couple years ago, moving through the Hospital in my spotless, white coat. I've always been tall--for a girl--but never very strong. Before the plague I never had to be strong. I had orderlies and aides for the physically demanding aspects of patient care.

Wow!

That seems like such a long time ago! One minute I'm an apprentice to a top-level medic. My future was practically guaranteed, as long as the world didn't fall apart. But the world fell apart. Now I'm trudging down the road alone, with a trail of dead people following me.

Before the plague, all I ever thought about was healing people. Study, study, study! I was going to be the best! But I couldn't stop the plague. No one could! The patients died no matter what we did. Then, surprise! They came back--as cannibals! What a nightmare!

Once the virus really got cooking, it became obvious that hospitals were the worst place to be if you wanted to stay alive. The medics--those invincible moguls of the mind--my heroes, were helpless against the new enemy. Yet multitudes of desperate people flocked to our doors, hoping for a cure. Of course they did! For years they'd seen the Elites come in sick and leave our hallowed grounds in good health. Though the average citizen was taken to the public care centers for substandard but affordable care, they knew there were secrets in the Hospital. And athe plague gathered steam, they remembered. There were so many of them! The plague thinned the ranks of the UWM dramatically. There was no way for us to keep the masses out.

What was worse was watching our own team go down, one by one. My medic--the one I was apprenticed to--was the first medic to contract the virus. At first it was almost fun--well, "fun" is a tacky word to use in this context--but it was interesting.

By the way, "interesting" is one word you DO NOT want to hear applied to you on the medical ward when you are a patient. A medic's eyebrows come together. She frowns and gives you that serious and pensive look of concern. Then, after pausing for dramatic effect, she says, "This is a very interesting case." It sounds good, doesn't it? But what she's really saying is she doesn't know exactly what you've got. And that means she also doesn't know exactly how to treat it.

The plague virus was interesting in spades! Which is a medic's way of saying it was new and we couldn't figure it out.  The problems the virus presented were like pieces of a challenging (I almost said "fun" again) puzzle for all of us in the world of the medics. Unfortunately we never found the box. You know? The box puzzles come in? The one with the picture on the front cover that shows you what you are trying to make from the seemingly random and meaningless pieces inside?

We never got it:  never came close to a cure or vaccine, no agent to prevent reanimation, not even something as simple as a medicine to slow down the dying process.

When my medic died, our whole team stood around in shock, staring at the body. She couldn't die! She was a genius! Then she reanimated. Of course, there was no protocol in place for dealing with cannibal corpses yet. So she infected two of my fellow apprentices before someone had the sense (and the muscles) to restrain her.

But that was a long time ago. Now I'm strong--strong enough to carry my 100-or-so pound load, anyway. And my load is so different from my grandmother's load of guilt!

I can actually see the items that contribute to my load. I can touch each item individually and calculate the cost of carrying it. If the cost is too high, I can rid myself of it easily.

Not that I'd leave any of my weapons by the side of the road for another survivor to scoop up and use on me. But I can hide or bury anything I feel is too heavy in comparison to its usefulness in helping me survive. I'd mark the place on my map, so I'd know exactly where to find it if I ended up needing it later.

But my grandmother couldn't do that with her load. There was no breaking it down into smaller parts and throwing some of it away. There was no reorganizing it to give sore, overused muscles a break. It was always there, pressing down on her, the same big, unyielding, awkward, mass.

Plus, my grandmother's load had nothing to do with survival. Carrying that guilt around was almost like having a zombie strapped to her back--a big, fat one, with just enough dull teeth to cause infection and constant pain from the digging, but not enough teeth to kill her and put her out of her misery.

My grandfather began searching out more and more unconventional ways to help his wife. He invested in all sorts of healers and counsellors and various medical remedies. But nothing worked. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't take the pills. She barely even ate. At that point my grandfather was willing to try almost anything to help her. That's when he went all out and began searching for a religious answer to Grandma's problems.