Flesh Deep

They were running... running for their lives… I heard their screams. She didn’t see the spike protruding from the ground. It went through her leg like a hot knife through butter. Now here I am with her blood running down my face... sticky and still warm. Hearing that gurgle of her last breath. She was beautiful. A wonderful life. Fell to a monster like me. I don’t want to do these things, but I have no choice. I am a slave to the thing, the abomination in my head. And I can do nothing to stop it. I’ve tried but to no avail. When I fight my own body, it just gets worst. It moves faster, with more purpose until I stop trying. Then it laughs. Laughs at my fugal attempts to regain control of what is mine. I can do nothing but watch. Watch it like a bad horror film, only I can’t turn it off. I can’t will it way. I am a prisoner within my own body, within my own head. And all I can do is try to learn to deal with it. This is what it is like to be a zombie. A thing of people’s nightmares.

My name is Colten. My friends call me, well, called me, Colt. I had a wife, Bridgette, two children, Jordan, and Kallie, and another on the way. Bridgette and I had known each other all of our lives. She grew up down the road from where I lived. We would spend the hot summer days together playing in her sandbox or playing in my pool. When we started going to school I acted like she was a nasty thing, she was a girl. It’s what all 3rd graders do, but on the bus rides home I would always hold her hand. It was our little secret. We never knew one day that we would be married with kids. In high school she dated other guys, and me other girls. We always managed to run them off. It was in the back of our minds that we were truly each other’s. We went to different colleges, but after we graduated we relit an old flame. Shortly thereafter we were married. We had been together for six months then we were blessed with Jordan. He was my little champ. My buddy, my right hand man. I took him fishing, hunting, and built him a tree house in the old oak tree in the back yard. I did everything that my father never did. Then we had Kallie. A cute little brown haired girl with striking blue eyes. She was a talker too. She never was quiet since the day she was born. She came out screaming, in fact. She was my baby. She was going to be the girl with the crazy big brother, and with the even crazier dad. I always dreamed of the day that she would bring home her first boyfriend to meet the parents. I had it all mapped out in my head. I would be sitting in my recliner, my pistol in my hand, and I would put the fear of God into that boy. He would think that I didn’t like him even, if I actually like him. But of course she wouldn’t know that. I wanted to be the perfect dad with the perfect kids, perfect wife, and perfect life, perfect everything. 

In the middle of that day dream I was pulled back to the cruel world I’m now forced to live in. Looking at this girl her nose missing from her face, blood running so thick that you couldn’t even tell she was human. Her throat ripped out, the tendons in her neck exposed, white as snow. She wore a golden necklace, a locket. It was in the shape of a heart. Smooth with a raised part in the middle where a small sapphire was set. She must have been looking at it when I came into their camp, because it was open. In it was a picture of her, a man, about 23 from what I could tell, and a little boy, about 8. It must have her family. They were staged beautifully together. I wonder what the last thought was that went through her mind was, other than sheer terror. Was it of her life before this all happened? Or was she hoping that the others could get away before anything could happen to them, too? I would think that it would be a blessing to be killed instead of living in a place like this. A place so hostile. Never knowing if you are going to survive the day. Never knowing if you are going to be able to find shelter from the elements. Waking up every day, from a no doubt shallow nightmare filled sleep, to a never ending game of cat and mouse only instead of one cat and one mouse, its one mouse to 1000 different cats. It’s a horrible world. One even worse than that from which this one sprang.

I found them hiding underneath a collapsed building that made a good lean-to. The rain was pouring but it was completely dry under it. Sheltered from the wind. A great spot to make a camp. What gave them away, though, was their fire. I could smell it from a ways off. From the looks of things they must have been there a few days. They had a small pile of trinkets that they had manage to scour up from the other ruble around. A small claw hammer, an iron pipe, some nails and screws, just little things that make life easier. Having been like this for going on nine months, I’ve realize how things like these make life so much easier. It’s the small things that we take for granted that make our lives easier on us.

This sounds odd but there is one thing that I’ve learned to almost enjoy about being trapped in my own head. I’ve had time to reflect on my life. Had time to realize how easy I had it, had time to relive the memories that I had made with my remarkable family. I had good kids. Granted they made mistakes in their short, yet prosperous lives, but we have all had our share of fucking up. It’s how you learn in life. There was a time when Jordan was about fifteen, he was seeing this girl named Amber. He was head-over-heels for this girl. She wasn’t very tall, but he was always into those shorter girls; but then again, so was I. I guess he probably got that from me. She was dark skinned with big brown eyes, and short brown hair. She looked good with it and my god was she a looker. This girl was drop dead gorgeous. He had been seeing her for about three months at this point when he pulled this stunt. And the way we find out was a total slip up on his part. He fell asleep. And Bridgette found him coming home. She was in the kitchen when he walked through the door. It was five thirty in the morning so it was a shock to the both of them. She asked where he had been, shocked. He just said the he went out because he couldn’t sleep. But who goes out with a nap sack with pajamas in it? That’s when he put the keys to the car on the table and damn near ran back to his room. After that she came back and woke me up. I had to go to work anyway so it wasn’t unusual for her to be getting me up at the time. However, it’s unusual for her to slam the door so hard that our wedding pictures fall off the walls. She was almost screaming  at me to get out of bed.