Living Hell

Imperfections

I continued to think about what those locals said as I slowly made my way out of the ranch style house. I knew that I had to get out my trusty knife and search for some clean water and a protein based food. Most of my days consisted of finding a safe home to rest in and occasionally meeting other humans. For the most part I travel alone because I don't like the thought of losing another companion or friend. That's how my friends died. Humans call it Z-day as though it's the modern D-day with a zombie twist. We went to a movie theater to watch a horror movie about zombies. As we were leaving the theater and heading back home, the virus had already spread and started infecting people. I'll never forget that day how a zombie came up and infected all of my friends. I watched as they all let out blood curdling screams and their eyes became bloodshot. They continued to scream and cry and rip all of their skin off. Blood started to fly everywhere as more and more folks turned into zombies.

I watched the horror unfold and realized that half of the folks who turned into zombies immediately started to continue the violence. The other half started to look at themselves in the mirror and realized how disgusting they looked. Many of them kept screaming and bashing their heads into the wall over and over and over again until they died. Others started to break all of the mirrors by the cars and used the broken shards to stab their faces out until there wasn't anything left but a large patch of red on their face. Many of them looked like their faces were gone and were reduced to the rotten oozing flesh of a tomato. As many of the zombies collapsed from blood loss, I kept on watching them all. I almost couldn't believe what I was watching.

I saw a few other zombies who started to take weapons out of a tool kit and they started to bash one another in the face with hammers and screw drivers. To this day I still can not shake the image of a screw driver getting plunged into the eye of one of the zombies. Another zombie then hammered the screwdriver in which ultimately resulted in the cracking of their skull. I wanted to turn away but I kept watching the trauma on my left that these zombies kept delivering to one another. As I slowly turned to my right the opposite was occurring. Zombies were ripping humans limb by limb making sure to drink a small handful of blood from each person. I watched as one zombie collapsed the rib cage of a pre-teen who screamed out her last breath as the zombie virus made its way into her body. I studied the way her eyes bulged out and how she took everything in so differently. She slowly sat down and cried as the zombie who infected her moved on to another child.

I couldn't believe the narratives that were going on, so divided. I was about to walk away when my friends who are now zombies started to come to me. I could see how much pain they were in as they reached out for me to help them. Tear welled up in my eyes because I knew that I couldn't help them. I was about to reach out to comfort them when flying down the parking lot a white truck came and slammed into their bodies instantly killing them. A woman in the car scoffed saying "not so tough without a car eh?" I couldn't believe she was sarcastic at a time like this but she turned and looked at me saying kid this is gonna be one living hell soon when they figure out that they can drive these so get in the car and let's go it's survival of fittest at this point.

As I snap myself out of my memory to where I am now I can't help but shake the feeling. How did everything get like this? I continue down the street making sure that I don't stare off too much into space this time. I have my knife at the ready as I continue my way through the town. Every town I pass through is always a ghost town with the occasional euphoric screaming of a human dying or a zombie crying. I can't ever tell the difference between their pain since pain has no race.

I continue my way through the town into the forest realize there are dead bodies in the trees and strung up all around the place. The more I make my way through the forest the more I realize how someone used guerrilla warfare against the zombies. The entire forest seemed like a scene out of the Vietnam War as I slowly watched my step for traps. It seemed like hours had gone by and I came across some wild fruit and nuts to eat along the way. I appreciated the fact that I had done scouting before since most of my survival skills came from scouting and thinking critically about things. Though there are days where I get lonely I am alive. At this point in the morbid game of hunger the zombies have half of the population and there's still half of the original humans in the population left.

The 50-50 split has me a bit nervous but part of me thinks that things will be decided soon since all of this only happened two years ago. Everything happens so fast and yet these past two years have felt like two decades. It's so strange how I was able to adapt after the woman saved me and then booted me out of the car threw a knife at me with a whiskey bottle in her hand. She took a swig with one hand on the steering wheel and told me that "this is a struggle that has long been coming to this nation of ours. It was only a matter of time before the skeletons in the closet were brought back to life since they were never dead in the first place" she said. I kept looking at her, still in shock. She took another long deep swig and said "the struggle started a long time ago and it never died, it's like these zombies started as a virus from one nation brought to another but only injected at the optimal moment of madness." She sucked her lips to get the extra whiskey taste and said "the struggle continues, only this time everyone is in it for themselves, trust no one yourself included." I slowly tried to nod and she gave me a crooked smile and wished me farewell. On the way out she said "you don't need my luck you've got a good head on your shoulders with that brain of yours, use it."

I still think about what the woman said as I made my way out of the forest. I continued my journey and started jogging on the paved road to get to the next town sooner. It was nearly dusk as I made it the town and realized I was actually in a city. It has been a while since I have been in a city and realized I will have to adapt again. My house raiding style may not work in this city but let's get ready for some action I guess. I can't help but continue to be curious and learn about how to survive better in this cruel world that just became an even bigger living hell. It's not like it wasn't one before, but it sure did simplify things forcing folks to identify as human or zombie. I just realized how far I have come as I look at the huge pillared structures of the city, so different from the smaller suburbs and rural homes I have been dropping by.