Everyone Un-Died + My Gardener Bit Me: The Oral History of the Zombie Apocalypse

The World Needs a Heroine

Marietta

When we left off in poor Marietta's story, she was wasting away in solitary confinement. And I am sad to say, when we continue the story, nothing had changed. It was, in fact, in the middle of the quarantine, but no one told the inmates. Why bother? They're already in prison. Announcing a quarantine would have been redundant.

I don't know how long those feather pluckers made me spend in that fracking hole.

I remembered a documentary I once saw about sensory deprivation. In complete darkness, you can't tell day flipping day from flopping night and time loses all meaning. You become confused. And, after a while, according to the documentarian, you hallucinate. Holy carp, was that a scary thought!

Even scarier, though, was when I realized that I had never seen a frapping documentary about sensory deprivation. I had apparently hallucinated that. Which at least explained why the documentarian had a head made of gouda cheese that mice were gnawing on, but it also made me wonder: Are hallucinations a byproduct of sensory deprivation? And if not, why the heel am I hallucinating?

I started to question everything.

I started to think, maybe I was wrong.

Maybe the zombies I killed weren't really zombies.

Maybe I am the murderer they said I was.

Maybe I am all funked up.

But the voices in my head disagreed.

"There is nothing wrong with you, Marietta."

"Really?"

The voices had a whispered conference which I could barely hear. When they were done, they said, "Except maybe your Waldorf Salad."

"What's wrong with my Waldorf Salad?"

The voices said, "You kind of drown it in mayo."

"That's the way Ed likes it."

"Ed isn't exactly known for his taste, is he?"

"That's true. Flick that pickle puss!"

"But other than that, Marietta, you are perfect."

One lone voice said, "And for the record, I like her Waldorf salad." The other voices sighed, annoyed.

Then the voices all said, "You're going to do great things, Marietta."

The lone voice said, "And your jello fruit salad is yum!"

"Give it a rest, Camryn," the other voices said.

"What kind of great things will I be doing?"

"The world needs a heroine, Marietta. And that heroine is you."

"And also your sugar-glazed ham!"

"That's it, Camryn," the voices said. "You're in a time out!"

"Awwww."

"I appreciate your faith in me, voices, but how am I supposed to be a heroine when I'm stuck down here?"

"Do you know the saying, It's darkest before the dawn?"

"No. How does it go?"

"It's darkest before the dawn."

"Oh."

"It's dark now, Marietta. But dawn is coming."

"When?"

The voices said, "Now."