Zombie Twist

Prompt: You are one of the last survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Until you are bitten. When you leave your group to end it all, you start to turn and realize the horrible truth.

Entry: This was inevitable. We’ve been trying to hold out and live for a cure, but I think we all knew deep down it wouldn’t last. Not for all of us. So. It’s finally my turn.

The problem is that you get into a routine and you get complacent. We had our safe zone - a homeless shelter, ironically. We had our stock pile of canned goods and a few decent hunters. We each had our preferred weapons and proficiencies in our back-ups. We had a system. Never go out alone, no matter what.

I made a bad choice. My daughter was crying, my wife struggling with our newborn son. It quickly became clear to me that parenthood is a struggle regardless of what the world is going through. I needed a break.

So I offered to hunt with Caitlyn. She’d be going out soon and needed a partner. I Volunteer As Tribute. Give me a break from the incessant crying.

Caitlyn wasn’t planning to go out for hours still, so I thought I’d stretch my legs. Not stray too far, just explore the woods for a bit before our hunt. It would be nice to seem knowledgeable about our surroundings, show I can be more than the struggling new dad.

Well. The inevitable happened. I took the son of a bitch down but not before he got me, solidly on my right forearm.

That was the worst trudge back to camp anyone could have ever experienced, knowing it was the end. Terror for our future. Mine and my family’s. Guilt for my selfishness. And through it all, diligent and alert because I had to make it home. I had to seem them again and own what I’d done. Tell them I love them. Kiss them goodbye.

I wish I’d known then what I know now.

It was awful. The tears and rage and fear. The final goodbyes and last hugs. The walk back out to the woods with a single bullet in the S+W they loaned me. Someone would come to reclaim it in a few days.

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I’d climbed a tree to wait and find my peace. I knew I’d be safe. They can’t climb, even if they could smell me up here. I sat and turned the gun over and over in my hand, checking the chambers and checking again. One bullet to end it all. To leave behind my wife and kids. I tried to tell myself this was for them but I just couldn’t do it.

So I decided I would wait. Once I started to turn I’d do it. I’d have to face it, I’d have no choice.

So I waited. I relived every moment of my life with Laura. I saw Margaret’s first steps again. Noah’s first smile. Night fell and I fell further into our past. I didn’t realize how late it was until an owl hooted in a tree behind me. The moon was full in the sky directly above me.

And I had changed.

My eyesight sharpened and my hearing amplified while I was lost in my reveries. My skin had a strange sheen. My sense of smell was so pronounced I could pick up the animal smell of a deer 500 feet to my right.

Was this just the start? Will my mind go next? I’ll continue to wait I decided. This was fascinating, if morbind, and I’ll see this through until I have to pull the damn trigger.

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Days of waiting later and my mind is still clear. My skin has begun to rot and fall from my limbs in patches. Oddly enough, there, there is no pain. In fact there’s no sensory response to my skin at all. I can’t feel heat or cold, the pinch of thorned branches as I pass, droplets of rain on my shoulders.

I’ve retained my strength, though. In fact I now have the strangest inhuman strength, in spite of my muscles withering away. It’s as if the strength is in my very bones.

I haven’t had the urge to eat. I think if I did that would be my motivation to use the last vestige of society afforded to me.

If I can make this clarity last, if I can hold out and get back to the shelter safely, maybe we can use this opportunity. Maybe I can be useful somehow. I could be studied.

I can see them again.

I just have to figure out how to get back and get in without being shot.