Afterbite part 1: Bloody beginnings

Zombie life. It's harder than it looks. Your usual thoughts continue but your brain has lost the ability to control the body in the usual way. Eye sight is terribly affected and becomes worse as time goes by. You don't blink so whatever shit you wouldn't normally want in your eyes just bounces on your eye ball. It scratches and causes damage to your retina. Your hearing is sharpened. This would be a positive thing, except whenever you do hear a noise your body moves towards it. You have no control anymore.

While you're trapped inside a mind that is no longer your own, your body decays as if you're dead. Technically, I suppose, you are dead. The heart has stopped which is a strange sensation. Throughout life most people aren't even aware their heart is beating. But when it stops, you know for sure. Without the constant movement of blood flow your body begins to deteriorate like meat left to rot. And it hurts. It hurts real bad. First of all your lungs burn like you’ve been placed in a raging fire. Then that feeling spreads across your body to every muscle like cramp. Those zapped by a Taser may know the feeling. Then rigor mortis sets in. I don't know how the body continues to work, but it does. But there ain't a god Damn thing you can do about.

But, yet that's not the worst of it. The thirst comes quick. It scratches your throat and mouth like you're chewing cotton balls and pins. When you've drooled saliva for several days there isn't much left except blood. Even the blood is not what you'd expect. It's coagulated and gloopy like jelly. That's what happens when you dehydrate beyond the limits of any normal living soul. Then the hunger comes. A hunger that drives your body to frenzied attack of anything living. It has got to be living, I know that much. It has got to be good meat, meat that isn't infected with this fucking horrible disease, fresh meat.

It must be a disease. The drugs that are still present in my brain have allowed me to continue to think. I haven't died yet, although you may think different to look at me.

Days and nights have no distinction anymore, there is no sleep, and there is no rest, only existence. I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since I turned, but my instincts tell me it’s not as long as it feels. Maybe a week. It feels like a month. Stroke victims would choose a stroke over this. Aids victims. Gunshot victims. Shark attack victims. All these people would choose their afflictions over this. But this was my choice. Sacrificing myself seemed like the only option. I'm not sure I'd make the same choice had I known what I know now.

After three years of living through the “apocalypse” we weren't even close to a normal life. We have been locked up in the compound. A cage of our own making. From out here the compound looks grey, cold, and miserable. The building is an industrial age block of concrete with a patchy beard of twisted metal. It may have looked more appealing before we added the barricades for added security. The only splash of colour on this colourless scape is the blood that streaks the concrete. The blood left by the zombies that impale themselves on the sharp points of the bent-out fence spikes. Even the blood is the dull colour of rust.

Bleak and soulless. A layer of misery blankets everything. I see through shit tinted glasses. Trying to look back on a time when I was a respected member of the facility is proving difficult. Memories are no longer memories. I see snapshots of times I can't fully recall and voices replay messages in my mind that mean nothing to me now.

Thinking back, in my restricted capacity, I know that I became infected out of choice. It's hard to relate now. It was our most risky attempt to gain control over the infected people that destroyed our cities. We were desperate. I was desperate. I was fucking insane. Dr Gordon injected neurological stabilisers in to my blood stream. It would keep at least part of my mind alive while existing as the infected. The stabilisers are a part of a serum I concocted in the compound lab.

My Brain patterns are monitored from afar. We needed to fathom what goes on in the minds of these dead vultures. I hoped we could gain some idea of how to turn back time. We could return to normality one day. We could take control of civilisation once again.

Good luck with that. It's just a bullshit fantasy. Whatever data is being read from this half-corrupted mind surely won’t make sense to good old Dr Gordon. It makes no sense to me so what chance does he have? I was always one step ahead. I made the discoveries, I made the advancements and I protected the community. Dr Gordon rode my achievements like a leech. I should have left him to die when I had the chance. He should be the one making this sacrifice so that I can guarantee a cure but he doesn’t have the balls. I have lost the ability to empathise with him. I have lost the ability to empathise with every living human. The most I can feel is anger and I’ll hold on to that as long as I can.

Parts of my consciousness have degraded. The stabilisation of my brain can only last so long, I knew this would happen. The others in the compound, well, they were deluded. Cabin fever has affected them more than they like to let on. They’d become paranoid and untrustworthy. I'd rather have cabin fever than this. Hell, I'd rather be dead.

The odd sensations have become easier to cope with. I had no choice anyway and now I am beginning to feel a strange sense of belonging with the others around me. Those vile undead; gnashing and falling to pieces. They walk around as if half comatose, half drunk, yet I can feel them.

They can feel me.

Despite their grotesque appearance, the others hold a sense of empathy for their brothers. I can relate. We all relate. Yet, I despise them. I despise myself. We have no purpose and no other need than to feed. We exist without fully realising what that means. Before I would have told you, to exist is to have life. And life is nothing without love. Without joy, without anger or pain or dreams or tears or laughter. Now, without life it seems like the ultimate torture. But with the degradation of my brain, life is beginning to feel less significant. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

We are subdued and I struggle to gain motivation. What use is motivation when there is nothing worth achieving? I exist in a stagnant form with nothing to drive me, there is nothing meaningful to do. I have stood in the same position for days, subdued yet alert. We’re all just waiting, but I sense none of us really know what for. No, I know what we’re waiting for. When I think about it, I know exactly what we’re waiting for.

Beyond the perimeter fence a sound calls out to us. My body flinches involuntarily. I jolt from my existence in limbo. I feel a spark of fear. I had forgotten what fear was. I then feel the ache of hunger. I feel a shake of insatiable need. Shit. My head tilts and I hear the sound more clearly. It is the only sense that still seems to work perfectly for me. My neck grinds and cracks as it twists and I can immediately grasp a direction for the origin of the sound. The sound is unique but I can’t process it like I normally would. I just know that it is a noise. A noise that I need to follow. My body shakes and my legs begin to move. The pain is weaker now and bearable. Pain receptors are almost dead and my synaptic responses fire off feebly. My jaw clacks and my teeth almost break as they clash together. Despite the urgency - the frenzied insistence - I feel my body contort. I feel myself grimace and I wish I could say that I had control of that grimace.

My vision is scratched and tired and I try to focus on my immediate surroundings as it all seems to move of its own accord. I am frantically moving towards the sound. My footsteps sound irregular. They don't sound like footsteps at all. They're just vibrations that rock through my vertebrae into my skull. My view sways like I’m hanging from a noose.

Move.

All I know is move. Within my peripheral vision I see disfigured arms bobbing and swinging and oozing. The horde is with me and I am with the horde.

Move, move.

As if seeing through one shared eye, we hone in on the sound. The sound takes on a flashing colour like a radar. Like a beacon the sound is illuminated in my mind.

Move, move, move.

The sound becomes louder. I run, we run. I forget about the pain I was feeling from the dried-up cartilage in my joints. I only have one focus now and one motivation. We all have that same motivation. I see body parts dislocate and tear off, thumping to the ground. Like a rabid dog I snap and growl. The bouncing movement of the run pushes air out of my mushy lungs and fermented stomach acid. I drool fluid that I did not know I had.

Move, move, move, move it, move it.

The sound is unbearable. The real me; that small part of the old me wants to stop, it wants to turn around and leave this chaotic scene. But the horde is pushing me; pushing my mind to fulfil our need. Like a broken record all I feel is move, move, move, move, fucking move.

The horde is strong now despite the cries emanating from us all. I see it, the glow from the sound is all I see now. The sound then morphs into movement. I am overcome with desire. I want it. I cannot wait to have it. I see what I once knew as a cat. It stands frozen, staring eyes wide with pure horror at the scene unfolding before its eyes. I want that cat, I need the cat. It cannot get away as its leg is tied.  I come so close. I dive the last few feet and I land upon its furry, corpulent exterior.

For a moment I stop, surprised at the warmth and softness. I can feel the lenient life within the creature. I try to convince myself that I do not want this, but I do. Trying to leave, wanting to get away from the madness I push my arms out to get up. I’m amazed that I have this small amount of control but then I’m weighed down by the bodies of countless undead. They pile on top of me, frantically grasping and clawing to reach the cat.

I sniff the fur like my sense of smell is enhanced tenfold. The dirty feline smells so fresh, it overpowers me. I do not have the strength to push the others off and I do not have the control to stop myself. I give in to desire. I submit to the need. I bite into the fur, I tear in to the flesh of the cat. I feel the hot fluid straying onto my hands and arms and face. The feeling drives me further into madness more than the horde was capable. The sound of the screaming cat is lost among the grunts and groans. I chew and crunch through bone. I feed and swallow but I do not feel the satisfaction that I assumed I would. I only feel hunger. Nothing more or less, just the same unquenchable hunger that drove me to this.

For a few seconds, when I am able to think rationally, a deep sense of guilt forms in my mind. The guilt is swiftly pushed away by pure motivation to feed. This is the motivation I lacked in life. The cat, panic stricken, moved for only a short time. Its claws buried into my own flesh. I can feel a sting but I have no idea of the damage it caused nor do I care at this point. I real from my overbearing consciousness. Like a catalyst, the cries of the creature drive me, ripping further in to the flesh until the feline is silent. When the cat falls limp the cries of the others die down and bit by bit I feel the weight upon me release. I relish in the disfigured body of the creature. I have pleased the pack. United, we delight in this small but, significant victory.

The once idle and stagnant community outside the compound now move like a triumphant shawl of fish. We eagerly search for life. Willing me to search too, willing me to feed them. Right now, I have never felt so alive. Through all those years in the facility; the endless hours wasted looking for solutions. The time I’d wasted studying their behaviour and relentlessly pursuing ways to wipe out this band of corrupted brothers. Through all of that time I had not achieved this desire; the hunger I experience now. My work was all for nothing. I’ve found my place now. Fuck you Dr. Gordon!

Images flash in my mind, frayed memories surface of the compound. The living, their white coats, their fresh faces, their scrumptious flesh. I grow angry now at the sight of them all, the slideshow must end. They are not me, and I am not them. I exist, we exist. I feed, we feed. I grow, we grow.

I think of Dr Gordon again. Unwilling, I grasping on to the last thread of memory holding my mind to consciousness. Working together for so many years had brought us close like brothers. But that was before, when we both shared a sense of hope. That hope continued in me, but had metamorphisied into a greed for power in him. Now, those feelings of hope were quickly being washed away by hunger. The cat was an appetiser before a great banquet. It had instigated a hunger within us so great that the need to feed controlled everything. Unfaithfully clinging to the last days of my former, less fulfilling life.

I see the cage.

I leave the bare chewed bones of the cat and moved towards the compound security gate. The fact that I was trapped inside a rotting shell did not worry me anymore. Now I realise that I have control. No, not control. I have influence. A symbiotic understanding with the new me that will allow the achievement of our ultimate goal to come to fruition. When I was released into the wild I hoped that Dr Gordon would finish my work and produce the cure. If only. I was so close. I would have had it by now. In reality I handed myself a death sentence. I was forced in to a land of a million slugs because nobody was forward thinking enough to risk it all in the quest save humanity. I had given Dr Gordon one last look as the security gate rose and my cage was shoved out in to the abyss. Fuck you Dr Gordon.

I remind myself that I chose this. It was with the expectation that I would be the first to be saved. An idiotic ideology that blinded me to the truth. Dr Gordon never held the capacity to produce the cure and I had given him more credit than was due to him. I was so close. If the roles were reversed then I would have saved him. Deep down I had known that I would not be saved. Yet I still made the decision to infect myself. But if it wasn't for that decision I wouldn't have the family I do now. I wouldn't have the sense of belonging.

I see the key pad to the right of the large security gate. I remember it all. I remember the fear and the pettiness and the back stabbing and distrust. Fuck all of you in the compound. You let me die when I could have saved you all. Scared little creatures. Too cowardly to sacrifice one for the good of all. Small and weak. Filled with fear. Fresh meat.

1…5…8…2… The number sequence played in my mind on repeat and several of my siblings drift towards me.

1582. Images of the decaying cat flashed in my memory. My arm stretches out in front of me as I approach the keypad. My fingers tremble. 1582. I have entered into an irreversible partnership. The sound of the screeching cat plays in my mind.

1… The warm gooey liquid seeping over my rotting fingers. The smell of freshly torn goodness and the hunger.

5… The starvation does not dissipate as the cat falls limp but the hunger drives me further.

8… The sense of achievement gained from providing for my family. A strong sense of belonging then hunger.

2… The keypad illuminates green. A loud clank signifies the movement of the mechanism unlocking and lifting the gate. The moans and cries restart behind me, the desire to move emigrates from me and fills the horde. Move, move, move towards the sound. As the gate rises I am a champion, I will provide for my children. We feel the hunger. Fuck you Gordon!!!! It's time to feed...