absently.
She nodded silently. “It hurts,” she said quietly.
“Ts’a flesh a wound,” I drawled, my speech slurred. “It didn’t bite deep. You’ll be okay.”
She nodded lifelessly, and turned her head to the side.
“Try to stay awake,” I mumbled. “Just rest ...”
She nodded listlessly again, her eyes closed. I put my arms around her as if to protect her, but in all honesty I had barely enough energy to hold her. I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t want her to become a zombie. I didn’t want to have to kill her. She wasn’t like the other humans. At least not the ones I had been taught about. She was so much like me. It was just buried within, beneath the glow of life that radiated from her person. After everything we had been through, this human was my friend, and I didn’t want her to die.
I stared up at the base of the bridge. My mind was a haze. I’d need to get to the human burial site first thing. I could barely keep focus and I was having trouble speaking clearly. I didn’t feel like I could stay awake much longer.
I dropped my head to the side and gazed out into the rain, looking up at the ground above. Stiffs wandered about the streets. Hopefully none would accidentally stumble into the creek bed. I didn’t have the energy to fight them off anymore. I turned my gaze to the black night’s sky, watching it through the cascade of rain making it look like an old hum movie with film scratches and flickers flashing across it. The sky was empty. The sound of the steady pour of rain rattling softly around me drowsed me into a dull inertia. I closed my eyes and inexorably drifted into unconsciousness.
30. AWAKENINGS
I languidly opened my eyes shortly after dawn. I could hear the soft static sound of sprinkling rain around me. My head felt better. Sleeping must have given it enough rest to recharge. I felt like I had a lot more energy now. I would need it if I was going to bring Morgan to the human safe zone.
I was sprawled over at a weird angle inside a pool of muddy water that filled the creek bed. I must have been in a very sound sleep, because I couldn’t remember anything from after we settled under the bridge last night, not even my dreams. The Stiffs must have left us alone, the rain washing away whatever smell of blood there was.
There wasn’t any time to waste. We’d have to move now and get to the human safe zone before the rain let up completely, or the Stiffs would be on us again. I could smell the blood myself, pungent and acute. The smell was so strong, and I realized that Morgan must have been bleeding worse now.
I was lying over her, our bodies wrapped up and twisted together. I slowly pushed myself up. I craned my neck to the sky to stretch it and noticed that my jaw was hanging open, and my mouth and chin were wet. There was something in my mouth and I was chewing it rhythmically. I had been since I awoke, I realized. I stopped. The rusty taste of blood was on my tongue, making me salivate. I swallowed slowly, allowing the spongy substance in my mouth to slide down my throat. Brains.
I sat up slowly and drew my hands to my face. They were coated in splatters of red and were trembling. I gazed downward at Morgan. She lay motionless next to me. I reached out to touch her face. Then I cupped my hand under her head and lifted it. The top of her head was cracked open, her skull fractured and the inside ravaged. Blood smeared her face and neck, her clothes and body, and her light hair was stained red. Appalled, I pulled my hand away and allowed her head to drop, making a sick squishing sound as it fell into the moist ground.
I hadn’t fallen asleep. I had skidded. I had become a Stiff. And during the night I had cracked open her skull and eaten her brain. Morgan was dead.
I shifted away from her body. I slowly pulled myself up, using the dirt wall behind me to help me balance. I stood over her remains. Her white skin was stained with redness, making her freckles look like mosquito bites. Her face was twisted in a dull, frightened expression, what I imagined the look of betrayal to be. She could never revive. Her brain was gone. She was dead. Forever. And I had killed her.
“I’m sorry, Morgan,” I mumbled lightly.
I threw my head back and gazed at the top of the bridge that stretched over us, and non-existent tears demanded to be released from the ducts of my dry eyes. I dropped my head and my stomach convulsed. I didn’t know what I was. Was I a monster? Was I human? Was I alive? Or dead? Or none of it? I was born a human. I died and became a zombie. And I was taught to be human again. What did that make me? I was alive – or at least still awake – and Morgan wasn’t. Was I deserving of life more than she was because I wanted it more? Because I was willing to do more to hold onto it? Did it even matter? There was no God or zombie God looking out for me or for Morgan.
She would have made a good Wake. But I had to go and eat her brain. Life wasn’t fair, and neither was death. And there was nothing I could do about it.
I took a moment to compose myself and regain my strength and mobility, then I set to work.
I dragged Morgan’s body out from under the bridge and laid it in the moist dirt. I turned to the dirt wall across from me and carefully climbed out of the creek bed, my feet splashing against the thin layer of water beneath me. I felt much stronger and more alert, like the first night after Morgan and I had left. I looked around. Some Stiffs were still milling around the streets, but most had probably returned to the forest. More would be out soon, though, with morning arriving.
I went along the edge of the forest and found a bush of white baby’s breath flowers. I picked a few off by the stems and climbed back down into the riverbed. I laid the flowers over Morgan’s body, then bent down and carefully began smearing mud over her body and clothes, until it looked like she was caked in clumps of chocolate pudding. The smell of the dirt would help mask the smell of blood and keep the Stiffs away. Maybe it was a waste of time, but it had only taken about fifteen minutes, and it seemed like Morgan deserved something of a proper burial, even if she was just a human. After all, we were all human once, in some way. And she had been my friend. Sure it was never meant to be. Like the Montagues and the Cupulets, zombies and humans don’t play well together. But when you took away the labels, and ignored the savory smell of her liveliness, or the dank rot of my corpse, Wakes and humans were pretty much the same. In a world where zombies don’t eat human brains, Morgan and I could have been best friends. But that wasn’t the world I lived in. And I didn’t want to die ever again.
Even so, somehow that little weak strong mortal human girl had become my friend. I had actually cared for her, and I wished she hadn’t died. She deserved to die with someone remembering her, even if it was a zombie.
I bent over her body and touched the top of her face, and for a moment, I hoped that God existed, and that there was a life after death, aside from zombies.
I stood over her and considered my next move. My face and body was slick with moisture, and I was alone, far from the only home I had ever known, and only a day or two away from absolute death. Morning would be arriving soon, and the Stiffs would gather. I could never go back. I had only one option left if I wanted to survive. I couldn’t let myself have devoured Morgan’s brain for nothing. For her sake, I had to survive.
I left Morgan’s body and found a rain puddle and began washing the blood from my hands and face and chest. I pulled the upper half of my safety gear back on, nodded a final goodbye to Morgan, and climbed back out of the creek. I was alone, but Morgan had led me out of the forest and told me where to go. She had said the safe zone was only a couple hours from the forest. It was my only hope. If I was lucky, I would find it.
I did as Morgan had said the night before and followed the river. Eating Morgan’s brain had bought me a day or two, but unless I found the safe zone, I was doomed to life as a Stiff.
I walked listlessly. As the sun rose over the horizon, Stiffs began to awaken and emerge from wherever they had been resting. They left me alone though. They didn’t even register my existence as I shuffled languidly by. I had never been this far from Revenant. It was weird seeing a town so empty and abandoned
. The cars were rusted and stripped of paint, relics from a world lost long ago. Debris was scattered all over. Birds chirped merrily, oblivious to it all. Soon the creek bed became wider and opened up into a cement channel. Power lines stretched across on the opposite side of the bank from me. Within a couple hours there appeared in the distance three tunnels where the channel came to an end.
I paused in my steps to read a warning sign indicating that the channel was used to collect sewage overflow and transport it to a processing facility. I rested for a few moments here, on top of an overpass near the sign, waiting to regain my energy before I began progressing again. As I did, a Stiff appeared a few yards away from me, emerging from a collection of trees opposite the channel. It moved groggily forward, toward the tunnels. I watched it with curiosity.
Then there came a thick, muffled sound, and instantly the Stiff’s head jerked back and it collapsed in a heap on the ground. Thick blood began to ooze from its head, darkening the ground underneath it. I gasped. I crouched low behind the gate running along the overpass and stayed put. After a few moments two human men appeared, walking slowly from a platform near the tunnels until they reached the body of the Stiff. They were tall and slightly emaciated,