Byron : A Zombie Tale (Part 1) (12 page)

I was dumfounded! Why in the hell was I hearing voices? They were definitely echoing through my ear canals. This wasn’t something in my head. I
heard
voices. I looked around, searching high and low, but still couldn’t find anyone nearby. I was alone.

We’re inside you, Byron
, said the chorus of voices.

What the hell? Inside of me?
I thought to myself, but there was no answer. I looked around again.

We’re inside you,
the voices said,
you cannot find us out there.

“Who are you?” I asked out loud.

We are
…
we have no name. But, we live inside. You are our…host.

“Host?” it seemed strange asking questions to nobody. But, then again, considering that there was nobody there to complain or ridicule me, what the hell. “What do you mean?”

We live inside you. Our colony lives in your body. You provides us our food and in return we have fixed your broken body.

What? This made no sense. How could some damn virus or bacteria be talking to me? I needed more answers than this. “What are you, like some kind of bacteria?”

We don’t understand what that is,
the voices said,
what is bacteria?

“Bacteria,” I explained to the voices, “are the filthy little microbes that lead to sickness and disease. They are small creatures that live in creatures bodies and live by destroying the body the live in.”

No.
The voices said.
That is not what we are. If our host dies, then so do we. We make our host better – we heal our host. We understand the body better than the host.

Okay, so they weren’t bacteria. Then maybe… “Are you a symbiot? Some kind of symbiotic organism?”

Please explain.

“Well,” I began, “a symbiotic organism works cooperatively with a given host to create a better living environment that benefits both creatures.”

Then, yes,
they said,
that is what we are.

“How do you understand me?” I asked out of curiosity.

Different parts of our colonies serve different purposes; we work together to be able to help our host so that we may also survive. Groups of us have attached to your various sensory receptors and can intercept, magnify, and interpret the signals coming in. But, because your brain is so well protected, we cannot attach in there. We are communicating by projecting signals into your sensory receptors. For instance, our ‘speech’ is just us placing signals into your auditory nerves. We do not understand all of your spoken human words, but we can give you signals that are mutually understood between your brain and ourselves which your brain deciphers into words. In other words, we need to learn more about your language for you to speak to us, but we can speak to you perfectly because our ‘words’ are not real.

“Okay,” I replied with a little sarcasm, “at least THAT’s cleared up. Where did you come from? How did you survive my being dead?”

Well, as far as where we come from: we don’t know. Our earliest colonizers were brought here from a defective host. From those few, our colony grew. And, your death was not really a death. Your body may have stopped working, but we were sustaining it so that it could feed. You body is our host and we needed to make sure it survived so that we could survive. It was not until we had an abundance of food that we were able to mend your body’s damage.

“Wait. So, you’re the catalyst? You’re what’s causing all of these poor souls to be the walking dead?”

There are other colonies. But, these cannot harm us. We have defended against them. Your body emits a chemical signal through the pores which keeps them away. No other colony would try and steal a host from another. Your body would be poisonous to them.

That, at least, explained why the other creatures had left me alone once I drank the animal blood. The symbiotic organisms that had taken up residence within my body were keeping all of the others away. However, I couldn’t understand something and decided to ask, “so if these colonies are turning humans into the walking dead, then why haven’t their hosts become like me?”

Sadly,
the voices answered,
you are the first successful host our colonies have found. None of the other human hosts have been successful. Entire colonies have been lost. For some reason with you being the only exception the human hosts all have become irreparably damaged during the colonization process. Even when they absorbed nourishment their bodies just shut down. When that happens, the colonies take control of the host’s motor function in order to search out nourishment. But, there is something defective in the nourishment you bodies provide – it cannot sustain us completely.

“Nourishment,” I said. “You mean blood. I need to drink blood in order to survive?”

Yes,
the voices replied,
blood. It is the most efficient medium to deliver the nourishment we need to sustain ourselves and your body. We survive off the elements within the blood. By drinking blood we can rebuild your body. Unfortunately, when we first came to you, there was not enough nourishment within your blood to sustain us. So, we did what we could to keep your body alive. However, your resistance to our commands was strong. We tried to attach with your nerve centers, but could not find access to them. As a result, you were able to maintain control over your body when we tried to override you and seek nourishment.

I thought about what the symbiot had just told me. They had tried to take control when they were underfed – that explained why my body seemingly went on auto-pilot when fresh blood was near. But, what amazed me was that they claimed there wasn’t enough nourishment in human blood to sustain the colony. Perhaps, I postulated, human blood didn’t have enough of whatever nutrients the symbiots needed in order to survive. Maybe, it was the animal blood they sought.

“So, how do colonies spread?” I asked.

We spread through injecting ourselves into the bodies of the new host. This is usually carried out through our host’s hunting activities. Usually, some poor creature is bitten, and then a small portion of our colony is spread to the next host through saliva. It is a really efficient means of reproduction.

There was no doubt about that! It was an efficient way to reproduce. They didn’t need to procreate in any way as humans understood it; their host carried them, nourished them, and then developed new colonies by depositing them into a new host. “So,” I decided to ask, “then what went wrong when you tried to colonize humans?”

We don’t know. We cannot ‘speak’ with other colonies. The only communications we have with them are just the warnings we send out to stay away. And, at that, only successful colonies can do that. We are, as far as we know, the first and only colony to succeed. We have not encountered any other colonies sending out a warning.

For some reason I didn’t think that this was entirely truthful. It seemed foolish for an organism that could manipulate the human body to such a great degree to not have some means of communicating with other colonies. But, I didn’t want to let on to these organisms that I was untrusting of them yet. After all, they had infested my body and could, if they pushed hard enough, probably gain control of my body entirely.

So
, I thought to myself,
fate has given me quite a strange twist; from living human to walking dead seeking craving human blood, to a superhuman symbiotic host feasting on animal blood. A vampire?
Whatever the hell I was, I was not going to let these organisms gain sole control of my body. I was going to stay being me. And now that I knew why these things were here – to colonize the human species – I knew that I had to destroy them.

Great I went from being a zombie to being a zombie-hunting vampire! Not bad for a day’s work…

Okay, so to say that I had become a vampire was a little bit of an overstatement. But, I couldn’t think of any other way to explain a formerly dead/undead person who relied on blood to sustain their life. I mean, what the hell was that? Yet, thinking back to how this whole thing started, it was the smell of blood which had set me off to begin with; and it was to become a staple of my diet. At least I was happy that my thirst for blood was quenched by animals instead of needing to rely on the senseless slaughter of humans. However, I feared my thirst would not be controllable near humans.

I noticed that my sense of smell was much keener now that I had rejoined the world of the ‘living.’ In fact, I could smell the different animals nearby. It took me a matter of minutes to hunt down and drain several unaware animals so that I could devour their blood. I also noticed that my drive to consume blood was much more muted now, as well.

So, I had to test my ability to be near humans in some way. But, the more that I supped on animal blood it occurred to me that I didn’t actually crave human blood. It had no appeal to me. But, then again, the only real way to test it would have been to put myself in close proximity to some. The only problem was that if I put my friends at hazard I could never forgive myself if I’d actually hurt them. In addition, had I actually killed a stranger myself, it would also be unforgivable. So, there was the quandary. How was I to get near human blood without putting someone at risk?

I didn’t have long to ponder as a woman’s terrified shriek pierced the stillness of my surroundings. That there was someone in trouble there could be no doubt. That was a scream of fear if I’d ever heard one.

I ran toward the source of the scream. It was quite a significant distance, but my body didn’t tire in the slightest as I pushed myself as fast as I could to reach the woman’s aide. When I got there, however, what I found shocked me. There must have been more than a dozen creatures crawling over her. She had been bitten and was bleeding freely.

The smell of her blood struck my nose and it instantly repulsed me. I don’t know how to describe it other than it smelled sick, like a wine spoiled with vinegar. I found myself holding my breath to keep the terrible smell at bay.

The creatures turned as I approached. Their mouths opened wide, blood spilling from the gaping maws. But, just as my new companions had promised, as I approached the woman they all backed away. However, they seemed very protective of their ‘kill’ as they hung just on the edge of some invisible barrier between them and myself.

Closer to the woman I could smell that her blood was definitely unappealing. But, I also didn’t know if this was a side effect of her having just been bitten and infected with the same type of symbiotic organism which now coursed through my veins. In any case, I knew that she didn’t have long before the organism began spreading its way through her body.

I didn’t know what to do. She was doomed to become one of those soulless flesh-eaters. I approached her and could see that she was almost unconscious.

She was quite pretty I had to admit, even though this wasn’t really the time or place to be thinking about that sort of thing. But, I write it here because it was due to my immediate attraction to that I acted as I did. I walked up to her, lifted her into a sitting position, and snapped her neck sideways.

This may seem like an illogical thing to do. Especiall
y after just telling you that I did it from my strong attraction to her. But, to me, it was what made the most sense.

In my own defense, I had thought that if she’d had the same benefit I’d had of a limited supply of the symbiots entering the brain, then she could stand a better chance of surviving her transformation same as I had. Upon her body falling limp, I hefted her up into my arms and ran off with her. Again, my body barely exerted any energy as I ran at full tilt putting distance between myself and the creatures.

I followed my nose to a nearby apartment building that I could tell was teeming with animals. Quickly, I found one of the empty apartments inside, and set the woman down on the couch. Her lifeless form worried me. Had I made the wrong choice? Had I just senselessly ended this poor girl’s life?

I knew the answer instantly – No, I hadn’t. For, even if I’d managed to kill her before the symbiots spread through her system, she was much better off dead than she would be a mindless flesh eating monster. Still, I didn’t want her death to be permanent.

With her body resting on the couch I set off to hunt throughout the building. With my heightened senses, it didn’t take very long for me to find a couple dozen mice and rats which I could drain for her to consume. I only hoped that she would still be on the couch when I returned. I was in luck – she was!

As I opened the throat of the first rodent and hung it over the large kitchen bowl I’d found, the girl’s eyes suddenly popped open. She looked around her, taking in her surroundings. But as she saw me, she started to scramble away. I’d almost forgotten what the symbiots inside had told me – I would repel other hosts.

This may not work, Byron.
The chorus of voices suddenly erupted in my ears.
There is no telling if you will be able to aid her assimilation.

“Shut up,” I told them. “I have to try.” I couldn’t voice the feelings which suddenly flooded into me. I wanted to hold her, to cuddle her, to protect her from the creatures which had tried to devour her flesh, to protect her from the ones which were now spreading throughout her body.

She tried to speak. That was a good sign. “Hello,” I said to her. “You have nothing to fear. I’m not going to harm you.”

She shook her head, trying to say something again. And then, a small croak of air came through her vocal chords. “WheremmmI?”

Her question was clear enough. “You’re in an abandoned apartment. You’ve been bitten by those things and are now infected. I am preparing something that’ll help you.”
I hope
, I thought to myself. I didn’t want to scare her. But, it appeared that I was correct in my estimation – the broken neck helped slow the reaction between the colony’s spread and her brain. She was still herself.

“What’s your name?” I asked her gently.

She looked me up and down, not quite sure what to think. Then her face cringed in obvious pain. “Brrnnss,” was her reply. I understood her meaning. The burning sensation was spreading throughout her body.

“Yes,” I told her, “I know. It’ll burn for a while. But, once you drink what I am preparing, you’ll feel much better. The burning will go away.” I gave her a warm smile and she smiled back.

I left her alone on the couch and brought all of my ‘supplies’ into the kitchen so that I could complete draining the small wriggling bodies of the rodents I had captured. I worked as quickly as I could, even to the point that I was squeezing blood from the little beasts like they were living juice pouches.

I had managed to half-fill the bowl and decided that it would have to be enough. I didn’t want her suffering much longer. The bowl full of liquid made me thirst so bad that I wanted to start drinking it all myself. But, I was starting to realize that my self-control was strong enough to resist the urge. It was also a good thing that I had fed earlier.

Back in the living room, she was still sitting on the couch. I smiled at her and carried over the bowl full of rodent blood. She smiled back.

“So, what’s your name?” I asked her.

“Elise,” she replied much more clearly. The thirst was making her body more active.

“Hi, Elise.” I said, “my name is Byron. I would like you to drink this. I know that after looking into it you may not want to, but your body isn’t going to give you a choice.” She nodded.

I handed her the bowl and she cautiously moved it to her lips. The smell of it was so good that I licked my own lips. She smelled it and I could hear a little moan in her throat. At first she took a small sip then drank deeply. Blood poured out the corners of her mouth as she gulped down the remainder of the bowl. She didn’t stop until every last drop of the vital nectar had been drained from the bowl.

As I watched, the bite wounds in her arms and legs from where the creatures had removed bits of flesh began to heal. Her skin, which had become pale, had taken on a healthier rosy hue. I could see that she was far more beautiful than I’d initially thought. Then, I heard it – the cracks which resounded through the room as her vertebrae snapped back into place.

“How do you feel, Elise?” I asked her timidly.

She smiled. “Much better, thank you.” She tested her arms and legs, felt the places where her wounds had once been, and looked at her hands with amazement. “It’s a miracle, what did you give me?” she asked.

I hadn’t thought of this part – actually having to explain to her what’d just happened to her body. My face felt flushed and my ears warm. “ I uhhh…”

Oh God! How was I going to explain this?