Byron : A Zombie Tale (Part 1) (4 page)

Sitting in the large desk-filled room, probably the part of the police station where officers processed arrests and took written statements, with my back against the wall to the front foyer I had much to mull over. Up until a few moments ago I was under the firm belief that my predicament was all part of an elaborate prank of which I was the sole target. However, my body’s recent behavior, of which I had little control, toward the dying police officer in the foyer had dashed that belief to pieces. My body, of its own volition, had decided to feed on the wounded, dying man. It was only through a supreme act of will that I was able to shove myself away from the suffering man.

Pam had also informed me that there seemed to be some kind of ‘zombie invasion’ happening. What was happening to me? How long had I been asleep? This made no sense to me!

I mean, how could any of this even be happening?
I asked myself.
There was no such thing as a zombie. Right? They were just the machinations of horror novelists and superstitious fools. Weren’t they?

The cop started coughing roughly. “Byron?” It was Pam. I could hear that there was concern in her voice. “Byron, are you still there?”

“Yeah. I am,” I said just under my breath, surprised that I could still speak without major impediment!

Her voice lowered to just above a whisper. “Good.” I was astonished to hear that there was actual relief in her voice. “What can we do about this cop? I don’t think he’s going to make it.” Remembering what I had seen of his wound, I knew that she was right! I was also disgusted with myself that my mouth started to water uncontrollably and the burning in my gut grew as I thought of the officer’s wound.

Wiping the saliva from my mouth I responded. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” I hung my head. “He’s going to die without proper medical attention. I’ve only had one first-aid class and am no way qualified to help him.”

Pam leapt at this comment. “Yeah, but at least you can do SOMETHING! You could maybe help stop the bleeding?”

“I Can’t!” I said to her forcefully, knowing that I couldn’t trust my body anywhere near the officer. “I can’t go near him. The blood!”

Pam was immediate with her response. “Then tell me what to do! If you can’t handle the blood, then let me do it! Please! I can’t just lay here and watch him die.”

I agreed. I couldn’t sit there and let him die, either. Someone had to do something. I made my way closer to the doorway. The smell of the officer’s vital life blood pouring forth from his chest wound was irresistibly tantalizing. Oh God!

This was insane!

“Byron!” Pam called my name. I could hear the officer in the other room begin coughing uncontrollably. “Quickly! We have to do something!”

I steeled myself. If I went in there, I knew that I couldn’t breathe. The smell was just too much! It made me ravenous with hunger…

I held my breath, stood up and walked into the foyer. I had to do something to help the officer. I couldn’t just let him die!

Pam was sitting with the officer - his head was cradled in her lap. His coughing had abated some and I could see blood around the corner of his mouth. But, his chest was still rising and falling – albeit shallow.

I stepped forward as quickly as I could and began working with amazing speed. Holding my breath, I noticed that my body still responded to my commands instead of becoming a rogue agent.

I looked around and saw some loose pieces of what appeared to be women’s clothing lying around the floor of the foyer. Grabbing them I stepped over to the officer. His eyes were closed – it was obvious that his strength was waning. I opened his shirt in one swift motion and could see that he was bleeding through a fairly small wound right of the center of his chest. But, what I saw beneath the shirt worried me more than the wound itself. A large, deep purple blotch had bloomed within the officer’s flesh beneath his shirt and had spread across most of his chest. I didn’t need medical training to know that he was bleeding internally.

Pam looked at me as I hung my head. “What is it?” she asked in a low whisper. I simply looked at her and shook my head.

“What?! What’s wrong?” She was getting very excited. I could see the tears welling in her eyes.

“He’s not going to make it. He’s bleeding internally – there’s no way to stop it!” I explained to her. But, in my foolishness I made a dire mistake. I had stopped holding my breath. Instinctively, I sucked in air.

Saliva poured forth from my mouth like a torrential flood. Beyond my control my hands reached for his flesh and I felt myself leaning forward. My mouth opened wide – wider, in fact, than I had ever thought possible for it to open. The hunger burning in my gut was excruciating! My body needed to feed!

“NNOOO!” I screamed. And, with a Herculean act of will, I threw myself again away from the body of the poor unfortunate man! I stopped my breathing as completely as I could. I needed to get away! To Flee! Before I became something for which I could never forgive myself!

I ran back down the hallway, making my way to the morgue where I had last awoken. I needed the isolation, to be away from other living things to which I may become a danger. My face felt numb as the reality of the situation swept over me. It was a reality that I did not want to face, let alone accept. It was the reality that I was dead! And not just dead, but apparently, Undead!

The darkness of the morgue was welcoming and reflected my state of mind. My life was over - I was dead! And yet, I wasn’t. I was still here; still me! I could walk, talk, think, and reason. I was still, in a sense, human. Wasn’t I?

Except now I seemed to have some new affliction. Is that what this was? An affliction? Or, was it some kind of a curse?

I just didn’t know.

I sat in the darkness for a while, trying to wrap my head around my current condition. But, this silent contemplation was short-lived for down the hallway from the vicinity of the foyer I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Pam!

I raced down the hallway and stopped my breath as I came close to the foyer – not willing to risk a replay of my past behavior. Before I reached the room, though, it became evident to me what had caused Pam concern. My ears were assailed by a barrage of pounding.

Stepping into the room I was shocked by what appeared before me. Through the glass front door I could see that there were about a dozen animated corpses pounding on the glass. I didn’t know if it was the smell of the dying officer that had attracted their attention, but now that Pam was screaming they were becoming even more excited.

I leapt into the room and grabbed Pam about the waist, dragging her from the room. We had to get somewhere safe from these things. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any more than two steps before the plate glass shattered and came crashing to the floor. The undead began to swarm through the door. The first two creatures lurched over to the recently expired officer, while the remainder appeared to prefer a living target.

Three corpses were rapidly approaching us. Considering that these were merely moving piles of dead meat, I was surprised that they moved so quickly. And yet, unlike myself, I could see that they didn’t have possession of their cognitive faculties. They were simply autonomous feeding machines driven by a hunger for human flesh and blood.

I pushed Pam behind me. Her hands were still covered with the dead officer’s blood and it was likely his odor that had driven these moving piles of dead flesh into frenzy. In a moment one of them was on top of me, trying to claw his way past me to get to Pam. I tried to push him off me, but he was strong. And, I had to admit that I was a little timid when it came to putting my hands near his snapping jaws. The second one, a female, tried to push past me as well and the third was coming to join the fray!

“Pam, run!” I yelled at her, pushing her through the doorway between the foyer and the processing room. As she took off toward the hallway and the morgue beyond I heard her yell back at me, “their heads…” But, what did she mean?

The creatures were snapping at me like I too was full of warm blood. It wasn’t until I looked at my hands that I realized that I had some of the officer’s blood on me also. It was only a small amount, but it was enough to send them crazy.

I shoved hard at the one grappling with me. To my surprise, he was moved quite easily by my force – almost like I was throwing a rag doll across the room. The female filled the void he had occupied almost instantly and wrapped her hands around my right arm.

In response to her grasp I curled my arm and spun her into me, wrapping my right arm around her neck. I grabbed her head with both hands and twisted it quickly, like I had seen done in so many war movies where the hero breaks his enemy’s neck. To my surprise, the move worked much better than I could ever have guessed. The woman’s head came clear off! The corpse dropped instantly!

Aha! That’s what Pam meant. Their weakness is in their heads! Sever the head from the body and the corpse is just that – a lifeless pile of meat.

I was prepared for the third attacker. He lunged at me with the intensity of a rabid dog. I turned my body sideways to feint his attack while raising my arms in case I needed to block. However, I had miscalculated the direction and intent of his attack. He was not looking to grapple. No. He was looking to bite!

The creature, for I do not wish to acknowledge that such a thing as a zombie may truly exist, sank its sharp human teeth into my right forearm and held on like a pit-bull in a dog fight. I yanked away from him with great force, and only managed to pull him off his feet. The unfortunate result was that he dropped to his knees and pulled me downward with him.

He refused to relinquish his grasp on my flesh, so in exchange for his reluctance I rained down unrelentingly upon his head with my left fist trying to turn his white dead flesh into a pulpy mash. But, still the teeth did not release. I looked around for something with which I could beat this creature. However, there was nothing handy.

I continued my barrage on the creature’s head and kept flailing about to dislodge it from my arm. Though, with my attention focused on this attacker I missed several others that slipped past and into the room beyond. This negligence of mine was brought fully to my attention as I heard an earsplitting shriek from the neighboring room. I knew at once that it was Pam and she was in danger.

I no longer had the time or patience to be dealing with this foe! I rushed forward, forcing my opponent onto his back and stomped my feet onto his chest while straightening my back to stand upright. The effect was exactly what I was searching for. The creature’s head came clean from its shoulders. As the two pieces of meat separated I could feel the teeth relinquish their grip and the head fell to the ground.

My arm burned at the location of the bite wound. It was a burn just like the one I had been feeling through the remainder of my body since I awoke. Only, this burn was slightly more intensified. I opened and squeezed my fingers – everything seemed to be working appropriately. I had no loss of mobility or use in either my hand or arm.

I turned and rushed down the hallway to find Pam only to hear the door to the morgue slam shut. She’d locked herself in the morgue!

As I entered the hallway I could immediately see that there were three creatures pounding against the far door. I ran down the hallway, grabbed one of them by the sides of the head, and wrenched it around in my grasp. Another head came off! Smelling the officer’s blood on me, the others turned away from the door. They could no longer smell the blood on Pam, and I was their new target.

I took a few steps back and leapt through the door to the evidence lock-up. There had to be something in here that I could use against the attackers! I started pulling boxes off the shelves and rifling through them. Aha! There it was – a crowbar.

I hefted the crowbar like a baseball bat just in time as one of the creatures finally burst into the room attracted by the smell of the dead officer. His companion was hot on his coattails.
Dammit!
I thought to myself,
Oh well, here goes!

I coiled my body.

As the first creature came within swinging distance I unleashed a terrific swing right at its head. The decaying mass of meat and bone exploded into tiny pieces of broken skull and whitish-gray matter with a pop not unlike that of a light bulb exploding. And, just like that the remainder of the corpse fell to the earth. Two more swings of my bludgeon wreaked the same havoc upon the final attacker.

I ran from the evidence room and back into the hallway. It appeared as though there were still a couple of the creatures hanging back in the processing room. I ran down the hallway toward that room and quietly closed the door between them and the hallway so that I would not arouse the creatures’ attention. Slipping into the detective’s office I had earlier explored I grabbed the extra chair and wedged it underneath the door handle. It was a makeshift barrier that would likely be short-lived but, could hopefully buy a little extra time, if we needed it.

I ran back down the hallway to the door leading to the morgue and tapped out a very identifiable
Shave and a Haircut
. The response I heard was the appropriate
two bits
. Pam was there!

I shook the door handle and with a voice just as high as I would dare said, “Pam! Are you there? Open up, it’s me! Byron!”

I could hear the door lock open and wasted no time in passing through into the morgue, slamming the door shut behind me. The lights were on in the morgue. I whirled and locked the door again. Pam was already moving to find things to push up against the door as a barricade.

Together we moved a couple of cabinets and shelving units containing a wide assortment of chemicals. Within about ten minutes we had managed to pile several hundred pounds of material in front of the door with the hope that this may slow the tide of creatures we knew would soon find its way down the hallway following the scent of fresh blood.

With a few seconds purchased through our efforts I turned to Pam. There were so many questions; so many things that I didn’t understand. To her I said, “So, tell me everything you know about what the hell is going on.”