I’m probably what people would describe as the most cynical out of the ones left. I know this. Before it happened, I talked about the world going to hell. I always said people would cause their own destruction. I had figured it was only a matter of time. Even knowing this, finding everyone dead was a hell of a shock.
It was even more shocking when I stumbled upon survivors, and they actually helped. Outside of family, people didn’t help me. Society feared anything outside the norm, and I was used to that. So having people help me shocked me, even when I knew at least one of them couldn’t stand me from the first sight of me. It was still amazing. It’d been awhile, that’s all. Outside of rehab, and they were paid to do that; it wasn’t because “they cared.” I think I sound bitter. Maybe I am.
It was an adjustment. Wasn’t everything?
But even I never before imagined seeing what I did that night. How could I? How could anyone?
Yet, in the end, I feel like I was freed that day. We were all freed from everything that people never knew had held them down for so long. We were freed, all of us still alive, at least.
Whether we wanted it…
… or not.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
5:00 a.m.
The night had been as silent as the day, when the three had settled into an empty hotel the previous evening. It had been a relief to get out of the car when they had. AJ had the feeling that all he did was agitate Howie, and to be honest, he didn’t find himself quite fond of the man either. He was too absorbed in himself, too convinced he was right, and had this air of superiority that drove AJ crazy.
Kayleigh… He felt he couldn’t get a solid read on her just yet. At some moments, she’d get sick of the silence as they drove and would attempt to fill it with idle chatter. At others, she’d sit in her seat silently with tears running down her cheeks. AJ only guessed that she kept fighting to deny what was happening and continued to fail. Still, her sporadic mood changes made it difficult for him to see what kind of person she was, and he couldn’t read her yet.
The drive with those two had been long and tedious. The time it took them to get anywhere was tripled, due to the fact that many people had tried to escape and died in the process. The result was a mess of blocked streets with cars scattered everywhere. Many times, it forced them to make detours that didn’t always work, so they’d have to drive around until they found another way. AJ had even offered to take over driving for Howie, seeing the man get tired. That hadn’t exactly gone well.
“I can’t believe this. I figured once we got out of Kissimmee, it’d clear up a bit.”
“You kidding, Howard? Some people probably got sick trying to get the hell out.”
They heard Kayleigh sniffle, but say nothing, as she stared out the window. Howie just sighed, his grip on the steering wheel tightening that much more, as the car rolled over yet another body carelessly strewn across the pavement. Kayleigh gulped as they all felt the jolt, Howie’s jaw tightened, and even AJ felt an uncontrollable twitch just from knowing what that was.
“Look, you’re getting tired, bro; let me take over for a bit, and you can rest.”
Howie stared at AJ incredulously. He saw the amazement written clearly in Howie’s eyes at his being so bold as to suggest driving a car Howie clearly considered too good for him. He increased his speed as he navigated his fancy Lexus around the other cars and bodies blocking his way. “Are you kidding me, DJ? I don’t need you driving my car.”
“It’s AJ.”
“Like it matters now. The world is dead. You could say you’re Bill Gates now.”
AJ smirked, lighting up a cigarette in the backseat as he rolled down the window. Enjoying the Puerto Rican’s look of pure annoyance, he blew the smoke out the window. “I could have said that before, as long as I didn’t mind people thinking I was insane. Heh, the world was dead long before now; it just wasn’t as obvious. Now some sick bastard probably decided to take it to a more literal level.”
“Are you serious, AJ?” The tone was dripping with superiority, an air of confidence that he knew that AJ was just bitter and deluded, when truly, AJ felt it was the other way around. “You really believe that load?”
“I know it’s true. That’s why I can handle a world where status means nothing. But you, you seem the type to love making yourself feel like you’re better than others. Can YOU handle a world without that?”
“Can you two stop fighting?” a tearstained Kayleigh asked them, finally interrupting the conversation before it went too far. “Don’t we have enough problems without creating more?”
The drive was silent after that.
So eventually, after hours of fighting the clogged-up roadways, Howie had gotten frustrated and pulled over at the first decent hotel he spotted. They’d found no one found inside, not even employees, which, once AJ thought about it, wasn’t shocking. Who would try coming to work when they were dying? And people would flee a hotel as soon as possible, if they found themselves succumbing to a plague. Obviously, a lot of people had thought that way, judging by the state of the streets. However, they had to use their cell phones as flashlights, due to the power outage, which only confirmed that, so far, nothing had changed.
Despite everything that had happened, they’d managed to sleep. At last, AJ’s mind was at ease, no conscious thoughts invading it at the moment. His body had forced him to get the rest he so desperately needed. It was a blissful escape from all the unbelievable horrors of the day. There were no dreams, at least, none that he could recall later. There was no stirring. There was just rest – quiet, peaceful, and seemingly eternal.
It was only mere hours he rested, before his body betrayed him and forced him to rise again. He grabbed Howard’s phone from the nightstand beside the couch he’d been delegated to and checked the time. Five hours he’d slept, more impressive than he thought it would be, given all the circumstances. Stretching from the far-too-small couch he’d been stuck sleeping on, he stood and cracked his back lazily. A quick glance around the room showed Howie and Kayleigh asleep on the one bed in the room.
Howard would’ve slept so much easier on that couch; he’s small enough for it, AJ mused in mild annoyance. Slowly, he made his way out onto the balcony, craving a cigarette. His hand grabbed the pack he’d gotten during one of their earlier rest stops and lit one up. Taking a long drag, he rested against the balcony lazily, watching his surroundings. The sun wasn’t due to rise for probably another two hours, and the moon shone brightly above as he blew a wave of smoke out into the air. The night was still present and dark, the stars teasing him with their simple beauty.
He used to do this often, go out and watch the night, the birds soaring through the air, crickets chirping softly, cars rushing by on the dark streets. It was one of the few things that used to bring him back to reality as a child, make him feel part of the world, rather than outside it. There was just something soothing about watching people drive by from the apartment balcony he and his mother had lived in, to see how people lived with no pressures to interact himself. That night, there was nothing to watch, and the silence was deafening. He could hear no birds, no crickets, nothing.
It was that which made him put out his cigarette and really take it in. Only people had died of the disease. As far as he’d noticed, it hadn’t touched animals at all. All throughout their drive, they’d noticed abandoned cats and dogs wandering the streets. Although the world was now devoid of the noises humanity made daily, it was still filled with the soft sounds of animals.
Now, there was nothing. That only happened…
When something was coming.
“What’s the matter?” a soft, tired voice came from just behind him, making him jerk with surprise. He turned to see the young college girl, so out of place in her slept-in, stolen clothing.
“It’s too quiet,” he replied, turning back to the scene below. “Thought you were asleep…”
“Howie woke me up.”
“Heh.”
“Why’s the quiet bugging you now? It has been all day.”
“This is different…”
She came up next to him, resting against the railing. Their room was on the second floor, as it had been the first one they had found a key for down in the lobby. The breeze picked up a bit and blew her hair around as she sighed once more. “How?”
“Because it-” His words stopped dead cold once they heard a noise below. Their gazes shifted downwards to take in what they had only seen before in horror movies. Everything seemed a replica of scenes in almost every basic horror movie he’d ever bothered with. (Not that the list was long, seeing as he’d always get frustrated with the Hollywood happy endings, but that was beside the point.) The moon was full, the area lit only by its glow, giving what was already disturbing an even more haunting appearance.
Of course, what made it such a horror scene were the signs of life – or more precisely, imitations of life – shuffling their way along the streets below. He heard the high-pitched screams coming from the now-panicking girl beside him. AJ, however, was once again outside of the situation, and he blocked her out as he stared in shock at the sight below.
People – what used to be people – were roaming the streets below them. AJ could see almost every detail as he craned his neck over to see better. They were clearly dead; the skin was gray and pale, marked with the trademark lesions he’d grown tired of seeing. Many of them were ones Howard had run over earlier, with tire marks along their heads and chests.
Kayleigh continued to scream, and one of the… could he really think it?
One of the undead paused and began to moan. AJ could only guess what that meant, but didn’t wish to find out. He turned to Kayleigh, grabbing her quickly and covering her mouth with his hand. He stared down below, waiting, staying there quietly, and feeling like he was watching himself in a movie theater at that very moment. Her eyes stared at AJ in shock as she struggled angrily against him.
“Shh…”
The creatures continued their awkward, limping-styled shuffle, and AJ looked at the girl he still held in his arms. “Are you going to stay quiet?” He took her silent nod as an agreement, and the moment he let her go, she burst inside without another word. AJ watched the scene below once more and felt completely separated from the entire matter. He knew he probably should be having a panic attack. He should be acting the same as Kayleigh, who could be heard inside, babbling to herself in terror and losing all self-control – albeit far quieter, much to his relief.
But he wasn’t. He was in shock, of course. Seeing people rise from the dead was something he’d never imagined possible. Even with his cynical mind, a mind others would have called twisted before the virus hit, he had never pictured anything like this actually happening.
How could this happen? He wasn’t sure.
How had this not happened to himself, to Kayleigh, to Howie, or to those survivors they spoke of on the radio at the MacDill Air Force Base? He wasn’t sure.
What was happening to the world? He wasn’t sure.
His mind was racing, still trying to grasp that he was, in fact, watching zombies roam the streets of Plant City, Florida and not dreaming. He wasn’t in Kissimmee at the rehab center; he was in some random hotel in random Plant City and was watching the undead walk. His mother and grandparents were dead, he knew, and probably among the armies of the undead as well now.
If he hadn’t thought society was dead before, even after seeing the mass deaths, he knew it now.
He felt grief; he felt sick; he felt disturbed…
He also felt free.
Before his thoughts could continue any further, they were interrupted by hearing Howie try to calm down Kayleigh in the background. Soon, he had company once again, when they both burst out onto the porch to meet him. Kayleigh was crying again, and Howie looked odd. AJ tilted his head to see tissue stuffed up one of Howie’s nostrils and spots of blood along his cheek. What happened – had Kayleigh hit him?
“What the hell did you do to her, MJ?”
“AJ,” he corrected for what felt like the millionth time, through gritted teeth. “And I didn’t do anything. Stay quiet and look down.”
Howie did what he was told, and AJ watched him slowly take in the horrific sights upon the streets. The only answer he got was Howie’s eyes rolling to the back of his head only moments later, his body falling directly against AJ as he collapsed. AJ stumbled back, holding the unconscious man in his arms, and dragged him back into the hotel. With one look to Kayleigh, he made his decision of what to do next.
“Get everything together. I’m gonna wake him up, and we’re getting the hell out of here.”
