This time I would like to thank Dephlosticated for his literary concerns
CHAPTER 3: SHE FINDS A GUN
HEART RATE: 115 BPM
We could see her. She’d come out the back of the store and had a quick scuffle with a zombie who’d separated from the pack and was heading into suburbia now. We observed she was limping, dragging one leg, her calf and sock drenched in blood, and were pleased. She looked more like one of us than ever. The loss of our comrade was a problem, but he’d refused to run with the herd, instead lying in wait in buildings and dark places, waiting for meat to wander by while fleeing the pack. It was sickening behaviour for a zombie, refusing the needs of the pack to please oneself, but it mattered little now. Six zombies peeled away from the main pack and grabbed at his body. One seized his limp right leg and the other grabbed his head and they pulled against each other till hunks of meat came off. The others fell onto his belly, ripping it up.
Was this her plan? Maybe she just intended to flee from us forever. Every time we pursued her, more of our number fell, partially to her bloody-mindedness, but mostly to the gnawing, bleeding hunger of our own kind. I gave a guttural little chuckle as she ran to the door of an old house and rattled the handle, trying to get in. Zombies were stronger than humans, by a hundred times. We were more dogged, unstoppable and needed far less food than humans to sustain ourselves. It was a noble effort on her part, but she failed to realize only the weak were dying. The pack would only eat those who fell and only the weak would fall. I looked at the zombies around me as they began their shambling gait down the street after the girl. I was stronger than all of them. Their bodies would feed me as I pursued her, their bodies would nourish my own. With every step the girl took, her mortal body would break down and fail, her heart would slow, while mine already lay dormant, sitting in my chest, showing that I was the superior being here. As more zombies fell, less zombies would be needed and she would be able to fight us off with less skill and ability. She was fighting her best against 1,000 zombies, but when there were 100 zombies she’d begin to miss or be unable to lift her weapons. When there were 10 zombies, she’d crawl from us on her hands and knees, feebly trying to defend herself from us, our bodies strong and gorged on our comrades meat.
Eventually, I would eat the other 9 and every one of those dead would make me strong enough to finish our work. The zombie machine got smaller and smaller as it neared its goal, the complete opposite of modernized mechanization and when our work of destroying humanity was done, there would only be one zombie left, standing at the center of the world and surrounded by a million dead bodies. That zombie would travel the world, feeding on everything and everyone, sustained for as long as this planet continued to orbit the sun. He would be nothing short of a God. Every zombie knew this, of course, but who would the winner of this competition?
I watched silently as a zombie shambled into the front yard of a house that the girl was trying the lock of. I was too far away to hear her, but her actions were clear. She pulled the house’s mailbox, a tall, wooden one with a metal box on top, clean out of the ground and held it like a baseball bat, over her shoulder. She waited until the zombie was just close enough and then swung it through his head, obliterating it in one clean swipe. She looked profoundly at the mailbox, then put it on her back, in the spot that the chainsaw had previously occupied. I was content to keep my distance, knowing that she was powerful and determined to wait until she had worn herself out.
I noticed several other zombies were doing the same. On the cliff where the rubble of the mall lay, my spot from where I could observe the entire district, I saw five other zombies were looking out as well. All six of us stared at the girl, admiring her progress, appreciating it. When I looked at them, they looked back accusingly, offended that I would ruin this beautiful moment. The other zombies would rush headlong into the field, throwing their bodies at her, trying to weaken her. They were inferior to us. I felt an affinity with my five brothers, standing in silence on this cliff-face, watching the girl run hither to and fro. The other zombies were labourers, workmen who would have toiled in the fields for us in a past life. I gave a smile that was mostly gum. We were artists. We were all planning out our final work in our minds, planning the perfect scenario, the perfect way to kill her. We were the leaders of the pack, that was certain.
But they thought the same way I did, of course. I felt anger, looking at them and shuffled away to one side, taking my eyes off the girl momentarily. I would be the final zombie, after all. I would be the one to tear out her intestines and cram them down my decaying throat. Her meat would be for me and me only. I went back to the site where we had killed the thirty men and women last night and began to search it, eventually scooping up a knife. I smiled as I weighed it in my mind. They had no idea what was coming, obviously, and the first two fell in moments, as I plunged the knife into their brains, then cut their throats to stop them from crying out. My hands were smashed and worn but I was still able to wield the weapon, albeit clumsily. The other three turned to face me and I nodded to them, holding the knife clumsily. One of them reached out to stop me and I cut off his hand, then moved closer, pushing into him and slicing his belly open. His guts spooled out all over the floor and I pushed past him, shoving another zombie off the cliff where he splattered on the rocks below, arms and legs flying in different directions.
I turned to face the last pretend artist, but he grabbed me from behind, while the one I’d gutted moaned and writhed on the ground. I swore as he grappled with me, but he didn’t need this as much as I did, not at all. I would taste her, I knew it! He grabbed at my knife hand and tried to disarm me, but it went wrong and he shredded the bone, cleaving my hand in two and making it forever useless. My dream of putting my hands around the girl’s throat and staring into her eyes as I choked her to death was gone now. All gone. I elbowed him in the face and he stumbled back, clutching as his smashed nose. I swore at him and shoved him again, making the zombie stumble, waving my bloodied, smashed hand in his face.
“Do you see what you’ve done, you asshole? Do you fucking know what you’ve just done?”
I moved behind him and grabbed him by his hand, hauling him across the gravel. He was still unsteady on his feet as I tossed him to the ground overlooking the cliff. “You FUCKER,” I swore and kicked him, sending him tumbling over the edge. I watched his body smash apart on the rocks, admiring the way his blood dribbled down the rocks. That was better. One artist now, nobody to ruin his majestic landscape. I heard moans from behind me and remembered the gutted zombie was still alive. I walked briskly back to him, picking up the knife on my way and buried it in his head, silencing him.
Then, I looked at my hand. Oh, terrible fortune. Why now? Why at this critical juncture? My eyes fell to the zombie in front of me. His body was ruined, totally torn apart by the knife. Guts spooled out all over the pavement, eyes slack, tongue hanging out. Sickening, really. The rest of him was fine at least. My eyes fell to his hands. I wondered now if he was really an artist like me. His hands were perfectly clear, barely even decayed. Had this wretch even taken a single life or was he simply the sort to stand at the back and wait for others to do his work? What a worthless little bastard! I looked at his wrists, then at my mangled hand and began to cut what was left of it from my own body. There was little blood, just residuals left in my body since I’d died. I tore the rest of it away, then cut his hand off of his body, pressing it against my own stump. I frowned and looked about for something to affix it with, eventually finding a needle and some thread. It seemed like someone in this little community had been trying to repair clothes, as I found a whole stack of torn or patched shirts and pants. I stitched the hand on as best I could and rose, walking back to the cliff. I couldn’t see the girl at first and I panicked. My new hand wasn’t moving, but that was alright. I closed my eyes and felt the wind, telling myself it would be fine. I just needed something to eat, something to repair the tissue lost. My other hand clenched, knowing soon I’d squeeze the life out of her throat. I smiled again and looked all around the street for a sign of the girl.
She’d been busy since I’d last looked, but then, so had I. Six more zombies lay dead in the street and she was holding something. Something small and black. I raised a hand to my face, craning closer to look better. It was a pistol, a 9mm by the look of it. Where on earth did she get that? From one of the hou…
HEART RATE: 80 BPM
She sighted along the barrel and I realized she was pointing it at me. At last, the subject notices the artist! Appreciation in its basest form! I tried to work the fingers of my new hands, showing her the beauty I had in store for her, but then… She squinted at me and her finger tensed on the trigger. Could it really be? Didn’t she appreciate my art? Didn’t she appreciate the blood I had spilled to make sure this would be perfect for us? I took a step forwards, furious, before she fired. I heard a deafening bang and fell backwards, crying out and realized the bullet had gone through my brain. No! This was not meant to be happening! I was the one who was going to kill her, nobody else. My brains spilled out and I saw her turn away before the grass obscured my view of her. I twitched and then lay still.
Nobody appreciates an artist until after he’s dead!