Choices

[Archaaz]

As she refilled her glass, Karen mulled over the events that had brought her here, to this lonely cabin on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere. A series of decisions, some good, some bad, and one fairly monumental, unforeseeable bit of happenstance that had changed the world forever.

 

Looking back, that old world felt like a dream. It had been a world of utter freedom, filled with a seemingly endless array of open-ended, nonthreatening choices; what career should I pick, what color should I dye my hair, do I want a burger and fries, Thai, Chinese, Indian? Should I quit my safe, respectable job and travel cross-country by motorbike with my boyfriend on a whim? A game, really. This new world was likewise filled with choices, but more the binary, critical sort; kill or be killed, scavenge or starve, run and hide or be overrun and eaten.

 

She was well into her second bottle of Merlot, one of those affordable-yet-drinkable varieties she'd found in a cabinet over the sink. "Hints of red and black berries" it said on the label. Here in Muldraugh there weren't even that. The town's remaining fruit had rotted into an unidentifiable, putrefied mess, along with all other perishables, a couple of weeks after the power had finally given up the ghost. She'd eaten two entire gallons of ice cream the day the electricity died- partly to keep it from spoiling, partly out of mourning- and had spent the remainder of that day in a depressed stupor of regret and self-loathing.

 

Muldraugh had been without power for going on a month now. At one point, out of desperation, she'd eaten the fuzzy remains of a spoiled lemon, and promptly wretched into the toilet. At the time she had thought that she would never again be able to even smell another lemon, let alone eat one. Now she was certain of it.

 

Outside, the steady, almost rhythmical knocking at the window continued. She wondered vaguely if the boards would hold. During her time in Muldraugh, moving from one house to the next, she had become quite familiar with that sound. It was one of them, bashing its empty head against the now heavily fortified window. Ordinarily, this would have frightened Karen out of her mind, and, despite her fear, she would have forced herself to deal with the problem. But not tonight. Instead, she tried to refocus her attention on the open book before her, making a feeble attempt at returning to the world of Jane Eyre. But the words danced on the page in a drunken blur. Would Jane marry St. John? She can't!

 

Prior to the apocalypse Karen had never been much of a reader. She much preferred movies or the occasional television series. When she did turn to reading it was of the light, disposable sort; the newspaper, an article in some fashion magazine, a lurid, formulaic novel with some bare-chested hunk on its cover. Now she was insatiable, dipping into whatever genre she could find; former bestsellers, westerns, sci-fi, fantasy, the classics...she'd read War and Peace...twice. The night terrified her, and so, each evening, she'd settle onto the cabin's sofa and read; in the beginning by lamplight, now by the soft glow of a single candle.

 

She remembered watching those old zombie flicks as a kid; the dead rising from shallow graves, vast landscapes of shambling reanimated corpses stretching to the horizon. For the most part, those old films were spot on, down to the deserted old cabin in the woods where the protagonists always made their last stand, and always lost. But there is one thing they got wrong. In those old movies the zombies always went for the brain. As far as she could tell, this particular brand of undead were not picky eaters. Or where they? Was there indeed a particular organ they favored over others? Zombie delicacies? Did they secretly covet the liver, the stomach, the eyes...the brain? She shuddered at the thought, and took another sip of wine.

 

Karen gingerly removed the soiled bandage from her forearm, wincing at the pain, now somewhat blunted by the haze of one and a half bottles of wine and a couple of prescription pain killers she'd scrounged from the pocket of a young man, who, judging by his jersey and athletic physique, had likely once been the member of the local football team. She had imagined how he must have looked prior to his transformation, not to mention the the subsequent ruin she'd made of his head; strong jaw line, blue bedroom eyes, crop of perfectly-messy blonde curls. Drove all the ghouls wild. She cackled, a bit too loudly, and the knocking at the window grew noticeably louder, more urgent.

 

She examined the wound. What had begun as a slight scratch was now a festering sore of vaguely greenish hue, and emitted a rancid odor. She wasn't certain why she'd expected it to be better. The antibiotics she'd taken? Hope, more likely. Isn't that what they always said, hope never dies. It just keeps coming back; insidious, groaning, banging its head methodically, relentlessly against the window, until the glass finally shatters, and then devouring you in your sleep.

 

There was no doubt about it. She was infected. Her fever had reached a new high; even without the wine and drugs she was delirious and had trouble concentrating. She recalled the time her younger brother had been bitten by a poisonous snake in Costa Rica. He had described the feeling of the poison as it had spread from his ankle upward toward his groin. It had been begun as a cold sensation, and gradually become more painful. This was much like that, though its spread had been a bit slower than what he had described. She could feel it now, from the site of the wound to her shoulder, working its way up her neck, toward her brain; a cold, dull ache. Fortunately for her brother, he was given a couple of injections of anti-venom, kept overnight at the hospital and released the next day. For Karen there would be no cure.

 

She thought ruefully about that last scavenging run, to the Food Market. It wasn't far, but the place was bound to be crawling with corpses. And yet, what choice had she had. The cabin's food supply had been exhausted and she was starving. Add to that the fact the the city's water supply had finally stopped working. She had used up all of her reserves, including the water in the toilet. Without water, she would die within a couple of days. She had put out buckets, but it hadn't rained in over a fortnight.

 

And so, armed with her trusty Louisville slugger, a loaded 9mm Smith and Wesson she barely knew how to use, and a duffel bag, she had set off for the Food Market. She had been saving this place for desperate times,instead raiding the nearby mobile homes in the trailer park,and the homes near her cabin. Time didn't get much more desperate than this.

 

She had crept as quietly as possible the few hundred feet to the Food Market. Although there had been a few zombies, it had not been as bad as she had expected. There had only been six, milling around the parking lot. She was careful, as always, luring them one by one, keeping her distance. She was able to dispatch them relatively easily, without resorting to firing her pistol, though the effort winded her, and she had to take a breather. As always, she was amazed at how easy, how matter-of-fact, dispatching the undead had become.

 

That is when the trouble had begun. The door had been locked. Unable to jimmy any of the windows open, she had been forced to break one of the them, and had cut her arm entering the building. She knew the noise would attract more corpses, but had to bandage the wound to stop the bleeding, taking up precious moments. Once she had effectively treated the wound, she loaded up as much food as she could carry. The produce had long ago rotted, but she was able to find several cans of beans and dog food, some packets of dry noodles and a few tins of tuna. She filled the remaining space in her bag with bottles of water. Once she had stuffed her bag, she unlocked the door from the inside, and stepped out into the midday sun.

 

And then it had happened.

 

With a familiar groan, the lurching figure of a corpse suddenly appeared from around the corner. Surprised, laden with the spoils of her raid, she was unable to swing her bat properly, and succeeded only in landing a feeble blow to the creature's torso. This slowed the creature just enough to allow her to drop her bat and grab her pistol. Though not a great shot, at near point blank range, in two shots, she succeeded in blowing off the top half of the corpse's head.

 

She knew the gunfire would attract more corpses, and so, keeping her pistol at the ready, she made her way back to the cabin, as quickly, yet carefully, as she was able. By some quirk of fate she was able to make it back home without further incident.

 

It wasn't until she had reached the cabin that she noticed the scratch. Such a seemingly superficial wound, reaching from the top of her wrist to halfway up her forearm. She was appropriately horrified, and treated it immediately with disinfectant and wrapped it in a clean bandage. That had been a whiskey night.

 

Interestingly, the Food Market was not far from the motel where she and Luke had spent their first night in Muldraugh. How long ago that seemed. A thousand choices ago.

 

Karen fiddled idly with the bottle of sleeping tablets in her hand. The site of the infection had begun to throb with a new intensity, and she could feel the coldness, that dreadful aching coldness, penetrating to the base of her skull. She knew that, whatever else was true, she would not wake up in the morning, at least not as the Karen Ward she had known.

 

Would it hurt, those last few moments? The pills, the wine, the painkillers, they could at least afford her a peaceful, dignified way out. But would she find peace and oblivion, or would some part of her remain, cognizant on some primal level, ambling her way through eternity on an insatiable quest for human flesh, until some survivor dashed out her brains upon pavement. The thought pierced through the armor of her inebriation, sending a chill to the very core of her being.

 

She eyed the pistol on the table.

 

This new world was full of choices.

[ZombieGrinder]

Great story man.

[Archaaz]

Great story man.

 

Thank you very much! That means a lot. I very much enjoyed writing ("living") it. 

[ZombieGrinder]

And you are good at it! I'm looking forward for more..

[EreWeGo]

Nice read Archaaz, well done mate!

[Archaaz]

Nice read Archaaz, well done mate!

 

Thank you very much!