Chapter 1 Part 2

Hello all--

I just want to thank most of you for reading the first part of this chapter and giving me some great feedback and proving to me that I'm terrible at grammar. As a friend put very eloquently, I've been staring at this piece so much that I'm probably just blind to the technical errors. For that, I apologize. Oh and I also admit I'm really bad with commas. Sorry for that too. I never paid attention during the grammar parts of high school English so sorry for party rocking or whatever. Anyways, thanks for reading though and for the general positivity that I've received. It's because of that that this little blog project is turning into everything I had hoped it would be: motivation to edit this colossal manuscript of mine and share it. I really appreciate you guys.

So without further ado, here is the part 2 of the second draft of my book.

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I dash through the cluster of dormitory buildings wondering if my home away from home is as safe as I hope it is. I barge in, sweating and out of breath, but uneaten. There are a few people in the common area studying, completely oblivious, and looking at me funny. I go for my door. Locked. I fumble for the keys. Only now, trying to aim for the keyhole, do I realize how much my hands are shaking. I throw open the door, slam it shut, and collapse on the floor. I take a moment to replay the events in my head. In the moments after I’m able to force my brain to rationalize the entire situation. It couldn’t have been what it looked like. The only reasonable explanation is a prank that went too far. It’ll be on YouTube in a couple of hours and in a few days we’ll forget it ever happened. It’s a calming thought until I peer through the blinds and see a girl being chased by a mostly-naked man with one arm. After considering various scenarios, there was only one that made sense.

Zombies. Honest to God. Zombies. The walking fucking dead. I can’t believe it. I saw that fat guy get eaten. Definitely not cool.

I can’t react with panic—that’ll get you killed. I have to just… calm down. Easy, right? Wrong. At the notion of zombies, my brain goes into overdrive, trying to condense everything I thought I knew about reality and the sheer scope of the situation. I get dizzy.

What’s a boy to do when things get out of control? Call Mom. I sit there in my room holding my phone. Wait, if something was really wrong, she would have called me first, right? She’ll usually make a daily call just to make sure I’ve had my vegetables. I press the quick-dial button for my house (programmed by her, of course). It rings once. Two more rings. Then two more. Then the answering machine.

“Hello, sorry we can’t come to the phone right now…” says my father. I can nearly hear my mom in the background scolding him for recording the message wrong. He’d never change it though. I almost laugh, but realize that there’s no reason for no one to be home.

“Hey guys… it’s me… I hope everyone is okay. I just want you to know I’m fine,” I say. “I have my phone so please call me when you get the chance… please. I love you guys.”

I hang up. There are any number of reasons why no one would pick up, but it’s impossible to ignore what I just witnessed. Naturally, I think about what could be going on at home… I’m sure they’re fine. They must be. Dad’s a tough guy. I just need to take care of myself for now. They’ll call. Maybe there’s nothing going on over there. Maybe. Maybe I could get to them? That seems like the right thing to do. Whatever I do, I have to get somewhere safe; anywhere but here.

First things first, a weapon. I take a quick look around and remember that my roommate keeps a samurai sword under his bed. He came back from the mall one day, took it out of its sheath, and pointed it at me.

“Why the hell did you buy a sword?” I said.

“I really don’t know,” he said.

And that was the end of that. I decide that circumstances being what they are, I’d have to borrow it and he’d have to forgive me. I think that if he were dead, this is what he would want. Or not. Doesn’t really matter, does it?

The weight of the sword is entirely towards the front of the blade, making it awkwardly heavy at first. I hold it out, straight in front of me, examining it, trying to determine if it’s real or not. No way of knowing for sure. It looks like it could do the job. It has to.

I’ve never killed anything before. But I feel like I could do it if circumstances permitted.

Right?

If I had to?

Maybe.

Okay, so I’m going home. For that, I need my car, which is clear across campus, which is full of zombies. Cool.

With sword in hand and a few essentials in a bag, I take the first measured steps towards home. I turn the knob as slowly as possible and pause to breathe before opening the door. I leap out into the hallway, striking  a ninja pose, ready to strike. The hallway seems lifeless. The common area is now abandoned, word-processor cursors on laptops blinking within half-finished words and books lying open on the tables. I stand there, still in my pose, feeling somewhat stupid, wondering if maybe I’m overreacting.

I move towards the door and wonder what kind of person I’d be if I didn’t offer to help anyone, especially those I lived with; I figure it’s the neighborly thing to do. “Hey I’m going to try and escape the flesh-eating zombies if you’d like to come. Maybe swing by Starbucks or get some pizza if you like.” Room 102, empty. 103, empty. 104, empty. I approach 105, the door ajar. I knock gently once. Twice. I look down the hall and consider moving on but something draws me inside. I can’t possibly imagine what…

I imagine Jasmine, the very attractive occupant of room 105 leaping out at me from the closet in a feral rage, clawing and biting at my succulent flesh. In a moment of hesitation, I would stare into her wild blue eyes, apologize, and then, in total self-defense, chop her head off. I’d pause for a moment before leaving her decapitated corpse and wonder what things would have been like if she had only given me a chance when I asked her to go out last weekend.

 Instead, I see a human-sized lump on her bed, covered by a yellow sheet. I creep towards her, unsure what to say, if anything. As I get closer, I hear a soft sobbing coming from underneath the sheet, so quiet that I can barely hear it over my own heartbeat. I’m frozen, not sure what to do. Girls and tears usually give me anxiety. I move backwards, clearing my throat at the door. No response. After a moment, I noiselessly close the door. “Jasmine Fitzpatrick,” the nameplate reads. Could zombies cry? I don’t know. Even if that was still her, what could I say or offer? I had no answers myself. I’m rationalizing again and before I can regret leaving someone behind, I leave the building, sword pointed forward.

I leave the dorm, heading back the main plaza and the other side of campus. Instead of the usual brick that makes up the main campus walkways, it’s the pools and streams of blood that give them their color now. It trails from the piles of bodies, many missing limbs and huge chunks of flesh. Most of the wounds are so fresh they glisten in the sun. Among these piles of bodies and textbooks, there doesn’t seem to be a living… or moving thing in sight. Among the blood-smeared faces are some familiar ones, people I’ve seen in classes or just in passing on our normal routes, their futures cut tragically short, on a college campus of all places.

I tiptoe around corpses, giving the bodies the widest berth I could manage, difficult as that is with the amount of mangled college students and professors strewn across the grounds. I hear screaming coming from the other end of the quad—the building I was in earlier. Class would have been getting out about now…

It’s a rookie mistake, spacing out in the middle of the carnage. Without warning or a moment to react, something pounces on me. I land flat on my back, the sword goes flying. I brace my hands against the shoulders of my attacker whose weight is completely on me, my heart beating wildly as adrenaline surges through me. He looks much worse than I could have ever imagined; half of the grey flesh on his face is torn away, his hair remaining only in patches on his mostly decayed scalp. His yellowing teeth have bits of flesh in between them; I can probably count the few he has left as gnashes them mere inches from my face. The smell is dreadful. It’s awful. It’s the dead lovechild of dreadful and awful. It invades my senses and stings my nose, my eyes water and now I can barely see him. The only thing keeping me aware is the feel of his body on me, a reminder of the danger. I manage to roll to my right and push him off me. He reorients himself for a second attack, I spot my sword. I clumsily unsheathe it and hold it straight out in front of me; any plan I had for its use now long gone. He charges forward, impaling himself on the sword. I brace him to keep him at length and wheel him around, noting how doesn’t even notice the fucking sword in his gut. I twist the sword out of his body, cutting him mostly in half. What’s left of his intestines spill out on the sidewalk and I take the pause to swing wide at his neck, hoping for the best. As his head rolls away from his body it continues to blink at me. Like a bug, I stomp, crushing it with a sickening crack.

As the adrenaline wears off, my knees shake and I fall to ground. I’m shaking all over again and it’s like my insides turn themselves into knots. I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up. I just fought for my life. I just killed something. The ground sways and surges beneath me.

Somehow, I hear a groan and I’m back to reality. A second zombie stumbles towards me. I swing wildly without technique or strategy. The sword makes contact, leaving a deep gash from chin to hip. He stumbles. I bury the blade in his head. The shock of the second kill isn’t nearly as bad but I quickly realize how tired the whole ordeal has made me. What are these things?

            A crash to my left. From out of the Lambda Omega Zeta Delta Alpha honor fraternity information booth crawls another undead monster. He stands and looks at me—a stare down—for what feels like ages, probably contemplating how he wants to eat me. “Legs first? Fingers?” he must be thinking. His undead muscles tense and before he can take off, I’m running as fast as my rubbery legs can carry me. I gain some ground on him and I hear a snap behind me. The zombie’s leg has broken but he’s still chasing me. As I’m considering running on a broken leg, I neglect to watch where I’m going and trip on a body. As the zombie gets closer, I swing my sword towards him, severing his legs. He continues the chase, crawling on his arms towards me. “It’s just a flesh wound!” I imagine him saying. I allow myself a chuckle and run off towards the parking lot.

I run until I reach the lot. Once more in relative safety, I start to cry. For several minutes, I just sit in my car and cry. I just can’t help it.