Waking Up

It was supposed to be a simple surgery. I had a strange pain in my lower side and had my suspicions that it could be my appendix. Go to the hospital because, better safe than sorry, and it was confirmed that yes, my appendix was inflamed and needed to be removed. I remember my parents, my brother and my friend Steve, who were all going to wait through the surgery and meet me after. My mother was always the worrywort, so of course she was almost teary eyed as she said she loved me. I remember being in the bed, being wheeled to the operating room and the surgeon I had talked to, who was a pretty older woman. I remember her green eyes as I drifted off, counting backwards from 10. 

The first thing I noticed when I was waking, was how hot and humid it was. My body was sticky all over, especially under the covers. I could feel a stinging sensation, like sweat on a cut, on my stomach. I barely creaked my eyes open slowly and could see that the nearby window was cracked open. I tried to move, but my body felt stiff and heat and I never got along. My mind was fuzzy at first, but then, I started remembering things. I was in a hospital. My appendix. Why was it so hot? Aren’t hospitals supposed to be cold? My tongue was dried up and stuck to the roof of my mouth and I couldn’t swallow. I looked to the table next to me and saw one of those pitchers and was hoping that there would be water in it. I struggled a bit and sluggishly tested my grip, touching each finger to my palm. Things were working alright, so I attempted to sit up. It was a slow, painful process, but I got there eventually. I reached over to the pitcher and thankfully, there was water in there. I drank it up and it tasted kind of stale. Better than nothing, but I definitely needed more. I also needed that window open. The heat was killing me. 

I placed my feet on the ground and could feel that my muscles were working, but I just felt so weak and tired. I wasn’t sure if it was the surgery, maybe a reaction from anesthesia? Maybe it was just the heat. I always hated Summer. I had an IV in my arm and I pulled it out, not wanting it to drag behind me. I stood up, balancing myself with the side of the bed and was able to stumble to the window. I pushed it open the rest of the way and what I saw on the ground, made me wonder if I was dreaming. Throughout the parking lot, there were drones of people. I had to take in every detail slowly, or I might lose my mind. These people were not normal. They literally looked like...zombies. I thought about calling out, but I’ve seen enough zombie movies in my life to know better. I decide to just turn my back to the window and blink a few times. Maybe I was hallucinating or something? But what confirmed my vision, was that the door to my room had been blocked in. The cabinet and a table were pushed against the door and the little window was covered. I swallowed, but still needed more water, so I stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the sink. No water. I went back to the window and looked again and sure enough, still zombies. Bloody, gore covered, zombies. The longer I looked, the worse it got. I saw dead people on the ground, blood tracks, messed up cars with broken windows and windshields. I stepped back from the window and sat on the bed, letting my mind swim through everything I’ve taken in. Where is my family? Steve? How long was I out? I start looking through my bed and see in an under area that there is a bag of my clothing and stuff. Sure enough, my wallet and cell phone. I had my phone turned off before the surgery so I turned it on and waited. No signal, but many missed calls and texts. I start cycling through them and I even have voice mails. I attempt to listen to them, not sure if they worked without a signal. Thankfully they did. The first one was from my brother.

“Scott. I know you are going to wake up and have a lot of questions. Man this is insane. So long story short, you had some issues with the anesthesia and it was going to take you a few days to wake up. Of course mom was super scared, but we all figured you’d be ok. I’m with mom and dad and dude, there are zombies. We were all there at the hospital waiting for you to wake up, and we heard screaming. It was crazy, dude. Dad and I looked and I swear on my life dude, there were fricken zombies tearing people up. We got back in, boarded up your door and had to make a plan. Dad called our cousin Sidney, the weirdo with the bomb shelter, and he said for us to come over. We didn’t want to leave you, but there was no guarantee that you would be safe. We regret leaving you there man and I swear I will come back for you in a day or so. We escaped out the window and headed to Signey’s place. When you hear this message, just try and stay calm. I hope you are ok Scott. I love you dude.”

I listened to the message like 5 times to fully understand what’s happening. He said he’d come back in a day or so? This message was received 4 days ago. I felt a knot in my stomach, wondering if he tried to come back and died. Part of me thought that I should stay at the hospital, but I knew where Sidney’s house was. He was just outside of city limits. I knew for one thing, I needed something to drink so badly and food would probably be good too. I wasn’t surprised to hear about the anesthesia issues, based on how bad I felt. I knew that if I got caught by a zombie I probably couldn’t be able to fight back. I stumble to the door and try to listen and don’t hear anything. I try to gently move the cabinet back from the door so I can peek through the window and so far, so good. I turn the door knob and slowly open the door and the hallway is clear, other than the immense clutter. There was also blood in various places and what is left of someone’s body, which I try not to stare at for too long. I stumble down the hallway slowly, as to not make too much noise and I see one of those carts with first aid stuff. I open it and see antiseptic liquid and lap pads in there and start grabbing as much as I could. With the way my stomach was stinging, I was concerned about the idea of infection. I also saw what looked like a vending machine, and knew I would come back for that in a minute. 

I make it back to the room and place the stuff on the bed and go back for the vending machine. It was broken into, but not in a “stealing” kind of way, because most stuff was untouched. Seeing blood on the glass made me think that it broke another way, probably during an attack. I quickly grab as many gatorades and honey buns as I could and make it back to the room again. I shut the door and reblock it with the cabinet and go back to my collected treasures. I remove the hospital gown I’m wearing and look at my appendix scar and it does look a little red. I was hoping that I could find some antibiotics, but I wasn’t sure where they could be and I was honestly scared of looking around too much. I pour the antiseptic liquid on the stitches and blot the access with a lap pad. I used the adhesive tape to bind it with some more cotton pads and dress back in my normal jeans and t-shirt. I finally put my shoes and socks on, though painfully and guzzle down my snacks and drinks. I lay back in the bed and go through my phone, able to see the messages. Mostly from my family and Steve has sent a message telling me he was at his mom’s house. I checked my brother’s messages and saw that his last one sent was 2 days ago and it said “On my way to you bro.” 

I continue to lay in the bed for a few minutes and check other voicemails. My mom and dad both sent I love you messages and that they were with Sidney and I got a few other messages from various people I went to high school with. Most were long time friends or acquaintances. Admittingly, I didn’t like to give out my phone number. Too much of an introvert. I get back up to sit in the chair at the window and just watch the zombies below. I tried to count them, but there were honestly too many. Suddenly, I noticed something on fire fly through the air and when it hit the ground it burst. I played enough video games to know that it must have been a molotov. I watched carefully to see several zombies shift towards the space it landed, catching themselves on fire and then I saw a lone figure working their way through the crowd. Very swiftly and low to the ground. This person was like a machine, tossing bottles, some molotovs, some not, to distract and kill zombies, while crafting a path through the crowd. It was an amazing sight and all I could do was watch, completely entranced. This person worked their way closer to the hospital and stopped at the edge, looking up a pipeline on the building and began climbing it. The way that they climbed however, rang an enormous bell in my head. That had to be my brother Joel! I felt the urge to call out to him, but I didn’t want to alert any zombies. I leaned out the window and started trying to just wave to him and when he reached the edge of one of the rooftops, he looked in my direction and gave me a thumbs up. He was wearing a mask and covering his face, but I recognized his Iron Maiden hoodie. I smiled at him and watched as he climbed the next set of the roof nearby and he shimmied his way up across the window sills to my window and crawled inside. 

The hooded figure pulled off his hood and mask to reveal that it is Joel. We hug, but I pull back from pain. “Scott, dude. I’m sorry we left man. Everyone is fine. Even Steve came to Sidney’s with his mom and dad is at the end of the parking lot in a car. I knew I had to distract them to get up here.” “Joel it’s ok. I’m so glad you made it.” Even though Joel is only 2 years older than me, I felt like a little kid with my brother around. He was always my hero. “Do you think you can climb down? If not, then we have to navigate the hospital.” Joel took off the back pack he was wearing and revealed more bottles inside. “I can distract them some more while we hurry to the car, but there’s no telling how many are inside the hospital itself.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’ll try.” He nodded and looked at the bed where the other gatorades and snacks were. “I see you found some goodies? Are there more?” I nodded and Joel went into the hallway and loaded his bag with the rest of the drinks, food and medical stuff. When he got back, he had the bottles at the top of the bag and a gap open enough to grab them. 

“Ok. So this has to be fast. The second we jump down, keep low and move. I know it’ll hurt, but once we get to the car, we are good.” I nod and follow his lead. Climbing down was really difficult, but I didn’t want to make things harder on Joel so I stayed with him. When we hit the ground, it was so terrifying. Being this close to zombies made me want to panic and I think Joel saw the look on my face, because he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “It’s ok Scott. Stay with me.” He let go on my hand, but I grabbed the back of his hoodie and held onto it and followed him. It hurt to fast walk like this, but I just wanted to get to safety. Joel tossed some more bottles, which distracted the zombies to other places. The few that got close, Joel stood up and elbowed across the face to move them away. I stayed behind him and tried to hold my breath. I felt like I would have a panic attack if I looked at the zombies anymore. Before I knew it, we were at a car and the door opened. We jumped in real quick and drove off, my dad behind the wheel. He was teary eyed, looking back at me. “Scott… Thank god.” I started to cry a little too, and Joel put an arm around me. “I got ya buddy. We’re going to Sidney’s.” I leaned into Joel and finally let myself breathe. My stomach was hurting, but I figured I could check things out when we got to Sidney’s place.

I awoke when the car stopped and my mother, Sidney, Steve and his mother were at the front door waiting. My mother hugged me around my neck and squeezed me, trying to avoid my stomach area. She was asking a hundred questions a minute about what happened to me. We sat down and ate and I told them about waking up, seeing the zombies and everything. They kept apologizing for leaving me, but I told them it was alright. I knew that it would have been dangerous to move me that soon after surgery and that there even could have been a chance of me not waking up. I showed my cousin Sidney my stitches and he had antibiotics for me to take just in case of infection. He definitely had quite the underground shelter and had a fenced in yard already, so his place was pretty secure. Also because we were out of city limits, there was less of a chance of zombies just being everywhere around us. He had security systems in place to alert us to intruders and he had food stocked up for months in advance, along with a vegetable garden. Sidney was that guy that people laughed at for being “ready” for anything, but in this case, he is our best chance of survival. Who knows what the world will be like with zombies, but at least I had my family.