The Zombie's Ghost

My name was Allen, I was a high-powered New York lawyer. I wore $5,000 Armani suits and drove a high-end Lexus sedan during the week and a Range Rover on the weekends. I had three houses—two in New York and one in Santa Monica and I was good-looking too. Not to be arrogant, I took pride in my looks. I spent almost as much time in the gym as in the courtroom. My body was a temple. I never let anything with preservatives or sugar enter it.

I had a date every weekend. Models, actresses and even a few princesses. I would take them around the world on my private jet and show them places they had never seen. My life was what almost everyone else wanted theirs to be. I never worried about anything but winning my next case, which I did 90% of the time. If my career kept moving as it was, I would’ve been a presidential candidate.

That was all before the virus. It was before society fell and the undead rose. Money, fame and belongings became meaningless overnight if they didn’t feed you, house you, or protect you. The virus spread quickly. I heard a bit about it on the news but ignored it as I did with most of the news today. The morning of my death, I got up and went to the gym as usual. With my court date canceled for the lockdown, I called a few of my usual dates but they were all too scared to go anywhere or do anything. They spoke to me about the new virus outbreak and the CDC guidelines set in place to keep everyone safe. Of course, I told them that they were overthinking it and it would all blow over in a few days. By then we could’ve been in another country talking a different language over exotic food and drinks.

So instead of traveling, I got hit by a runaway truck. I won’t go into all of the gory details of it all. Let’s just say that my exquisite body and mind ended up plastered all over the pavement of Fourth Street. As the truck hit me, my mind, and I guess my soul, lifted out of my body. I was able to see the whole incident as if I was watching a movie. I watched the whole gory scene unfold with the detachment of a surgeon. I watched as my blood pooled around me, my breathing stopped and my heart followed. In that instant, I was transported to another realm of reality.

In this place, I could sense light and darkness swirling around me. The two entities seemed to be making a decision about me. Was this the afterlife? I wondered. Would my work as a lawyer sentence me to an eternity in Hell? I had tried to do good, or I had at least told myself that. I knew deep down though, that I had just done whatever I could to get ahead and be better than those around me. Things like this swirled through my mind as the entities swirled faster and faster around me. The darkness seemed to be winning and growing stronger the longer I stood there.

Then suddenly, it all disappeared. I was back in New York, standing in the middle of Fourth Street. I laughed at it all. Maybe I had just fallen and hit my head. It was all a panic-induced nightmare. I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing a suit. It was one of my most expensive ones. I never wore this to court, it was only for my highest-end dates. Odd, I didn’t remember having a date. I thought I was heading to the gym.

I looked around and noticed that the street was pretty empty for a day in New York. I knew that the government had put a stay-at-home order in place, but there couldn’t be that many people that listened to it. I spun in a slow circle trying to get my bearing on everything. The light seemed a little brighter and the colors around me seemed more intense. As I finished my circle I saw a bird fly out of a tree. It dove down and headed straight for me. It was a raven or something, I wasn’t a bird watcher. I ducked as it got within a few feet of me. It never changed course as it dove to the ground. As it got to my location it threw out its wings, slowed and landed lightly on the ground behind me. How had it gotten behind me? Did it just fly through me, I thought. I patted myself and I felt real and solid.

I turned to watch the bird. It was feeding on some dead animal in the road. It wasn’t common in the city, but it wasn’t unheard of either. As the bird stuck its beak into the corpse again, the corpse groaned. Not A corpse! My corpse! As I watched, the bird flew away and my decimated body groaned, leaned over and then stood up. There were obvious broken bones as it stood and walked down the middle of the street. How was this happening? I was standing right here. How was my body a corpse? Maybe the accident and the other realm weren’t a nightmare. Maybe I was dead and had come back as a ghost. Did that mean that I had something that I needed to do to move on? Did I want to move on if the darkness seemed to be winning?

These thoughts swirled in my mind. They then left my head just as quickly when I felt a strong tug in the center of my stomach. I was being pulled in the direction of my undead body. I tried to stand my ground. Ghosts were attached to the places they died or places that meant something to them in life. They shouldn’t have to be attached to their undead corpses.

No matter how much I tried to stay in one place, I was pulled along a few feet behind the dripping, broken body ahead of me. I was somehow tied to my reanimated corpse. I tried to grab a light pole, but my hands phased right through it. The only thing that I could seem to touch was myself and the ground. I tried to fly above my body as I had done when I was dying, to no avail. I gave up the fight and just followed the body along the street. Where was this thing headed anyway?

We walked for miles before we saw anything besides buildings and asphalt. The closer we got to the center of the city, the more I saw broken, smoking vehicles. Then came the bodies lying on the ground in different stages of decimation. I was lost in my thoughts when I finally heard something other than the groaning of the creature in front of me.

“Hey!” came a tiny voice from my left.

“Excuse me? Can you see me?” I yelled out.

“Of course I can. Can you help me?” she asked.

“What do you need? I can’t go too far from this body of mine. I don’t know how to get it to do what I want.” I explained.

“Oh yeah. No, we can’t control them. They just do what they want. I just have a question. Have you seen anyone else around?” she asked.

“No. You are the first. I was sure that I was alone,” I stated.

“Darn. I was hoping there would be some others. My body got stuck under this car here. We haven’t moved in days. I was hoping my brother was around here. He passed by with me before. We died together as it was. I just wanted to talk to him again,” she said. She seemed to be crying.

Her tiny voice was getting smaller as she talked. My body kept moving along the road. It was only another minute before I couldn’t hear her anymore. I found out a few things. It wasn’t just me walking around here behind a reanimated corpse. There were more, probably many more. I also learned that we can see and hear each other. That’s good. At least I won’t be walking around for eternity alone. I took some solace in this but it still sucked being a ghost.

As I slowed, coming to terms with all of this, the body stopped and started to sniff the air. It smelled something. Suddenly, it looked to its right and then ran as fast as it could. I was caught by surprise. As the body took off to the right, I watched it run. I forgot about the three-foot paranormal cord that connected us. The cord pulled taut, dragging me off of my feet. I was drug after the body, pulled across the ground. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t stop. I just let it pull me along until it got to its destination.

Unfortunately, its destination was a broken, scared group of survivors. They were trying to hide behind a dumpster. The zombies were slowly surrounding them and cutting off all safe exits from them. When my body got there the whole place was in chaos. The zombies were encroaching, and the ghosts attached to them were yelling. Some of them were yelling at the survivors to get away. Others were cheering the zombies on. They wanted to see the people torn apart and eaten.

This made me sick to my stomach. How could people want others to be turned as we were? As I stood there watching the horror show, I watched my body slip into some mud and slide under the dumpster. It was a total accident, but it gave the creature a way to the survivors. I screamed at it to stop. To not eat the people. All to no avail. It grabbed the first limb that came into reach, pulled it towards him and chomped down. The sounds that the creature made while it ate the person’s legs were disgusting.

“STOP!” I yelled at it. “You used to only eat organic. You don’t know where that limb has been. You know that person wasn’t grain-fed. They ate sugar and other preservatives. You are ruining everything we worked for. Oh god. It's so disgusting!”

I watched the person die and turn. As the ghost of the person appeared next to his body, he looked as confused as I had felt. Suddenly, his face turned and recognition broke through the confusion.

“You! You are the one that killed me?” he yelled. “I was trying to survive. That is my family.”

“I couldn’t control it. I didn’t.” I stammered.

As I tried to explain, the boy jumped at me. I waited for the impact, but it never came. I slowly turned as I saw the boy lying on the ground behind me. His body was just stirring, but it hadn’t been able to stand up yet. My body was still chewing on it’s leg.

The boy stood up and appeared to be wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and singlet. He couldn’t have been older than 16 years old. But he was angry with me and what my body had done. He tensed again and charged me for a second time. Again he fell straight through me.

“So we can’t touch each other either. Interesting. The movies didn’t get that right,” I said to myself.

“I can see that dork,” the boy yelled at me.

“Tony, is that you?” a small voice came from behind me.

“Shit! Bella. Not you too,” the boy says.

As he walks towards the new ghost his costume transforms into a plain t-shirt and shorts set. He walks to the young girl, avoiding any eye contact with the body being eaten below her. He pulls her in for a long hug. I can tell that they are both crying. I stand there astonished. How can he hold this girl, but phases through me? Is it me, or is it allowed through their connection in life? There is still a lot I need to learn about being a ghost.

As we wait there behind the dumpster, a few more ghosts appear. Some then disappear suddenly as if they were never there. I ponder over this for a minute, then get up and check out a few of the bodies. Some of them were killed and turned. Before they could get up though, the other zombies cracked open their skulls and ate their brains. This seems to be when the ghosts disappeared. So if the body dies the soul moves on. Interesting, I thought. I try to talk to the others around me, but most of them are new to being a ghost and are still in shock. It probably didn’t help that they stood over their bodies as they either ate others or were being eaten by others. It was a menagerie of cannibalism for sure.

Hours later, my body was finally sated and decided to move on. As he walked away I walked around him, looking at the condition of his clothes and body. I was utterly repulsed by what I saw. His clothes were in tatters. Things were hanging out that should be covered for common decency. I mean this was a $200 workout outfit. How could this thing just disregard the labels like that? I tried to look on the bright side and remember that it wasn’t one of my expensive, custom-fitted suits. So at least there was that.

As I thought about the outfit, I saw that one of my fingers was missing on the right hand. What?! Did another zombie take a bite of me while we were feasting? That is the rudest thing that I have ever heard of. I mean yeah, yeah they were feeding on the living at the time, then the newly deceased. But to bite the hand of another is just wrong somehow. These beings needed to learn a bit of decorum. 

As we walked late into the night, I tried to change my appearance as the kid had. I concentrated hard but came up empty. I guess I was going to be dressed to the nines until I evaporated into thin air. There were worse things. I guess I was talking out loud about these things because the next thing I heard was a voice from my right.

“You really that arrogant and vain?” the voice said.

“Typically. Yeah, “ I responded—no point in lying about it.

“HA! I like the honesty. I’m a bit of a narcissist myself,” she said. As she comes into view I can see a large group of zombies and ghosts behind her. “Ever been in a horde?”

“No, been pretty much on my own. It’s only been a few days though,” I replied. I am completely amazed by what I see. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies moving and shambling down the road. As amazing as that was, the ghosts attached to them were just as incredible. There were people dressed as gods (Roman and Greek), television characters and models. On the other end of the spectrum, there were librarians, slobs and homeless people. It seemed that each and every ghost presented as something they were or thought they should’ve been in life. I wondered if any of them thought that they were writers. I was so amazed that I forgot to move until I felt the tug in my belly. I turned and walked as slowly as possible to take it all in.

“Don’t hurt yourself. Now that your body has joined the masses, it’ll be here for a while. I’m Tabitha. What’s your name and ghostpower?” Tabitha said as she introduced herself.

“Ghost power? What’s that?”

“Oh, you know. Controlling your body, being a poltergeist. Being able to move physical objects. Or in the case of Dan over there, he can fly. Jacob can detach from his body and walk by himself for hours at a time. My power is a bit odd, but I can inhabit a surviving human and control them for a few minutes at a time. It has helped me save a few children in the past. So, what can you do?” Tabitha walked slowly and looked at me expectantly.

“Nothing. Or at least, nothing yet. I hadn’t tried to do anything.”

“So you’ve just been following your body around doing nothing. Wow. That’s a lazy outlook. Let’s change that shall we?” As she spoke Tabitha put her arm around my shoulders as we walked. The biggest thing to me was that she was touching me and I could feel her arm on my shoulder. It was nice to feel human contact again. Well, as human as it could get.

Over the next few weeks, Tabitha and other members of the horde taught me all about ghost powers and how to stay sane in this new reality that we had to inhabit. By the time my body fell out with the horde and started on its own again, I was a brand new man (or apparition). I learned my power, I could show my image to people in reflective surfaces, such as mirrors. I was looking for a time to try it out. This new reality may be a new lease on life. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Though, it was not meant to be. As my body wandered, it came across a farm full of people dressed in camouflage. Not a great fashion choice. I saw the look in their eyes as they pulled out their weapons of choice. The crossbow drew first. I looked at my body as the arrow hit it in the head. My body convulsed once then fell to the ground. I screamed as everything went black around me.