A Wedding in Mayhem

The reception just started and someone was already dead. Unfortunately for Eric, that person was him. He always found himself in awkward situations, but things got a whole lot more awkward when his heart stopped beating and he got the urge to consume human flesh. It was about the time when the bridegroom finished his toast to the packed warehouse.

He missed the last few words of his new brother-in-law’s speech, but he clapped with the rest of the crowd. Daniel gestured at him with the mic. If his heart had still been working, it would have hammered through his chest.  

Eric could not think of a more inconvenient place to turn into a zombie.

He took a long sip of whatever was in his cup­—it tasted like motor oil, and it sloshed in his undead stomach­­—and climbed the short set of stairs that led to the improvised stage area. Dozens of people watched him. They had no idea he was dead. They really should have, given that they’d been dealing with this kind of thing for the last ten years.

This zombie apocalypse hadn’t been like the ones he’d seen in movies. Yes, those who got infected went crazy and ate people, but it happened more gradually. After being bitten, it took eight hours for your heart to stop. Then, the craving for living flesh began, growing until you finally snapped. The last stage was when you went Full-Zombie (that was the official term) and you tried to kill and eat everyone in sight. There was no cure at any stage.

Eric knew he should have gone straight to the Tent after that mangy probably-undead-dog bit him on his morning run around the outskirts of the compound, but it had been his sister’s wedding, and he wasn’t going to disappoint her on her special night. Wait until his sister found out her undead brother had eaten one of her bridesmaids. Why did they have to wear red? Surly they’d seen enough carnage in the last decade to not dress themselves up in the color of a crime scene.  

All of this rushed through his head as he gripped the mic in his hand and moved to the center of the stage. People looked at him expectantly, probably wondering why he was so pale.

“Hello everyone,” he mumbled into the mic. An unpleasant amount of interference bit through the speakers. The crowd rumbled and Eric turned his head to the side, covering one of his ears. Once the interference faded, he continued his speech. “Hope you’re all have a good night. I just wanted to say thank you for coming out. I know how busy we are nowadays, but I’m glad—and a bit jealous­­—that Amanda has so many friends that wanted to show their support for her tonight.”

Eric raised his glass towards Amanda, who stood in the middle of the crowd smiling up at him.

He was preparing to toast the wedding and once again give his blessing to Daniel, when a wretched voice slithered through his mind and his stomach did a sickening, ravenous roll.

Kill, eat, consume…everyone.

He almost dropped his glass, and he clenched his eyes shut. He breathed in and out with lungs that didn’t need air. He opened his eyes to a crowd staring at him worriedly.

Time to recover.

“All hail the Bride and Groom,” he said. It was a strange thing to say at a wedding, but people knew him to be strange. He fled from the stage, handing the mic to a random guest as the crowd clapped politely. He only hoped that they’d blame his paleness on the nerves. They probably would.

What had that voice been? He’d never felt anything like it in his life. Was that what was to come? An all-consuming need to satiate that disgustingly abhorrent void in his stomach? There had been studies of people in his stage of the infection, but he hadn’t really looked into it. No one really thought they’d get infected until they were.

People weren’t as paranoid as they used to be. Sure, they had their metal fifteen-foot walls surrounding their portion of the city, and armed guards around the entrances, but the whole we-must-stick-together and the-only-thing-that-matters-is-surviving shtick got old after a while. Everyone just went about their business and got a couple weeks off to mourn when one of their family members got infected and dealt with.

Eric would not let his sister mourn tonight.  

Someone came up beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “You just gonna stand there, New-Bro? Everyone’s in line for food.”

Daniel was a tall man with a sleeve of tattoos and a shaved head. He was the head of the Guards Against the Hoard; those that protected the city against the undead. He took a leave of absence for one night so that he could marry Eric’s sister.

He was a good guy if you weren’t a zombie.

Keeping his composure, Eric wrapped his arm around Daniel’s back. “Congratulations, Dan. You caught a good one.”

“I know you didn’t just compare me to a fish,” Amanda said as she approached them from the mingling crowd. His sister was three years younger than Eric, but she had always been the responsible one.

“I didn’t. But now that I’m looking at you…”

Daniel thumped him in the back of the head.

“Ow!” Eric said, rubbing the spot.

“That’s for insulting my wife on our wedding night,” Dan said, though he held back a smirk.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the fake chivalry, Dan. Too bad Eric’s incurable of his terrible jokes.”

That joke will be the most curable thing by the time this night is over.

“Come on, we need to talk to our other guests,” Amanda said as she pulled Dan into the crowd. She turned and pointed at Eric. “Go eat something!”

Eric gave a nod and waved. He didn’t bother acknowledging the irony.

Thirty minutes later Eric sat at a table with a plate full of food. Never in his life had he looked at a steaming plate of steak, potatoes, and green beans and wanted to vomit all over it.

It was getting worse. He could feel the craving building higher and higher like a game of Jenga. He kept taking out blocks from the middle and putting them on top, having no idea when the whole thing was going to topple.  

He didn’t know the man sitting by him, but his hand resting next to his glass of wine looked more appetizing than the steak on his plate. The vein pulsed on the back of his hand, and Eric had to force himself to realize that it wasn’t normal to wonder how long it would take to gnaw through a human wrist.

Bite. Eat. Fill the void.

He was so screwed.

His Aunt Sherron studied him from across the table. “Are you okay, honey? You look a little pale.”

That drew a few looks, but Eric kept his composure. “I’m always pale.”

Sherron shook her head and pushed his glass of water closer to him. Eric grimaced, but took a sip. It tasted like nothing. Which is how water should taste, but who wanted to drink something that tasted like nothing? Blood would taste so much better. He glanced at the man’s hand again. He wondered if he could—

Stop it!

Sherron smiled when Eric set his glass down. She’d been like a mother to Eric and Amanda since their parents died ten years ago during the initial outbreak. Eric had been seventeen, Amanda had been fourteen. She’d done so much for them, loved them with all her heart, and now she was about to lose one of them on her niece’s wedding.

He wondered how much time he had left until he wouldn’t be able to resist the craving any longer. Who would be his first victim?

If his tear ducts had been working, he would have had to lie and say he wasn’t crying. To distract himself, he forced down a bite of steak. It was burnt and chewy and all-around-disgusting. He tried a bit of potato. It tasted like mold.

He continued like that until he could safely say he finished half his plate. His stomach turned over itself, not knowing what to do with the food it could no longer digest. Thankfully, no one asked him why he hadn’t finished all of it.

People were leaving the table to grab a drink and head to the dance floor, either to observe from the outskirts or join the alcohol-induced fun. Hopefully, no one would notice when he slipped out the door and sprinted away into the darkness like a man caught on fire. There was only so much he could take of the smell of bodies packed in close to each other.

He was almost out the door when his sister caught up to him. “Where are you going?”

Tear her throat out.

Eric kept his distance.

“I’m just getting some fresh air.”

Amanda frowned. “Okay, but don’t stay away too long. I’m about to throw the bouquet in a couple of minutes.” She poked him in the side. “I don’t want you to miss your chance to catch it.”

“You’re so funny, Amanda.”

“I know, right? That was pay back for earlier.”

Eric smiled. He would miss this. So much.

They were about to part ways forever. He had to say goodbye now, or he’d never get the chance.

“Amanda, I—”

A familiar piano rift started from the stage and Amanda let out a whoop. She grabbed Eric’s hand and pulled him towards the dance floor.

“Sorry Eric! You can get fresh air when you’re dead!”

Great.

It was a good song though. A bit cliché, but “Don’t Stop Believing” never got old.

Eric got pushed in with the crowd. The undulating, loud, smelly crowd. Even if he wasn’t battling an internal desire to rip out the neck of the drunk old man doing the stanky-leg next to him, this wasn’t particularly his scene. He didn’t like to draw attention to himself, and small talk was his worst enemy. He wondered if he would remain that way when he went Full-Zombie. He tried to imagine himself with a group of fellow flesh eaters attacking an innocent human, tearing the poor soul to shreds. Zombie-Eric would stand in the back making uncomfortable eye-contact with the dying human, debating whether should talk about the weather.

Thankfully, Eric wouldn’t have to go through that awkward interaction. The Tent would take care of it.

Amanda danced next to him as Eric shuffled his feet and jerked his shoulders uncoordinatedly.

That’s why people haven’t picked up on him acting weird. He already moved like a zombie.

The crowd sang along with the lyrics, but no song could last forever. It ended with their voices tumbling and jumbling over each other like a car with its wheels popped. They laughed it off and prepared for the next song.

It was time for Eric to make his exit. He could slip out quietly, and no one would notice that he left. He had to say something to his sister though.

“Amanda­—”

It happened so fast that Eric was surprised he reacted in time. A man loomed behind Amanda­, eyes mottled green and red, black veins standing stark against pale skin. He grabbed his sister’s shoulders from behind and yanked her towards him. Amanda screamed and Eric rushed forward, ripping her out of the man’s­­—was that the officiant?­­—grasp. He put himself between them as the crowd cleared the space, screeching, yelling, and falling over themselves.

The officiant growled inhumanly. It was the sound that haunted everyone’s nightmares, and it was the voice that raged inside Eric’s head.

Eric tackled the officiate to the ground. He could faintly hear Amanda and Sherron yelling at him to get away. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have much time left on this crappy earth and he’d be damned if he didn’t go down protecting his sister. So much for not drawing attention to himself.

Eric bit the officiant’s neck. There was no blood, just black liquid and soon-to-be-rotting flesh. It tasted disgusting.

The officiant pushed Eric off him and stumbled to his feet, the side of his neck bitten out. It leaked black ooze.

The zombie wobbled and took a step towards a woman who hadn’t quite ran far enough away. He grabbed her wrist. Then, his head exploded. Eric blocked his face with his forearms as he was splattered with gore. It was partially effective. He blinked several times to get it out of his eyes.

Daniel stood on the opposite side of the crowd holding a smoking pistol. The gunshot still rang in Eric’s ears. He climbed to his feet. He felt strange. Like a vice was unwinding around his brain. Was that a thump he’d felt in his chest?

Eric’s gaze darted around. People fled the scene. The bride’s cake had tumbled to its side, the crowd running through it trailing white-icing footsteps.

To his left, Amanda stood clinging onto Sherron’s arm. They both looked like they were about to vomit. Amanda had black ooze dripping down the side of her face. If she didn’t get it into her mouth, she’d be fine.

Dan pointed the gun at him.

Eric should have seen that coming. He raised his arms slowly, hands covered in black. He could feel the stuff dripping down his chin and onto the floor. He wondered if his own blood would look like that once Dan sprayed it all over the wall. Were his eyes green yet?

The gun shook in Daniel’s hands. The tough-as-nails, get-out-of-my-way-I-need-to-kill-zombies attitude was gone, replaced by a man who had been through too much, too fast.

“Do it, Dan,” Eric said. “It’s over.”

There was a loud crack, and Eric fell towards Dan. Pain erupted as the blow to his head sent his vision swimming. Before his lights blinked out, he turned and saw Amanda standing there with a lantern used for table décor. Then, the world shifted, and he fell to the ground.

***

Head pounding, Eric came alive again in a brightly lit room. He tried to move his arms, but they were tied to whatever he was laying on. Immediately, he knew where he was. The Tent. It wasn’t really a tent, just an old building. The name got carried over from when the outbreak first started, and they used an old circus-type tent as a place to discreetly get rid of anyone who showed symptoms of the zombie virus.

He could hear people to his right, talking.

“There’s still traces of it left, but it’s stopped taking over. The virus and his immune system are at a stalemate,” someone said. She sounded official. A doctor, probably.

“How is that even possible?” Amanda said. She sounded overwhelmed.

“I think--and I need to do more studies to confirm­—that perhaps when he bit Mr. Andrews, his blood got into his system, reversing some of the effects.”

Eric had enough of eavesdropping. He tried to sit up in his bed, but all he managed was to raise his head half an inch and groan. It wasn’t the best thing to do when you were trying not to act like a zombie. Still, it got their attention.

“Eric!” Amanda rushed towards him, but Dan grabbed her arm before she got too close.

“Why did you have to hit me so hard?” Eric’s voice was raspy, but it wasn’t the inhuman growl he would have been doing by now, this far into the infection.

The doctor approached carefully. “How do you feel?”

Eric shrugged. He felt like crap. He looked over at his sister, who gasped.

He furrowed his brows. “What?”

The doctor searched around in a couple cabinets and handed him a mirror. Eric’s mouth dropped open. His irises were a mixture of red and green, but the infection didn’t completely cover the whites of his eyes like a normal zombie’s did.  

“What the hell is happening to me?”

“It appears that we have stumbled upon a partial cure for the infection that has killed billions,” the doctor said. She sounded like she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

Despite Dan’s protests, Amanda grabbed on to Eric’s hand. She had tears in her eyes.

“I think I just had the most terrible best wedding anyone has ever had,” she said. Tears flooded down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

Dan finally gave in and rested his hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Well, New-Bro, how does it feel to be a hero?”

Eric didn’t know how to feel. All he had wanted to do was hide, and now he was about to be the odd man out wherever he went, if they ever let him out of here. Who knew what other side effects he could still have?

But he’d do his best. For his sister, he’d do anything.