I Don't Know How, I Don't Know Why

Remember when everyone used to joke about waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse and tease each other about their chances of survival when it happened? Yeah, good times.

Well, I am one of the ones who have so far somehow managed to survive. And I can guarentee it's nothing to joke about.

It's been two years since the shit hit the fan and still no one is any closer to learning how, why, or even where the initial outbreak began. I guess it doesn't matter at this point.

I guess one of the reasons I've made it this far is I used to watch all those zombie movies and TV shows. I really loved that crap. Turns out some of the cliches and plot devices used in those movies and shows are true, for example the fact that a direct shot or stab to the brain is the only way to kill the damn things.

There are, however, many things that I was not prepared for. The smell, for one. God, do those things stink! Guess that makes sense, though, considering what they are.

Losing someone close to me, at least in that way, was also not something I was anywhere near being prepared for. Then again, I guess there's nothing on earth that could prepare you for the horror of shoving a screwdriver straight into your dead mother's eyeball while she eats your father alive, then shoving the same screwdriver into the mangled remains of your father's head just in case. Too much information? Well, that's my life.

Let's just say that in the two years I've been on my own I've had to figure out a lot of things for myself. For example, the necessity of keeping my hair as short as I am able to cut it with a pair of scissors. It's not that the zombies are hair-grabbers or anything like that, they don't have the motor skills. It's just that without running water it's difficult to wash and maintain your hair. Easier to just cut it all off when it gets gross.

I also had to learn where to scavenge for food and (at some expense to my well-being) how much of it is still safe to eat.

Another lesson learned at some expense to my well-being was whether or not to trust the occasional fellow survivor I run across. I have stories I could tell about how the human race itself seems to have devolved into some kind of selfish, bloodthirsty, brutal sub-human species. As if dealing with fucking zombies wasn't bad enough. Basically, it's a bad idea to trust anyone who isn't your own damn self.

Don't get me wrong, not every survivor I've met has been a back-stabbing pile of shit. Some of them have been decent enough. There were even a few I considered friends. These were the ones who either ended up being bitten by zombies or killed by people who were back-stabbing piles of shit.

Do I really have the right to stand in judgement like that? Possibly not. Have I done things I'm not proud of in order to survive? Yes, of course I have. Everyone who's still alive has. I don't think anyone could claim otherwise with perfect honesty. But I would never, for example, murder a young child in their sleep because they had a pack of stale Skittles I wanted. Some people would. I've seen it happen.

You may wonder how I can stand to live in a world like this. The truth is, sometimes I can't. There have been many days I have considered finding myself a nice ripe zombie and letting it bite me. Sometimes I think joining the putrid corpses in their aimless wandering search for flesh would be preferable to living in what this world has become. I have also thought more than once about hanging myself with the length of rope coiled up on the shelf in my garage. And yet I continue to survive.

I open the cabinet above the defunct stove, then the pantry. Shit. Rationing my food is one of those things I'm still not very good at, no matter how hard I try. I should only have to go out scavenging for food every three weeks or so, at least in theory. Yet I find myself consistently running out every two weeks pretty much like clockwork.

Guess I'm going to need to go scavenging again if I want to eat today, which I do.

Before I leave the house I retrieve a carving knife from the kitchen drawer, for protection. I have never owned a gun in my life, and I have no intention of allowing my current circumstances to change that. Besides, both blunt and sharp force trauma to the brain will kill a zombie every bit as efficiently as a bullet.

It may seem strange to take the time to lock my front door, but it's a precaution I'm not about to skip. I'm not the only person out here raiding and looting the neighborhood. Not that there's much left to raid or loot around here after two years.

I decide that I might as well take the long two and a half mile walk down to the Kroger store and see if there's anything salvageable there. It's unlikely, I'll admit, but worth the trip just on the off chance.

Before I have even walked half a mile I spot a group of five or six zombies wandering in my direction across the dead lawn of the abandoned church. I recognize them right away as zombies rather than survivors by their slow shambling gait and directionless meandering.

I veer off the main street and duck down a narrow alleyway between the Laundromat and a small travel agency office to wait for the zombies to wander off. I have no problem killing them if I have to, but it's better to just avoid them altogether whenever possible. Any sort of commotion tends to draw the attention of more of the damned things.

I wait until the zombies have lumbered off far enough down the road that I can no longer hear their wordless rasping vocalizations before I dare to slip back out onto the main street.

The Kroger store looks just like it had when I was last here a two weeks ago, windows busted out and front door pulled off its tracks.

As I had already known, there's not much left inside to help myself to. I count myself lucky to find a tin of Vienna sausages that expires in one week and a jar of dill pickles. I leave the boxes of Kool-Aid powder on the shelf. It's useless without water, and of course bottles of water were the first thing to fly off the shelves when the shit hit the fan.

It's pretty obvious at this point that I'm going to have to find a new place to scrounge for food, and sooner rather than later.

The sudden sound of glass shattering two aisles over makes me jump. I shove the sausages and pickles into my backpack and creep to the end of the aisle the noise had come from with the carving knife clutched in my hand.

There is not a zombie in the aisle. I'd figured there wouldn't be. I would have been alerted to a zombie's presence long before now. Stealth isn't exactly their strong point.

Standing at the opposite end of the aisle, staring down at the broken jar of what appears to be barbeque sauce that she had accidentally dropped or knocked off the shelf, is a young woman. She looks to be older than myself, maybe somewhere in her mid to late twenties. Her light brown hair, dull and matted, is pulled back in a ponytail. Her jeans and sweatshirt are torn and dirty, and I notice that several of the stains are the rust color of dried blood. I have no way of knowing whether it's hers or someone else's. There is a square of gauze (also stained brownish-red) taped to her right cheek just below her eye. A sizeable handgun in a leather holster hangs at her right hip. I judge that the chances of it being loaded are 50/50. I've never carried a gun myself, but I can image that at this point ammunition is as difficult to find as food.

I don't want to find out whether her gun is loaded or not. I'm not looking for trouble. All I want to do is (hopefully) find a few more items that are at least semi-edible and get back home without incident.

I take a step backward. Although I didn't make any sound whatsoever, she turns her head in my direction.

"You don't need to be scared," she assures me. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just here for food, same as you are." As she stands there looking at me her head tilts to one side and her blue-grey eyes, behind a pair of plastic framed glasses that have been broken and taped together, grow wide. "April? Is that really you?! It's me, Laura!"

"Laura?!" I gasp, surprised (and somewhat ashamed) that I hadn't instantly recognized my half-sister.

She lives (or lived, I guess) next door to my parents and me. When things were getting bad two years ago, a couple weeks before I had to kill Mom and Dad, Laura had driven off to make sure her biological father was all right. He only lives about forty miles away so I was expecting her to return before long. When I didn't see or hear from her again I of course assumed the worst.

I run down the aisle to throw myself into her arms. "I can't believe you're alive!"

She smiles at me, but there's no joy in it. "Yeah, I'm alive."

"Your dad?"

She shakes her head. "Mom and Gary?"

"No. A couple weeks after you left Mom got bit and I...I had to..."

She stops me with a hand on my shoulder.

"It's okay, April."

"No it's not. None of this is okay!" I swipe my tears away with the back of my hand, frustrated at myself for shedding them. I can't even remember the last time I allowed myself to cry.

"I know it's not," Laura agrees. "But at least we're back together, right?"

I nod my head, still trying to get my emotions under control again. "Where have you been? How long have you been back? I...I thought you must be dead."

She gives me another sad smile and squeezes my shoulder. "I'll tell you everything. But can we go somewhere else? I need to sit down."

By the time we get back to my house Laura is somewhat out of breath and walking several paces behind me.

As she flops down on my living room couch I retrieve the warm flat bottle of Pepsi I have been sparingly sipping from over the last two and a half weeks and hand it to her.

"After I lost Dad I fell in with a group of people," she begins without my prompting. "They saved me from some zombies and convinced me to stay with them. Safety in numbers and all that. I thought they were all right at first, but they...they turned out to not be very nice."

I don't pressure her for an explanation. After a moment or two she continues,

"The men in the group wouldn't let the women have any food unless we...did things for them. And they...they just weren't very nice..."

I give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

She takes a sip of Pepsi and offers me the bottle.

"No," I reply. "You can go ahead and finish it."

"I tried to escape a few times," she resumes her story, "but they wouldn't let me. I finally managed to get away, and I've been trying to get back here ever since. It took so long because I've been on foot. I just got back today."

"Did those people you were with do that to you?" I inquire, indicating the bandage on her cheek.

Laura closes her eyes and emits a long, shuddering sigh.

"No. I've...April, I've been bit." She peels down a corner of the gauze square, exposing a livid gaping hole torn into the right side of her face.

"You haven't turned," I point out. In my shock it's the only thing I can think to say.

"Not yet. This just happened yesterday." She covers the wound back up. "The fever hasn't set in yet." She shifts on the couch and pulls her gun from its holster, laying it carefully on the coffee table. "There are two bullets left. One of them's for me. Defend yourself with the other one, April. Against whatever or whoever you need to. The living can be worse than the dead."

"I know that. But I...I can't kill you, Laura! Don't ask me to do this. I can't!"

"You have to. Please." She clasps my hand between both of hers, tears trickling down her cheeks. "I can't do it myself. I don't have the guts."

"But you're not even sick!"

"Then wait 'til I get sick, if you have to. But don't wait 'til I'm dead. I don't want to turn, April. I don't want to be one of those things."

"I..."

"Promise."

"Okay."

"Promise me, April!"

"Okay, okay. I promise."

"Pinky promise." Laura holds out her right fist with just the pinky finger extended.

"Oh, come on, Laura! We're not kids anymore!"

"Pinky promise or I don't trust you."

I sigh and link my pinky finger with hers. "Okay. Pinky promise. Are you happy now?"

"Say it."

"Laura..."

"Say it."

"Okay. I pinky promise that if you turn..."

"When I turn."

"I pinky promise that when you turn I'll...do what I need to do. Now are you happy?"

"Yes. Thank you, April."

For the next few days I concentrate on enjoying the company of my half-sister, doing my best to make her laugh whenever and however possible. I was always good at making Laura laugh, back when there was actually something to laugh about.

The inevitable day arrives when she stumbles up to me, her face chalk-white and drenched with sweat and her eyes bright with fever.

"Now," she whispers, holding her gun out to me with a trembling hand. "The safety's off. Just point and shoot."

"I...I can't..."

"You promised. When I turn I won't be me anymore, April. And you won't be safe. We both know that. You have to do it now."

I take the gun from her and aim it in the direct center of her forehead.

"Thank you, April. I love you."

"I love you too, Laura." I squeeze the trigger.

***

I turn away from Laura's shallow grave and walk back into my house

Picking up her gun from where I had left it on the coffee table, I press the muzzle against my right temple. One bullet left.

After a moment or two I set it down again.

That's not what Laura would have wanted for me. She would want me to live.

I don't know how, I don't know why, but I have to keep surviving.