Posts Tagged ‘attacks’

The In Between

Posted: April 10, 2013 in Home Sweet Home, On the Road Again
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My head is absolutely pounding. I can feel the lump growing on the back of my head. I’m laying down, I realize that when I feel the soft blanket draped over me. Despite my head, I am so comfortable. This is weird. This isn’t right.

Slowly, I begin to open my eyes. I’m staring up at a ceiling. There’s a fan and it’s on? I haven’t seen a ceiling fan or anything work for months. I rapidly blink my eyes until it comes into focus. Am I dead? Did the demon on her demon horse kill me?

Holy shit. I have to be dead. I shoot up. My head feels like it was trailing a million miles behind me. I’m instantly dizzy. Slowly, the room comes into focus. It’s small with off-white walls and minimal furniture. There’s a chair in the corner and fluorescent lights that hang on the wall. I look next to me and find a nightstand, there’s a tray with some food and a big glass of water.

My mouth instantly waters. Can you be this hungry if you’re dead? No, right? I am not dead. I have just woken up in the twilight zone of the zombie apocalypse.

I all but lick my tray within five minutes. I feel both good and sick at the same time. I want to lay back down and just stay this comfortable forever, but my sense of self preservation pushes me up. I wobble up onto my legs.

I look down at myself. I don’t have any pants. I just have my underwear and a t-shirt. A new t-shirt and once I really look myself over, I can tell I have been bathed. What the fuck?

I remember getting lost. I was separated. And then I started going bat shit crazy and seeing…things. And then there was the girl on the horse. I notice the IV stuck in the bend of my arm. Oh great. I get separated over a friggin blanket only to get kidnapped again, but this time they have drugs. Holy fuck. I don’t even know what I just ate and I’m being drugged.

I go to rip it out, but a voice from the door stops me.

“I wouldn’t do that, it’s what’s hydrating you,” says The Maiden. I sit back down, scared shitless. I watch as she slinks from the door to the chair, her freakish long hair hanging heavy around her shoulders. She’s no longer in her leather get-up, but it looking more like one of the Bennet sisters in her loose nightgown and slippers. “You were in pretty bad shape when we found you. I liked your hammock, that was a smart idea.” She crosses her legs.

“Uh, thanks.” I continue to stare at my newly cleaned feet.

“I’m sorry that I hit you, but from how you looked in that clearing, I didn’t think you’d come willingly.” She pushes a strand of her golden locks behind her ear. “The nurses have bathed you and given you clean clothes. What you had, well, I didn’t think you’d want it back.”

Small talk. She’s small talking me. “That’s all nice and everything, but who the hell are you?” I lock my eyes with hers.

She laughs. “They call me The Maiden. Probably because of my hair, and it invoking some bygone time.”

“And who the fuck is they?” I’m angry now. I hate people that small talk and circle talk me, both of which she was trying to do with ease.

“The people that live here with me. You’re in what used to be St. Luke’s.”

One of the bigger hospitals in New Jersey. We had really travelled that far west? “You live here?”

She leans forward. “Yes. Some of us stayed behind when the world went to shit. We stayed with what was left of the patients. We killed those who turned. We kept this for us. We knew it’s value.”

“So you were a doctor?”

She leans her head to one side and smirks. “No, I was a patient here. I was towards the end of my recovery when this all fell apart. The ones that stayed helped me get better until I was able to then help them.”

“And how do you help them?” I draw my knees up to my chest. I do feel better, but I still don’t trust her. The last time I found a little bit of heaven in this world, I wound up being McGrady’s bitch for months.

“Surely, you realized I was different when I rescued you.” She waits, baiting me.

“Yeah…they didn’t try to grab you. It was like they didn’t even know you and your horse were there.”

The Maiden gets up, crossing her arms over her chest. She moves to the foot of my bed. “That’s because they don’t notice me.”

I feel a distinct chill go straight up my spine. I swallow as I look at her. Her gaze is unmoving. She’s creepier than I first thought. Her eyes are absolutely piercing, a deep blue, almost green that makes her seem almost other worldly. “And why is that,” I finally manage to say.

“I live in the in between.” She sits down at the foot of my bed. “I died when I was first brought here. I was legally dead for over a minute and then they brought me back. I live somewhere between here and what’s ever after this. In some way, I am part of them.”

“Oh thank God,” I burst out. This sounds so much better to me than her being a true hell demon.

The Maiden laughs. “What did you think it was?”

“Hell demon. I thought you came from hell to punish me for everything I’ve done since this started.” I stifle a nervous laugh.

“I seem to get that a lot lately.” She stands up. “Get some more rest. Tomorrow I’ll show you around.”

With that, she slinked out of the room and for the first time since Shelby died, I got a honest night of sleep.

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What’s love got to do with it?

Posted: March 29, 2013 in Life Before, On the Road Again
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I’m laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. My head is still swimming from the beer I had with my friends earlier. My phone will not stop dinging. I know who it is, it’s John. It’s been John all night. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. He could have spent the night with me. We had plans to see a movie and go out to dinner, but just like he’s always done, he cancels on me about an hour before he was supposed to be here. Another lame excuse about a migraine or was it the drinking plans with his buddies that he had forgotten about?

I can’t remember. The beer has gone to my head. That last minute decision to go out instead of sitting home, wallowing in my hurt feelings…again is going to make tomorrow very long. I probably should have stayed home. It just made me drink too much and made my friends hate him even more, for blowing me off…again.

It’s a shitty feeling to constantly be pushed aside. How have I become one of those women that gets so wrapped up in a guy she rides it out even though she knows the inevitable outcome?

Because you love him, stupid. And because you think that one day it’ll be different and he’ll love you too.

I exhale, long and hard. I roll over and pick up my phone. I read the messages since I had stopped answering. His apologies and explanations and how it’s always someone else’s or some circumstance’s fault, not his. He’s worse than my students. And then he’s calling me and before I stop myself, I’m answering.

And then he’s saying something like, “Why do you always think I don’t want to be around you?”

Maybe because you never are. Or you makes plans with me but then blow me off all the time. Or you just push me aside like I don’t matter to you, like it’s everything else and then me and maybe I’m just to the point where I no longer believe this is all done because of baggage from an old relationship.

I close my eyes really tight. I don’t want to cry. I squeeze them until I see stars.

And then I open my eyes and in front of my stands another one of the Undead. I just keep swinging the branch I had picked up. I’m exhausted. My arms are covered in rotting blood and bodily goo. I’m just so sick of this shit. I know I’m surrounded, and alone. And I realize just how angry I am.

I’m angry for what I had to leave unfinished in my life before this. I’m angry for what’s happened to me since then and I’m sure as hell angry that I’m separated from everyone, in the woods and dealing with an endless swarm of these flesh eating assholes.

As I push on, each one of them begin to look like John or McGrady or some insane hybrid of them both. I just keep beating them the way that they had beat me down, each in their own way. I feel better each time my branch just rams one of them straight across the face. Each time, I feel as though I’m claiming a part of myself back, so I keep fighting because I know that I have to and because for the first time since I killed McGrady, I actually want to.

“They’re coming.”

Posted: March 15, 2013 in Home Sweet Home, On the Road Again
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“What? What’s coming?”

My mom is already running around her room, throwing things into a bag. Armand’s screaming has gone down to a dull whimper.

“Mom!” I grabbed for her arm to stop her. She’s in a panic, that is clear. “What’s going on?”

My mom stops, bag in hand. “Armand did this when you were…away. He would do this with the hordes. It was almost like he knew, like he’s just that sensitive.” She goes back to throwing anything she can into her bag, grabbing Armand to do the same in the boys’ room.

Javier comes in, he has Shelby wrapped up like a package in his arms. Vincent is behind them.

“Who knew about Armand?! Who knew that he could do that?”

“We all did. We were all there when McGrady figured it out,” Vincent pipes up.

“And none of you could tell me? Just like your top secret experiments in the woods! Or even Shelby,” I turned on them both, angry for everything that has just happened. “Is that what we do in this family! Huh? Lie and hide shit!”

“Leez, calm down! You have’n t exactly been in the best mindset since we left your house. Things needed to happen and we made them happen. Don’t yell at the kids because of that.” Javier stares at me, clearly angry. Vincent leaves the room.

“Oh whatever! We have a fucking horde to deal with now, don’t we?”

Javier nods. He puts Shelby down on the bed my mom had. Burying her would require too much time and time was one thing we knew we didn’t have. We pack what we can carry. The clothes that we managed to find, the food that we had and we throw it all into the car that we stole from the road. I go back into the house to grab the warm, down comforter that was on my bed. It’s too good of a thing to leave behind. I’m grabbing it and rolling it up when I turn and look out the window.

In the distance, underneath the gray cast of the moon, I can see the first of the horde coming. I am stunned, it is probably the biggest one that I have ever seen and it is headed straight for our little encampment. In the back of my mind, I prayed that we all were going to survive this one. I grabbed the bag of guns we found in a cabin not far from our house and with the blanket, I begin the mad dash down the stairs and out of the front door, only glimpsing in on a still dead Shelby as I went.

Today. I killed a student. And now I’m running from a mob of hungry zombies.

The Captive

Posted: March 18, 2012 in captivity, On the Road Again
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I hate when you look back at things and wonder why you didn’t see any of the signs until you’re so stuck in a situation that you have absolutely not idea how you’re going to get yourself out of it.

McGrady used the facade of keeping us safe to lure us all into his trust. He waited for the perfect moment which happened to be the outright chaos of the hordes to get us into his prison. We’re all kept apart from one another. The men patrol us as some sort of sick prison guard type thing. The children, from what I can gather are with my mom and the older women that were with us.

I get to be the special “prize” for McGrady at the end of all of this. The women who are of child-bearing age are kept fed, healthy and made to walk for an hour a day under a heavy watch. We’re not allowed to speak to one another though Bonnie and I do seem to watch one another to check and see if we’re at least physically okay. We’re each assigned to a man. I think Bonnie has the eldest McGrady boy and it has been made abundantly clear that I am McGrady’s treasure.

Much like Javier used to visit me at night in the house, MCgrady now does. He tries to talk to me, to explain his reasoning, but I refuse to listen to him.

“The world must go on, Elizabeth,” he says in his hardened voice. He reminds me of my father when we calls me that. I cringe every time. “In order for the world to go on, we have to have more children. More able men to protect it and make it safe again.” He usually lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Isn’t it easier this way? To just do it. To leave out the emotional commitment that complicates everything? It’s just business.”

I stare off at the wall, my hands in my lap. I beat myself up on the inside, wondering why we just didn’t stay at Alcott Elementary.

“I’m not going to force you, it’s never been my style. One day though and soon, you will surrender to me just like your friend did to her assignment and life will go on.”

Assignment? Are we cattle? Cattle to be bought, sold and impregnated for the purpose of “the future”…”the greater good.” I want to slap him, I want to reach across my little cell and claw out his eyes, but I go somewhere inside of myself that’s away from him and away from this world entirely.

He stubs out his cigarette on the wall, crosses the cell and kisses me on the forehead. “It’s just business,” he whispers into my ear.

I still feel my skin crawling even after he’s left. This is not how I want my life to go, not how I want it to end either. How the hell do I get out of this one?

Death Toll

Posted: January 17, 2012 in Alcott School
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It’s been a few days. It’s been a few hellish days wherein I just felt like the worst possible person on the planet. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let myself get drunk when that much danger was around my kids? How…

Much of what happened, Havier later had to explain to me. We lost four kids in the attack. Gabe was among them. Vincent hasn’t said much to anyone, especially to me ever since. Once the hordes had moved past again and the halls became quiet, we were able to get out of the media center. It took two days. Shelby became eerily calm after everything that occurred and has glued herself to Vincent. I hear them whispering to each other at night, making plans of some sort.

I try not to worry about this now, but I can see this becoming a problem eventually.

I feel so at fault for everything that happened that I take it upon myself to go to my classroom and find the zippered storage bags that I used to keep pillows and things in. I come back with four. One for each of my students that I totally allowed to be killed because of my inability to handle this sort of life.

For the most part they are all torn to pieces. Gabe is the only one with half a face left. Havier took a pick to each of their skulls just in case. I thought that there had been too much of them eaten to allow for any kind of reanimation, but Havier is convinced that we need to be more careful.

Together, we bring each bag outside. We let the children come with us if they want to. I’ve agree with Havier that it’s time I stop shielding them and he’s agreed it’s time he stops babying me and mocking me for my suburban upbringing. We’re at a crossroads him and I.

Carefully, on the other side of the kickball field, we dig a hole for each. I’m hysterical as I help Havier lower each one into their own grave. We mark each with a piece of wood, adding their name on it with a black permanent marker. We say a few things about each student. I tell each of them what made them special and how I was sorry that they wouldn’t have a chance to be everything that they could have been.

The rest of the day is quite solemn. We take the kids back inside and clean up the mess from the last attack. We board up the rest of the school. Havier thinks we need to set up a post on the roof so that we can see when the hordes of Undead are coming or when those that are looking for us are on the horizon.

If the teachers and John aren’t here by tomorrow, I will be beside myself. There is only so much loss someone can take in such a short span of time. I’m surprised with how resilient the kids are being over all of this.

Tonight, I’m moving to my classroom. I need a night to myself and with the way I feel right now, I feel like I am more a danger to my kids than a help. Havier agrees. He stays in the media center with Matilda and the kids. He gives me the pistol and sleep overtakes me quicker than I’d like to admit.