We start this clandestine adventure, much like all my other usual transgressions after work. Exiting the morgue with my black messenger bag, slung over my shoulder. A lime green tupperware container, safely tucked inside its confines. Ah... but what sits securely inside that plastic receptacle is what separates this humble morgue employee's travels from the ordinary to the sordid. Full disclosure, it's a brain. Specifically from a woman named Ms. Peggy Garner. Age twenty seven. Suicide. Asphyxiation on car fumes. Carbon Monoxide poisoning. She climbed inside her automobile while it was residing in her garage, rolled down the windows, started the car and left the garage door, firmly shut and in its place. In other words, she set out on a journey, without ever driving anywhere. With a long-term, fixed destination in mind.
It's tragic but one person's loss is quite literally, another's gain. Mine. Since I won't be starving tonight. Once again, I get to silence that insatiable craving and the city doesn't need to worry about a hungry zombie, roaming the streets at night. See? It's a win/win. In death, there's life. Not mine, per se but yours. Okay maybe not specifically you cause the odds of us, encountering each other on the street at random, are like a million to one. Every single person who might have tragically found themselves caught in my terrifying wake, if I didn't feed and silence the monster for yet another day is safe and sound though. Granted I do still count that as a blessing on my end too. I mean, I don't want to change into a staggering, groaning, creature from nightmares and lore, mindlessly lurching along on an endless quest for sustenance. On the hunt for brains. The stereotypical zombie from movies, television and comic books. With only death as my hope for solace.
Yeah, after I lose complete control due to starvation it won't be like a typical "rage" induced episode, the Zane Norrison that everyone has come to know, will be gone. On a permanent level. Zero chances of a return or even a glimmer of hope for me ever being my former, lovable, undead self. And in spite of the specific set of inconveniences that I encounter and endure on a daily basis, I enjoy my afterlife. So you better believe I will do everything that I can to maintain control and survive. Even if that requires stealing brains from the recently deceased. Besides it's not like they need them anymore. Right? Okay so it's a disgusting justification for doing something repulsive and downright loathsome but what choice did I really have here? It's not like I could stroll down to the butcher shop and pick up brains. Alright, technically that's not true but animal brains didn't work, I needed human encephalons. Believe me. I tried substitutions and replacements, nothing came close to the human variety. What I was currently doing, what I have been doing for the past two years was the only way to ensure my own survival, while keeping humanity safe from the monster that existed within.
So here I am, on my way home, waiting for the subway because I live in Manhattan and only suckers actually drive anywhere. Look at Peggy Garner, I'm fairly certain that she killed herself to avoid being stuck in shitty traffic. Yeah, that joke was a tad morbid and macabre but what do you expect, I'm a living corpse that works in a morgue. I'm surrounded by the deceased every day, twenty four-seven. Even when I'm all alone, death encompasses my existence. Therefor it helps to have a sense of humor. The subway platform is fairly deserted this evening. Which is a little unusual but not out of this world, absurd. Considering I just missed a train. Which means that I get to stand on this freezing platform and wait for another one. Luckily, the cold doesn't really faze me, I used to hate it back when I had a pulse but nowadays, I barely notice it.
What I'm not too keen on is traveling with cargo that could be considered illicit or illegal. Since working for a morgue doesn't give you permission to venture through the city with a human brain stored inside a piece of tupperware. It's safe to say that if for some reason my bag was searched, by the police, I'd be charged with a pretty major crime. Why would the cops find a reason to look through my stuff... well, that's a good question. I think it would be based on the fact that I'm young (22 for all my afterlife yo), skinny and pale... real pale, sort of to a sickly degree, that might make me resemble a hardcore, drug addict. Cops are also assholes by nature. Trust me. I have been harassed far too many times in my existence for it to be a coincidence. Usually without good reason too.
With the exception that there was a portion of time; back when I was just another guy amongst the living, when I made my income by being a drug dealer. Often supplying hallucinogens and designer drugs at raves and various night clubs. Acid, shrooms, ecstasy and molly - primarily but every once and awhile, there would be a sporadic outside product available. A mystery drug. Unique and altogether its own surprise and new sort of high. Hah! Little did I know I would become the extreme cautionary tale. Don't start slinging drugs at raves and night clubs or one day, you might get kidnapped by a group of medical students, who watched way too many zombie films and wind up a full fledged, member of the undead, when they decide to create an abomination of their very own. Anyway, despite the fact that I have stayed on a fairly straight and narrow path, since becoming a zombie; with the exception of stealing brains for intended consumption, a single glance at this pasty complected, dull eyed, shady looking fellow in question and the cops can't help but fuck with me. Oddly enough, never when I actually have brains on me though. Fortune, it seems, has smiled upon me in that regard, at least.
Still, all it would take is one time, to ruin everything. A single, bored police officer taking a leisurely stroll around the subway platforms, formulating a sudden interest and I would be fucked. No lube, no courtesy reach around, no cuddles afterwards, screwed... like me in prison. If I wasn't a zombie. Then again, even as a zombie I'd still be royally fucked because I doubt they'll allow me to eat brains in jail. Assuming a zombie gets jail time. I'm thinking it would be more along the lines of an extended stay at a government facility, located in the middle of nowhere. Zombie problems, they are very real. Yet these risks are still better than the alternative. At least I can say that I survived another day. What surviving from a zombie's point of view looks like anyway. Which could definitely be seen from a bleaker perspective, than what it currently is being perceived... let me tell you. Just imagine what the narrative from the Walking Dead would be like from the zombie's stance. Yeah. Now that's bleak.
The thought should depress me but I've been a zombie for two years now, so it only brings forth laughter as I retrieve a cigarette and fire it up. By every definition, this is one of the most ridiculous routines that has carried over from the days, when I had a heartbeat and a requirement for oxygen. I don't use my lungs because I don't breathe and yet, I still can intake air... or in this case smoke and nicotine, then expel it for the simple desire to have a cigarette. Not in vain either. Cigarettes still effect me, the same way they would anyone else, I merely don't have to worry about all the nasty side effects. So maybe it isn't all that silly. It does help me to be a little more at ease with my current situation, namely traversing the city at night with a brain in tow and really that's everything in the world, right now. Remaining chill. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, I take a gander down the tracks to see if I can spot a train and that's when I notice something... or rather someone, swaying and wobbling towards me.
At first, I can't really believe what I'm seeing. Although after several seconds, it becomes very apparent. There's a person, walking down the tracks. In a very unsteady sort of waver or weave. Stumbling and staggering, like they were highly intoxicated or under the influence of something that left them completely out of their gourd and unaware of their surroundings. With a deep sigh, that's when I decide to do something about it. There's a person stumbling down the tracks. Clearly they're fucked up but that doesn't mean that they need to die. Who knows how long they've been lurching along the tracks? It's amazing that they didn't accidentally come in contact with the third rail and electrocute themselves by now. Of course I'm going to do something about it. Removing my messenger bag, I lay it on the platform and hop down onto the tracks. From there, I walk briskly towards the individual that's still tottering and waddling, on a seesaw sort of pattern in my direction. When I make it to about the halfway point, between the both of us, that's when I sense there's something off and stop. Like a deer frozen in headlights. I cease all movement and stare onward. Unable to do much of anything else. Simply I watch on in awe. While the person slowly makes their way into the light and then, I gasp out in sheer shock alone. It's not a human. Not someone that's fucked up beyond belief, on drugs or booze. What lurches down the tracks is a zombie.
Clothed in the stained, tattered remains of a dress, its grey flesh seems to hang loose on its bones. Sagging visibly downward on every exposed portion of its body, like there's barely any fat or substance below the skin. This loss of elasticity combined with that factor, also gives its skin a disturbing, transparent feature. The hair on its head is matted and clumped together with mud and dried blood. There are noticeable chunks missing on its head, face, neck and chest, exposing rotted, maggot infested meat from beneath as well as small portions of actual bone. An eye dangles loosely from the left socket like a tiny tether ball, while the other vacantly stares out. That eye is completely fogged and clouded over in a whitish haze, sort of in the way that a person with glaucoma's eye would appear. Jagged, smashed up, gnarled looking teeth taken to extreme rot and decay, sit exposed in a mouth that hangs open, wider than any normal, human mouth. Almost as if the jaw is unhinged and to make matters worse, the horrific sight is accompanied by a deep, guttural moan. Expelled from someplace deep within. Distant and detached. It is the faraway echo of death. The mere sound of it would be enough to surrender my own body to chills, if I were capable of succumbing to such a thing anymore. On top of everything else, one of its legs seems to have been twisted around. Multiple times. Allowing splinters and pieces of bone to protrude from several places on the leg. Like small spears. Currently, the heel belonging to the foot of that leg is pointed forward, while the toes are aimed in the reverse direction. Still it drags that leg behind itself as it staggers forward. Occasionally, tipping from side to side and losing its balance, nearly to the point of toppling over but somehow failing to fall. It painstakingly drags itself forward, barely paying notice to me, in spite of walking in my direction. In this moment, I am faced with my worst nightmare. The only thing that rips my eyes from it is the blindingly, bright lights that appear behind it and the distinct blaring horn blast, from the train.
Stumbling back a bit, I shake my head and turn, somehow managing to lodge my boot in the tracks. An accident. Nothing more. It was just one of those things that happen when you get frantic. Panicked. Afraid of oncoming doom. Fantastic. Not only do I get to be tormented by the sight of a zombie in a very visible, full state of decay and total mental shut down but now, I get to perish right along with it cause I seriously doubt, either of us will be able to survive getting hit by a speeding train. No. Fuck that. I am not going out like this. Hit by a train, after making the mistake of trying to save someone that turned out to be a zombie, in a complete state of regression and degeneration. No fucking way. This is not happening. I've firmly decided this and I have lived through death, I'm not about to bow out now. Quickly, I loosen the laces on the boot and slip my foot out. Then I hop up and grasp onto the ledge of the platform. Successfully pulling myself up on to the platform, right as the train comes zooming through. The train screeches to a halt, horn resounding and ringing out loudly, it fails to avoid the zombie that was still on the tracks. The sound of the zombie's body splattering against the front of the locomotive is barely noticeable over the horn but I can still make it out and it causes me to cringe. That could have been me. It could be me. If I were ever rendered into that type of an unfortunate and pathetic state. Like that poor creature had been. Definitely something to take into consideration. Before I can be questioned by anyone, I grab up my bag and rush out of there. Up the stairs and through the crowd, I disappear. Tragically, minus one boot. Although it could be a lot worse.
1x X-Treme Champ
1x Hart Champion
1x SOTM November 2018
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