Zombies in reverse

Warning: blood and death.

*NOT A PART OF THE CHAMPIONS*

~Present Time~

I scream a bloodcurdling scream, enough to deafen the zombie if it still had eardrums. My communicator is twenty feet away and turned off, and my weapon is on the ground, forgotten, (crowbars and chainsaws work best) behind the rotting monster standing over me. 

“Wake up, Hazel, it’s just a dream,” I tell myself, knowing, fully and truly that it isn’t. The smell of decomposing bodies, the strange, guttural sounds, the way it awkwardly glides across the ground like a possessed toddler--I’ve seen these before. I’ve seen them too many times before. 

And I lie, weaponless, covered in open cuts, neck exposed, completely defenseless against the parasite-controlled former-human, her once-pretty face distorted in a permanent scream of death. 

I lean against the lockers of what was once the middle school, before the Epidemic took over and everyone with a drop of sense in their blood left America. 

“No,” I whisper. I was chosen by the United Armies for this! A teenager, strong, witty, able to fit in the small spaces zombies can’t stand. I was trained to combat these reanimated bodies, whacking the heads off the people I’d once known. 

But no, no, this wasn’t a dream. Even worse, the zombified woman leaning over me, mouth dripping with saliva and old blood (why must it always be blood?) was like me once.

She was a Zombie Hunter of the United Armies. 

 Or, she had been, before that wound on her arm was infected and she died, her body taken over by the dangerous parasite known simply as E-0t-W. (Who we nicknamed “endy”.) 

And the same thing was going to happen to me.

Bulletproof armor can’t hold against the invisible invaders that, for all I know, are riding through my bloodstream, attempting to stop my heart so E-0t-W could take control of my corpse. 

The zombie, her black hair still glossy even after being undead for several days now, has a face contorted into a forever scream--she died in pain. Her blue eyes are milky and sightless--good. I might be able to slip away, if not for the fact that I was cornered. 

I’m running out of options. I can’t touch her--her flesh is beginning to rot, which means she's the prime breeding ground for the germs that will infect me and make me like her. 

I slowly scoot away, trying to edge around the living dead. Unfortunately, despite being really slow and stupid in the movies, zombies are fast. Deadly fast. 

Suddenly, she lunges towards me with a screaming sound. Everything seems to slow down as her rotting, filthy fingers reach for my neck. That’s odd. Zombies go for the wounds: the blood, the cuts, the broken bones. Why would she--

Her grip is stronger than iron, her fingers as cold as ice. She crushes my throat with an inhuman strength, which is pretty believable, since she is no longer human. I try to scream, but no sound comes out. I can’t breathe! I CAN’T BREATHE! 

Her razor-sharp fingernails stab into my skin, a white-hot panic flooding my body. Blood runs down my neck as her clawlike fingernails force their way into my neck, the parasite controlling her knowing exactly where every artery and vein is, and how to pierce them, sending E-0t-W around my body. 

Once a zombie has their claws in you, you’re as good as undead.

The toxins in their blood, the germs in their rotted skin, the deadly parasite E-0t-W multiplying inside their decomposing organs… you can’t survive that. 

As she crushes my windpipe, fingernails digging in even deeper, I only have one thought on my mind:

I’m going to die. 

The young soldiers I was trained with will have to fight my dead body, awakened by the parasite that’s plagued America for the past five years, and who knows, maybe I’ll end up killing one of my friends. That is, if they aren’t in the same situation I am right now, or worse--already undead. 

The zombie lets go.

I slump to the ground, dazed and scared. I’ve already been touched by her, and she’s already gotten her germs and parasites into my bloodstream, so why not keep on going? I’ve seen chewed-up zombies, half-eaten by the time E-0t-W takes over their systems. Maybe she isn’t hungry for human flesh. Maybe her parasite just died. Maybe--

With a sound like the Wicked Witch of the West’s cackle, the zombie lunges at me, her razor-sharp nails slashing across my throat. I fall to the ground, warm, red blood pouring down my neck and pooling on the floor.

There’s no surviving this. 

I’ll die in a few seconds, E-0t-W taking control of my body. At least I believe in Heaven. Then I won’t have to worry about getting stuck as a ghost, forever haunting the place I swore to protect. 

I can’t feel any pain, just a giddy surge of joy. From my sideways viewpoint, lying on the ground, I can see wisps of my red hair and a puddle of my crimson blood, as well as one hand, lifelessly lying on the linoleum floor. 

As blood bubbles out of the slash in my neck, I know I don’t have any more time. I’m dying, with seconds to live. 

Goodbye, Maria. 

Goodbye, Alex.

Goodbye, Andre

Goodbye, Jaylee. 

Goodbye, Em. 

Goodbye, Rhiannon.

I’m sorry I failed you, I think, wishing I could telepathically communicate to my friends, in different, zombie-infested towns all around the Land of the Free. 

I open my mouth, blood rising in my throat. 

“G-goodbye, guys… s-sorry I… failed you,” I say, blood leaking out of my mouth. 

“Long… live… the United A-armies….”

My eyes flutter closed as my heartbeat slows.

Beat.

Beat.

Nothing. 

I’m dead. 

~One month ago~

“Cadet Lee!” the commander barks. I bow--an odd habit for a modern army, I know. But the United Army, the group of people who swore to eliminate the zombies and E-0t-W, are from all over the world. We have adapted to customs from every country, which makes us a unique force. The problem is, zombies are also a unique force. They can't be killed and they’re controlled by a deadly parasite. 

“CADET LEE!”

“Sorry, Ma’am,” I say, bowing again. The commander is a strict woman, both bark and bite. 

“I called you here because your rankings have come in,” she says. 

“What are they?” I ask. “Uh, Ma’am.”

“You have been chosen to be an Elite. You’re going to the hotspots, Cadet Lee. Your overall skill levels are superior to most of your fellow cadets. You’re being deployed to Everly, California.”

“Every? As in…”

“Yes. the palace where E-0t-W first was discovered. Your hometown, I presume.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You will be going in three days. Keep in mind that you are going alone--hordes of zombie fighters is seldom a good idea. Let’s hope you remember how to put on your armor by yourself, unlike last time.”

Oof. my previous deployment… well, it didn’t go so well. I nearly died! 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Zombies are also a problem in the wilderness, and since Everly is very close to the woods, in which zombie animals are becoming a serious problem, your friend Cadet Williams will also be deployed to the area. She ranked in at Experienced, so she can handle animals, but not undead armies of former-humans.”

“Oh.”

“If you need backup, or she needs backup, you will be provided with a long-range, almost-indestructible communicator, set to the California base and cadet Williams’s numbers.”

“That’s good, Ma’am.”

“Do not call them unless it is a serious emergency, though. Even the brightest of recruits should not call for backup every other second.”

I called for backup ten times during that other mission. Not my finest moment.

“Prepare yourself, Cadet Lee. You leave in three days.”

“Yes Ma’am.” I bow. 

~Four years ago~

“So, Mrs Hazel Lee, it appears that you are an orphan?” The man peered through his large glasses at my weathered papers, the documents that gave me the life I’d lived. 

“Yes, sir,” I say, clutching my bag. It holds mementos of my parents, before E-0t-W was released in Everly. Before everything. 

“Who is your legal guardian? I don’t see one listed.”

“The United Forces. And also Miss Stacy. She takes care of me since the orphanages are full.” 

“Oh. Well,” he tapped the papers on the desk to straighten them. “Miss Lee, it seems you don’t belong in the safehold with all the other refugees.”

“No!” I scream. “Don’t throw me out with the zombies! It’s too scary! I won’t last a second out there!” 

I know my reaction was babyish, but I couldn’t. My arms were skinny like sticks, I was shy and nervous, and my only experience with zombies was something I’d never want to reenact. 

“I didn’t mean we were going to kick you out, miss Lee. I meant that… well, the United Army has openings for new recruits.”

“New recruits?”

“You could become a part of the United Army.”

“Ooh!”

“Yes. Instead of hiding, you could fight. You could help them restore the world to the way it was before E-0t-W.”

“I’d like to do that! But...would Miss Stacey like it?”

“I’m sure she would be proud of you.”

“I want to join the United Army!” I cheer. 

“Well, the commanders are coming by in three days. Many children wish to join, but you...well, if these school records are correct, you predicted how zombies would work and how to defeat them--real zombies, not horror-movie zombies.” 

“So I have a chance?”

“You have more than a chance, Hazel. You already understand zombies better than most adults.” 

~Two years ago~

“Hello, guys! Today I’m going to talk about zombies. Not movie zombies, but real life ones. I know it would be impossible, but here's what I know about them, or how they’d work if they were real.

One: zombies are not people but undead. Zombies are reanimated dead bodies. The stuff of the person--their soul, per se--is already gone. You can’t become a zombie until you’re dead. 

Two: Zombies wouldn’t burst from the grave. How could they be infected if they were underground? Also, they’d be so rotted they couldn’t dig out. 

Three: zombies wouldn’t just happen. They’d have to be controlled by a parasite. It would have to get into a dying or dead body--through the bloodstream, probably. Then it would have to multiply inside of the body, before taking control of the body’s basic systems. 

Four: A zombie controlled by this parasite wouldn’t just bite someone. The parasite would go for open wounds, so it could get inside. The zombie would be filthy, from all the rotting flesh and stuff, so the person could die from the germs and then get taken over. 

Five: Zombies wouldn’t go for brains. They might chew on non-zombies, to sustain themselves, but the parasite would want to spread, not eat brains. Seriously, brains? Just no. No brains. 

Thank you guys for listening to my talk on zombies! I like scary stuff like that, but I’m glad they aren’t real. Dead-body-controlling parasites? That’s so freaky! Luckily, zombies aren’t real and never will be.”

Note: each event is noted under how long ago it was before the previous.

One month before present time, Hazel was deployed to Everly.

Four years before that, she was recruited.

Two years before getting recruited, Hazel gave a class presentation on zombies.

thank you for reading!