A Rover Gone Too Far

It should hurt. I know it should. But it doesn't. I can't feel my hands anymore. My legs are numb. It's raining, and I should be cold. I feel nothing. I want nothing. I am nothing. My name was Castor. I was a Certified Nursing Assistant. I had a boyfriend. I lived with my parents. When the first bomb dropped…I wasn't home. I was on vacation, out of state. They got the better lot. Immediate death. Vaporization. Ma and Dad had no idea that the world would stop on a Sunday afternoon in June. That the Charibdies would attack. If your reading this, I hope you know what the Charibdies are. Aliens. Us humans…God, stupid humans, we sent our rovers to other planets in our solar system. We were kids toddling about our backyard. But then, our yard wasn't enough.

We needed more. You always needed more. So we sent Andromeda II out, to tour the stars beyond our solar system. And then, like a flashlight in the dark, they knew we were there. So boldly had we announced ourselves into that dark void, what we thought, was a void. And then they came. They came to earth, saw our beacon, in our quest for exploration, for answers. And when they landed, we treated them as we treat all immigrants. Like the monsters we knew they were. It wasn't like The Twilight Zone, or Star Wars. It wasn't greys, like they had in Roswell. No. They were tall. 9 feet to be precise, carrying a strange, horrifying elegance. They were not pale. They were dark. Their skin was the darkest shade of ebony, and could blend perfectly into the blackest night. It was their protection from a sun triple the size of our own.

They sent down bombs. Because we raided their homes. Took their technology and landed on their planet, intending to colonize. In retaliation, they sent us their worst disease. Man is no stranger to bio weapons. We fought each other with countless diseases. But this one….well. In their species, it's kind of the equivalent to Leprosy. To us…it's a slow, horrific death of the mind, a rotting of the body and soul. You become a corpse. The bombs were filled with the pathogen. So as survivors fled, they inhaled the disease. It infected them, and like the fleas with plague, they spread the horrid infection. It started in what was once Washington DC. The first person had come down with it. It started with tiny sores. Blisters that were rather painful. Itchy. And eventually they burst, weeping pink tinged pus. But once they burst, you'd lose feeling in that area. Eventually you'd lose feeling in your hands, or wherever the outbreak started. Although it's most common to begin in the hands or feet. Occasionally the face. Those cases progress fastest. A small mercy some would argue. Or a rapid doom. It doesn't matter.

Everything is dark. The ground is mud, and littered with trash, bodies. The bodies are of other infected. Whether killed by survivors, or undone by their own bodies failing, it was hard to tell. Some were fresh. Some were rotting, crawling with maggots, in puddles of effluvium. Some little more than sludgy pools on the ground. I know you're wondering how I got here. I was a survivor, until…a week ago? I had thought it was a cold. Then the rash and blisters started. I knew it was a death sentence. My boyfriend was heartbroken, as I pleaded with him to kill me. To allow me to choose, to rid me of suffering. But the group, my boyfriend and friends…refused. They wouldn't kill me. Didn't want to waste ammo. They didn't have the heart. They left me in that damned radio tower! TO DIE!

I left the tower, and began to wander. I don't know why I'm walking. I don't know where. I just want to find people. I just want someone to end this. My arm is broken. I can't feel my limbs, but I can feel my heart pounding. My body is panicking, as it's made undone. Like a sweater being unspooled, I swear I can feel the cells splitting, atoms separating. I can feel it splitting apart at the most minute level. This is what they wanted! They wanted us to die! You were all so stupid! I want to kill them. To rain down the hell they have gifted to us. But I am only one man.

There! Like a will-o-the-wisp, I see a pale yellow light flicker. I can feel my muscles leaking, liquifying as I continue to walk. Shamble, really.

It's funny, really, that zombies were thought to crave human flesh. We don't want to eat you humans! We just feel threatened, all the time. The infected are flooded with cortisol, adrenaline. It keeps us alive, even as we are stabbed, degloved, rotting. The adrenaline keeps us going.

So, when I hear hushed voices, a quiet stifled laugh…I jump. I'm not used to hearing people anymore. Days and nights of silence have ruined it. But I long to feel human…so I stalk these three. Two young women and a slightly older man. The older man is stiff backed, and barks orders like a sergeant. I call him Soldier. The younger girl has dark tan skin, a lovely shade of cinnamon. She speaks with a southern slur, and always has a smile, or a joke. I call her Sunshine. The last girl is more serious. Dire and cold. I call her Cold-girl. Cold-girl is trying to read a map, and her and Soldier begin to argue. I'm hidden beneath a car, listening and watching. Whispering what I would say to them under my breath. There is no room for monsters here. If they saw me, I would be executed on sight. And while I don't wish to suffer…I wish to be human again. I want to smile. I want to laugh, and love. But my face can't smile. Instead it droops, the muscles and nerves having failed me. I can feel the muscles of my stomach weakening. They too will fail me soon.

There is an anger inside me, new and strange. I've never been an angry person. Not really. But this…I’m angry at the Soldier, for being so loud. I'm angry at the Charibdies, for doing this to us. I'm angry at humans for sending out that rover. For alerting those wretched aliens to our existence. And then…I hear another infected person. Shambling her way to them, lips unable to form proper words. She's crying. The soldier takes out his gun. Cold-girl has a machete. They immediately cut down the infected woman, even as her innards spill to the ground like wet ribbons of gore. The stench of it, of blood, makes my mouth water. I feel like I'm gonna be sick, as Sunshine is sitting in the truck, coughing. I hear her above me, crying. Smell the pus leaking from her blisters. She's infected too. I'm certain. I know the smell of infection, cloying and sweet. Cold-girl doesn't notice me as she walks over to the truck and opens the door.

“...Samantha?”

So that's the girl's name. Samantha. How sweet. My mind is hazy after that. I think they fought. Maybe they just argued. Either way, it ends with Samantha killed. And something in me snaps. From under the truck, I launched myself at the Soldier, the one who shot her. Cold-girl yells out his name. Jacob. A strong name. The name of my killer. I feel the bullets impact in my chest, but not the pain I should. Still, it leaves me sprawled on the ground bleeding. And then, the pair drive away. Leaving me to die in the mud…like some beast. I think I lay there for the night, my body refusing to give up. It fails me in every other way but this. It can break down, but it stays living as long as it can. I am just a vessel for a virus, after all. Maybe….I killed Samantha. Maybe she got infected because of me…

It doesn't matter. The sun begins to rise. I stare unmoving at the lightening sky, frost having formed on my skin. The little valley will be awash in gold, soon. I may feel the sun on my skin, one last time…until I remember I can't feel anything on my skin. Nor in my body. An immovable object meets unstoppable force. I'm dying. Slowly. My vision becomes spotted as I stare at the orange tinged sky. I wonder what the Charibdies sun looks like. If it's brighter than ours. What their sky looks like. And as I die…I think.

All this, because a r

over went too far…