In My Eyes

My broken body shambles down the woodland road. My feet drag across the asphalt. My clothes, my jacket from however many winters ago, are drenched in last night’s storm. It droops and sticks to my skin but I do not feel the damp cold. I don’t feel much of anything. 

     I don’t know how long I’ve been wandering, I’ve lost count of the days, but I think it must be years by this point. I don’t sleep anymore. I’m awake when the sky bruises purple and into black, and I’m awake when bright orange breaks across the night. If I could, I’d lay down in the leaves and never get up again. But my body doesn’t belong to me anymore. It moves for something else and it is always moving. Moving and chasing. Chasing and eating.

     But I have my eyes. 

     As my body walks down the road, it comes across an opening in the trees. There’s no sound save for the occasional call of a mourning dove, and so, disinterested, my body continues. But I strain my eyes to look out in the open. There’s a pasture in the distance, resting on a small hill with a long, red barn and a house guarded by a white picket fence. I don’t see any people or animals, but that’s not a surprise. At least it gives a peaceful view before it’s covered again by the trees. 

     I only saw the farm for a few seconds out of the corner of my eye, but it lasted in my mind for hours. It reminded me of when mom and dad took me to the petting zoo. I’ve gotten really good at daydreaming. If I let my mind wander, I can slip back into those times, like into old clothes. 

     Mom and dad were in the front seats of our old car while I was in the back. Mom popped a CD in the radio and let it play Old MacDonald, and she made us sing along until we pulled into the gravel driveway. We got out and I heard the goats and the donkeys and the pigs making their noise. I got so excited that I freed myself from mom’s grip and ran past the man welcoming people in. The nearest enclosure were the lambs, and I ran right up to them. There was this beautiful, beautiful little lamb with brown wool, and so well kept too. It looked like curly hair. They were right up at the gate, so close that I could pet them and feel that wool on my fingertips.

     But the vision dies as I reach my hand out, and I’m suddenly reminded of the world.

     The soft white face of the lamb disappears into a red mess of wet flesh and bone splayed over green grass. I think it’s a man but too much has been torn off to be sure. My hands are deep in the carnage, digging around in it, streaking red up my forearms. With a hideous wet sound my hands pull back, cupping a generous portion of fresh meat. My mouth opens and my hands bring the meat up to it. I throw my eyes up to the cloud-spotted sky as my teeth tear into what I dug out. The taste… 

     I want to cry. I can’t, but it’s all I can think of doing. Please, please give me another memory. Good or bad I don’t care, just something before this. Show me when I broke my bone, show my first day of class, show my old cat Cookie, show me anything else. Please. I never got used to this and I never want to. I still want to be human.

     After a while it became clear that I wasn’t getting an escape, so I relented to drop my eyes and look around me. There were others with me, three to be exact; two men, one in a loose flannel and the other in a jacket, and a teenage girl in a pink Hello Kitty hoodie. Their faces were tombstone grey and torn like wet paper, opening to the inner workings of their sinew as blood gushed down their chins and onto their clothes. What was left of the girl’s blonde, braided hair was falling like damp hemp rope down the side of her face. I imagine I must look a lot like them. Probably worse.

     Our eyes were the same at least, I’m sure of that. Small, deflated grapes in gaunt skulls. They were all turned away from the body we collectively ate against our will. In fact, their eyes were on me for the most part. Until I looked at them and, shyly, they turned their stares elsewhere. I wonder if it was sadness in their eyes. Maybe fear.

     We ate for a while, picking the bones clean. It was a quiet day, sometime in the morning or the afternoon I’m pretty sure. When I looked up I could see a large wall of gray clouds, formatted like they were going to war with the blue sky, on the horizon. It would storm again later, but for now there was a quiet sense of… not peacefulness. Not contentness either. Acceptance, I guess.

     Whatever it was, it was broken by the sound of something large and mechanical. We all turned to look over our shoulders. A white van caked in blood and dirt was thundering down the road, swerving and screeching as it turned. It drove past us, and our heads followed it. I could see the man in the flannel’s eyes quickly dart from side-to-side like he was shaking his head no, but it didn’t do anything to stop our bodies from rising to their feet and beginning their hobbled march towards where the noise dropped off. I could hear our feast struggle to sit up from behind me, but they were ignored. 

     We kept on the road, me and my new cluster. More of us would emerge from the trees, pulled by the nearly forgotten sound of a vehicle, and joined up with us. They were all in various states of decay. Some were just bones held together by tendons and draped with ripped skin, and I could tell that they suffered the longest. While walking, I looked up and saw that we were headed for the gray army. We’d be in the middle of the storm later. In the meantime, I let myself slip into another memory.

     I was older now. I was sitting in the backyard and swaying on the swingset dad installed earlier that month. It was an uncharacteristically boring day. Usually I’d have my friends over and we’d be playing tag or something, but they were gone. Most of the families drove off the day before. I didn’t even hear about it until later. 

     I looked through the sliding glass door and saw mom and dad on the couch. They were leaning forward and watching the TV but I couldn’t see what was on. Just that they were very focused. I, meanwhile, was more focused on what I’d be doing for that day. I wasn’t really friends with any of the Atkinson kids from next door, but their family’s car was still in the driveway so maybe they’d want to play. It was a day off from school after all, I didn’t want to spend it all indoors. 

     Then the sliding door opened and my mom stepped out. “Sweetie,” she called out to me. She was smiling but her eyes were red and puffy. “We’re going to get into the car and go for a drive, okay? We’re going to head out in a few minutes.” I asked what for, but she just told me to get in and start packing. They wouldn’t tell me anything, they just kept saying to pack my favorite toys and books. So I got my school bag and emptied it out, filled it with what I considered essentials. I didn’t know we wouldn’t see our home again. I would’ve packed more. 

     Dad threw everything in the trunk while mom buckled me in. Before we drove off, I looked over at the Atkinson house. Their door was wide open but the car was still in the driveway. Dad turned the radio on to the news and we drove out of there. I’m not sure he knew where to go.

     A crack of thunder rips across the clear blue sky of my daydreams, and it vanishes into complete darkness. I was away for a while, it seems. Long enough for the storm to roll in. I can feel the rain flooding the whole world, but I can’t see anything. My body moves regardless. I wonder if it just knows where to go or if it just doesn’t care, so long as it keeps moving. I’m left in the dark either way.

     Lightning tears the darkness open. For a brief few seconds, a great white scar sets the sky on fire, and I’m given a glance into the world around me. 

     There must be hundreds of us. Lumbering shadows of men, women and children trapped in their own corpses. Corpses that siphon off their life so they can keep going on and on, dragging their broken bones through the scorched earth. Ripping and pulling apart, peeling back with their teeth, gurgling blood in their collapsed lungs. Arms swaying at their sides, heads lolled back like they’re trying to scream with every ounce of strength they can wring out. But we can’t. We are just eyes staring endlessly ahead. Even after the curtain falls and we’re shrouded once again, we’re still there. We’re staring. They’re walking.

     I’m not sure I even exist anymore.

     It was cold back then. The coldest winter since he was my age, dad said, but maybe that was just because it was our first winter on the road. We were in the plains, flat for as far as either of us could see. And coated in a dense layer of snow. We had to leave the car behind and most of our supplies. It was never going to drive in this weather; we wouldn’t even be able to find the road if it weren’t for the abandoned traffic. But we needed to find a safe place to hunker down. So we walked.

     It was somberly quiet without mom. She was the last person I ever saw smiling. Dad hadn’t spoken a word since last night, and I wasn’t sure he would ever talk again. But he surprised me as we rummaged through a leftover RV. 

     “She didn’t mean to scare you.” He said. “She loved you more than anything. She was just sick. It wasn’t her anymore. You understand that, right?” I nodded. He held me by the shoulders and told me he needed to hear me say it out loud. I winced as his hand touched my shoulder. It’d been hurting since last night. Dad got real worried when he heard that. He told me to unzip my jacket and show him my shoulder. So I did.

     Dads eyes enlarged from behind his chipped glasses. I followed his glare down to my shoulder, where blood dripped down from a deep scratch in my skin. 

     BANG!

     A gunshot rings out in the storm. Then another, and another, and another. There’s blackness, but there is also a light. A bright yellow glow burning off of the crashed van’s headlights. Standing in the light with their backs pressed against a dirt wall were two survivors. One man and one woman, armed with a shotgun and a hunting rifle respectively. Several of us lay dead — truly dead — near their feet. They fire again, and another drops to the ground. 

     The back of the van doors were wide open and the vehicle was shaking with how many of us were cramming into it. There must’ve been a third survivor. The rest of us went for the other two. I feel my legs pick up, moving quicker. My arms outstretch as the ones in front of me continue to fall. My body was hungry.

     “Cover me!” The woman yelled, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. She turned and grabbed hold of a root sticking out of the dirt and began hoisting herself up. But the storm made everything wet. The mud slid off of her boot. She couldn’t get her footing. The man kept firing while she struggled.

     Please please please please get out of here!

     The man caught sight of me as my body came closer. There was a brief hesitation as he looked down at me, and that was what did him in. When he finally aimed his shotgun at me, one of us grabbed hold of him and clamped down on his arm. Their slimy eyes looked right into his as teeth plunged into the skin and leaked red down his arm. The gun fired but it missed me. I’m a small target. They piled onto him while he screamed, but my body wasn’t joining them. 

     The woman found leverage on a protruding rock. She pushed herself up and cemented her elbows into the ground above. She was going to pull herself to safety. But my body caught her. My arms wrapped around her leg, gripping onto her as I went to bite into her calf. She pushed me back with the heel of her boot but my grip was strong. It only knocked my head back from taking the bite. 

     I looked up at her. She was looking down at me, her face stretching with terror. She screamed, and I wanted to scream with her. The rest of us were closing in. Pretty soon they’d pull her down and eat her alive. I was the anchor keeping her down here and she knew that. She reached into her pant pocket and yanked out a revolver. Looked like the one dad used. She aimed it at me, hands shaking like crazy. The others were here now, arms outstretched and mouths wide open. She cocked the hammer back, lined her sights up as best she could.

And pulled the trigger…

… 

     My mom spent a good five minutes reminding me to never ever run away from her again. I had a much quicker word with the people at the petting zoo about being patient and waiting my turn. But they both thought it was awfully cute how I ran over to the lambs as soon as we got there, so they decided to let me go in there with them for a short while. The lamb with the brown wool was named Molly, and she was the sweetest creature I ever met. I sat down with her in the grass and she laid her head on my lap, let me run my hand through her soft wool. Molly stared up at me with those big round eyes and I held her gaze. My dad took a photo that’d later end up on our fridge, but I didn’t pay attention to him or anyone else. I was at peace in a way that would never be replicated again. In my short life and long death, this was the best moment of it all.