Awake: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel Read online

  I did have one exciting thing happen that day. About an hour or so after my mid-day nap, I thought I found another survivor wandering the world. When I spotted her, she was too far away for me to make out anything more than a moving figure. My first instinct had been to call out to the person to get her attention, but the fear that the individual might try to hurt me kept me silent.

  I slunk around vehicles until there was nothing else for me to hide behind before making my presence known. The person didn’t acknowledge me. She didn’t even turn my way when I got close enough to see that she was a middle-aged, Hispanic woman with milky eyes, ashy, flabby skin covered in bite marks, cuts, scrapes, and God only knew what else. She walked with a slight limp and with her head cocked to the side. She passed close by me without even looking at me. If I had reached out my hand, I could have touched her.

  For a long time, I watched her make her slow way west. A thought occurred to me when she was nearly out of sight that I should have killed her before she stumbled across a human and got them, but then I remembered I was human, and she hadn’t tried to kill me.

  “But are you human?” I asked myself when I turned away.

  “I am now. I had been at one time, so yeah, I’m human.”

  “But what about the time in between? You don’t think you were human then, do you? I mean, you did throw up human remains.”

  I hated the part of me that brought up such things.

  “That doesn’t mean I was a zombie, like her,” I said, pointing back at the woman.

  “No, it doesn’t, but what’s your other option—cannibalism? Do you think you’d have turned into a cannibal with food still around?”

  “Maybe, if I couldn’t get to it.”

  I was lying to myself. Yeah, food was a little hard to come by, but it wasn’t impossible. I didn’t know how to hunt or skin animals, but I was sure I could figure it out.

  “Stop lying to yourself.”

  “Then, you explain to me how I could go from human to zombie to human again.”

  “Who says you’re human now.”

  “I do.”

  “And? As if the fact that that zombie walked right by you as if you weren’t there wasn’t enough evidence, the rapid healing, the initial intolerance to food, the memory flashes are all giveaways that you haven’t been human for a long time, honey.”

  “Zombies don’t turn back. The one we just passed is proof.”

  “No, she isn’t. Just because she hasn’t turned back yet doesn’t mean she won’t. Granted, it doesn’t mean she will either, but she also didn’t have one of those medical darts sticking out of her. What if that last man you attacked did something to you? Changed you back somehow?”

  “That can’t be possible.”

  “Can’t it? Zombies themselves shouldn’t exist, but you just saw one. If a person can be infected, why couldn’t they be cured?”

  “But zombies are dead.”

  “Are they? Did you check her pulse? Her wounds looked a little bloody to me. Some even appeared to be scabbing over. Zombies in horror movies and books might be reanimated corpses, but that doesn’t mean that they are in reality.”

  “Reality. Ha. Nothing about this feels real. I woke up in a fucking nightmare. I’m not even sure I’m awake. I’m still leaning against the idea that I’m unconscious in some nut house and that all of this is a delusion I can’t wake from for some reason.”

  “I don’t think so. All of this feels pretty real to me.”

  “How would you know what’s real? You’re just a voice in my head.”

  “I’m your voice, so I’m you, so I’m real.”

  “I’m not arguing this anymore with you.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Shut up, damn it.”

  The voice cackled in my head but quieted for a while.

  I made it to a town about an hour or so before dark. I was too exhausted to search for food and supplies. I found a clean room in a hotel just inside the city limits and crashed. I slept so hard that I don’t remember dreaming. A large part of me wanted to pick up where the luau dream had left off. However, for the most part, I was grateful I hadn’t. I needed the rest. Considering the condition I’d woke up in that field, I was pushing myself too hard.

  I should have taken the time to heal when I got to Dickson. I should have found a comfortable place to sleep and put myself on bed rest for a week before starting my journey. The rest would have given not only my body time to heal correctly but my mind. More memories might have come back to me before I left, giving me a better idea of where I should head.

  The hotel wasn’t in poor condition. I told myself the next morning when I was raiding the small kitchen for food that I should stay there for a few days. I had woken just as exhausted as I had the day before. Only the hunger and the need for a bathroom had pulled me from the bed.

  “I’ll need more supplies than this if I’m going to camp out in that room for a few days,” I told myself, looking down at a pile of small cereal bars, candy bars, and protein bars, all of which I was sure were stale if not altogether ruined.

  “It will do for today. Go back to bed before you pass out.”

  “Okay.”

  I was too tired to argue with myself. I had one of each item for breakfast, along with a bottle of water before immediately falling asleep. I slept for nearly five hours. I did dream, but that time, they were real dreams. I dreamt that the woman in the field had sensed me and attacked me. I dreamed that I approached what I thought was an abandoned car only to discover a fellow survivor. Instead of being grateful that they found me, they attacked me.

  I had other dreams along those lines, but none that I woke thinking might have been memories. The tasteless and hard to chew vending machine food made for a decent late lunch. My body felt a bit more rested after that nap and meal, so I decided to clean myself up a bit and look around the town before it got dark.

  The fast-food restaurant next door didn’t have much in the way of edible food, but they did have some bottled drinks. They were warm but drinkable. The gas station next to the restaurant was nearly empty as well, but I did find some canned meat, beef jerky, and other odd stuff that if I were careful with my portions could last me a few days, maybe all the way into Alabama.

  As I made my way back to the hotel with my loot, I eyed the cars in the parking lot. I didn’t know if I knew how to drive. I assumed that at the age I thought I was, I would, but that wasn’t a guarantee. If I had a car, I could scavenge a bit more, as I wouldn’t have to carry the heavy load on my back while I walked.

  “What if you can’t drive?” the pessimistic side of me asked. I wanted to slap that bitch.

  “I could learn. It can’t be that hard if so many people did it.”

  “Then try. We’ve got nothing but time.”

  She was right, of course. I dumped my load in my room before room hopping in search of keys. On my side of the building, I found three sets of keys, all still attached to their human owners. That wasn’t at all pleasant.

  I used the key fobs to find the car that belonged to the keys, but none of them beeped. That was my first clue that driving wasn’t going to happen. The vehicles had been sitting for too long, and their batteries had died. That didn’t stop me. Once I found one to which the keys belonged, I tried to crank them. Nothing happened.

  “You should have tried this back in Dickson. Those people we found on the side of the road hadn’t looked as if they’d been dead long. Their cars might have still worked.”

  “I know that now, but I wasn’t thinking about driving then.”

  I found a car in the restaurant parking lot whose driver didn’t look too decomposed, so I dragged him out of the vehicle and tried to crank it, the dashboard lit up, and the interior light came on, but it didn’t crank. The gas gage also showed that the car was on empty.

  “Fuck it,” I said and went back to my room. I washed up again as I had the stench of the dead all over me. As I was cleaning myself, I had a
nother idea. In one of the rooms, I’d seen some rolling luggage. I could fill something like that full of food and drinks and pull it alongside me. It would get tiring and would probably slow me down, but considering I wasn’t making great timing as it was and that I didn’t have a deadline, it wouldn’t matter.

  I couldn’t remember what room I’d seen the luggage in, so I had to do a second sweep until I found it. I needed to do the sweep again to get clean clothes and to see if the people had left behind anything else useful. The rolling luggage I found two rooms down. Since the room next to me had belonged to what I assumed were short, skinny Goth teenagers judging by their style, which meant their clothes wouldn’t fit me, and the room with the luggage had belonged to a large man, I had to keep searching much longer than I had the energy to do so for clothes.

  “Why do I keep finding frilly clothing?” I asked myself aloud as I held up a pink sleeveless top. “Who thought this was appropriate zombie apocalypse apparel?”

  I didn’t answer myself. My other half must have agreed with me. I guess it didn’t matter anymore what anyone wore. I’d seen one zombie since waking and no humans. Despite that, I didn’t feel comfortable wearing that shirt or over half of the other items I’d found during my search. I needed durable clothes that didn’t scream easy victim to either human or zombie and that would keep the sun from burning me but weren’t stifling.

  That night, I went back to my room with three pairs of jeans, a plastic bag full of socks, sports bras, and tanks, four shirts, a better camping pack than the one I had before, another gun with some ammo, a machete, a baseball cap, and a sweet sixteen birthday card to a girl named Melanie from Mom and Dad.

  I have no idea why I took the card. Even further, I didn’t know why I kept picking it up and reading it every few minutes. The card wasn’t one of those fold-out ones with sappy lines on each page about how precious and loved the girl was. It was a funny one about how she was old enough to drive but not old enough to do anything fun despite the license. Her parents hadn’t written a message in it other than Love, Mom and Dad.

  Eventually, I made myself cram the card into the side pocket of the pack, where I’d put the unicorn necklace and go to bed.

  Chapter 5 - Attacked

  In my dreams that night, I was at the party again. I relived decorating the tables and the yard, the friendly banter with the man and woman, getting dressed, and greeting party guests. I recognized every person in the dream, but I couldn’t give anyone names. I thought I favored a few of them, especially the woman and an older couple that I assumed was the woman’s parents. Did that make the woman my mother? Maybe. The woman and I didn’t look that far apart in age for her to be my mother. At least, I didn’t think so. I could be her sister, though. The elderly couple didn’t treat me as if I were their child.

  The man, the woman was married to, wasn’t my father. I knew that. I didn’t favor him at all, though I did feel a great deal of emotional attachment toward him.

  At some point in that dream, the guest of honor arrived. I felt giddy and excited for the young woman who got out of the back of a sleek, dark red car. Her face lit up at the sight of us standing in the side yard singing to her. The girl looked like the man and woman. There was no doubt that she was theirs. She laughed and hugged people as she made her way to the backyard, then squealed in delight at the setup.

  I watched most of the party from the sidelines while the young girl mingled, giggled with her friends, played silly party games, ate, blew out sixteen candles, cut her cake, and opened presents. I wasn’t an outsider to the event, but that day was all hers, and I wasn’t young enough to join her and her friends in their play. I was an adult, and I watched the kids with the rest of the grownups.

  While I looked on, my mind recalled my sixteenth birthday party. The party was much more subdued and took place in the same backyard, with the same man and woman. The girl was also there, but she was just a few years old. I had friends there, and some family—like the older couple that I was sure were the woman’s parents—but that was about it. I had a cake, decorations, gifts, but not to the extent that the girl had. I didn’t feel jealous. I had enjoyed my birthday. We’d laughed just as much as the people were doing at the girl’s party.

  At my current age, I understood that the man and woman didn’t have the wealth then that they currently had.

  The girl interrupted my thoughts with a scream of glee. She ran up to me and threw her arms around my neck. I hugged her back as she jumped up and down in my arms, saying thank you repeatedly.

  “I’m glad you like it,” I said to her.

  “I love it. It’s just like the one Karli wore in the movie,” the girl that I was sure was my little sister said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said again, before hugging me and kissing me on the cheek. She quickly turned back to her friends and screamed again. They shouted and gathered around her to look at the unicorn necklace.

  I didn’t remember the name of the teen romance movie she’d seen the necklace in, but I had known it would be the perfect gift. There hadn’t been anything unique about the white-gold unicorn with the diamond-studded body, but because it had been what the hot guy in the movie gave the love of his life, every teenage girl wanted one that summer.

  Once the girl had finished opening all of her presents, I helped the woman clean up the mess and set up the girl’s birthday cards so that they decorated the nearly empty gift table. The woman tisked at my card as it said something about still not being able to drink even though she could drive herself to parties. I thought it was funny, and so had the girl, but the woman hadn’t.

  After gifts, the girl cut her cake, and everyone quieted a while, resting from all the excitement. A short time after that, most of the adults left, and the girl and the remaining kids changed into swimsuits and went down to the water.

  I helped the woman clean and put away the food the catering staff left. After that, I sat with her on the dock for a while, watching the kids play. We talked about the party, about what kind of car the girl might get once she had her license, and about other random things that I don’t recall.

  Eventually, the kids got hungry again, and we made our way back to the tables. More people were out on the water then, and the neighbors that hadn’t been able to attend the party wandered over to wish the girl a happy birthday. Everyone was eating, talking, laughing around the tables when we heard a scream from far down the river.

  “What was that?” the girl asked.

  “I don’t know,” the man said, standing and walking to the edge of his property.

  “Was it a scream?” the woman asked, going to him.

  “I’m not sure. I think so,” the man replied.

  “Should we check it out?” the girl asked.

  “Maybe. There are plenty of people between whoever screamed and us, though. We would be in the way if help has arrived or appear nosey if it was nothing.”

  We sat quietly, listening. The second we started to relax, we heard another scream. That one was closer than the first. That time, everyone rose. We should have told the kids to go in the house. We should have all gone inside. We should have called the police. We should have done anything but what we did.

  Everyone edged closer to the neighbor’s yard, straining to see anything. Another scream came, startling us. That one came from directly behind us. A cacophony of screams followed from all around.

  I spun to see a group of teenagers running straight at us. Some were yelling, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Blood covered most of them. A number had cuts and what looked like bite marks.

  “What the hell?” the man said, stepping forward to try to stop one of the kids, but most just ran right by us.

  Behind the group came more people. They looked as if they’d just escaped a war zone. They moved slowly and looked severely wounded. One or two were even missing body parts.

  Before we could wrap our minds around what was happening, t
he kids from the first wave who hadn’t passed us attacked us. In seconds, the backyard was full of screams, cries, and blood. I looked frantically for the girl, the man, and the woman, but I couldn’t make out anyone in the sea of red.

  I pushed, dodged, and kicked my way through the mass of bodies, not caring who I hit as long as it wasn’t one of my family members. I had to find the girl. She was the most important person to me. I had to get her to safety. If I couldn’t find her, I had to find the woman.

  My brain wouldn’t or couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were seeing as I made my way through the crowd. People were eating each other. People were killing each other. People weren’t people anymore. I dodged one of the girl’s friends who only a bit ago was laughing and tanned. She was now foggy-eyed, gray-skinned, and had blood and tissue hanging from her mouth.

  Somehow, I made it to the side yard and was just about to head for the front door when I felt a sharp pain run up my left thigh. I looked down in surprise to see a child gripping my leg so tight I was sure his fingers had buried themselves in my flesh. Before I could attempt to pull him off, he sank his teeth into me. That time, I was the one who screamed.

  I fell onto my ass, trying to kick him off. He wouldn’t let go. On instinct, I picked up one of the large stones the woman had decorating the small flower garden on that side of the house and brained him with it. I don’t know if it was adrenaline or if his skull was just that soft, but one blow was all it took to crack his head wide open and for his brains to get smashed under the rock.

  For a long moment, I couldn’t do anything but look down at the child attached to my leg. I had to force myself to pull him off me. He took a large chunk of flesh with him. Before I could be sick or call out for help, the world around me went dark.

  I woke from the dream drenched in sweat, and I was hoarse from screaming. I jerked the blankets to the side and looked down at my bandaged left thigh. I pulled the wrappings off to see that, among many other things, there was a pit in my leg where an old wound had healed—one that very well could’ve come from a small child. I was sure it hadn’t been open when I woke in the field. I had bandaged that area because of other wounds, not because of that one.