Life for Me

Thank's for reading, it is unfinshed, but I work on it a lot! -wiress

PROLOGUE

My name is Red. The outbreak caused everyone to turn, though, so you and I are the only people who care. Even that would be a false statement, because I certainly don't care about the name my so called family gave me before either trying to eat me or kill me. I don't care about me, so much, anymore, either. The disease turned people, ordinary everyday people into mindless creatures capable of many things. Among others, a few of those cause and effect factors are: Tearing families apart, eating people alive, and growing their population by thousands every day by biting, scratching, blood sharing, etc.

'This horrible thing, what is it called? How did it get started? How can I prevent it?' Is that what you were thinking?

Well, for starters, the sickness is called Skrik, Afrikaans for terror. No one knows how it was started, and there is NO way to stop or prevent it. You and your family, friends, enemies, neighbors… you are all doomed to untimely deaths. There is really no way to be prepared, but I suggest severing all ties to the people around you before they abandon you and/or you get hurt because of them. You will, most likely, die from zombies, but you can learn to survive, adapt.

CHAPTER-O UN

He stumbles towards me. I back up quickly and one of my feet trips the other. I fall to the cold, hard, dirty ground and crab-walk backwards. My back hits a wall and I whimper.

He continues on at me, his lumbering gait alarms me more than it should.

His mouth is open in a silent scream, his eyes, open, but unseeing, he frightens me more than anything. My brother, my big brother, the one I looked up to, the one who had beat up my boyfriend for calling me a- He moans deep in his throat. A long, deep, tortured moan that breaks my heart many times over. Arms extended, his fingers search for my hair, my face, anything he could get hold of.

His rotten, disgustingly green fingers, crawling with disease and maggots lock onto my wrist. He catches my arm, his nails digging into it, causing it to bleed. He stops and looks at the blood as if mystified and slowly brings my arm to his mouth. I thrash around violently, and try to escape from his hold. I stop, close my eyes and wait.

The pain is everything you can imagine but worse, it's electrifying and beautiful. My arm bleeds and the blood clots up fast, but the pain is still there. It feels like my arm is being stabbed in rhythmic pulses, over and over again. It continues up my arm to my shoulder. I scream in pain and it continues over my neck, I keep screaming and it reaches my head. If I had looked, I would have seen the bite bruise over to a purplish-blue-black. Around the bite, the decomposition would already have started. If anyone was with me, they may have noticed that I was getting a fever, but I had no one, no person that is, my eyes brighten, now I have the Skrik.

I awaken.

My heart races… no, my heart is at a stand-still. My memories rush back to me my head pounds. I try to reach my hands to my temples to scrub away the feeling, but my hands don't move. I try to stand and walk over to the mirror on the wall to see the bite on my neck that I can feel but don't remember getting. Then I notice my brother. He is wandering aimlessly around the room. Sometimes, he knocks things off shelves by accident and they crash to the floor.

I try to get up to run as he walks toward me, but my legs and arms are still AWOL. I try to scream, for him to stop, for someone to help me, anything, but it appears that I am completely paralyzed. That's when I stand up. My brother's, Dyke's, incessant moaning turned into a…language.

CHAPTER-O DEUX

"HEEELP MEEEE HEELP MEEE!" He screams. I moan in reply, almost mocking him, a zombie,

"HEEELP MEEEE HEELP MEEE!" But coming from me, it is more high pitched and sounds like a banshee-zombie. What happened while I slept? I thought people died, their souls left their body, when they were turned.

I start to get up, and then rejoice at the movement in my legs until I realize that I'm shuffling. I don't really remember my life before the zombies, but I know that the way I'm shuffling is off. Maybe if I give the command to walk normally…nope, nothing. I—my body—continues shuffling without a second thought. I try to remember—is shuffling supposed to be a slow, uneven jerky motion? Does it go smooth once you're used to it?

I shuffle in circles, almost in exactly the same pattern as Dyke. As we get to that corner of the room, I glance into the mirror on the wall right in front of me before my body turns. My hair is clumpy and stringy because I haven't brushed or washed it in who knows how long. My skin is a weird shade of green, not a happy or envious green, almost a brown-green, like Dyke. Sadly, it is exactly the same shade… not more feminine or anything. I guess I'm a zombie, now.

The thought sunk in and I felt like crying. I've never been much for crying, but if it meant regaining control, I would give up a few tears. I have decided to take control over my body again.

I begin with simple commands. I focus all my strength, all my mind, all my control on this one command, "twitch your finger." Nothing happens, and I sigh mentally. My efforts are futile, it's impossible to regain control of my body. My body's gone, now… it's not my body anymore. The thought hits me harder than I had ever imagined. But, then, why am I still here?