I, Zombie

The thin strips of wood that formed a grid between the panes of glass were all that was left. Like an empty game of tic-tac-toe. No breaking them with the painting stick, but how sturdy could they be? Jeffery pulled the stick back, used it to push a chomper’s forehead away, the thing snarling angrily at being toyed with by its food. The plastic lid faintly buckled. The banging and groaning were like drums reaching some sort of crescendo. Even the kid had fallen quiet, maybe for being pressed back against a body, maybe just fuckin’ exhausted, maybe sensing what Jeffery was sensing: that the end was well fucking nigh.

He ran along the edge of the lid to keep it from collapsing, ran past the waving and groping hands, trying not to trip over them, and threw himself through the void, over the heads, jumping like a kid again, back when he liked to pretend the ground was lava.

He crashed halfway through the wooden slats. They snapped by his shoulders and arms, his waist catching on the window, feet scrambling. An old wound on his stomach lanced out with a pain so sudden and sharp that he nearly fainted. It felt like one of the slats had fucking pierced him, but it was just a deep bruise that would never heal, a former injury being struck again.

Hands fell on his calves. One of his boots was torn off as he tried to pull himself inside, damn things screaming and moaning and his body on fire with a thousand aches.

Jeffery scrambled through the busted window, one boot on, another off. He laughed and whooped. He jumped around a disgusting living room torn up by scavengers, the baby hollerin’ on his back, its voice going up and down as it rode the sickening roller coaster of Jeffery’s elation.

With a loud hack and coughing noise, and then a splatter of nasty warmness against his neck, the kid lost the last meal it would ever get from its mother. Jeffery didn’t give a shit. He laughed at this, knowing it was the perfect punch line to the goddamn most unbelievable bullshit story anyone in this living nightmare would ever share with another wide-eyed and doubting soul.

He limped around on his one boot, laughing. Limping. The aches wore off from holding that painting stick so far out, from smashing through the goddamn window. Limping. Looking down. Blood on the filthy carpet, blood on his sock.

“No,” Jeffery muttered. “Oh, fuck, fuck, no.” He hopped to the sofa with its stuffing erupting like pearly white guts.

“Fuck me, no. C’mon, kid. C’mon.”

Jeffery sat down and tore off his sock, hand shaking. His bladder felt near to burst with diet coke. No. Not after all that. No fucking way.

The sock came away easy, the blood not nearly begun to set, not an old wound like he’d hoped, not a scab ripped open like he prayed it was.

“Oh, fuck, kid.”

Jeffery worked at the buckles on the yuppie pack. He pulled the infant around and laid him gently on his back amid the disgorged white furniture innards. He had no idea how old the child was, always got that wrong whenever he guessed. It coulda been born yesterday. Could be three months. No fuckin’ clue.

He studied the wound. Saw the bite marks, the torn flesh. Knives in the kitchen, probably. He could saw through the thing, hack through the bone. But he’d heard from that one group that it didn’t work. They said their one-armed friend was still out there somewhere, clacking at the air with his teeth. It’d been no good at all to cut his arm off.

The kid looked at him with something like worry, with his little nose and raised brow. There were angry bangs and groans from the alley heard through the smashed window. The infant had those big eyes babies have, those little pink lips all puckered up, asking for their next meal. Just like Jeffery and all the survivors, just like that alley full of chompers, everyone was always looking for their next meal.

Jeffery studied the little guy, the kid who was supposed to’ve been his ticket out of there. A one-way ride on one of them helicopters, always the helicopters comin’ to pull him out of the deep shit. Just one more ride, that’s all he wanted. Come and get me. Save me from my own goddamn country. Here’s the red smoke right fuckin’ here. Here’s me waving my rifle, barrel pointed right back at me, motherfuckers, just like you taught. Here I am. Come and get me.

Jeffery looked down at his foot, dripping blood.

They already had, he figured. They’d already got him fucking good.

28 • Jeffery Biggers