THE LONELY WALK
A Zombie's Notebook
Copyright @ 2012 by Billie Sue Mosiman
First published in the anthology, ARMAGEDDON, Baen Books, as "A Watery Silence."
June 4
I have been five days dead.
Nietzsche was right. God is, also, dead. Or God never was. If there were a God, He wouldn't have let humankind suffer in this manner. I would have rather there had been a God in heaven and a Lucifer below, I would have rather burned on red-hot coals for my sins for eternity than to live this everlasting death. I only tell you the truth. If you think I'm going to varnish it or pretty it up, look somewhere else.
I'm leaving these pages for the living so they'll know what they face if they join me. No one before me has chronicled what this life-in-death is like and it's important for the world to know.
The plague that swept across continents and infected millions has also infected me. So far as I know I am the only one who understands my predicament. I'm searching for another. I don't want to be alone much longer. I fear my mind is slipping, has slipped, will continue to slip, into madness.
It all began five days ago...
But, wait, just a minute now...
I lifted my arm and brought my flesh close to my face because I thought I might smell something. I pressed my nostrils directly against the skin, felt its tightness against my cheek, slid out my tongue and tasted. It's a little sweet, my flesh, not very salty, and cool. Cold. There is the faint scent of some bits of me rotting down below the layer of muscle. I'm corrupting, but at a slower rate than I would have thought. Especially in this tropical climate. Miami, Florida. A splendid paradise for dying.
So let me continue. After lying dead for five days, an uninfected man would have bloated, stiffened with rigor mortis, and gone soft again, turned to jelly, gaseous and purple as a plum. I'm not that way. Not yet.
It was Saturday when I died. In May. When I had everything to live for. But we all do, always. I tell you this, and you have to remember it every minute you live and draw breath. There is everything to live for. Treasure every second. Lift up your face and see the sun and touch your loved ones and capture and hold onto any little joy that burbles in your heart. Life is never so bad that death--any death, but particularly this death--could ever be thought remotely preferable.
Saturday. "Carrie," I said. "We need milk. We have to get milk for the baby." My daughter had barely survived for eight days on water strained from oatmeal and she needed more nourishment than that. I couldn’t stay barricaded in the house any longer.
Carrie begged, "Please don't go outside, please don't leave us! The provisions will be here on Monday." Teardrops collected on the lower rims of her eyes. She had never cried so easily before, never been so emotional and raw. I wanted to take her into my arms, but I couldn't, not this time.
The army truck would bring our neighborhood milk and cheese and meat and vegetables, enough to last another month--but it never did, it never lasted, not for a growing child. Margaret is just four months old. I delivered her myself, held that tiny wonder in the palms of my hands and saw her take her first breath, held her against my chest and felt her heartbeat flutter wildly, fighting to live. I stood holding her, that naked little life, praying she would make it.
For a week it was all right. Then Carrie had no milk, her malnourishment drying her breasts before the baby could gain a hold on life. I couldn't stand to watch Margaret waste away, grow listless, her blue eyes fading to slate, her lips blindly, softly sucking at the stained water when I could do something, by God, I was her father, wasn't I? I couldn't let her die, could I?
But I have to make you understand this. I didn't want my daughter to die, but there was more than her life in the balance. I wanted her to live for me. I knew if the baby died, Carrie would soon follow. She was already slowly
A Zombie's Notebook
Copyright @ 2012 by Billie Sue Mosiman
First published in the anthology, ARMAGEDDON, Baen Books, as "A Watery Silence."
June 4
I have been five days dead.
Nietzsche was right. God is, also, dead. Or God never was. If there were a God, He wouldn't have let humankind suffer in this manner. I would have rather there had been a God in heaven and a Lucifer below, I would have rather burned on red-hot coals for my sins for eternity than to live this everlasting death. I only tell you the truth. If you think I'm going to varnish it or pretty it up, look somewhere else.
I'm leaving these pages for the living so they'll know what they face if they join me. No one before me has chronicled what this life-in-death is like and it's important for the world to know.
The plague that swept across continents and infected millions has also infected me. So far as I know I am the only one who understands my predicament. I'm searching for another. I don't want to be alone much longer. I fear my mind is slipping, has slipped, will continue to slip, into madness.
It all began five days ago...
But, wait, just a minute now...
I lifted my arm and brought my flesh close to my face because I thought I might smell something. I pressed my nostrils directly against the skin, felt its tightness against my cheek, slid out my tongue and tasted. It's a little sweet, my flesh, not very salty, and cool. Cold. There is the faint scent of some bits of me rotting down below the layer of muscle. I'm corrupting, but at a slower rate than I would have thought. Especially in this tropical climate. Miami, Florida. A splendid paradise for dying.
So let me continue. After lying dead for five days, an uninfected man would have bloated, stiffened with rigor mortis, and gone soft again, turned to jelly, gaseous and purple as a plum. I'm not that way. Not yet.
It was Saturday when I died. In May. When I had everything to live for. But we all do, always. I tell you this, and you have to remember it every minute you live and draw breath. There is everything to live for. Treasure every second. Lift up your face and see the sun and touch your loved ones and capture and hold onto any little joy that burbles in your heart. Life is never so bad that death--any death, but particularly this death--could ever be thought remotely preferable.
Saturday. "Carrie," I said. "We need milk. We have to get milk for the baby." My daughter had barely survived for eight days on water strained from oatmeal and she needed more nourishment than that. I couldn’t stay barricaded in the house any longer.
Carrie begged, "Please don't go outside, please don't leave us! The provisions will be here on Monday." Teardrops collected on the lower rims of her eyes. She had never cried so easily before, never been so emotional and raw. I wanted to take her into my arms, but I couldn't, not this time.
The army truck would bring our neighborhood milk and cheese and meat and vegetables, enough to last another month--but it never did, it never lasted, not for a growing child. Margaret is just four months old. I delivered her myself, held that tiny wonder in the palms of my hands and saw her take her first breath, held her against my chest and felt her heartbeat flutter wildly, fighting to live. I stood holding her, that naked little life, praying she would make it.
For a week it was all right. Then Carrie had no milk, her malnourishment drying her breasts before the baby could gain a hold on life. I couldn't stand to watch Margaret waste away, grow listless, her blue eyes fading to slate, her lips blindly, softly sucking at the stained water when I could do something, by God, I was her father, wasn't I? I couldn't let her die, could I?
But I have to make you understand this. I didn't want my daughter to die, but there was more than her life in the balance. I wanted her to live for me. I knew if the baby died, Carrie would soon follow. She was already slowly
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