Making the Best of the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  MAKING THE BEST OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

  by Alisha Adkins

  Copyright © 2012 by Alisha Adkins. All rights reserved.

  First Kindle Edition: August 2012

  Cover Design: Streetlight Graphics.

  LICENSE NOTES

  All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Keeping Mother

  Chapter 2: Survivors of the Apocalypse

  Chapter 3: Perfect Storm

  Chapter 4: Nothing Left to Lose

  Chapter 5: Unburdened

  Chapter 6: Mother’s Milk

  Chapter 7: The Winds of Change

  Chapter 8: Another One Bites

  Chapter 9: Letting Mother Go

  Chapter 10: So It Goes

  Chapter 11: Meeting Adjourned

  Chapter 12: Things Could Be Worse

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Flesh Eaters

  Excerpt from Daydreams of Seppuku

  Excerpt from Death: the Travelogues

  Dedication

  To my mother.

  Scavenged from the rubble, these two personal accounts have been edited and compiled together as part of an ongoing attempt to preserve the post-apocalyptic history of the living.

  Chapter 1

  Keeping Mother

  I HAVE KEPT MY MOTHER chained to the frame of her bed for a little over two years now. I don’t even really hear the racket she makes anymore. The scraping of her chains against the metal frame, her moaning, and the spluttering, guttural noises—they’re all just background sounds now, as natural as the chirping of birds or the hum of crickets.

  How long should we hold onto our zombie children or zombie mothers out of sentimentality, a sense of duty, or unwillingness to accept change? Behavioral scientists could undoubtedly make good research of this question, if they weren’t all busy studying zombies or being zombies themselves these days.

  I know it’s not my mother anymore. It’s just the flesh that my mother used to inhabit. Soulless, hungry flesh. To be honest, it doesn’t really even look much like my mother anymore.

  And I know that keeping her can only serve to do me harm—living with a corpse inevitably produces unhygienic living conditions and promotes an unhealthy mental state. On top of that, there is a certain level of stress that is unavoidable when you live with the knowledge that something that wants to eat you is never more than a room or two away. And that’s not to mention the very real and ever present danger that she may eventually succeed...

  Still, letting her go is unthinkable.

  I mean, what can I do? She’s my mother.

  After my divorce, I moved in with my mother. She was getting on in years, and I was worried about her being all alone in her house in the suburbs. I did it for her sake, but her companionship helped ease my own loneliness as well. I’d gone from living in a house teeming with life—a wife, two young children and a dog—to living in a chillingly silent, unnaturally still apartment literally overnight. My wife had full custody, and I found myself working longer and longer hours just so I didn’t have to face the emptiness of my new “home.” So, if I’m really honest with myself, moving in with Mother benefited us both. Even if she was just puttering around in another room, I found the sounds of her presence comforting. In some ways, I guess I still do.

  Mother and I lived together about three years before the End of Days, as my mother called it, and about another year after the zombies came. “Nathan,” she used to say—my name is Nathan, by the way—”Nathan, it’s the end time now. Judgment Day is upon us.” She never quite worked out why judgment never came or, if it had, why everyone had apparently been condemned to suffer.

  Now I still live with Mother, but she no longer lives at all.

  Some days, I don’t even go into her room. It’s easier when I don’t have to look at her. On those days, I can just go about my daily routine. Everything is normal, and the scratching, rustling, and moaning are just vague reminders of having some companionship within the house. I tell myself that Mother is just a little sick right now, that’s all.

  Zombies don’t actually get colds, of course, though I did once think that Mother must be coming down with the sniffles when her nose started to run. It turned out to just be her brain liquefying.

  Sometimes I feel as though I’m a terrible son. I mean, I keep my mother chained by her hands and feet to the bed. And I don’t really feed her. Under the circumstances, I think I’ve done the best I could, but it still certainly sounds callous if you put it down in words.

  Other than a few rats that I’ve trapped, Mother hasn’t eaten in two years. So, I’m sure that Mother is extremely hungry. The problem is that she won’t eat anything that isn’t alive. When I first restrained her in her bedroom and began my “hospice” care, I tried to feed her soup. That was a disaster. Then, for my next attempt at feeding her, I tried giving her scraps of humans and animals that I had scavenged, but she still showed not even the faintest interest. Flesh is apparently uninteresting to her if it doesn’t still retain the warmth of life. The only meal she consistently expresses desire for is me.

  Today, I knew I had to tidy up in her room. I’d put it off for far too long.

  As soon as I open the door, the heavy wave of stench hits me.

  One step back, deliberately exhale, and then, back rigid, I enter. I have ritualized this task by now. Somehow, it makes it easier.

  One quick burst of Lysol to try to dilute the air. I’d like to spray more, but it has to be conserved.

  Flies buzz against the windows. If Mother could reach them, perhaps they would provide a snack. I swat them with a rolled up newspaper. The sheer, once yellow, curtains are tattered and stained. I brush off the crushed flies that have adhered to the fabric. I’ll sweep them up before I leave.

  Using a bucket and sponge, I attempt (rather futilely) to remove the gunk and splatters that have most recently accumulated upon the walls. This is my routine.

  Once I have run out of other tasks in the room, I finally turn to Mother.

  She is straining against her chains, leaning as far forward on the bed as the shackles will allow.

  Though it was at great personal risk to myself, I used to try to wipe down my mother. After all, in order to respect her memory, I felt that her body deserved to be maintained with some level of dignity. However, after I realized that the rag I used to wipe off her ooze and muck was also coming away with skin and the occasional bone fragment, I gave up on the practice.

  So, if I allow myself to be honest about it, Mother looks pretty damned bad.

  I try not to examine her features, but some things I still can’t avoid noticing. Lately, I’ve begun to think that her jaw is coming loose. Not that there is anything I can do about that.

  Mother wears an old house dress. If I remember correctly, it used to be blue. It’s hardly more than a filth-soaked rag now that loosely drapes her withered frame. I would try to change her clothes, but there is just no way to adequately subd
ue her.

  My mother has worn that dress since the day she passed. I guess, in some small way, I have a grown a sentimental attachment to it over the years.

  Unfortunately, after she was bitten, Mother did not die right away.

  After the End Time began, I saw that my mother never left the safety of the house. I took care of all of the supply gathering and our other needs. She was in her sixties, after all. I was the good, dutiful, protective son I should have been. I continue to remind myself of this, to console myself with this.

  Mother was infected by a young woman that she innocently let into our home. While I was away on a supply run, a woman of about twenty had come to our door. She made a great deal of noise, pleading to be let in.

  “I heard someone moving around in there. And I saw light from your window. Please, I know there’s someone alive in there. There are zombies out here—I’m scared. Please, please let me in!”

  Mother was a softy. She let the girl in, fed her, and comforted her, listening to the girl’s story. One thing about End Time—everyone has a story to tell.

  I think Mother thought that I needed a girlfriend. But she didn’t realize that this girl could not make a suitable mate. She had been bitten, though she concealed it from both of us.

  When I returned home that evening, I was exasperated with Mother for letting her inside our house. The girl could have been part of a group that was laying in wait out of sight to swarm our residence and claim it for themselves. Anything could have happened, really. I privately scolded her for not being careful enough.

  “Please be more careful, Mother! You’re all I have. What if something happened to you? Please don’t put yourself in danger.”

  My mother had just smiled and patted my arm.

  It did seem like we’d dodged a bullet, though. The girl was nice, and kind of cute besides. We ate dinner together (some cans of beans I had found in an abandoned house earlier that day), chatted affably, and then Mother put out pillows and a quilt for the girl to sleep on our sofa.

  The girl died quietly while lying on our sofa that night. She returned less quietly—Mother, always a light sleeper, heard her knocking about and bumping into things—and went to see what was happening (she was probably worried that one of her collection of glass figurines would be broken in the ruckus).

  The girl—or former girl, or whatever I should call her—attacked my mother, taking a hefty bite out of her forearm before I was able to run into the living room and peel her off of my mother.

  I smashed that bitch corpse’s skull in with one of Mother’s heavier crystal figurines—a blue jay, I think it was—that still sat intact upon the end table. I kept hitting until there was just a pile of muck where her head should have been.

  But why do I play this over yet again in my mind? It’s old news, and nothing can be changed now. After being bitten, Mother suffered through terrible pain for several days before she succumbed to the infection and died. I had the foresight to restrain her. Now we live together in a different way.

  There’s something horrifying about the notion of seeing something you love corrupted and defiled. But, if you see it often enough, you get used to it. It becomes the new normal. As upsetting as it is to live with the zombified remains of my mother, I can’t imagine how I’d fill my days now without her... Looking after Mother, and keeping our environment relatively sanitary in spite of her, gives me purpose and provides a daily routine. And, as tragic as it may be, when I look into the vacant sockets that once contained her eyes, memories of my boyhood still flood back to me.

  Sitting slightly forward and staring blankly into the depths of those sockets as I sat next to Mother’s bed in the bergére chair that she had so lovingly and painstakingly reupholstered nearly a decade ago, when my ex-wife, Becky, was pregnant with our first child, I guess that I got lost in my thoughts. Before I realized what was happening, Mother lunged for me, grazing my cheek with her desiccated lips. A millimeter closer and her teeth would have made contact before I was able to draw back.

  I gasped as I pulled back from her with such sudden force that I practically tipped my chair over backwards. Adrenaline rushing and heart pounding in my ears, I unconsciously pushed the chair away with my long legs, finding myself already a good three feet away before I was even conscious of what I was doing.

  My zombie mother’s head was still thrust forward, matted clumps of her unkempt hair falling over her face, mercifully obscuring her misshapen features, although I could still make out her teeth fiercely gnashing.

  I sat very still and let my heart slowly return to its normal pace.

  She—it—was still occasionally jerking against her chains, though I think she sensed that her opportunity had passed. Her motions lacked their previous fervor, as though she had resigned herself to the fact that, at least for the time being, her efforts were destined to be fruitless.

  After about five minutes, I was breathing normally and my heart had grown quiet again. I looked at the book on the end table which now sat between the bed and the chair in which I sat. It was a book I had read many times. Unfortunately, I had left most of my library in storage after my divorce, and Mother’s collection had been limited, especially once you sifted out the books on needlepoint and positive affirmations. Since I was essentially a shut-in by necessity, and there was no electricity for television or Internet, reading at the window was my primary diversion. I generally liked to spend a few hours reading at Mother’s bedside, just for the company our presences might afford one another. Today, since Mother had almost eaten me, I decided to forgo it.

  Letting out a sigh, I got up, returned the chair to its standard position in the room, mumbled my usual goodbye to Mother with less conviction than usual, and left the room, locking the door behind me.

  Chapter 2

  Survivors of the Apocalypse

  WE MEET ONCE A MONTH. We’re a support group, I suppose. Survivors of the Apocalypse. It seems laughable and absurd that one of the few vestiges of our former society that has endured is the creation of self-help groups, but it does serve a function of sorts. You would think that it wouldn’t be worth leaving the safety of our hideaways, braving numerous dangers, facing death many times over in order to have a cup of instant coffee and spend a couple of hours with strangers. But you’d be surprised how far up the ladder social interaction climbs in one’s hierarchy of needs when you don’t have it for a month at a time.

  Besides, if you skip a month, all the other survivors presume you’ve died, so there’s kind of a sense of obligation to keep the appointment.

  One of the most difficult aspects of maintaining membership in our “club” is simply keeping track of the days. I mark mine off each morning when I see the first rays of sunlight. Otherwise I would have no accurate sense of time anymore.

  So what is so compelling about our meetings? What drives us to keep this monthly appointment, tracking the days until our next meeting with people that we don’t even really know? I frequently find myself shaking my head and asking myself that question—but I’m looking forward to going to the next one nonetheless.

  When we meet, we really just talk. We share our stories of how we first became aware of the outbreak, of our previous lives, of our current existences, and, if we can bear it, of those we have lost along the way. It’s a place to vent and to feel insulated from the world—to feel safe for a couple of hours. I guess that’s the real appeal.

  Honestly, I am not completely sure how our little organization came into being. My knowledge is limited and lacks pertinent details; you see, I am just a Johnny-come-lately, not one of the founders. Unfortunately, none of the original members are still with us, so some of the lore associated with the group has already been lost. Keeping accurate historical records is proving to be a very difficult task in our post-apocalyptic world.

  I can only speak authoritatively about what I have personally experienced, which provides an incomplete record of the activities of the group over the last year. Nonethele
ss, an incomplete record is better than no record at all; in a civilization that is historically bereft, I figure that beggars cannot be choosers. Any history, even if flawed, is better than none.

  I first stumbled upon the Survivors almost a year ago while I was out scavenging for food and cleaning supplies.

  Foraging is a stressful activity. All of the stores were looted years ago, so the only way to still find goods in a city is by going door to door between houses or apartments in a complex. This is a hit or miss proposition—often the residence to which I gain entry has already been picked over, and if it hasn’t, there is frequently a former tenant to dispatch. With all the mayhem of the apocalypse, it surprises me how many people actually died in their homes, seemingly of starvation. I’d say a good third of the population must have found a place to hide after End Time came. Most of those people seem to have chosen to die quietly of starvation in their homes instead of facing the zombies milling around outside of their doors. So much for mankind’s will to survive. It’s certainly a more peaceful end than being ripped apart by zombies, I must admit. And I guess there’s some dignity in that. The poor things don’t retain much of that dignity in death though—they shuffle aimlessly around their apartments, their constant pacing wearing away the carpet beneath their feet.

  In zombie movies, people are always surprised by a zombie lurking in a dark corner somewhere. That’s such bullshit. You can generally tell if a zombie is in a house as soon as you jimmy open the door. The stench is the biggest cue, but even if your olfactory senses were impaired, all you would need to do is look down. If a zombie has been cooped up in the same place for any length of time, their repetitive movement will have etched patterns into the floor. Zombies are restless. Unless their limbs are impaired, the damned things are constantly walking; they don’t stand still for very long and they never sit down.