Dead Eyes: A Tale From The Zombie Plague (2 page)

My father reacted badly to grandfather’s attempts at indoctrination. The bitterness and self-pity that was spat at him, almost from birth, forced him to rebel down the other path. Caring for the weak was the duty of the strong. It became his mantra. It could have cost him his life. If he had listened to my grandfather, he would have been fine, lived a trouble free life. But he didn’t.

He became a war photographer, to help show the world the true cost of conflict. The pattern continues. The XY in our family enter a combat situation. Then the blindness follows.

1987. My father is in Suriname, hoping to photograph the affects of the civil war on the indigenous people. A noble cause of course. It’s always the same in these conflicts. The people suffer, caught between two sides. Friendly fire. Civilian casualties. I remember the arguments my father and grandfather had at dinnertimes, discussing the morality of war, each accusing the other side of cowardice. “You’ve never seen combat, you don’t know what it’s like.” That was my grandfather’s trump card, his finishing move to end the discussion. Probably what set my father off on his pilgrimage to become a war photographer.

It was in Suriname that his eyesight started fading. What good is a war photographer who can’t look through the viewfinder? How can he draw attention to atrocities that he couldn’t see? My father returned home a broken man. From there it got worse, he spiraled down into drink and depression, self-medicating on an extreme scale. The worst thing was the abuse he spat at my mother, the only person in the world who cared for him. He had no one else. Not even me. I hated what he had become. Old and bitter, worse than my grandfather. But hateful too. Accusing my mother of mistreating him, of disrespect. She broke her back trying to care for him and he didn’t appreciate it at all. I wasn’t surprised when he killed himself. Blew his brains out with my grandfather’s service pistol. I was only sorry that he delayed it so long. How many years of hate could he have saved for my mother and me if he had just killed himself sooner? Instead of wallowing selfishly in his despair and trying to drag us down with him.

In the end, my grandfather was right. My father’s caring for the weak was what killed him. No one would have cared as much if he were an accountant or teacher who turned blind. He could have perhaps continued his work. Wouldn’t have been so devastated. So broken by his body’s failings. I watched him fall apart, learned my grandfather’s lesson the hard way. Adapt or die. Survival of the fittest.

I wasn’t going to follow in the paternal footsteps. No conflict for me. I had dreams of a normal life. Study business administration at college. Lead a normal life and, if the blindness came for me, deal with it.

And then everything went to shit. Not because of blindness. Something much, much worse.

No one is sure of the how or why it all began. One day things were normal. Next day, the dead were back.

Undead. Walking dead. Restless corpses. Zombies. Whatever you want to call them, they just appeared overnight. Stumbling into our lives and tearing it apart through clawing hands and horrible gnashing teeth.

When the first reports started, there was disbelief. The news reports laughed at all the rumours and gossip. It was just a hoax or an overreaction. Nothing more than that.

And then the government went AWOL. Just shutdown and disappeared completely. “We’re all in this together”. Not any more we weren’t. Most of the military left with them, command structures across the country gone almost as quickly as the zombies had arrived. The police couldn’t cope, how could they? Who trained for an event like this? It was ridiculous, crazy, insane. It could never happen until it happened.

The health system was a ticking time bomb. Those bitten by the zombies, infected but unaware, went to the hospitals, the place where society’s most vulnerable were located. Most of the epidemics spread out from medical centres. Made things so much worse. In times of need, where do you turn? To the government, the military, the police, or the doctors.

The number of undead attacks multiplied rapidly; soon survivors were outnumbered by the walking dead. Humanity was unprepared and it was nearing extinction.

Overnight the country was abandoned. All flights in and out were cancelled. Docks were closed, warships patrolling the waters for anyone trying to escape. I was not a citizen of the infected zone. No choice but to fight for my life until I could fight no more.

You wouldn’t believe it, but I was one of the lucky ones. Survival of the fittest had been programmed into my head from an early age. I had no family, my friends had all disappeared. I was on my own. Forced to fend for myself.

I packed myself a kitbag using anything useful I could get my hands on, all those years in the boy scouts finally becoming useful. Then I took my grandfather’s service pistol, a relic from WW2 that still worked.

Prepared, I left my hometown and headed into the countryside, away from what was left of civilisation. I was out in the wilderness on my own. Meeting no one. Helping no one. Relying on no one.  Just my survival instincts and me. Alone. But alive.

And then Libby walked into my life.

✖

Ever since we parted ways, I have been retroactively trying to paint her as the bad guy. Someone who abandoned me, left me to die, and was a nuisance from the start. But that isn’t honest. Truth is, when I first met her, she was in the process of saving my life.

It was three months since the first zombie rose from the dead, and I was scavenging at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Hadn’t seen any undead for days and my guard was lowered. The farmhouse seemed deserted. No vehicles parked outside, darkened windows filled with cobwebs, the farm animals wandering free. In truth, I had enough supplies to keep me going. Stopping at the farmhouse was something to do, to help break up the day. It was boring walking through the countryside all day. I needed something to distract my mind from those lonely thoughts that creep up on you and threaten to drag you down into depression. Looking back, it was fate that took me to the farmhouse that day.

I made my way round the building, checking the perimeter. It seems strange looking back that I did some things right. Just made the most dangerous mistakes.

The back door to the main building was unlocked. It opened into a kitchen, a well stocked kitchen. Seeing all the supplies there distracted my mind, and I went straight to searching through the cupboards, trying to find some prize contraband like chocolate or beer. I should have cleared the house first, checked each room to make sure it was safe. But I didn’t, I just started rifling through the cupboards, searching for anything useable. Canned food, medicines, bottled water. Three months since the zombies first appeared, one month since civilisation had collapsed completely. It was getting so desperate, that I would take anything without an expiry date. Bottled water was always useful, no matter what the date on the label said.

I wasn’t searching quietly, and the noise I was making must have woken up the zombie in the house. I didn’t hear it coming, which in many ways was a good thing. You see there are three types of zombie; at least that’s what I’ve seen so far.

The first type I call “Scratchers”. These are the fresh ones, only recently turned or came back. It’s often hard to tell that a Scratcher is a zombie. You see, when someone is attacked by zombies and they escape with a few bites or cuts, then they will turn within twenty-four hours. If you’re expecting the usual zombie that’s falling apart, huge cuts and wounds all over the body, it doesn’t happen. If a zombie captures you, it will devour you. Just tear you apart, leaving nothing behind except your chewed bones. If a zombie catches you, you don’t come back. You get eaten. That’s why the fresh ones look normal, often with their wounds bandaged and dressed. It’s just the eyes that give it away. The whites of the eye turn red, all the blood vessels bursting.

The zombie in the farmhouse was a Scratcher. They’re quiet. The disease inside not taken full control, the hunger not driving the creature just yet. The other two types are noisy. Thank fuck for that.

Type two I call “Moaners”. You hear them before you see them. This low pitched long groan of horror. Whatever is causing these zombies to walk around is unknown, but if you ask me it’s hunger. Moaners have been turned for a few days and so the hunger is growing. No matter how much they eat, a zombie is never satisfied. The hunger is never sated. Moaners are a little bit rougher than Scratchers. The bandages fall off, skin turns pale, loses its colour. Looks don’t really matter; it’s the sound that gives them away. Moaners aren’t so tough; their cry gives them away. They often move around in groups though so any warning you can get is welcome. As long as its not the “shriek”. That brings us to type number three. Daisies.

Daisies are old zombies, having been turned for at least a couple of weeks. As time passes, the hunger grows stronger. More intense, more urgent. The zombie’s body starts eating itself, attacking all the non-vital body parts, parts that don’t help it hunt. This leaves them as these wiry, skeletal ghouls with hair falling out, what remaining skin they have sagging from bones. And then there’s the “shriek”. The scream they utter when they are about to attack. I’m no biologist, but if you asked me why they do this, I reckon it’s to give their prey a shock. The first time I heard it, it nearly gave me a heart attack. They do it to make you hesitate for just a moment before the Daisies attack, to give them the advantage. Daisies can run. Sprint even. When you see a Daisy, its drop everything and run like hell. Don’t stop for supplies; don’t go back for your friends. Just run away and hope that your friends escaped too. Daisies are terrifying. When you see one, everything goes out the window. Just run away as fast as you can.

Libby and me came up with these names one night. To try and help us when we’re scavenging, giving each zombie we meet a class so we know its danger. That way if one of us shouted out “Scratcher”, “Moaner”, or “Daisy”, we would know what to do. These codenames were her idea. Everything worthwhile was her idea.

Back to the farmhouse. I’m searching through the cupboards when a floorboard creaks behind me. I turn in time to see the Scratcher launch itself at me.

Thinking quickly, I reached out to a kitchen knife on the counter to block its attack. The zombie lunges, impaling itself on the blade, leaving my face inches away from its snapping mouth.

When I see the undead, I try not to think about who or what these zombies once were, but with this one I had no choice. It was an old man, a farmer dressed in his green work coat, trousers and muddy boots. He had a gaping bite mark on his neck, the wound festering with horrible blackened blood. He stared at me as he attacked, his eyes seeming to be oblivious to the actions of its snapping maw. They almost seemed sad. If I had to guess, I would say a zombie had attacked him. He knew he was done for and had sent his family away, to protect them.

Its easy, and dangerous, to start imagining the lives the undead had before they were turned. You can’t humanise them, because this leads to empathy and pity. The undead have no such feelings and will happily devour any bleeding heart that tries to help. Escape or kill. That’s it, the only options.

The knife keeps the zombie off me but it won’t last long. I can already feel the weight of the dead man bending the blade, pushing me down onto the floor. I stumble under his weight and fall back, towards the open door. My mind starts racing, considering my options. There’s nothing to hand for me to bash the thing’s brains out, I can’t reach my pistol as its tucked into the back of my waistband, and if I could push the zombie off and make a run for it, then I would have already done it.

You see, the undead have an unnatural strength. No matter how battle scarred or wounded they may appear to be, there is something inside them that gives them a power that outmatches any living person.

The zombie must have sensed my unease. It starts going crazy, grabs hold of me and pulls itself forward, impaling itself further on the blade. I can feel its rancid breath on my face, the horrible spittle splashing on my cheek. Looking into its bloodied eyes, I started to feel that sinking feeling that I had pushed my luck too far this time and soon what was best of me would be rotting away in the creature’s stomach.

And then there’s this thudding sound, and the zombie’s eyes go dark. I had never noticed it before, but the light in their red eyes fades as they die. I could see this black cloud filling up the inside of its eyes, a cloud that didn’t reflect any light. 

The zombie struggles for a moment before becoming deathly still. The weight of the thing eases and I can finally push it off. As I do, I can see the long shaft of an arrow penetrating the zombie’s skull. Bullseye.

Two feminine hands reach down and help me get the zombie off of my chest. Finally free from the zombie, I looked up and into the eyes of my rescuer. Libby. Standing there with a bow slung across her shoulders, hair tied up into a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, dressed in combat fatigues from an army surplus store. In short, she looked like a goddess.

After the farmhouse, we stuck together. Began working as a team. It seemed we were both bored of wandering the countryside alone. Having someone else there to talk to and watch your back was something we both wanted. Made it easier to keep focused and safe. It was fantastic.

We travelled the countryside together scavenging, foraging for food, saving each other from zombie attacks. We never counted how many times we rescued the other. I like to think I saved her more times than me, but it would be a lie. In truth, we worked so well together that we never seemed to get into trouble.