TAINTED: Journal of a Survivor Prologue
Monday, April 4, 2011
10:24pm
Routine is the ultimate time machine; if everything stays boring and predictable, there’s nothing to make you savor life, and you start letting the moments pour through your fingers like rain.
I’ll be eighteen on the twenty-eighth of this month, and I’m the oldest of eight kids. I’m not currently enrolled in any school, thanks to a GED and three years in community college. The second oldest, Aedan, is attending the local high school, and the rest of my siblings are homeschooled.
I woke up today hoping for something exciting to happen, but because of routine, the day is gone and I accomplished nothing. My brother, Aedan, got up at 6:30am to get to high school by 7am. My mother woke me and the other kids up at 7am, but I got up at 8am. After I got dressed, ate breakfast, and brushed my teeth, I sat down at the living room table with my laptop to start searching for scholarships to apply for.
As part of the daily routine, my mother’s friend, Dawn, came to our house in Hamden around 9am with her kids, and she and my mother took the younger children into the basement for classes. The hours passed like seconds, and at 12pm we all took a break for lunch. At 2:30pm Dawn and her kids left, while Aedan got home from school. My mother started getting kids ready to go to their play rehearsal, and they left around 3pm, getting back around 6pm. We ate dinner, took our baths and showers, and went to bed. It was a perfect day, according to routine.
11:31am
Routine―it’s all part of routine.
I’m still bored out of my mind, and I won’t be able to write about my routine much longer if it’s the only thing I have. Something a bit different happened today, though. My mom’s friend, Anne, came to visit from State Street just outside of New Haven, the next city over, with her fifteen-year-old daughter, Brianna. Alas, only an hour into their visit, Anne got a call about a family member in the hospital, so she left Brianna with us and left, saying she’d be back around 5 or 6pm.
12:54pm
Brianna started feeling nauseous after lunch, so she went to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet. After she was done, my mom had her lay on the family room couch. It’s not like it’s a tsunami or anything, but it’s something slightly out of the ordinary, so I’m interested.
04:45pm
As soon as Aedan got home, my mom had the kids get into the car to go to their rehearsal. She had me stay here with Brianna, in case she needed anything until her mom came to pick her up. When my mom left, I checked up on her and asked if she wanted anything. She was asleep, so I didn’t want to disturb her. I went to my laptop and watched a horror movie, checking up on Brianna every five to ten minutes, finding her asleep each time. I have to admit, though, I’m getting a bit nervous. I’m not sure why, but it’s worrying me that she’s so quiet. I’m going to check on her again.
05:01pm
I was worried; I always get worried when people sleep too soundly. I guess I’m afraid they’ll keel over in their sleep and leave me to wonder what to do. I crept into the family room and over to the couch, being careful not to wake Brianna up. If she was just sleeping I didn’t want to alarm her. I slowly positioned my hand in front of her nostrils to feel her breath, just in case. I didn’t feel anything. My heart skipped a beat, but I told myself, “She probably has a stuffy nose.” I tapped her softly, but she didn’t move. I guessed that if tapping wouldn’t wake her up it should be safe to check her pulse, so I placed two fingers on her neck, trying my best to find the heartbeat, but I found nothing. Again, my heart skipped, but I assured myself by saying, “I’m probably doing it wrong.” Again I tapped her, and again she just stayed motionless. I bent over her, desperate to find any sign of breath or pulse or movement, but none were to be found. I stood up with a weird feeling in my gut.
Letting instinct take over I ran into the kitchen, grabbing the telephone and dialing 911. The ringing tone sounded, but a recording came on telling me that Hamden and New Haven were receiving overwhelming reports of emergencies, and that I would be put on hold. I hung up; this was the only time I’d ever called 911, and apparently I had picked the single most inconvenient moment of the decade. I started pacing, wondering what to do or who to call. Suddenly it came to me: my mom! She was a pharmacist; maybe she’d have some idea of what to do. I quickly dialed her number and waited for the ring. But as the ring sounded on the other end, I heard a vibration on the table behind me. She’d forgotten her phone on the kitchen table. Almost falling into panic, I thought of the next best thing. She had Aedan with her, so I started dialing his cell phone number, but as I was about to hit the “send” button I heard a yawn in the family room. Brianna was alive? I couldn’t believe my luck. I rushed over to the family room entrance, but what I saw made my limbs stiffen in absolute horror.
Brianna was standing, but she was hunched and ridged-looking. Her face was contorted and wrinkled like someone caught in permanent agony, and drool was dripping from her gaping mouth. She was hissing and wheezing with each breath, if they were breaths. Whatever the noises were, they sounded painful. Her eyes looked as though they were staring into nothingness, but as they came to rest on me, they lit up with a sick fury. She let out a hideous groan and reached her arms out toward me. I backed away, back into the hallway, but she started hobbling after me. I darted left into the kitchen and grabbed an aluminum baseball bat from beside the basement door. Brianna emerged from the family room, still groaning and reaching. Was Brianna really what I thought she was? She was getting close, so I thrust the end of the bat into her stomach to knock her back. She stumbled for a moment, but she just kept walking towards me, wheezing and groaning.
If she really was what I thought she was, there were two thoughts that popped into my head simultaneously: the first was that my mother was wrong, and that my horror movies really weren’t useless after all; and the second was that I couldn’t just leave her like this to be a danger to me or anyone else. But then that stupid “cure” theory entered my head. You know in the movies where the main characters hesitate to kill someone they know because they want to hope there’s some cure? Well, what if there was? I’d have murdered someone, and I’d have to live with that on my conscience forever.
But my fantasies and theories were short-lived as Brianna was upon me again. I moved the bat to push her away, but she swung her arms and knocked it out of my grasp. As the bat clanged onto the floor Brianna paused. Did the noise distract her from her interest in me? I took the opportunity to grab a steak knife from the counter behind me, using it to stab Brianna in the stomach. You may be thinking that it was a stupid move considering what I believed her to be, but it was the only way I was going to prove my theory. If she was just confused or sick, the stomach wound would stop her easily—it would probably even make her faint—but when I looked at the knife stuck firmly in her torso, I noticed she wasn’t bleeding. She just looked down at the knife and then back at me, grabbing my shoulders, baring her teeth, opening her mouth and hissing. I was sold; she was dead, but she was walking. Her heart wasn’t beating, her blood wasn’t moving, and her mind was no longer human. She just wanted to eat me, and that was all there was to it. She was a zombie.
I broke free from her grip and ran through the dining room, the living room, and the front hallway, back to the kitchen. Those four rooms made a nice cycle through my house, and for that I was thankful. As I reentered the kitchen from the front hallway, I saw Brianna beginning to follow my path through the dining room. I took the chance to grab the bat from the floor, but made the mistake of letting it drag as I picked it up. Brianna heard it and wheeled around. She started hobbling after me again, so I backed up until I had guided her next to the basement door. I lifted the bat over my head and swung it downward as hard as I could. Drops of dry blood hit the floor as I crushed her skull and let the twisted body crumple through the doorway to lie in a mangled heap at the top of the staircase.
05:33pm
I shut the basement door without looking at the body and sat down to regain myself, trying to remain calm, but just as I started to relax I heard a car door slam. Anne was here. She had picked the worst possible time to get here; why couldn’t she have arrived while Brianna was trying to eat me? Now all I had was a dead body and a bloody baseball bat; a perfect recipe for panic.
Anne walked in—actually she ran in—and headed straight for the bathroom. She collapsed over the toilet and vomited. She stood up, looking worse than her daughter had, and then asked me where Brianna was. I tried to start explaining, but she caught sight of the bat and the dry blood on the floor. She opened the basement door and found her daughter’s lifeless form, fainting instantly. I had no idea what to do with her, so I went into the family room and turned on the television, finding the news and hoping for some information on the crisis. I don’t know if one would call it lucky or unlucky, but I found the info I was looking for: according to the local news, a biohazard of some kind had occurred on State Street, between Hamden and New Haven. A whole neighborhood was becoming sick, and the infected individuals were showing signs of post mortem before dying less than forty-eight hours after symptoms showed. Then, between two minutes and several hours after death, the infected individuals would reawaken with no heartbeat or vital activity—with the exception of some neurological functions—and would exhibit violent and cannibalistic behavior. The biohazard that caused this was not named, but it was reported that any individual within two miles of the hazard was at risk of exposure to the airborne strain. The reporter said that the chemical could not travel far in its airborne state, but that even citizens living far away from the site dubbed “Ground Zero” could be at risk of infection through contact with infected individuals. It was recommended that anyone showing the symptoms should be quarantined, and to avoid activities involving bodily fluids, such as kissing, sharing food or drinks, and so on. The slightest drop of saliva, according to the news, could contain extremely contagious traces of the virus in question, and so this instruction was vital.
As I watched and paced, I listened for instructions but heard nothing for some time. Finally, another reporter came on announcing a military presence at noon tomorrow; the army would be positioned at designated locations in Hamden and New Haven to evacuate civilians to safety before initiating an emergency protocol against the biohazard. I remembered the bitter-sweet, nuke-related “protocols” in a couple movies, praying that this rescue would be legitimate. The closest evacuation point to my house was at the Sleeping Giant State Park which was almost six miles away, a two hour walk at best. Unfortunately, there weren’t any options; either I got to Sleeping Giant by noon tomorrow, or I died at the hands of zombies or military protocol. The first thing I had to do was call my parents. I left a message on Aedan’s phone, warning them to stay away from Hamden and New Haven. They were in West Haven at their play rehearsal, and from there they’d probably be able to get to my Grandmother’s house where they’d be safe. My father had left for a business trip that morning, so he would be fine, and my Grandfather, who lived on State Street close to Ground Zero, had been lucky enough to be on vacation for the week. I thought of every family member I knew who lived nearby, remembering that they all had activities or business out of town. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing my family was safe, but I couldn’t help regretting that I was all alone in this mess.
06:00pm
I packed a small sling pack with water bottles, food, a flashlight, a change of clothes, a crowbar, a blanket, and a few other odds and ends, although I’d never prepared for anything like this before, so the pack ended up looking bulgy and misshapen at best. As I took one last look at my house, I felt that hatred of routine start melting away, and I remembered the peace I had taken for granted only hours before. Now, unprepared for whatever lies ahead and unsure of the fate I’ll be meeting, I set out, praying for best, expecting the worst, and ready to settle for anything in between.
