Girl Z: My Life As A Teenage Zombie Read online

  I slid off the bed and saw the tray of food on the table. In response, sharp pains hit me. I stumbled and winced, holding my hands over my gut. The pain became stronger. Oh, so that’s what it was—hunger pangs!

  The pain hit again with such force I grabbed the chair to steady myself. Wow, I’d been hungry before, but I’d never felt anything like this.

  With a cry, I lunged for the table and grabbed the plate. Chicken. I loved chicken—chicken enchiladas, chicken quesadillas, chicken parmesan. Mmm!

  I pulled the food closer with a groan, the pains in my stomach increasing—and stopped.

  I stared, taking in the slimy pink flesh, the pale unappetizing white color of the skin, and the icky yellow globs of fat on the cut pieces of whole chicken on the plate.

  Raw chicken.

  My mind revolted, even as my dry mouth began to water.

  Eeeew, disgusting!

  I stared at the plate, the pangs hitting my stomach, my hands trembling. I couldn’t eat it.

  “What is this?” I yelled. “That’s so gross! Why are you torturing me?” No one answered.

  I gawked at the food before me, my mind screaming, No, No, but my insides clenched even as I licked my lips. A line of drool trickled down my chin and fell unnoticed onto my shirt. The pain increased, making me feel like I’d been kicked or had really super-quadruple bad cramps.

  As my hands wrapped around the meat, my mind went blank. My fingers slid across the slick surface and closed. The raw bird in hand, I wheeled around and scrunched myself under the table, my back to the door. My last rational thought was to shield myself however possible while I did the unthinkable: I stuffed a piece into my mouth, gagging at first at the sliminess.

  Something happened.

  I began to stuff my mouth as fast as I could. All thought vanished. All I felt was a blinding hunger, a churning need to eat, chew, and swallow.

  The sight of my slippery fingers covered with globs of fat made me make those wretched sounds that now passed for crying. A few minutes later, I grabbed a towel, wiped off my face and hands, and crawled back into bed.

  My face in the pillow, I croaked and cried out. Why? I’d never been so utterly disgusted and miserable.

  The pains hit again and the whole process repeated an hour later. The afternoon went by in a blur of food and eating. My self-revulsion grew with every hour.

  Was this my life now? Was this what I’d become, a creature who lived on uncooked flesh—un-human?

  The next time the pains started, I frantically searched the room for something sharp.

  End it.

  End the gnawing inside. End it all.

  Between hacking coughs, I screamed for my mother. I pounded the table and walls, wondering where she was, wondering if she would hate me, wondering if she could stand what I’d become.

  My yells and screams bounced off the walls as I wished myself dead. Oh…how could I forget? Been there, done that—almost.

  I wasn’t fully dead, or fully alive, I was in-between, what some people on TV were calling half Zs—part-zombies.

  A black cloud came over me. I couldn’t even do that right.

  Done gorging myself, I struggled to my feet and gaped in the mirror, horrified at the gruesome blotched creature there. Gobs of fat dotted her cheeks; her mouth and hands glistened with grease. The new me.

  Dry, retching coughs erupted, the only way I could cry now, as the nurses rushed in. Their voices soothing, they began their ministrations. The hot lavender scented cloths cleaned off the filth and helped calm me, at least a little.

  “Is this my life now?” I yelled. “Is it?”

  I didn’t bother to hide my disgust. They worked and wiped, never staring directly at me, their eyes never meeting mine.

  I didn’t dare peer into their faces, either. I didn’t want to see their pity, or revulsion. “It’s only temporary,” Nurse Teapot explained between scribbles on my chart. “By tonight, your body will have adjusted.”

  Adjusted? Adjusted to what?

  Visions of those ugly, flesh-eating movie creatures flit in my head. I didn’t want to adjust. Not if I had to be like-like them.

  I wanted to be myself again, be sixteen. I wanted to eat pizza and chocolate and peanut butter and ice cream and…my hacking cough-cries started again.

  The nurse gave my arm a pat. “After your last meal tonight at five, we’ll put you on a new protein additive. It will control the hunger pangs. We’ll give you a powder to mix in your tea or juice the rest of the day. You’ll also take two pills in the morning.”

  My cries stopped. “Pills?” I moaned. “I’m going to take pills for the rest of my life like some freaking old lady?”

  “Let me finish,” the nurse ordered. “The pills will let you have regular food—”

  Well, some good news. “Really? I can eat—”

  “Only a taste,” she interjected. “No more than a spoon or two a day. Just a taste. That’s it. The pills will help regulate your system, but you should know they are not one-hundred percent guaranteed. They can quit working at any time. The liquid and raw proteins should be enough to keep you going. The dietician will explain more. Any questions?”

  Questions? Yeah, like, is this my life now—forever?

  I shook my head instead.

  The nurse studied me for a moment. “Good. For now, that’s the best the doctors have come up with. The virus is so new, all we know is when it’s caught early enough, some people, mostly the young and those that are strong, can fight off the infection better.”

  I watched the nurses place another plate on the table and leave. I stared at it and gagged. More raw chicken. I wouldn’t do this—I couldn’t!

  I’d go on a hunger strike, I vowed. I’d…I didn’t know what to do.

  Nurse Teapot stood at the door and watched me. “Remember, it’s only today, only until five. You don’t have long to go. You’re a strong girl. I know you can do it.”

  “No. I can’t. I won’t!”

  Her face stern, she marched across the room to the bed, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV. She flicked through a couple channels and called me over. “Come see what’s happening. You need to know what’s going on outside this door.”

  Groups of people—another glance and I hesitated to call them that—with nearly the same blotchy, industrial gray skin as mine stumbled and staggered around streets filled with debris and wrecked cars. They pounded on cars and broke store windows. A line of men in crisp green uniforms, guns in hand, tramped after them among the debris and piles of garbage strewn all over. Spotting them, the creatures stumbled their way then fell one by one like dominos as the soldiers took aim and fired. The scene repeated over and over.

  It jogged a memory. I’d seen this before, with Carm. “This isn’t happening. It’s taped.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s as real as you and me standing here. Those creatures out there are the unlucky ones. They were infected at an older age, and their bodies transformed too fast, turned their minds to mush. Others didn’t, or couldn’t, seek help in time. Their conditions are too far advanced now to do anything for them except…”

  A shiver hit me as I considered her words. I knew what she meant. Those people were condemned to live, or un-live, whatever you wanted to call it, as cannibals. Never mind they were once someone’s mother-sister-father-brother-aunt-uncle-cousin-friend. Now they were mindless, soulless, unfeeling cannibalistic monsters fit only to be hunted down and shot like animals.

  I gulped. They were me.

  “No, you listen to me,” the nurse insisted. “Those things out there, the full zombies, are dangerous. I hesitate to even call them human anymore. They have no feeling, no compassion, no human connection. They only hunt, kill, and infect others. Whatever medical strides we’ve made can’t help them. They’re too far gone. That’s why the Guard is eliminating them.”

  She stared into my eyes as she spoke. “You’re different. The younger you are, the better your body can adjust
. You aren’t like them. You can live a productive life, if you so choose.”

  How? What could I do now? I’d always dreamed of being a model or working on TV as a broadcaster or something. So much for dreams.

  The nurse’s muscular arms held me and patted my back as I hiccup-cried. After several minutes, I stopped. She offered a napkin, which I took and wiped my still dry nose by habit.

  “Will you be all right now or do I have to call doctor in for further evaluations?” She studied me like I’d sprouted another limb.

  I was confused, but I shook my head. “No, I-I’ll be okay. I’ll deal with it.”

  I was beginning to understand. Whatever life I had, if you could call it that, was worth something. Whatever my life, it still was mine to do something with.

  I wanted to go home. If I could, I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to move on.

  A feeling of relief came over me when I thought of what could’ve been. I was soooo lucky. I could still think. I could talk. Most of all, I wasn’t alone like those things out there. I have family who love and care about me. That I could go on gave me hope.

  Maybe I still could be on TV. I could be the first Z talk show host, like Oprah, only I never had to worry about being cancelled. I could even start my own network! I snickered at my corny joke. Carm would love it.

  First, I needed to get better and get out of here. Then we—me and Carm—had to find our mothers. I had to know they were all right. They had to be. I couldn’t face the alternative.

  Another idea came to mind. I wanted to do whatever we could to help other kids like me find their own path. Once Carm and I rejoined our moms, I knew we had a mission. Whether we wanted to do it or not, her brother had left us his weird formula for a reason. “Stop them,” he’d said.

  I actually smiled at Nurse Teapot, who gave a curt nod.

  After she left, I sat at the table and stared at the plate of food. I needed to regain my strength. As I reached for one of the pale, uncooked pieces of chicken, I braced myself.

  The small feelings of hope I’d felt vanished. Not even a joke, Mmm, tastes just like chicken, improved my growing bad mood.

  I muttered Carm’s favorite phrase, Stay Positive, under my breath.

  Chapter Five

  The details of the rest of my day weren’t worth mentioning. My mom’s favorite old moldy saying about fun and time flying came to mind. Yeah, right.

  I finally took a shower, washed off the slime, and avoided the mirror like a vampire. I brushed my teeth as best I could without looking. For a girl who couldn’t get enough of peering at herself before, this was a major change. But until I could figure out how to improve on the “new” me there wasn’t much I wanted to see.

  My so-called “last” meal eaten, I dressed and switched TV channels until Carm and Tia arrived. I couldn’t wait for those delicious pills later in the evening. I wondered if they had a chocolate coating. Yum, sooo worth waiting for!

  I hadn’t been much of a TV watcher, and really didn’t pay attention to the news before, but now I couldn’t get enough. I flipped channels. The news stations showed chaos and disruption all over. It appeared endless.

  In city after city, the cameras panned to fights and those creatures—Zs they called them—staggering all over. One close-up shot showed a stupid reporter playing a kind of “catch me if you can” with this ugly, gray-haired guy, half his head bashed in, his clothes hanging in shreds. He staggered in circles, his arms flailing as the reporter and camera man zigged and zagged, their laughter in the background like a demented TV laugh track. Finally, a shot rang out and the zombie fell, the camera zooming in for effect. I gagged.

  Things seemed to have grown worse out there, though our little city appeared to be faring better than most. Situated on the Illinois-Wisconsin border as it was, Windale was mostly a drive-through town. People drove through on their way to Kenosha, or Milwaukee, or back south to Chicago or wherever. I’d grown up here and never thought much about it. Of course like most kids, I’d thought it was the most boring place on earth to live. Now I was glad for its small size.

  Windale wasn’t a real big city, with only a few thousand people. Being tons smaller than Chicago or Milwaukee that made it easier to get most of the roaming Zs, at least within the city limits. Not that they were hard to find.

  “Whenever we come along, the things lurch out from wherever they’re hidin’, like creepy homing pigeons,” one soldier told the reporter. I grimaced when he turned and shot at something slithering out of a doorway. The body fell to the ground. Yuck.

  I didn’t even want to think about the hundreds of them staggering around Chicago and Milwaukee right now. No wonder things were crazy.

  “The National Guard is working hard to clear the city, working in a grid,” the well-dressed reporter stated. “With me is Lieutenant Danny Brown. Lt. Brown, how much longer do you think it’ll be until all the streets are clear?”

  The soldier stepped closer to the mic, his face stern. “Ma’am, the hunt’s takin’ a little longer since those things are gettin’ more cunning, otherwise they seem to have little mental abilities. They’re hidin’ themselves in doorways and inside empty buildings, so now we’re doin’ door to door searches. When one section’s clear and can be called safe, then we move to the next. We expect to move into the outer edges of the city in the next two days.”

  I watched the TV in silence, taking it all in. Obviously with my new appearance, I couldn’t expect to just stroll out of the hospital like nothing had happened. Despite the soldiers, people were panicked. They’d reported groups of vigilantes driving around.

  “Citizens should not take the law into their own hands,” the soldier stressed. “Anyone who is not military personnel and is stopped outside with a gun will be taken into custody. Local and state gun laws are still in effect.”

  I tuned it out. People could say what they wanted, but this was hunting country—a lot of guys around with big trucks, big guns, and even bigger mouths spelled trouble. I grew up with those kinds of guys. They would easily shoot first and not ask questions. The idea of them roaming around made it far too dangerous for me to think of going outside the way I was.

  Since the medical world had developed some treatments for people like me, I hoped someone had made some kind of makeup and creams for the physical aspects.

  Funny, (though I wasn’t laughing), the stronger I grew, the more I almost felt like my old self again. Never mind if my outside didn’t match my inside. I had a few ideas to fix that.

  My first goal—find something to make myself less noticeable, and quick. A strange thing for a girl my age to say, I knew, but I needed to make myself appear as normal and ordinary as possible. I needed to blend in.

  I skipped through the channels, watched a rerun of my favorite Simpsons episodes for a minute, and waved to Carm outside in the hall. I flicked off the TV. Good; I needed a break.

  Carm pranced in like she belonged in a fashion show wearing an awesome purple, hip-hugging tunic over tight black jeans, her neck draped in a curtain of silver chains. Long, dangly chains shimmered from her earlobes.

  The wrinkled old T-shirt and baggy jeans I’d thrown on made me cringe. Ugh, I hadn’t even had time to buy anything new for school. How could I go anywhere dressed like this?

  Who was I kidding? Joke’s on me. Like clothes would make me look any better?

  “Hey, girl, nice clothes. Wow, I didn’t even get time to buy something new for school.”

  “School?” Carm’s eyes widened. “Are you really thinking of going back? How?”

  Plopping into a chair, I invited her to sit with me. “I thought about that. I’ve been watching the news.”

  Her voice dropped. “Me, too. It’s scary out there.”

  “Yeah. Why I figured there has to be some woman, somebody like me, who figured out what kind of makeup would hide the spots and even out the color.” I motioned to my arms and face. “You know, make me seem more normal.”

  “You
mean like the stuff they use on burn patients?”

  “Something like that. I was going to talk to the nurse about it. Maybe you can check the net. We better make a list. There’s a lot of stuff we have to do once I get out of here.”

  Her face grew more hopeful as she pulled over a couple of notepads and grabbed two pens. “You think they’ll let you go home?”

  “Why not? I’m healed up and there’s nothing else they can do for me. I have the stuff I need and I met with the dietician.”

  Neither of us said one word about my new diet. We couldn’t. It was just soooo…yuck.

  A quick glance in the mirror across the way made me pause. I still couldn’t believe the ash--colored girl staring back was actually me. If I could consider myself lucky, at least I’d kept most of my looks. Compared to those other things wandering outside anyway. No gaping sores or scars on my face. No hanging flesh. Oh, gross.

  I turned away and took a deep breath. “I’m sick of this place. I want to go home.”

  Carm turned and gawked at me. “I hate to burst your bubble, but even if we find the perfect skin cream, even if we make you up so you’re almost as good as before, you still have a problem.”

  My head tilted, I stared at her in surprise. Okay, so my vision was a bit wonky. Things sometimes seemed crooked or out of whack. I figured it would take a while to correct. “Like what?”

  “You must know something’s going on. Quit leaning. Look at me straight.”

  “You sound like Tia now. I am looking straight.”

  She reached over and tilted my head to one side, then moved it back. My eyeballs pinged around like the inside of a pinball game.

  “Hey, why’d you do that?”

  She stared at me. “That’s the one thing makeup won’t fix.”

  I squinted at her. “Huh? What’re you talking about? You lost me.”

  “Your eyes. Actually, your right eye. It wanders.”

  The revelation drew me to the mirror, pronto.

  I gazed at myself, tilting my head one way and then the other. I turned back to her with a big sigh. “Wow, I really am a freak. Even more than I thought.”