The Ginger Beard Man

Chapter 6: The Singer

DAY 29 (EVENING)

I know that you've been waiting all day to hear how things went. And trust me, I've been narrating the events in my head as things unfolded, thinking about the best words to describe what happened.

It's weird. The "person" who I talk to in my head used to be Janie, the one who my internal monologues were directed at. She was the only one who I wanted to share all my thoughts and musings with. But now it's you. And you aren't even real. What does that say about me?

I digress. Let me back up.

So, after I closed you this morning and tucked you away safely in my bag, I shimmied down off of my night's resting place. Once on the ground, I dragged one of the oozing dead corpses into the shadows of the bus stop. It had once been a man, and maybe when he had been alive he was heavier, but much of his muscle-mass and fat had decayed away, so he was light enough for me to drag with little issue. The hardest part of moving him was having to touch his wrists with my bare hands.

I don't mind looking at zombies. Looking at gross things has never creeped me out too bad. Like, Janie would look away during the surgery scenes of medical dramas on TV, but I never understood what the big deal was. Visually, this guy didn't irk me out or anything. His green-tinged skin and the maggots on his eyes. What I do hate, though, is touching them. The unnerving coldness of their skin, the unnatural texture of dead flesh.

Shit, when I was younger, I couldn't ever stomach picking up the dead mice that my cat, Floyd, used to kill. I'd have to cover them with a paper towel and then double-bag because I'd get an awful shutter down my spine, feeling their stiff dead bodies. Old-me would never have been able to do what I did next. Guess I've evolved.

After I dragged him, I lifted his ripped and stained vintage t-shirt up to expose his bloated belly. I then took out the knife that I've been carrying in my boot and made a deep incision along his abdomen.

The smell made me retch. Hot bile raised in my throat, and although I fought the urge and tried to swallow down, it didn't work. I puked the protein bar I had eaten and cursed myself for leaving my water canteen packed in my backpack up on the roof.

I don't know how I got myself to do it. Not sure where I found the strength. But, with the taste of my half-digested breakfast still in my mouth, I plunged my hands into the zombie's exposed body cavity.

It was wet and mushy, with odd bits of cartilage-like chunks. I tried to pretend that I was playing with water beads in my backyard on a summer day. Or squelching my fingers through the mud. I closed my eyes and floated my consciousness as far away as possible as I coated the thick ooze up my arms, down my legs, and eventually through my hair and over my face.

Once painted up in the most grotesque costume, I lolled my head forward and began limping slowly and jerkily towards the crowded parking lot.

My heart was beating out of its chest. How the zombies didn't hear, I'm not sure. But I growled and hissed and swayed and gimped and... and it worked! One or two snapped their jaws at me, but more in greeting than in aggression. And before I knew it, I was back to where it happened.

It was soon after I had lost Janie and Clara, but before the short time I joined up with that asshole Mark, and I was just wandering and lost, looking for anything or anybody. And I was fucking starving, like I was every day before I found the cabin. So when I saw the Stop and Shop I decided I should stop and shop, or at least stop and scavenge. I was praying for an overlooked can of something or a bag of processed something else. Any calorie would do. This horde wasn't there then, but there were a few stray zombies aimlessly navigating the maze of abandoned cars in the lot. I was kicking at the door, making way too much noise, when they noticed me and pushed me back against the wall. The empty crates weren't high enough to keep me safe. I kicked out, but it wasn't enough. And after exhausting my other resources, I finally, in desperation, reached into my pocket and threw my phone. It glanced off of one zombie's head and then skittered away.