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You know that scene that every bad, extremely cliche zombie movie has? The one where a member of the survivors’ group gets infected, but decides to hide it like some sort of moron. Their motive is unfathomable. They know they’re going to die, and they know that by doing this they’re only endangering the people they care about. It leaves the audience frustrated, cursing at the character and wanting to reach right through the screen and wring their neck.
When the zombie apocalypse (or, something that resembled one far too closely to not be viewed as such) started up in real life, Cleo swore to themself that she would never be that person. She would readily admit to being someone who tended to put herself above others (not in an egotistical way, but they were not anybody’s doormat, and a bit of selfishness is warranted from time to time. It’s unhealthy to always put others’ needs before your own). That said, she certainly wasn’t the kind of person to risk her friends’ lives. Especially not in a situation where it was genuinely pointless, an act of profound selfishness that caused nothing but harm.
So no, Cleo would never hide a zombie bite and let herself turn into one of those feral, mindless creatures in a place that was meant to keep her friends safe. She wouldn’t put them into a sudden life-or-death situation for no real reason. She wouldn’t.
But…
Infection was a fairly quick process. This was a fact.
The incubation period ranged from twelve to thirty-six hours, and visible symptoms would never take longer than three days to present themselves. A certain doll-like glossiness in the eyes and waxy grayish pallor of the skin, giving the appearance of a shambling corpse. Loss of fine motor function. The gradual rot and degradation of their flesh, which could only be slowed or reversed by consuming healthy living cells from an organism not-yet claimed by the infection. Intense nausea. A lingering scent of death that couldn’t be washed away, no matter how many hours were spent feverishly scrubbing themself with pillaged soap until their hands bled. Decay of nerve sensitivity. A rapid decline in complex brain functions such as rational thought that eventually left the victim with nothing but the most basic and desperate of survival instincts.
Some symptoms were easier to ignore or excuse than others, at least in the beginning, but within a week’s time of the infection first setting in, the truth could no longer be denied. Those warning signs were too glaringly obvious to look past, and the infected could hardly speak to defend themself.
Even someone with an iron will and a heart of gold would be unable to resist their instincts, leaping to consume the flesh of any living thing they could find in order to sustain themself. To stave off the decay. It was similar to how if one’s head was submerged in water long enough, something hard-coded in their very DNA would compel them into a frenzy, madly scrambling for air. Survival instincts were quite the force to be reckoned with.
Cleo wouldn’t pretend to be something they weren’t. She wouldn’t deceive the other survivors in her little group, wouldn’t conceal the fact she was devolving into something hungry and scared. Amoral as she could be at times, they were still a better person than that.
But.
Yes, that’s right. There was a “but.” Their situation was… a bit more complicated than that horribly tired trope used to give unoriginal media a cheap plot twist. Real life rarely deals in absolutes, and this was no exception. The circumstances they found themself in were uncharted territory. Cleo, a normally very decisive person, was truly conflicted on where to go from here.
The thing was, she had been infected.
She had felt the dull and yellowed teeth sinking into the meat of her shoulder, felt that disgusting shriveled tongue greedily lap at the scarlet blood that spilled from the wound. She had felt the creeping numbness, starting at the site of infection and slowly spreading outwards, covering every last inch of their body until all physical sensation was left dull and distant. She had felt the disgust and horror as they watched themself start to fall apart. Felt how time seemed to slow as a large chunk of the flesh covering her ribs, still scabbed from an unfortunate encounter with barbed wire a few weeks back, sloughed off and fell onto the dusty ground.
They had studied their own reflection, after happening upon a mirror that was only slightly cracked, lying on the cool tile flooring of some long-abandoned clothing shop. The wax-like texture and alarming lack of color of her skin, the hazy film coating her eyes, and the gaping hole they hadn’t even realized she’d gnawed into her cheek all only served to confirm what she’d long since realized.
Yes, Cleo was definitely infected. That dreadful, incurable sickness that had filled their thoughts with horror, the cause of so many of their sleepless nights and tense worry-filled hours, had finally wormed itself under her skin and woven through her flesh and into their very core. This much was unquestionable.
Cleo was, for lack of a more eloquent or scientific term, a zombie.
But she didn’t feel like one. Oh, sure, there were the physical aspects. She definitely felt those. But her mind remained unclouded, neurons firing at the same rapid pace they had on the day everything went wrong. At first they had concluded that this must be nothing more than her own perception. Would someone with such a heavily altered mental state be aware of the changes? Would they be able to conceive of the way their mind had been warped and twisted beyond recognition? It seemed unlikely!
That assumption had since been disproven, though.
Just a day prior Cleo had happened upon a couple of uninfected survivors, and had stalked close enough under the cover of shadows to faintly hear the peoples’ voices. Close enough to charge at a sprint, and likely be able to grapple at least one before they realized she was there. Even then, the thought of mauling living humans and consuming their flesh to sustain herself was nothing more than a casual unobtrusive suggestion from the self-preserving corner of Cleo’s mind. She knew it would push back the festering patches of rot that crept across her body, but wasn’t willing to pay that particular price just to keep their body intact.
Cleo had watched the pair walk away, never making a move to stop them.
It had been two months, one week, and four days since Cleo volunteered to go on a solo supply run for their group, braving the many dangers of the apocalypse so the others wouldn’t have to. It had been two months, one week, and four days since Cleo left their shelter and didn’t return. It had been two months, one week, and four days since they last saw their friends’ faces. Two months, one week, and four days since Cleo held her husband in her arms for what they hadn’t known would be the last time, gently promised him that she would be safe. Confidently stated she’d be back before he knew it.
It had been two months on the dot since she got infected.
Cleo had been keeping track. A new tally mark scratched every sundown, with the broken pencil she kept safely nestled in the matted and tangled mess of fiery orange curls atop her head and a battered slip of paper carefully stored in the small pocket hand-stitched onto their shirt, just above her heart. Cleo was determined to count the days until they lost the presence of mind to do so. The lines grew sloppier as time went on, the shakiness of their already numbed fingers making even this supposedly simple task into something difficult and frustrating.
This was just another example of how drastically the infection had affected her life, how quickly it had torn away those little bits of consistency they’d manage to find amidst all the danger and chaos.
They slept out in the open now, absently staring up at the star-filled sky. She had missed being able to do this. It brought some modicum of comfort, falling back into an old habit from before the apocalypse. Perhaps leaving her rotting body exposed to the elements wasn’t the wisest decision, but at least they didn’t particularly need to worry about being eaten alive by zombies while she slept. Not anymore, anyways.
Their… Condition was beyond the stage of “noticeable” and firmly in the category of impossible to miss, even with just a passing glance. Denial would be impossible, even for someone as impressively stubborn and determined as herself. She was a zombie, and she knew it.
But her mental state was shockingly sound for someone so deeply rooted with the infection. After all, it was well known that no one kept even a shred of coherence or clarity past a week of being infected. And yet, that window had come and gone. It had been two whole months. A bit over eight and a half weeks! Precisely sixty-one days, and they had still demonstrated the self control to passively dismiss the inclination towards cannibalism. With ease!
It was wholly unprecedented. As said before, uncharted territory. Something never before seen. The news (back when it was still running) had never reported a case even remotely like theirs, not even with the countless scientists working around the clock testing anything and everything to stave off the infection. She’d never heard so much a passing rumor of someone being able to think for a bit longer than they should’ve, not even a whisper or vague implication of the possibility from those travelers who spun tales much larger-than-life, almost bordering on fantastical. Nothing.
Her circumstances were something new. Something -as far as they were aware- completely unique. There was a chance she’d never lose this capacity for conscious thought. The ability to hold onto their morals and sense of self, even without any sort of active struggle or mental strain. Cleo might be corpse-like in appearance, might have gaping chasms in places where flesh ought to be, might be undeniably changed, but she was still Cleo. That was the most important thing, wasn’t it?
Yes, there was a chance she would stay like this. Stay in control. A chance that they were somehow different then all those the affliction had claimed before her. That her mind simply wouldn’t degrade, and she would remain entirely herself (minus a bit of color from her skin and meat from their bones).
But a chance is not a certainty, and Cleo never was a gambler.
Cleo would never be that person. The character consumed by hubris as much as infection, endangering their loved ones with their mere presence. They refused to live out that disgusting, overused, infuriating trope that zombie apocalypse media so dearly loved to portray, again and again and again. She wouldn’t do that. Anyone who knew them at all could tell you without a trace of doubt that Cleo would never.
But…
(Yes, there was still a “but”.)
Those hypothetical people being interviewed on this subject were still right, of course, that never in a million years would Cleo do such a thing.
But god, did she want to.
That was her most shameful secret. How desperately they wanted to abandon those steadfast principles, running back to a home that Cleo could no longer call hers. The unmatched longing that tugged incessantly at her mind far more aggressively than any infection-induced compulsion, stretching her willpower to the very limit.
It was the only thing on her mind in those long, sleepless nights spent intently studying the stars and wishing those little blips of light from the distant cosmos could somehow provide any kind of answer. Cleo knew exactly where her friends were, and could make the journey back to them at any time.
She knew most (if not all) of them were wondering about her, still anxiously awaiting their return. Cleo’s husband would still be waiting, at the very least. He was the most stubborn and headstrong man they’d ever met. She knew with a painful certainty that he’d never accept that she was dead and gone, not unless he could see the corpse himself. Maybe not even then.
The loneliness was an ache in her chest, echoing through the empty hollow numbness that encompassed them with deafening volume. It hurt, how terribly she missed them. Hurt badly enough that Cleo had checked several times to be sure that the glaring emptiness where her chest should be was still nothing but a product of her own imagination.
She really wanted to go back. They could imagine it vividly, the fear and distrust melting away as she proved her continued mental clarity. How her husband would rush forward to give them a crushing hug, and how she’d have to gently remind him that she was still a walking biohazard. Their friends would be aware of the risks, but would choose to ignore them anyway. They’d work tirelessly to help her find some kind of solution.
They stared at the sky, and they imagined, and they wanted. It was so incredibly selfish, but still Cleo wanted nothing more in the world than to go back. To see her friends again. To speak to her husband again, even just once.
They wouldn’t, though.
She would never be that kind of person.