The Post-Apocalyptic Post

Over time, this genre has become fairly well defined and today’s pop culture scene has transformed it into an art form of sorts.  Skim through the jacket of a recently published book or catch the previews for the next summer blockbuster and you will likely find them painted over a post-apocalyptic landscape.  The world seems obsessed with “THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT”.  What is wrong with “life as we know it”?  Has it become so bad out there, that the fantasy of an approaching zombie hoard seems preferable to the reality our day to day existence?  If we were to compare the intellectual stimulation garnered from the Night of the Living Dead versus that which we now know as “Reality” television, I suppose I would have to side with the brain eating legions of the damned.  The fashion makes more sense anyway.  The tattered remains of a nurses uniform seems less ridiculous to me than the bedazzled ass cheeks of most designer ladies jeans.  Hey sweet cheeks, chances are I am looking at your ass anyway, you don’t need to make it glitter like the Las Vegas strip for me to take notice.

Truth be told, I am a big fan of the speculative nature of this now aging obsession with the end.  Whether it be a cataclysmic chain of natural disasters or a chemically induced mutation of the human race, I would like to think I would be one of the survivors.  I think the popularity of this theme lies within the depravities of the human mind.  We thrive on pain and suffering and some take great pleasure in the thought of rapid natural selection.  The old saying: “No news is good news” could not be more apropos in this “modern” age.  Go ahead, switch on the nightly news program or pick up the local paper and see if you can find anything in there that doesn’t turn your stomach.  At least a zombie doesn’t have free will.  The things we CHOOSE to do to each other are far more appalling.  We take so little time to get to know our neighbors that our heightened sense of suspicion make some as willing to condemn their fellow man now as they would if they were in their front yard consuming one of the neighbor kids with big sharp pointy teeth.  Before I jump on my soap box and serve up a heartfelt sermon on how we should all hold hands and sing Kumbaya till the world is a better place, I thought you would get a kick out of what I believe my day would be like if . . . no, when the zombies finally do arrive.  Believe me people  . . . THEY’RE COMING . . . SO, WAKE UP OUT THERE!

Day 15:  The howels and grunts from outside our doors at night are barely tolerable.  Driving us ever closer to madness.  Despite nightly patrols through our compound it seems their “hunters” are unaware of our presence.  We have taken to communal living inside the castle walls as it simply became too dangerous to stay in our own home.  We were attacked one night and barely made it out without being completely consumed by a hoard of barely recognizable towns people from a neighboring village.  They seem hungry . . . too hungry.  We all made it out unharmed except for the STUPID DOG who I presume to be one of the legions of the undead by now.  His eyes turning to dead black pools and greenish slobber collecting at the corners of his sunken jowls.  Poor bastard.  The infection seems to cause a certain amount of light sensitivity, so the zombies retreat into the darkness during the day.  We busy ourselves during daylight hours, forever fortifying our nest and collecting whatever food we can forage.  Uncertainty is the most difficult thing to swallow.  On days when the clouds obscure the sun, is it then dark enough that they will endeavor out of their hive to try and hunt us down?  So far this doesn’t seem to be the case, but we can’t be for certain.  For safety sake, we stick close to our compound on days when the sun isn’t shining brightly.

Our close quarters are beginning to wear on everyone’s nerves and tensions run high among those of us who have survived the initial infection.  We only have sporadic contact with the outside world through a small radio we managed to salvage.  It seems that the epidemic is spreading at a rapid pace and if left unchecked, will consume most of Europe in a matter of weeks.  Other countries have closed their borders and refused passage even to those that are not infected.  We are trapped.  No two ways about it.  Either we survive long enough for a cure or we begin to fight back.  My thoughts are occupied with this thought daily and I myself am leaning toward the latter.  I have begun to devise weapons out of whatever materials I can get my hands on . . . nails, garden tools . . . anything.  Meanwhile, my wife is using whatever information she can obtain about the infected to try to devise some cure.  Perhaps if she can get a sample of their blood she can utilize the abandoned facilities where she used to work to sort out a cure or at least a vaccine.  Discussions over the risks involved with trying to trap one of these things are heated at best.  She seems certain she can help, but nobody else seems so sure.  Being her only supporter, I begin to make preparations.  The kids don’t want me to go.  Certain of my fate.  The rest don’t seem to care and have resigned themselves to either certain death or a lifetime in hiding.

Just before dawn, I make my final preparations and head out.  I kiss my wife and children and promise I will return.  You can’t help but notice the snears from the others as they doubt they will ever see me again except as a shell of my former self with decayed flesh pealing from my bones.  I must try, or everyone is doomed.  The patrols are getting heavier and they linger around the castle now with an alarming frequency.  Just waiting for some sign of life.  I worry the slightest disturbance will tip them off and they will begin to assault the tower that we have fortified ourselves inside and with enough of them, they will make short work of our encampment.  At just short of dawn they will be getting desperate to feed and retreating to their hive.  Uncertain of its location I must follow them silently and undetected if I am ever to set an effective trap.  I must learn their patterns of behavior, if in fact there are any before I try to capture one of these creatures.  I dare not confront one though I have seen several isolated from the main group.  Even the slightest squabble will set the whole hoard on me and I will be finished in seconds.  I follow them all the way to the neighboring village where they retreat into a catacomb of sorts below the main administrative building, some of them fighting and killing each other in desperation for food.  Cannibals on top of it all.

I return to a small clearing in some woods between the Chateau and the village where I have stowed the supplies I think I need for a trap.  Some rope, a wooden crate, nails and the few rudimentary weapons I have constructed in the even there is a fight.  I have to stay.  Make sure nothing goes wrong.  If the others discover the trap left un-triggered, they will know we are alive and tear the Chateau apart looking for us.  I have one shot at this.  It MUST work.  After the trap has been set and preparations have been made, I realize it has taken me longer than I anticipated and the day has passed.  It is approaching nightfall when I turn to the final step in my plan.  Bait.  I didn’t have any volunteers for this part of my plan, so it ALL falls on my shoulders.  I cut my arm with a cringe, unleashing a stream of blood that I trickle through the woods all the way up to my trap.  With the sounds of howling in the distance, it is clear that they have picked up the scent.  I quickly wrap my wound and scramble into my tree to keep watch.  Before long, a small group of these “THINGS” creep into the clearing, heading straight for the trap.  Soon enough it is triggered and one of them is swept into the air and suspended from a tall tree by a branch.  I quickly cut the rope attached to the tree at my location and a long spear swings free, gliding through the trees and impaling the now squealing zombie at the end of my snare.  The others scatter in desperation and dismay, uncertain what has happened and reverting to a primal need for survival.

I don’t have much time.  I must clear the trap and drag the now lifeless creature back to the Chateau undetected if my plan is to work.  Scrambling down from my perch I approach with caution, making sure the coast is clear and my prey is dead.  I quickly cut him . . . or her down and remove any trace of the trap itself.  It is hard to identify this thing by gender or even as remotely human.  And the smell, dear God, the smell of rotting flesh is more than I can stomach and I begin to wretch.  “Pull yourself together damnit!” is what I keep repeating in my head.  I wrap a piece of fabric torn from my shirt over my mouth and nose to block the smell and begin dragging this thing back to our home by an establishe root that is so out of the way it takes all night to cover the distance.  By the time I make the final turn in this elaborate labrynth of misdirections, the sun has risen and I am certain my wife and children are fearful of the worst.  When I limp into the compound with this thing in tow, I can see the horror wash over their faces.  It is STILL ALIVE!  I quickly subdue it with a stomp to the skull and tell my wife with an exhausted nod that the rest is up to her.