Dead Ends

The zombies were at the mouth of the alley now, not hurried in any way; they were just filing in, one then another. Bleeding, I struggled to sit up, pushing against the pavement with my legs and dragging myself away from them until I found the wall, the solid brickwork which had closed me in. I fought my way into a sitting position as the world spun with a sickening velocity.

It was slow work, or felt like it. Inch by inch. I tried to get up. I could barely stand, but I had the wall to lean on, to push against, the wall that left me no escape. A sort of awful sleepiness, a coldness, was spreading through my body, and I felt dizzy as I fought to get my feet under me.

Then the world shook with a deafening crack! and I thought another bullet had come, a merciful shot from my departing killers that was borne of some humane urge to rescue me from the slow, meandering fate that was drawing closer.

But when the rain fell, I recognized what the sound had been. Not the metaphorical thunderclap of gunpowder. No metaphor at all.

I was just getting to my feet, ready to give one last push and reach my full height, when my heel slipped in the blood or the rain—or had they mixed together? It’s always slipperiest when the rain starts. I fell back the few feet I had gained, but at least I had fallen on my butt. I was upright, my legs sprawled out, my vision of the approaching horrors blurry.

I think I almost slept but for the wound’s sudden throbbing, the pain bringing me a moment of clarity. I saw the gaping and hungry faces of the living dead, their rotten flesh hanging from their bones, grey and colorless. Fifteen? Twenty? It was hard to count. I tried to push my way up again, but it was a no go. My legs were turning into noodles, and the ground was wet and tractionless.

The closest group to me: three of them had gathered around the pool of blood where I had been shot. One of these had a thick, black tongue which came out of his mouth and licked his white lips, smearing them with a glistening goo. Yet, they ignored me. The others too, as they came in, not a one of them seemed to care for me. They looked around the closed alleyway in a sort of dazed confusion. One even looked right at me and then looked away.

Too scared to move, to break whatever spell was holding them back, I waited and watched, holding my blood inside me as best I could. Glancing down, I saw the dark river which was pouring over my fingers. Black, sticky blood covered my pale hands. It was not my blood.

Black blood. Not my blood. Dark blood. Not human blood. Blood, hot, thick blood. My blood. My black blood.

~

The wound stopped bleeding, and the figure stood. Shambling forward, he joined the others by the crimson pool of blood, the scintillating aroma making his mouth water. And the rain fell, washing the blood away.