Rotten

Sunlight peered through the curtains of my bedroom window. Outside I could hear the banging of hands against the glass. I creep out of bed and it sighs, relieved of the weight. Groaning and shielding my eyes, I flung the curtains open, squinting to look through the wooden panels boarding the window. “Dammit. How could they smell us? I set out a bunch of candles and some of the dead.” I huffed, closing the curtains and trudged towards the kitchen. “Mom, we’ve got a crowd requesting an encore!” I exaggerated with a bow. An encore of slaughter. I thought, smuggling a laugh. She let out a long breath, snatching her rusted pipe off the counter, making her way outside.

I could hear the squelch of the zombies’ heads as her pipe made contact with their skulls. The last of the raspy moaning abruptly stopped and my mom threw the door open, slouching and slamming it behind her, shoving the couch in front of it. “At this rate, we won’t be able to survive much longer. There’s a bunch of those damned zombies out there, and we’re running out of damn supplies!” she exclaimed, tossing the pipe over to the side, blood streaking along the floor. It wasn’t possible to just keep bashing their heads in; we had to come up with another solution.

As the days passed, we ran dangerously low on food and water, and the house began to smell of cigarettes and human feces— our crap. At least it kept the zombies at bay. “Mom, we can’t stay here any longer. The car still has fuel, we can still escape. We’ll figure out what to do once we find more supplies.” I tried to reason with her while gathering what little I still had. She looked away, burying her face in her hands. “We can’t, we have to wait for your father. We can’t leave him, Lola.” I glared at her, blinking away tears that stung my eyes as my face grew hot with rage and deep sorrow. “He’s not coming back. And if he does, it’d be as a zombie. That’s what we’ll all become one day.” I knew it wasn’t true. I had hope that I could make it to another continent, or at the very least Washington DC. I turned towards the bathroom door. “Make up your twisted mind. I’m either leaving with or without you, so if you don’t want to die alone, then hurry up and get your stuff, mom.”

When I returned to the living room with a few bags of feces in my hands, she still sat on the floor, an empty look in her eyes. “Are you coming or not?” I asked sharply, dragging the couch out of place. “Let them in. Let them eat me. It’s better than wasting away here.” she mumbled. I felt my eyes grow wide, a wave nausea washing over me as I imagined her being eaten alive, nonetheless, I kept a cold expression on my face. “I always knew you were a sick jerk. You should’ve never given birth to me. You didn’t deserve dad.” I growled, choking back tears as I ran to the car. I smeared the crap all over it and jumped in, starting the car and slamming on the pedal.

I had to escape.