Living Dead- You Are Hungry

  You are hungry. You wake up. In that order.

  This hunger is different from any you knew before. This hunger is a lack. Something has been taken from you. You do not know what. This hunger is everywhere. Hunger, the fist. Hunger, the bones, Hunger, the flesh. Hunger, the brain. Hunger, in all the between places. It is your reason for waking up. It is the reason you move, It is the reason.

  You look. Your eyesight is poor, There is a body next to yours. You smell it. It smells strong. You have a faint recollection of booze. You recognize the body. It used to be called Jean Cobb. Was Jean Cobb important? You do not know, Jean Cobb called you Scud. You remember this now. Here is the curious thing. Jean Cobb is no longer Jean Cobb. She is you. You are also you. You feel the hunger in both of you. You feel the hunger between both of you. The hunger is a thing that stretches outward. Feels around for more yous. But finds nothing. Not yet. Only the Scud-you and the Jean-you. Only-

  You experiment, Your neck works. Your fingers work. Your limbs work. You disentangle from Jean-you. You stand. You stagger. But your foot knows what to do. It kicks out, saves you from collapse. This is because your foot is hungry too. Where are you going? You don’t need to know, not all of you. Your body is a hound’s nose, trailing a scent it cannot help but pursue. You will know you have reached your goal when you reach the goal. You already have a sense of it. Nourishment to fill the void. To replace what was taken.

  You walk on unstable legs. Your muscles cramp. You walk into a wall. The thudding sound is far away. You hear as poorly as you see. You turn, You walk in a different direction. You hit another wall. Turn again. Your eyes see a door. A memory comes with it. Doors are passageways. You think of Jean-you on the floor and feel a desire to stay with it. The feeling is close to hunger. But hunger overrides. You move your legs and hit the door belly-first.

  The door does not open. This displeases you. A sound comes out of you. It is lionlike, a roar. You are surprised by it. You did not know you could make sounds. You try to make another sound. You are unhappy with it. You want the first sound again, the stronger one. It is a preference. Preferences are more important than you know. You are no longer Scud, but you are closer to Scud than a mouse or insect. You try again for the roar, Closer this time, a growl.

  You are learning.

  The door yawns open under your hands. You shuffle forward, your weight drawing the door wider. Abruptly, you are free of its opposition, in a new place. It is a narrow, gray, windowless corridor. Nothing but walls. You are developing another preference, Walls: you do not like them. You point yourself at a distant point where the walls appear to end.

  Before you can head off, a noise comes from inside the room you left. It is the Jean-you, Jean-you has risen like Scud-you has risen. The Scud-you would like to see Jean-you. You turn back to the door and push it with your hands again. But pushing this side does no good. There is a thing, a handle. You do not recall how it works. You make a sound. This time it is the roar you want.

  There is nothing to be done. You cannot reach Jean-you. No longer valid, the idea winks out, Hunger, hunger. You turn back to the hallway and begin walking. Your first steps are awkward. Your body pitches and slants. You get better at it. You establish a functional lope. You learn that you have no sense of time. When you get to the hallway’s termination point, you do not know or care if the walk took an instant or eternity.

  You discover the hallway turns. So you turn. You cannot hear well, but sounds surround you. Hiss, clank, rattle, chug, trill, bang, creak, ping, honk, ding, beep, whang, hum, boom, glug, snap, whoosh, purr, clink, zing. Also an echoing clop. Also a burbling murmur. You know what these sounds are. Walking, talking. The hunger spikes. These sounds are not produced by you. But they could become you. You go toward them.

  You do not know fluid has begun to run from your mouth. You do not know it is a cocktail of livid plasma, dead cells, and blackened bits of arterial plaque. You do not know it is thickening from waste matter you can no longer excrete. You cannot taste this fluid because it tastes like you. What you want has a different taste.

  You see them. Three fast-moving ones, coming into view. Hunger, hunger. They pass through pockets of light. Each second they spend in the dark, you mourn their disappearance. Each second in the light, you feel saliva heavying your chest hair. The fast-moving ones reach you in seconds. Hunger, hunger, hunger. They stop a few feet away. You cannot tell them apart. Their faces share the same expression. Their uniforms are the same. Only the insignia on their shoulders is different.

  You look down at your own shoulder. You have an insignia too. You do not understand it designates you as a former fast-moving one. Yet you feel oddly about it. If you knew the word wistful, that would be the word to use. There was a life that went with that insignia. You have the sense parts of that life were good. You watch brown strands of your saliva creep over the insignia. That life is gone. Life is gone. That is okay. Back then, there was only one you. How unfortunate. Now there can be so many more.

  The fast-moving one in front has check marks on his sleeve. He opens his mouth. You smell the salt of his lips, the brine of his tongue. He makes delicious, moist sounds that make your flesh sing. Certain words are recognizable.

  muck muck muck SICK muck muck muck DRUNK muck muck muck SALUTE muck muck SALUTE muck SALUTE muck GODDAMN IT muck INSUBORDINATE muck

  The fast-moving one’s face reddens. All that hot, salty blood right under the surface. Your hunger ignites. You reach for him with both hands. He slaps one aside, but the other grabs his shirt. You know how to grab. The fast-moving one takes hold of your wrist. He shouts in alarm. You bow your upper body. Your feet trip, Your head dives at his head. You open your mouth. Your mouth is all that matters. You fall onto him. Your teeth sink into the soft bulb of his chin and strike bone.

  The fast-moving one screams.

  Your bottom jaw snaps onto the underside of his chin. You have lost your footing. You hang from his face by your teeth. You hear flesh tear from his chin. Hot blood pours into your cold mouth. Hunger, hunger, hunger. Your jaws gnash. Your tongue wants more. Your tongue extends to lick exposed bone. Your tongue stretches so hard you feel it rip from your mouth. The fast-moving one is shoving you away. The skin of his chin is stretching. You remember melted cheese. It is like that, just as salty.

  The other two fast-moving ones grab and pull you. You want to bite them too. You wrench your neck. The skin rips off the first one’s chin. As you fall, you catch the second fast-moving one’s arm and pull him to the floor. The floor is cold. Blood, so hot, steams on it. You can smell the infection. It is the infection of life. You want to lap it up, but the fallen one is below you and that is even better. He blocks you with his forearm. You bite his wrist and pull from it a hot mouthful. You can feel the severed veins twitch and spurt along your tongue.

  The fast-moving ones now arriving are beyond your ability to count. They try to stop you. You do not mind, They are made from meat. Fingers to bite. Hands to chomp. Legs to scratch. You are delirious with appetite. The fast-moving ones fall and flop and make silly noises. You can smell yourself in their newly changing blood. It is-

  The fast-moving ones are all over you now. They may destroy you. You are not worried, You will live on in these other yous. One small speck of you, formerly known as Scud, does miss the you formerly called Jean Cobb, but you have a sense that Scud-you and Jean-you will reunite as the yous multiply. This is the end. It is also the beginning.

- The Living Dead, chapter: You Are Hungry