Rabbit for Brunch Pt. 3

Rabbits for Brunch Pt. 3 by: M. R. Vega

That thinning of chaos didn’t seem to ease. Fires and what became an incessant screaming, dying, with an addition of wild maddening swarmed around the truck, littered not only her visual senses but the skies and everywhere about her and the large truck she found to be her weapon and shell. Fifty miles and still the chaos consumed all she could see, after another hundred miles she started to feel an overwhelming weight of dire wanting for fresh water and smacked at her forehead with anguish and seeing herself as a fool. 

She hadn’t the time before Dave’s bloody and likely already rotting body had barreled in through the house leaving her no choice but to run to the truck and flee. The water bottle she always had filled remained in the fridge, the little food she usually ate in the morning was likely on the floor of the kitchen now scattered and squashed and she licked at her lips remembering the plumpness of the blackberries Timothy and Nick had given her days before. They, with the store bought blueberries and strawberries were all that was out on the counter before chaos began earlier that morning and she knew it’d be a fool’s errand to go back but it was enticing enough to dream and keep the screams at bay, if only for a moment.

A loud thud came from the side paneling, its cacophony brought her back quickly while she whipped a side glance to the window and mirror only to see a young woman close in age ripped from the lifted step while still screaming to get in. The screaming echoed into the small crack allowing air from the window she finally gave herself. As she watched in horror the young woman’s arms were being shredded by multiple unknown and bloodied people all with enraged gluttony about their eyes. She hit the pedal harder with a stomp and went back to avoiding as many people running wild and losing their lives, During which she clipped a car or two and almost lost control until a large RV having the same idea somewhat saved her from tipping and she increased her speed getting in front of the RV and whoever was driving the blood-drenched RV leaving it behind. She couldn’t look around anymore, let alone waste the time with the distractions of havoc, encompassing her every direction. She needed to get the hell out of here, needed to find a tanker, gas station, anything to fill the truck up as it was starting to get low until she smiled with an almost maniacal grin remembering the second tank. ‘Oh, David’ she whispered and flipped the little node that allowed that second tank to start trickling into the remaining and almost empty first chamber for fuel. And to think of the fight that came from her inquiry about what need Dave would ever have for a secondary fuel tank now all made sense. The stupid almost monotonous man she loved had always imagined something such as what she was fleeing from to come eventually, regardless of how sick of a dream or fantasy it was, she was more than grateful at the moment that there was enough gas to at least get her to Louisiana, maybe Georgia, either one was better than where she was. At least she thought it’d be.

The morning left quickly as did the exhaust from her larger-than-life truck while it barreled through bodies alive or dead and all she could do was close her eyes while she mowed through what likely was the walking infected. Regardless she screamed that she was sorry, turned her mouth up to the sky, and choked on her tearing and sobbing ashamed of every move she’d been so willing to make and all for a life she wasn’t sure was worth anything anymore. The disgust swarmed over her while she thought of how many she’d driven by while they begged for her to stop or tried jumping on the truck to get a ride. How many had she killed by simply turning away or neglecting to slow, even for a moment to help them get into the bay of the truck? How many had she clipped or full-on collided with in avoiding certain death disregarding any knowing if whom or what was infected, if infected at all?

What had she become? To think she was doing Tai Chi fourteen hours ago, stretching to the rising sun and smiling at the gulls overhead while listening to the two men happily bicker next door over what to make for breakfast. Now she’d lost count of how many she left for dead, how many she’d piled through, and how many snapping bones she knew beyond a doubt she was responsible for while pressing on the gas pedal all to run away. She didn’t know where and if there was safety anywhere. She wasn’t an epidemiologist, and she wasn’t military trained, aside from knowing the truck took diesel fuel and how to use lint traps from dryers to start a fire, she felt that life was nearly pointless. But still, she kept her foot on the gas, didn’t turn to look anywhere but the distance to the next town while she begged within that she had enough energy to stay alive. 

She was tired, more than exhausted, and after soiling the seat with filth and realizing there was no other option but to sleep, she found a parking garage that looked nearly empty and took the truck to the top level. Making sure to lock the doors, she pulled herself to the cab where thankfully there was an old jacket of Dave’s. Folding it up as a makeshift pillow she did what she could to sleep and was met by a flood of demons that egged her on with furthering and continuing the terrors she tried so diligently to escape if only for an hour or two.

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I watched your throat get ripped from your body watched as the viscera was filleted from your head which you, then quickly drifted to the black. The blood quickly drenched my body and splayed about the ground. I screamed, l turned to run away from your pouring dead body while the world around us had died and was quickly enveloped by the gnashing and thrashing of what had become a dire fate. I’m writing to you while your body rises and wriggles with complete agony as you’re dying fate aches for another bite of flesh dying for the blood that is us and sure I am writing in what most would call pitch black but somehow I can see the paper that my pen is touching.

I’d say this is a journal but really this is the last testimony of the dying. The sheep would call this a ploy by the Democrats, the foolish would call this an act of God however would I call this is the world calling to tell us no more and shouting for us to be done? I watch your body wriggle and rise one more time until you then jump up with an erratic and ecstatic maniacal bout, my body trembles as I watch you struggle and walk. I look at you and ponder whether it be better to be like you or struggle to survive but when I look at myself being here on the third floor watching you beneath me watching the world crumble and rot I think this may be better.

I have a speaker on quietly Portishead is playing in the background their singer bouts out of wrangled and dying breath while she flies for her last love. I find myself moved and still here I am watching you beneath me watching as you stumble about stupidly idiotically looking for another bite of flesh looking for another virgin of the zombie world that you live in and here I am above you loving you and wishing you were here or… Wishing you were above with me holding me letting me become a part of you let me become a part of what this reality is now.

The days have become repetitive and monotonous where I find myself dying to be like you a zombified abomination of what humanity can be or apparently is those that were living with me or around me or now dead as well while they go and reach out for those that they loved not realizing that they’re not there anymore just like you aren’t there anymore you’re more of a memory. Not only are you more of a memory but you have become that of which is my nightmare I via to become you however I die to be everything unlike you. There’s this grasp of humanity that still alive Force still I love and here again I find myself staring down at you biting my bottom lip looking for you in the midst of the Dead looking for you among The crawling and the weeping will I slowly, slowly become so much like you we are nearly the same however my heart is still pumping.

Hello and goodbye here I sit stand crawl and die a lonely woman, hating you hitting a need hitting my need for water, for love I laugh at myself thinking how foolish how stupid that I am still here. I could have ran I could have moved myself I could have I could have sneakily drifted away from everything that this is now. And somehow even while dying while choking on my last breath I look at you my stupid Love gnashing and nine at the air while I above I’m quickly falling to the ground to feed you a last time know that my body though you may not remember is something of yours something of mind something that we share something that I call a testament of love a testament of grief and a vying for you and I hope that somewhere deep there comes A memory of me.