Tim Meyer - Less Than Human

Fists pounding on the door broke his daydream, forcing Josh to look for an exit strategy. His only way out seemed to be the single-hung window on the wall next to the toilet. He pushed it open. The door frame cracked behind him. He released the small clips on both sides of the window. The screen popped out and fell to the grassy ground below. Then, he dove headfirst out into the zombie-infested world.

Above him, something snarled. He glanced up, seeing the two zombies reaching for him. Not very smart, he thought. Just like the movies. As if on cue, they abandoned their hopeless efforts and disappeared, seeking an alternative way to reach their meal.

Josh ran to the front of the house, fishing through his pockets for his car keys. “Motherfucker,” he muttered. He removed his hands from his empty pockets, realizing he had left his keys on the kitchen counter. Josh quickly debated whether or not to sneak back inside and grab them. As he rounded the corner, he saw the residents of Pine Coast Village being flushed out of their homes by the living dead. Josh decided it was better to do the second idea that came to mind.

Run.

He witnessed an old lady being eaten alive while screaming for help that would never come. A man tried to flee from two zombies in white coats sporting name tags above their right-breast pocket. The old man could not run very fast; two zombies tackled him to the ground with ease. The sounds of his body being torn apart deafened his final cries for help.

Taking a moment to survey the chaos around him, Josh sprinted down the middle of the street, glancing at people being eviscerated on their front lawns. A car came barreling down the street, three zombies clinging to its hood. The driver ended up speeding into a house on the corner, crashing through the vinyl siding, ending up in the homeowner’s living room. The zombies started to pound on the windshield, their dinner helplessly trapped inside. Josh tried blocking out the murderous screams of the living.

Up ahead, flashing lights shone on the dusky sky. He became relieved almost instantly, hopeful he was going to make it out of this nightmare. Never did he think he’d say it, but “Thank God, the cops are here,” fell from his lips. With barely any air left in his lungs, he ran toward the flashing lights as if they were the finish line in a very long, enduring race.

The swarm of flesh-eating corpses outnumbered the cops. A few officers drew their weapons immediately, firing at the oncoming onslaught. Josh watched a few zombies take bullets in the head and fall to the ground like puppets suddenly cut from their string. The officers late to the trigger were slaughtered quickly. The zombies took them with ease. Within minutes, other police officers suffered a similar fate. Josh noticed the remaining policemen were running, returning to their vehicles in cowardly attempts to save themselves. The others were dismembered in the street.

Josh bolted into someone’s backyard. The fact that the authorities had no control over the situation got him thinking about the government and what they were doing about this, if they were doing anything at all. Jersey couldn’t have been the only place being ransacked by the dead. He’d seen the news reports. It was happening everywhere. Kentucky, Colorado, California, Florida, Pennsylvania— shit, Pennsylvania, he thought.

Josh tried concentrating on something else. Baseball season. Video games. The ceramic statue of a fire-breathing dragon where he kept his stash. Olivia .

Through all the madness, he had almost forgotten about her. Olivia, his ex-girlfriend of two years, was visiting her aunt in Harrisburg. It was a trip she took a few times a year. Josh had never been invited. It was mostly because Olivia’s parents hated him, which was fine by Josh, because he hated them equally, if not more so. They forbade him to see her on countless occasions, continuously reminding their daughter that Josh Emberson was a good-for-nothing druggie, who offered her very little in life and would eventually leave her broken-hearted and penniless.

None of that mattered to Olivia Vander. She saw whom she was going to see and that was the end of it. She was twenty-two for Christ’s sakes, capable of making her own decisions, however poor. Her parents pulled the old “if you’re going to live underneath our roof” speech-slash-ultimatum, but that never worked out in the end. They never had the guts to kick their baby out. They knew this, and more importantly, so did Olivia. She didn’t care. Fact was, she liked partying and getting high with him.

Josh thought about getting high again, as he did almost every other second. He almost thought about getting high as much as he did sex.

Josh crept around the corner of a quiet house. In the backyard, he spotted a child shuffling through the guts of her pet dog. The little girl brought handfuls of its innards to her mouth like it was the first meal she had in weeks. As she continued, Josh wondered if the little one could fit the whole dog inside her.

His movements drew her attention. She glanced up at him, her cheeks caked with the dog’s guts, and snarled. She hissed as she rose to her feet. Josh looked ahead, seeing nothing but woods. He decided it was better than heading back to the streets. He sprinted, his lungs still burning for air. Josh’s legs carried him into the wilderness, where branches and leaves met him with unwelcoming arms. He felt twigs brush against his face, scratching him as he flew by. He heard leaves being stamped into the ground behind him. The little girl’s beastly outbursts motivated him to run faster.

Turning his head, he saw the little girl keeping pace with him. Jesus, zombies aren’t supposed to be able to run!

Josh heard the little girl let out a high-pitched yelp, something a wounded cat might make. He looked back and noticed the girl was no longer following him. Instead, she was on the ground, trying to crawl after him. Her foot had sunk beneath the earth. Josh stopped running, stared back at the little girl. She was snapping at him, growling ferociously. She dug her fingers into the dirt, trying to pull herself free from the small sinkhole that held her.

He watched her for a moment, analyzing her actions. She struggled to pull herself forward, her leg bending awkwardly out of place. It wasn’t long before the bone snapped. Josh heard the break, reminding him of a thick tree branch being halved. He cringed as the sound filled the forest around him.

Then the girl was free. It appeared the leg had become detached, and Josh watched in horror as the little girl crawled toward him, stringing along red, gooey chunks of meat where her leg used to be. There was so much blood coming from the wound, Josh couldn’t see where the dismembered part lay. He turned away, still sickened from what he had seen earlier.

Josh wanted to puke, but forced himself to run instead. He continued in the same direction, as far away from Pine Coast Village as his legs carried him. Up ahead, he saw a clearing. A road waited for him beyond the pines. Josh didn’t know the area particularly well, so where he was going to end up was a mystery. Suddenly, Josh wished he had visited his mother more often. He thought about what a shitty son he’d been all those years, ever since his father left her for another woman, one much younger and with less problems. One who could remember shit. Josh failed her. Meridith needed someone, and her son was supposed to be that someone. This upset him to a certain degree, but Josh knew very well that if the apocalypse had not been triggered, he would not be at war with himself. He would’ve continued to feed off her, as he had done since he sucked the nutrients out of her nipples when he was a baby. He wouldn’t have stopped until she had nothing left. Much like the way the zombies never stopped. They were always hungry for more. Only, they were hungry for the flesh of the living, instead of drugs, money, and sex.