EYEHEARTZOMBIES

“Holy shit.”

Seth sat back in his chair, unsure about what he had just read. Apparently the drug was something the government had pushed out in the last year or so, extensive testing be damned. Many of the patients had died of strange ailments, basically their bodies immune system going into overdrive and eating them from the inside out. The article wasn’t very clear about the exact details. Seth folded the paper again, sloppily, and stood up to leave.

The librarian on duty, a slightly overweight older woman, barely glanced up at him as he pushed open the swinging glass-paneled doors to the foyer. He shrugged back into his jacket which was still hanging wetly on the hook. Pushing open the front door and stepping out onto the protected porch, Seth saw that the rain was coming down worse than ever. Sheets of grey-black drops fell heavily into the dark streets. The sky was a monotone blue-grey that was made for sleeping to. The whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Except the one taxi he saw driving down the road. It sped past the library, sloshing puddles into the air. He turned to follow it with his head and, squiting through the rain, saw something dark drop out in front of it.

The taxi swerved toward the curb, too late and the wrong direction anyway. A sickening thump snaked through the falling rain and Seth knew the accident couldn’t be good. Brake lights flared and jostled as the back end of the car slid over the lump in the road. Rain be damned, Seth took off, running toward the red glow bleeding off of the brake lights and into the streets, washed away by the rain. He knew what was in the road before he reached the car, but that didn’t make it any better.

A foot or two behind the taxi stood the driver. He wore a shiny Philadelphia Eagles jacket that was rapidly soaking in the rain. He also had a baseball cap, the Phillies of course, on his head. He was standing hunched over the lump on the ground, looking shaky and holding himself up with his hands on his knees. Seth jogged the last few feet and looked down, finally, at what the taxi had run over.

She was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen at the oldest. Her arms were laid out from her sides, her right hand just inches from the back tire of the cab. The fingers were splayed out at odd angles and a fingernail was missing. Seth pulled his eyes away from the hand and forced himself to look over the rest of the body.

The girl, he didn’t think she was even fifteen now, was wearing a thin dress, like a sun dress. It was soaked through with rain and clung to her body. She was extremely thin and pale, her skin making a blinding contrast with the pavement below her. She hadn’t fallen all the way into the road, her knees were bent so her feet and ankles sat on the sidewalk. She was wearing little brown leather shoes that buckled around her ankles.

Seth’s mind finally came back from the shock of seeing a girl ran over and reached forward to check for a pulse. Her face was turned away from the taxi, like she had been looking at it when it hit her, and blood was running from her mouth, heavily diluted by the torrents from above.

His fingers found her throat and after a few seconds felt the tiniest of bumps. “Pulse!” The driver’s head jerked up from where he was staring at the ground and found Seth’s eyes.

“What?”

Seth pointed at the girl with his other hand. “She has a pulse. A pulse!” He yelled the last word through the rain, the taxi driver still oblivious to what this meant. Seth stared at the man for a few moments longer, then started trying to turn the girl over. She had fallen into the road chest-first so her back was to him. As he put a hand on her back he could feel her vertebrae. The few just above the small of her back, maybe six total, were just lumps of sharp bone. He looked over at the tires of the cab and could see them line up with her back.

He turned her over as gently as possible and felt for a pulse again. Still there, still weak. Did it seem weaker? He decided to try the driver again. “Mister! Hey, you!” Nothing. The guy was staring straight at Seth’s face, but wasn’t hearing a word of it. He reached over and slapped the driver across his mouth. The guy blinked and seemed to come to a bit better.

“Help me. I want to get her into the library.”

“She — she’s — I ran her over! I! Oh God!” The cabbie stood up, looking like he was going to run. He looked around, down the street and then up. Nothing moved in the rain, no cars drove by. He turned back, helplessly, to Seth. “It’s not my fault!” His voice was tinged with paranoia and panic, held barely in check. “It’s not my fault! She — she jumped out in front of me! ‘S’not my fault!”

Seth stood up. The cabbie still looked like he might run. He was looking at his car now, the front tire resting on the sidewalk between a “no parking” sign and a mailbox. The “no parking” sign was at the edge of a ramp in the sidewalk, leading into a thin alley. No sun and pounding rain blocked out any light that might have made its way into the alley. She must have come out of there, he thought.

“Hey,” Seth yelled again. “I don’t care whose fault it is. Help me with her. She’s hurt.” The cabbie turned back around and stuck out a hand.

“My name’s Elijah.”

“What?” Seth couldn’t believe the bastard was introducing himself at a time like this.

“Elijah. My name. Elijah. I’m a cab driver. I — I don’t think I want to be here.” The man’s eyes were flitting around again, left and right, up street and down. Seth took his hand and put another on his shoulder, stepping around the girl to be closer to the man.

“Elijah. Hi. I’m Seth. Listen, do you have a cell phone? Or what about your radio? You have a radio in your cab, right?” Seth hoped not mentioning the girl would help the guy come back to his senses. Elijah’s eyes slowed their jitters and he seemed to be thinking clearly again.

“Yeah. Yeah, the radio. Right. In the car….” His eyes went back to the girl and he squatted down again, muttering. Seth walked around him to the still-open driver’s door and looked in.