EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Elijah didn’t like the look of this at all. One soldier was sitting across from him petting the stock of his rifle. The other was standing on the ground, staring at the paramedic. His hand was on his pistol. How had this gone from strange roadblock to the soldiers being on the verge of drawing guns and shooting innocent people over being slow to tell a story about people coming back from the dead? I mean, it wasn’t a story that you could just tell to anyone. Who the fuck would believe you?

Elijah spoke before Jones could continue. “Yeah, she WAS dead. That didn’t stop her from doing, though. She sat up and attacked the other paramedic. She killed her, even. That’s why she’s not here. The damn girl came back to life and ripped her goddamn throat out.”

Both soldiers turned to look at him, their eyes the only part of their faces showing any shock. He wasn’t sure if it was from the language, the suddeness of his interruption, or what he had told them. He had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t the latter. The one on the ground slowly crossed his arms again and said, “Go on.”

Elijah shook his head. “What’s to tell? We killed her. Again. We had to kill the paramedic again, too. She came back just a few minutes later. What else were we supposed to do? Huh? What else? What would you do with two women coming back to life trying to eat you?” He was almost to screaming tears now. He held himself together, though, knowing that that kind of breakdown wouldn’t help anything and would probably only prolong their delay here. He wanted to get through this shit and get to the goddamn hospital to get his leg looked at. The more he thought about it, the more he could feel the girl’s teeth in his leg still. The more he could feel his leg going numb. Or, more accurately, the less he could feel that he leg belonged to him.

He looked down at his leg, his vision starting to blur with wetness in his eyes. His leg was more numb than it had been when they were driving along. Then it had just been the calf and below, going down to about the middle of the foot. Now it seemed to be moving up toward his knee and thigh. He wasn’t sure his knee would even obey him any longer. He didn’t have any way to test it, though. Not with the soldiers in the way. Testing would have to wait for the hospital. He hoped.

The soldier in the ambulance tapped on Elijah’s foot with a finger. “So which one did this?” Elijah shook his head and looked up, tears actually coming to his eyes. He felt they were going to take him away somewhere. He didn’t want to go anywhere with them. He wanted to go to the hospital and get some help for his leg. This was complete bullshit. BULLSHIT! The soldiers scared him.

“The girl. She bit me before we… put her down.”

The soldiers looked at each other and the one on the ground, who happened to have more bars on his helmet than the one in the box, nodded. The one in the ambulance placed a firm hand on Elijah’s ankle. A hand and grip he could only feel halfway. Something was definitely wrong. “You going to have to come with us, sir.” Elijah had known that was going to come out of his mouth as soon as the hand had touched his ankle.

“What? Why?” Jones was up in arms, again. “He’s not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking. He really did get attacked by the girl and she was definitely dead. Mary said she was and I would have trusted her with my life. The girl came back to life and — ” The soldier standing in front of him raised a hand.

“We know, sir.”