EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Elijah watched Jones and the soldier walk off into the mist. His soldier, the one that was standing near him, watched them walk off, too. He seemed really nervous now that his fellow Marine, or whatever they were, wasn’t at his side. What the hell would a fully armed soldier have to fear?

Someone coughed and moaned on one of the cots behind Elijah. The moan sent a shiver down his spine; it was too eerily familiar. Oh yeah. THAT’s what he’s afraid of. Elijah shivered again. Jones and the soldier had disappeared in the hazy air. He sat and stared into the mist for a few seconds before his guard — was he really under guard? Just for a little bite? — turned and walked away toward the computer stations. Elijah watched him walk, too. Seemed he’d been doing a lot of that today.

The soldier didn’t do anything interesting. He put his foot up on a box and started chatting with another soldier who was sitting at the computer. They were talking quietly but Elijah was pretty sure they were talking about him since they kept glancing in his direction. The sitting soldier nodded several times and then got up and started rifling through a box behind him. Elijah’s soldier turned and started back towards him.

A scream and shots came from the hazy greyness in front of the tents. Another scream followed soon after. All of the soldiers were frozen for a moment, armed the next. Those near the — patients? prisoners? — cots stayed were they were, looking around both fearfully and confidently at the same time. Their eyes never left the people on the cots.

Some of the soldiers at the computers hurried over to the radio setup, the others seemed to be pecking out hurried emails. Elijah’s grunt took a few steps out into the growing fog and peered into the mist. Elijah stared after him, frozen to his cot. Nothing moved. He could just barely see the still-rotating, still-shining lights on the ambulance, but nothing else where Jones should have been. He wondered if they were going to let him drive through or make him go around.

Or had those gunshots been for him?

A cough, moan, and gurgle came from the cots behind Elijah. One of the soldiers sucked in his breath and held it. He could hear another cursing under his breath, searching for a pulse, apparently. Ten seconds passed, Elijah counting out Mississippis in his head. Twenty. Thirty. How long could you go without a pulse anyway? Fourty-five. A minute. The soldier cursed again, and Elijah heard a gun cock.

His soldier, he couldn’t help but think of him that way, reached a hand out and said, “Come on, man, don’t do that. He’s gone. Leave him alone.” Elijah’s eyes grew wider and he started shaking. He had been bitten. That was why they were keeping him here, wasn’t it? So that meant the other people had to have been bitten. So…what did it mean? The paramedic, the woman, had been bitten, too. She’d had her fucking throat ripped out, too, though. So was it the bite that had brought he back?

Elijah leapt to his feet. His soldier shouted “Hey!” at him, but he didn’t notice.

“I have to get out of here. He — ” He turned to look at the dead guy and saw what an awful color he had turned. His skin was GREEN with sickly yellow splotches, and two bright slashes of red blood on either side of his mouth. Elijah screamed, both from the pain of standing on his bitten leg and from fright. People were NOT supposed to be green!

“Sit down,” the soldier ordered, one hand on Elijah’s chest. Elijah stared at him, mouth open. The gun-happy soldier walked over and stood next to Elijah’s guard. “Now,” ordered his soldier. The other grunt raised his gun and pointed it at Elijah.

“You need to sit down,” he said, quietly and through his teeth. He raised his thumb to cock the gun, hopefully just for the threat. Another moan made his eyes dart to the side and Elijah looked, helplessly, too.

The recently deceased man had rolled his head to the side, staring at them. His tongue came out of his blood-speckled lips and licked them, smearing the red into obscene lip stick. He groaned again and rolled his shoulders over, moving to get up from the cot.

The gun in the soldiers hand started spitting fire inches away from Elijah’s head.