Prompt: You just got bit by a zombie. You’re turning quickly. Your dog notices your change and tries desperately to make you bite him. Simply because he doesn’t want to live without you.
You lay next to me, slumped against a bedroom wall. I don’t remember how we got there, or what town we’re in, or even if the tarnished, closed door is fortified. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I was bit. How or why or where is lost to me and like the door, it doesn’t matter. All that does is the infection raging through my veins like lava and the flames licking my muscles and every nerve singing to the heavens for relief.
I can no longer feel your matted, golden hair under my palm. I can no longer feel the rising and falling of your side as you breath. You turn your head and place your chin on my knee, and look up with glossy brown eyes. Your snout and hair is stained with dried blood. I can’t remember but you must’ve helped me get away, helped me to this room, this place. Protected me. Fought for me. Killed for me. You look away as tears like hot gasoline spill down my face, and tilt your head to the side. At first I don’t understand, but somewhere in the decaying, rotting brain of mine I realize that you’re mimicking what you’ve seen hundreds, thousands of time.
A bite to the neck is the quickest way to turn.
“No,” I force out, “boy. No.” I try to shake my head but its far too heavy to move. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth like flypaper. “I… Can’t.” Dirty sweat seeps from clogging pores, soaking into the clothes already drenched in yellow and red fluids.
You shift closer, rubbing the side of your head against my lap. You tilt your head again, looking away.
“No…” I say again, but it’s harder now, as though the words are a mass lodged in my throat. “No…”
Your eyes perk up, you look around. A faint sound in the distance, like shattering glass and breaking wood. Shouting, somewhere. “Here,” I hear a glimpse. “In here.”
You turn to me and our eyes lock and there’s tears soaking into your fur and there’s tears soaking into my dying flesh and you take the decision out of my numb hands and pounce. Like the door, like everything; my words don’t matter. You sink your jaws into my neck and tear a chunk of muscle and flesh out and swallow it quickly. Brackish blood spills out onto the floor, dribbles from your jaw. A moment, two, we stare at each other then your eyes gloss over, fill with opaque filament, and you lie down, resting your chin on my leg once more.
I sigh, use what strength is left to lift my hand and place it on your head, and rub gently.
Even after life, you still want to my good boy.
Read my previous prompt, “The Monster From the Hallway”
Check out my bibliography for more of my work.
Micah Castle 