89.4 Zombie Radio

Celeste and I were holed up in a little farm house outside of the city. I took a day and boarded up the windows, trying to prepare for anything trying to make its way through. The house was home to an elderly couple who were recently deceased. I sort of felt bad because I was the one who had put a sling blade through their skulls. It makes it hard when you kill a zombie and see their face in pictures throughout the house you were at. I couldn't help but feel bad. So Celeste and I dug them some graves out in the backyard, and placed some makeshift tombstones for them. It was our way of thanking them for their hospitality.

They were farmers with a good supply of vegetables for us to live off of for a little while. I was thankful we picked the right house. There wasn't much to do really in the house. We found a deck of cards and played about seventy games of rummy I think. With some wild to mild sex sessions in between. Like I said, there wasn't much to do, so some fantasies were realized during this time. After all, we didn't know how much longer we were going to be able to make it. A swarm could hit us tomorrow and it could all be over. I knew we were lucky to have even made it this far. The city was probably a complete train wreck. I felt bad about the way everything had gone down. We ended the world, or at least the world as we knew it.

I tried not to think about it. I tried to occupy my mind with other things, like what our next move would be. We needed to find a place where we could live and not have to worry about any of this stuff. I wasn't sure if the two of us could make it to a place like that alone though. We were going to need help, but I wasn't holding my breath on anybody else being alive. I knew this was going to be huge. This effected everybody, and the people who managed to avoid it, would probably be so caught off guard by it, that they wouldn't make it out alive. Just like that the thoughts would come flooding back to me. It was a vicious circle to say the least.

Celeste got the idea to turn the radio on. She was more or less hoping that maybe a station or two had left their playlist going. That's when we found it, on the weirdest tuning quite possibly ever, 89.4. There was music! And not only music, but a DJ! Another survivor, just like us. Trapped in a radio station and still holding strong. He gave a phone number, which I was very tempted to call. He also mentioned a few other people, a Bob and a Jessie. There were more survivors, this was good news. The thoughts about being responsible for the destruction of mankind had subsided a bit. Maybe we could find these guys and start our own little society. Maybe I had cleaned out the riff raff, so to speak. This could be the utopia I had always dreamed of. Its just too bad I had to kill billions of people to do it.

Celeste was already way ahead of me. "Aiden! There are other people out there! More people just like I us! We're not alone!" she shouted. "We need to find these people! We need to meet up with them and get somewhere safe."

I had to agree with her, it was a good plan. It was really the only plan we had, but how were we going to find these people? Celeste and I listened intently to the radio, hoping to God the DJ would release just a little hint of information that we could use to find them. It took a while, but we finally heard him mention something about being trapped in a dorm. I started to put some things together. There was a college right up the road, but there were a few other colleges around the area too. Should I risk it and head to the one close by? The choice was obvious. Of course I would. After all, what else was I going to do? Besides sit in this little shack of a farm house and have sex all day?

Celeste and I gathered up all the supplies we could and loaded up the car with them. I took a picture of the former residents of the house and stuffed in my wallet. I felt it would be a good memory for the road. I wanted to remember this place, and I wanted to always thank the deceased couple for their wonderful hospitality. It was also the first people I had ever killed, not counting the other billions that I somewhat felt responsible for. Didn't matter though, what's done is done. I can't let that thought consume me. I also knew that it had to remain my secret forever. If anyone else ever found out I was part of this whole thing, things could get bad. Then another thought crossed my mind, was I really responsible, or was I just used?

The thought had never occurred to me until now, but maybe it was because I was looking to place the blame elsewhere. Did I cause all of this? I started the group that spread the virus, and set the world up for its inevitable destruction, but how did all this really come about. That's when it hit me. That screen name that popped up out of nowhere in my e-mail. I'll never forget that header, "Want to really change the world?" Of course I did, that was my intent from the start. What was that screen name? I remember it was so vague and mysterious, like someone didn't want to be recognized. They didn't want anything traced back to them. It all became clear, I was a pawn on a giant chess board. We all were, and the realization made me sick.

XXX10WXXX

I couldn't believe I remembered it, but when it entered my brain I clenched my fist and punched the nearest thing to me. I put a hole right through the cheap drywall in the house. Celeste came running to see what the racket was all about. I told her it was nothing. She knew better, but I didn't know how to explain to her what I was thinking about. That screen name, I'm sure he was out there somewhere, laughing his ass off and sipping a martini from a safe location. I couldn't let this go, I had another mission, I had to hunt that son of a bitch down, if it took me my life to do it, I would. I couldn't live with this thought that I was used as a tool to help a lunatic get what he wanted. He used me and he used my cause. He made me believe what I was doing was the best thing for the planet, and maybe in his eyes it was.

We packed the rest of our stuff into the car and finally left. I almost didn't care if the survivors were there or not, I had a new goal. That mysterious son of a bitch needed to die, and I needed to be the man to kill him. It was the only way I would ever find peace in all of this. I knew I was going to need help though. These survivors were the key to finding my man. I had to use them like pawns to get to him, I might feel bad about it eventually, but right now it didn't matter. They were the soldiers I needed to make it there. I was going to take every step necessary to make sure Justice was served. If I went to hell, at least I'd go with my head held high. We started off down the road, making our way toward the school. I doubt I'd ever been more focused on anything in all my life.