Flesh

I see blackness.

Nothing but blackness.

I feel nothing, sense nothing, think nothing. I am nothing.

As abruptly as I was gone, I return. I have no account of what happened, how much time may have passed. What happened?

As I collect my bearings, I scan my surroundings. From what I can feel, I’m lying down on a hard surface, maybe a table, and I’m unrestrained. I raise myself to a sitting position. It’s dark, but not the same sort of dark as I had just experienced. It’s not the empty darkness, it’s a darkness that you’re aware of, that could change to light at any moment and expose what’s lurking in its depths. In my case, I sense I’m not alone.

As I predicted, lights flare on, directed on me. Acting on instinct, I squint my eyes and shield them with my hands from the sudden brightness. It takes me a few minutes to adjust to the light. Blinking a couple of times, I examine my surroundings again. At first I think this is a dream, then discard the idea. I never dream, or at least never remember my dreams.

How I wish it were a dream.

Boxing me in is a transparent wall. It’s about ten feet in length and width, height as well. The lights concentrated on me light up only about fifteen feet in diameter around me. But it’s enough to expose the living dead surrounding the wall’s perimeter.

Every inch of the translucent box’s border is occupied by a zombie.

They still look remarkably human, but you can easily notice that they’re decaying. Their skin has taken on the greyish tint of death, their eyes pale and glazed over. Their movements are rather slow and choppy- probably a result of their rotting muscles. They’re not exactly the gore-driven, bloody monsters you see in movies. Each one within my sight has one wound, surrounded by dried blood. The wounds are mostly slits on the throat, or gashes through the chest. And they’re all my previous homicide victims.

I stare wide-eyed at the zombies. My heart’s pounding, and I have the impulse to run and get away. But there’s nowhere to run.

A voice coming from presumably hidden speakers reels me from my daze, “Salutations Elliott Parser. I see you’ve finally… awaken.” It’s a man’s voice. Pleasant enough, but hard, and it sends chills down my neck.

“Who are you?” I demand. “Why am I here, surrounded by a mob of zombies?” Despite myself, I’m relieved by the voice. It brings a strange comfort that I’m not alone here. Not entirely anyway.

I hear static from the other end, then muffled chuckling. “Ah, Mr. Parser, before that, I’d enjoy chatting for a spell. There’s so much we could learn from each other-”

“Just cut to the chase! I’m not waiting a moment longer!” a raspy voice interrupts him. To my surprise, it was one of the zombies that had spoken, a man I had about five years ago- one of my first assassination victims. A chorus of gravely voices agree to his assertion. I’m in a cold sweat. They’re intellectual. They want revenge. I had thought that they’d tear me to shred- a painful, but swift death. But now I’m sure they have greater things in store for me.

“Peace. In that case I’ll just explain this young man’s predicament first, then you can have him,” the voice says, the hint of a smile in his voice. He addresses me again, “So, Mr. Parser, you must be dying to know about our most recent discovery- the bringing back of the dead. As you’ve seen, these zombies are not like the distasteful movie versions. We’ve succeeded in animating corpses and also returning their thoughts and feelings as they were in life.

“Of course, we’re still working on a way to discontinue the decomposition of the bodies, but we’ve found the way for life to continue after death. We’ve discovered the elixir for immortality.” He pauses for a moment to take this information in with silent awe. “We’ve worked secretly for decades on this project, and have finally tested it on the bodies of our fallen associates. To our wonderment, our concoction succeeded. We’ve taken a big leap in unravelling the mysteries of life and death.”

“And I’m here because…?” I cut in. The information he’s spilling me is putting me on edge. It’s fascinating yet terrifying at the same time. No matter how useful that elixir may be, it could be- no it is dangerous. I didn’t want to know anymore.

A brief pause. “Why, it should be quite obvious. We brought back those you killed. They want revenge. But if you’re wondering how we know you’re the one that committed the murders… we’ve known for a long time. We also know you’re the only assassin of your group. We were just waiting for the right time to extract revenge.

“You may have also wondered why we allowed our employees to continue being slaughtered. We needed test subjects for our phenomenal experiment, so we took some volunteers, let loose some not-quite-false information about them being crucial minds in our latest research, and let your company do the rest. We commend you on your assisting of our testing.”

While he pauses to allow me time to digest this news, I seethe to myself. How could I have been such an idiot? How could I have been so cocky to allow myself to think that I hadn’t been found out for five years, nearly six years? I had played right into their hands, no thanks to the director. Actually, I shouldn’t blame him. In the beginning he’d told me to dispose of the bodies properly, which I hadn’t done. He never found out so I continued to just leave them where I’d killed them. He’d also asked time and time again if I’d fulfilled my duties correctly, and me, the moron that I am, arrogantly said yes each time.

The man continues, “As your reward for so generously helping our cause, I’ve let you in on the experiment.” Well, obviously. “I‘ve even been generous enough to grace you with a little surprise. I’ve allowed you to become one of our prototypes.”

“You, Mr. Parser, are now one of the living dead.”

I hate surprises.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I notice that I stink. I had thought that it was just my sweat, but it was really the scent of death. I was also a shade greyer, though not as grey as the other zombies. There was also a small hole through my chest, which I suspect started from my upper back, which I hadn’t noticed, having been caught up with the sights of the living dead and the mysterious voice. My heart is beating, but there is no longer any blood in my body to pump. I still have my senses intact, though. But that will prove to be my undoing. I should be dead- should still be dead. But I’m not.

“Enjoy your immortality, Elliott Parser. While it lasts,” the voice jeers. He laughs shortly, then I hear the speaker click off. I’m now alone. No. Not alone. I have dozens of fellow zombies surrounding me.

The transparent fortress begins to lift off of the ground. As it rose its first millimetre, every zombie in view trained their eyes hungrily on me. I hope that they still have even a sliver of humanity in them, but my hopes dash. They’re scientists. They open corpses up and look through their insides. And I am a corpse. A corpse that killed them while we were all still human.

The cage is a couple of feet off the ground and the dead are eagerly ducking underneath. They have sick grins on their rotting faces, eyes-if they had any- hungry and wild. In seconds they’ve closed the space between me and them.

They’re suddenly upon me, tearing at my legs and arms, clawing at my abdomen, removing once-crucial body organs. I try to fight back at first, but soon give up and lay limp. There are too many. They don’t viciously rip strips of skin off or rend my innards like mad animals. They take it a bit at a time, letting my agony last as long as possible. They don’t touch my head or heart though- the presumably two parts of my body that I can’t stay animated without. The pain is unbearable. I want to run, but it’s too late now. My legs are gone.

I can only scream.