Living Dead Girl, Part Three

And now the final installment...

Towards the end, as all of the protagonist’s friends have been turned into zombies, he’s forced to take out his best friends by jamming his fingers into the ghoul’s eyes, black pus dripping from the empty sockets where his eyes were. It was graphic, it was horrific. It was hilariously funny. A laugh burst from my mouth; I quickly clapped a hand over it, ashamed. What kind of sicko actually laughs when someone’s eyes are gouged out? I was apparently, as I giggled and guffawed my way through the rest of the movie, wiping tears from my eyes. I turned off the television with a wonderful feeling coursing through my blood. Is this what self-actualization felt like? What kind of shallow person gets self-actualized by Evil Dead?

That night, going to bed, I felt light. I smiled, enjoying the feeling of cuddling down into the bedclothes and the anticipation of waking refreshed. Doubts niggled in the back of my mind: would the zombies return? Would they torment me with huge gaping cavernous holes where their eyes had been? Would they moan “self-actualization” at me in mockery?

Sleep came. I was in my childhood home, empty of everything but me. Through the bay windows I could see darkness and fog, enveloping the house like a woman’s arms. Shapes came out of the night, slow zombies lumbering towards the house, arms raised in supplication, a wordless question. Join us. My face is blank, unmoving, my eyes taking in death and reflecting it back. Cold hands scrape at windows, low moans are heard. I stand, go to the glass door. I can feel the internal tremor as my body wars with my mind. Run away! it screams. Run away, you’re strong enough now.

I don’t run away. I stand at the oval of glass in the wood door, looking. Zombies clamor at the movement, start clawing and moaning, the blood from their hands mixing with the fog of their breath. I stare. And finally see.

I reach up, my hand passing over the glass where the dead are grasping, turn the lock on the door. I return to the center of the room, sit down cross-legged. My hands are upturned and empty, accepting. I wait the night out, hearing zombies call for my blood, feeling them bang against the door for my flesh. My heart beating violently against my chest, I fight to maintain my control, the only viable weapon I possess.

Hours pass; I am resolute.

I have won.

~Fin~

Living Dead Girl, Part Two

And the beat goes on....

My eyes opened to the eddy of my mind, into a dark green forest. Gone was the urban panorama, gone was the familiarity, gone were the zombies. My heart lifted, was I victorious? my mind asked, the words traveling on the wind, whistling through the trees. My shoulders relaxed and I dropped to a small pool to drink, cupping sweet water into my mouth, over my head.

I heard a call, birds maybe? I smiled, there’s nothing more charming than tiny songbirds. Closing my eyes and tilting my head, I listened again, hoping it was a cardinal. The underbrush shook, a flash of red! I moved closer, speaking in low tones, cajoling, the breaking sunlight glinting on cold steel, a wink. The bush erupted with grasping, rotting hands. Corpses spilled from the trees, brilliant with color, the vibrant greens blues and reds of death. I couldn’t reach for my machete fast enough, started hacking. The forest darkened with the shadows of the countless corpses, moans filled the air so fully it was liable to split your skull. I turned frantically, fruitlessly, desperately cutting for hours, days. My blade dulled; I was tired, so tired, wanting it all to end. My body rung with dull pain, from my arms to my head, always drumming. Oblivion yawned, hands clutched my neck, and I screamed. The sound echoed through the forest.

I wake up, scrabble at the sheets around my throat. I am in Whitewater, my own room, my own bed, with a cat stretched lazily beside me, one eye slit open in indignation at being waken. I breathe shakily, my resolve gone and the frustration frothing inside me. I am terrified, I am indignant – how the hell do you fight something in your head? How do you fight what’s inside you?

The morning dawns, and I do the only thing I can think of…I start filling my brain with useless knowledge, a skill I’ve honed to perfection during my college days. I sit at the computer, start the search engine, type the word “zombie” into the field. I look at it for quite some time, the shape the letters make, the unfamiliar “z”. I erase it, then enter it again, over and over, until the left pinkie can hit the “z” without trouble. I’m scared to hit enter, not sure what I’m looking for and terrified at what I’ll find. The finger hovers over the enter key, then plunges with resolution. Enter.

I spend my day with the zombies. I learn about their cinema, their literature, their symbolism, their mythos. I look at pictures and try not to let the fear rise in me, and stamp it down. My boyfriend moves in later that day and looks over my shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asks, knowing full well that anything scary during the day can result in a sleepless night, zombies top on the list of frighteners.

I stop. What should I say? Fighting my inner demons, conquering irrational fears, waging battle against the undead? Sounds exaggerated. As my brain works, the words come out of my mouth, “Zombie Therapy,” I answer.

“Zombie what?”

“Zombie Therapy. I’ll put myself through a rigorous program of contact with zombies until I’m not scared anymore.”

He eyes me critically, but says okay.

I write out a plan and timetable. I start with zombies on the internet, work up to zombie pictures on the internet, then the tamer zombie films. Evil Dead was up on the docket. Anxious to test my own resolve, I pop the DVD in alone one sunny day. Talk about death in the afternoon. I sit on the couch, with a blanket in the arms, despite the weather, eyes wide. I remind myself not to throw up at the gross part, vow to watch it until the end, even if I ended up psychologically traumatized. The pencil gets thrust into the ankle, no problem. Then IT happened. The unbelievable.

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion...

Living Dead Girl, Part One

I often get asked how I got into horror. I'm one of those cutesy, pinch-your-cheeks type of girl (to my everlasting bane), so I suppose my predilections for guts and monsters come as a bit of a shock.

I wrote this for a class, in explanation to the prompt, "What are you afraid of?" Thought you'd might enjoy it. It's kind of long, so I'll post it in segments, kind of like those old hero movies, "Come back next week to see the thrilling conclusion!"

They shamble towards me, their hands claw at my shirt. I whirl, see them everywhere. Their mouths, deep black holes, spill bile. A low moan fills the air. They come closer, dragging their limbs and twitching their stiffened muscles, leaving a path of blood behind them. The breath is cold on my neck, I smell the rot and my stomach recoils. Nails scratch at my arms, teeth rip into my flesh, tearing out the tender bits: cheeks, voice box, liver, intestine. My mouth opens and closes, as my eyes roll into my head. They will get you, Oh God, Oh God, they’ve gotten me, and I am powerless. Blood sprays everywhere, leaches into the ground. The rage, the terror, rise up in my throat and I scream and scream, soundless, the echo burning inside my brain.

I wake. I throw my head up, take assessment. I am in my room, in my apartment, in Whitewater. The cats patter in the kitchen, playing their late night games. Everything else is quiet, the witching hour. I peek out the window, into the dark, squinting. I wish I had my glasses, I can’t see a damn thing. Through the crack in the drapes, all is quiet and still. The undead zombie horde has not materialized outside my window, scraping at the glass, leaving trails of gore along the smooth surface. I order my heart to calm itself, but my brain reels with images from my nightmare: my family slaughtered before my eyes, only to reanimate as walking dead, my family home invaded, the world turned into a battleground as humanity is slowly turned into a horde of stumbling ghouls, eager for flesh. The zombie apocalypse has not happened, I tell myself, you’re safe, you’re safe.

My favorite zombie movie of all time is Evil Dead. Zombie purists will tell you that it is not a true zombie movie, as the ghouls are often not actually dead before they start terrorizing the living protagonist. I, however, am not so picky (or snobby) as others might be. Evil Dead is a great splatter film, filled with gut-twisting gross-outs, comedy, and chainsaws. I was not always so enamored by the film. Sitting in a dorm four years ago, I only got about fifteen minutes (with my hands covering my face, of course, a skill all true scaredy-cats perfect at a young age) until I had to shut it off or risk yakking all over the floor. I blame my sheltered upbringing. An only child until I was seven, my parents wrapped me in the proverbial cotton wool. Fast forward about fifteen years, and I am just as coddled.

I moved out of my parent’s house when I turned twenty two. I was alone for a week with the zombies until my boyfriend moved in. Every night, as the dark slithered through the windows, I could hear them shuffling, waiting until dark to bully my dreams. I began to dread the night, sleep. This pissed me off. The world sees me as quiet, unassuming. This may be true. But I also possess a raging – if slow-fused - temper and these damn zombies were on the top of my list. Something had to be done; I was an adult for Pete’s sake and I was letting myself be terrorized by the crappiest cultural monsters the horror world had to offer.

I went to sleep feeling like Hemingway, Kipling, The Great White Hunter. I could conquer anything. I had a psychological machete tied to my belt, a bandana across my brow, raw gut courage in my heart. I would slash and burn, decapitate and disembowel; I would napalm the hell outta those zombies.

More to come later....