u/Lilpustule

My name is Wendy Vigue, I contracted ARV, and I’m writing this because I do not want to be forgotten. When I’m reanimated, I will have a pink bracelet on my wrist, with the numbers 41 on it, if you see me, please I beg of you, put me down. My address is 115 Regent St, Sanford ME, I will be in the second room on the right. Down the hall past the kitchen. I don’t care what you do, just put me down.
   
If you find me, and this, I owe you part of my story. And while I know now that my fate is sealed, writing this gives me something to do while I wait to lose myself in the following days. 

When ARV first hit, yeah it was scary, but not what I expected, I mean, no apocalypse, no gunning down hordes of “zombies” with whacky weapons. No, none of the fun,  just the tragedy. It sort of felt “normal”, but at the same time couldn't believe it was real.  I was lucky enough to be out of the main contaminated zones, but not fully clear. Most people I knew had a relative they knew who got it, this was before it turned you so fast. 

It was about 2 months after the Boston incident, I still went to work, stupid fast food joint I hated. Landed a manager position, but it sucked. With something like ARV you expect to be liberated in a way, to leave the monotony in life. 

   First I heard about a minor illness spreading around coastal areas of New England. Then I thought it might be another pandemic, but it was still minor. Then after a bit, ARV got new symptoms, weird symptoms. Growing hunger, agitation, and jaw spasms. Some people started calling it “chattering fever”. 
   
Then the first deaths happened. Just a few old folks, didn’t seem out of the ordinary. Then we heard of “conspiracy theories,” and cases, where there were claims of people coming back… violent.  One man’s court case, he killed his wife with ARV, claiming she attacked him. He had bite marks to prove it, but it still just seemed like a murder. No one, and I mean no one, was going to believe zombies actually existed. I even laughed everything off. 
 
  We didn’t really pay attention to the news, until the day I think we all remember July 17. Reports of a huge riot in Boston. We tuned in to the tv, crowds of people, police trying to hold them back. 

   Embarrassing as it is, while my parents were watching the news broadcast. I was watching a tiktok livestream, from a dude's window looking down as he narrated. I remember something I found strange, amongst the chaos, the blood, the screaming, it wasn't from the rioters. No, they didn’t make a sound. 
  
   The night continued, the professional broadcasters, scared, going off script, terrified. Our fears grew, more news of another “riot” in Portland ME, a few hours away from me, then any hope me and my family had was cut short. 

The screen was interrupted by an ear grading shriek all Americans know too well, an emergency alert. 
   
The automated voice told us it wasn’t a drill, and that ARV was contagious by saliva and bodily fluids. My heart sank to my stomach when it continued and said that people bitten and killed, in a matter of hours will be reanimated in an aggressive state, that will infect you if it bites you, or if it’s blood gets on your face. 

This is when chattering fever became officially, Aggressive Reanimate Virus. 

Several emergency alerts were released the next few days on how the virus was changing and areas that were getting high numbers of reanimates. We learned that if you die at any time after contracting it, unless you clear the infection (but less people were surviving this sickness) you turn. While if you contract it from a bite or something and live, and then it works its course and kills you a week later, you reanimate slower. This explained how Boston escalated, the reanimates infected and killed at the same time, meaning it only took an hour or two for them to come back. 

The next few weeks were weird. Every cough I wondered if I was sick, is this it? Every night wondering what it’s actually like, I had a morbid fascination, but too scared to look at the footage of Boston aside from what I saw the first day. I wondered what it was like, to see one. To be one. If it was even real, despite near undeniable evidence it was difficult to accept. 

The jokes surprised me, while tasteless I found some joy, so many memes or jokes like “we got zombie apocalypse before this or that” “Boston has always been like this,” “please reanimate me”, “Average Maine resident”  little things that made it feel like not such a big deal. 

   I remember the first reanimate I saw. It followed a customer in, it was so quiet, he was fresh so he didn’t look that dead yet, dried snot leaking from his nose, pale, his eyes milky. The veins popping. 

   I should have known, he didn’t make a single noise. I know it sounds weird, but you underestimate how a human sounds. Does that make sense? Our rhythmic uniform footsteps, the slight hiss of breathing, little noises like coughing, swallowing, when you think about it, have you ever seen a completely silent person?

But this, no breathing, no growls, just.. quiet. Flies followed him, their buzz was the only noise around him. I remember as the man he followed was ordering, he opened his jaw in preparation for a bite, and I saw what looked like a bunch of squirming, slimy, grains of rice.

   Maggots under his tongue, in his teeth, feasting on his dead mouth. A few fell out as he dove for the man, then that.. maggot filled rotted maw clamped down on the customer in the shoulder. 
  
The man looked confused and surprised, he turned around and saw it, punched it, panicking. It didn't care, it just barely stumbled, see I learned that in most fights when someone is punched, they fall from reacting, the flinch, the defensive maneuvers. Maybe their arms go up to protect their face or something. I had never seen something as uncanny as a man being punched, that does not comprehend what a punch is, to care about it, or its own safety.
   
   When I watched this unfold, I felt like I was in a dream. The immediate adrenaline rush of what I feared happening. A few days earlier we had been given pamphlets and training on what to do if there was an ARV situation in the store, I didn’t take it very seriously, assuming it would blow over. I hated the idea of the training actually being needed at my doorstep.
   
I heard the man cursing non stop, as he screamed “I’m dead, you know that? I’m dead!” He kept yelling at us while gagging at his maggot filled wound. The reanimate grabbed his shoulders and went for another bite, the man who was fairly muscular, punched it again, scraping his knuckles on its teeth. 
   This punch, while not stopping it, knocked some decomposition fluids out of its nose and mouth. Brown fluid with the pungent smell of rotting meat. He pushed it away with a “What the fuck.” As it shambled. 
   
The dead man lunged harder, I yelled for the man to use a chair as my coworkers came rushing. Any customers at this time, left the store running. 
 
A young new hire came and stood shocked as she shrieked and cried in fear. I took to consoling her as the general manager started signaling for the man to come behind the counter. The man used a chair to knock the dead thing down as it chewed a piece of the man’s meat. 
  
The bled profusely from the collarbone, holding it with his hand, he tried to stomp the reanimates head in, his boot bouncing off like it was a rock. Breaking its face was easy, the eye socket and nose sure. But breaking its actual skull to kill its brain? Seemed impossible to do barehanded. I didn’t realize how durable a human head truly was.
 
Finally the man rushed to us behind the counter when he gave up trying to kill it. 
   
“Here’s what we’re gonna do!” My manager said loudly. 
 
   “We’re not going to panic, we’re going to walk single file and quietly through to the back door and lock it. We are evacuating.”
 
I ended up being at the end of the line, I saw behind me the dead one crawling forward surprisingly fast, almost caught up to me. I felt a panicky jittery shakiness as I slammed and locked the half height counter door, enough to stop it. 
   
As we moved through the kitchen I panted, my arms shaking rapidly as I saw it start to crawl over sooner than I expected. All I wanted was the people in front of me to move faster, it’s just a fast food kitchen right? Well single file line to the exit felt a lot longer then it should be. 

   I told myself “don’t look back, don’t look back”. I had no idea how close it was, it could have been right behind me and I’d have no idea, too quiet to tell. So not looking behind me, made it much worse, until I embarrassingly started whimpering and letting out stressful clenched whines. I heard something rattle on the counter behind me and screamed, I pushed whoever was in front of me and it caused a chain reaction of running. 
  
If I hadn’t been so scared, I maybe would have noticed the blood that was getting smeared on every surface of this kitchen by the wounded man.
   
I made it to the door. Thank God, but I still expected to feel a rotted hand on my shoulder at any moment. My manager slammed the door behind me and locked it, and waddled over to the other doors to lock them as well. 
  
I immediately ran in a small circle while shaking my arms to get the disgusted fearful feeling off, while whining, I then got on my knees and held my hands over my head and started sobbing. I didn’t see how the others were coping aside from the wounded man who sat down on a concrete base of a parking lot light post. 
  
   I heard a barking voice from the driveway “Did you guys just fucking close? Come the fuck on what the hell.” 
 
   I just responded in between sobs “please just stop.” I couldn’t take any more stress, I heard my manager approach the car.

   “Yeah we have a late stage ARV case  in the store, have to lock it down.” 

   “Ok so what does that mean.” 

   “A reanimate is in the building sir.” 
   
“I don’t give a shit! You guys see one and close up shop, can’t handle just one. Let me in there for 5 minutes and you’ll see how to actually handle one of these. You know my son was in Boston. Yeah he survived fucking Boston he told me how to take these down you all are cowards.” 
  
   “Well the store could be contaminated and-“
   
   “Fucking cowards!” The tires burned as he drove away. 
  
My manager said under her breath “fucking hell.” And grabbed some plastic signs out of her truck. The signs notified that the location had an ARV situation and was temporarily closed. Called the police, who “disposed” of the reanimated inside, and they put us on a list for a crew of cleaners. Crime scene forensics had found new work, when New England now required very skilled cleaners and analysts, with high pay upgrade, it seemed worth it, but it was scarce. 

The wait time to have the place cleaned was up to a week, and even with the relatively low ARV situation count in my area, it didn’t show any signs of getting shorter. Deep down I knew the cases would increase before they decreased. 

By new law we couldn’t reopen until it had been cleaned and passed. 

One co-worker smoking beside me muttered as he stood up. “We’re done.” 
   
“What?” I asked, sniffling my tears away embarrassed. 
   
“You saw the way that guy stomped on it, the way he punched it, I don’t know about you, but that in there, just a minute ago, scared the shit out of me.” 
  
I nodded in agreement. 
 
   “And the kicker, that was just one.” He said nervously, laughing. 
  
   “See it won’t be one, if shit hits the fan, nah, nah it’s gonna be… fucking, th-thousands.” He said, scrambling for words, his knee bouncing. 
 
What he said made my stomach drop, it was true, thousands. Some areas already facing that, 

   In the next week, I isolated myself.  my family didn’t seem all that concerned with the happenings of the world, just kept saying “it will blow over”. We followed the stay at home advisory, aka, barely leaving the house, because cases were increasing. But I had to walk to work. 

The streets were chaotic at times, I saw a couple other reanimates, one got rammed by a car, the other was in a park, chasing people, I didn’t stop and stare, but it wasn’t hard to see that authorities were running dry, making human crimes easier to get away with. My gas station was borderline empty. And I couldn’t help but wonder what any man looking at me longer than a few seconds was thinking. I felt bad assuming the worse, but with my paranoia for how times worsened, I had to be paranoid. 
   
The next week, I didn't talk much, as I barely left the house. My family decided to quarantine. We were already supposed to, but just telling people they should, made it so we really could go out whenever, if we were stupid enough to. I was pissed that we were told a “good” reason to leave your house is to continue your job, even now, money is the goal. Even if employees die off. But oh sure, we’re protected and cared about, unless we can fill some rich asshole's pocket, so people like me have to walk to this job while zombies start sharing the street with me. 

   So I quit my job, and hunkered down. I started blaring music to cope with the anxiety, all while having a piece of me saying “it’s not that bad you're overreacting.” And parents telling me “You know you should still be making some money, wasn't right to quit.” 

   That’s the torture of it all, the uncertainty, if the world was going to end, you almost wish it would do it already so you’d stop guessing and wondering if it will happen. 

   I kept up with the news, some doctor said some ideas on a cure, and some bs like how it should all clear up in three weeks. So I stopped caring and honestly, just zoned out and listened to music while playing Minecraft. 
   
   Now, it’s time for me to face the present, as painful as it is.

   I got bit. I’ve been staring at this screen, wondering how to write it. But that’s it, a little over a week ago, I got bit. It wasn’t a big fight to hold down a fort or a big horror movie chase with a horde, no. Just an unexpected accident. 

I was in the bathroom, I left the window open stupidly, and there it was. Just reached through, grabbed my arm and bit it. Didn’t hear it walk up, didn’t know it was there. 

I thought about killing myself, right then and there. I closed the window, as I saw its teeth scratch at the glass causing a horrible shrill scrape. I looked at it, yelled at it, cussed at it. It slightly shook its head and tilted it, and it was probably a spasm, but it made me feel something, what if it was sorry for me. Sorry for what it was. 

   It looked disgusting, if you ever see pictures of really bad necrotic infections, imagine that covering a whole body. A mess of black, yellow and pink. Bulging milky eyes, no lips or nose, must have been old. 
 
The pale morning light shined on each of the ripples of its rotted skin. It looked utterly dead, something that should not be moving. It looked like a medical photo, but standing in front of you. Not monsterous, or malicious, just dead. 

   I didn’t bother calling the police or cleaners, they were either dying or too busy. It didn’t matter. 
   
But the real nightmare started when my parents came home. They didn’t seem as worried, as they should have, those fucking cowards. Traitors. 

After a lot of hugging and sobbing. My father told me “You might not turn, I heard some people don’t.” 
   
   I begged to see a doctor but they said to wait a few days to see if I get lucky or something . So I stayed in my room, waiting. Writing my goodbye letters, letters I now know I’ll never be able to send. 
   
  Now instead of avoiding it, I was addicted to scrolling the bad news on my phone, I never expected to be on the wrong side of the zombie apocalypse, if you know what I mean. But hey at least I’m leaving the world before it goes completely to shit. Well, I hope I’m truly leaving. 
 
   So the days I waited, I felt like shit. My first symptom was hunger. It started slow, but it wouldn’t go away. Didn’t matter what I ate, I felt a bit of a pit in my stomach all the time. It was panic inducing. 

   As every meal went unnoticed by my stomach, it felt more like a question of “how bad will this get.” And false hope, “maybe it will stop.” Somehow expecting to get better like a regular sickness. For the grumbling pit of hunger to stop. 

   We didn’t wait a full week to go to the hospital, because on the 5th day i woke up with my body spasming, and my nose clogged with fever, felt like my muscles were rewiring themselves.

Scariest was my jaw, clacking and biting air, convulsing. I tried to scream for my dad, I felt like I was dying, I thought I was turning. I didn’t know what I expected him to do, I just wanted help, or for him to at least be there. It’s like when you're a kid, and throw up or something, when you experience a new pain, you just instinctively go to your parents. 
 
   It was so hard to get a word out with my jaw, I screamed again, and my jaw clamped down on my tongue, biting the tip off, I shrieked and tried to hold my face in pain, and my jaw convulsions bit my fingers too, all I could do was whine and sob as this disease had its way with me.
   
The convulsions stopped, and I hugged my dad crying, my bloody fingers and mouth staining his pale green button up. I was trying to hold it all in, but I couldn’t anymore. I was dying. This was really it. I guess it was just a sick twist of fate, that I was born in this generation. 
   
A generation to experience whatever the hell this is. Even writing this now, closer to the end, when I think about my childhood, I never had a chance. 

   I think of my grainy memories, bright summer sun reflecting off a shitty wet slip and slide, running and playing with the other kids, just a little girl. We were all doomed. We were on a timer shorter than we thought, I don’t get to look back on these memories, farther out. Don’t get to tell them to my kids like my parents, no, born into the generation inheriting an ending world. I’m an adult, but they still feel too recent.

I don’t get a chance. No accomplishments, no seeing who I’ll become,  no college one night stands, no reckless fun, no milestones, no conversations with my parents about how far I’ve come since I moved out. No mistakes I get to grow from, all the flaws I don’t see now, I don’t get a chance to fix, I’ll never get to be the best version of me. No nothing. 
  
I look back now and what's my life? Had an average childhood, average school, worked a shit job until the world ended, and that’s it, now I suffer and die. 
  
All this, I cried onto my fathers shoulder, understanding that my father had years of experience I would never have the chance to equal. 

I cleaned myself up and went to the hospital, after a grueling 8 hour wait time, I got seen. In the time I waited, to prevent my spasms they gave me a white plastic bar to bite on like a horse and a tight bandage from chin to cranium keeping it tight. 

The waiting room was a hell of its own. Fights, bleeding, panicking. Others with ARV, I just spaced out the entire time. Even when I had to use the bathroom (sadly a lot, when your sick, your sick) there was blood splattered, and I barely cared. Just wiped it off with a paper towel and sat down. I guess it just doesn’t matter anymore, I’m a dead person walking anyway. The worst is here, why worry?

When I did get seen, the doctor who saw me looked dead. His eyes sunken, dark, and cold. I knew him, he was a regular at my work, I knew his coffee order by heart.
 
That man was gone. I can’t imagine the horrors he had seen in the last month, what remained was a stone cutting, thousand yard stare, and a newly developed thinning hairline and stutter.
   
The doctor humored my father, and his idea that I might not turn and recover. He assessed my state, and he said that there was no chance of recovery, and gave us advice on how to take the next week, where any day, I could turn. 

“Well. You have a few options. You going home is dangerous, are you sure as a parent, you can handle when she turns, and not get infected yourself?” 
  
My dad stared and the doctor said “we are out of infrastructure to hold ARV patients. I’m sorry.” He said nervously. 

“Can I see you alone?” My father asked the doctor, so they stepped outside. Silly them, didn't think about how thin hospital doors are. So I put my ear against it. 

“So what do you expect me to do?” My father said his voice raised. 
  
“I am so sorry that I have to have this conversation with you, believe me. You have 2 options, I could try to see if we can prevent her from turning, early.”

   “What are you implying?” 

   “We can end her pain.” 

   “Is that even legal?!”

   The doctor snapped “Quiet! I’m offering this to you, because I sympathize with you. Fuck! You think the courts know what’s best here? They don’t have an answer for your daughter's situation and no politician is doing shit for it. Lucky for people like us, they are too rich and busy to pay attention while we die. 

   If you bring her home, and kill her in a few days, does that feel any more legal to you? And would that actually be easier?!” He paused, as his voice broke. 

   “For fuck sakes! Do you think I enjoy, euthanizing a 5 year old crying, missing his entire f-f- fucking face because got eaten off by his mom? Having to give his father this choice? If I could save you and your daughter, I would kill anyone including myself, to end this disease. I would do anything. Trust me. To end the pain I see in your eyes and everyone who comes in, I would do anything. So to answer your question. Is it legal?” 

   He got closer to my father and said through his teeth “I don’t know anymore. We’re on our own.” 

   “I don’t want to kill her.” My father said after a long silence. 
   
With a sigh the doctor replied “You do realize that it is entirely possible that she will infect you and your wife, if you let her turn.” 
 
   “I’ll figure something out.” My father replied exasperated. 

   “I hope and pray that your decision is the right one. And you guys can make it. Please, show her love. You'll never get to later.” 
   
   I felt my bloodshot eyes water, but was surprised that my reaction wasn't larger, I was too exhausted, I just wanted everything over with. 

   Once the door finally opened, I already knew what I was thinking of telling my father on the ride home. 
  
The whole discharge, I felt sick, emotionally distant, like everything in my head was blurry, they gave me another rubber mouth guard, to help my jaw convulsions when they get bad, and a pill to suppress my appetite to cope with the famine, and at the door got given one of those crappy condescending “living with ARV” brochures. I always found them kinda ironic, I saw someone who posted a picture of theirs with a darkly humorous caption “well I ain’t gonna be living with it for long” that made me chuckle seeing mine. 

I drifted through the parking lot to the car, all a blur. Before I could change my mind, once my father closed his door. I spoke up, barely realized I said it out loud. “I want to die.” 

Because you're reading this, you’ve realized that my wishes were not followed. I’d rather not explain every detail of the family fight that ensued. But for the summarization. They want to keep me reanimated, locked in the spare bathroom, until they have a cure. as if you can just cure me, when I’m a rotten corpse. Would I even want to return in that state? If there was a cure it would only work before your turn, but they don’t get that.

   Once they told me the plan, my stomach and heart sank, I was immediately hit with a “this can’t be happening” panic. The idea of being held hostage, the last freedom I had taken away. 

   I tried to shoot myself, before they decided to lock me away. Opened the closet, and reached to the top shelf, but they heard it, put a stop to that. My mother was less empathetic. Saying I was overreacting. In her mind everything would magically work out. 
   
They yelled “What are you thinking?” “How could you do that to us” 
  
I broke down, screaming at them, pleading for them to let me die. I can’t believe this is happening, I can’t stomach the thought of being one of those silent things.
   
So they cleaned out the spare bathroom of any danger I could inflict on myself, and locked me inside. I try to forgive them, but I hate them for this. I guess I could drown myself in the toilet or bath tub but, I’m too weak for that. Every time my lungs start hurting I immediately jolt out. 

   My fever has become something truly unholy, but I have no comfort, I don’t even have a blanket, I just have to sit here. In my sickness. 

I’ve been here for two days, and I don’t know how much longer I have. My hunger is unquenchable, I’m sick as a dog, I have days left, maybe hours. From what I’ve heard, not everyone gets this sick before they die, guess I just have a weak immune system, another “fuck you” the universe gave me. 

   I've been watching the news a lot on this laptop. I saw some street footage from a helicopter, waves and waves of corpses, a big fog cloud following them, apparently that’s something from decomposition gasses or something. I guess what we never realized was even in small towns and cities. Even a small population, if it escalates, a small town with maybe one thousand people, if one thousand turn… Even one thousand reanimates is more than we can handle… I can't imagine what Boston was like. 

I was watching the sunrise my first day in this bathroom, one of those nice super foggy Maine mornings. Until I saw something faintly moving in the fog, a reanimate. Creeped myself thinking, how do I know it’s one? So foggy and they are so quiet, there could be a hundred and I wouldn't know. When the fog cleared whatever reanimate I saw was already gone. 

   New England is not looking good, I doubt my family will make it, this quarantine is making them sitting ducks if anything. As the restrictions rise, what will they do if there’s a horde here? It only takes like three to bring a door down anyway, sometimes just one if it gets lucky. 

I can’t find words, that will accurately explain how dreadful I feel physically and mentally. I hope that reanimating will put me out of my misery, maybe I won’t be conscious? That’s what the CDC said, right? Brain dead, thoughts can’t form in a corpse's brain. But, we also said the dead walking was scientifically impossible, so who knows. 

   So getting down to the wire I am having my doubts. Let’s face it, we have no way of really knowing. What If the accounts of corpses crying, isn’t false information. Back when it was just a sickness, they said reanimation was a conspiracy theory so why trust here. What if I’m stuck here for longer than I thought I’d be. What if reanimating isn’t freedom. 

   You know, I always wanted to be a writer. If this ever gets found, I guess it will be my only known work, cruel joke. 
   
   If you are reading this. And are in my area, please, I beg of you. If you haven’t already, find me and kill me. My hospital armband has my patient number 41 on pink tape. And to anyone who read this far, thank you. This is the last anyone will hear of me. 

   My, Wendy Vigue’s last words: don’t take anything for granted, there will come a time where you would kill to be back in the times you complain of.