The assignment for last week was to write something inspired by one of Amanda's previous assignments. So, I wrote a sequel to her story for assignment 3 – with my own special twist.
I make my way to the front of the church. Some idiot had actually chosen an open casket for this ? Seriously ? Because looking at corpses always brightens up everyone's day right ? Fucking idiots. I look down at the former habitation of my soul, which is now standing angrily at my own funeral. There's some sort of flicker to it, I can't describe it. It's like, looking at your own house – you know where the window is that doesn't shut properly. There's something that says "I can get back inside."
He walks up to me. Still the silence, but he is shaking his head vigorously. He knows what I saw and he is telling me not to. Well screw him, screw all these people. I lean down and bring the face of my soul to the face of my body… and touch lips to lips. It's like being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, and then I'm inside… my eyes pop open and I'm looking at the ceiling from my cold body. I can feel a certain unfamiliarity though – the stuffing and embalming left it's mark, and the smell hits my senses. Let's just say Calvin Klein won't be bringing out "Embalming Fluid 1" cologne any time soon.
Of course all the movies and media have been full of stories of zombies and vampires and the like for years, but I know the true name of those who rise from the dead… revenant. That's me. I revenant. I shamble therefore I am. I reach my hands up, grip the sides of the coffin and say "Boo !"… at least, that's what I try to say, what comes out is more a sort of ghastly groan. Apparently my vocal cords don't work very well… and it seems I am not entirely in control of my reanimated body, my arms struggle to remain upright and as the church erupts in screams of shock, surprise and fear I managed to shuffled all the way out of the coffin, but I'm clumsy and it clatters to the ground beside me.
Without my willing it, my legs shuffle towards the nearest person, I vaguely remember her as a colleague I never much liked. I try to pull back, but my body is not listening. I try to speak but all I that happens is more groans and growls. Is this what it's like for the zombies in the movies ? Fully conscious inside a prison body that does whatever it wants ? Is this the reward for the revenant who returns ? A body you reanimate, re-enter, and then cannot control ? My arms reach out and grab her as she struggles into the mass of people, pull her closer, and my jaws open and then my teeth sink into her arm – not stopping their motion until they clench into the bone and my head jerks back and I rip a giant chunk of bicep off her and swallow it as blood sprays all around me.
Fucking hell ! I want to throw up, and if the embalmers hadn't removed my stomach I suspect I may have, but the body in which I'm trapped swallows down the chunk of human flesh with every sign of enjoyment. My spirit is nauseous but the brain it's attached to is filled with the same glee I used to get out of biting into a really good cheeseburger. I revenant… okay, so maybe this wasn't the best idea I ever had.
I hadn't let go of her, the crowd is still running for the doors, she is struggling to try and pull away from me but apparently my new grip is rather strong. Maybe I got some sort of mobile rigor mortis. Either way her attempts to pull free of my grasp is about as effective as a mouse trying to break free of a mousetrap. Again my head plunges down and I yank out another chunk of flesh, this time from her neck. As the major artery gets ripped blood sprays up under high pressure painting a crysanthemum on the ceiling of the church and falling on me like a red shower.
On the upside, at least she bleeds out fast now, and the screaming stop. Revolted as I am, I cannot convince my body to stop. I am just a passenger in it, something else, something more primal is the conductor of this railway now. It keeps eating until all that remains is bones – picked clean. Then it shambles out toward the door, I can sense it's hunger… something tells me that this hunger will never be stilled no matter how much I eat. I find myself wondering if the bite is really contagious, if I bite somebody now and they get away without being eaten all up… will they turn into something like me ? Will they find themselves trapped in a canibalistic, undead body shambling about on an unending quest to feed an eternal hunger ?
Is this the zombie apocalypse ? Am I patient zero ? Oh well, I never did like the world very much. At least I'll get to watch it end. Or maybe I'm the only one, and sooner or later somebody is going to blow my brains to bits. Would that stop my body ? Or would they need to cut of my whole head ? Or throw a grenade and blast all of me into a pulpy, splattered mess all over the walls ?
I wish I could have some control at least, I could make sure all the idiots I hate got eaten first, especially that penguin who led the ceremony. That would be poetic justice in my book. But my body is as oblivious to the commands I try to send it as a 3-year old to kid to the finer details of class-action tort law. Fuck me sideways… actually, come to think of it, the body doesn't seem to have any great desire for getting fucked and even if it did I may not be able to ever again anyway. I mean we all know men will fuck practically anything with a hole in it but somehow I imagine that trying to digest them during the act is probably likely to cause a mild case of erectile dysfunction in even the most desperate guy. Pity I'm not a preying mantis. They don't lose out on getting laid just because of an insatiable cannibal urge.
My body trips over a fallen …something… and lies face down in the sun for a while.