No Zombies After Eight

I open my eyes and find myself lying face first on a sidewalk. It’s dark outside and the chilly January breeze forces my body into a shiver. I’m not too sure where I am or how I got here, but I’m scared. I look up into the night sky and notice all of the tall buildings towering above me. I’m in a downtown area, but what city? It could be downtown Denver considering that’s where I live, but I don’t see anything familiar so I cannot be too sure. I manage to stand up to get a better view of my eerie surrounding. How come there aren’t any streetlights on? All of these tall buildings are dark as well as if they were completely derelict.

Fear begins to trickle through my veins as I peer around the street. It’s completely empty. There aren’t any cars driving around nor are there any people stumbling home. The scariest thing is the silence. There isn’t a sound to be heard other than the slight hum of the breeze. Even at night, cities glow in the dark, have a spark of life, and the ambience is always present. How come this city doesn’t have that? Down the street, something catches my eye. From here it looks like a bump in the road, but maybe it’s an object or a person. I walk towards it, realizing as I near it that it is indeed another person. I think it’s a guy but I cannot really tell for sure considering my poor night vision.

“Hello?”

Nothing. I continue to walk towards this person who is lying on the ground the same way I was just moments ago. What the hell is going on? I’m not entirely sure what’s happening and to top it off, I can’t even remember what I was doing before I woke up on the street. Maybe I have amnesia. No, I know exactly who I am, who I’m married to, what I do for a living.  I am now ten feet from this person and I cannot tell if he is breathing or not. He’s just laying there, face first in the street.

 “Hey, wake up man.”

He stirs, shifting his head from his right cheek to his left so he could see who is talking to him. I can tell for sure that he is definitely male. I’m close enough to make out specific features. He’s wearing a brown suit that somehow got extremely dirty. His hair is cut into a high and tight, the same type of haircut I used to get. By first sight I would say this guy is at least two hundred pounds and it looks like he is a businessman. As I get a closer look I realize that the dirt on his suit is actually blood, and there is a lot of it.

“Dude are you alright?”

His stare meets mine and I become paralyzed. The man is very discolored and his eyes, oh my god his eyes are white and lifeless. It looks like he could be blind and I would normally believe that if this guy wasn’t making perfect eye contact with me. He can see, that much is for sure. He stands up and begins to snarl at me with razor sharp teeth.

“Holy shit!” I am a nerd. I play zombie games, watch zombie movies; hell I’ve even read zombie books. I’m educated enough on the subject to know that this guy is acting like a dead man who has come back to life, mostly because his arms are outstretched and trying to grasp me. It’s like he came straight from the movies and into my nightmares. Wait, that’s it. This is a nightmare; I’m asleep in my bed hidden within the safety of my house. All I have to do is pinch myself and I’ll wake up. I begin backing away from the man as I reach up with my right hand and pinch the skin underneath my left arm. I pinch it hard and it hurts like hell. Man that hurts! But how come I’m not waking up? This is a dream right? I mean it has to be. But I pinched myself and I didn’t wake up. I thought that’s what people do in order to shake themselves awake when they realize they’re dreaming.

The man takes his first few steps towards me, dragging the top of his feet on the concrete. His snarling is getting louder. My fear is becoming uncontrollable as my body begins to tremble. I begin to breath heavier as I continue to walk backwards. I finally break my gaze from this zombie/man and turn to run but as I do I realize that another one is right behind me, so close that he could grab me. I duck out of his reach and run back the way I had come from. I get a hundred yards down the street and round a corner where hundreds of zombies are lazily loitering. Apparently they have crazy nighthawk vision and senses because they all look at me simultaneously and immediately jump into the pursuit.

Instead of trying to run through them, I continue in the direction I was originally going until I find a small building with its front doors wide open. I run inside and shut the doors behind me. There doesn’t appear to be a lock on it so I just back up away from it, hoping my pursuers didn’t see where I went. As I did that I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard that same snarl that came out of the first man I came across. I reach up and violently push the hand off of me. I turn to face my attacker and trip over a fallen chair in the process. The undead woman falls on top of me, making chomping attempts at my throat. Instinctively my hands shoot up and push her face out of my way. As I do that I use my legs to force her off of me.

I continue to scoot backwards on my ass away from her as she crawls towards me on her hands and knees. I have to stop this chick because she will be relentless in her attempts to eat me. I stand up and pick up the nearest chair. I lift it above my head and bring it down on top of hers. This momentarily incapacitates her, giving me enough time to raise the chair again for another blow. I do this four more times before one of the legs on the chair breaks off. The woman isn’t moving anymore, but because I am a zombie fanatic I know I have to make sure she is really dead. I pick up the broken chair leg and use the sharp end to repeatedly stab the zombie in its head.

After I was sure it was completed I peer out the window and to my relief there isn’t anything waiting for me. I sit down in a booth and realize that I’m in a diner. My heart is racing. I’ve never felt fear like this in my life. That’s when I realize that I urinated all over myself. My body is still shaking and I begin to cry. I only get two sobs in before the window next to the booth smashes in and a lifeless hand wraps itself across my throat.

My eyes open, for real this time. I’m at home in my bed, covered in sweat and panting like I just finished a marathon. Daylight is streaming through the curtains and the sound of cartoons is coming from the television in the loft. I’m still petrified for a brief moment as I realize that I am safe. My first order of business is to make sure that I didn’t pee the bed. All dry, thank God. I thought I learned my lesson last time damnit. No more. I can’t play anymore freaking zombie video games after eight.