The Day I Died (Rough Draft)

     I woke up this morning with my heart pounding through my chest to the cadence of the throbbing in my head.  My stomach slowly tossed and turned, as if it weren’t entirely sure whether or not it was going to send back the alcohol it received the night before.  My symptoms, no doubt, are from a night full of drinking and listening to my roommate, Nathan, explain to me how and when the zombie apocalypse was going to happen.

     “Dude, it all starts out in a hospital because the infected guy tries to figure out why he’s sick.  And before you know it, everyone’s dead.  Did you hear me Xavier?”
     I did hear him, but I wasn’t listening.  Nathan’s cheese slid off his cracker a long time ago and he’s become somewhat of a conspiracy theorist as well as many other silly quirks.  I didn’t buy into any of that zombie hype nor did I believe it could ever be possible.  That stuff only happens in movies and books.

     Despite my body aching from my hangover, I got out of bed and prepared myself for another day at work.  I’m a janitor at the local hospital located downtown in what I consider to be the most beautiful part of this great city, Shadow Falls.  I also work part time at a gas station along with being a full time student.  At the age of thirty eight I decided to head back to school.  I just couldn’t figure out where my life went so wrong or why a grown man was scrubbing toilets and selling cheap cigarettes for a career instead of living his dream.

     The fresh crisp air and the smell of the morning dew gave my body something fresh to soak in as I stepped out the front door.  My stomach took it as a compliment and slowly started to settle.  I sipped my morning coffee as I stumbled towards my 1985 Chevy Camaro and got in for my daily routine.  My life has been so busy the past ten years that my routine never really changed.  Wake up at seven in the morning, skip breakfast, drink the warm piss Nathan calls coffee, get into the car I have owned for the last twenty years, work twelve hours cleaning up vomit and shit in the emergency room, head over to the gas station to sell cancer and gas to everyone, go home to get drunk and pass out.  I never have time for the little things anymore.

     The park across the street from the hospital caught my eye as I pulled into the parking lot.  This park epitomizes the beauty of this peaceful community.  The beautiful flowers sprouting up everywhere, the golden colored leaves hanging from the trees, and the plush green grass made this place feel like heaven on earth.  Some of the best times of my life were spent walking over to this park and just sitting on the bench doing nothing.  It was the most relaxed I’ve ever been in my life.

     My thoughts wandered off elsewhere as I entered the emergency room to see four doctors pinning a patient down into his bed.  The man was snarling at everyone while he tried to break free from the grasp of the doctors.  His skin tone was gray and his eyes were bloodshot with rage.  His yellowish brown teeth protruded from his mouth as he lashed out and bit Dr. Stevens in the neck.

     I stood frozen for a few moments as other doctors and nurses rushed to the aid of Dr. Stevens. I then watched in horror, as the patient broke free and sprinted right towards me.  The thudding in my heart was beating faster to the cadence in my head, which sped up, from all of this chaos.  I only managed to get ten feet away from the rabid looking man before I was tackled onto my face.  I felt the flesh on my shoulder being torn into through my uniform and the warm trickle of blood that flowed from the wound.  I wasn’t sure what was going on, but someone had finally removed this bastard off me.  Darkness filled my vision.

     My eyes fluttered open to the light glow of the emergency exit lights.  I was still in the emergency room and it seemed no one bothered to help me.  My body felt weak and I could no longer feel the pulse of my heart radiating through my body.  The sights around me were horrific.  The emergency room was slathered in blood and pieces of what I could only assume were human flesh and guts.  There were bodies lying all over the floor; the bodies of the doctors who tried to hold the rabid patient down as well as many others.  I stumbled back towards the door.  I had to leave and find help, but as I stepped outside I realized that I had been unconscious for quite awhile.  The power was out in the city and the only light was that from the fire that was burning half of the park down.  Melancholy was draped over the night sky and I witnessed other injured people sulking along the streets and through the park, but they looked rabid like the man who bit me.  The park literally looked like hell on earth. 

     My breath began to get shallow and my body felt weaker.  I marched over to the nearest bench in the park and sat down.  Suddenly, despite the aching pain in my back, I felt relaxed.  I didn’t care that I was a thirty-eight-year-old janitor dying on a park bench.  I didn’t care that my breath was getting shallow and that the dirty rabid people had started creeping towards me.  I didn’t care that Nathan’s ludicrous prediction was insanely correct.  The only thing I cared about was how relaxed I felt at last.