SO. I know I haven't writen anything in actual YEARS, but I was trying out this new story and I don't really know if I should continue it. I'm putting it up here to get a little help. I might turn this into a longer story/book, but I'm not sure yet and would really love some input.
Tim Inman rose with the stiff joints of someone past dead, and cracked his knuckles; a habit that, although didn't have the same relief as before, held comfort in its simple regularity. The day had been hot, and he was peeling again. Nervously, Tim smoothed down the skin on his forearm that had slid up during the night. Summer days were the worst when it came to decomposition. He could always hear the flies buzzing at his skin, but he could never feel them. He knew he should feel the familiar annoyance of tiny hairy legs on his skin, but the flies that buzzed and the maggots that burrowed did nothing to faze him. He was unfeeling to the world, and it was a scary thought. To think that he could no longer feel the gentle caress of the warmth of a campfire late at night, or the oozing of mud between his bare toes after a hard rain. Tim could no longer feel anything but the emotions that coursed through his body at an alarming rate. He couldn't remember much about his life before the change. He could remember the important things, like his mother, his first, undying love, his first house, the birth of his twins, telling his children to run with their mother when he was bitten, and then he could remember nothing. There was a giant hole in his head that he knew held great significance. What he remembered most of all though was the change.
That first excruciating week that changed his life, or rather his second life, for the worse. What he grew to know about the change came in snippets. Delicious screams of people covered in their life's blood, the sweet, ravaging taste of the liquid thick on his tongue, the feeling of a stomach full of fresh meat. It was frightening to think of how much he enjoyed, and still enjoyed the feeling of that last spurt of blood before the heart gave out. It might have scared him, but what scared him most of all was the urge to sink his teeth once again into unmarked flesh. He knew that he wanted them to scream while he ripped their innards from their vulnerable bellies, and he knew that once he stopped, it would be mere minutes until he would revert back to his state of visceral hunger. It was a constant battle with the monsters inside of his body, and Tim ached for even a shred of normalcy.
Standing up, Tim felt the pull once again to go searching for answers. Ever since the first day of waking up with full consciousness, Tim had felt the unexplainable need to move, to keep looking for more clues as to how his life started, ended, and everything in-between. He was stuck though. He couldn't go out during the day for fear of further decomposition, so that left him with little time to explore. So far, finding nothing other than piles of bodies, he hadn't had any luck, but maybe today would change things.
It was around 8:00 at night, so Tim knew he would be able to go at least to the abandoned farm down the road without risk of daylight roasting his body further. Starting on a different road, Tim stumbled as fast as his broken leg would let him. He didn't feel it of course, but it had been snapped backwards sometime during his feral state, and now was essentially just a stump for him to hobble around on. He hated his leg, and often considered cutting it off, but with his hands in the mangled state they were in, he couldn't even hold a saw, let alone use it. Tim's body was in the most abhorrent of conditions. The sound his leg made as it scraped along the ground frightened Inman, the way his skin kept sagging, almost like a shirt that's too big, the way his eyesight was slowly but surely fading were all ways that made him wary of just how fragile he was becoming. Needing to get to the answers in his head, he picked up the pace, and shambled along the cracked and sun bleached road, and as he did so, he came upon a small and empty looking town.
Tim could see that the windows had been boarded up, the shutters drawn, and all the doors had been shut tight. To an outsider, it might look deserted, but he knew better. He didn't know how, but he knew that there was something waiting for him there. He felt as though he was getting closer and closer to the one thing missing from his memory. He could almost taste it, and it was good.
Suddenly, the house to his right rumbled and shook as armed soldiers ran out. They pointed their guns at Tim, and he felt himself sink to the ground. For the first time in a long time, Tim felt something even more potent than longing, he felt fear, and then he felt grief. He felt the deepest chasm of grief open up inside of his non-beating heart, and he fell to the ground in defeat.
Tim remembered what his brain had been so desperately trying to block out. Tim remembered what happened the night he was bitten.
"Go Wendy, take the girls, and go before I change. You know what's happening. It's only a matter of minutes bef-" Tim's voice was cut off at a terrible tremor wracked through his body, completely immobilizing him. His last thought before surrendering to the pulsing blackness that surrounded him was of his wife, and her beautiful honey blonde hair. And just like that, he was gone, and just like that, he was back again, and now he was hungry.
Nobody had noticed that Tim had woken up, and Tim took full advantage of that, creeping up on one of the twins, he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the ground. He feasted on her supple flesh, and when she was dead, he feasted again, and again. He could remember the sounds of his children as they screamed, and could clearly see their faces as they drew their last breaths. He didn't save them, he killed them. He killed them, and he enjoyed every single minute of it.
He looked up and took a last look at the world around him. He saw the trees, the grass, the people he never had a chance to know, but none of it mattered anymore. Tim Inman was done. He looked up at the soldier above him, and searched in his eyes one last time, and with a strained and hoarse whisper, Tim Inman let his fear, and pain, and agony fill him up, and wash over him as he uttered his last words.
"Kill me."