Chapter Nine
I wake up.
I was actually… asleep? Yes… yes, I definitely think that was an awakening. I feel tired, the kind of tired that comes upon waking up. I don't want to open my eyes; I want to continue lying here, but there are things I want to know. Where am I? How did I fall asleep? I open my eyes. I am still under the bed. I almost move myself out, but then I remember: there were people in my house, people with guns, people who would have killed me. Or, wait – did they? I am still alive, right? I faintly remember one spotting me. What happened after that? It's all a blur. I decide to wait a moment, and listen to see if the intruders are still here.
I come to the conclusion they are not. The house is as quiet as a thought. I'm not taking any chances, however. Silently, I slide out from under the bed. The sun is shining brightly through my window, illuminating all the airborne dust that for some reason always loved to gather in my room. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the light. The bedroom door is ajar. Upon noticing this, I immediately shrink to the wall and inch my way towards the door. When I reach it, I peek out into the rest of the house. It's empty. I breathe a massive sigh of relief. Who on Earth were those people? Just random people out killing infected? They were moving from house to house; perhaps they were military? Is that their answer to the infection problem? Mass extermination? Not sure I subscribe to that idea. Well regardless, I imagine they think I'm dead, so I should be safe… for the time being at least. I stretch my limbs out of their sleep-induced rust. It feels fantastic. I walk to the kitchen with a yawn. Then, I notice it. A feeling I had almost forgotten, though now is unmistakably recognizable, creeps into me.
I'm hungry. Not just a little hungry, either. I am really freaking hungry. My stomach is empty, and lets out a dissatisfied grumble. I managed to sleep, and now I'm hungry? What is this? I mean, this is a good thing, but… how? Why now? I open the pantry. A giant box of Frosted Flakes greets me. There's no milk, but hell if I care. I pour myself a bowl and devour it in no time. I can't use a spoon, but that doesn't bother me. It even tastes kind of good, though not as I remember it. Two bowls later, and I'm stuffed. My mind recognizes this as a familiar thing that had been lost: eating food to replenish strength. Having my energy come from an unknown source as if by magic, though perhaps physically convenient, was mentally nerve-racking.
That thought gets me thinking. At the time I took it for granted, not needing food or sleep to function. I told myself I had bigger problems to deal with, which was true. Now however… now, I have reason to let it really bug me. I suppose to first know why I've lost this ability, I'd need to know why I had it in the first place. I give up the hunt for knowledge there. I might as well make guesses as to the nature of the plague itself if I'm to figure that out. This disease has done more supernatural things to me that simply give me free energy for… how long as it been now?
I yawn again. It sounds weird. I guess I'm still not used to the change in my voice. I'm still not used to having red glowy eyes that provide nightvision, either. And I doubt I'll ever get used to having Freddy Krueger fingers. The walls of my house are filled with scratch marks from me either misjudging distance or just getting bored. It looks like the stereotypical insane asylum in a horror flick.
Wow, I need to get movies off my mind. I'm not going to be able to watch them anytime soon, if ever again. I sigh. I wish I could go for a walk. Not going outside, though. Fuck that. Especially not with people out there still alive and hunting infected. If that bowl of Frosted Flakes makes me have to go, I'll poo in a plastic bag and throw it out the goddamned window, I'm not going outside, and that's that.
And that's a gross thought I'd rather not think about if I can help it. I creep to the living room window. Carefully, I look out into the street. It's empty as a ghost town. Good. I fall into the sofa with a copy of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. There were older books I'd rather have read, but I'm too afraid I'll accidentally rip to shreds any book I try to pick up and read, so I stick with the newer, less fragile ones for now. I'd always meant to read this trilogy sometime; the books had been sitting on my sister's bookshelf for years. All I can remember about it is it pissed off a lot of Christians. Something about killing God. Didn't we already do that a while ago? Nietzsche? Whatever.
Six days later I finish the trilogy. That was not the ending I needed. Oh well. I've got bigger problems. Namely, the diminishing store of food in the pantry. Of course my mother had to have cleaned out the pantry for the first time since Clinton was in office just a couple months ago. I imagine there was still some stuff good to eat in what she threw away. Thankfully she always stocked up on bottled water. I used to always patronize her for it, saying it's a waste of money when Louisville has some of the tastiest tap water in the country (and then I'd quote some stupid statistic I read off Wikipedia). Sorry about that, Mom. I've started to rediscover tastes in the past week. The Frosted Flakes have been the best tasting thing so far. Cheez-Its were gross. Uncooked ramen tasted as featureless as always. I found some bread untouched by mold, a couple muffins wrapped in foil, but they tasted terrible, like a bad case of dry morning breath.
I'm feeling better now than I was a week ago though, that's for certain. Sleeping normally again is doing wonders for me psychologically. I feel more energetic, and I'm not nearly as depressed as I was before. Actually, I'm not really depressed at all. The leaves on the trees in my backyard are mostly orange and yellow now. Plant life seems to be fighting back for domain over the Earth at a harder rate than before. That's a nice, if eerie thought, seeing all of this as a kind of reset button for the flow of life on the planet. That's of course assuming this will affect the entire planet. I mean, yeah – it will, but humanity will survive. We're hardy as cockroaches, of course we will. I wonder how this will be remembered in the history books. I wonder what name they'll give it. "The Maddening Plague", or something like that? The infection certainly is the physical aspect of it, but I wonder how it will change human thought. Whatever nations of people survive, they will have bunkered down and shut themselves out from the world. The gradual dissolving of borders that the globalization of the past fifty years or so caused will be- no, scratch that- it certainly already has been undone by this catastrophe.
All this hypothesizing is making me hungry. An ice-cream sandwich would be amazing. I always sigh when I find myself wanting something I won't be able to have thanks to all of this, but I don't dwell on it anymore. I've pretty much come to terms with the inescapable sacrifice of past luxuries. Food, at a primal level, is still a necessity, though. Damn, what am I going to do? Though I hate to tell myself, I hate to even think the idea in my head, I'm slowly accepting the frightening truth.
I'm going to have to leave the house. Staying cooped up in here for the rest of my life might have worked (you know, ignoring that I would certainly go insane eventually), until I suddenly lost the ability to go without eating. This sounds silly saying out loud, considering the situation of the world around me, but I need to make a run to Kroger. Sugary foods stay good nearly forever, as long as they don't get wet, if I recall correctly. Anything sealed like canned drinks should be good as well.
I guess I really don't have a choice in the matter, do I then? I shouldn't be doing this. Something's probably going to happen again, like it did last time, and I'm either going to spiral back into depression or get myself killed. Damnit, I really don't want either of those. But I have to go. No choice. I don't know what's propelling me, what's making this such an easy decision to make when not even two weeks ago I told myself with absolute assurance I would never set foot outside this house again. Is it courage? Or perhaps a lack of caring for what happens to myself? Was I just blowing hot air out my ass when I said all that stuff back then?
Hell if I know. I put on the oversized black hoodie, and get my ratty old backpack, throwing in it a bunch of plastic bags we kept in the bottom of the pantry to eventually return to the grocery store for recycling. I grab one of the rifles I picked up, and stuff a small bit of ammo in my pocket, just in case. Sticking my elongated index finger into the trigger hole is awkward, like sticking a needle through cloth, but I eventually get it down. I don't bring anything else. I figure I'll need to be able to carry back home as much food as I can. With a thousand butterflies in my stomach, I open up the back door and step outside.
