Chapter Two - We're all dead

I’m Jide Dairo… and I am dead. Literally speaking, I am dead. My heart had stopped and blood had stopped flowing in my veins, yet I was still conscious of my environment. I was alive in mind, but dead in body- I had my memories, I had dreams, I knew people but I was dead, we could be called undead, because we were dead, yet alive.

There were others who were raving flesh eating zombies that thrived on human flesh. They were not like us, unlike us they had lost every fibre of their human consciousness; they had no knowledge of themselves and only had one basic need- to eat flesh.  They moved in packs uncoordinated with usually skewed postures. They were animalistic and gaunt, debased beasts of a dead earth.

Since the earth died in 2012, everybody else died with it. Nobody understood what happened, everything just died, Humans, Animals, Trees… everything. The earth became dark and sullen, no beauty, just gloom. The skies were red, the oceans were filled with black water, and every living creature had become creatures of death. The air was filled with dust. No TV, No entertainment, just pure raw survival.

The undead walked the earth, morose, hardened, and without life, and joy. Who would be happy in such darkness, we had lost hunger for food; even the need to sleep evaded us. I still wondered why our bodies didn’t decay since we were dead- some say we still had our souls, and that was what gave us our only hold on humanity.

On the other hand, the flesh eaters crawled the earth like parasites looking for flesh, hungry, decayed, soulless, in hordes, hungry and angry. The beasts and crawling animals had also become flesh hungry creatures of death, roaming, searching for flesh, searching for us. We were the only available flesh, dead vestiges of what was once the human race. We were pale and bloodless- no heart beats, dark eyes, dark hearts, dark hopes- but we were good enough meat for the flesh eaters.

We still used technology, GPRS, Phones, Satellite imagery, Guns, basically for two things- Communication, and defence. We daily had to fight off hordes of flesh eaters, but sometimes we had to defend ourselves from our own kind. Greedy warlords who wanted to take over neighbouring settlements, Pirates, thieves who would pillage whole settlements and exchange the spoils at the black markets. Since money had lost all its value we operated a trade by batter system, weapons for electronics, supplies for gas, one thing in exchange for another. There was no money, no banks, no economies, just the undead; trying to survive each day…there was no known living human; they were all dead.

Some of us had hope in Mankind; we believed we could recover what was lost. There were research units worldwide trying to find out what had happened, progressives as we called ourselves who still believed in life, who dedicated their time and resources to finding a way out, we all worked day and night on finding how we could get the human race back to its former state. We believed there was a cure, and we would find it. If the earth died, then it can live again. If we could find the reason for what happened, then we could find a cure, and if we could find a cure, then we could cure the earth and cure the human race.

The research units regularly communicated findings to subscribers, those that were concerned with the progress of the ongoing work, through our receivers- small portable VDUs that we carried around. Most of us had lost hope but some of us still believed there was a cure. If the earth had died, then by a glimmer of hope, it could come back to life. If God had forsaken the human race then he could give us another chance at living. In spite of several efforts to rejuvenate the earth, from manufacturing Oxygen and pumping it into the atmosphere, to sucking the mass amounts of Carbon compounds that now filled the atmosphere, the earth still remained as it was. It was as if the earth wanted to remain dead. The human race had harmed it well enough, though the cause of this sudden pause of all life still couldn’t be traced to anything in particular.

The second thing we used technology for was for defence. We were dead but we still had our faculties. There was a war constantly going on, a war for survival, or to stay in one piece. There were the zombies that had all traces of humanity sucked out of them, nobody was sure why some of us still had our humanity inside, and others had turned into Beasts with no vestige of humanity and only an insatiable hunger for anything with flesh. Some say their souls had been damned to eternal torment and the only thing that kept them undead was that single quest for flesh.  While we still for reasons unknown even to us still maintained our human form, they had turned into raving beasts with deformed and decayed bodies.

Though animals died in their thousands, some stayed undead and were transformed into flesh eating beasts. No where was safe, and our guns were our best friends- they kept us alive. The option was to get torn into tiny bits by ravaging beasts- some former humans, some former animals; all of them now flesh eating mutilated fiends. The bad thing was all kinds of animals were now undead- former insects, rodents, birds were all flesh eating beasts. We had invented all sorts of weapons to fight off these kinds of flesh eaters. We couldn’t use guns for insects, but we had laser guns, electromagnetic guns that could take care of the tiny beasts. I remember an incident that had happened previous months before, a swarm of ravaging Locusts had stormed into an undead settlement. They had guns but the insects were just too small- they were all eaten… to the tiniest bit. The insects ate every single bit of undead humans they came across.

It was an insane world we were living in, a world no one could have comprehended when everything was normal. We had to stay alive- though we were undead. We had to fight, until a cure was found, and the earth could live again. That was our only hope- I believed and so many others did.

We had created a camp in Surulere, Lagos. We built an electromagnetic fence around the settlement to protect us from the flesh eating insects. Rodents managed to get in sometimes usually digging underground. But we were able to deal with them, we didn’t have to leave the camp, because there was no reason to- we didn’t have to eat, or go out. We just had to wait- for life, for death, for immortality, nobody exactly knew what they were waiting for or how long the waiting would last.

People hardly talked, they only took orders when necessary since I was the camp lead- sometimes I wondered why they did, did they believe in me or they just wanted activity to make them feel alive… I wondered. Sometimes I wondered what dead people chat about- their past lives, their pain from losing countless loved ones- they instead just moved around in silence, consumed in their own individual gloom, consumed in their own sadness, consumed by their own death. The only thing that kept us from tearing each other to pieces was the little hope we had in living again, and for some it was the fact that they would rather be closer to human than be like the flesh eating beasts that roamed the streets. We would live again, that was the belief that kept some of us alive…the belief that we would one day live again.

Z

It was totally insane. Everybody was sick. The experience with the girl had kept her shaken through out the night. Nobody said anything in the car until they got to school. There were sick people everywhere. It was just crazy. Cars were parked everywhere even that late at night. Something strange was happening but she still didn’t understand what was happening. Even Lola didn’t utter a word.

A particular sight on third mainland bridge was disturbing. Three cars had rammed into each other. Two of the bodies had shot out of the cars and lied corrugated on the ground. Nobody paid attention to the dead bodies, she also only just took a glance and drove by, everyone was in utter shock.

Was it the end of the world, Nneka asked herself? Had the rapture taken place? Had she been left behind? The thought of it scared her to her spines. She could feel the gloom in the atmosphere- it spilled out of the car and rushed into the car like the wind. She felt gloom crawl all over her skin, she felt its taste in her mouth, and it was bitter. She didn’t like the taste of what was going on.

When they got to School, the School gate was wide opened. No single person was at the gate, even the security guards were missing. It was late, about 2:00 am, and the gate ought to have been locked. What they usually did was tip the security to let them in. This time the gate was wide open, and there was nobody at the Security post.

They got to the hostel, and it was total chaos. Everybody looked sick. Nneka looked at Lola and she was beginning to look sick herself. Her face had turned pale, and her lips had become chapped. Some girls were in the toilet vomiting, some were checking the mirror. It was total chaos. In the common room, girls surrounded the TV. The caption on the TV screen read- BREAKING NEWS: WORLDWIDE EPIDEMIC. Even the reporter looked sick.

There’s yet to be an explanation for what is happening. Nobody can still explain what looks like the most widespread epidemic in the history of mankind.

Images of people storming hospitals in their hundreds filled the screen. India, USA, South Africa, England, Iraq, screen shots from one country to the other flashed, all with the same gloomy theme.

Nneka couldn’t think properly.

‘Nneka!’ Lola screamed.

Lola had blood streaming down her nose. Her eyes had become red.

‘I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding from my nose!!’ Lola had gone hysterical. ‘Nneka what’s happening? What do I do?’ She ran towards one of the bathrooms, which already had several girls at the entrance struggling to get in.

‘I don’t know.’ Nneka ran after Lola who was struggling to get in through the myriad of girls that had formed a blockade at the bathroom entrance. There was no way they could get in through the crowd. Nneka pulled Lola and they dashed for the next bathroom, and met the same chaos at the entrance.

‘Let’s get to the room, and clean you up first,’ Nneka led Lola to their room.

‘Are we going to die?’ Lola asked Nneka, tears streaming down her eyes.

‘Of course not’, Nneka just stared at the scene in front of her. It was scary, and she wasn’t sure she gave Lola the right answer. Surprisingly she hadn’t started exhibiting any of the symptoms the girls had, and she felt perfectly healthy, she wondered why.

Word came that the health centre had opened, and people began rushing there. Phones were ringing, girls had gone berserk, and it was total chaos. She took Lola to the room and cleaned up her nose. Blood kept gushing out of Lola’s nose; she had to hold a gauze to it to slow down the bleeding. Nneka watched the chaos outside, lost in thought. What was happening?

‘Nneka, my mum just called. We better head to the health centre’, Lola dragged Nneka snapping her out of her thought, ‘Nneka!’

‘Yes, Lola’, Nneka replied, lost in her thought.

‘How come you don’t look sick, everybody else does,’ Lola said looking at Nneka strangely. ‘You look perfect and nobody else does.’

Nneka looked out the door and every single person was sick, the corridor was in a total mess, vomit, panicked girls, and the stench of blood. They both checked the mirror in the room.

‘Look at you Nneka,’ Lola said, still managing to wear a smile.

Nneka looked at herself in the mirror, and she looked perfectly ok. Lola looked pale and now had blood around her mouth.

‘See! Nneka, you don’t look sick. Maybe you are immune to everything that’s happening,’ Lola pointed at the mirror.

Nneka didn’t look sick, neither did she feel sick. She wondered why she was not sick and everyone around her was? The whole world was sick. Maybe she was and it was just taking time to show. ‘I know, but I’m not sure why’ Nneka said still staring at the mirror.

‘Ehn! Let’s quickly get to the health centre before it gets crazy,’ Lola said dragging Nneka with her.

Nneka still didn’t feel sick. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked Lola. Lola didn’t look too good.

‘I feel terrible. My head’s pounding, I can’t see clearly, my chest aches like hell, I taste blood in my mouth, my stomach feels like it has fire in it’, They quickly rushed to Nneka’s car. Lola suddenly started to breath heavily.

Nneka didn’t feel any of that. She felt perfect. She didn’t feel sick. ‘Lola, are you ok?’ Nneka asked.

‘I’m not. I feel worse every second. I just hope everything will be fine,’ Lola said.

‘I hope so too,’ Nneka could not shrug the feeling of doom inside of her. She wasn’t sure everything will be fine. She had a very bad feeling about everything. As they got into the car, her phone rang. It was her mum.

Z

‘The Transition’, that was the name we gave the subsequent years to the epidemic that killed every single living thing on earth, human, animal, plant. It had been a traumatic time for everyone. Most people had either lost loved ones or those loved ones had turned into soulless, mindless beasts right in front of their eyes- the flesh eaters. Some had found themselves in the most precarious position of killing their loved ones to stay alive; it was either that or the loved one who had turned into flesh eaters had fed on them.

Our souls had turned dark. We had died yet were still living to see death, carnage, and destruction all around us- living dead, dead men walking...zombies. We had taken so many lives to stay alive, undead with souls consumed by death.  Mankind was at the brink of extinction- or rather, we had become extinct.

As I looked at the ravaged landscape in front of me, memories of death haunted me. The earth itself whispered songs of death, the dark clouds portrayed hopelessness. Its glory forever lost to death.

I had a secret that only few knew about. I had lost my whole family to the epidemic. They had all turned into ravaging beasts. My sister had turned and fled the house in a bloody rage- she knew her fate and she probably didn’t want to have to kill her family. She was now one of those beasts. I had searched for her for years but didn’t find her. She was either dead, or she was feasting on undead flesh- I still thought about her every single day of my life.

My father never returned from Dubai- I never knew his fate.

My mother… was the secret. Her deterioration had been slow. She had slowly died over the years. She became an undead but didn’t become one of the flesh eaters. Over the years she had lost her sanity slowly and bit by bit turned into one of those beasts. I still didn’t understand why it had taken years for her to degenerate, unlike others that were almost instant.  Even now she still exhibited a little bit of humanity once in a while, as if it was locked up somewhere and was finding a way of escape. That’s why I did what I had to do- hide her away from other settlers who would not hesitate to kill her if they found her. To them she would be the very scourge they fought against daily, the flesh eaters. They always killed the flesh eaters; they were a disease, a curse.  Some had killed their own loved ones who had turned to flesh eaters, and they wouldn’t have hesitated to kill another’s.

I had her put in an underground compartment that I had built when she started showing signs of degeneration. Only about two other people knew where she was, but only I had the one key. She was now a complete beast, but there were times when she would gain consciousness, and tears would flow down her eyes. She would try to call my name but it never came out, only the tears. Those moments lingered in my mind, I vowed to get her cured. If she could still grab on to sanity, then there was hope for her. If there was hope for mankind, then I’d give all of mine to her.

Each time I saw her, I wept inside, and I wished I could let out tears from my eyes, and even tears had become elusive. Each time, I felt part of my soul go. I looked at the woman who had loved me so much, who had sacrificed so much for me, turned into a blood thirsty beast- thank God for those few moments when her soul surfaced. My soul bled for her. My Soul bled for my sister. My Soul bled for my Father. My Soul bled for my Friends. My soul bled for Earth. I heart wept, and my soul wept.

Each day I followed up on the progress of several research teams scattered all over the world, trying to find a way out of the darkness. It was Science against death, hope against doom, and faith against despair. Updates were sent through our potable media devices- videos, images, documents. I followed each development religiously. In Brazil, they had found a living plant and scientists there where researching how the plant had survived ‘the death’. Hopefully they’ll find something in the plant that can explain why it didn’t die and then figure out how this knowledge could help human race come back to life.

Some school of thought felt it was another phase of evolution. The earth had evolved into what it was now. After continuous battery from man, the earth had finally given man what he wanted, a death wish. Since Mankind wanted to consume itself by its actions and attitude towards earth- mass pollution, deforestation, and other self inflicting actions, earth gave mankind what it wanted- Death. Yet, mankind was kept alive to see what death would feel like, hence being dead, and at the same time being alive, existing in Chaos - mere living dead roaming the earth.

Some others thought man should, rather than find a way out, embrace what is. Since man is dead, he can not die again. The undead is dead, yet he lives forever. They felt Man should embrace his immortality. That been undead was a blessing rather than a curse.

Immortality! I’d rather die than live forever in this gloom.

‘I’ll save you mum,’ I looked into my mother’s eyes and she looked into mine, Mother and Son. She held my hands close to her face. In the face of darkness, I could feel a glimmer of hope. I still believed there was hope. My faith was all I could hold on to, and it wasn’t going to budge. I believed there was hope. Yes, I believed there was hope.