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Their Insides Torn V: Relics
(© Bryan Way)

This contribution is part of a series:-
1. Their Insides Torn (15-Nov-2000)
2. Their Insides Torn II: End of Serenity (23-Jul-2002)
3. Their Insides Torn III: Philosophy (8-Oct-2003)
4. Their Insides Torn IV: Hindsight (30-Jan-2004)
5. Their Insides Torn V: Relics (27-Mar-2011)
The final entry of a series following one man's quest to physically and mentally survive in the world of the undead.

Page 1

My eyes open. Before the crowd outside the window forced me back into consciousness, I was having a dream about my home in the woods. It wasn’t dissimilar from the dreams I used to have about school, my parents, or the first days of the outbreak, the only exception being that the latter were almost entirely nightmares.

I’ve come to appreciate the tokens of memory well beyond their service as conversational fodder and their status as elemental building blocks in the infinite subdivisions that comprise a human being. Religion used to have some convinced being alive was a gift and that a life lived in deference to God was noble while others find simple survival a far more telling and satisfying triumph of human fortitude. I know far more people who believe the latter these days.

In another age, my life and memory would be no more important than the next idiot walking the street; by surviving this long, I’ve earned the distinction of being one of the few remaining that is able to remember life before the outbreak. For example, I still remember that the average life expectancy for white males at the time of the outbreak was 74.9. At 47 and a half, I’m the oldest person I’ve met personally since our pilot, Mr. Rubinstein, died fifteen years ago at 57.

The noise outside finally gets loud enough for me to hobble out of bed, and, with my senses returned, I can make it out more clearly; shuffling feet, bodies scraping together, and a low rumble of indistinguishable murmurs. I open the balcony window and yawn as I look out over the stumbling masses of kids just one story below, none younger than 13 and none older than 25, the oldest marking a quarter century of repopulation efforts.  My son and daughter are likely among them. This still astonishes me; if it hadn’t been for Alfred’s efforts, I’d have only been released from Durham prison in England seven years ago, if at all. Now I’m in the United States and I have children.

The gathering horde must mean it’s Sunday. In our previous culture, Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest. A misguided sense of irony first drove us to save our largest gatherings with the surrounding Virginians for Sunday, though with all the work we strove to do in the beginning, it hardly distinguished itself from any other day. Now, civil debate drives us out of our homes on Sunday afternoons.

I get dressed, grab my backpack, pick up the crowbar I’ve been using as my walking stick, and head into my living room; the katana that had long been my sidearm has been irreparably broken for more than ten years. Like a proper hermit, I’ve accumulated stacks and stacks of books and papers throughout the living room; at the moment, not one is covered with the fireproof blankets I generally use to protect them from my clumsiness with a candle. Also, like a proper hermit, I must struggle to find the stack of paper I was intending to bring with me, hidden here amongst the volumes of personal reminisces and library books… ah, there.

I open the front door and cross the hall, rapping my knuckles on my neighbor’s door. It opens quickly to reveal Jen running her fingers through her long, damp hair. "Time already?"  I nod.

"You want to go together?"

"Sure… one moment."

I lean my body in the door frame to watch while she bends down to pick up her jeans. Jen avoided my initial advances and recanted her original position on the matter, trying her hand at Langley until he revealed his homosexuality. While I spent months trying to find suitable short term mates, she became intensely withdrawn and found it difficult to relate to anyone with whom we came in contact; an attempted rape will do that. When we began discussing repopulation with the Virginians, I posited that she and I would be a good match, since we were friendly with each other and shared similar values. I argued that we’d need a generation of liberal Northerners to have a voice in our society. Eventually I wore her down; my children are also hers.

"Ready?" She says finally, tearing me away from my thoughts. As a reflex, I glance at the two brackets on her teeth that form the last remaining elements of her old braces. I smile and nod again, leading her toward the hallway.

[ Continue to page 2 ]

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Genre:Living Dead
Type:Medium length story
Rating:7.35 / 10
Rated By:65 users
Comments: 2 users
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