Hope From a Dead Woman's Neck

Hope Came From A Dead Woman’s Neck

By Wendy Winchester

There was a time my life had been normal. There was internet, there was a near guarantee of safety, and there were no… fucking… zombies.

“MOM!” came a yell from the next room.

I looked up from what I was typing on my computer with concern as my 14-year-old daughter, Akira, ran in and skidded to a stop next to me.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“There’s a crawler at the gate!” she informed me, fear gripping her features.

I sighed and dropped my chin to my chest. After a moment I looked at her with empathy, but not concern. “Honey, it can’t get in. If it’s a crawler it probably doesn’t have much time left anyway.”

“But mom!”

“Kira-chan, I’m kinda busy here,” I insisted.

“Pleeeease!” Kira begged, her face tightening further with desperation.

I sighed again and rolled my eyes. I could see I wasn’t going to win this one. “Fine,” I groaned.

I retrieved my sixty-pound draw weight compound bow and a broadhead arrow and marched outside.

None of us saw it coming, although I was a bit better prepared than most because I hunt. Even so, 2020 was nothing compared to that bullshit. If Coronavirus was a person who had bragged to its friends that it was the most deadly virus in history the zombie virus would have laughed and said, “Hold my beer.”.

The electricity and the internet weren’t lost right away. Heck, not even every place lost power. People with solar panels were perfectly fine where power was concerned and thank God I was in that group. My video games were one of the few things that kept me relatively sane.

We called them “zombies” but they weren't: Not really. The virus just destroyed the part of their brain that made them sapient. It also made them vicious. It’s kind of like rabies on steroids except it didn’t kill them. In fact, they looked completely normal unless you happened to notice the cataracts they tended to develop, or they’d been a zed long enough that their clothes and hair had started to look nasty. That last fact led to a lot of homeless people being shot on sight. It pisses me off.

Zeds ate things other than people, of course, but if we were in their line of sight and they happen to be hungry, we became a target. And no, they didn’t only eat brains.

I saw the zed and headed toward the gate. I also saw my neighbor across the street leveling his shotgun at the thing. I ran toward the fence, madly making the ‘cut it out sign’ across my neck. He frowned and lowered the gun. I couldn’t believe he’d been prepared to use that thing near our homes. The fucking idiot would’ve attracted a horde. I only used my bow for a reason, dammit!

Shaking my head at the man’s stupidity I stepped up to the gate to the fence surrounding my home and looked down at the woman snarling and pawing at it. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties, with long brown hair, and eyes that looked like they had once been green. When I saw she was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘world’s best mommy’ written on it a wave of pity rushed over me.

With a heavy heart, I slotted the arrow in my bow and sighed heavily. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly. I drew the arrow back and let go, releasing her soul from its prison.

It was then that I notice the very ornate, two-inch-wide, heart-shaped locket around her neck, and I swear my heart stopped for a moment. There was no mistake. It was the one from the news. It had belonged to the scientist who’d created the virus. She’d kept the formula for a vaccine inside it. It had been six months since the virus had escaped its laboratory so most of us had given up on ever finding it.

I opened the gate, removed the locket, and with shaking hands, opened it. A folded-up piece of paper was inside. It was the formula. Tears of joy filled my eyes. This was it... and for the first time in two years... I was hopeful for my child’s future.