User:Blue Command Vic/Zambah G Zaz/journal
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My life was simple. I woke up every morning and went to work for a bank in a city called Malton. I ate lunch at the same time every day, at the same chinese restaurant. I always ordered the General Tso's Chicken. You haven't had chicken until you've tried Tso's. There's a reason the man was a general.
I'm writing this from my deathbed. I've got just enough strength left to type, and my wife, god bless her heart, managed to get me a laptop for my birthday this past month. It cost her every penny we had, which really isn't saying much.
Not like it matters much now. I'm lying here, alone, waiting for death to come and carry me away to wherever he takes those that cheat on their wives with long-legged secretaries that have D-cups and insatiable oral fixations. Again, none of that matters now. My wife and my mistress are both dead, devoured by the horde that has overrun this city. The only safe haven at this point is here, St. Benedict's Hospital in a small suburb of Malton called Pitneybank. Don't ask me what the name Pitneybank means. I have no idea. I lived in Dulston up until this point.
The reports coming in from my hometown are terrifying. My favorite bar has been taken over by these creatures. The mall where I first got laid (in a changing room at the Gap) is the last bastion of human hope in that area. At times, over 300 survivors pack the floors and fill the stores to defend their corner of this city from the increasing zombie presence.
God, that's what they are, isn't it? Zombies. If you'd told me a week ago that zombies would take over Malton, I'd have laughed in your face.
At least I have the comfort in knowing that I'll be able to die in peace. St. Ben's is hardly a stronghold, but it's held up so far. My dying here won't do them any good. From what I've been able to find out, they can only increase their numbers by doing the killing themselves. You have to be bitten by one to become one.
When death comes for me, it will be a welcome reprieve from the screams outside my semi-private room. The window is covered with a thin shade, but that doesn't stop the sound. Not one bit.
The other man in this room is an enigma to me. He was brought in just a few days ago, wrapped in bandages from his neck to his waist. Blood was seeping through them in a circle near his ribcage, and in lines across his chest.
The sounds coming from his side of the room stopped a few hours ago. His restless groaning had kept me awake at night, almost seeming to mingle with the sounds of the walking dead outside. I fear he's passed on, but at least he's assured of a quiet afterlife. They wouldn't bring a bite victim in here, knowing what they know about this disease.
Would they?
My doctor allowed me a copy of my chart when I was diagnosed as terminal. By that time, the tumor had grown to immense proportions, reaching to cover from the frontal lobe all the way back to my brain stem. The doc said it was the longest he's ever seen. Not so much from either side, just front to back.
Of course, the tumor is doing more than just spreading. The doctors say it's actually eating away at the tissue, rotting it as it spreads. That would explain my constant migraine and blurred vision. My speech is also starting to suffer, and I have a hard time keeping my limbs in coordination. I'm confined to this bed for an average of twenty hours a day, and that number is steadily rising. If I last another week, I may be lying here twenty-four-seven. After that? Who knows. I'm doubtful they'd risk a public burial, especially with my family dead, or even worse, undead. My friends and relatives in this city are long-forgotten. I haven't heard from anyone I know since I was admitted. That was a week before the outbreak. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I'd been having headaches daily. Not just headaches, mind-splitting jackhammer headaches. The kind of headache that makes you wish someone would jam an icepick up your ass to take your mind off of the one seemingly planted in your brain. Anyway, I treated them the Old-Fashioned way for about a week. You know the routine: Bourbon, a sugar cube, and soda water. After a while, that wasn't enough. Apparently not even a 70 proof cocktail is enough to ease some pains. So, I started adding Advil to the party. Soon enough, the Advil was replaced by Bayer, and just the same, the Bayer was set aside for Oxycontin. By the time the Ox was out of my system, my bloodstream looked like an ad for a pharmacy, and my head felt like a million bucks.
That lasted about three days. Once that last trace of painkillers was pissed out of my kidneys, with just a hint of blood, the headaches returned with a vengeance. Nothing short of a .45 caliber slug was going to stop these freight trains. These headaches were the kind that hit like a ton of bricks hauled behind a Mack truck with its brake lines cut. These were monsters. I finally decided that ol' JD wasn't doing me any favors, so maybe an MD could help.
The initial diagnosis was no good, and it didn't get any better on my return trips. The doc's first test indicated a possible tumor on the frontal lobe, maybe the size of a lime. I went back two days later for a follow-up CT, and the shadow had grown to softball proportions. Three days after that, I was under the knife. "Routine brain surgery" isn't exactly what it sounds like. Just because they do them 100 times a year, doesn't make them routine. It took NASA eleven tries to finally put a man on the moon, and they have nearly twenty billion dollars a year to spend. Imagine a hospital with nearly one percent that budget, trying to operate on the most intricate component known on this earth. Nothing about brain surgery is ever "routine".
The first surgery was a success. Kind of. The doc managed to remove a large section of the top of the tumor, buying me some time, but the majority of it was still in there, attaching itself to my gray matter. After I recovered from the surgery itself, I actually started to feel better. The headaches lessened, and my vision was back to 20/20.
That lasted almost two weeks. After that, it was back on the downhill slide. Riding that train, high on...Well, oxycontin isn't quite cocaine, but Casey Jones still better watch his speed. Otherwise, that freight was on a collision course with my medulla oblongata. Nobody manning the switchtrack, either. It was all or nothing on this trip, and nothing was looking like a big possibility, if not a certainty.
So, here I lie, alone in a semi-private room that smells of chlorine cleaners, the acidic tinge of urine, and the full diaper of my roommate, who just happens to have another smell coming off of him, and it sure ain't Chennelle Number Five. No, my friends, that's he sweet stench of decay. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms eat you up and shit you all over your insides. Well, it may not rhyme, but it's a lot closer to the truth than saying they play pinochle on your snout.
There's something off about all of this, though. Even as my brain rots from the inside out, and even while my stomach atrophies from a lack of a solid diet, I still have an insatiable hunger. I found myself gnawing on my finger yesterday. Not just chewing on the nail, though that happened to be my most recent resolution that I failed to keep his past New Year's. I was trying to chew through my skin and down to the bone. I took off a few layers of skin before the pain hit me.
Not like it stopped me, of course. The only problem I can think of is how I'm going to keep typing this thing after I gnaw off my other nine fingers. I guess I could tap at the keys with my pecker, but us Dominicans weren't exactly blessed in the nether regions, if you catch my drift.
Oh well. Maybe I just need some sleep. Yes, that's it. A nice long nap is exactly what I need. A long, long nap...
