Lindy — Week #10
Prompt: Suffering from incessant hallucinations, a reformed hit man leads the charge against a zombie army.
“Do it, Caleb. Do it.”
The voices. They were back. Relentless; resounding in his head.
“I can’t shoot her! I love her!” I yelled back at them, but they only cackled, their glowing red eyes boring holes through my skull.
“SNAP OUT OF IT, CALEB!”
Lindy.
The sound of her voice was almost enough to break me out of my reverie. I could imagine her; her luscious hair, her sweet smile, her supple skin… Now riddled with maggots from the infestation.
“NO! You can’t fool me!” I screamed, striking her across the face. She yelped in pain. I drew my hand back quickly, afraid of getting infected. The zombie virus spread too easily these days.
At first, the only source was a specific species of Solanum melongena, also colloquially known as brinjal.🍆 Upon contact with it, your skin will burn with the fire of a thousand suns, the bacteria quickly eating its way through your flesh until you’re left dead and riddled with holes. That is, of course, until you are revived minutes later as a blood-hungry zombie.
“Caleb, will you please listen to yourself?!”
Lindy again.
I swear, for a zombie, she sure is coherent. Ain’t like the movies at all.
“You’re hallucinating again! It’s your fucking PTSD!”
PTSD. Damn, why does that term sound so familiar? Indistinct images and sounds floated to mind… The sterile fluorescent of the clinic lights, the plush leather of the therapist’s chair, the gripping agony that seized my body and convulsed me awake most nights…
Whoa. Holy shit.
THE ZOMBIES CAN CONTROL YOUR MIND, TOO!?
“Dammit, Lindy.” I sighed, a small smile ghosting my lips. “Just because you know I was a hit man, it doesn’t mean you can use that against me.” I lightly patted her on the head, belatedly realizing her teeth had sunk into my palm.
“FUCKING HELL!” I slapped her hard across the face, the force enough to throw her halfway across the room.
I looked down at my hand.
The color red streaked down my skin; a warning sign.
“I’ve been affected.”
I started trembling. Everything was blurring. My hands, the room, Lindy’s embrace. Wait, what?
“Caleb, no!” she sobbed into my arms, but I roughly shoved her away.
“Stop it, you fiend!” I shrieked. “I WILL destroy your kind, even if it’s the last thing I do!”
“You need to kill yourself too, Caleb,” the voices whispered.
“You’re one of them now.”
I’m one of them now. I’m one of them now.
I reached down, pulling out the tiny pistol I kept hidden in my pants leg.
“Caleb…” Lindy again. “What are you doing?”
“Do it, Caleb. Do it. For the sake of the world.”
I placed the barrel in my mouth.
“Caleb!!!”
“I have to, Lindy. I’ve done enough bad as a hit man. Now it’s time I did some good.”
“No, stop, you’re hallucinating, you don’t know what you’re doing — ”
BANG.
Breaking news.
Caleb Lawson, the world’s most wanted hitman who has been on the run for the past 5 years, has been found dead in his secret apartment. The death appears to be caused by a straight gunshot to the brain, according to Caleb’s girlfriend, Lindy Carrell, who claims to have been kept captive at the scene of the murder for the past 2 weeks. She attributes the homicide to yet another one of Caleb’s psychotic PTSD episodes, where he believed he was a character in The Walking Dead and he had to save the world from a zombie invasion.
The police is looking into the matter as we speak.
This creative fiction piece was crafted in 30 minutes based on a writing prompt as part of Written Weekly, a writers’ group held on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month in PJ.
