Zuggers
A part of me would like to find my mother, look her square in the face and tell her she was wrong.
Of course, that would mean going outside and somehow locating the shallow, unmarked grave she and the rest of my family were buried in.
I have a fairly good idea of where I put them all – in a pit I dug by hand in the backyard – but finding “our house” isn’t really something I can do anymore – the Zuggers have done their job well. This city is nothing like I remember it.
Funny what you do remember, though, after an apocalypse. I’d heard rumblings about it on the Internet, small drips and dribbles about some cataclysmic event they all said was coming. It sounded like bullshit to me, like swine flu or SARS or one of the other big “world killers” that was supposed to wipe us out.
Then somebody said “zombies” and the whole thing went off the goddamn chain. Sarcasm of levels unmeasured shot out over the ‘net mocking the Z’rs for all they were worth, giving them the gears about having watched too many movies and hoping for some sort of crazy, mind-bending apocalypse. It was funny stuff – funnier than the classes I was supposed to be taking.
Of course, it wasn’t so funny when I got home.
Mom had been all over me the night before – comparing (without judging, of course) the accomplishments of my brother and the accolades of my sister with my own meager efforts. The whole family was a bunch of over-achievers, and I just didn’t fit the mold. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing – or even the most important thing. I was single.
Somehow, that always seemed to personally offensive to mom, as if by being alone I mocked all the times she called me “cute” or told me I was “so handsome”. Fact was I just didn’t have any interest, in either sex.
Honestly, she would have been fine with my swinging either way – she was just determined to make me happy, no matter what I had to say about the matter. The truth was – the deep, dark, dismal truth – that I was happy alone, happy to wander around in my own mind, no odd expectations or strange requests from significant others to deal with.
I’d even made up my mind that day to tell a lie to mom, tell her I’d met a girl in class just to give some breathing room, some space for air, but I didn’t get the chance.
Odd as it sounds, even now, the Zombies attacked. Mom, dad, both siblings and most of the neighbors on the street were dead in first wave.
Those of us that made it to safe houses stopped calling them Zombies a few days after the attacks came, when it became clear they were nothing like the things we’d seen in movies. They were humans, still, their skin and hair – even clothes – just like our own. The only thing that set them apart was a stuttering gait and a tendency to mutter one single syllable over and over again.
Zug.
Zug zug.
Leaving the safe house meant you could hear them everywhere, snuffling in the darkness and the light, an omnipresent aural assault that left you wondering why you’d left at all.
During the first few days the government tried to respond, tried to stem the tide of whatever the hell it was that had caused all this, but they were just too slow. Killing Zuggers was possible but it took more force than you’d think to split their skulls or pierce their chests, and though the corpses from that first day never rose again, subsequent victims would only stay dead for a few days before they too quietly started Zugging.
By the time the first week was out, we’d begun to care less about where the Zuggers had come from and more about just staying alive. The safe houses were never meant for the purposes we were putting them to – they were old apartment buildings and community halls – anything with a defensible entrance and a way to keep survivors close together. The problem, though, was food. We were running out and though the Zuggers didn’t pay a lick of attention to grocery stores, going out meant a risk we could ill afford, even in large groups.
Of course, we had to suck it up and just do it, and it was one of those first daytime forays when we noticed something odd – even in a world of mumbling automatons. The Zuggers had a tendency, a desire to pick certain people over others, in some cases leaving a group alone once they’d finished off their grisly targets.
It wasn’t until I found myself making a quick run across the alley to a nearby convenience story with Mac and his girlfriend Jess that I discovered what the Zuggers were really after.
Mac and Jess were one of those couples that just seemed perfect for each other, to a point that anyone else around them felt slightly nauseated at their affection. They probably hadn’t been this bad pre-Zug, but with death on the horizon every morning they’d started being overly lovey-dovey all the damn time.
We’d almost made it back to the safe house when the Zuggers came swarming out of a darkened alcove, five of them together in a sweaty, writhing bunch. Mac and I had no warning and Jess was dead before we’d even turned to run. Screaming epithets, Mac died shortly after and I stood, fists clenched and mind void of all thought save for images of dirty Zugger hands digging into my flesh. The lead one moved and I started forward, determined to go out with a fight –
And they moved past me, moved by like I didn’t even exist.
I was beneath their notice, under the radar – not what they were looking for.
I’ve confirmed it, now. Everyone else in the safe house is single, and not one of us had anything on the horizon before the Zug hit.
How a race of love-eating shamblers was birthed I’ll never know, but I know this: my Mom was wrong, just this once.
- D
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