Zombie diaries
Based on a true story:
The little girl cowered under a pile of rubble, shaking uncontrollably, and miserably failing to keep them from finding her. They were expressionless monsters. Trudging along sloppily, they reeked of death. Their inhuman groans reverberated through the vandalized parking lot sending shivers down the girl’s spine. Suddenly, she spotted the zombie looming over her and let out a horrified cry. The pale beast yanked her by her hair and sunk its rotting teeth into her neck. Crimson stained her pretty yellow frock as the zombie ravished on her blood. When she finally opened her tightly shut eyes, they stared back at me, empty and emotionless.
I shut my laptop screen, not bothering to turn it off. I looked around me to find both my roommates fast asleep. A glance at my phone told me that the time was 1:45 am. Holy hell! I had just spent two hours watching this spooky movie when I had a practical exam the next day. With an exasperated sigh, I turned off the lights and flopped onto my bed. Grotesque images of bloodshot eyes swivelling in their sockets, groping hands and gnashing jaws filled my thoughts, leaving me disturbed and panicky. I consciously tried to recollect funny memories of my 7th grade friend Rishabb in a tutu and even fantasised a romantic rendezvous with Tom Cruise in a desperate attempt to ward off the zombies that plagued my mind. After an hour of tossing and turning around and yanking the sheets over and off my face repeatedly, I finally drifted into a peaceful slumber. Or that’s what I thought.
She came closer, the little girl, so incredibly close that I could feel her soft curls brush against my arms. Suddenly, a strong, almost nauseating stench hit me and the girl’s beautiful blue irises turned red. Flailing my arms around, I fell off the bed while trying to get away from the turned monster and eventually jolted awake.
Immediately, I rummaged through my sheets to verify the fact that I’d just had a very unfortunate dream and nothing else. To my horror, my fingers found a soft cottony mass. My stomach lurched and I tried to quell the hammering in my chest. I sprinted across the room to my roommate’s bed and turned on the lights. I was dumb folded by the sight in front of me. Unable to trust my sleepy semi-conscious state of mind and almost convinced that I was hallucinating, I jolted my roommates awake. Their open-mouthed gawks at the abomination on my bed and the picture of shock painted on their faces re-instated my fears. The plump glassy-eyed striped ball of fur jumped off my bed and sashayed across the room to the door with a ‘Meow’.
– Nevedita Sankararaman
