You awaken from a coma , only to realize the world has ended ...

-065 
 
 I remember wiggling my finger, then my toe. How long I lay there afterward, I do n't know. It was the hunger than made me rise. The machine feeding me was empty. The bag supplying me with liquid was empty. I was parched and starving. I rose from the table, groaning and growling. My eyes barely worked. There were people there, staring at me, but after a while, they wander off, shuffling away. 
 
 I could n't speak. My throat was so freaking dry. I closed my mouth and opened it, trying to force myself to salivate. Nothing. There was no extra moisture inside me. I pulled needles from my arm and disconnected tubes and leds. Machines, one after the other, began to beep long drawn out tones as their signals were interrupted. I reached out, my hand opening and closing as I sought someone to assist me. I grabbed the arm of one the shuffling forms. He -- I believe it was a he -- turned and growled something indecipherable at my face and twisted away after clumsily attempting to grab my face. I shuffled off and so did he. I really needed water and something to eat. 
 
 In the hall, I saw a sign through the shifting prism of temporary blindness. It said: *Rest Rooms*. An arrow pointed the way. I staggered down the hall, careening off walls and staggering people. I leaned on the door and it gave way. I hurried as fast as my condition would allow and found the sink. I turned it on and stuck my mouth to the faucet and drank. 
 
 I drank a lot. With it, came more control of my body, but I still could n't see and the water on my empty stomach was making me sick to said stomach. I did n't know the lay of the hospital, and staggering made it a long walk in search of food. I tried to call out, but only a hollow sounding moan escaped me. The other patients, for that was who they must be, called out in reply; a long throaty moan of their own. 
 
 I bumped into other patients who turned to regard me, but I was starving. I needed food. I needed my damn eyes to work. After the fourth corridor I wandered down, I deduced I must have been inside a mental health facility. The patients were all alike. One tried to bite me, but was finding it difficult. I pulled away before he could and intended on reporting him. 
 
 I found a vending machine in one of the waiting rooms. I staggered up to the machine and punched buttons and searched myself for change, but the gown I wore had no pockets and only then did I realize my ass had been hanging out during my walk. Modesty kicked in then. I struggled to close my gown and tried shaking the machine. I was starving and conventional thinking went out the window. I started banging on the machine and crying out. More moans and groans and the machine started to rock. Other patients took up my call and came to help me attack the machine. *Definitely a mental health facility. * 
 
 One of the more aggressive patience shattered the glass on the front. I had n't done it and figured there was a security camera to prove it somewhere in the room. I grabbed several goodies from the machine and retreated to a chair to eat. I ripped open the bags while the patients continued to attack the machine. I devoured several snack cakes and three bags of chips. I was still starving, but at least I'd knocked the edge off of it. 
 
 I sat there for a long time trying to get my voice back. I let the food get absorbed by my body and let my strength slowly come back. My voice was still a moan, but slowly, little by little, it was coming back. I got back up and went to the machine and retrieved several more articles of food. I snatched several packs of Twinkies. *There were Twinkies. * When I'd had my accident, there were no Twinkies. The company had shut down. Now there were Twinkies again. I did n't know how, but I really wanted to shake the hand of the person responsible for them. 
 
 The patients were stopping to stare at me. They watched me tear into the first pack of Twinkies and devour it greedily. My vision was still blurry, but it was clearing a little bit at a time. I ate the next Twinkie slower and more of the patients gathered as my moans of ecstacy must have seemed peculiar to them. Mental patients or not, everyone stops when they think they're hearing a stranger orgasm. I ate another bag of chips then and my vision would clear and cloud. I realized it was the salt. My body was low on salt. 
 
 I came to my feet and pushed through the crowd. Some tried to grab for me, but I shrugged them off, moaning my displeasure. I grab a half dozen bags of chips from the machine and greedily devoured them. I sat down in the chair again, reclined my head and felt content. My stomach was full and my weakness, the weakened muscles feeling stronger. I closed my eyes, laid back in the chair and rested. I could hear the patients milling around. Some came up and touched me but wandered away again. It was annoying, but I suffered through it. 
 
 In my resting mind, I began to wonder about some things. How long had I been out? Where were the doctors who should have been monitoring me? Why was I in a mental hospital? Did my wife survive the wreck? I rubbed at my eyes. They were itching. I needed something to drink. My throat felt dry again from the salt. I pushed up from the chair and staggered away, bumping into patients. I still could n't see, but the film on my eyes was thinning. One of the patients tried to grab me. I tried to shrug him off like I had the others, but he was persistent and kept trying to headbutt me. 
 
 I growled at him and twisted and twisted harder, and finally, I was n't being nice anymore. I shoved the man hard and he went sprawling. `` Ahhhhhhhhhhrrrwwwet off me. Geeet offff meee!'' I shouted. Something in my throat breaking free with the force of my growl. I coughed and more dried mucus broke loose. I spit it out and shouted at the man on the floor. `` Leave me alone.'' 
 
 I was in a restaurant one time and a customer got angry at their waiter and called him a dirty nigger. The customers all got quiet. All conversations ended, and everyone swiveled around to stare in mute fascination at the man who dared utter that epitaph. Today, I was the guy who shouted nigger. All the moaning stopped. All the patients shuffling around froze and turned to stare with fascination at me. 
 
 `` What?'' I shouted, rubbing at my eyes. There was a water fountain behind me. I drank some water and splashed water into my eyes washing away the crusty gunk and film blinding me. I stood back up and could see, though occassionally my vision would blur again, but it stayed clear. I watched the man I shoved slowly climb back to his feet. `` I'm sorry about that.'' I croaked. `` You ca n't be grabbing at people.'' I muttered. The man came to his feet and slowly turned to face me. His face was green and brown and leaking pus. His teeth were black and ichor leaked from the corners of his mouth like a drooling attack dog. His eyes were yellow head lights and his hair was missing, with a huge chunk of hair and skin pulled loose from his scalp flopped around when he moved. 
 
 I was revolted. I looked to the other patients and saw that this was n't an isolated condition. One woman was missing an arm and had the side of her face chewed off, revealing all of her teeth on one side. They started for me then. A slow shuffle that quickly became a power walk. I shoved the man before me again, and he sprawled once more. I looked about me and saw that I was standing two doors down from the exit for the stairs. I staggered over to it, going through without hesitation. 
 
 I headed down. I did n't have the strength to climb. I hugged the rail and fled. Half sliding down it and half walking. I encountered another one of the *patients* on the stairs. He did n't know the truth about me and watched me pass. I moaned as I neared and he seemed okay with me. I was n't behaving normal which seemed to be the required condition for joining their putrid ranks. I found an arm gripping a door handle two floors down. Just an arm. As far as I knew, it belonged to the woman up stairs with the winning smile. 
 
 I passed three more of them on the stairs. The third one tried to grab me. I must have made the mistake of acting to normal. I shoved the man down the stairs and watched his head split open and his brain slide out in a black trail of ooze. I could hear them up above. They seemed to have difficulty navigating the stairs. I actually laughed at this, and laughed harder when I made it to the ground floor and got my first look a the smokey ruin that was the city. 
 
 It was an apocalypse. A honest-to-god zombie apocalypse and my secret weapon was stairs. I should have been horrified, and on one level, I was. But on every other level, I'd wanted this. There was a thrill of joy inside me. If I had been possessed of the muscle control to skip, I would have. I so wanted to leap in the air and click my heels together. 
 
 Yeah. I'm going to miss my loved ones, but lets face it. At heart, I'm a narcicist. It has always been about me. Not really the personality one might wish to have when faced with saving the world, but screw that. I'd been preparing for this my whole life. All those video games had been training programs for this. I laughed and went in search of weapons. It occurred to me that I might still be upstairs in a coma dreaming all of this. It occurred to me that maybe I died in that car wreck and this is a gamer's version of heaven. I do n't know. 
 
 All I know was that there were zombies, and I had a desire to kill them; and also, my ass was hanging out of a hospital gown while I ran through a hospital lobby squealing like a child on a merry-go-round.
