A Thousand Nights with You - 20. Shoulders and Vodkas

I had only seen a person turned once. Adam’s dad when he was bitten. But even then, I didn’t stay and see how the process is like. But it looked really painful from all that convulsions that he was having. But then, he could also be squirming because someone is feasting on his flesh. Mark is convulsing throughout the night, on and off. When he asked me to take away the pain, I had no idea what he meant until it hits me.

The pain is indescribable.

It may more accurate to call it the hunger. And yet, it is not the stomach’s growling kind of hunger. It feels like all your addictions in life, the longings, the aches, the lust, the thirst and the cravings fired up in every single cell in the body. What’s worse is that I could feel Mark’s hunger as well. And I could feel the entire horde’s hunger. It is like a colossal tidal wave of hunger, connected by millions of nodes, sweeping up to the foot of the mountain. It's like our minds are linked to the infected horde. I think some insects colony are like that - they have a hive mind. Every second the hunger is growing, and that is because every second someone is bitten and infected.

It is the most frightening experience in my life.

At first, the ‘trips’ comes on and off. It gets harder to stay lucid each time. Our fear grew every moment, because each trip made us glimpse – no, made us part of that hunger that can only be satiated by spreading it. When I think about Tristan, all I can think of is how good he will feel inside my body. Chunks of him. Both of us are sweating and breathing rapidly.

The infection fires up the brain like meth, only a hundred times stronger.

I vaguely remember Grace saying something like that. It’s hard to stay coherent. Methamphetamine. Ice. I think Tristan told me something about it when his school had one of those boring anti-drug campaigns. They are stimulants. That’s right. Grey’s wife uses tranquilizers to help her ease the pain. Tranquilizers are depressants. Alcohol is a depressant too. It might work to ease the pain.

The vodka feels like fire in my throat. But the pain is nothing compared to what I am feeling inside my whole body. Yet, two mouthfuls and I already feel much more in control. Mark is hyperventilating, writhing in the bed. He is clutching on to the sheets, and he doesn’t respond when I slapped his face. I held him down, poured some vodka into his mouth and forced them to close so that he doesn’t spit it out.

It took him almost a minute to feel better.

Or worse.

The moment we became lucid, we broke into tears. We are scared. The turning does not grant us oblivion. It turns us into addicts. It inflicts such pain that numbs all other pain by comparison. We thought that the infected can’t feel a thing because they kept coming even if they take a bullet or lose a limb. They can even walk with their entrails hanging out of them. It must be some kind of anaesthesia. But only if that was true. They keep coming because the pain they feel is so much greater than what our weapons can inflict. No wounds can compare to this pain.

We will not have peace.

Mark turns his head to look at me. Deathly pale and soaked in sweat and tears. It was a plea. I understand what he wanted because I was thinking about the same thing too. We have to end this right now. While we still can. He holds my hand one last time. My other free hand fumbled on the nightstand beside the bed, reaching out for the pistol.

We need to decide who to go first.

“Mark, do you want to do the honours?” I hand him the gun as I take another sip from the bottle. I know I’m being selfish to make him shoot me when I didn’t have the courage to do it myself.

“Come here, Dan.” Mark beckons me to sit up, bending down for his forehead to touch mine. He hugs me with a hand, and then points the pistol to the back of my head. “I hope this will kill us both at the same time.”

Romeo and Juliet sounded so romantic when they killed themselves for love. The whole logistic of suicide is a lot more clumsy when your limbs and fingers are slightly retarded. Not to mention how ugly we'd look with a big hole in our head. The whole irony of it is actually quite funny.

I chuckled, which cracks him up a little. This should be totally tragic. Here we are, ending our own lives with a single bullet. But warped as it is, I find the whole thing funny, and even a little romantic. Me dying in his arms, a bullet shot through my brains, into his, spilling our grey matter into a puddle of mess.

“What’s so funny?” He smiles sadly.

“I would rather we be sharing spunk than brain juices.” I said. Then flashing a wry grin, I said, “Will you still want me, if I had a big hole in my head?”

“Better than having grey skin. It ruins your complexion.” He said, smiling and running the back of his hands softly down my cheeks. That's why we would look if we turn, grey and mottled and scabby all over.

“Still sexier than ‘Megan Fox’.” I pouted, which makes him laugh. Back when we were at the roof top, growing food, fooling around, watching the infected flooding the streets below, Mark would tell me which ladies he think was hot, or used to be hot. There’s this pouty looking one, who looks really angry being turned, and we call her the ‘Megan Fox’. She looked like a supermodel if not for that horrid grey skin and half of her breast chewed off.

He kisses a tear that is rolling down on my face. “Scared?”

“You mean more so than usual?” I can’t even remember a time in my life that I hadn’t felt scared. Scared of the wild animals, scared of people laughing at me, scared of dying alone, there’s always a bogeyman under the bed.

“It’ll be over in a second.” He promised.

I look up and told him, “I’m scared of what this will do to Tristan.”

Of all my list of fears, dying alone is at the top of them. Not even being torn apart and eaten alive comes close. And I didn’t think about Tristan when I decided to pull a Romeo and Juliet on him. But it’s too late for regrets now.

“Maybe you should leave him a note. Give some closure.” Mark said.

“Okay.”

That’s all I can do for him. Tell my brother that I loved him, and hope that he will forgive me. We need to find something to write with - a pen or something, assuming if we can even hold it properly. I can barely feel my fingers. Where to look? It’s hard to think coherently now, much less to move from the bed.

“Maybe I’ll shoot myself first. You can use my blood to write something on the wall.” Mark said.

“It’s not funny, Mark.” He gave me a sad look, and I realized that he wasn’t joking.

“No… that’s too... Tristan is going to feel even worse.”

We would’ve gotten out of the room to search the whole house but our coordination got so bad that getting the chair unstuck from the door handle is taking way more time than we can afford.

Mark takes the bottle from me and gulped down the remaining Vodka. The pain and the hallucinations are creeping back and it’s taking more and more alcohol to stop our brains from frying. We tried to look around the room, opening drawers and cupboards. Sometimes a leg moved when we wanted to move our hands instead. He stumbled when he tries to squat down, rolling on the floor rather ungracefully. I laughed.

“Careful, old man.” I said.

He was trying to say something, but he groaned instead. Not in pain, but like an infected. It might not take too long before we lose our speech as well. Time is running out for us. I tried to help him up from the floor but I end up falling over as well. That’s when we saw it - a whole carton of Vodka hidden under the bed.

“Look who’s been stashing?” Mark said.

“Do you think we can drink ourselves to death instead?” I joked.

“Sounds good to me.” He grins and helps me to sit up on the floor, leaning our back against the side of the bed. We opened a bottle together, feeling grateful that it is a simple screw cap that doesn’t require obscene amount of skill to open. Even then, it takes four hands and a lot of team work to open it. We don’t trust our fingers very much anymore.

“Why do I always end up drinking when I’m stuck with you?” I said. The last time when we are trapped in the rooftop, Mark pillaged Dad’s entire wine collection.

“Because I’m fun?” His smile is wide and bright as he downs a few mouthfuls. Then he turns to me and said, “That’s why you married me isn’t it?”

If the Vodka didn’t turn my face red, this certainly did.

“You’re not making sense. I think you need more booze.” I snorted, grabbing a pillow to hug while I drink.

“You shaved my face, cut my hair, bathed me and cooked for me – all of that sounds pretty wifey to me.”

Stubbles lined his strong jaws, and the curly brown hair framed his rugged face. Mark is so handsome that I wish I can live another day just to look at him.

Daniel Reynolds. Daniel Woodforde. I think Mark sounds better with my last name. Mark Reynolds. That makes him sounds like some big shot porn star. Young, masculine, hung like a horse. The name suits him just fine. I burst out laughing at my private dirty joke, shaking uncontrollably.

“What? You mean you did all that just to suck me off?” He mocked indignation.

No one ever made me laughed like this in my whole life. Tristan tried. But most of the time he ends up annoying me instead. My brother - I am really going to miss him. This would have been the happiest moment of my life - to die with someone I loved – if it wasn’t done at his expense. Tristan had always been the brave one. Rhinos, coyote, the big wild, people and the concrete jungle, none of it ever faze him. Mark is getting more like Tristan, or maybe he finally figure out how my brother comfort me. A joke, a tease, all that jovial frivolity just to make me forget my fears.

I raised a hand and waved it, laughing so hard until tears rolled down my cheeks. At some point, I think I ended up crying instead. Maybe it’s when I started to pray for another day with him. Another day like this when he will crack me up so that we can forget just for a minute the people we lost, the pain in our bodies and the fate that is awaiting us. But I know having another night with Mark, I would want another thousand more. There will never be a good time to die.

Now is as good a time as any other.

I try to fight back my tears, and when that failed, I tried to pretend that I’m still laughing. I refuse to spend our remaining minutes feeling sorry for ourselves. So instead, I leaned over to kiss him and then I rest my head on his shoulders. That way, he won’t see how I am really feeling.

“What’s wrong, Dan?”

“Nothing wrong.” I wipe away my tears and forced a smile, finishing the remaining Vodka and opening a new bottle.

“No, your eyes. They are changing.” He said.

I focus for a moment and really look at Mark. I finally understand what he means. His eyes are changing as well. It was green, now it’s turning to an unnatural neon lime. That's unusual, the infected eyes are different, they are red. None of them look like this. But we know it's invading our body and we are running out of time. We had to hurry before the alcohol stop working altogether.

In the end, we found a phone on the table. It is fully charged. And fortunately for us, the owner wrote his phone password on the table. The alcohol, the reminder notes, the match sticks (who uses match sticks to light up the stove these days) – I’d imagine the owner of this house was an old man, probably Russian and alone. Maybe he had a dog, that’s why he left the hamster behind. Poor guy, I hope that he made it.

As I had expected, typing requires way too much energy so I turned on the voice memo app of the phone. Mark picks up the pistol again.

Happy. I visualize my brother's face being happy when he hears this. That's how I want him to be. How would he have done this? I take a deep breath and starts speaking.

Tristan,

'Grats for prying the phone off my fingers and figuring out that I’d left a message for you. Considering that you’re not the brightest spark in the family, that’s a pretty big accomplishment I’d say. But that also means you’re smart enough to survive on your own now.

You always wondered what goes on in my alien head, always complained not knowing what's going on in my life or that I never tell you how I feel. Well, let me quote you in your words, "brothers live to annoy the hell out of each other". All those stuff you mentioned are way too gay (and that's coming from me - HA!). So I decided to leave you a present - no, not that little boy. I hope my voice will bring you some comfort if you ever missed me. And if it gives you any satisfaction or bragging right – let me just say that it takes a dozen bottle of Vodka for me to do this.

I’m sorry for not hanging on another day to annoy you. I probably wouldn’t be too friendly if you... well, see me alive. And I won’t make you shoot me. I had to finish Mom off for you just in case you forget (so you owe me one for that). That makes us even now, don;t you think. Please don’t be mad at me. And please don’t do anything stupid. You have a big family now – Grey, Grace, Peter, Felicia and… Adam. Congratulations for being a Dad now. Please take care of him

You’re the brave one. That’s why I know you can do this. You know you always said I come out with the best ideas when we’re in deep shit? Like the time we broke Dad’s generator and you stalled for time while I actually manage to fix it before he finds out? It’s our best tag team ever. I’d always remember that. But you know it isn’t because I’m smarter than you, it’s because I’m more afraid. I’m scared of Dad being mad at me. I’m scared of dying. I’m scared of being alone. That’s why I hope that you will understand my choice, even if you can’t forgive me.

Adieu, broeder.

Ek het jou lief.

PS - In case I sound like I'm moaning, the app transcribes it to text as well. See? Even Siri is smarter than you.

Mark and I gulped down another two bottles each. If it weren’t for the infection… or the parasite, if what Grace said is true, both of us would be pissed drunk by now.

But I never felt so lucid and peaceful.

Mark is beside me. And having him feels like having the whole wide world. I put down the phone and he asked if I’m ready.

I leaned on his shoulder and close my eyes.

Then I heard a loud bang.