Teen Zombie

Flash Fiction Horror: A high school kid who suffers from regular bullying wakes up after a traumatic incident as something he doesn't recognize

This story was inspired by a note from Jared Michael, in which he suggested not every idea is a winner, and offered this as an example:

Teen Wolf, but he turns into a zombie. He plays basketball with his head, and everyone thinks he’s super cool.

I accepted the challenge and have come to the conclusion that he was correct. Enjoy.

⚠️Content warning: contains gore, violence, and bullying

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It was dark. It was dark and slimy and cold in the ditch. The chill had crawled in and taken hold of every cell in my body. I sat up slowly, reeled, and toppled over into the mud again. My head was full of a thick fog. It seemed to take ages to form simple thoughts.

Where…am I?

After a bit of scrambling, I sat up. Part of me felt empty. I looked down. Where my stomach used to be was a heap of blood and flesh. I reached to touch the sticky mess. I remembered the pain, the fall.

I groaned and rose to my feet. A hunk of something dark fell from my stomach.

Is that…something…internal?

I bent to pick it up, then stopped. What would I do with it? Take it to the hospital with me? Ask them to put it back in? I lifted up what was left of my shirt. Blackened flesh and bits of pink viscera were all that remained of my stomach.

“Oh, fuck,” I wailed, though my mouth refused to form the words. A piece of something wet where my belly button used to be jiggled. Why can’t I feel anything? I let my shirt fall and scanned the surrounding night.

My vision was blurry and I found it impossible to focus. Shadows seemed deeper than they should have been and the distant lights of homes glowed brighter than I had ever seen. Headlights from a passing car startled me. I ducked down and crept along the ditch until I found a side low enough for me to climb up. My hands didn’t obey as well as I wanted and my feet slipped but eventually I made it to the top.

The field looked the same in every direction, but the lights of the houses to the right stood out in my mind. I lifted one heavy foot after the other and made my way toward them.

At the first street sign I saw, I stopped and squinted, trying desperately to make out the letters. R-o—r-o—something. A vision of my house swam out of the gloom. I knew it was close by.

I dragged my feet along the pavement, from streetlight to streetlight, hunched over with my arms wrapped around my stomach to keep from dropping more skin and blood and guts, but I still lost some.

At my house, the lights were off and there were no cars in the driveway. That must have been why I snuck out, but the memory of that night was incomplete. I let myself in through the front door and shuffled to the bathroom, careful not to touch anything.

While the shower heated up, I peeled my wet, grimy clothes off and looked at my body in the mirror. My skin was gray and rubbery, and my eyes were clouded over. Cuts and scrapes all over my arms and face were nothing compared to the mangled pulp that was my abdomen. A blast rang out in my memory, followed by a burning fire that had raged in my gut.

I poked at the flaps of skin and bulbous tissue protruding from my midsection and felt nothing—not even revulsion.

What is happening?

I stepped into the shower and let the water fall over my head and down my back. I saw the steam but felt no heat. Chunks of meat and bits of stuff that was probably important slid down my legs in a bloody river into the drain. They got stuck there, the brownish-pink water backing up and covering my toes. I stuck my finger in the drain and mashed it all together until it went down. I begged myself to care, to feel anything, but I couldn’t.

In my room, I pulled on my sweatpants and tumbled into bed, unable to bend my elbows or knees much at all. I don’t know if I slept, or if I laid there all night. I only know that I didn’t feel anything.

# # # #

A knock at my bedroom door roused me from unconsciousness.

“Andy! Time to get ready for school.”

The smell of eggs and bacon wafted through the crack under my door. My stomach growled.

My stomach—-

I sat up and looked down at the smooth skin above the waistband of my pants. It was all there. No sign of what must have been a bad dream. I let out a sigh of relief.

The knock came again. “Andy! School!”

“Yeah, Dad!” I yelled. My voice was strong and clear again. I watched the dust motes floating in a ray of sunshine over my bed and marveled at the return of my perfect vision.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed some clothes from the floor. A quick glance at the clock told me I still had twenty minutes to get to school.

The thought of walking into my high school filled me with a gnawing anxiety. I was likely in for another day of being bullied by Kent and his band of jock goons. Worse, there was a basketball game this evening and the jocks were known to be even bigger dickheads on game days.

I grabbed my backpack and left my room wishing I actually had my guts spilled the night before—anything to get out school forever.

# # # #

By some miracle, I managed to avoid Kent and his posse all day, but I couldn’t get the events of the night before out of my mind. For some reason, Kent’s face kept appearing whenever I tried to remember anything before waking in the ditch.

The final bell of the day rang and we all filed out into the hallway. I joined the herd of teenagers in the march toward the front doors of the building. A light touch on my arm stopped me.

“Hey, Andy!” Jennifer’s smile took my breath away. My palms began to sweat and I couldn’t think straight.

“Uh…hi.”

Her smile faltered. She probably regretted talking to me. “Um. Are you going to the game tonight?”

“Yeah.” What? No I’m not. Why did I say that?

“Awesome! I’ll see you there.” She squeezed my arm and disappeared into the sea of bodies.

All at once the reality of what had just happened hit me. I had agreed to meet Jennifer at the last place I ever wanted to be. There was no way I could go. There was no way I could walk into a gym full of jocks and cheerleaders and tons of people waiting for me to trip over my feet and land face-first on the floor, or tumble down the bleachers, or barf right onto Jennifer’s boobs as soon as I saw her.

I burst through the doors and out into the late afternoon, my face flushed and panic setting in. I knew I’d have to bail on Jennifer, and I hated myself for it. I had almost made it down the steps to the street when a shove from behind caught me by surprise.

The concrete rose up toward my face. I felt my cheek bone shatter and the fingers in my left hand snap. Rough hands grabbed my arms and legs and dragged me away. I heard laughter. I heard Kent’s voice as he called me names. The toe of his sneaker caught me in the mouth, the ribs, and my back. The last sound I heard was the crack of my neck.

# # # #

Crickets sang their steady nightly tune. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the dark sky from between the branches of a low shrub. My vision was blurry and my thoughts dragged through a slurry of torpor and confusion. A low moan broke through my busted mouth. I could sense that my teeth were missing and my lips were swollen, but I felt no pain.

The branches of the shrubs tore at my face and arms, leaving gashes, but not drawing blood. I stood and tried to piece together where I was.

School. The parking lot.

Cheers from across the lot caught my attention. The gymnasium was a bright beacon. I could smell all the living, breathing, thinking, people inside.

I hobbled out of the bushes and made my way toward the lights and sound—and food. My broken foot dragged behind me and my head hung awkwardly to the side. When I reached up to straighten my head, I felt a sharp wedge of bone jutting out of my neck.

Kent.

I limped faster—growling, seething.

Kent, that fucker.

I remembered the night before—being chased in the dark, being told to run so he could get in some “target practice”. The shot had hit its mark and I’d rolled down into the ditch. He must not have seen.

The doors to the gym were heavy. The crowd roared inside. I didn’t hesitate. I threw my body against the door and pushed with both hands, ignoring my badly bent fingers.

The smell of hundreds of heads filled with gray skull beef was overpowering. I wanted it. Someone nearby spotted me and screamed. The players on the court froze. A basketball flew through the air and bounced off the backboard.

Every pair of eyes was trained on me. Some people gasped. One guy puked. I heard a kid on the rival team ask, “What the fuck?” Another person called out, “Is that Ass Crack Andy?”

I saw Kent at the free throw line. I let loose a snarl from the depths of Hell within me and charged toward him. A few people screamed, but no one ran. Everyone wanted to see this showdown between Kent and me, sworn enemies since 3rd grade.

A squelch sounded with every step I took across the court. Kent was wide-eyed, trembling, and not concerned with the fact that he’d pissed himself. Rasping, thick, gurgles came from my busted maw.

“Kent!” I tried to roar.

“Andy…”

I grabbed him by the jersey and shook him. The skin of my neck ripped with the jostling and gave way. My head fell from my body. The audience broke out into frantic screams.

I saw the crowd, the lights on the ceiling, and then the palms of Kent’s hands. He looked down at me and shrieked. My toothless mouth snapped at his hands, eager for a taste. He tossed my head back at my chest and I stumbled but caught it.

Hunger for flesh was all I knew. I threw my head back at his face, hoping to land a bite. He caught it again and threw it back with a yelp. Someone in the crowd laughed.

“Shoot it!” I heard.

“Go, Andy!” I knew that voice. Jennifer.

“Shoot it, Andy!”

I straightened and pointed my decapitated head toward the hoop.

Why not?

I lifted my head over my neck and bent my elbows as much as I could. The world seemed to hold its breath. I gave a little push off the court onto the ball of my good foot and let go. My head sailed through the air, slowly rotating. I thought I saw Jennifer smiling at me. The net whipped over my face and the gym erupted into cheers.

One of the players picked my head up from the floor and held it high.

“Hell yeah! Zombie Andy!”

“Zombie Andy!” The students, teachers, and parents cried.

I raised my fists into the air and jumped up and down as best as I could while my head was passed around from kid to kid. I didn’t know what the future had in store for me, the kid who was undead, but right then, I was ahead of the game.

(I eventually made a feast of Kent’s brains during Homecoming.)

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cover image by Markus Spiske