200 days in. That is a pretty amazing
accomplishment when you stop and look at it. Still, there are moments where it
seems like Zero Hour just hit yesterday. And during that time… the fear… My
God, the fear. I remember more than anything. I remember standing next to
Kasondra, looking out of our front entrances as these zoms just relentlessly
pounded against the glass.
You have to consider that with the
exception of the body trauma experienced during the time between death and
reanimation, most of the zoms that hit us first did not look like corpses. Not
enough time had passed for them to turn gangly and necrotic. Their eyes had
this glassy tint to them and the irises and corneas had started to get those yellow
clouds in them but they still looked alive.
Thankfully, before all of this, I had
only been to a small handful of funerals but even then, the bodies had been
prepared by a mortician and had make up on them and such. It was easier to see
the zoms more as human beings way back then.
But now – two hundred days into this
pandemic – it is impossible not to see these shambling corpses as the enemy.
You don’t even think about them as human beings anymore. They are just targets
to be dropped either by bullet or by the working end of your melee weapon.
None of us are scientists. We cannot
tell if these bodies are more preserved or farther along in their rotting
timetable than they should be. The skin is much grayer in tone. Occasionally
you still come across some with more flesh tones and that blotchy yellow
mottled color but the farther we spiral down into this nightmare, the easier it
is to distinguish the enemy.
Their decomposition has made their
gaits even more unbalanced and staggering. It makes for melee combat to be
slightly more to our advantage. If you strike swiftly and silently, you can
still capture the advantage. But they still have the advantage of numbers and
their relentless march.
Put ‘em down, guys.
