It seems like for the last week, it
has been the same night after night. The dream is always the same. It is not
one of those fanciful dreams where I am in control. It is more like an instant
replay where I am outside of my body and I see it over and over again. I see
the stand outside the produce dock. No matter what I do, I cannot change the
outcome, I cannot hide my face, and I cannot look away. I see Shannon getting
her ankles getting yanked out from under her so that she lands flat on her
back.
I want to tell you that the impact
bounces the back of her head off the concrete slab. I wish that is what would
have happened because there is a chance that she might have been knocked
unconscious. That she would have been out. But that is not what was happened.
She was awake… and lucid… and screaming.
And the number of zoms that descended
upon her was too many for all of us to beat away even if we wanted to.
I don’t mean to trivialize her death
but we have all seen those moments in movies when the predators all descend on
the surrounded prey simultaneously. We saw it in Pitch Black, The Dark Crystal, Interview with the Vampire, even in The Two Towers when the Uruk-hai
devoured that one orc. That is exactly what happened.
She got drug away from the platform
and they were all surrounding her. There was a moment before she was blocked
from my sight where I could see her face. It was abject terror. She was
fighting for her life but it was hopeless.
I never told anyone that but I tried
to kill her.
Right before that window closed, I
fired several shots. And yes, I was aiming for her forehead. I don’t know if I
was successful or not because her body was buried under a swarm of these
things. I know it must sounds really strange for you to read this but I hope I
killed her. At least with a bullet to the head, it would be quick and merciful.
The alternative is that Shannon dies being ripped to pieces by as many mouths
that could descend upon any and every available surface area of her skin. No
one deserves to go out that way.
If it was the way of it (and if my
bullet missed), I can only hope that it was so quick that she went into shock
and didn’t suffer. There was a lot of grizzle and gore outside the dock
afterward. We never saw a zombified version of her. Thank goodness for that.
I know this is real visceral what I am
saying but obviously there must not have been enough “remains” of Shannon to
reanimate. So in a way, if you are really looking for a silver lining in all
this, she not have that story of “becoming what she swore to destroy” tragedies
in the end.
I know you are not supposed to speak
ill of the departed but Shannon was just not strong enough for this world.
Inside here, she was fine but exposed, on her own or on the run… She just could
not have hacked it.
I will miss her, truly, but maybe
her demise was inevitable…
