

Over and over, I can’t help but run through the events that led to today.

“…and for the third and final count of vehicular homicide the jury finds the defendant… not guilty.”

I sighed in relief and tilted my head back, reveling in my victory while the woman sitting on the other side of the courtroom burst into sobs. Even while she wept about her dead husband and two dead sons, that’s what this felt like. A victory. I had just dodged life in prison without the possibility of parole by using “affluenza” as a defense. And I mean dodged: 90 days of “rehab,” 10 years probation, no going abroad. I’d trade that for life in prison any day.

Still, a life sentence in prison is better than this nightmare.

There weren’t a lot of people in the room for such a high profile case. The governor’s blue-eyed, blonde-haired, teenage son drove drunk and killed three Mexican immigrants in a car crash. Well, my dad said they weren’t technically immigrants. He said they had cards that let them work here, but who cares about that. Point is, my dad is the governor of our great state, and he made it so there’d be no extra people inside the courtroom. The crying woman, Mrs. Hernandez, was the only one inside that wasn’t a part of the trial, and I think he only allowed that because of the negative publicity it would cause.

“Ryan did not have any idea of the consequences of his actions, due to him being cushioned and pampered during his life. He never experienced bad things, and did not get to learn about them from family due to his father’s busy schedule serving our community as governor,” my lawyer bowed slightly when he said that, “and his poor mother’s death just ten years ago, when he was six.”

Yeah, my mom died of cancer she got from smoking three packs of Virginia Slims a day, big whoop. I knew her about as well when she died as I know my lawyer now. Actually, I know my lawyer better now than I know my mother and father combined. Even still, Dad pulled all the stops to keep me out of prison, and it worked. The “affluenza,” the jury selection, some backroom deal with the DA’s office, and I was scot-free.

Mrs. Hernandez began wailing at that point, her hands clasped towards the sky, gibbering incoherently in Spanish. Apparently the news traveled quickly to the crowd waiting outside – news people, supporters, protestors, and police had been outside waiting on the verdict all day. Being in such a large city there were a lot of people, and that scared me at first. But now! Now I was free! And there was nothing anyone could do to take that away. At least… that’s what I thought then.

So she’s wailing, and outside they’re screaming. At first I didn’t notice it because of Mrs. Hernandez, but as I hugged my lawyer and then my father we all noticed the gunfire. First it was a couple of shots, then dozens of small and deep pops and booms. We all crouched by the benches.

“Oh my god,” gasped the stenographer. “What’s happening?”

There were two guards and two uniformed police officers in the windowless courtroom. One of the police officers stood and nodded at their partner. They were the ones that arrested me on scene, and apparently I had said some real harsh stuff to the both of them. I don’t remember it though, I was hammered drunk.

They were already near the two large doors that led out of the courtroom, and after drawing their pistols the red-haired female officer (Murphy I think her name was) turned and said, “Everyone stay put until another officer comes and tells you it’s safe. Do you have a lockdown procedure?”

“Yeah, we’ll start it now,” replied the big black bailiff. He looked a little like Ben Carson, but more buff. I don’t know his name, so I’ve decided to just call him Ben. Ben headed to the door as it closed behind the two officers and locked it. “We’re locked in, folks,” he said loudly. “Just sit tight, we’re safe in here.”

There were the twelve jurors, Mrs. Hernandez, two guards plus Ben, six lawyers, a stenographer, a clerk, and the judge, plus me and my father. 27 of us sat in the courtroom listening to the muffled pops and booms coming from outside. We crouched even lower amid the gasps and worried whispers of the jury. After what felt like ten minutes – it was probably closer to two – someone began pounding on the door.

“It’s Murphy! Open the fucking door!” came the officer’s voice. One of the guards ran over to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open. Officer Murphy fell in, twisting and landing on her back. Murphy began yelling, “Shut it! Shut it fast!”

The pops and booms of gunfire were louder now that the doors were open. I looked over the bench to see a long-haired woman in a red dress with paint on her face, half running, half tripping into the room. She fell on top of the guard at the door without a sound. As he let go of the door, it swung shut, closing completely. The remaining guard and Ben ran to help the downed guard while Murphy completely ignored him and locked the door. I thought that was weird, but now I’m almost glad she did it. Almost immediately the sounds of thudding began at the door. It sounded like a dozen people were throwing baseballs at the door. Murphy turned her back to the door, breathing heavily and staring at the tangle of struggling limbs in front of her.

It was a clusterfuck. I never got to really use that word before, but it sounds good in my head. “Clusterfuck.” Yeah, that doesn’t sum it up well enough. Not at all. Complete and utter hell and torture? Accurate, but still doesn’t sum it up. I’m starting to ramble now…

The uninjured guard and Ben grabbed a hold of the woman in red and tried to pull her off of the guard on the floor, but she wouldn’t let go. The uninjured guard began raining blows on her back and shoulders with his nightstick and Ben wrapped his hand around her hair and pulled back. She fought against him but he had a big handful. The guard on the floor was yelling at first, but as Ben pulled, his yells turned into screams. The jury members’ gasps became a chorus of panicked shouts and calls.

“Mother of God!”

“She’s biting him!”

“I think I’m going to be sick!”

One person did actually faint then. I couldn’t see what the jurors could see over the back of the woman in red, but I could hear those piercing screams from the guard underneath her, and I saw the fountain of blood spray upwards, showering both the uninjured guard and Ben. It made them step back for a second and wipe the blood from their faces. That’s when the screaming started. From the jury, from me, from my dad. From everyone except Murphy. The woman turned her head slowly over her shoulder as she chewed on flesh torn from the guard underneath her. She wasn’t wearing a red dress – she was soaked in blood. Half of her face was ripped completely off: no eyebrow, no eyelid, the gleaming bones of her cheek, chin, jaw, and teeth showing. She still had an eye on that side, which rolled and moved with the jerky twitching of her twisting head. The further she turned, the wider the ragged gash in her throat opened. Her dress was torn in many places, but I wasn’t looking at that. I was losing my mind. A loud bang assaulted our ears momentarily, pausing the collective screaming as the woman’s head opened on the side, spilling half of her brain onto the ground. She fell backwards, the guard underneath her squirming like a snake nailed to the ground. Ben and the other guard bent over him, and Murphy’s hand fell to her side. She looked like sour cottage cheese covered in blood. She had wounds all over her, uniform torn in places, frazzled hair, pale and sweaty skin. She dropped her gun and fell to her knees, then flat on her face. It looked like it hurt, falling flat on her face like that. Makes me chuckle now. She’s probably better off than the rest of us.

Mrs. Hernandez ran over to Murphy, and so did Ben. I looked at my dad and he looked twice as scared as I felt.

“Call an ambulance!” Ben shouted at the jurors.

I vaguely registered them asking about phones, and later found out that they were all given to the bailiff while they were deliberating. They were deliberating until about three minutes before all of this started and hadn’t gotten their phones back. They should all have them now, useless as they are. While the jurors gathered around the wounded guard and Murphy, my father spoke with the judge about getting out and getting help. My father wasn’t able to get through to emergency services on his cell, and people were really starting to freak out, shouting and pushing each other. Murphy and the wounded guard died there on the floor while the jurors fought. They didn’t even move the bodies until someone tripped over one of them in a scuffle, and even then they only moved them ten feet away. Jury of your peers, right? They’re assholes too. Minutes flew by as they discussed the situation, and I sat where I sat during the trial, listening and watching. My father was taking control of the situation, using his polished orating skills, talking about calmness, security, freedom, and ANTIFA, who he blamed for this. It was all very rousing, until it wasn’t.

“Look out!” I shouted to the group. They turned as one to look at me. As one, their eyes followed my pointed finger. As one, they screamed, at the once dead Murphy and once dead guard who were springing straight at them. Their feet thudded heavily onto the courtroom floor, splashing through a pool of their own commingling blood and into the group. They each leapt onto a person – the stenographer and clerk went down. Making no sounds, Murphy and the guard began biting and hitting them. Ben and the remaining guard drew their guns and began firing, shoulder to shoulder, into the bodies of the attacking guard and Murphy. Each gun went dry as the two monsters stood and advanced with fresh bullet wounds in their chests, towards the armed men. The rest of the courtroom were already retreating to where I was by the bench. Murphy lunged at Ben and another loud bang went off, causing Murphy’s head to snap to the side, body falling limp mid-leap. And why not call it what it is, these things were zombies. I know this now. The zombie guard leapt and landed on the living guard, and after a second of mauling him, another bang went off making him fall limp.

Mrs. Hernandez stood with a gun in her hand, Murphy’s gun, and slowly lowered the barrel. The only sound that could be heard was the whimpering of the bleeding guard on the floor.

“Nice shot,” gulped Ben. “Now, let me have that,” he whispered, holding his hand out towards the gun.

“No!” She almost spit it at him. “Esto son los muertos vivi-something.” She said that with great reverence, but I don’t know Spanish. “The walking dead.” She regarded us, “All of you, over here, by the door.” She waggled the gun at us, but no one moved. Not until she fired, shooting a juror in the chest. He dropped to the ground, flailing and gasping for air. The gasping stopped shortly after, but we were all moving before that happened.

“You all… You all were going to let him go free! Go free after he killed my whole family!” She was crying, pointing the gun at the group of us. No one was brave enough to take it from her. Maybe things would be different if someone had tried….

I didn’t listen to what she was saying, but she seemed pretty pissed. I was too busy watching that barrel sway over me again and again as she talked. It sounded like she was winding down, and I tuned back in.

“Now… You all will pay, by the grace of God. Get out.” She said grimly. I remember her face scaring me as badly as the last three minutes of my life. “Bailiff, you… you can stay if you want.”

“Uh… No thanks, lady, I have a family to take care of, so I’ll go.”

What was weird at the time was that everyone was more than happy with that deal. I gotta remember, we didn’t actually know what was outside the courtroom. We saw some wild stuff go down in the matter of less than five minutes and didn’t process the implications. Here was a wild woman that just shot three people, a woman whose family’s killer just got let go scot-free. Let’s be honest, that was bullshit. I mean, it would have been nice if it worked out, but I deserved prison. I would take prison over this, any day.

So we were more than happy to leave, but there was still the pounding on the door. Before we could second guess ourselves, we heard screams from far away. The pounding stopped.

“There are a lot of us,” Ben said. “We’ll be okay. We have numbers.”

“It sounds like now is your time!” Mrs. Hernandez said as she thumbed back the hammer on the pistol. She had a crazy grin on her face. I think I understand why, now. She knew what she was doing to us.

The doors were pulled open and we all piled out. As the last person exited the room, the first people out stopped in their tracks. I was one of those people in the front. Chaos and carnage on levels above anything I’d ever imagined filled my view. War movies weren’t this bad. The hallway ran straight and turned to the left, where it opened to the large front room of City Hall. I remember those big glass windows and walls, and all of the mayhem past them. All of the mayhem in front of them. Just ahead of us. Inside with us. Two dozen of the undead creatures turned to look at us. They were all types of people. None younger than my age though, not that I can see now. Everything from professionals, to the homeless; from walmart moms, to construction workers. All of them dressed in what they put on this morning, all of them torn to shreds, soaked in blood and viscera. Body parts missing. People whose entire stomachs and chest cavities that were gone. Just bones holding up torn necks and skinless faces. We saw them, and they saw us.

“Back! Go back!” We shouted as we turned and pushed back towards the courtroom. We pushed down the hall but couldn’t get any further – Mrs. Hernandez locked the doors. Some of us turned and ran. I know I did. I ran three steps forward and did a sweet spin move past the first zombie. She was a fat old lady. I saw that she was missing most of the muscle from her arms and quickly figured she’d be easy to get by. I was right, but the next one stopped me in my tracks. I was shocked at the horror this person had become. The amount of mangled flesh that was slowly closing in on me, from over ten feet away, froze me there. The sheer amount of gore made me think of the Hernandez family. Is this what they looked like after that night? How must they have felt? I felt it. I felt it then, as two undead collided into me, pancaking me between them. They both fell on top of me and began biting, tearing into the soft parts of me. My neck, my belly. My screams stopped quickly because of that. More hands and mouths tore at me as I lay on the ground, barely struggling. I could see the ceiling jolt with each pull of flesh from my body, and the world became a closing pinwheel. I died with my eyes open. Then, it pinwheeled again, light filtering in.

The pain is excruciating. I can feel every wound, every torn piece of flesh. My neck is mostly gone. I’m missing the fingers on my remaining hand. All of my stomach has been scooped out of me. I saw and felt all of this when my body first stood up on its own, one of my eyes is dangling from its socket. I can feel all of this, as I take shaky steps forward, towards the sounds of screams in the streets. Ben is just ahead of me, following the same sound. Some of the jurors might have made it, but it looks like most of them are getting back to their feet too. I can only guess that they’re all locked in, like me. Feeling everything, watching as we continue forward moment after moment, following the living, with no control over our dead bodies. Always hungry, always searching. What will it feel like if I catch someone? All I know is that I don’t want to kill again, and I guess I’m serving that life sentence after all, in a different kind of prison.

