Zoopocalypse

My name is Suzanne, by the way. I guess one forgets niceties like introductions in situations like these. I don't know how many people are left in Tacoma, in the U.S., or on earth. According to the plan we'd obsessed over and mentally rehearsed, we would create a safe-zone. If contamination reached Washington state, a circle of my friends and their families would descend on the zoo's location along the coast of the southern Puget Sound; we would secure the perimeter, gather resources and stake our claim. That was what was supposed to happen anyway. Instead, there were five of us. The best laid plans...

Adam, Ian, Cory and Tom had already made it to the Point Defiance Zoo by the time I was bolting up the back pathway toward the gate, pistol in hand, screaming “I'm here and I'm not a zombie!” The proclamation made sense to me at the time, though “Open the gate” would have sufficed.  I had been surprised to see the four of them standing in a row, poised and undaunted, each with a firearm aimed at the pathway. A maladroit mess by comparison, I collapsed in a rubbery tangle in front of them, my body wracked with wheezing breaths. From the ground I flung my arms madly about, indicating the brush along the path to the gate, “Carrier!” 

“Mine,” I heard Adam's voice followed by a single shot and the thick slap of a lifeless human body on pavement. It is not a sound one grows accustomed to. Four of my friends had made it through the early rioting, then through the bedlam of crunched vehicles, raging fires and lunatics forged from disease, shock, and terror. 

“Thank God” was all I could gasp.

“There isn't one,” replied Cory, lowering his weapon. He handled a hefty gun that clashed with his thin, almost sprightly frame. A bandage concealed Tom's left eye and Ian's gaunt cheeks looked hollow. But everything about Adam screamed fortitude and equilibrium. For a moment I could not integrate his neatly-trimmed beard and unreasonably clean sneakers into my mental schema. 

He lowered himself to one knee. His eyes softened, tiny fine lines crinkling the corners, “We didn't give up on you.” 

When I had marginally recovered my composure, Adam walked with me to the zoo's main gate. The word “Zoopocolypse,” blazed across the ground at the entrance in huge, red spray-painted letters. Some unfortunate zookeeepr graffitied this deranged expression either as a bleak vision of the future or as a reminder of their undoubtedly grim present. Something slowly registered, “It's misspelled.” 

“What?”

I pointed at the fourth “o” and almost smiled. “It' spelled wrong. There should be an “a” after the 'c'.” 

Adam actually laughed. “Well, it's the thought that counts, right? Whoever wrote it was right. All we've got now is the zoopocalypse, however you want to spell it.”

Evolution of an Epidemic

I'm no scientist. I'm not even the closest thing we have to a scientist here in our community, but I'll try to explain. It began deep in the ocean; experts said maybe it even started in several locations. Zooplankton, those tiny organisms that comprise the base of the aquatic food chain--they adapted. Due to environmental factors (climate change, dwindling predator populations, and chemical contaminants leaked into oceans were all suggested sources, but nothing was confirmed before the panic started.) many species of zooplankton drifted deeper into the seas and formed a symbiotic relationship with the decaying bodies at shipwreck sites. In a sense, they "learned" to reanimate dead human flesh to feed themselves.

The new species bloomed into nomadic swarms and, eventually,  contaminated detritus washed up on shores world-wide. Stray body parts, a foot in a boot on the Washington coast, a thumb in Sydney, a whole head in Shanghai, were the harbingers. Ominous, but not clear indications of the impending catastrophe. Symptoms in living people varied wildly, apparently depending on which species had overtaken the body. By the time the Center for Disease Control discovered living human flesh was so vulnerable to the ravages of mutated zooplankton, it was too late.

When we, the survivors, arrived here at the Point Defiance Zoo, we went to great lengths—insane lengths really—to protect ourselves from one another. No one touched each other or shared utensils and we used the zoo's most corrosive, pungent disinfectant on our hands, our faces, and even our clothes and hair. So far, no one is showing any signs. So far.

Starting Over

I've erased and rewritten this sentence seven times. There is no right way to begin explaining how society collapsed, billions died and this zoo became the only stronghold for humanity. But events need to be recorded, no matter their ghastliness or the lack of organized archives. No matter the grossly unqualified and tormented author. No matter that tomorrow there may be no one left to read these words..

After the first news broke, the story of the body parts washing up, we joked about how we would take shelter at the Point Defiance Zoo. I knew how to get in, how to work the generators, where the guns were, and of course, how to care for the animals; it would be perfect. But when the hospitals closed and governments imposed the futile quarantines, things got serious. I made a list. Those inane dinner-party queries-- if you could take only three items to a deserted island, what would they be?--became sickeningly real. I kept the car packed with retrospectively stupid items. Razors, a comb, photo albums, a scarf, mascara. Mascara, like I was going on a weekend getaway. Idiot.

But once that man checked into Sacred Heart in Spokane with a wild twitch in his left eye and my cell phone's signal faded into nothing, we climbed onto the roof of our apartment complex and didn't come down for four days. The noise of car horns, gunfire, screams, and the horrible silence afterward—all of it haunts me.

Now that I'm at the zoo, there's no way to contact my family. All I know is that they weren't at our rendezvous point. When I left the old willow tree on Sylvester Road without them, without any of them, something snapped. Like when the eye-doctor changes the lens in front of your eyes and with a click, the world is completely different. And that's how it's been ever since.

The faces of the possessed people—what else to call them? Zombies? Ridiculous. Their slack-jawed, expressions, the oozing pustules, the dripping orifices—I can't write anymore. Partly because the thought of those almost-human abominations makes me ill, but also because it's dawn. Someone has to collect the eggs from the ducks and chickens and give the tiger his medication.