The next day, I couldn't turn the music loud enough or drive fast enough to get pulled away from the memory of the day before. What had happened? It was like some madness had taken over me: some sort of insanity. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe I was losing control. The control that I once had definitely seemed to be slipping away. I couldn't control my thoughts anymore. My emotions were going haywire. A destructive blend of emotions that was slowly tightening its grasp on me. I couldn't isolate them and deal with each individually. I could feel anger, disgust, regret, guilt sorrow....but whenever I tried to confront any of them, they simply faded back into the growing maelstrom that was taking hold of me. I was losing it.
I found myself desperately yearning to feel anything but that horrifying madness. I couldn't smother it with apathy; the sickness blazed on, affected only for a few fleeting moments. Memories I'd held back for weeks flashed through my mind with no restraint. They couldn't be stopped. The emotion and the images blended into a hellish twilight I couldn't escape. I wanted it to end. I just wanted it to end.
After two more days on the road, another small city loomed on the horizon. I'd passed by or through at least a dozen towns, but they had seemed abandoned: unlike the earlier city, which had seemed haunted. The difference was as striking as that between a half-buried skeleton and a walking corpse. Now another skyline lay ahead of me. I suppose I had an option. I could have driven around it. I could have avoided the situation entirely. With everything else that was running through my head, though, I don't think the option even registered.
Within the hour, I was driving through the city. The highway had been stopped up with car wrecks. Panic and destruction had overtaken this city as well. The city streets were more passable than the highway had been, but it was still slow going and there were more places where the undead might be lurking. There definitely were undead around. I saw a few as I was driving, but I didn't stop to pick them off. I was focused on navigating my way through that hellhole. Before long though, I hit an impassible field of gridlocked cars.
I turned around to start backtracking through the streets, but before I'd even gotten the Juggernaut turned all the way around I saw a lot of zombies coming towards me. I didn't bother counting, but it was more than a little and less than a hundred: in other words, a lot. In hindsight, I suppose I could have gunned it and plowed my way through them, but it would have been risky. I probably would have been able to pull it off, but again, with everything that was going through my head, I don't think it even registered in my awareness.
I was out of the SUV before I had even fully processed what I was planning to do. It didn't matter. They were coming. I was ready. I shut the Juggernaut down and grabbed my swords. This time, I waited for them. I swung my arms around, limbering them up as the zombies advanced. I should have been afraid. Recalling the event, I've tried to find fear in the blend of emotions I felt that night, but I don't even recall a glimmer of it. Instead, all I remember is the rising tide of rage that swallowed all other emotion. It became a wall between me and the madness. It felt good.
My blades sang and my footfalls set the cadence. The zombies provided a chorus of droning moans. The combat was like some sort of orchestral movement and I was the conductor. My instruments of destruction swung this way and that. I felt removed from their dance behind my wall of rage. My body moved with the music as well, dancing along in its own way. The zombies dropped to the ground like the conductors hands at each downbeat. It was the music of my madness: the composition of my rage. I was relentless and unafraid. Nothing could shake me so long as the music continued, but the music was over all too quickly. I looked around for more zombies to join the song, but they all lay on the street like black notes on a page: dead and unmoving.
The sense of rage left me in a long, shuddering sigh and a sense of quiet euphoria took its place. It lasted for a while: long enough to clean up in the river that ran through the city and long enough for me to drive through the remainder of the city's dark streets and finally fall asleep under the open sky some hour removed from the buildings and wreckage. At last, something held the madness at bay. I slept peacefully that night.
The madness crept back in with the morning light. The anger, the dread, the grief—they spread through my veins as the dawn spread across the sky. There was no real escape, it seemed. I could live with it. I could survive. I just had to get to California. California was the land of promise. There was hope there. There was a chance to start over. There the streets were made of gold and food fell from the sky like rain. I was going to make it. I had to.
I started the engine and pulled back onto the highway. It was still a long way to California. Somehow, I had to cover the distance quickly, with enough food and water and gas. If I balanced out the variables, I could maximize efficiency and...and...I had to keep thinking. I had to keep my brain going. This madness had already taken hold of my idle thoughts and was trying to take control of the rest of my mind as well. I had to keep my brain working. If I didn't, it would all spiral out of control again. I was afraid of what would happen then. I didn't know what would happen then. Maybe I'd be able to take back control if I lost it, but I didn't know. My greatest concern, though, was that—if I lost control—I might become suicidal. That would be such a waste. I'd gotten this far. I couldn't give up now. It would be an absolute and complete waste. The past few months of grief and pain would be for nothing. The last few days of agony would be completely wasted. It had to be for something. I couldn't give up. I pushed the gas pedal down even farther and flew down the highway.
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