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The Champ de Mars was crawling with zombies.
It was nothing new.
I was watching them through my binoculars, one after the other, mechanically, without giving them each more than a handful of seconds. They looked alike, all of them. Damaged bodies, torn and dirty clothes, covered in mud or other similar substances. Hair tangled, stuck to the skull. Empty gazes, swaying gait, jerky gestures.
There were thousands, a sea of grays and browns that swarmed over the lawns transformed into immense swamps by the incessant comings and goings and the abundant autumn rains. A foul-smelling, omnipresent, pestilential horde. The smell must have been awful. Fortunately, we were far away, at about five hundreds meters, on the top floor of a building.
It wasn't the first time I came here. It wouldn't be the last either. I didn't know exactly why I kept coming up there, to look at them. I didn't do it every day - too dangerous - or even every week, but only once or twice a month. I climbed the seven floors, I took a seat in the living room of the apartment at the corner of the building, by the window, and I watched them. For an hour, or two.
At first, I was just trying to understand. How. Why. All of humanity, or nearly all, transformed into this. Zombies.
Zombies, a potent word that conjured up immediate images for anyone who heard it. There had been so many books, movies, TV series, and video games on the subject... We knew what a zombie was. We knew how it behaved. In theory. Except that the practice had exploded in our faces and turned out to be very different. Oh, they were running after us, and trying to convert us, yeah. But they didn't devour us, didn't drool, didn't feed on brains...
No, they had a whole other hobby.
From the beginning, they were doing the same thing. Tirelessly, day and night, there they were, in the heart of Paris, busy as ever. At first, we didn't understand what they were up to. And then, over the short hours of surveillance, it started to make sense, little by little.
There was no longer any doubt now. No more doubts, but it was still just as absurd.
I tried out loud to see if it helped:
"Zombies building a spaceship."
Nope, it was worse.
"We don't know it's a spaceship," Patricia pointed out behind my back.
"Sure as hell looks like one."
"A Star Trek one, yes. But to go into space, that shit won't fly. It's flat and sleek, like a toy designed to please the eyes. Where does all the fuel go? No multiple stages? I don't see how this thing could tear itself away from gravity and reach the speed necessary to leave the planet."
We had had this discussion many times. Patricia often accompanied me on what she affectionately called my observation missions. Of course, my activities were not official. There was nothing that deserved this title now.
"Hopefully they'll all blow up on take off," I said.
"I'd love to see this."
"So that's why you come with me every time? And here I thought you liked me... Now I'm hurt."
Patricia laughed lightly.
"I come with you because your obsession with zombies worries me. If I wasn't there, what would stop you from rolling in the mud and running down in the middle of the horde so you can watch them even closer?"
"I'm not suicidal. And it's not an obsession, it's just..."
I shrugged as a way to end the sentence. What else was I supposed to do? At least I might get some answers eventually. The others remained hidden underground, absorbing themselves in their own obsessions. Me, I had to get out. To see what was going on. It wasn't even to document things, because I didn't keep any diaries, didn't write any reports. It was just... like that.
"You know what happens to people who can't keep still," Patricia said with a sigh.
Oh, I knew that all too well. They were down there, slaving away in silence. All those who had wanted to flee, who had wanted to fight, who had chosen any other path than to hide somewhere to only rarely get out, in case of absolute necessity. All the self-proclaimed heroes with their guns and their convictions fueled by watching The Walking Dead and other series and movies of the same kind... They had not lasted long.
Each trip was synonymous with danger. As soon as the zombies spotted you, they would rush towards you to convert you - on this point at least, the movies got it right. You couldn't pretend or fool them. There were only two choices: hide, or run.
"All the more reason why you shouldn't come with me," I replied.
She sighed again, didn't argue further. Not this time. I thought about the person I reminded her of. We had never talked about it, but I suspected that she saw something in me of someone that had been dear to her. A little sister, a daughter... now part of the zombie horde that had invaded Paris, and the world.
I watched the crowd of undead again through my binoculars. For several weeks now, they had been forming human chains and passing boxes from hands to hands, in absolute silence. Some boxes were intended for the interior of the ship, which zombies frequently visited, while another, smaller group was on the roof of the ship, and seemed to be working on it. Others were tending to the sides of the metal vehicle, and still others were finishing chopping down the last trees nearby.
Like an anthill whose activity never ceased, all of it in the open, come rain, wind, or snow. And they were perfectly coordinated, so much so that it was scary. They passed one other the necessary tools, moved in harmony, as if they instinctively knew where the other zombies were, without even needing to look. It really wasn't natural, and it gave me chills every time I saw it.
"Why couldn't they be normal zombies..."
"What difference would it have made?" Patricia asked. "One apocalypse is worth another."
"I would still have preferred a classic one instead of a convoluted one. Look at them! It's so ridiculous..."
I laughed, cynically. It was either that or cry, and I had already shed enough tears.
"We should go home," Patricia said.
I stood up, stretched. The sun was at its zenith in the sky. Not that the time of day made any difference to the zombies: they were just as active day and night.
We started the journey back home. First, all the stairs to descend, slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, then the few hundred meters in the street, bent in two as we hugged the walls, then the entrance to the metro and the long corridors to be walked briskly, before descending on the tracks and continuing. It was a long trip, almost an hour, and we stopped regularly to listen and make sure we were alone. We had only encountered a zombie once since we used this path, which was really little compared to the streets above where the living dead swarmed, but one was enough. We had barely escaped.
Once near the Luxembourg Gardens, we went back in the streets to find the manhole cover, and the ladder underneath that led to the depths of Paris of another caliber. Towards the catacombs and a promise of relative safety.
The first time I had found myself before such an entrance, I had been terrified. I had just spent three days in hiding to escape the zombies, three days without almost any sleep, food or water. A chance encounter with another survivor who claimed to know a place where I could rest had brought me there, in front of the manhole cover and that gaping hole promising a darkness that seemed ready to swallow me. I had stumbled near the edge, and for a fraction of a second I had seen myself fall, engulfed forever. Then a strong hand had gripped my arm, held me back.
"I'll go first, so I'll catch you if there's a problem," my savior had told me.
His name was James, and he had guided me through the maze of corridors, to the little camp where a group of people had made their home, Just a handful of people, of varying ages and origins, who had had enough luck until then to escape the living dead, or who from the beginning had thought of taking refuge under the capital.
James was just a memory now, like almost everyone I had met underground. But the catacombs remained a sanctuary. No zombie ventured down there.
I walked behind Patricia as we followed the path home. Familiar drawings, frescoes, graffiti and apocalypse messages punctuated our progress, in all their diversities. Skulls, smiling cats, peaceful or stormy landscapes, drawing of easily recognizable people, others whose identities would remain unknown, and of course, lots of "We are all going to die", "This is the end"...
I touched each piece as I walked past. It was my homecoming ritual, and I stuck to it. I imagined that with each contact, the drawings absorbed part of my emotions: I left them my fear, my doubts, my frustrations, the anger at not understanding anything about the situation, the perplexity mixed with astonishment at the idea of the spaceship, always... They took all the negative thoughts that dragged me down, and I continued on, lighter.
Our flashlights lit up the tunnels, and only the sound of our footsteps echoed between the stone walls. It was joined by the sounds of the water being disturbed as we came upon a half-flooded passage. The chalky water reached up to mid-thigh, and the first time I had had to walk through it, I had pictured hands gripping my ankles and dragging me below the surface, to drown me in the murky depths. Now, taking this passage barely made me blink.
Ditto for the place where you had to lie down and crawl in a narrow gallery. I could do it with my eyes closed. Alix, the catacombs expert. Strange what you could get used to.
Still not used to the zombies and their spaceship, I thought bitterly.
We finally arrived at our destination, after what must have been a good hour's journey. Time seemed to pass differently in these tunnels, however, and my perception did not match what my watch was telling me - rather, I would have said it was five hours.
The height of the room and its size made it ideal as a gathering point and now permanent living space. Huge, closely spaced pillars supported the ceiling. Frescoes adorned the walls, the four seasons painted vividly, vibrant with color and nostalgic joy. For spring, a park where everything was in bloom, a mixture of soft greens, pinks, yellows and light blue, with colorful figures wandering the alleys. The summer one showed a field of golden wheat, a red tablecloth lying on the ground, and a family picnicking under a bright sun. Autumn was a Paris street in the rain at dusk, the sidewalks cluttered with fallen leaves as figures barely sketched in black and gray hues walked hurriedly, no doubt anxious to return home. As for the winter fresco, it was a Christmas dinner, joyful guests seated at a table offering a resplendent feast, while a fire roared in the hearth, a large black dog lounging in front of it.
They reminded us of the world before, what we had lost and would not find again. All of them had been painted by the same artist. I still felt a pang in my heart when I looked at them. Although I had only known the painter for a short few months, he had been a friend. And then one day he went out to get more art supplies, and he never came back. That was how it happened. People left the safety of the catacombs because they felt they absolutely needed something, because they were determined to find their families, because they thought that the zombies wouldn't get them. And, of course, the zombies got them. We couldn't stop the undead. We couldn't fight them. A headshot did nothing to them. They would still chase you with half of their skulls exploded, or even with nothing above their neck. Once they spotted you, your only hope was to run. And those fuckers ran fast.
"Alix!" a voice said.
Yasmine came towards me smiling, a kid with big brown eyes and curly hair.
"Did you see Mom?" she asked me, as always.
And I always gave her the same answer.
"Not this time, no. But next time, I'm sure."
Her lips quivered, before she forced herself to smile.
"Next time," she repeated.
Then she exclaimed:
"Come, you have to see my house!"
I exchanged a nod with Patricia, and followed the little girl. Near the summer fresco, she had drawn lines in the sand that covered the ground, and used water to create small walls. A sand castle, like at the beach. I listened as she listed the different rooms of her house.
"...and there is your room. So there's room for everyone, you see?"
"It's a beautiful house," I commented.
I gave her a smile, a real one, which was becoming so rare. And it was almost always for her. Yasmine had been here from the start, when I had joined the initial group of survivors. At the time, she was four years old. Now, six. Two years of this shit, and she was still optimistic. She thought that she would see her parents again, that one day we would go back to living as before, that everything would return to normal. A child's candor, that I envied. And we needed it. Without her, the group would have fallen apart a long time ago.
Shortly after, we gathered for lunch. We tried to maintain rituals, a semblance of civilization. We ate together, we celebrated parties and birthdays, we tried to teach Yasmine. It had an artificial taste as the world shattered, but it was helping. A small bubble of forced humanity in the midst of chaos.
"The spaceship is almost finished," I said between bites.
"Spaceship," Thierry growled, shaking his head.
"It is a spaceship", Patricia confirmed. "Like Star Wars."
"I'm still convinced you're pulling my leg."
Thierry hadn't set foot outside since he had descended into the catacombs. He just refused to consider it.
"Maybe zombies don't like the Earth, and they want to leave," Yasmine said thoughtfully.
"We can dream," Monia muttered.
She was the fifth member of our little troop, and the last. Three women, a child, a man. All that was left at the end. Or at least, if there were other survivors, they remained silent.
At the beginning, we had contacts with other groups. Thanks to a radio enthusiast who had managed to save one in working order, and who knew how to use it, we had discussed with survivors hidden in their own corners, some of them on other continents. We had even intercepted a transmission from the international space station, which proved the astronauts were still alive several weeks later after the start of it all. We had exchanged information, advice. Then, little by little, the groups had stopped responding to us, and we had received fewer and fewer transmissions, until only silence reigned. Stéphane had persisted in transmitting, even though there was no one left to hear, and we had lost him like that, during one of his expeditions, since the radio did not work from the safety of the catacombs.
"We shouldn't call them "zombies", Thierry said suddenly.
A conversation that we had already had several times.
"They're not dead," he continued. "They're warm, they breathe..."
So many times, and yet... The arguments were already rising to my lips. Perhaps sterile debate was better than silence.
"They're as good as dead," I replied. "Nothing remains of what they were, of their personality, of their humanity. They're just empty bodies."
"And they're still moving with their heads torn off," Patricia added. "They're still running. Zombies is the correct term."
"Except it's not a pathogen or a disease, since the conversion is instantaneous. You just have to get touched, and bang, you become like them. How do you explain that? Also, there is something left, at least enough to coordinate and build a ship."
I shrugged.
"You know I don't have an explanation."
"We should call them "shells"," Thierry went on. "It's a better term, closer to reality."
"No one is calling them "shells"," Patricia scoffed.
"I will," Thierry said.
"Me too!" Yasmine suddenly exclaimed.
"Whatever their name, it won't change anything to the outcome", Monia said.
Her gloomy statement cut our discussion short. We finished the meal in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.
The afternoon passed slowly. We played cards, Monia got too drunk as usual, and I continued the task of teaching Yasmine to read.
When it was time for bed, I took the first shift. It was probably unnecessary. We had never seen a single zombie in the tunnels, and if they ever ventured down there, we might not be quick enough to escape them, even if I sounded the alarm. The four of us still stood guard, in turn.
When Thierry came to take my place, I went to curl up in my sleeping bag, on the makeshift mattress placed on the sand, and tried to fall asleep. Thoughts of my family came to me, of all those I had lost, and I wept in silence. I ended up falling asleep.
The next day, it was decided that the time had come for a supply mission. We didn't lack water, since we used a well that was right here in the catacombs, and we grew mushrooms in the underground, but they tasted really gross, and we were all sick of eating them. Our supply of good food was dwindling. So we had to go get it upstairs.
There were tons of food left in the city's stores, despite the initial panic when the epidemic had begun, and the thefts that had followed. The vast majority of people had been zombified very quickly, within a few nights. It seemed that there were several starting points, at least that was the conclusion we had come to when talking with the other survivors from other countries, and this damn thing had spread like wildfire. As a result, we still managed to survive on the initial reserves of Paris.
We always went in a group of two for supply runs, and this time it was Patricia and me. We made a good team. Fortunately, the journey was much shorter than yesterday: there were plenty of shops nearby. Lately, we looted a Franprix, one very close to one of the exits of the catacombs. We didn't even have to take the metro.
Dressed as usual in several layers of clothing, heads and hands covered, we climbed to the surface. Zombies had to touch the skin to convert a person. We didn't know why or how, but it worked that way. If they put their dirty paws on your clothes, nothing happened. A zombie could drool all it wanted on your scarf, which you could then tuck your whole face into, and you wouldn't become one of them. The corruption was only flesh to flesh, and instantaneous. This was what led Thierry to think that it was not a virus, because there was no delay, no remote vector, no incubation. It was all or nothing.
After making sure there were no walking dead in sight, Patricia and I ran to the store. The storefront was smashed in, pieces of glass littering the road. Shelves more than three-quarter empty welcomed us. That store wouldn't last us very long.
We went our separate ways to save time, looting the shelves to fill our backpacks. I grabbed the still intact cans, packets of rice, lentils, pasta. I remembered to take a couple of boxes of breakfast cereal, the Chocapics that Yasmine loved so much. And I always made a detour to the chips and candy aisle, because eh, it was the apocalypse, so why not gorge yourself on the good stuff? I took the last two packages of crisps left, thinking that we would have to change stores for the next time. There were so many in Paris: we wouldn't die of hunger. The zombies were much more likely to get us by then.
Loaded like a mule, I joined Patricia who was waiting for me near the exit. She had her back to me, watching the street.
"We're good," I said.
She didn't react. A horrible feeling of discomfort arose in the pit of my stomach. A premonition.
"Patricia?"
Not that, I didn't want that, please, no… A handful of seconds passed, and I convinced myself that I was imagining things, that I was wrong, that my alarmed senses were mistaken. I was exhausted after all, she just hadn't heard me... that was all.
Then Patricia turned around, and it wasn't Patricia. There was nothing left in her eyes, just a great void. I looked at her, while she didn't looked at me. She still had her backpack on her shoulders, but she was standing as if there was no tension in her body. A normal person "inhabited" their own body, always ready to respond, always present, in one way or another, and it showed in the way people held themselves. There was none of that here. And nothing about the behavior of the zombies in the movies either. She wasn't staggering, wasn't drooling, her mouth wasn't open and her eyes weren't bulging... Her face was a neutral mask, as if made of wax, with no one behind it.
"Patricia..." I breathed, my throat tight, hands shaking.
I had to run. Even as I had that thought, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. Another zombie, the one that had infected her. It had been a man once, and he still wore the remnants of a dark-colored suit and tie, weathered by the elements.
I had to run.
In front of me, Patricia - not Patricia - blocking the exit, and on my right, the other zombie. I turned on my heels and booked it, ditching my backpack. I ran between the shelves, rushing to the emergency exit. I threw myself against the door, it opened with a bang, and I came out into the street.
The empty street.
I had expected an army of zombies, but there was no one there.
I ran with all my might to the manhole, swallowing back my tears, my rage and my despair. In my haste, I slipped down, lost my grip and only barely caught myself, hitting my chest against the rungs of the ladder. I cried out in pain. This time, I did not hold back my tears, and they flowed freely down my face as I made my way back to our camp.
I couldn't believe Patricia was gone. We had always been careful when going to get supplies, we had never had any problems... We had to hide two or three times, wait for the zombies to leave, and they had never found us. And now... how was I going to announce it to the others? That there were only four of us left, and I didn't see it coming, and I didn't bring any food back, and... and...
The situation seemed overwhelming, and even crying brought no relief. I wiped away my tears with an angry gesture, entered the room that was our home.
Only silence greeted me.
The claws of fear tore up my insides. The room was never completely silent. There was always Yasmine playing, the others chatting, even the pages of a book being turned... I couldn't see our main living space yet, as the room was curving and the pillars were half blocking the view, but if I heard nothing, it could only mean one thing.
The zombies had found us.
I could only pray that the others had been able to get away in time. And flee, too.
To go where? a voice screamed in my head. It was the last refuge, there is nothing else left. Game over, Alix.
I took a step back, then another, as panic mounted in me, threatening to drown me.
"You're the last one now," said a voice right behind me.
I swiveled, found myself face to face with Yasmine. The little girl was smiling.
"What?"
It was barely a word that had left my throat, more of a hoarse croak, raw with all the emotion my veins were carrying. Yasmine didn't answer, simply stared at me.
"Thierry, Monia..." I whispered, lost.
"I took them," Yasmine replied. "I needed them."
With each of her sentences, incomprehension battered me in waves. I no longer understood anything. I took a step back, then another.
"What?" I repeated, because I couldn't formulate any other thoughts.
"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt."
Her smile widened further. I got goosebumps. There was something behind her eyes, something that wasn't Yasmine.
I bolted.
I had barely left the room when two figures sprung up from the shadows of a tunnel and threw themselves at me. Thierry, Monia. Except no, not anymore. They overpowered me, and pushed me to the ground, on my knees, each holding one of my arms. I struggled, and quickly realized that there was nothing I could do against their combined strength.
"Let me go!" I finally screamed, in desperation.
Yasmine approached, still smiling.
"It doesn't hurt," she said again.
Like it would help me, like it explained anything.
"Please, no, please..."
And I was begging her now, that thing. Without even knowing what it was, without even knowing why.
The little girl who wasn't a little girl at all sighed.
"I guess I can explain it to you, as you are the last one."
"The last what?"
The answer was very simple, but I didn't want to hear it.
"The last human," the thing clarified, excruciatingly light-hearted. "All the others have joined me."
The world swayed beneath me. If I hadn't been on my knees, I would have collapsed.
"Everyone... is dead?"
My voice had been a whisper. My throat burned, as if I had spent hours screaming. The thing tilted Yasmine's head, tapping her lips with a finger.
"Dead is not the right word," she said after several seconds of consideration.
"What?" I choked. "How... why... why are you turning everyone into zombies?!"
I had shouted the last words, rage gaining over fear.
"I am not turning anyone into zombies. I am taking back what is mine. How do I explain it to you? Listen... I was a fugitive. I was being chased by... no, it doesn't matter. You just have to know that I was fleeing, through space, and across distances so vast that your mind would be unable to comprehend them. I was looking for a place to hide, and then, I found it."
She stamped her foot in the sand.
"Earth. An unlikely sanctuary."
She smiled.
"I selected a species which seemed the most suitable to contain myself, great apes inhabiting the Savannah. They were then only animals, without any consciousness of themselves. And I broke myself, into as many pieces as there were apes."
What...
"I hid there, for years and years and years. The apes evolved with my consciousness, became more than they were, became sentient, became humans... thanks to me. Every time a new one was born, I was divided further, hidden more. Those who were chasing me could not find me like this, not when each of my fragments was so small."
I shook my head, because even though she was explaining the situation, it didn't make any sense.
"I found myself divided again and again, as your species multiplied. Births supplanted deaths, and my essence was fragmented at this rate of growth. One day, I decided it had to stop. Enough time had gone by, the hunters had gone away, and the danger had passed. The time had come to regain my full form. So I took a certain number of humans in strategic places, humans who lived in big cities or in neuralgic centers of the planet. Then I got to work."
There was nothing human in her smile now.
"It was easy, you know," she continued. "You are a very noisy species, terrible at hiding. And with your technology, even the most remote corners of the planet are reachable. For a while, I thought the space station was going to be a problem, but in the end I only had to destroy two well-placed satellites for the debris to take care of them, and the essence of the astronauts came back to me. Your little group I was saving for last, as I knew where you were, and so close to my ship. It saved me the trouble of having to stretch out too much to collect my last pieces. It takes effort to control all these bodies from a distance, but it was necessary... I had to come together, and build a ship that could take me to the stars."
She finally fell silent. Contemplating me. Awaiting my response.
"You're a monster."
Her mouth twitched in a terribly familiar expression. Terribly human.
"Didn't you hear what I just told you? I am not killing you. You are me. Literally."
"No," I growled. "No, I'm my own fucking person. You can't take me! You erase people, you kill them!"
I threw myself against the cage of arms that held me. Their grip tightened, while the two bodies that were no longer Thierry and Monia weighed on me.
"I do not kill anyone," the thing reiterated.
"The people you take, what happens to them? Where are they? They no longer exist!"
"They exist, since I exist. I told you. Apes are apes are apes, and their consciousness was me. Just me."
"You're lying."
The last defense before the end.
"You know I am not," the entity simply replied.
She was right. I believed her, and maybe that was the worst part.
"I don't want to be you," I said in a plaintive voice, which I barely recognized. "You ... you can go without me, right? Leave me here? If I'm that tiny, I don't count, you don't need me..."
The entity gazed at me for a moment without saying anything.
"A metaphor," she said. "A large family who organizes an afternoon at the beach. They have fun, run in the waves, build sandcastles. Then comes the time to go home. The parents have seven children. Do they go home with only six? Of course not."
I swallowed, feeling like I was doing so for one of the last times.
"And then, what?" I tried. "You put all your pieces together, and you're going to fly to the stars, as if nothing happened? As if the human species never existed? We may be your children, but you said it yourself, we have evolved since your arrival. We grew up, we built, we created. And you're just going to rip it all off, and walk away without looking back?"
She shook her head.
"No, that was not the right metaphor. I knew I shouldn't have used that one... Ah, another one. Closer to the facts... A dream. When you sleep, your brain creates all kinds of scenarios, regardless of your will, and has fun with various characters and the shapes of your hopes and fears. Then you wake up, and you move on. It's time to wake up now, little dream," she finished.
She knelt down in front of me, eyeing me with a satisfied expression.
"The best thing you can do with your dreams is to remember them. So don't worry. I won't forget you."
I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but already her fingers were touching my cheek.
...
And so, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place, and I was whole.
Finally.
After all this time.
I got up, and laughed freely. Ah. What a pleasure in this new beginning.
I returned to my ship. It shone in the low light of the winter sun, built of an ancient technology I had borrowed from a people long gone, a species who built formidable ships. I had reproduced what I could with the means of the human species, clearly inferior. The engines would barely reach light speed. It would still be enough to get out of this solar system.
And then? I hadn't decided yet. I would need a new body, however, that was certain. The life expectancy of the human envelope was far too short, a mere hundred of their years. And it had few advantages. Maybe I would build myself a mechanical receptacle, devoid of all the biological flaws that plagued all carbon-based life. Perhaps I would find another host who would offer me yet unseen possibilities. The universe was full of lifeforms so different from one other.
But I had plenty of time to think about all this.
With a thought, I refocused on a single body. The others collapsed, all over the world, now empty of me. I settled into the pilot's seat, and switched on the engines. The ship came to life with a roar.
A smile bloomed on my lips.
It was time for me to leave Earth.
It was time for mankind to return to the stars.