Chapter Text
Flesh. Red. Meat. Hunger. Blood. Meat.
Yes, yes we’re all very aware of your wants at this point, Bog thought at himself, as if his instincts could hear him.
The persistent thoughts and ever-growing hunger were taking up more and more of his mind with each passing day. Or, what must have been days, weeks, maybe even months, he didn’t know. There were no holes in the face of the metal locker he’d been trapped in for what felt like an eternity. No way to tell the passage of time. Every hour was as pitch black as the last.
At first he’d tried to break out, of course, but they’d put something heavy in front of the locker door and, despite what some people would have you believe, being undead lead more to being perpetually weak and sickly than it did to gaining incredible superhuman strength. Whatever was blocking his escape was far too heavy and he far too weak. He was trapped.
He’d tried screaming for help. He’d screamed for hours, maybe even days, but no one came. He had no idea where he was but it was probably miles from civilization where no one would ever be able to hear him. Rescue, then, was not a likely possibility either.
Eventually he’d resigned himself to it. He was trapped without food and, without meat to satisfy his supernatural hunger, he’d go feral. No doubt this was the plan of whoever had jumped him and stuffed him in the locker to begin with.
Society didn’t think highly of zombies like Bog and many got a sick thrill from forcing them to lose their humanity, as if it proved some kind of point that zombies were too dangerous to live amongst normal people, too quick to lose control. Zombies going missing and turning up weeks later, completely feral, was all too common of an occurrence.
With a steady supply of raw meat to keep their hunger appeased, zombies like himself could lead some semblance of a normal life. They ate, they slept, they aged, they had jobs, families. They may as well have been human.
Take away that supply, however, and that hunger would consume them, making them lose all traces of their former humanity and turning them into the shambling monsters of Hollywood horror films. They would no longer need sleep, they’d be unable to stomach anything that wasn’t meat, and they lost any semblance of being alive, losing any free will or higher thought and becoming slaves to their craving for flesh.
Bog had been grabbed walking home from the store, in broad daylight no less. The whole thing was a blur. Between how fast it had happened and how hard it was getting for him to think or remember anything, he had very little clear recollection of exactly how he’d ended up in his current predicament. All he knew is that he’d been walking down the street, then his next memory was being forced into this locker. If he'd gotten a look at their face (faces?) he couldn’t remember it now.
They’d probably had a stun gun and just put him out. Something about zombie physiology made their nervous systems very sensitive to electric pulses and it had been quickly discovered that a moderate zap from the right frequency would knock them out cold, instantaneously. The fact that they were so easily disabled was the only reason they were allowed to mingle with human society. Stun guns were easy enough to get a hold of and zombies were easily identified by the metal bracelet each one was required to wear around their right wrist. This made the threat zombies posed to society minimal and made most people comfortable enough to at least tolerate their presence.
Of course it also made violence against zombies laughably easy. There was no way to hide what they were and they simply had no way to defend themselves against the effects of a stun gun. If someone had it out for them, there was next to nothing they could do about it.
Once he’d resigned himself to his fate, Bog found himself morbidly curious about just how it would happen. Would his mind go slowly, with him fully aware of his loss of sanity but helpless to stop it? Or would it happen all at once? Would feel himself turning into a mindless beast? Or would the hunger take him over like some outside presence, forcing his consciousness out of his own mind?
It turned out to be an odd mix of both. The hunger grew steadily overall, but would also sometimes consume him quickly and completely. It felt like his mind was changing, but also felt almost like a separate entity from himself shared a mind with him.
He’d come to think of it as something like an aggravating, aggressive roommate he was forced to share a space with. Snidely commenting in his head at those thoughts as though they were made by someone else entirely was certainly easier than accepting that they were coming from his own mind and would soon be all he was left with. Easier than thinking about how, slowly, as time went on and on…he felt himself starting to agree with them.
Blood. Flesh. Red. Meat. They begged.
You’re sounding like a broken record there, old friend. Ever consider getting some new material?
Blood. Red. Red. Red. Flesh. Hunger.
Apparently not.
--
As time passed, Bog could feel his “roommate” taking up more and more space in his head until the part of himself that was still rational and sane was being pushed out.
It had terrified him at first, but now the fear had faded to a grim acceptance. It was possible that he didn’t have the mental capacity for fear left. He’d lost the ability to speak or willfully control any of his movements, so it wasn’t exactly a stretch. Trying to think or feel anything was growing harder.
Every time anything set off his instincts, like a sudden sound or an unfamiliar smell, the feral side of him would swell, forcing out any rational thought in its frenzy of ‘Meat meat meat!’ but it would eventually fade and there would be enough room for Bog in his own mind. His sanity would return like the tide coming back in. Each time, however, less and less of him would come back and it took longer and longer for it to do so. He didn’t have much time left.
He’d wished he gotten the chance to say goodbye to Marianne.
Was she still looking for him? he wondered. Or had she given up? Maybe she’d moved on by now; fallen in love with someone who wasn’t mostly dead. He wasn’t sure if the idea was comforting or distressing. He didn’t really have the mental wherewithal left to puzzle it out anymore and even his thoughts of Marianne were starting to be steadily pushed out of his mind.
He tried to hold on to them as best he could. If he only had a limited number of human thoughts left, he’d really like them to be of her.
His tough girl, who loved him despite what he was, who didn’t care if other people disapproved, who looked at him like he was something worth her love, as beautiful and perfect as she was, who made him feel more alive than he had since he’d died.
Yes, if he got to choose a last thought, it should really be of her.
---
Time kept passing. Bog didn’t know how much. It was impossible to tell.
He felt his sanity fade in and out like the in and out of breath and he couldn’t tell if he was being forced out or if the two parts of his mind were just finally merging into one. He couldn’t find it in him to care about it either way.
He hadn’t been able to keep thinking of Marianne. Her face was a blur in his mind. All his memories were.
It felt oddly like trying not to fall asleep when one was beyond tired. He’d have a moment of clarity, just long enough to acknowledge that he was lucid, before going under again.
Hunger. Blood. Meat. Flesh. Red.
I hear you, friend. Oh God, do I hear you.
He suddenly jumped at the sound of something moving near him.
Very near.
Someone? Something? Food? Meat?
He scratched at the locker door and sniffed the air, desperate for a whiff of something alive.
Calm down, he scolded himself once the frenzy passed enough for him to think again, however briefly. Look at you, barking like a dog at the window. It was probably just another rat skittering across the floor. Nothing for you.
No, no this sound was different. It was moving something. Something heavy.
The door.
The door to the room.
Bog’s mind buzzed with excitement.
Something was near. Something was near!
Then there was another noise.
Noise! Noise! Noise close! Something near!
No, no he knew that noise.
Words.
Words meant people. People meant meat.
Oh he could smell them now, smell how hot and red they smelled.
Close. Please closer. Here. Here. Here.
He felt himself start to salivate.
Yes. Please. Here. Come here. Open this door. Let me out. Let me at that red.
No. No.
Something tried very hard to be thought.
No…he knew those words. Their…sound. That...voice.
He knew that voice!
No. No. No. No. No. No.
Marianne.
No, he’d hurt her, he’d take her red! She could not come near!
He needed to make those sounds too. Word sounds. Tell her away. Make her away.
“Uh…uh!” he grunted.
She made more word sounds. Loud ones. She came closer.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
No, no!
Away!
He heard the heavy thing in front of the locker door being moved.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
No, no, no!
The door to the locker opened and the light practically burned Bog’s eyes after so much darkness, but he barely winced.
He stared, wide eyed at the face in front of him.
Marianne.
Her face, so clear after the blurred images of his faded memory, pulled his mind together like all the pieces were on tiny strings.
She’d found him. She hadn’t given up.
He could think again, but he could feel how paper-thin his control was, how desperately the other side of himself was trying to take over.
The moment of clarity brought thoughts to his head, and words to his mouth.
“Marianne…”he breathed, voice rough from disuse. “Marianne you…have to get away from me. Please, you have to get as far away from me as you can.”
“Bog!” Marianne cried, tears in her eyes. “Bog, it’s really you!”
No. No. She didn’t see. She didn’t understand.
Blood. Meat. Flesh. Red. Blood.
His hunger tried to steal the words from him again but he fought against it with all his might.
“Marianne you don’t…you have to…I can’t…control…”
She said something in response, but it just turned to noise to him.
He breathed in her scent. Oh she smelled so red.
Anything that was left of Bog’s rational mind disappeared in that moment, forced out by a tidal wave of bloodlust and hunger.
He sprang at the red thing, teeth bared, longing to sink them into its warm flesh.
Meat! Flesh! Red!
He tackled the red thing to the ground but it managed to hold him back, away from it.
His jaws snapped and he let out a series of hisses and snarls, desperately trying to overpower his meal, but the red thing was strong and he’d grown weak from being caged so long. It threw him off of it and scrambled to its feet, making loud noises at him.
He got to his feet as well and charged it again, frantically grabbing with his arms and snapping his teeth.
It was so close, so close!
Then, a loud ‘pop’ sounded from nearby and something hit Bog. A tangled web of cord forced him to the ground. Weights held down the cords and pinned him there. He bit and scratched at the netting to no avail.
Another red thing joined the first and he struggled even harder.
More red! More meat!
The red things made noises at each other for a moment before facing him again.
He hissed loudly at them and they held something up towards him.
There was another ‘pop’ and everything went black.
--
Bog awoke to the smell of blood. His eyes shot open and he looked frantically around for the source, hunger tearing at his mind and stomach.
He spotted the carcass of some kind of animal in front of him and immediately dove at it. He sunk his teeth into cold flesh as his mind screamed ‘Meat. Meat. Meat!’
He tore off chunks and hastily swallowed it down.
It wasn’t the red thing. It didn’t taste very red at all.
Meat should be hot and red, so red it was burning. This was a dark crimson, at best.
Still, it was something after having nothing for so, so long. He gulped down pieces as quickly as his body would allow.
Meat. Red. Flesh. Hunger. Food. Food.