Zombies As Coats

It begins with baggy clothing that makes me itch, makes me feel voluminous, pregnant with truths I never consented to carry. I am at my childhood church and there is a program going on in the sanctuary. A pressure is simmering under my skin, so I have stepped out to find somewhere to hide. 

My friend thinks I'm going to the bathroom so she gets up to join me, as girls do. I enter a stall and close the door, wondering how well I am hidden. While I wait, something strange begins to happen to me. I need to be alone for this, I think. I tell my friend I'll catch up with her later and she leaves the room. 

The ancient, unfamiliar sensation boils into steam and then my shadow self wrenches free of my body.

She is tall, gaunt, has bad skin, and wears different clothes than I do. Her shoulders hunch forwards and she reaches for me with the animalistic focus of a zombie. 

Panic floods my veins. She's going to kill me and eat me and no one will ever know what happened. The hinge of my jaw is jammed shut, keeping my pleas stuck in my throat. The zombie doesn’t speak either, only stares at me with her mouth cocked sideways and a gleam in her eye.

I sense I am holding the hilt of a blade, so I plunge it into her chest, then slash it across her neck for good measure. My strikes have no finess, only raw desperation. Neither wound leaks much blood, but she pauses each time, her energy fading into confusion.

I take her hesitation as an opportunity and start hacking away at her body. 

I cut off her hand and then start on her head. Each dismembering cut seems to sharpen my knife, and my trained bloodlust soon has her in pieces on the bathroom floor. 

The threat is eliminated, and I look around the gory stall, worried someone may have heard the commotion. Fear of being discovered replaces the fear of being alone.

I have to get away from the viscera on the floor, so I pull myself together and try to look presentable. My skirt is stained, the ugly fabric shines with blood and other fluids. I tug the hem of my shirt down to cover as much of the mess as I can and try to catch my breath. 

As I prepare to leave the stall, two things happen at once. To my horror, the bathroom door whooshes open and I notice the minced up brains on the floor are starting to wiggle and reform.

Pure terror overcomes me and I start chopping again, hoping if she is in enough pieces, she can never ressurect herself. 

I don't realize my friend has returned to check on me. I hear her gasp and I turn to her, chest heaving, blade in fist. She looks at me with an expression etched in horror.

I must look like a monster to her.

I try to explain that I was only trying to protect her, but she looks past me to the destroyed person on the floor. Fearing the zombie may come back to life, I try to push my friend out of the room. 

I am too late. The zombie draws herself together even faster this time and shoves past me to get to my friend. All I can do is grab hold of her thorny wrist and scream at her not to hurt my friend. 

The zombie comes close and inspects my friend as she stands there, her shoes planted, unafraid and watching. The zombie hesitates in confusion again, and like a flash of lightning, I remember that she had never actually threatened me back in the stall. She had only reached for me, but I took it as a threat because of how she looked.

Because she came from me.

My body bows under the crushing weight of my own violence and hatred as my friend pulls my zombie into an embrace. 

From where I stand, I can see the zombie's face crumple and then relax into my friend's shoulder. 

"It's gonna be ok." On a sigh, she pats the zombie's head with an unfathomable gentleness. 

Then the zombie pulls away and approaches me again. I freeze, caught between curiosity and dread, my muscles quivering with the urge to protect myself. 

But as she stares into my widened gaze, I see something in her that I remember. The truth weakens my knees, the knife falls from my nerveless fingers. 

The room becomes icy and my skin pebbles with the realization. This creature is a part of me. She is the part I haven't wanted to accept, the part I have been ashamed of. And I know. I know what she wants, what I need to do.

So I reluctantly open my arms as if to put on a coat.

I invite her back into my body. 

The dream ends as she turns back into a shadow and starts pouring into me.