The Cure For Death (Voice Recording)

A Story by Alexzandria R.

Dr. Robert Sully and his team of elite scientists have finally found the cure for death. Or rather a way to reverse it. What is the cost of playing God?

This is Doctor Robert Sully. Today is July 7, 2050. If you’re hearing this, as of today, it’s been two days since my colleagues and I found the cure for death and with it, the consequences of playing god. I’m still hiding in the supply closet. I can still hear them clawing at the door and by now, their ravenous fingers have got to be worn down to bone from scraping on the door for forty-eight hours without resting or even tiring. They know I’m in here. They can sense it. I’m the last living thing in this place. If I remain here for very much longer, that won’t last. A person can go about three days without water before dehydration begins and I doubt the mixture of water and chemicals in the mop bucket nearby would do me any good.
Those…things…they’re not alive. They can’t be. When this began, I saw several of them get shot by security multiple times. It would’ve killed a living person. They took shots to the abdomen, the chest, the throat. Some had more than twenty bullets put through them. It didn’t even hinder them. Didn’t hold them back, didn’t slow them down. And my coworkers… I saw so many of them get their throats ripped out by these things’ teeth and I’ve seen some get half of their faces eaten.
I watched them kill my best friend, Ray, who I’ve known since the sixth grade. They tore his abdomen open with their cold bony fingers, feasting on his organs as he screamed in agony. I saw him. Just lying there afterward, pale and limp, and for a moment, I thought he was dead. Gone. Only to see him stand back up seconds later, staggering toward me with that same vicious starved look in his forest green eyes, the usual light in his eyes gone aside from a tiny spark of something malevolent. Something with only one goal. One thought. Kill, kill, kill. I had to kill him. I had to shoot my best friend dead. Shoot him in the head so that he wouldn’t kill anyone else. Infect anyone else.
We were an elite group of scientists taken down one by one by our own experiment. Left to die in spreading puddles of our own blood only to rise again and mindlessly feed on the flesh of the living. Some of the most intelligent people taken down one by one by their own creation. The sharpest of minds. The minds that found the cure for death, now hanging from the mouths of the undead. But those were the lucky ones. The ones suffering damage to the brain on account of parts of their brains being eaten and mutilated by starving fingers and teeth. Those ones never got back up. Those ones were truly gone. But I’ve got to wonder whether it would be better to come back only to become a monster or to just be gone. To be free of this madness.
For the first day or so, I refused to believe that we’ve created zombies. It’s impossible. Ridiculous to think that we’ve made the dead walk again. But I hear them outside and I’ve seen what they can do. Cadavers are not supposed to do that last time I checked. There’s no denying it. The dead walk the earth. Or maybe just this building. I’m not sure really. Like I said, I’ve been in the supply closet. I don’t know if they’ve found their way out into the streets or not. I have no idea if anyone outside the building is infected or if those things are out there terrorizing the city. Infecting men, women, and children. For all I know, they’re out there eating babies and ripping people's’ throats out with their teeth. Out there cornering people until they have nowhere else to go but into the mouths of these things. Maybe it’s something in the injection we gave them when the experiment began that makes them into vicious cannibals. All I know is that this was a mistake.
We just wanted to find the cure for death. The secret to immortality. In a way, we’ve met our goal… but we’ve created monsters. And I don’t think there’s a way out. We should never have messed with the balance of nature. Should have never tried to play god. We should have known that there would be consequences. But I’ll spare you my lamenting and regrets. If you can’t beat them, join them, right? I can’t sit in here until I starve or suffocate or die of thirst. I’m done. I hear them outside the door. So hungry and impatient. I can’t do it anymore. I’m opening the door. I’m letting them in. Goodbye.