I stood there in awe, just staring at my face in the mirror. It had only been a little sore spot last night! Now it looked as though half my face was rotting off. I knew that there was an “illness” going around. I knew it made people go crazy with delusions. There was once a case where a man went mad and killed someone. The police report said he was trying to crack the victim’s skull open to suck out his brains. When the police arrived on the scene they had to shoot him down. After the illness started to spread and became a major threat, I read another news article about a girl who caught it. Slowly her skin rotted away to the point where some of her bones were visible. She died a week later in the ICU unit at the hospital. Her last words were about wanting to eat brains.

Just then someone walked past me. An odd smell wafted by with her, an odor that I had never smelled before. The smell was the slightly pungent, salty, savory…a smell that I could only imagine as the smell of a brain. I thought it was odd to be smelling something so repulsive and just plain bizarre. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t be able to smell brains! It smelled so good though. I got this sudden sharp, stabbing, hunger pain in my stomach. I wanted to eat whatever was secreting that delicious aroma. What’s happening to me? I think I caught the disease. I am literally falling apart! There’s not much else it could be. There is a patch of rotting flesh on my face trailing down onto my neck, and my arm looks just the same. It smells so terrible, and it itches something fierce. I really want to scratch it and take it off but I fear that large chunks of skin and muscle will come off if I do so. Oh! And that mouth watering smell!

I’m not sure I want this! What If I really do have what they call the “zombie disease”? I don’t want to die shouting about my delusions and with skin falling off my bones! I could just see myself chained to a hospital bed thrashing about, crying out in hunger for the brains of another! I would slowly die of starvation; I would die in agony from my insides being exposed to the world. My skin would be rotting and the hospital restraints would be no aid in keeping my skin in any form of intact. The doctors would be doing everything they could. They would be injecting me with all kinds of medications that would never help the situation. There is so little known about the disease that the only known way to keep it contained is to either place the person in a quarantined room or just kill them. I don’t know which would be worse: Being quarantined and slowly dying while they desperately try to save you, or just being shot and killed as soon as the signs show.

I’m so confused. What should I do? I don’t want to die now! I don’t want to die slowly and painfully either! I want to find the cure. I want them to find a cure. I want anyone to find a cure, but I don’t think I have much time for a cure. The doctors haven’t been able to come up with anything, yet, and they are supposed to be all knowing about this disease stuff. How on earth would I be able to find anything? I could search for a scientist in the lower 48, but they would never get my word ‘til its way to late. Curses for living in the cold barren wasteland of Bethel, Alaska
I looked down at my arm again. The skin looked almost burned, like it was slowly becoming so rotten, it would just fall off of my tibia and fibula bones. I started to panic. Every one of my options was disgusting and/or painful!

Then again I could just keep this to myself. I could just go around and let what happens, happen. I’m not quite sure how this disease is spread from person to person, so there could be a chance that I wouldn’t contaminate anyone else. And if I did, I live in Bethel where the only way to get out of here to another chunk of human population is by airplane. The epidemic would just be here. It’s not like it would spread elsewhere if I didn’t do anything about it. That makes me a horrible person though! I can’t just walk around like nothing is wrong, when I don’t even know how to this illness spreads! I think that I read somewhere that it could be spread from being bitten. Whatever it was I read also said that it could be caused by a from of air born contaminant. There is not good solution! The best by far is dying now while its not too late to spare others. That sure sounds not the best for me, though.
Then I heard footsteps, and the bathroom door opening. I looked to see who was coming in. It was my friend Lacy.
Lacy looked at me and said, “Wow! Mona your have the best costume this year!”
“What costume?” I croaked out.
“This goo all over your face!” she says as she rips a bit of it, off my ear.
“Oh! Yeah, right.” I say. Then laughing akwardly I add “ Happy Halloween!” I slip out the door with my hand to my forehead. Close call! All I could think about was how out of hand my imagination had gotten, again!