1 Death Becomes Me

Chapter 1: Death Becomes Me

The quiet sound of nature filled the air, flies buzzed, crickets chirping and all woodland creatures squeaking as they are all unaware of what shall come. But it was an infinitely better sound than the moans and groans of my next-door neighbors that wakes me from my sleep, as a new day has come, and I need to get up and get ready for work.

 ---January 5, 2020--- 

My name is Jackson Keller, Jack for short, I am a 34-year-old mechanic that works at the local Pep Boys, I should have picked a better job since I have a master's in engineering. I have been living by myself since my parents died a few years ago. I am single and remain to be that way due to women only care for money and prestige, and I have neither or care for it all the same.

The day started like any other, I woke up around 6:30 in the morning, showered for about 20 minutes, the usual I might say, for me anyways. Changed into my work clothes, a white t-shirt, khaki grey overalls, and a pair of black leather looking shoes with steal toes in case something falls on my feet. After my regular morning breakfast, usually some eggs and ham, sometimes bacon, then after that I went to work. 

Takes me about a half hour to get to my job, which is at Pep Boys Auto and Oil. I'm one of three mechanics that work there during the weekdays, I work sometimes on weekends but that's only when we're backed up on orders. Well, today was the day I somehow knew that would change me forever, I died, the day started out the same as any other. 

It's not that I was lazy, or an underachiever, I was very intelligent, creative, learned extremely fast. But when my parents died last year, I was in the middle of a low point in my life. With the chronic depression and all, I'd been suffering for months now, and it was not getting any better as the days went by. That's why I work where I work now, an easy job, I guess. 

I stayed studying for my major in auto mechanics, and maybe once I had my actual degree in hand, I'd feel better, maybe be able to move forward if I had something to show for and make something of my life. But for now, I went to work during the day, played video games when I came back, and watched anything that I paid any fancy to, I don't know, Supernatural, Walking Dead, and some Twilight zone.

I made it into work 5 minutes before 9A.M., I clocked at exactly at 9 due to the management not paying anyone for overtime even if it's just a few minutes. I worked almost all the way through to 11 A.M. right before my lunch break hit, I was under a truck that came in late last night and the folks needed their vehicle as soon as possible. 

Work that day was also nothing out of the ordinary. I joked with my buddy about stupid co-workers I got into an argument about. Apparently, he had gotten pissed when I found something the night shift had screwed up in my section, then I immediately let it go and fixed it. It wasn't worth the stress or fight letting the management know, well, at the time. 

Life was too much stress anyways for me right now, I needed less stress in fact, that is why I let it go. Before I left home, I had packed myself a small lunch, which was a ham sandwich, a bag of chips, and a bottle of root beer, mmmh, root beer, the drink of champions. Well, anyways, because I'd actually eaten something substantial for breakfast and I felt anything else would-be overkill.

Back to the truck, apparently, they needed the truck for their deliveries, they worked for a major grocery store, 'Krueger's'. They are a major store out these parts, so I hurried on their truck just in case they gave a large tip for fixing their truck before their deliveries were late. I was already closing the undercarriage up when everything went black, I knew I wasn't dead because I could still hear voices.

 ---December 3, 2008---

I awoke in a scared state, I didn't know where I was or how long I've been here. As I looked around the room I was in, it seemed like some kind of recovery room. With all the medical beds and equipment around, I should be right. So, I took a chance and called out, "Hello, anyone!! Nurse? Anyone out there?" There was a faint echo in the room which surprised me at first. 

I tilted my head toward the door as I heard a crash from behind the door, sounded like something heavy fell off a shelf or something. Then there was a crash against the door that held whatever was behind the door that crashed against it. I held my breath, as I looked around for something to defend myself with, 'better asking for forgiveness than permission', I always say. 

My hand slowly reaching behind me and grabbed hold of the IV holder, ready to attack just in case I was a prisoner or something as I silently listened for anything. After a few minutes of nothing happening, I called out again, "Nurse? Hello!! Help me, please!" Then the door opened with a quick shove, I almost let the poor girl have it as she screamed at what she faced when she entered the room. 

"AAHHH!!" My eyes widen when I realized it was just the nurse, cause last time I checked, I was at work, and I was alone under a Semi-truck. "What is wrong with you? You scared the s*** out of me. Mr. Willson, please put the IV holder, yes?" That was when I realized I was still holding my makeshift weapon pointed at her. 

"I'm sorry nurse, I heard a loud bang behind the door and thought we were getting attacked or something. Please forgive my crudeness. I apologize if I scared you." She looked like she forgave me due to that large smile on her face afterwards. "That's ok, Mr. Willson, I forgive you. Now onto business, shall we? Let's see here." 

She reached over to end of the bed and grabbed the chart that was there, she looked at it for a second and said, "well, we have good news and bad news, and a major problem as well. Which would you like to hear, first?" I looked confused, as I looked at her. "OK. What's the good news?" I asked as she read the chart to me, "well, the good news is, you're fine at in great health." 

I was feeling good too, but I never felt this good in the past. "And the bad?" I asked again. She looked conflicted in telling me. *SIGH* "The bad news, your wife left you and said she was never returning. Even if you made a full recovery. That was mean of her I know but good riddance to bad rubbish, I always say." She said and waited for me to respond. 

"Wife?!!" Now she was the one that looked confused. "Yess! That was what she said. Her name was... let me see, Marie Willson. She paid for the month that you've been here and then left, and she hasn't returned since." Now I was confused, again. I don't know a Marie at all. "Can ask for a few minutes before we continue, nurse?" 

She nodded her head then said, "Yeah, sure, I'll be back in thirty minutes to continue our talk, Okay?" I nodded my head, and she turned to leave, I heard a click as she locked it after closing the door. Right when she closed the door, I felt a huge pain coming from my head as if it were to split open. I clenched my teeth together as the pain intensified and images of this bodies life appeared in my mind. 

I started to remember as I closed my eyes, the next thing I know was that loud sounds and bright lights were bombarding me. I re-saw everything this body had gone through, as I lived life with two different memories, constantly comparing my old world to this new one. Once I leave from here, I should use things from my old life to better this life.

I read a lot of stories in my old life, I heard and read fanfiction of readers getting rebirthed into some of their favorite fictional world and maybe figured that was what had happened to me. There was no time to freak out and/or mourn for my old family, when I knew that I lost most of it, and had skate thinly in my old one with all that depression I was going through.

Now I have to deal with my new family, and it was poor to boot. My father here was a lout a f**ken drunk and my mother was very sick at home unwilling to go to the hospital. Since my mother was sick, I couldn't go to work most of the time due to me taking care of her while my father was too lazy to do anything anymore than walk to the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge. 

My father was a like me, a mechanic and other than the odd car job here or there that came once in a while to be fixed, our income was low to nonexistent. I never turned down a job, and that included drug running that kept me away from my mother for a few days. I was never forced to do anything big that put me away from my mother longer than 2 weeks. 

But one day my mother's sickness got worse, and I had to take her to the hospital, and hospital meant large bills, and bills meant money. Money that we didn't have. So, I took it upon myself to drop out of school and get a full-time job, I had multiple jobs that would bring in the money that was needed, but that didn't even make a dent into the huge pile of bills that had accumulated dust on the hallway table.

Apparently, I found out that my parents, mostly my father, for some reason or other haven't been paying the rent of the house. So, not only do I have to pay the hospital bills, but I also had to worry about my dad's habits, and food as well. That sounded easy right? Yeah... well, it wasn't, let me tell you. No job out there, that I took would put out a heavy payout.

That was when I talked to the guy that always gave me the drug runs, and I asked for a job with high risks and big payouts. He gave me a choice, a month away in Juarez to pick up a kilo of dope and around trip to Nicaragua for the same pick up and he would give me a great payout of 10,000 dollars. Or a trip on a Grey Hound bus with a delivery to New York for half that.

I chose the two pickups and let me tell you it was the worst decision I have ever made. The first pickup was easy as pie, but after delivering that pickup, I was somehow tagged by the locals, and they somehow got a hold of the second trip I was making. Well... that is how I ended up here, in this bed, I was betrayed by my own wife. 

She told a friend of hers, most likely her lover, I already knew she was cheating on me, but I wanted to hold on to something real, but real never lasts and here I am. Betrayed and alone again, but with more responsibilities than before. That brings me back to the present, which is now. Well, the nurse came back and told me all my bills were paid but I didn't care. 

I just wanted to leave and get to my mother and see her. I did ask the nurse if my father every came in to see me, and that was the very bad news she wanted to relay. My father died of alcohol poisoning a few days after I was admitted, and they were no one to take care of the body but my wife. She did a poor job of it and had him cremated and delivered to my room, which I saw not far away from the shelf it was sitting on.

A day later after getting released, I returned home to an empty house. The land lady had broken the lock of the front door and sold everything of value to pay for the rent that was never paid since I was in the hospital. Which was 6 months, I laid in a coma, after changing my clothes which with was the only thing in my hands. Well, since this Jack died, so did his name. I chose to live from now on by Jack Keller again.

 ---January 10, 2010---

Two days after I was released from the hospital in 09, I would say mid-June, I went to visit my mother and she was barely holding on as she was getting worse. Now fast forward to this day, a year has passed since I came into this new life, and by the way, I had finally turned 18 and that was when tragedy hit again. My mother gave in to her sickness that had been plaguing her body ever since before I had been reinserted. 

Life is never fail to me, in the old and the new life I've lived. After I had left the hospital back 09, I had found out that my father drank himself into the grave a month before I came out of my coma. He had blamed himself for what had happened to me and with my mother sickness didn't have time to grieve for us then managed to grieve in the only way he could. 

Death by alcohol, it was like he was holding back before all this happened, just for my mother, but since he knew that we weren't going to make it, he found no reason to stay alive neither. So, he did the only s**t that he knew would one day destroy him. He started mixing drugs with alcohol, he began to stay out all night, getting into fights at the bar usually frequents. 

And came back home usually bruised and bloodied in the early mornings, just to do the same shit all over again day after day, until he died of all three. He didn't give two shits about only me, I knew that, since the day he threw me out of the house right after my mother got sick. I'm sure his lame excuse be something in the lines of killing himself would have been somethings in lines of, 'since I was going to die anyways, there was no need to be here as well'. 

Even though it was true, per say, this physical body did die once before. Afterall I did take it over soon after it's death, but my mental state was way beyond that since I had died before as well. I knew how to take care of myself since I'm older, mentally that is. But it didn't take away the hurt and the pain it caused this new me. And hurt it did when I lost both my parents... to the new me, again, causing all the old pain to this new one. 

It took me a while to let go of the loss of my new parents, even though I never knew them, but as they say, 'time heals all wounds' the doctors say, and time went on and so I had to as well. Anyway, a short time after that, I ran into Chavez, my old drug running handler, yes, the one who sent me on the two trips on the last drug run I did and landed myself in the hospital. 

Just thinking about what happened after joining that group made my blood boil and I knew that once I sat down and thought about it, I was going to break for what I found out. After all the suffering I have gone through, I did the only thing I was good at in my last life, I closed myself off from everything and everyone, even though they were not many. 

Before I met up with Chaves a few days ago, I did what I did in the past, I had learned it from an old monk back in my old world, when I visited his small monastery hidey hole in the old China Town district in New York. I learned how to meditate and lock away all my feelings, dreams, and or everything that I did not want to display on my face to be read. 

In this meditation, I collected all that I did not want to be shown, I put everything into a small metal box for safekeeping. All my feelings, my old memories, the old names I knew, all my old life, to include my old family, and locked it all away with an unbreakable padlock. Then I put said metal box in a dark room at the corner of my mind, that had so many locks on it, it was ridiculous. 

It took me 4 hours just to lock everything away, because I knew how to do it before, that is why it took less time to accomplish, as I awoke from the meditation, I shook my head to clear my head. Whatever was left of the old me, I would slowly leak it out so I could arrange where it went, or when I needed it. I'd like to be both the old me and new me, but without all the negative things in it, a mixture of both. 

And I would delete all the unimportant things of both lives, don't need to remember the useless stuff or the hurt, especially that wife of mine here from the new me... that B**ch!! Well, back to Chavez that is in front of me, he was trying to appease the sensibility side of me calling me over to him, the old gullible me, who by the way was no more. He was calling out in distress, he sounded hurt, "help me, please, Jack!!" 

I could only see a shadow of the guy, but I knew his outline. I knew since working for him, he would never have ask for help from anyone, it had all the workings of being played, a trap to say, not falling for that s***, and be like the old me, no way. I was once an idiotic person and would fall for things like that in a heartbeat, and I mean all the time, but not anymore. 

I let him think that I still had a bleeding-heart, then take them by surprise when the right time came and turn it against them. There was never a doubt in my mind that he was sending me into a trap. No one was that stupid enough to cry out in the middle of an alley, not knowing how they used to treat me in the past. 

But things were different now, if this happened before shit hit the fan, and I didn't know what he knew. Back then, I would have turned around and lent out a hand, but the world is different now, I was different now. With my mind made up, I turned around to leave, when I heard his cry again, this time I felt that tugging feeling in my gut. Something else was wrong and I called out to him, "Hello? Chavez is that you?" 

I paused at the sudden feeling of DeJa'Vu, I felt it before, it was a feeling of danger, right before everything went black in my old life. When I heard his voice again, but it had changed, it was more shrilly sound to it now, and as he kept calling out, it changed time and time again. It sounded different than a minute ago, it sounded more and more like moans now, than a call. 

There was more of a screech to the voice now and my guard went up automatically. If whatever came out from that alley was anything other than Chavez, I would kill it. It sounded like that person calling out in pain and was confused, you know like when you're drunk and need help, but in a screechy kind of way. Like they didn't know what was going on and I was hoping that it wasn't what it seemed.

I sudden flash back came to mind at that moment, right before having been rebirthed. After they finished cleaning me and they put me in this fluffy blanket and put my miniature body in my mother's arms, I remembered the feeling of confusion because I thought I had died. Wait... I died before this, what the f**k is happening? Then, who the hell am I? 

Pictures of an unfamiliar life I didn't ever remember about started to play in my head, when I was born, but it was different than I remembered from the previous two other lives. Not the whole life just glimpses, then flashes of the death of the last life and the way I died in the end. I can remember the heaviness of the undercarriage plate of the semi I was working on as it fell on top of me. But how did I die in the first life? 

My mind was throbbing now, a sudden multitude of noises I started to hear in my head. Unfamiliar voices, I heard screams of my exco-workers and the, 'I'm so sorry Steve,', 'who the f**k is Steve? And then 'please God let him be alright' 'who the f**k is that?' Hell, I could still feel the impact of the plate hitting body as it squashed me against the oil trenched walkway the Pep Boys had. 

Wait... that never happened, what am I remembering? What is this? And just like that, it ended, nothing else came to me. Shaking my head from the throbbing headache and trying to remember something, anything I just saw, I knew what I had to do. I left Chavez to his own accord or demise, whichever it was. I had made my way to town, to the nearest hotel and rented a room for the night.

I needed to meditate and get these memories back on lock and key and get myself back on track. Where I am now, not before, lock everything away again, everything that isn't pertinent to the here and now. I'll handle what I can later when I have time and in a safe area. After paying for my room and barricading it from entry, I had lodged a chair under the doorknob, it would be hard to get into the room. 

And after 6 hours of meditating, painful at that and locking everything away again. And after seeing a few of those glimpses I just went through, I now knew where I was at, and let me tell you, it's not Kansas anymore Dorithy. I'm in the world of the motherf**ken Walking Dead show. Right then and there memories flooded in my head once more, it was a good thing I was already alone. 

Because I started remembering that before I took over this body back at the hospital, the old bodies recipient was from another world himself as a mater of fact, he was... something else entirety, then got himself killed. "F**KEN IDIOT!!" Was all I could say. After I collected myself, I started going over the memories of to the old me, here the one that died. 

When he was in a coma, as I was reinserting myself into the body, I could see that he was being visited by a couple of police officers that were investigating a shoot-out where the old body's me was found. They both were the main characters of season one and two of The Walking Dead, the Sheriff Rick Grimes and side kick officer Shane Walsh, those two had paid the old body me a visit. 

Enen though I or better he was still in a coma, I could still see when they came by and asked the nurse all about where they found me. They had come to see if they could get any more information on the shootout from the old me was located. Which they couldn't, due to the old me being to disorientated then went into a coma, then a few days later the old me died, and that was when I took over. 

Man things are getting out of hand and wasn't even in control of the body yet. I think that is why I stayed in a coma for so long, I was getting in tuned with the old me's body. This means I'm f**ked, I don't even have any powers that I know of anyways, and the dead have already started to walk, f**k. I just couldn't believe that this world was f***en real. 

I enjoyed this show very much when I last saw it. Was I going crazy? This must be a lucid dream or maybe nightmare!! I tried to get a handle on myself, I was starting to lose again, but I just kept thinking of the dead walking and how I am going to make it in this world. If that thing that I just met with was a walking dead out there in the alley, this town is f**ked and maybe me with since I'm here as well. 

F**k, I'm not ready for this s**t. Soon the hours turned, and a new day arrived, after I got myself together, I left the room and scrambled away from the that alley, to find me some weapons I would need, a stick, a bar, anything to defend myself, at least for the start, it wasn't so bad at the start. Then I remembered that a few days ago, when I was watching TV, the news appeared as a special report, and I changed the channel at first. 

I didn't pay too much attention at first to what was going on in other places across the world, so I ignored most of it. But then there were rumors about an outbreak in France happening, that was 10 days ago. That a rumor which I steadily ignored because first, I wasn't in France in the first place, and second, who cared, I had too much going on here to care. 

I didn't really believe what was going on, anyways. In my old life, shit like this popped up all over the news, all the time and nothing came out of it. Some celebrity was fighting with this celebrity, meanwhile America just bombed Syria, and we are going to war with Afghanistan, again. Too much bad news was floating around to care at the time... things never changed. 

So, I paid no mind to this virus that made a fever run so high, that it practically turned you into a human furnace and that when it finally ends up killing you. Well now I know, it ends up bringing you back to life, but instead of you being you, you instead become a mindless person that's only care about one thing. The hunger, the hunger for human flesh and the constant moaning.

That news reports should have clued me into the universe that I was shoved into, but you can't fault me for not paying attention, and not connecting the dots when I was too busy rebuilding this life from the death of both my parents and the betrayal from my so-called wife. Of course, the old me being killed made matters worse, and me being unconscious for 6 months didn't help either. 

I should have known it wasn't just a rumor, no rumor was that detailed and instead, I had my eyes woken up to the truth, a little too late, literally! Well it's been a month now and as you know it, the world went to shit, and chaos ensued after. People's true intentions showed, while no government gave a s**t or law enforcements were routed to different locations within the state, mayhem took over cities quickly. 

Since then, I'd have been carrying myself at a distance from anyone, especially those that resembled being bitten or infected. I had collected a few things on the way, you know the basics, food, water, guns, and the most important, toilet paper. You can't live without toilet paper in a zombie apocalypse, no matter what, butt whipping paper is a must in the apocalypse. 

Well anyways, it took one time for me to experience how much people are to selfish, and now I stay my ass away from large groups indefinitely. I had helped a group of people when all this started, found a resting place for them and you know what the guy in charge of that group did? That a**hole had me thrown out from my safe place, the one I found for them. 

Just because I wasn't going to follow his lead, there were over 30 people in that group, and he had 4 bodyguards at the end. I told myself right then and there that I would never be that helpful or vulnerable again, A**hole!! That no matter what, I wouldn't depend on any other person, when I could provide for myself. Since then I would stay in one place for less than a week at a time. 

I made myself numb, no feelings, or attachments and just did what had to be done and kept moving in order to survive. I'd been alone ever since, my instincts being the only thing that have kept me alive, and they work very well in dangerous places. I had broken off from many smaller groups that wanted my help and when they wanted more than they deserved, I left, without a word, packed my s**t and disappeared. 

I had broken away from several groups like that, those who thought that they deserved everything I had and wanted more. Like one time we helped this small family of three, after helping them, the group I was in wanted all their things including the 17- or 18-year-old daughter they had with them. They thought that they were entitled to their things and the daughter. 

That wasn't flying with me, after cleaning their clock, (it means I killed those that wanted their daughter...) As well as all others who joined, we had helped because of the simple fact that our group took them in, gave them a bed to sleep in, gave then safety to rest, clothes to wear, and food to eat. Not ganna lie, I enjoyed getting rid of that kind of filth. 

There were other groups I encountered that set traps for unsuspecting travelers, just for the simple fact that they could. So, I got rid of them too. They could take advantage of those people and the things they carried or found for themselves, but not after I delt with them. You tell me, is that f**ked up or what? And that is why I am by myself and will not join a crew or group, no matter how good the group looks. 

I can survive on my own, thank you very much. Its f**ked with my emotions too damn much because I remembered a world when it wasn't like this, where the world was built on compassion and hope. A world where there were just talks about a zombie apocalypse movies and theories, there was also talks on how to survive these things if it came to that. 

Hell, they even made many Movies and even a long-lasting TV shows about this at one point (TWD, FTWD, Web-episodes of TWD...). A world where Trump was President and people begged for Obama to come back. A world where it was peaceful, yaaa, it was dangerous back then , but not like this, and I had just graduated college, and had true friends that would do anything to help me if I ever needed them. 

In the past I mean, well... one of the pasts that I've lived. I don't know which one, but I'll figure it out. A world where I died, two maybe three times, who knows. Because of a shit stain employee from work that just couldn't fix his own mistakes when he could, foolishness, I say. Anyways, back to my rambling. I hate this world, if I die again and get sent to one like this again, I'm kill myself. 

--August 30, 2010--

Now I am here, on the road to where Rick Grimes stayed in the hospital, and it's been 3 months (July-August...) since the world has changed, since all the dead started walking, since people started acting like neanderthals. Yup this world has gone to the dogs, worst of the worst, man against man, where the dead rise from their graves and eat the living, and the living are hunting the living for sport just because they just can and want. 

Now here I find myself walking on a long road because the car I stole had ran out of gas and a tire went flat, also because vehicles make too much noise. I learned that the hard way a few weeks back, almost got my ass chewed up by a small horde that had me cornered. Good thing there was a sewer drain in that area and found my way out of that predicament. Even left all those supplies in the car that time. 

That is how you learn from making mistakes. As I was saying before I got rudely interrupted by my rambling. Now I'm walking while looking around, I find myself in Macon County, a few hours away from the Harrison Memorial Hospital. I don't even know why I made my way here; my gut was guiding me here for some reason. It must be important to come all the way here and it wasn't to save the sheriff. 

Maybe because of some sentimental way I still need something in my life or maybe I could join a good group for a few weeks, maybe because I have nowhere else to go, maybe because I'm here to save a little girl whose life was snuffed out to early, nah, Sophia is still with her mother, it's not time for her, but I will be waiting, way before she gets lost and bitten. 

Because that girls' mother didn't deserve the loss of the little girl, she changed to much after her death, I never liked that Carol, ruthless Carol, unforgiving Carol. She had harden her heart to hard, stone hard, and never let anyone in, story of my life, and here I am comparing her life to mine. Maybe because I wanted a starting point, maybe meet me a few cast members. 

Well... I don't know, but I'll tell you this, if I see either of them in my travels, I will be saving that little girl and mother from the pain of loss. I do know that there are still medical supplies in that hospital, but no one ever went back to get them. And I do know that I'll be getting those supplies and adding them to my own.

Another thing, if I ever see that stupid sheriff, what's his name, I'm gonna f**ken shoot the fucker for killing all those people under the guise of helping his wife, the cheating b**ch, and that nut case of an officer, what's his f**k, she was f**king him, cheating b**ch. Well, let's get on the road and see what I can find, maybe stop by the hospital the idiot is in and end him before he wakes up, if he's even there.

(To Be Continued...)