Our Undead (2 page)

When he pushes his way
through, he finds himself in a massacre. It seems this hostel was
being used as a safe house for many families and other random folk.
This room he is in is a much larger one that looks like some sort
of neutral waiting area, and has been overrun by our zombie's kin.
They had burst through a couple of badly kept windows, and now have
the hostel's tenants fighting for their lives.

Before joining them, he
takes a few seconds to look around and absorb his surroundings.
Many tenants have already been caught and eaten, their chewed up
bodies spread about the floor. Some people cower in fear, like the
man in the hallway our zombie had encountered earlier. They tremble
as if it isn't humid, as if the air isn't as warm and moist as it
currently is, frozen in such a heat. Others fight for their lives
with whatever weapon they can get in their hands. The most popular
weapon seems to be the lightweight foldable steel chair. Some have
proper weapons. There are a few with baseball bats, one man with a
machete, and a few gun shots are even heard going off, although, it
is hard to tell whether or not they were shot from inside or out.
One thing is clear, and that is that the residents inside this
hostel had not been properly prepared.

Our zombie stands sentient
by the double doors he had entered, watching the brouhaha unfold,
until one unsuspecting gentleman gets too close; an innocent man,
merely trying to escape his situation, but unaware that a new flesh
eater has gotten mixed into the equation. The moment he gets too
close, it's like a trigger is pulled inside the mind of our new
zombie, like the snapping of an elastic band. He brings the man to
the ground and gorges upon him arrogantly. A few of his opportunist
undead mates join him.

The teenage girl from the
hall stands not too far away from it all. The whole room is frantic
and buzzing around her. Escapists bump into her as they run by, as
do their hungry pursuers. A guardian angel must be working
overtime, or karma in her debt, for no zombies take notice of her
while she stays there in her daze. She is unconcerned with
everything going on around her except our zombie, the new zombie.
Her eyes on locked on his new face, so pale, not at all like she
remembers it, with red globs of skin and muscle hanging from his
mouth.

Before her karma runs out,
luck comes to her in the form of a real life guardian angel. A
girl, who looks to be about the same age, with the same blonde hair
but longer, in a white t-shirt and black shorts, notices the
stagnant teenager lost in despair, stuck in the middle of
everything. The golden haired hero runs over to her similar looking
friend and shakes her roughly back to reality. She turns to see
what the dazed girl is looking at, and immediately understands the
reason for her friend's current state of paralysis. She too
recognizes the man. Her expression is sad but understanding,
comprehending of everything, especially the fact that this is not
the place where they should be standing around. Her friend,
however, still doesn't get it, so she grabs her again and gives her
another startling shake.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
COME ON!! I'M SORRY, BUT WE HAVE TO GO
NOW!!

Her desperate attempt to
regain the other girl's consciousness is a success as she snaps her
out of it. The dazed girl can no longer help but move now, seeing
as she is being tugged away by her similar looking guardian angel,
but she takes one last drawn out look at the undead man before she
gets pulled back into the thick and loses sight of him forever. The
two teenage girls run away through the crowd, dodging prey and
predator alike.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
MOM! DAD! WE'RE COMING!!

When the victim has run his
course, our zombie gets up, and like it is his second nature,
continues partaking in the customary festivities of his new
lifestyle. His first two kills are only the beginning of this, his
first co-operative take over. The room is still ripe with plenty of
palatable living beings. The aroma of them is so thick to him, it
is as if he is swimming in their musk, not only pleasurable to the
smell receptors, but causing a deep yearning in him, an emptiness
that needs to be filled. He satisfies this emptiness again, clawing
at a businesswoman's dancing black locks of hair. Seconds ago she
was trying to bat a zombie off of her kid sister, and now she lays
pinned on the floor. She fights for herself, but is unable to
overpower the three more infected that join our zombie on top of
her within seconds. They finish her, behaving like a champion pride
of lions.

With each kill, it becomes
clearer that the higher up on the body he goes, the more flavorful
the taste. He intrudes on one of the other zombie's kills, biting
down on the neck of a Spanish man, helping in bringing him to the
ground. As he does this, the two teenage girls escape through a
broken in window, along with a middle-aged woman, a woman who looks
like she is just entering middle age and two other men; one fat,
one tanned and well-built. All of them are encouraged to move
quickly by another middle-aged man who waves them through and
leaves the scene last. They all exit safely while our zombie chews
down on the man's neck and moves up to the cranium. It takes some
time to break through the resilient human skull, but our zombie has
an insatiable need to get to the source of the scent beckoning to
him from inside. His teeth puncture the tough shield and expose the
soft brain therein. It's difficult, even for me to explain the
feeling he experiences, but I would imagine the effects on our
zombie are easily comparable to the effects felt by a first time
crystal meth user.

He
must
have another taste. He gets up
from the Spanish man's emptied out skull and looks for another
meal. It's becoming easier to spot the vulnerable humans, the ones
who are not fully aware of their surroundings, either because they
are busy fighting or because they are scared useless. He quickly
spots an injured young man, limping through the crowd unnoticed, a
perfect target. Our zombie pushes passed everybody in the crowd,
locked on his prey, not even considering any of the other potential
feeds, until his prize is only a few feet away. Just as he is about
to grab the wounded man, another zombie intercepts the kill and
gets the first bite. This quicker zombie drags the young man to the
ground, leaving our zombie the second dibs.

Who would think that a
zombie could ever get upset with one of it's own kind? It seems
improbable, but it is in this way that our zombie reacts. He
reaches down and pulls the intruding zombie back up on to its feet.
When he gets him stood up, he thrusts him roughly away, and his
competitor goes stumbling off into the crowd. He looks down at the
meal that was rightly his in the first place. The poor young man
writhes from his initial injury, plus the added bites cause by the
intercepting zombie. You can tell that it was making its way up to
the brain by all of the bite marks on the top and side of the boy's
neck and head. Our zombie throws himself upon the man and finishes
the job. The walker who had been defeated comes back and takes a
secondary feeding position a little lower down by the collarbone,
but gets shoved away by our zombie, demoted to the
ribcage.

The waiting room slaughter
continues until the room is practically void of any human life. Our
zombie finds himself fighting for scraps, discovering that some of
these dead walkers are stronger than he is, namely, the muscly ones
who were either athletes or body builders in their previous lives.
One of the brawnier beasts actually lifts our zombie a few inches
off the ground before tossing him backward through the thinning
crowd. He gets back up, but something in his mind keeps him from
trying to share with the bigger ghoul again. Perhaps, some spark of
common sense. He stares blankly at the big monster finishing it's
meal, and then around the room. Not only does he not see anything
worth eating, he doesn't sense the delicious zest in the air. The
room is barren and boring. He roars in either frustration or
victory, and some of the other zombies join in the
chorus.

Desperate for another
taste of his new favorite dish, our zombie makes a slow and
deliberate scan of the conquered waiting room. He takes notice of a
few of his kinsmen at one of the broken windows. Having forgotten
all forms of etiquette, the three of them clamber and struggle with
one another, fighting to be the first one to get back outside. Our
zombie has never been outside, at least not in his current form,
but if these three infected men wanted to get out there so bad,
there must be something amazing to be had, hopefully, something
delectable. He makes his way over to the window, walking passed
many undead vessels who are staring intently into space, and others
who are still chewing idiotically on bones that have already been
fully stripped of any of the good parts. Our zombie pays them no
mind, for the closer he gets to the window, the more that sweet
smell, once again, begins to radiate. It
must
be what his impatient friends
are after, the poor fools. They are so beside themselves trying to
satisfy their craving, that they don't notice the free broken
window that is right beside them. The fragrance is pouring in from
the free window in gusts, it's a wonder the three stooges don't
simply back away and take the better exit, but it works out in our
zombie's favor. He puts his right leg up on to the sill and levers
himself up and over into the outside world.

He ends up exiting with a
front flip, and lands with a bang, his buttocks meeting the
pavement. With his new eyes, our zombie looks upon a changed world.
Even if he could remember what life had been like, he still
wouldn't be able to recognize the environment that surrounds him.
The waiting room was only a preview. The city is on a whole other
level when it comes to being infested, to the point of being
overrun and half way to ruin. The sun is closing in on the horizon,
setting on corner store businesses gone ablaze, car accidents,
gushing fire hydrants, people running every which way and their
brain starved assailants close behind them. Truly, a suitable end
to a long and horrible day for the men and women of this town, but
a lavish welcome for our zombie who feels a mixed storm of jealousy
and desire circulating through his system. He must become more like
them. He must make them a part of him. He must eat.

The town is on the verge of
becoming theirs. Previously, he had been a mere average Joe,
working for the man in an office cubicle cage. When he gets to his
feet, he walks out into a world that he is now a ruler of and gets
to eat freely as the supply of humans is still plentiful. It is as
though the outbreak has only recently reached its climax. Body
traffic is everywhere, and our zombie easily joins many feedings
and starts some of his own. He indulges in a seemingly endless
buffet, on all of the different flavors and physiques. He gets the
most flesh he can off the leg of a grey haired African-American
man, before getting up to look for a more robust selection, but an
unexpected incident brings his plan to a dead halt.

YoungCivilian:
NOOOOOO!!!!

Like a ton of concentrated bricks, the flat side of a shovel
comes down on the crown of our zombie's head and lays him out on
the ground. Everything fades to black. Can this be the end?
Already?

THE ORIGIN - PART 1

On a beautiful evening in
mid July, the sun shines down on everything and gives a shimmer to
all that it touches. Everything is soft and candescent as if
observing a memory in someone’s mind, or a flashback in a film. A
clean, average looking blue car is driving down a moderately busy
street in a happily populated neighborhood; a handsome older man in
the driver's seat. He looks to be in his late thirties, or early
forties with a suitable tan and dark hair down to his ears that
sport tinges of auburn in the dominant brunette. He drives slowly,
watching all of the teenagers parade the sidewalks, going home in
their individual couples and cliques. He pulls up to the front of a
high school and turns into its driveway, making sure not to hit the
idling kids that pretend to not see him coming. He shakes his head
at their youthful inconsideration.

Ah, to be young and aloof.
This is the school system his daughter is immersed in, such a
change from the days when he was a teenager. Kids these days seem
to be getting more and more disrespectful, and it frustrates him
the most when he sees the effect it has on his daughter. At home,
her outbursts have become more frequent, and she is liable to snap
at him regardless of what he might be trying to tell her. The other
day, he had only wanted to offer her some of the brownies he had
brought home from work, but when he opened her bedroom door without
knocking, he was battered with shot after shot of how selfish he
was and how she can "never have any privacy in this house", to get
out, because she didn't want any of his "stupid brownies". What
torture, not understanding as a parent how to communicate in a
decent manner with your children. As he parks, he spots her in a
group with three of her girlfriends and toots the horn.

When she sees him, she
sighs a deliberate sigh he would've been able to see if he were
sitting miles away. Confused, he thinks of what he possibly could
have done this time. Her friends seem to know, because they giggle
at her and cast haughty glances toward the car. All three of them
look like they've been cut out of some tabloid magazine, the type
of girl he might've called "plastique" back in his high school
days. It's hard for him to believe that
that
is the group that his daughter
has chosen to consort with. Gone are the days of her wearing
comfortably fitted jeans and dresses that go past the knees. Now,
she wears these tight things that leave nothing to the imagination,
and worse, she wears short little skirts like the black one she is
wearing right now. He's told her before how he feels about her
wearing that kind of stuff, even fair about it, he feels,
compromising that the jeans are okay, but one little gust of wind
in those short skirts and
every
one is seeing
every
thing. After almost
minutes, she begrudgingly bids her friends farewell and starts
casually making her way to the car.