Our Undead (7 page)

Gary:
W-..
what's wrong!?

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
I don't know! I don't know!

The fright has completely
taken her now as she clings to her father's sickly body. Her
breaths are frantic, and her speech is hurried.

Gary:
Your
mother... Where is she?

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
S-she went to go get you some
pills.

Gary:
Go…
check on her…

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
But what about you!?

Gary:
Go
to your mother.

The sternness in his voice
prompts the girl to get to her feet.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Okay…

Forgetting to take a light
source, she backs away from her father. Her dirty cheeks are flush
with red. She rubs her runny nose, all the while keeping her watery
eyes on him right up until she reaches the room's door, at which
point she turns and makes her way down the corridor toward the
living room.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Mom!? What was that?! Are you all
right??

She walks swiftly but
cautiously, with her arms out, peering into the darkness of the
cabin space ahead of her. She thinks back to how she was trying to
call her mom before and was drowned out by the storm. As it is
still raging, she finds it pointless to make any more attempts at
calling out to her, or maybe she is just too scared. She continues
to tread carefully.

Seeing the doorway to the
living room, she instinctively slows her pace. Something is a
little bit off about all of this. There is a strange unmoving
light, and the drizzle can be heard much too clearly. She has a
change of heart, and decides to again try calling out as she gets
closer, but softer this time, as she is still afraid of what she
might find.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Mom? Mom, what's…

Upon arriving in the
doorway, she brought to a stand still. You can almost see her
spirit being sucked out of her, as her body literally deflates into
a traumatic sulk. In the living space, she is welcomed by the lower
half of her mother's body, hanging out of the front window.
Attached to and eating the top half of her is our zombie. From the
looks of it, he had broken in through the window and grabbed her
mother who was standing too close to it. The bottle of pills has
fallen to the floor, the capsules scattered everywhere. Glass from
the window is also all over the floor, and the rain showers in
through the shattered frame. The source of the strange, unmoving
light is the flashlight that her mother was using. It too has
fallen and rolled to a random spot on the floor. Mariam had been
grabbed from the back, so she leans out the window that way, her
now dead eyes plainly visible to her daughter.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Oh, no… Mom… No… No…

She watches on, paralyzed
as our zombie chews into her mother's shoulder and collarbone area.
In the time that it took the young girl to get to the living room,
our zombie has already been able to eat a good portion of Mariam.
As we know, this is the first taste of real human flesh he has
eaten in a long while, and he eats with an excited vigor. He stops
chewing her neck, and takes hold of Mariam's lifeless head, looking
at it as if he can see right through the skull, straight to the
fresh juicy brain that sits inside. The scent overwhelms him, as it
did back in the city. He wants it. He
needs
it. He drools with desire for
it, and roughly chomps down into the top of Mariam's head. It is
surprising, the strength in the bite of his rotting undead teeth.
It doesn't take too many attempts for him to break
through.

The sight of this is too
much for the teenage girl, and her knees collapse from beneath her,
crashing into the rugged floor. She begins to cry uncontrollably,
still unnoticed by our preoccupied zombie. He is thoroughly
enjoying this rare treat, while the half broken girl continues her
breakdown on the floor by the doorway.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
(through her tears)
… no… stop it… you
bastard
… stop
it…
(sniffs)
…
STOP
IT!!!

It is this exclamation that
catches our zombie’s attention. He stops eating Mariam's succulent
cerebral matter, and looks up at the girl that is not much deeper
inside the house. Perhaps, the taste of human flesh isn't as rare
as he had thought. Not only that, but this other girl looks much
younger, and fresher than the woman he is currently
ingesting.

Head down and seeped in her
own tears, the girl doesn't realize that she has caught our
zombie's attention, or maybe she does, and just doesn't care. She
sits there and cries into the palms of her hands.

Our zombie lets go of
Mariam's head, and her body instantly sloshes to the floor at the
foot of the window with a thud. The sound startles the crying
teenager. Gasping, she looks up to see her mother on the floor and
her undead killer trying to make his way up and over the
windowsill. All hope has already been sucked from her, but then she
remembers that her sick father is still in the room across the
hall. She
must
get to him, so she takes one last look at her mother's bloody
carcass. To look away from it feels impossible, but our zombie
reaffirms her necessity for retreat when he breaks more of the
window in, trying his awkward best to fit through.

This is enough to get the
girl back to her feet, but before she leaves the living room she
turns to tell her mother she loves her, then closes the door that
separates the hallway from the murder scene. She runs back into the
sickroom and slams that door shut as well. Her father is still laid
out across the floor, but now his eyes are open and alert, the most
alive she has seen them in days. She hurries over to him, and
without speaking tries to get him up.

Gary:
…W..what's going on? Where's your mother?

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
She's… she's
gone,
dad.

The shock of the news
causes Gary to squirm around in his daughter's arms, making it
harder for her to lift him. She stops for a moment so that he can
get out what he is trying to say. Meanwhile, our zombie has been
able to get himself inside. He lands awkwardly on top of Mariam and
on his back, but gets up right away and walks over to the closed
door that leads to the hallway. He promptly begins slamming his
fists into it.

Gary:
(coughs)
What do you mean
she's
gone?!

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
She's
dead,
dad! One of those monsters
broke in through the window and killed her! I was too late to do
anything about it!

Gary:
Oh,
God..
Mariam…

His body weight falls heavy
on top of his daughter. The thumping from our zombie's fists being
thrust into the door on the other side of the house can be heard
faintly in the background, even over the rolling storm
outside.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Urgh, no! Dad, you have to get up! It's still in
here! We have to hide!

She pulls and tugs on her
father who seems to have given up, while across the way, our zombie
is making good progress. The wood of the door is quite old and
brittle, and the middle area in which his fist continues to make
contact is starting to chip away.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Aaaargh
…
Dad, please!
I
don't want to lose you too!
Please,
help me!

Hearing the desperation in
his daughter's voice, Gary brings himself together and tries with
everything he has to get to his feet. Working together, they are
actually able to get him standing. The distraught girl quickly
looks around and notices the closet in the room's
corner.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
C'mon… ugh.. This way.

They move slowly as Gary is
extremely weak, and his daughter's petite frame has great
difficulty lifting the fully-grown man, even with all the weight he
has lost. They trudge and trudge until they get inside and close
the closet door behind them.

By now, the deprived flesh
eater has created a large enough hole in the door that he can
squeeze through. He pushes himself in, scraping bits of his side,
arms and legs, and just barely manages to get into the hallway.
After stumbling into it, he pauses as if to get his
bearings.
Where did that fresh, delicious
looking young girl go to?
A minor survey
of the dark hallway, and his question is answered. In her hurry to
hide in the closet, the girl had left the oil lamps in the room,
still lit. From the hall, our zombie can see a slit of light
spilling out from under the door of the room. And the sweet scent
hits him like walking into a puff of humidity after stepping out
from an air-conditioned home. He heads straight for it.

In that exact moment,
sitting in the closet with her father, the girl notices the same
light. She scrambles to get up quickly, but eases her father off of
herself as gently as possible. Gary groans, confused.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
It's okay. I have to get the
lights.

She opens the door and
rushes out to grab them. First, she flicks off the shaded lamp, and
then takes up the first oil lamp. Then, she grabs the second one,
but the moment she does, a loud crash erupts on the bedroom door.
It's too late. They've been found out. The booming from the door
startles the already shaken girl, and she let's out a scream while
falling hard on to her buttocks. One of the oil lamps goes out as a
result. She leaves it where it lies and hurries back into the
closet.

When she gets in and closes
the door, she sees that her father is standing and holding a lead
pipe tightly with both hands. His trembling has started up again,
half from the fever and half from being so weak. They can hear the
zombie outside as it continues to bang on the frail door of their
haven.

LongBlondeHairedGirl:
Dad, what are you doing?!

Gary:
I'm
not going to let him, ugh… get you.

A loud snapping crackle
followed by a triumphant growl, lets the hiding pair know that
their aggressor has broken through the door and is now inside the
room. It quiets them. The girl rushes over to her father, notices
the light of the lamp and quickly blows it out. They wait in
silence. For a moment, the only sound they can hear is that of the
raindrops tapping on the roof above, although, the growling thunder
and spikes of lightning are still in a steady rage. And
then...
*BANG*

The zombie takes his first
shot at the closet door, and the two inside shudder in its total
darkness. The beaten down girl inhales obvious sniffles as the two
try, without succeeding, to quiet their breathing.

**BANG**

**BAANG**

They shudder
again.

**BAAANG**

The zombie's strength
seems to heighten as-
**BBAAANG**
… his attempts to-
**BBAAANG**
… break down the
door-
**BAAAAANG**
… become louder and more violent.
**BBAAAANGGG**

His hits are slow and few
in between, as if he knows that his prey is trapped. He takes his
time and makes sure to give the door proper strikes. And it pays
off…

***SNNAAAAPP!!!***

With that attempt, a small
crack appears in the weak closet door. The lightning from the
room's window flickers through the tiny opening created by the
blow, it strobes into the closet space with each crack of sky born
electricity.

***BBAAAANNNGGG!!!!***

The crack gets bigger and
more light is allowed to flicker through. Something can be seen on
the other side of the door. It occasionally blocks the view of
lightning through the hole; their swaying executioner.

***BBBBAAANNNGGG!!!!***

***BBBAAANNNGGG!!!!***

As if he knows that the
door is about to collapse at any moment, he ups the frequency of
his pounding.

***BBBAAANNGG!!***

***BBBAAANNNGG!!***

The hole is now big enough
for the intruder to fit his entire arm and head through. This is
evident when he tries to get inside prematurely. He growls,
frustrated, and withdraws back out of the hole. Inside, his preys
continue to shudder in fear.

***BAAANNGG!!!***

***BAAANNNGG!!!***

*****BBAAAAAAAAANNG!!!!!!!!!!!*****

With that, the majority of
the door falls through. The terrified girl clutches on to her
father as our zombie lets out yet another roar of triumph. His hard
times seem to be behind him.