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The forum will be undergoing maintenance as things progress forward. SMF2 is a little buggy on our forum, and I will be working to iron out some of those bugs, and to restore the forum to a similar and familiar home for us to the one that we used to have.
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Topic Summary
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: February 15, 2010, 06:27:32 am »
Wolf awoke to the smells of cooking coming from the other end of the warehouse. She rolled over and laid her hand over Omen’s forehead, he was burning up. Quickly she got out of bed and pulled the sheets away from the wounded leg, a stink assaulted her the moment she pulled the bandage away, it smelled like there was a rotting corpse crammed inside of the wound. Wolf went to the cart and picked up several piles of gauze, a bottle of sterile saline, and, a big syringe. Laying a towel under the leg she filled the syringe with the saline and bent over the wound to start flushing the curdled almost orange pus from the oozing hole. Before she could start Murphy peeked over her shoulder and startled Wolf when the sight and stench of the festering wound caught him and made him wretch. Smiling wolf turned around.
“You alright there Murphy? Looking a little green around the gills there buddy.”
“I’m fine” he squeaked covering his face with one hand.
“The smells not going to get any better, in fact it may get worse. I’m going to be flushing this out to see how much more damage there is, would you mind finding me a couple of safety pins?”
“Sure” Murphy said as he hurried away happy to have an excuse to be away from the festering stink.
Wolf sighed and dropped the safety pins back onto the cart, she’d seen Murphy’s discomfort with the open wound and sent him on an errand just to keep him busy.
Wolf got a pair of forceps out of the box on the cart and tugged gently at one of the drains she had put into the wound the day before, it stuck for a moment before curling out of the wound with a sickening slurp. Omen moaned softly in his sleep and moved one hand erratically from side to side, worried he might wake up while she was cleaning the wound Wolf drew up another dose of morphine into a syringe and injected it into the catheter in Omen’s arm. After waiting a few moments for Omen’s wakeful stage to pass she tugged the rest of the drains out of the wound. There were huge chunks of clotted pus and gooey slicks of congealing blood everywhere within the gaping hole in Omen’s leg. Wolf sighed heavily as she surveyed the supplies on the cart.
“Hey Murphy” She called across the warehouse “Could you come here a second please?”
Murphy came across the room to Wolf who was standing in such a way as to block his view of the wound.
“I need more medical supplies, would you be opposed to taking me to a hospital so that I can get what I’m going to need?”
Murphy’s face went somewhat pale “you want me to take you where?”
“A hospital, I’m sure there’s one around here some place.”
“Wolf I’m sorry but I’m not going anywhere near a hospital, when the infection hit everyone went to doctors and hospitals, those places are usually so packed with those monsters that you can’t get within ten feet of the parking lot without being seen and nearly swarmed. You’ll have to do what you can with what we’ve got”
Wolf thought for a moment and then her eyes lit up. “What about a Veterinary clinic? I know that most people forget about their pets in times of crisis, I should be able to get exactly what I need. Please Murphy?”
He almost said no but the woman’s eyes were pleading with him, almost as if with her gaze she had him by the soul, he could nearly feel her pain. He nodded slowly.
“Yeah I suppose I can do that, but I want you in and out as quick as you can.”
Wolf jumped and grabbed Murphy by the neck squeezing him until he felt like his head was going to explode.
Murphy started up the tank while Wolf gave Omen another dose of sedative and placed a loose bandage over his wound. As the big door rolled ponderously up it’s track Wolf peeked around the back of the massive vehicle with her gun ready. Nothing stirred as Murphy pulled the tank out into the street and sent the door on it’s decent. Wolf checked one last time for zombies and climbed into the tank as soon as the door was firmly planted on the ground.
The tank roared and the tracks made a metallic clank against the cracking pavement in front of the warehouse.
“Do you know where the Peak Valley Animal Hospital is? It‘s not in the city but it‘s loaded with medical supplies.”
Murphy moved the clattering vehicle down deserted streets past houses with their windows long broken out, the drapes flapping in the slight breeze like silent flags of surrender. As the houses began to thin out the road turned to a strip of weathered and worn dirt, rutted beyond repair by neglect and the forces of the wind and rain beating a maze of miniature canyons into the once smooth red dirt. Wolf thought for a moment about the odd way that it reminded her for a moment of the members of the reeking mobs that plagued mankind who’s skin had been gashed and left to fester and ooze exposing the writhing twisting muscle below. Wolf was pulled from her silent introspection by the lurch of the tank rolling up into the parking lot of the animal hospital.
Murphy un-holstered his gun and slowly slid out of the tank, wolf followed suit and stepped silently out onto the grayed pavement. She remembered when they had paved this parking lot, it had been the first black top in the area, now it was **** and warped looking like it had been laid a long time ago. Wolf followed Murphy to the door where he motioned for her to stay where she was standing. He grabbed the handle on the door and gave it a gentle yank, it didn’t yield. Wolf pulled the aging leather bag that she had been carrying with her and produced a ring of keys, she fumbled with them only a moment before selecting one and sliding it into the lock. With a satisfying click the key turned inside the lock and Wolf eased the door open while Murphy held his pistol at the ready. Silently Murphy slipped inside, there was a thick layer of dust on everything but otherwise the place seemed untouched by time and the ravages of the creatures and looters. As he walked through the empty building checking for the beasts he thought to himself that the fact that the building was solid brick all the way around must be what had kept the creatures out and the looters just hadn’t made it this far before the zombies caught up with them. Satisfied that the building was safe Murphy returned to the door.
“Go ahead” He said “I’ll wait here and keep watch.”
Wolf walked into the reception area of the clinic, it seemed so empty compared to the last time she had walked through that front door. She almost felt compelled to go into the staff restroom and put on her white coat. Laughing silently at her own silliness Wolf made her way to her office, there would be the duffel bag she had carried a change of clothes in when she worked long shifts. She walked around behind her desk and pulled the deep bottom drawer out, the bag was there, rumpled and stuffed into the back of the drawer forgotten for all of this time. She opened it and stuffed the clothes to one end and unzipped the divider that allowed it to expand to nearly twice it’s size. Wolf had thought it a silly extra when Omen had brought it home for her but now she thanked him for that “You never know when you’ll need more space” accessory. Sighing heavily she picked up a small frame from the center of the back of the desk, A smiling blonde haired little boy looked back at her from the photograph inside, Wolf stuffed the picture into the bag as her eyes began to burn, this was not the time for that. She made her way back through the reception area and down a short hallway to the room where supplies were kept.
Looking carefully at boxes, vials and cartons Wolf came to the conclusion that she may as well take everything she could, nobody was going to have a hurt pet that needed help. Stooping down she upended a box full of towels and began to stack everything she could fit inside, then she stuffed the remaining space in her bag with the contents of the cabinet that contained the pain medications and other controlled drugs. She went back to the front and set the box and her bag outside of the front door, and ducked back inside before Murphy could comment. She went back to the supply room and turned out another box of towels and went to the treatment rooms one by one gathering sterile swabs, needles and anything else that could prove useful.
Upon entering the kennel room Wolf noticed that some animals had been left behind waiting for owners to pick them up who had probably not survived the first morning. Their skeletal bodies lay slumped into the corners of the kennels and cages held together only by dried decaying bits of tendon and flesh, one dog had died with his feet sticking out through the bottom of his kennel door and there were claw marks dug into the tile floor. It looked to Wolf like he had been trying to dig his way out for some time before starvation and dehydration had claimed him. The twisting pain in her heart was almost more than she could stand, a hot angry tear rolled down her cheek and came to rest cold on her collar bone as she pushed her way through the door to the surgical suite in the back of the clinic. Here she filled the box with I.V. fluids, suture thread and equipment until she was sure the box could hold no more before heading back towards the front door. Just for the sake of memories Wolf shouldered the bathroom door open and laid her pristine white coat on top of the box, Dr Wolf was embroidered in bright cheery blue across the pocket and there were still a few things clattering around in the pockets.
Outside Murphy heard a scuffing noise coming from inside the clinic, thinking Wolf was coming back with another box he turned towards the sound only to come face to face with a scrawny pale twisted face. His heart jumped in his chest as the creature came shooting out of the door knocking him to the **** pavement. What had once been the smiling receptionist and weekend caretaker at the clinic was now straddling his chest snarling in his face, it’s lips curled back in a sickening grin as it leaned forward, drooling across his cheek it prepared to sink it’s teeth into his face. A resounding roar came from the door of the clinic and the creature pitched forward and pulled up a mouth full of asphalt. Murphy shoved the corpse off of him and sat up slowly, almost afraid that he would find a hole somewhere in his person.
“Thank you” he said as he wiped a smear of blood, brain and zombie spit off of his cheek and neck.
“Be more careful” Wolf smiled and put the box inside of the tank with the other box and her bag which Murphy had already put inside. Wolf pulled the keys from her bag and locked the front door, she thought it was a wasted gesture but she had always locked back up when they were closed, even when there was someone inside to watch the place.
They rode in silence on the way back to the warehouse, both lost in their own minds thinking about the things that they had encountered while out at the clinic. Murphy counted himself lucky to be alive, but damn scared that he had come that close to getting munched by the twisted figure of a woman that had met him at the door while he was waiting for Wolf to finish. He couldn‘t believe he had missed something that vital when he made his check of the building. Wolf was waiting impatiently for them to get back to the warehouse, she was angry that the animals had been left to suffer in their cages like that, though she did suppose that it was better than starving wandering the countryside or getting slaughtered by the stinking hoards.
As the tank came to the crest of a small hill just inside of the city the engine sputtered and the lights went off.
“****!” yelled Murphy as he slammed his foot into the clutch and tried in vain to get the massive engine to turn over. The engine clicked, gurgled and fell silent.
“What happened?”
Murphy turned to Wolf, he looked disgusted, shocked and horrified all at once.
“We’re out of fuel.” he said through clenched teeth.
“We’re what!?” Wolf nearly screamed “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“I wish I were, we’re going to have to find fuel or walk back to the warehouse.”
Wolf thought for a moment and dreaded what she was going to say. Swallowing the lump that had risen in her throat she looked at Murphy and shook her head.
“The station where you found us in the first place, it’s about two blocks away from here, we managed to turn the pumps on so we could burn fuel in an old oil lamp we found.”
Murphy didn’t want to go back to that place, not as bad as it had been when he had found his companion and her husband in the midst of what should have been the end of them. He allowed the tank to continue rolling down the hill trying to close off as much space between them and the station as he could before the heavy vehicle lurched to a stop. Wolf had her door part way open before the treads had stopped clicking, in one swift motion she was on the ground walking around to the other side of the tank with her gun drawn and waited for Murphy to get out.
The one and a half blocks to the gas station felt like one and a half miles. It seemed like they had been creeping between buildings for hours when the pumps were finally in front of them.
Alright, sorry to say it guys, but this is where Kamots left off on her chapter, so this is the last of it until she finishes her chapter. Then i can get to writing again.
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: February 15, 2010, 06:27:12 am »
Chapter 4.
Doubt and Control
Where to Now?
She awoke with a scream, tears beginning to dry upon her face and fear in her heart. Murphy rushed to her bedside and asked with a ruffled brow “ Are you OK?”
She looked at him with terror fading from here eyes and replied “ Yeah, just a nightmare.” he rose to his feet and said “Well, breakfast is nearly done and then we’ll go see about getting out there for your boyfriend again.”
She climbed out of bed as slowly as she possibly could, her muscled raged against her efforts to move, the running she had done had taken it’s toll and her legs felt as if they had been lit on fire. She winced as she came fully to her feet, mulling over the dream as she crept to the bathroom to pee, sitting even hurt, and as she did her back screamed in agony and she hissed in pain. “Hurry up!” Murphy yelled to her as she heard silverware clatter in the little kitchen. She pulled up her pants and went towards the small couch. By the time she got there he had already begun to eat, her plate steaming on the table.
The hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon and fried potatoes was the best thing that she had tasted in months and she shoveled it in as if she had never eaten before in her life. Murphy chuckled at the sight and she blushed slightly, realizing that she was making a pig of herself. “Don’t worry about it.” he said. “I understand, I’d imagine that the meager rations that you had to live on were not very tasty.” he continued with a smile as he began to eat again. her hunger overrode her inhibitions and she continued to eat, and soon enough it was gone. Her stomach full and her mind calm she began to gear up, which didn’t take long, she holstered the Bull and pocketed as many bullets as her hip satchel could carry.
As they walked outside she had noticed that it was beginning to get cold, ‘winter must be coming; she thought to herself. ‘ just because they blacked out the sky doesn’t mean that mother nature isn’t going to continue her cycle.’ she smirked as she climbed into the tank. “Where to now?” Murphy asked as he prepped the tank controls.
“maybe he went home…” she said as she sat.
“and where is that?” he asked as he started the engine.
“Just go North on twenty-ninth street and take a left on Franklin Avenue.” she said with a grimace as she readjusted herself.
And with that the tank began to rattle forward towards twenty-ninth, and the search began.
I awoke with a splitting headache and a slight chill, gray snow covered me like a blanket. I moaned as I sat up, finally realizing where I was, I instantly reached for my gun, luckily still dangling in its’ lanyard over my shoulder. “ Oh hell…” I whispered as I rubbed my forehead, the pain in my leg showing itself. “Oh yeah huh?” I inquired to myself with a wince, ‘this may be it, defining moment here.’ I thought to myself as I tried to stand. My leg could hold my weight, but not well, I could barely walk, at best. “That’s awesome.” I said to myself as I sat back down and unwrapped it to survey the damage. I untied the knot and began to slowly pull the make shift bandage away, revealing a gaping hole as big as two fist side by side, and at least two inches deep, the blood had clotted and a scab was beginning to form. ‘ could be worse, I could be dead.’ I thought to myself as I retied the knot and stood once more.
I began to walk slowly, trying to keep the new scab from tearing open. I came to the gate and opened it cautiously, considering what had chased me in here. ‘ Silence…too much silence…’ I thought to myself as I stepped into the alley. Nothing was moving save for the newspapers that seemed to perpetually be moving throughout the city. I began to walk down the alley when the ground began to shake, a loud clanging of tank treads preceding it. Hobbling faster now, I reached the end of the alley, the tank was coming up the street slowly, so I sat on the curb and nursed my wound until it arrived.
Wolf hopped from the idling tank and nearly ran me over as she slammed into me for a hug. “Are you OK?” she asked as she looked down at my leg. “ One of those red bastards got a hold of my leg, but I should be fine.” I told her as I lifted my shredded pant leg up over the makeshift bandage and slowly unwrapped it. “Sweet Jesus! He got you good, we need to get you back to the holdout!” she said in dismay as she stood me up and drug me to the tank. “ I’m fine, really.” I said as I climbed the steps, trying not to limp. The drums of shells that hung from my hip clanged into the tank and every time they did I winced in pain, my claim of being fine was not going to stick this time.
I sat on the hard seat positioned behind Murphy and winced again, the wound had begun to bleed again. “good to finally meet you.” Murphy said, hand poised to be shook. I shook his hand and said “So you’re the guy who saved our ass earlier, thank you.” the look of pain on my face drew his attention to my wound, and as he say it he pulled the pistol from his hip and put it to my forehead. “You’ve been bitten, your going to turn, I can’t let that happen.” he said as he pulled the lever back. “Get that out of my face.” I retorted as I pulled my shotgun. “ Knock it off you two!” Wolf yelled “ He’s not going to turn , if he was going to he would have already, now put the guns away.” Murphy lowered his revolver slightly, still wary of me. I dropped my shotgun, my strength wasn’t going to hold out much longer, I felt like I was going to pass out again. ‘ This is some bullshit.’ I thought to myself as my head hit the seat.
Reaching down to hip level Wolf’s thumb tickled the snap on the worn leather holster that had graced her side for some time now. She couldn’t remember where she had found a holster for the hand cannon but it was new when she had picked it up. As her nail grazed the edge of the beaten brass snap and tugged it open Murphy’s head came up, looking from Omen to Wolf he sighed and put the machine he controlled into gear, Wolf adjusted Omen‘s upper half and slammed the door shut. Even though it wasn’t very far back to his secure warehouse the blocks seemed to creep by, it hadn’t seemed such a long trip out to find her husband but the trip back seemed to take hours. They spent the trip in silence, Murphy occasionally looking over at Omen and Wolf shaking his head and muttering to himself. She knew he wanted to kill Omen, That wasn’t going to happen. She would shoot them both if she had to but only if Omen turned, nobody was going to kill him, not after they had come this far, not without giving him a chance.
Wolf was pulled violently from her thoughts as the tank came to a stop and the door to the warehouse started to make it’s way up along it’s tracks. Omen mumbled something in his pain induced slumber as she shifted his head out of her lap. Wolf pulled the Bull from it’s holster and got out of the tank, a lone zombie shambled into sight as Murphy turned his back to hit the switch that brought the huge bay door back down. With a practiced motion she leveled the gun with it’s drooling face and squeezed the trigger. Murphy whipped around in time for a little blood and a hunk of gooey brain matter to spatter his shoes as the door rumbled down into place shutting off the sanctuary from the dangers outside. Without a word or a thought she went back to the tank and began shifting Omen out of the seat, Murphy came and grabbed his shoulders as Wolf eased his legs out taking care not to bump the wound and dislodge any of the clots that were keeping the wound from bleeding further.
With no small effort they managed to get Omen’s weighty form across the room and onto one of the beds close to where Wolf had slept the night before. As she began to loosen the knot in the crude bandage Murphy grabbed her hand.
“You might not want to do that, I’m not trained medically and that looks to be a nasty wound.”
“It’ll be alright” Wolf said pulling her hand away from his grasp “I’m a Doctor, granted I work on animals but this is no different than a horse or a really big dog.”
Murphy’s eyes got wide, he looked as though he were about to say something then squared his shoulders and set off to another part of the warehouse as she continued to work the knot loose. Just as she was about to pull the edges away Murphy returned with a wheeled cart, the kind with two shelves, both of which were loaded with boxes, plastic containers and assorted medical apparatus. Nodding she began digging through the boxes for the anything he had that she might find useful. At some point while Wolf was equipping herself for the horrors that would surely greet her when she pulled the bandage away from the wound Murphy had come up with a bag of torn sheets, a hotplate, and, a pan of water. While he plugged the hotplate in and started to heat the water Wolf assembled the things that she thought she might need from the rather decent assortment of medical goods Murphy had come up with and laid them out along the edge of the cart.
Yanking the rumpled sheet from the unmade bed she had slept in previously Wolf went to the head of Omen’s bed, kissed his motionless lips and whispered “I love you” in his ear before covering him from the head to the knees with the sheet. Murphy’s face lost color and he looked to the floor.
“I’m sorry” he said
“Oh what the ****? He’s not dead, I just know I won’t be able to hold my composure if I have to look at him while I work, I covered him so I can go back to the clinic in my head. Like I said a big dog or a horse, I can’t do what I need to do if I see it as my husband.”
Murphy looked slightly confused but didn’t question as she pulled a pile of sterile gauze off of the cart and onto the edge of the bed. She grabbed a bottle of sterile saline from a box and began to slowly pour it onto the bandage to soften the scabbed areas even though surely the blood had kept them moist enough to prevent pulling. The damage became apparent as soon as she pulled the makeshift bandage away. Tendons were showing through a pretty serious mess in the meaty part of the outside of Omen’s calf. The skin on the edges was already beginning to fester and a greasy yellow gray pus was oozing from under the chunks of flesh that hung like a macabre fringe around the outside edges.
“Just a big animal” she mumbled to herself.
Reaching behind her and grabbing blindly from the cart Wolf retrieved a long needle and two vials of Proparicaine that she was very happy Murphy had happened to find a box of. Unsure of exactly where and how much of the drug was needed in a human she thought she had probably used a little too much but Omen had some serious body mass, If he woke up while she was working she didn’t want him to feel anything at all. Satisfied that no pain would be felt Wolf began to use the sterile gauze squares to fish around in the wound, pulling out gobs of dark red slop and dropping the used bloodied squares of sopping gauze into the now empty plastic box that had previously contained an assortment of clamps and scissors which she had dumped into the pot of now boiling water on the hotplate.
Finally out of her normal head space she had managed to go into Vet mode, flushing the wound and beginning the task of finally surveying the real damage. There were damaged blood vessels everywhere, several small tendons had been severed, and to top if off two big hunks of skin and muscle tissue were totally missing.
Murphy watched in silence as she reached back to the cart again and grabbed what she needed without looking away from the wound for a second. Wolf didn’t have exactly what she needed but with luck she could patch things up well enough to keep the leg useable. After tying off the mess of small arteries and veins that wouldn’t stop bleeding she started to bring the ends of the tendons back together using the staples and suture thread she’d found in the cart. The repair job looked more like a grade school embroidery project than anything she learned in college but hopefully it would hold well enough for things to heal or at least until she could get Murphy to help her loot a hospital or vet clinic for the other things she would need to finish the job properly. After ensuring that the inside of the wound was taken care of Wolf went about the task of removing the dead tissue and debris from the edges.
Wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead with her forearm Wolf cut down into the skin just below the wound and pulled a section of loose muscle up towards the gaping hole, repeating the process above the wound she worked and stretched the small wires of muscle to meet in the center of the wound and placed a few loose sutures connecting the two to keep everything in place. With a deep sigh and one last inspection Wolf put several drains in and packed the wound with gauze and topped it off with a folded piece of cotton bandage that she had soaked in an antibiotic ointment that she found in a box. After carefully wrapping the leg in long strips of the cotton bandage then placing a layer of tape above and below the bandage as well as the two safety pins she’d found in her pocket to keep everything secure, she then dipped her hands into the now cooling water in the pan for a quick rinse and shambled off towards the shower in the far corner of the warehouse.
Dressing quickly she went back to check on Omen, he seemed to be resting well enough. Murphy had removed the sheet and placed two thick pillows under Omen’s calf then covered him in a couple of heavy blankets. Digging through the boxes once again Wolf found a box full of vials containing various antibiotics, a bag of ringers solution and an iv catheter. Unsure of human dosages she pulled up a syringe full and injected it into the bag of fluid before gently slipping the catheter into the thick vein in Omen’s wrist just behind the palm of his hand. Smiling her thanks to Murphy she pushed her bed closer to the one that contained Omen’s lifeless form. Crawling in slowly and silently her head no sooner hit the pillow and she was fast asleep, exhausted from working so long on the wound and the sheer emotional impact the day had taken on her already tortured mind.
Murphy leaned his head on the back of the couch and looked out through the sky light at the darkening night. He wondered about the couple that now shared his little oasis. How did that woman manage to do the things she had done all day without rest or help? He doubted that he could have helped the man, If he hadn’t had the presence of mind to pull his gun out Murphy probably would have shot him right there. Then again Wolf absently flicking the strap open on her holster had made up his mind. He would bring them back to his warehouse and hope the man didn’t turn when he regained consciousness. He hoped that if the man did turn he wouldn’t have to kill the woman as well, he had been safe here for a long time, nobody was going to get him dead even if they were the first people he had talked to since the other guy that had stayed with him had gotten himself shredded and eaten. Looking through his food stores Murphy selected a bag of chips and settled down into the couch dozing off with the half empty bag still in his hand.
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: February 12, 2010, 10:38:34 am »
Chapter 3
Sky of Ash
Leaving Home
I slowed to a walk as the house came into view through the haze and darkness. It loomed over me with cold empty windows that, with my mind as **** as it was, reminded me of a fuming zombie, the door, gaping and jagged in the darkness seemed as if it were a mouth, ready to swallow me whole. I came to the door with a shudder, ’oh yeah…it’s boarded.’ I thought to myself with a shake of my head as I walked to the window that we left through. I pulled the key from my pocket and grabbed the cold padlock, unlocking it with a twist of the key and I slipped inside. “Baby?” I inquired into the blackness of the house.
No answer came.
I began to search the house systematically, room-by-room I hunted for her, but no signs of life in that dank place. “Goddamnit!’ I yelled in defiance of fate as I pounded my fist on the wall.’ where is she?!’ I thought to myself frantically as I paced the hallway, boots thumping hard against wooden floor as the boards creaked , creating a rhythm that echoed throughout my mind.
“I can’t continue to look for her tonight.” I spoke to the empty air in front of me. Running my hands through my hair, I began to walk towards our room. I came to the door and was loathe to open it, ‘what will I do if she isn’t in here?’ I asked myself as I reached for the knob. Tears welled up in my eyes because I knew that she would have come out by now, meaning that she isn’t here. My hand dropped mere inches away from the knob and my head sank to my chest and my arms went limp. The tears began to flow as I sank against the wall and slid to the floor. “what if she’s dead?” I asked myself through choked sobbing.
I clenched my jaw and rubbed my eyes, now wasn’t the time for this, and I knew it. I rose from the floor and realized how exhausted I was. ‘ I need to sleep.’ I thought to myself as I reached for the knob again. I turned the knob and walked in, it felt so empty without her here. I shrugged the USAS off of my shoulder and felt where the lanyard had been sitting, it had created a callused line in my shoulder where it had sat for so long over the past years. I brought the trench knife out of from behind my belt and surveyed it for a minute before putting it down. I didn’t bother to take my clothes off before falling into bed. As little as I wanted to sleep, I had no choice and within seconds I was sound asleep.
Blood ran down her face as I watched, helpless and scared, she called to me as she died, and I could do nothing my body frozen, my mind betrayed me. They began to dismember her without mercy, eating her flesh and I still couldn’t move. Her eyes began to empty slowly as the look of sadness in her eyes faded, her cries fading into low whines of pain. I sank to my knees as she died, the world around me fading into gray blurs, except for those corpses and her, clear as day. They rose from her corpse and began to come for me, and I began to cry, my breath escaping my lungs in short, strained sobs. They fell upon me with unforgiving hunger…..
“AHHHH aha ah…” I screamed as I sat bolt upright, beads of freezing sweat rolled down my forehead, my shirt soaked in salty, cold liquid. I rubbed my face dry as I rolled my legs out of the bed. The clock read seven fifteen AM. I looked in the dusty mirror across from my twin bed and gazed at myself with glazed eyes, my hair disheveled and my eyes sagged from stress. I straightened my hair with a swipe of my hand as I ambled down the stairs into the living room.. Nothing different, and she wasn’t there. I did a systematic search once again just to make sure, only to find, once again, nothing.
I felt like crying again when I heard moaning from outside, faint: but still there, and it wasn’t just one, there were quite a few of them. I snuck back up the stairs slowly and carefully, so as to not alert them to my presence. I slowly shouldered the door open and grabbed my USAS and trench knife. Strapping the belt to myself, I bolstered my confidence as I tip toed to the foot of the stairs and sat, shotgun white knuckled and my breathing bated, waiting for them to either come in or continue on their brainless search for food.
An hour passed and the moaning had grown stronger, and I still sat as I had been. ‘ they are close now, I can’t lower my guard just yet.’ I thought to myself as I crept to the window and looked out the crack, at least fifty of the red bustards cavorted outside in the cul-de-sac, why they were here was beyond me, but they weren’t leaving and more of them passed them by the cul-de-sac in search of fare. It reminded me of an overflow dip in the side of a dirt road, they swirled around while the rest passed by, unhindered by the dip in their path.
“****.” I whispered as I sat down under the window with a grimace. ‘ Maybe they followed me, or they followed my scent? What the ****… I’m totally screwed if I don’t think up a plan.’ I pondered this dilemma until a loud thump broke my concentration. It happened again, but this time louder and the fridge in front of the front door shook. “Mother-****.” I whispered as I stood and sidled across the wall towards the door and listened. At least two of them were outside, and they seemed frustrated.
I snuck up the stairs once again and went to the bedroom. Through the dusty window pane I watched as the two at the door shambled away slowly. I rested my hand on the window and sighed, leaning forward slightly in relief and as I did my USAS swung forward on it’s lanyard and tapped the window. “ Oh ****..” I said as the horde stopped in unison and turned. “ Oh hell.” I breathed in a low voice as I backed away.
The ground shook as the pack made it’s sprinting advance at the house. The ululating sound of them pounding on the entire front of the house reverberated in my heads as I ran down the stairs and slammed into the fridge in defiance. Each blow knocked the fridge into me with insane force and it continuously broke my footing. Holding the fridge was not going to work much longer for the fact that the walls were beginning to crack and splinter. The first arm began to come through the wall as I shoulder the fridge and leaned against it, raising my shotgun toward the arm three feet in front of me, I squeezed the trigger and watched as the arm exploded into a rain of gore. The sound of the gunshot augmented their hunger and the next blow sent me flying, and crashing the fridge to the floor five feet in front of the door.
As I hit the wall I felt my shoulder dislocate again. I screeched in pain as I hit the floor with a sickening thump, my arm dangled at a precarious angle and so I rearticulated it with another shriek. As I began to stand the door gave way and exploded. Shards of wood flew as the crimson demon sprinted right for me, his moaning became a heated roar as he reached for me. I shouldered my shotgun once again and squeezed the trigger with my teeth grated in bloodlust. The creature opened it’s mouth just in time to catch the round, brains and spinal column sprayed the ensuing horde as the corpse fell to the floor and I ran.
I hit the back door like a shot and clawed the boards off. The onslaught poured through the door way, tearing the paneling off like paper, I only had a few seconds to get through, and just in time I slipped out the small opening that I had created. As I sprinted out the door my pant leg caught on a nail and I crashed to ground, my shotgun sliding beyond my reach. “****!” I yelled as I jerked my laid in an attempt to free myself. I felt a large hand grip my foot with sickening force and yank, slamming me into the door frame. I raised up off of the ground and dangled as I felt more hands grab my leg and foot. The USAS lay tantalizingly close to my fingertips, but it was just too far away. The sudden pain of a chunk of my leg being ripped out brought me back to the problem at had as I kicked with all the strength I could muster and finally I kicked free and fell to the dirt.
The boards began to splinter and I knew I did not have much time to get away. I shot to my feet only to realize that the bite had taken tendons and muscle tissue with it, leaving my leg nearly useless. I held my thigh with one hand and reached down for my shotgun, and as I did a few of the boards shattered like glass, throwing chunks of wood onto my back, and I shambled faster towards the street at the other end of the alley.
As I neared the end of the street I could hear the boards shatter, and the horde howled into the blackened sky as the continued their hunt. As I saw the first red come out of the yard I opened the wooden gate and hid up against the fence of some poor guys backyard. It looked as if they had ran out here to get away from the corpses that were surely following them, a woman, from what I could tell she was around twenty five, and a younger man that wasn’t recognizable save for his body structure. They had been mutilated to the point that they could not reanimate, his legs had been dragged back into the house, evident by the blood trail running from his carcass and up the back steps. Their clothes were shreds and chunks were missing in more places than I could count on both hands and feet.
I stared at the cadavers, completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing in a puddle of my own blood. I collapsed to the dirt once again, but this time I didn’t think I was going to be getting back up, at least not alive. Taking my shirt off and wrapping it up was the only option I had and by the time I was done I had lost too much blood, I couldn’t even move. ”This is it…” I told myself as I stared at the blasted sky and watched the ash float through the air like butterflies. The horde had gone on to find easier food, and I was safe, at least safe enough. I began to lose focus and soon I had passed into darkness.
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: February 09, 2010, 05:34:16 am »
Chapter. 2
Darkness Incarnate.
Feelings of Severance.
Wolf’s heart pounded and her armor pumped faster and faster to keep her cool. She couldn’t stop, if she did that was the end, the horde chased her and she wasn’t sure if she was still going the right way. Her hand was clenched on her pistol, knuckles white and enflamed, but the weapon was utterly useless, she had expended what little ammunition she had brought with her on the creature that followed her, but to no avail, it still came after her, along with more sprinting stenches than she could count. The ground shook with every foot fall of the creature and she couldn’t help but wonder where Omen was, she had lost him after the alleyway, and when she turned around to find him he was totally gone.
She rounded the corner and continued to run, her breathing was ragged and she wasn’t going to be able to continue for much longer. She began to realize that it was a lost cause, she could not continue to run, and they could. When she stopped they would fall upon her and eat her alive, that was inevitable at this point. She ran past the school, and the memories came back, but she could not cry for him at this moment, now was not the time and she knew it, but it didn’t help her cause. She rounded the corner of the school and hid behind some of the rubble to catch a breath, but they say her and she had to start running again.
She continued to run on and on for blocks it seemed when the low rumble of a tank engine came to her and she smiled in relief. The tank rounded the corner the turret aimed directly over her head and fired off a round that singed her hair and knocked her over onto the asphalt. The shot hit the creature in the chest and sprayed the horde below it in chucks, killing more than a few. The man came out of the turret once again and began firing the fifty again. The large caliber bullets ended the horde’s advance as heads exploded and limbs flew.
Smoke rose from the barrel as the man hopped out of the turret and climbed down the tank. “Names Murphy.” he said as he helped Wolf up. His mesh armor was pitted and well used and, the cargo pants he wore were torn and had seen better days, but his green eyes still glinted with hope and verbosity. “Where’s your friend?” he asked her with a raised eyebrow. “ I lost him after you saved us the first time, I don’t know where he went.” Wolf said with a tear in her eye.
Murphy wasn’t entirely sure what to do about the woman standing in front of him on the verge of breaking down. Slowly he reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. “We can go looking for him.” he said and pulled her towards the tank. Wolf sighed heavily and grasped the hand offered to help her into the heavy vehicle. After closing the door Murphy started the engine and the tank roared to life sounding much like an angered demon woken from it’s eternal slumber. As they traveled the nearly empty streets searching for Omen the steady vibration caused by the treads on the pavement began to have an effect on Wolf and her eyes began to close, despite her best efforts to stay alert exhaustion and the vibrating hum of the tank had their way and Wolf was soon fast asleep slumped up against the door. Murphy was about to say something to her about where they should search first but stopped short when he noticed that the woman was no longer aware of her surroundings. He swung the tank clear of a large pile of rubble on a corner and turned back towards the direction in which he had last seen Wolf’s companion. He figured the best place to start would be in the direction opposite of that which he had gone earlier when he found the woman staring into the horde he had just obliterated. They passed the gas station where he had helped the two strangers just a few hours earlier and continued to rumble slowly down the street past ruined buildings many with heaps of debris clogging doorways and stairwells. The streets were devoid of any sign of life, no zombies and of course no people. Dead plants hung in baskets on balconies and ivy that had once been green and vibrant hung in tattered shreds from porches as they passed into a residential area. Boarded windows and cars with flattened tires were solemn reminders of a once beautiful neighborhood no longer full of the sounds of life.
Wolf was standing in the front yard-watching Omen digging holes with Jake so they could put up the new swing set he had gotten for his birthday. The boy was giggling happily at an earthworm his father had dug up and deposited in his hand, both ends of it dangling from his small fist. Wolf went inside to get a pitcher of juice and make some sandwiches for the “Hard working men”. She hummed a tune to herself as she slopped mustard out of the jar and onto thick slices of home made bread and marked out the beat dropping big chunks of ham down onto the mustard. She loaded the sandwiches onto a tray and stacked cups next to them then balancing the tray of sandwiches against her hip she grabbed the pitcher of apple juice in one hand and a cold beer for Omen in the other. She poked the latch on the screen door with the bottom of the beer bottle and pushed it open with her knee. The scene that greeted her was so different from the one she left when she went inside that she stood there horrified unable to speak or move. A man she had never seen before was in the yard stalking animal like towards Omen, His face was dripping with blood and his clothes were torn and disarranged hanging from his limbs joined by ribbons of what appeared to be his own flesh. He swiped at omen with an outstretched hand and Omen swung the shovel he had just been using striking a resonating blow off the mans head dropping him to the grass. Omen looked up at her, his face showing confusion, then his eyes widened as three more people in no better shape than the man lying crumpled at his feet streaked into the yard at a full run two of them going directly towards Omen while a third went straight for the little boy attempting to hide next to the bags of cement, orange buckets, and the box his swing set was waiting in. As the blood soaked creatures tore into the ones she loved Wolf dropped the things she had in hand and the pitcher shattered as she screamed.
Murphy had been thinking about what to do next as the sky started to slowly darken when the woman in the seat next to him sat bolt upright and screamed. Her eyes held a look of fear and confusion and she jumped when he said “Hey, it’s alright you’re safe”. Wolf looked at him and her eyes cleared as she became aware of just where she was. “How long was I out?” She asked He looked over at her then back to the road and said “Bout two hours.”
They sat in silence as Murphy combed the streets looking for Omen. Wolf was about to doze off again when she heard the engine straining to reach a higher speed and felt the bump and crunch as Murphy plowed over a zombie that had been unlucky enough to cross his path. Wolf felt the bones crunching and splintering beneath the tank and was happy she could not hear the sickening squelch of flesh being forced out from between the treads.
Murphy turned down another deserted road and brought the tank to a stop in front of a large warehouse with the windows boarded over and pressed a button on a little plastic box next to his seat. The large garage door on the front of the building began to rise and light spewed out from inside. He edged the tank inside the building and pressed the button again after cutting power to the tanks massive engine. Pulling his pistol from his hip he opened the door and waited listening for any sign of movement inside the building. Satisfied that nothing had slipped inside with them he started to climb out of the tank. Wolf looked at him angrily and said. “what you’re going to quit looking already? You can’t just give up like that!”
“Ma’am it’s going to be too dark to keep looking within a half an hour and being out there at night is a suicide trip. We’ll start looking again in the morning.”
Wolf sighed heavily and climbed out of the tank behind him. The inside of the warehouse was empty save for the little area where Murphy had made his home. A small stove and refrigerator sat in one corner and a couch sat in front of a dead T.V. close by. A little further away there was a row of beds all but a few piled with random things, boxes of ammo and a few guns sat on one and on another were piles of bagged and boxed foods sorted by type. Wolf looked in wonder at the stockpiles of valuable goods and wondered just how Murphy had managed to do so well for himself while she and Omen were having such poor luck, she decided he must have help to have made it this far so well.
“How many people live here with you” she asked
“Just me, there was another guy for a while but he got munched after he’d been here about a week”.
“I don’t hear a generator, how do you keep this place lit?”
Murphy smiled and explained to her that after realizing that the sound of a generator, even a well insulated one, draws in the zombies he decided to get creative, a car dealership on the outskirts of town had a wind turbine that they had used to offset the cost of lighting their lot at night. It had taken him six weeks of careful planning and many hours of standing atop a wobbly ladder perched on the roof of the tank to dismantle the thing and bring it back hauling the massive components atop his tank and another six weeks to drag the parts up to the roof put the eight foot long blades and the twenty foot long pole back together, he told her about the endless days of standing in the front corner of the roof cussing the whole scheme and how he thought many times about giving up on the idea but the audience of zombies moaning and shambling about below served to steel his reserve and again he would pick up his wrench and start bolting the four foot sections of the fiberglass and steel pole back together making sure the wiring and even the direction of the tightened ends of the bolts were just as he found them when the hair brained idea got him perched so precariously up in the air taking mental note of exactly how everything was when he took it apart. Next he had to figure out just how to make it work with the wiring already inside the building, After cutting the lines running from the dead service poles up to the building he had to remember how they were wired at the dealership which was the part he had paid the least attention to when he was working on bringing everything back to this place. He had zapped the living hell out of himself a time or three hooking up the storage batteries but in the end it had all been worth it. The silent operation of the half sized turbine didn’t draw unwanted attention from the zombies and he had enough juice stored up in the batteries to get him through times when there wasn’t enough wind to turn the blades. He had looted parts from a hardware store to make the garage door work so he could bring the tank inside at night and avoid the creatures damaging his valuable machine.
Wolf was impressed, she could not imagine one person working so hard at a task meant for several people to do together. His answer to her query about his reason for undertaking such a monumental chore by him self was simply that it was something to do that was worth the time and effort it took to make it work, plus it had kept his mind occupied. He didn’t like to think too much about what was going on in the world, he had heard from another man he ran into while looting the parts for the door that somewhere far east of here survivors had started warring amongst themselves over resources and locations. When they should have been banding together to better help one another they had set to killing each other, and for what? The crap inside of a twice-looted grocery store? The whole idea sickened him and for a while he was glad to be on his own, working on a project that for all he knew would serve to better only his life.
After he had told her of how he came to be in his situation he asked about her and Omen. She told him a rather short version of what had happened when the outbreak hit and struggled to keep her composure when telling of the son she had lost. She told him what had happened at the gas station and how she knew that since the big mangled green hadn’t noticed them they should have left but their provisions were getting very low and they needed to bring something back so they wouldn’t starve on such meager rations. Everything had gone perfectly fine until they went over the low fence and had he not come along when he did she and Omen would surely have become dinner for the stinking horde. She was about to tell him about how she got separated from Omen but she broke down, with great sobs she struggled through telling him how she thought they were finally out of harms way but when she looked back Omen was gone and a new group of shambling rotting corpses was making it’s way towards her.
“God I hope he’s ok” She said as a new wave of tears streaked down her dusty face and she buried her head in her hands, wracked with sadness she cried into her palms.
Murphy sat silently until she had calmed down and after a while went to the little kitchen he had put together returning shortly with a hot mug of tea, he handed it to her and as she cradled the sweet herbal liquid between her hands relishing the warmth he busied himself in the kitchen once more. The smell of food brought Wolf out of her inner turmoil and she realized just how empty her stomach was. She was about to get up and ask if she could help somehow when he turned and came back to the slightly tattered brown fake leather couch and handed her a steaming plate loaded with fried potatoes over which he had poured a good deal of canned roast beef and gravy. He sat down and told her “As soon as there is enough light outside in the morning we will go looking for Omen again, but tonight you should eat and try to sleep, if you want there is a shower in the back” He gestured with his fork towards the opposite corner of the warehouse. “The water isn’t very warm but it’s better than nothing and if you look on the last bed on the way I’m sure you can find something clean to wear, I’ve kind of collected things hoping more people would wind up here at some point”. Wolf thanked him and proceeded to gorge herself on the first hot food she could remember having in a very long time. After she had eaten until she feared she would pop she made her way to the pile of random clothing and picked out some underwear, the first clean ones she had seen since the day when all hell broke loose, a pair of stone washed blue jeans that looked like they would fit her, a bra and a black long sleeved t shirt that had a big red nautical star in a velvety material on the front and smaller ones down the sleeves. She then grabbed a towel from the other end of the bed and walked towards the tiny curtained off makeshift shower in the corner, amazed that Murphy had the foresight to gather clothing in all sizes and types, even though he was the only person living in this hollow brick and steel building. She stepped inside the curtain and found that Murphy had rigged up a camp shower like the ones you get at a sporting goods store, she pulled the cord hanging from it and used the soap and shampoo he had sitting on the floor, using as little water as she could get away with she rinsed and dried herself off.
After putting on the clothes she made her way back to the living area and found that Murphy had brought blankets from one of the piles and set them on one of the beds closer to the end where the stockpiles of goods were, he had also set a hair brush down near the foot. She opened her mouth to thank him again for saving her ass and helping her try to find Omen but she stopped when she noticed he was already asleep snoring in the bed at the beginning of the line closest to the door. She pulled the brush through her knotted hair and spread the blankets out. Crawling into the bed she hoped Omen had found a safe place to hole up for the night and that tomorrow they would find him so he could share in the sheer luxury of the warehouse. Her legs ached from running and her heart twisted in her chest as she realized that this would be her first night without him in many years. Still hoping for the best and fearing the worst she curled up under the blankets and soon was sleeping the deep sleep of a person exhausted and emotionally spent to the point of near collapse.
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: January 14, 2010, 10:20:44 pm »
We ran for longer than I can fathom through the blasted streets, moans filled my ears and I remember not wanting to think of what was making them. We got to the school through the haze to find nothing. The building was rubble, there was nothing left alive. Wolf screamed in dismay and collapsed to the ground sobbing in her hands, as I stood slack jawed and empty. Her scream echoed back to us after a few seconds along with other noises, the noises that you hear in old zombie movies, and not seconds later people began to come from nowhere, but these weren’t people, they were missing limbs, part of their faces, clothing was shredded or non-existent. I picked her up off the ground and ran past them, they moaned and reached for us. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I thought my heart was going to explode.
After a lengthy run we came to a dead end, and they were everywhere, our only choice was to go into this building behind us that had been a boarding school. They pounded on the walls as I began to put tables in windows, but to no avail, they came in other windows, they crawled through and slumped to the floor before picking themselves up and continuing to come at us. I grabbed a plank of wood that had fallen out of the ceiling, it had a few nails left in it and so I began to beat them to death…
Six hours later I was exhausted and they had left, or maybe they were all lying on the floor, I can’t remember, it was all a blur.
“It will be OK.” I told her as I rubbed her back. Her sobbing began to die down, and she sniffed and gave me a hug. “No it wont, this is the world we live in now, this is the apocalypse and whatever God there is has forgotten us.” she said as she looked into my eyes blankly. “It may be the end, but we are still alive are we not?” I asked with a disdainful look. “We have to survive” I said “because I still have something to fight for, and that’s you, as long as you’re here with me I have something to fight for, aren’t I a good enough reason to keep fighting? Aren’t I a good enough reason to live on?” I inquired. “O course, it’s just hard to keep your spirits up ya’ know?” she said as she sat up and wiped her eyes. “Yeah, yeah it is…” I answered with a smirk. “Let’s go get us some fuel and some Twinkies.” I said as I shouldered my USAS-twelve.” OK.” she said as she picked up her Raging bull.
As we crawled out the window we realized how bad it had gotten. Papers wafted through the streets as if the mass moaning was creating a breeze. The air was fetid and stale as if we were in an aged abandoned basement filled with wet mould and swamp slime. The sun was non-existent, it was perpetual night. Our flashlights barely made any headway through the haze that still lingered, even weeks after the fact. Desolate was the proper term for our surroundings, and yet I was somewhat happy. Mankind deserved for this to happen, we were destroying the planet day by day, but my son did not deserve what happened…
We walked for two or three blocks and found little more that shriveled, bone white stenches, in fact you couldn’t even call them stenches any more because they had no smell to them. They were easily dispatched with a blow to the head from my crowbar, or her nail bat. We finally came to a corner store that had gas pumps, of course they were off, but that could easily be remedied.
Inside the store all was silent except for a quiet shuffle created by a greenie. Hs face was missing and his bones and muscle tissue underneath glowed brighter green than the rest of him creating a perfect target. He had yet to notice our presence luckily. “You got this?” I inquired to Wolf in a low voice. “Nah, go for it.” she responded with a smirk. I whistled to the stench and he turned his head making a creak like a rusty hinge, as he did his eyes widened and he began to run at me. I took aim and squeezed the trigger sending a twelve gauge shell directly into the glowing green hole in his face, thereby widening it dramatically spraying brains and god knows what else all over the wall and floor. “Ooh, critical hit.” I said with a grimace and then a smile.
We knew that killing him was a bad idea from previous experience, but we never learned, killing a green was a bad idea because every zed in the area seemed to know when they die and come to wreck the day, so as I looted the store she brained every last one of the bastards until the loot had run dry. When the tide finally ended I turned the pumps back on and we got the fuel we needed for the generator and some beef burgers, French fries, and some crisps. “well that’s dinner.” I said to Wolf as I put them in my pack.
As I rose to my feet the moaning outside got exponentially louder. “How many?” I asked Wolf in dismay. “too many to count, there heading straight for us, we need to go.” she said as she opened the glass doors and stepped out. I shouldered the pack and ran outside, the horde made the ground shake, shoulder-to-shoulder and sprinting, it wouldn’t take them long to get here.
“let’s go.” I told her as I began to run. Around the back of the building we went and hopped the four-foot chain link fence. They were coming from everywhere, the ally we now stood in was packed on each and began to close in. “you get the left I’ll take the right.” I said as I turned on my heel and once again took aim. “ nineteen rounds might not be enough” I thought to myself as I pumped off a round, blowing a young boy in half. They closed in faster and faster, they were beginning to sprint the last ten or twenty feet between them and us. The sound of her revolver echoed off of the walls surrounding us, making my ears ring, the sound of shells hitting the gravel was amplified by my reeling mind, the moans were now no more than background noise as I pumped round after round into the stinking horde, coagulated blood sprayed from there bodies as they fell to the ground and were instantly swallowed by the seemingly endless horde.
They began to come over the fence that we had hopped and were on us in an instant. Wolf turned and screamed, blowing one of them against the wall , blood splattered around like a gruesome aura as I struggled to keep a naked woman from ripping my throat out, she was covered in blood, her features were skewed except for her milky white eyes and her matted black hair dangling over her shoulders. I held her by the top of the head and a shoulder, my USAS hung on its lanyard from my shoulder and I couldn’t reach it. Wolf continued to shoot the horde as I struggled against the fence. Finally pulling out my crowbar from my belt, I punctured her eye with the hook and yanked it back out, ripping a chunk of bone and brain matter out with it.
As the corpse hit the ground all I could hear was a loud ratatatatatatat as the horde began to fall apart. Blood sprayed all over the walls and body parts flew. The gunfire from the other side of the horde stopped and I started, only needing to unload five rounds, the horde was a bloody pile in the dirt. “move move, move!” Wolf yelled as she reloaded and I realized that the horde on her end was right on top of us. She turned and ran past me, and I couldn’t move. My brother was running towards me, his left arm missing and his right one flailing. “What are you doing?!” Wolf asked as I snapped out of my reverie. “Sorry bro.” I said as he dove at me and I pulled the trigger, blowing his head into little junks against some graffiti on the wall.
We hit the street and a low rumbling engine made me stop. I turned to my left and a tank sat in the middle of the street, a man in a drab green uniform smoking a cigarette held onto the handles of a fifty caliber waiting for the horde to come pouring out after us. I yelled “Thank you!” as I began to catch up with Wolf who had already hit the sidewalk across the street. The man raised his hand and saluted as the horde began to fan out of the alleyway. As I rounded the corner of the building the sound of the fifty issued and the moaning died down.
I slowed to a jog as I realized that I had lost Wolf in the haze. “Wolf, where are you?!” I inquired into the smoke. No answer came and I was alone. I slumped against the wall and felt my heart beating like a caged bird in my chest. I sucked in air in short, raspy breaths and sank to the asphalt. “O.K….nineteen shells left and a little bit of food….what now? Wolf is gone, and I can’t continue right now….I need to rest.” I said to myself as I stood up. The fifty had stopped firing and all was silent, no moans, nothing except the sound of my breathing. ‘where do I go now?’ I asked myself as I began to walk. The pocket light that hung from my belt bounced back and forth as I walked, throwing shadows. I knew that nothing was on the street or I would hear it, but my brain was trying to tell me otherwise. I observed the buildings as I passed by them, houses and businesses, all empty save for the memories left therein, ghosts of what once was.
I began to gravitate towards a car that sat a few yards up from me, its blue paint had already started to rust through, the windshield was in pieces on the hood and the ground, it seemed they had hit someone. I came to the door of the vehicle and rubbed the dirt off of the window. The driver was no more than flaky skin and bone, he had rotted in this car for at least three years. His head rested on the steering wheel, a piece of his skull shown through the desiccated skin and a brown streak ran down the steering wheel and had pooled on the floorboards. A young child sat in the back, no better than the driver, he had been thrown against his seatbelt and his neck had shattered, leaving his head hanging to the side. On the passenger seat laid a dusty knife, a trench knife to be exact. “he must have been a world war one vet.” I told myself as I made my way to the other side of the car. The front end was smashed, like they had hit something very large, blood caked the front end as if they had hit some kind of giant, but the giant had gotten away. “What the ****…” I said as I stared at the stain. Shaking my head I opened the door to the vehicle and grabbed the knife. As I got close to the corpse the smell assaulted my nostrils and I gagged. I closed the door of the car slowly and sniffed in an attempt to keep my breakfast.
The knife was in fairly good condition considering where it had sat for so long. I blew the dust off of it and held onto it as I walked, firing off any more rounds would just attract them. ‘you left her.’ my brain told me. ‘ you left her behind. Why aren’t you looking for her?’ it inquired. I stopped in my tracks and the tears welled up. ‘ I lost my son, I wont lose her too.’ I told myself as I began to sprint at the top of my ability. I dodged between the wrecked cars toward home base. ‘ if she’s going to be anywhere it will be there.’ I reassured myself.
ok, thats the full first chapter. the discussion thread is already set up sooo...POST!
Posted by: Zhufor
« on: January 14, 2010, 10:19:53 pm »
this is mine and kamots' story that we are writing together, it is copywritten, it is uncut, un-edited, but i was hoping that you guys would give us some input. we already have the story down, we know what we are going to write, and the idea that you see here is not the final story. names will be changed, and the zombies will not be DF related.
All was calm in the “fortress” as we called it, our humble abode, free of the virus that plagued the outside world. The old Victorian style two-story home was less than perfect, gutters hung limply from the roof to the ground. Window frames that once were painted a sparkling white were now gray, peeling, sagging, and, riddled with holes where bugs had been gnawing away at them. The once lush lawn had become a barren wasteland broken by the occasional clump of dead or dying weeds. There was a large gap between two of the steps leading to the front door that looked as though something was always hiding beneath the porch though we were sure nothing was down there, and the porch itself was leaning horribly to one side almost as if it wanted to tear itself away from the front of the house.
In it’s nearly dilapidated condition made solely of wood it was not the safest haven.
The boarded windows let in little light, what little light there was to be had at least considering that the government had blotted out the sun in as a failed attempt to thwart the spread of the contagion, the only light that would be had here was that of candles or the seldom used lantern to conserve the meager amount of oil that was left, and even those did little to drive away the intense veil of darkness that coated the landscape in a blackness like thick wet paint every time the sun went down.
The top floor of what we believed was once a boarding school was were we slept, many small rooms were laid out along a corridor like the ribs of a long dead monster with one larger room at the end which was the one we chose to take as our own. All of the beds were old and ratty, riddled with holes from mice and stained from being sodden with water from the tiny holes in the roof where the rain had crept in little by little over the years. The mattresses sat on the floor with no box spring under them; they had rotted beyond use and were promptly scrapped along with the basic wooden bed frames for boarding material long ago. Peeling and mottled, the paint on the walls hung in shreds, like the flesh of the stenches that cavorted outside, they had become a rusty brown color.
The bottom floor was ramshackle, the inner doors had been removed for the purpose they were originally intended for: keeping things out, though no longer in their intended locations. The paint was no better, sagging, peeling, torn, brownish red, and, useless. The kitchen was a small dark place to begin with, now with the windows boarded over it was only made worse, apparently it was made to be used only for it’s purpose and nothing else as it was not a very inviting place. A gun rack now occupied an area of pristine white paint where the fridge had been, as the fridge had been used to block the front door. The oven was electric and utterly useless, the generator that had powered it was dead and we did not have the nerve to go out for the fuel. A pan sat upon it, wasted Spam lay in it, half cooked, and no longer edible, mold had begun to grow in small patches on its surface advancing slowly from one end to the other in a fuzzy wave of disgusting filth, turning it a horrid gray color. The dishes in the sink had not been washed for lack of water, the smell was terrible and hung like an aura surrounding the sink, reminded us of the smell of the dead, the acrid smell that had assaulted our nostrils for so long now.
The living room was our place of operations, a colorful map of the city was laid out upon the table, stolen from the sheriffs department, and left to sit and gather dust on the old oaken dining table that we had dragged in from the narrow dining room that more resembled a hallway than anything else. By now that map was the most cheerful looking brightly colored thing in the entire house, next to it lay an old brass compass, showing it‘s age green in places and battered, still true to its purpose pointing out north as well as the day it was made, one of the few things left in this world that worked properly. The rest of the room lay bare save for the old molded portraits of a large group of children and their caregivers long forgotten.
This was our sanctuary; our last hope in times where hope was all that one had left…
Left to one’s own devices one can only assume that with the proper care and planning we would still be in that place of comfort…
I awoke groggily, the sagging ceiling slowly became clear and I remembered where I was. “ I’m still alive…” I thought to myself as I rubbed my eyes and rolled out of bed. Wolf climbed the stairs and peaked her head into the bedroom, “breakfast is ready.” she stated softly as I put on my belt and shoes. “I’ll be down in a minute.” I replied as I began to tie my boot. She closed the door and I sighed. ‘When will this end?’ I asked myself as I descended the stairs and made my way towards the kitchen. The floor creaked and moaned with every step, “I’m going to fall through this floor, you wait.” I said with a smile as I pointed at Wolf. She smiled as she handed me an open can of corned beef hash and a bowl of cold oatmeal. “ I found a bottle of water stashed on our large provisions of soda.” she smiled as she sauntered to the table in the living room and sat. “Thank you.” I said as I sat down with the food and began to eat, savoring every bite as I went.
After breakfast the only thing left to do for the rest of the day was sit, we had to be as quiet as possible, lest we incur the wrath of the dead. Wolf sat, enthralled with the ragged paint, discerning patters and amusing herself with smoke rings from her cigarette. “What’s on your mind, a penny for your thoughts?” I inquired with a lazy swish of my hand. She broke from her reverie and said “what?” with a raised eyebrow “I didn’t hear you.” I rolled my eyes and inquired once again “what’s on your mind?” as I sat up from my slouched position in the chair. She began with “nothing really, just remembering the way things used to be, how I would wait for you to wake up so that I could hug you, and our son could tell you good morning, we would eat breakfast together and then take him to school and watch as he ran off towards his friends, backpack bouncing on his back, he always like to wear it loose and we could never figure out why..” she stopped and tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s ok, there was nothing we could have done.” I told her softly as I wiped the tear from her face from across the table.” not only was it unexpected, but we tried, I fought with all my strength and almost died myself to save you both, but what more could we have done?” I inquired rhetorically. “ I know that” she said “ but I can’t help but blame myself for what happened, I know that it wasn’t my fault, or yours, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think about it..” she stated through gritted teeth. The tears welled up again and I could not stop them this time she cried and I refrained as best as I could, holding her as she held her face in her hands, that day will forever be ingrained into my mind, the day the **** hit the fan, the proverbial apocalypse, the day I lost my reason for living…
The wind whipped through the trees and the leaves flew through the air and swirled into piles on the ground, it was beautiful day in Pueblo Colorado, the sun was shining and it was warm. I sat on my porch with Wolf and watched the cars go by, our son played in the yard with his trucks, he had just turned 5 and was in kindergarten, bright child, top of his class, but he wasn’t serious about it, at this point it was still his life dream to become a pirate so his thoughts were not centered on school.
The balmy air caught the wind chime hanging from the porch and created a sound that made me smile, everything was going wonderfully, my books had gone global, she was banking working at a vets clinic as the head of the department. The house was not very large though, we believed in only having what we needed, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Our house was on a county road with a few acres of land behind it. Wolf insisted on having horses and so half of that stables and a round pen occupied land. We had three horses, a paint horse named scooter, a Percheron named Choctaw, and a quarter horse named legend. I didn’t ride them, she did, but I figured if she wanted them, then by all means. The landscape was somewhat scrubby, we lived in the mesa and it wasn’t the most pristine area, but we kept our land as luscious as possible, the grass was green and the oaks were large and shady, perfect to sit under with my laptop as I wrote my books.
The sun began to go down and we all went inside for lunch before we took him to the second half of his school day, Wolf made him a peanut butter sandwich and we all sat down on the couch. I turned on the television so that he could watch his cartoons when a news flash interrupted bugs bunny’s antics to say that whatever the flu was that was going around was growing to mass proportions and that we should all take precautions. I looked at Wolf and she looked at me, I said, “ it’s just a flu, these things happen it’s just a little more virulent than most.” as I shrugged. She sighed and shrugged as well. My wristwatch went off reminding me that it was time to take Jake to school.
We piled in the car and he asked me “what’s flu?” and I replied with “ what’s a dead fly?” his answer “I don’t know. What is it?” “ A flew!” I replied as I tickled him. He giggled continuously as I strapped him into his car seat, all the while tickling him. Halfway through the drive I turned on the radio and scrolled through the static to the rock station and watched the landscape fly by, I looked in the rearview and fixed my hair, the mid length mop that laid on my head was unkempt ‘ I must have forgot to comb it.’ I thought to myself as I ran my fingers through it in an attempt to try and fix it.
We came to a stop at the front of the school, its brick architecture shimmered in the sunlight, and many windows lined the building in a effort to create an “environment” as they called it. The place looked more like a prison to me, but the teachers were good, and he learned well enough there. Wolf opened the door for him as I got out and said goodbye to him, and within seconds he was on the playground and talking to his friends and playing happily. I held Wolf and smiled, life was good.
On the drive home the news mans’ voice crept through my head, reminding me of the flu that was going around, and all the sudden my gut balled up and chills went up my spine. “What do you think of this whole flu thing?” I asked Wolf with a hint of worry in my voice. “Why, what’s wrong?” she inquired nervously. “Nothing, just a weird feeling.” I replied a little more composed this time. “ I don’t know what to think frankly.” she continued as we pulled into the driveway.
We sat upon the couch and I flicked on the television. I caught the news reporter just in time to say that the people who were infected with the flu were dieing in the streets and returning to life, killing and maiming others and that the government and the air force were already taking measures to stop the threat from spreading. “LET’S GO!” I yelled to Wolf who was in the kitchen. “Why, what’s going on?” she asked as I grabbed her arm and drug her to the car. “The flu wasn’t a flu, the people who had it are zombies, and they are going to bomb the city!” I shouted as I grabbed the steering wheel and started the car. She got in and we sped towards town, we must have been topping out at ninety when suddenly the ground shook and a boom issued from the sky as bombers flew over the city. From a mile away I watched in slow motion as the bombs fell from the bay of the planes and exploded in midair…
My vision began to clear and something warm ran down my forehead‘….is that…is that blood?’ I thought to myself as I rubbed my forehead and felt something wet ‘yup…that’s blood…’ I thought as my vision became totally clear once again. “Baby, are you OK?” I asked, no answer came to me. All I could see was dirt through the windshield and passenger side window, where my ass presently resided. Light filtered through the driver side window and so I clawed my way to the top and pulled myself out. I fell to the ground and felt my shoulder come out of socket, I shrieked in pain and stood. Wolf lay a few yards away and she wasn’t moving. “Baby!” I yelled as I ran to where she was, she was still breathing. “Wake up!” I told her as I shook her by the shoulders. Her eyes opened and she told me she was fine, and that nothing was broken. ”Where is Jake?” she inquired and sat up, her back creaked but she seemed fine. “We didn’t get to him.” I told her as I looked back at the blasted city, the sky had become a dull gray and the buildings were blackened. “Maybe he’s still alive.” I said, “the bomb exploded in midair, it must have been a malfunction.” I continued as I helped her up. My arm dangled oddly so I twisted my wrist and pressed up, rearticulating it and once again I screamed.
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Xbox 360 Games
by Twilightpersona
July 03, 2013, 05:33:23 am
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May 22, 2013, 04:52:08 am
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This is by far the creepiest anything I've ever seen.
by Mustang MKIII
May 05, 2013, 12:21:35 pm
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For crazyhobo
by Twilightpersona
April 22, 2013, 06:13:54 am
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Lone Wanderer's Journal Discussion
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March 27, 2013, 06:47:00 am
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March 17, 2013, 05:47:21 am
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Lone Wanderer's Journal
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March 04, 2013, 08:57:17 am
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The Second Pulse Discussion
by Twilightpersona
February 26, 2013, 07:05:35 am
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The Second Pulse
by Twilightpersona
February 19, 2013, 06:41:46 am
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