zombie story (chapter 1: part 4 of 4)

By BadGrammar · Feb 22, 2009 ·
  1. I turned away from the window, “What the hell is going on, who are those people?”

    “They’re not really people anymore,” Blisk explained, “they’re all dead. Infected with a virus that reanimates them.”

    “Are you telling me that they’re zombies?!” I blurted out.

    “Keep your ****in’ voice down. And yes, they’re zombies, for the most part. They’re not like the walking dead you remember from George Romero movies; they’re fast and they’re not stupid. They can climb run and swim, if you make a mistake, you’re dead. Also, your traditional definition of zombie is a corpse that is reanimated. As far as we know, these ones are living and breathing. They do not decay, and they look just like us. If you don’t destroy the heart or the brain, they will get back up eventually. The virus seems to reanimate not just the brain, but the organs as well. As long as their heart keeps pumping they can heal and stay alive more or less. But that’s really all we…”

    His voice trailed off as a noise was heard outside the door. All three of the soldiers snapped their weapons up and focused on the door that was pinned shut by the couch; I froze and held my breath. No one made a sound. Several moments passed, and I began to think that maybe it was just the wind blowing a door shut, and then I heard it.

    Crunch, there was something outside the door stepping on what sounded like broken glass. I heard the sound several more times, each time getting closer and closer. I felt dizzy all of the sudden, I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. I stayed perfectly still, terrified that any noise I made could give away our position. The crunching stopped right outside of the door. The soldiers slowly switched their weapons from safe to fire, waiting in nervous anticipation.

    Several seconds felt like several hours. A bead of sweat ran across my temple and down my cheek, and gathering at the bottom of my chin. I could feel it collecting mass and getting heavier and heavier. My awareness of it made me want to wipe it away, but I was too scared to even move my hand. Finally it fell free and dropped to the floor. I realized that I had been holding my breath for quite a while, and I cautiously let out a very slow controlled breath.

    A clumsy hand slapped itself against the door handle outside, and violently turned it from side to side, jerking the door in and out, but the weight of the couch leaning against the door kept it firmly closed. I jumped, startled. I gasped. Chief Blisk shot an annoyed glance at me, as if to warn me to not make any noise.

    The rattling of the door suddenly stopped. I wasn’t sure what to expect next, anticipation was rising to unbearable levels within me and I started to feel nauseous. ‘No’ I thought, ‘I can’t hurl right now, if I do that thing will hear me.’ But the thought of not throwing up made me want to throw up even more. I started to breathe deeply to calm myself. I suddenly felt like my esophagus got two feet shorter, panic shot through me as I realized that I was going to throw up, and there was nothing I could do about it.

    At the exactly moment I began to hunch over in an awkward gag reflex, one of the soldiers mashed a balled up t-shirt into my face. I retched. I tried to gag as quietly as possible, and with the shirt over my mouth it came out as muffled coughs and gasps for air. The shirt itself was pressed hard against my mouth and nose, and filled up with the vile smelling fluid quickly. It became hard to breath, I was now being suffocated by my own stomach fluid. I finished gagging and convulsing, and tapped the soldiers arm to let me go. He hesitated for a moment, and then removed the vomit soaked shirt from my face. The rush of cool fresh air to my vomit covered face was literally, a breath of fresh air. I kneeled on the floor, and then rolled to my back to catch my breath.

    Outside the door, I heard a familiar crunch. It hesitated for a moment, then scraped as if there was weight on it turning in place, then another crunch followed. It continued at a steady pace and faded away down the hallway.

    I felt drained, I lied on the floor and caught my breath as the soldiers lowered their weapons and caught theirs. I looked up to see my sister standing in the bedroom doorway, ‘she sure did grow up’ I thought to myself. I suddenly felt robbed of the last 6 years. I couldn’t remember anything. It was like yesterday she was just a kid.

    Brisk towered over me and broke me from my current thought. His face was exploding with anger. “If you don’t snap out of it soon, you and your sister are nothing but dead weight to us. Pull another stunt like that and I’ll personally take you out to the woodshed.” He managed to keep his voice low while yelling at me. I was both impressed and intimidated. He looked briefly at his wristwatch, “I’m going to give you another 4 hours to rest, but then we’re leaving… you either keep up, or you get left behind.”

    “Where are we going?” I asked.

    Brisk looked at me with a very serious expression, “We’re going to the Holiday Inn.”



    Note: this is the story that sets the stage for this post. http://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=18665

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