Slipping
from the windowsill, I check the steak knife I have hidden in the boots I
liberated from two apartments back, as well as the pair of hatchets I’d taken
from the previous apartments. My pool stick/butcher knife had broken before I’d
even gotten out of St. Charles, turning into a temporary spear and then a very
weak cudgel.
My
ears perk as I hear the telltale kak-kak-kak
of gunfire in the distance. This being Texas and all, I’d truly expected to
hear more of it throughout the past six months, but with each day I heard less
and less of it. Gunfire gathered the zombies attention… well, whatever was controlling the zombies. Those black
tendrils that slid out from the wounds and the zombies arms and mouths were too
alien to be some strange earthborn parasite.
Maybe
something a government lab cooked up?
Who
knows and frankly, who cares? Barring the revelation of what the zombies
origins were also revealed some strange weakness they had, I was so over trying
to figure out what caused the dead to move around. The few groups I’d joined
(or more along the lines been absorbed into) always loved to talk about what
could be causing the whole mess. I figured that was a grown-up’s problem,
seeing as I didn’t rightly care.
I
just wanted to live long enough to hug my parents and little brother again.
Shucking
on the trench coat I’d taken from some army surplus store I’d camped out in for
a few days, I made certain to grab a few packets of plastic wrap, and begin
mummifying myself slowly with the constrictive material.
The
bite of the zombies was hardly the worst thing they could do to you, as almost
all of them possessed the ability to projectile vomit with startling accuracy a
black mass of those wriggling worms, all of which seemed keen on slipping into
your skin like leeches. I was with one group where a computer geek was running
the show, and watched him take a face full of the slimy crap.
He
was down in three seconds and up in another four, moaning and groaning.
Wrapping
my arms and moving onto my legs, I think about the next two blocks and what I’m
trying to get to.
A
radio station. Namely a country station that my Mom had loved to listen to when
she was dropping me off at school.
Now
while I was as big a fan of country music as your typical teen (i.e. not), I
did appreciate the stations ability to broadcast messages… like distress calls.
And a year in the AV club would hopefully serve me well enough when presented
with a full stations sound board.
I
somehow doubted it myself, but all I really had left was optimism. And nothing
could take that away from me.
Slam!
Slam!
Slam!
Groooooaaan!!! Came
from the other side of the door.
“Goddammit…”
I mutter, cursing my own idiocy for tempting fate. With one leg half wrapped I
merely cut off the plastic and pat it down, praying the Kevlar leggings will
prove enough for me to avoid any worms today. Moving quickly, I gather up my
satchel and machete, shoving my hat onto my head as I affix my scarf over my
nose and mouth. Looking at the flimsy barricade, I can already see the wood
splintering on the door, coagulated blood seeping through the cracks.
“Time
to move,” I mutter, ducking through the window and out onto the two-foot wide
ledge.
The
breeze I’d just finished savoring blows, causing me to curse it to Hell as I
almost lose my balance, forcing me to hug the brick wall of the apartment
building as I slowly shimmy the ten feet to the next window. I wince as I hear
my barricade shatter from within last night’s sanctuary, the snarling dead
sniffing for me. With the breeze and the open window, they’ll spend hours
trying to find out where I am.
Making
it to the next window over, I reach out with my machete and tap the glass a few
times, trying to get the attention of any undead lurking within. After a few
minutes of listening to the undead tear up the other room, I decide to try my
luck with this one. Dropping to my knees, I peek in through the window, and
sigh as I see a fine layer of dust over everything in the cozy little
apartment.
I
wedge open the window (fun fact: when you live on the third story of an
apartment building, you apparently don’t lock your windows) and slide into the
apartment with an undignified roll.
I
immediately regret this as I hear the low wheeze of one of the dead coming from
a room off to the right, a wheeze which halts as I thump onto the floor.
Looking up, I see a withered old woman, hair falling out of her head and
glasses askew, shuffle into sight, several tendrils sticking out of her
forearms, waving in the air blindly. She opens her mouth, revealing teeth lined
with black slime as she chokes for a moment that I unfortunately know means…
Yup.
She
just puked on me, a sickening splat as hundreds of leeches writhe against my
chest in jellied black goo. I stare down in horror as the tiny lamprey mouths
open up and begin digging into the plastic wrap covering my chest, seeking the
warmth underneath. Swiping down with my protected arm, I throw the globule
against the wall with a horrid squelching noise, just as the elderly lady
decides to bull rush me, teeth gnashing and fingers curled into gnarled talons.
Machete
in action, I swing down hard into the ladies shoulder, splintering bone as I separate
flesh, my grip on the leather handle keeping her an arm’s length away from me.
She snarls and hisses as I reach into my boot, pulling the steak knife slowly
so as not to cut myself. Jamming the blade into her throat before she can work
up enough mucous for another wad of spittle, I push it in deep, cutting into
her spine, before yanking to the side and severing the left half of her head
from her neck. Twirling the ebon streaked blade in hand, I slash and stab at
the opened wound, ignoring the bubbling mass of black slime pooling at my feet
as I hack this woman’s head clean off her shoulders over the course of a
minute.
Her
body finally goes slack and I breathe a sigh of relief; damn that bitch was a
tough old bird.
“Maybe
I just need to sharpen my knives?” I mutter to myself, looking at my dirty
steak knife, before I wipe it off on her pink sweater. Picking up the head by
her hair, I chuck it unceremoniously out the window to the street below.
I
can hear the dead in the apartment over hammering on the walls to try and claw
their way over to me, having heard the mild commotion grandma made when I snuck
on in.
“No
rest for the wicked…” I mutter before moving to the bathroom.
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