Our Undead (4 page)

When our zombie withdraws his thumbs from the other's eye
sockets, it gets off of it and heads back to the deer, who is
bleating it's last bleats and breathing it's last breaths. The
defeated zombie is finally free to get back up to it's feet, but
when he does, he has no sight to guide him. He ends up walking off
into the woods in the wrong direction, slamming himself face first
into one of the thicker trees before moving on. Our zombie takes
his secured spot, kneeling down in the place where the other zombie
had been. He drops his head down into the opened gut, and gorges.
To the victor go the spoils.

THE ORIGIN - PART 2

When he gets inside of his
house and closes the door, he is welcomed by sounds of screaming
and crying. Worried, he hurries into the living room and is
relieved to find that his family is safe, although, they do look to
be rather troubled. He follows their eyes and sees that there is a
special report in progress on the television screen. It seems to be
taking place in the crowded waiting room of a hospital, and the
father realizes that the scream had come from an old lady on the
television that was near enough to the camera's microphone that it
had picked it up very clearly. Her screaming persists as the report
goes on, and as it plays out, feeds scroll across the bottom of the
screen, reading out bold lettered warnings about a "NEW DISEASE
CAUSED BY CHEMICAL DUMPING IN CRATER LAKE", and more that tell
about a, "INFECTION" that is "SPREADING RAPIDLY". As the field
reporter tries to explain what is happening in greater detail, the
room behind her resonates with the wails of the
suffering.

His wife is sitting on the
couch in front of the television, hunched over. She looks deeply
concerned, and their daughter stands close beside her, her face
also reads of confusion. She was just at school and has heard
nothing about this, not a tweet or a single post on the web. How
could it have happened so fast? The father takes his place, and
stands beside his daughter. She looks up at him, no longer upset
about the fight they had had in the car, and with an almost fearful
look in her eyes, then looks back to the television. He places a
comforting hand around her and rubs her shoulder and back
supportively. Then, he too continues watching the
screen.

The field reporter is still
on it, giving her report to the newsroom and rest of the world. She
looks just as distressed as the family as she works, looking around
the waiting room in a worried fashion while reporting, although,
trying her best to remain professional. Behind her we can see
people sitting with their dying friends, and holding their
relatives in their arms. One woman let's out a shriek that startles
everyone, the reporter included, and the camera shakingly zooms in
on the crying lady in the background. She holds a man in her arms,
who lays motionless. It seems whoever it is has passed away,
possibly her husband. She covers his face with a handkerchief, as
the cameraman zooms back out recapturing the field reporter, who is
just turning back from looking at the weeping woman. She explains
to the viewers as compassionately as possible that the disease has
taken it's first casualty. Watching from their living room, the
family is deeply saddened and slightly alarmed. Whatever this thing
is, it's real, and it's taking the lives of people in their
hometown.

As the reporter continues
to speak, the screen readjusts into a picture in picture format.
The anchor back in the newsroom is displayed on the bigger portion
of the screen, and the field reporter is on the smaller box in the
top left corner. As they converse back and forth about the
sickness, what is being done and what people should do to protect
themselves, it becomes apparent that something odd is happening on
the smaller screen behind the unaware field reporter in the
hospital's perturbed waiting room.

The man who had just passed
is now slowly sitting up. The handkerchief sticks to his face,
keeping it hidden, while the woman's is frozen in total shock as
the body raises itself from the embrace of her loving arms.
Everybody in the room begins to gasp and stare in awe. Even the
field reporter turns around to see what is happening, and the small
screen expands again to get a better view of what is going on. The
father and his family watch on, squinting and trying to understand
what they are seeing. Maybe he hadn't died after all.

When he becomes too
vertical, the handkerchief falls from the risen man's face. It
excites everyone surrounding him, including the reporter, and she
motions frantically for the cameraman to zoom in and get a close-up
shot of the miracle. He follows orders and zooms in on the couple.
The man's skin had been pale before due to the fever, but now there
is no color in it whatsoever, none except for a hint of greenish
grey. His eyes are also greyed and bloodshot, and not staring at
anything in particular. That is, until he turns to look at his wife
in the seat next to him. Her tears of sorrow have become tears of
joy, as she breaks out into a happy little chuckle. She says
something to him, most likely his name, and everyone around them
waits with baited breath for him to say something back, but he
never does. They just stare into each other's eyes like lover's
meeting again for the first time.

Perpetuating the emotions
of romance in the women's mind, the risen man lifts his hand slowly
to the side of her face as if to caress it. She closes her eyes as
he does this, really feeling the happiness, letting this gift of a
second chance soak into her; mind, body, and soul. When his hand
lands softly on her left cheek, it is cold, but she feels that
familiar warm tingle coming up her spine, the same one she always
gets when he touches her this way. He brushes a finger past her
ear, and she sighs affectionately, her head automatically getting
pulled forward as if each of their lips are padded with
magnets.

Then just like that, the
fantasy is over. In the blink of an eye, and with the same loving
hand, the grey man snatches a fist full of the woman's hair, yanks
her forward and takes a bite out of the left side of her face, with
enough strength to tear off the tough tissue of her
cheek.

All three family members
jump back in shock when they see this happen on the TV screen, and
as one might expect, the entire hospital waiting room erupts in
panic. When the camera operator zooms back out, this is
unquestionably seen. Despite the chaos going on all around her, the
field reporter goes on with the report. The camera shakes
unsteadily, but the cameraman is able to keep both the reporter,
and the panic in the shot relatively well, doing a pretty good job
for all the hysterical people running around and bumping into
him.

And then, another scream
rips through the air of the waiting room, like a spike to the ears.
It's a little harder to tell because of all of the shaking, but the
cameraman tries his best to see what is going on. Glimpses of
another grey person in the background are caught over and over
again, everyone around it trying desperately to get away. The whole
family jumps in shock again when they see the second grey man
become vicious just like the other one had. It grabs the nearest
person and pulls them down to the floor, out of the camera's scope.
The mother, more sensitive than her daughter and husband, looks
away from the television in disgust. The more resilient field
reporter, however, continues to pointlessly let everyone watching
from home know about what they can clearly see on the screen. Some
crazy shit is going down.

Within only a few minutes,
the waiting room is half full of monsters reborn. Many are patients
who have died waiting to be cared for, and a few are people who
have gotten bitten but not completely consumed. They would bleed
out, die quickly and come back just as fast. It's total pandemonium
inside the box in their living room. As best as she tries to work,
eventually the reporter gets grabbed from behind and thrown to the
floor. The camera operator attempts to keep filming, but is only
able to get a two second shot of his partner getting the back of
her neck chewed out before he, himself, is grabbed. After a bit of
struggling, the view on the screen plummets abruptly and rocks to a
settle on the floor. Only feet can be seen, running every which way
on the screen, until a big body drops with a boom to the floor in
front of the camera. Seconds later, a zombie crawls into the
picture and starts ripping through the big man's shirt, undershirt
and finally, his belly. Guts pour out, and the father in the living
room takes his delirious daughter into his arms, covering her
head.

He grimaces, but can't take
his eyes away from the screen. He can't believe what he is seeing.
It's like a young child catching his parents making love for the
first time. It's terrifying and confusing, but as much as you want
to look away, you can't, and the image gets burned into your memory
against your will, and you have to suffer with it
forever.

He finally gets some relief from the gruesome imagery when
the camera cuts into that rainbow colored emergency broadcasting
screen, and then back to the newsroom where the anchor's face is a
pale shade of blank. He sputters out a few words, and then sends it
too commercial. A fluffy bunny comes on the screen, an
advertisement for some sort of toilet paper. The father and his
family remain frozen in their living room, still shocked by what
they had just watched. The mother looks up from the couch to her
husband, still holding their daughter in his arms, and says
something. They both look down at her, tears welling up in the
blond woman's eyes, and the father begins to speak, possible words
of comfort, but before he gets the chance, a loud crash interrupts
him. All three family members look to their right, and the next
scream to be heard is the mother's when she sees what is coming at
them through their front window.

WORLDS COLLIDE

By the time our zombie is
finished feeding, the only source of light is that of the stars. He
gets up from where he has thoroughly eaten the deer, and turns away
from it, but moves no further. He stands there in the twilight,
staring into nothing; stands there with his face dripping in the
deer's redness. Some pieces of its insides are still stuck to him,
and a couple of them slide down his slimy gore stained cheeks. Deer
blood drips from the corners of his mouth.

While he stands, a cool
wind blows. At this point, he has travelled quite a distance, and
his clothes have become very tattered by the wear and tear of the
journey. The white t-shirt he wears has become a dirty brown. It is
torn throughout, and the dirt is mixed with the blood of many a
creature. His black business pants are in the same, if not a worse
condition than his shirt; muddy, bloody, and torn. He has been dead
for about three days now, as far as we know, and due to the lack of
cellular re-generation, his skin is starting to rot. On some areas
of his body the skin hangs loose, and on others it has completely
fallen off. Combine those with the cuts and scars that he acquired
along the way, and you have one disgusting display of zombie. Not
to mention the pus that some of the cuts are beginning to produce
due to no medical care or disinfection being applied. His bare feet
are a disgusting sight, as well, likened to the unattractive paws
of those loveable little characters in J.R.R. Tolkien novels.
Seeing him in this light, he has truly become a zombie, but one who
is still famished.

Without warning, he starts
up again. He walks straight ahead and throughout the trees of this
wooded piece of land. The trees here are tall and thinly branched,
and the bushes are many. As he walks, our zombie trips over them
clumsily but continues on course to wherever he is going. Soon the
trees grow in number and the bushes become thicker, much thicker.
Walking becomes a chore, or it would be if he could feel the
fatigue or the irritation any normal person would be going through
trying to trek through the stuff.

Eventually, he passes by a
few other zombies who have been caught and are stuck in the
thickness. The farther he goes, the more he passes, but he ignores
them, as well as the figurative warning, telling him that if he
goes any further he'll most likely get stuck. Some of the trapped
monsters struggle and fight to get loose. They roar at him when
they hear him going by, either for help or as an additional
cautioning to the one already given by the resistant terrain. Some
of them are still when he passes. They hang lifelessly in the
branches, moving their heads only slightly to watch our zombie when
he passes by. These ones must have been stuck where they are for
days, tapped of all their energy. Pressing on, a livelier zombie
can be heard, raging and wrestling around in the bushes as our
zombie advances. He passes this one without giving it a second
glance as well, and it calms down as he does, searching to see
which of his kin actually has the strength to progress further. He
searches, but he never sees our zombie. How could he with no
eyes?

The more our zombie walks
through the greenery, the thicker the forest becomes. Soon he isn't
even walking anymore, but making multiple forced, pushing, strides
through tree trunks and healthy shrubbery. His torso and legs have
taken quite a beating from the branches and so has his face. Some
of the more damaging scratches have begun to leak blood. I say
blood, but it's more of an inky black fluid. One can only assume,
as it flows from the undead man's wounds. They don't seem to bother
him, even as they continue to accumulate with each thrusting step
forward. The more he pushes, the more the sharp twigs vandalize his
already rotting skin and tattered clothes until,
*BAM*
… He is
stuck.