Transition, Undead Chapter 1

Note: Rough Draft

Now

All they could do was run. Run as fast as they could. A large group like this looked like a herd changing directions as if seen through a nature documentary. And like those documentaries it was always the weak that would fall behind, tire out, or fall. These victims would be the unwilling saviors of the rest. The predators were coming.

They may not be quick, but they were efficient. They did not stop to catch their breath. They did not get thirsty, they only hungered. This was the driving force for their actions; the hunger was the only thing that they needed to satiate.

The prey, the stragglers were getting up to pick up their pace. Eyes darting back and forth for a way out. The adrenaline was beginning to wear thin and it was difficult to think. They could hear the predators approaching. Mindless groaning, cold decaying eyes, they knew the hunger was their undoing. These creatures, their hunger was everlasting. For weeks they have seen their friends being devoured and torn asunder. Were they to share the same fate?

The creatures did not know the relevance of time, but every once in a while they recognized objects and individuals, perhaps from their former life? All they knew is that they must feed, the pain and anguish was too powerful to resist. No, time was of no relevance for the need. They knew that their numbers were growing, but that was of no consequence. The herd they were hunting looked like them, but did not act like them. They needed them to keep them…”alive”. Their own bodies were growing weaker and weaker the longer they did not feed. As they roamed the countryside they could see their own stuck in corners and other obstacles, but they did not help, they could not. They were hungry.

The stragglers had found hiding spots when running by a nearby farm. This was their chance. The five of them had a chance to escape. Wait, only five? Was there not more? Although still human and filled with emotion, they had not created a bond strong enough to bring them to risk their lives for strangers. At this point in time, a bond was forming with the five. Five versus countless legions. The chances were slim, but they had thought processes on their side. They had the intelligence to outmaneuver these….”zombies”? Strangers and loved ones alike out to kill them and their ilk. The human race had diverged into two species now. What was happening? Could these really be the Halloween creatures we used to go see at the cinema? There had to be an explanation. But now was not the time for answers.

One “zombie” caught the trail of their prey and began to make their way up a steep hill leading to a farm house. The rest caught on that one of their own had begun to stray from the pack and followed suit. They did not hunt in packs but were easily led. They had no direction. Just, the need.

The five had passed by a barn first were they were able to break in with tools that had been strew about the farmland. Expensive tools dropped about as though they had received news and left it all behind. As they pried the doors open with pitchforks and other devices of manual labor they came upon a cubby full of weapons. Had the farmer not tried to protect himself? All that mattered now was that they had a way of fighting back. The barn was too difficult to make a stand in. They needed an escape route in case the plan did not come together. The farmhouse up the hill had a backdoor, there was the escape.

As the creatures began to ascend some of them began to fall and roll back to the base of the hill. Some of them had not fed lately and it was taking a toll on their bodies. Their bodies did not heal, their bodies did not produce blood. This is why they must feed. Food, common food, had no effect on their bodies. They could not digest. Thus, as only the fresher creatures could make their way up, it was these that were strongest, fastest and most dangerous.

The five had come up with a battle formation within the farmhouse. By the passage to the front door there was a staircase, creating a perfect vantage point for a rifle when the door was open. In the hallway by the stairs was a clear shot by the door. And in the kitchen by the other side of the entrance, the large window created a highly defined panorama of the top of the hill. This would be the lookout armed with only a machete. The one on the stairs had a pump rifle. The two in the hallway were armed with shotguns. And there was one more stationed upstairs in the bedroom window, armed with only a handgun. Let the fight begin.

As the first of the creatures made their way up the hill they could see the farmhouse and these fresher abominations still had a bit of intelligence to realize that this must be a trap. Does not matter, their bodies drive them and their insatiable hunger longs for the flesh once more. The door was closed at the time, but beyond there was a muffled yell and shots rang out. Holes were being blown through the door and walls. The five had let them as close as comfortably possible and then began the assault. Zombies walking and sprinting as their compatriots lost limbs, heads and other vital appendages.

These individuals were not well versed in weapons and had these been an opposing army of humans they would have surely perished. The girl on the stairs with the rifle nearly snapped her wrist with the first shot, but as the adrenaline once again took over her exhausted body she shook off the pain and kept firing. Unfortunately for everyone involved, reload time was exceptionally slow, but thanks to the planning made by the young man in the front of the hallway with the shotgun, they had devised to take turns firing. A consistent rate of fire had suppressed the oncoming attackers. This young man had dreamed his whole life of a situation like this, but he was weak. Ever since he was a child he been plagued with health problems, but had imagined scenarios such as these in his fantasies. Although to be fair, he was a much better shot in his dreams.

Head after head, torso after torso, they were falling. Yet they pressed on, pain meant nothing to them. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, they all fell the same. The lost structure meant nothing, the must press on, they must feed. But as the group kept marching along to oblivion there was one. There had always been this one. And little by little, words began to form in his mind. He stopped and looked down at his uniform and began to mouth the oath of the United States Marine Corps. Why? He stopped, he ducked as the buckshot and bullets flew by. And then, there it was, or more accurately was not. The hunger for flesh was no longer there, he now thirst. What did he thirst for?

None had noticed the creature that had suddenly stopped and fled to the left of their flank. As a matter of fact, they could hardly see as the dust kept being picked up by the destruction they had created, the dust and gunpowder was blinding. Eyes were tearing up but they could not stop, not until every last shape in the line of fire was eradicated. The blur and the sting is overwhelming mouths gaping open and exhaustion setting in. The guns were getting heavier by the moment. The reserve adrenaline they were running on was beginning to take a toll on their bodies. Eric, the dreamer kept on reloading his shotgun, but kept dropping shells. In the state he was in, he was only loading one chamber of the double barrel. The weight finally took its toll as he shot not realizing he was angled too low and shot the floor in front of him. The buck and splinters from the hardwood floor hit him in the face and knocked him to the ground. Fortunately for Eric, as he was being knocked through the air his head narrowly missed the buck that flew by his head, although some of his median length hair had been singed. The gunman behind Eric could make out that his comrade had flown back, but did not stop firing. The fear would not let him stop. No matter what happens he must keep firing.

The creature in the Marines uniform made his way to the back of the farmhouse. He moved so quickly that he felt as though he were gliding along the ground. He waited a millisecond before breaking open the backdoor knowing that the boom of the guns would mask his entrance. As he made his way down the hallway that was the hub of the house he saw a young man flying back towards another with a shotgun. The Marine had to pause for a second as this all seemed as though in slow motion. Every detail from the hair being singed to the floor breaking apart and flying as the same buck blew apart the wooden shrapnel in the air, splintering it further. Without another moment as the rear gunman was reloading, the Marine grabbed him by the throat and ripped him from his kneeling spot. Everything was still in bullet-time as the clothes from his victim rippled slowly from the upward force of his grab and without hesitation bit into the victim’s jugular spilling his blood onto the floor.

The man in the kitchen began to turn as the shots began to wane in frequency, but before he could completely maneuver his head to the inaction, there was a whoosh of air as though falling and he saw his feet from a side view. Vision became dim and he could see his body involuntarily twitching as a creature with a mouth caked in red lapped up the life source gurgling from the base of the neck of the body that was once his. The girl on the stairs witnessed the atrocity and before she could command her body to move, her body had made the choice for her, and clumsily began to run up the stairs because she could not stop looking.

The creature passed by Eric’s body, he would obviously be the last since he was the least to give a fight at the moment. He glided up the stairs without a jilted motion and caught her ankle during her hasty run up the flight of stairs. As he squeezed his arm thrust behind him in one motion and her body hit the wall behind the stairs before she could scream. She slid down the wall with her head on the floor, she could not move, she could not speak. Her fear welled up inside knowing at the angle she was looking and her leg dangling over her face that her neck and back were broken. She could not run away, all she could was await her fate and make peace with “God”.

When he was climbing the hill earlier he had observed where the gunshots were coming from before making his way to the back of the house. No doubt his previous training had a hand in the strategy, so he knew there was someone in the second story bedroom floor facing the front of the house. Something was awry however since he no longer heard gunshots coming from the room. He made his way up, but began to ponder this development when shot rang out through the door and into his abdomen. He was injured and at that moment the true rage set in. Everything went red.

The woman in charge of the upper flank had been listening to the rhythm of the shots to decide when she should fire and reload. Then alarmingly the ringing of silence began to billow through her head. Through the ringing she heard the faint thumps on the staircase leading up to the room and realized something was coming, not realizing the thumping was her friend stumbling up the stairs then being thrown by an unknown force. She sat and teared up while she was deciding to use the handgun on herself or hang on to the last vestiges hope of saving her life. She went with the latter and began to shakily point her gun at the bedroom door with her back against the window. The thumping had stopped and she squeezed off the trigger and let the shots fly through the door. There was an angry groan from the other side and she kept firing realizing she had hit something inhuman. Then as she squeezed the trigger one last time the door burst open as though a battering ram at mach speed had hit it.

The frenzy lifted him through the air and through the door and onto the left wall. The woman still had her weapon pointed at the frame of where the door was. She was still aiming and pulling off shots as the splintered door was still particles in the room. Time seemed to travel one frame at a time and the hang time on the far wall was much too long for gravity not to have taken its laws into effect. He jumped off the wall and toward his victim before she even realized what had happened.

Eric, began to open his eyes, but the sting was still there. He reflexively began to rub his eyes, not caring that his hands were covered in dust and powder. His face hurt and as he ran his hands down he was stopped by the debris that had been lodged in his skin. He put his hands to the ground, palms down and slid up with a gasp. He pulled the shrapnel from his face and thanked the Heavens that they had not gone too deep. His face was wet, obviously bleeding; he instinctively got up and made his way to the kitchen where saw a roll of paper towels on the counter. Rubbing his eyes he did not see the lookout’s severed head on the floor or the headless body hugging the wall with arms outstretched and knees bent. His prioritized acquisition of the paper towels was fulfilled after stumbling his way through the kitchen. As he wiped his face the horrid vision became clear. He had been slipping on blood and had tripped over a head! He ran back towards the hallway to grab his weapon and escape for it must be too late for his company. And as he bent down to grab the gun an outstretched arm was grasping ammo in its hand. There he was, the rear gunman and against the wall head looking straight at him ,back folded over her head. Eyes were moving and mouth was twitching wanting to speak. A horrible fate. He knew he could not save her, he had seen enough TV to know that the body could not be moved. He grabbed the gun and behind him was a figure standing. The weapon was grasped with both hands and he did not know what got into him, but he lurched his arms in the direction behind him with all of his body weight. One hundred and seventy-five pounds multiplied was the force at which he lunged. The butt of the gun impacted with a face, and the individual’s neck whipped violently backwards as his limp body arched to the floor. Eric fell backwards in the other direction; it felt as though he had hit a brick wall. Making his way up he heard groans behind him, and it struck him at that moment that the zombies were still approaching.

His neck snapped forward violently as he lunged up from the knock to the head. The rage had dissipated after the last drink, but now he needed to heal again, he had to drink again to get his vision back. He at that moment remembered the victim that was pinned against the wall as he picked up her limp neck and ripped her off the floor. Her body was dead weight, but he lifted her effortlessly as he bit into her wrist and jugular. His vision came back instantly and in his sight was his attacker, the attacker should’ve been the victim. How fortuitous, the kid had his back turned to him.

Eric was facing the approaching wave of monsters; he looked down at his gun only to realize that he had busted the loading mechanism. He had to pick up another weapon and make a run for it out the back door, it was his only chance. The zombies had finally locked on to their prey and had begun to pick up the pace, others were sprinting his way. He turned wildly only to come face to face with his would-be attacker. In that instant, the world slowed to a crawl as jumped away from the creature in the uniform. He was different than the others, he retained some of the same features but his flesh was not decaying and he was much faster as he matched Eric’s movements flawlessly. In the blur one thing became crystal clear; he was as good as dead.

“Eric?” the creature questioned as the boy squinted in anticipation of his own end. Eric then fully opened his eyes and stopped to look up. How could this be? “Blaine?!” Eric surprisingly asked not expecting an answer. Could this be a hallucination? The creature observed the boy a second longer then dashed to the floor and scooped up the shotgun of the fallen rear gunman. “Let me show you how to shoot this shit.” The creature said as he took aim at the approaching legion and began to fire. “Get me more shells!” He shouted at Eric over the deafening shots. The kid grabbed the shells and decided to grab the rifle on the staircase. “Here!” In this surreal moment the only thing that mattered was survival, the answers would have to come later.