Grueberfest: Deadwalk (593 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.66 on 22 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anthony Locascio (View user info) at 2006-09-28 09:10:26 EDT
Since I never got a title for Grueberfest, I just made up my own. I present to you......Deadwalk.
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The old man peered through the peephole briefly, then drew back the deadbolt and swung open the door. He stared blandly at the blood-covered trio, taking in the vicious bite marks on the arms of the older man, the ringlet of blood around the woman's panting throat. He glanced to the shotgun carried by the younger, black-haired man without concern.
"I was just boiling water for tea. Perhaps you will join me." He swung the door wider and motioned them into the house. They stood in numb inaction for a moment, then shambled their disorderly way into the house. A tiny one-bedroom, they seated themselves as well as they could in the cramped quarters. The old man, his wispy white beard trailing as he brought a tray of crackers and teacups, moved purposely about the small space. The woman, who introduced herself timidly as Lyssa, gulped the tea as though she had not drunk in ages. Dark circles under her eyes and lines of both worry and dirt had turned a girl of not more than twenty-three old before her time. The older man, Paul, slumped in his seat, clutching his wounded arm, sometimes rubbing at the raw flesh. The younger, the black-haired one named Rick, looked anxiously out the window every few moments, gobbling crackers and cheese cubes whenever he was able to tear himself away.
"You don't need to worry," the old man said quietly. They will not come in here."
The black-haired youth glanced out the window yet again. The streets here were not as packed as some he'd seen, but there were more than enough of them to cause him worry. They shambled here the same way they always did, mindless in their purpose, seemingly unaware of the orderly nature of the city that they found themselves in. Empty, shattered vessels, most bore wounds, or had begun rotting in some fashion. Maggots squirmed through the eyes, noses, and mouths of most of them - the flies would feast if the dead could not.
"Zombies," the youth spat. "Fucking zombies."
"Don't use that word. Zombies, I mean." the old man said quietly. There was grave seriousness in his voice.
"Why the hell not?" he snapped back. "They ate my brother, old man, ate my family."
The old man shrugged noncommittally. "You eat. They eat. It is the way of all things. They are not zombies, not animated by magic, not voodoo cursed. They are the dead. This is a city of the dead."
There was silence, the eyes of the three guests riveted on the old man, who said nothing more, merely sipping tea with his largely toothless mouth.
"Who's side are you on, anyway?" The black-haired youth leaned forward, anger tightening his face.
"Why, no one's," the old man replied lightly. "Not on any grand scale, at least. I am an old man, of no use to either 'side', as you would call it. I merely am pointing out what I thought you would have realized for yourself. " He leaned forward and set the tea on the coffee table. "What angers you so is that you think cities are only for the living. You are angered at the change in the order, what you perceive as the natural order. Change, however, is as immutable as the tides. The dead have claimed this city, as they have claimed others. This now, this is the city of the dead. I will help you to escape, because you don't belong here."
"We're not here to escape, we're here to get guns," the youth snapped. "You can help us by telling us where the Brighton Street National Guard Armory is."
The old man laughed at that, laughed hard, until his slight frame shook and his laughter turned into a hacking cough that took him many moments to recover from.
"Brighton street, now? We'll talk about that later. For the moment, let's tend to your friend there. You were bitten? How long ago?"
The older, blonde-haired man sat up, defensively covering the marks on his arms. "Ten, maybe twelve hours. Does it....does it mean I'm going to become one of them?"
The old man laughed at that, laughed until he was hoarse. "It will take more than a few bites to get a man such as yourself to join the ranks of the dead. But I do notice you are flushed." One of his scabby, withered hands went to the man's forehead. "And you're running a fever. The bite of the dead will not change you, but it isn't terribly sanitary. Most likely the bites are infected, and you'll find the hospital emergency rooms a bit overwhelmed these days. There's a pharmacy across the street though. I know enough about medicine to get some antibiotics."
Rick glanced out the window, taking in the small crowd of zombies that milled endlessly about. Fishing around in his pocket, he came up with some lint and two shotgun shells. "Dammit!"
The old man held up a hand. "Leave the guns aside. I'll go myself. Be back in a few minutes."
"Don't be stupid, old man," Paul said as he got shakily to his feet. Lyssa noted the trembling in his limbs. "You'll be torn apart before you get ten feet."
The old man waved a hand in irritation. "When it comes to death, young man, I think I know a bit more than you. I will be back soon."
The door closed behind him. All three rushed to the window, awaiting his emergence from the downstairs lobby.
"He's a dead man," Paul said thoughtfully.
"We've got to help him!" Lyssa tugged at Rick's sleeve.
"I've got exactly two shells left. Once those are gone, we're stuck here. I'm not wasting them on a suicidal old man."
Their conversation cut off as the front door of the building opened below them. They waited with bated breath for the old man to emerge, and it was several seconds more before he did. When they saw him, Lyssa gasped, Paul's eyes widened, and Rick fed the two shells into his shotgun.
"They already fucking got him!" Rick cursed. The old man staggered and shuffled, leaning first forward, then back, his head lolling around loosely on his neck. His steps were hesitant, sometimes to the side, sometimes several at once. "He's one of them!"
"No!" Lyssa almost screamed, but stifled it at the last moment. Time and trouble had taught all of them that death had not overly degraded the hearing of zombies. "Look! Look where he's going!"
They watched in silence as the old man's head rolled shakily on his neck, his feet shuffling, knees buckling, lurching, headed to the darkened CVS pharmacy across the street. One zombie, possibly a younger woman, began to shamble towards the old man slowly. It was hard to tell because half of her face was missing. Grey and atrophied muscle flexed uselessly over bone as it moved towards him. For a moment, all three of them thought they were about to see yet another in a long line of grisly feasts. The female zombie brushed lightly against the old man's shoulder, hesitated, then every so slowly began to shamble past. The old man never deviated from his course.
"He's doing it!" Lyssa pointed. Paul immediately slapped her hand down, as though somehow the walking dead would take their cue from her and turn on the imposter.
"I don't fucking believe it," Rick mouthed quietly. When he reached the pharmacy's glass door, they leaned forward as one to see if he would reach for the handle and somehow give himself away. Instead, his head rolled loosely back on his neck, then forward, slapping against the glass. The door gave inwards slightly, and then opened as he slumped his weight leadenly against it. A moment more and he was gone, obscured from sight by the reflective tint.
"He'll never make it," Paul said, shivering. Lyssa glanced to the telltale thin red lines radiating from some of the bite marks on his arms. Blood poisoning, she thought. And a cure in sight from the window.
"For your sake, you'd better hope he does," Rick snapped. "Two shells is not enough to get us out of here, and Lyssa can't handle anything heavy enough to bash our way out. Without you, none of us is leaving here smelling too good."
"Thanks for the reminder. I really needed it."
"Shut up. Look, I think he's coming back!"
The door bulged outward abruptly, then flung itself open. The old man staggered back out into the street, moving more quickly now. His steps were jerky and out of order, but his general direction, the front of the apartment building, was unmistakable. None of the other zombies so much as turned their heads. One of his hands batted ineffectually at the door handle as he pushed it open. As one they turned, listening to the sounds of his feet on the stairs. It was only the harsh click of the Rick pumping the shotgun that tore their eyes away from the door momentarily.
"He's not sure," she murmured to herself. "He's not sure that he's not one of them. He's not sure, and I'm not either."
The listened as the steps grew louder, footsteps that all of them had heard before. Footsteps that had, in the past few weeks, heralded death, blood, and loss. Not a moment before the door opened, they changed, becoming more regular in rhythm. When the door swung open and the smiling, white-bearded face greeted them, Lyssa glanced over and saw that Rick's knuckles were white where they gripped the shotgun's walnut stock.
"Sorry I took so long," he said, smiling at them through a mouth of few remaining teeth. "It was a bit, shall we say, crowded." He reached nonchalantly into the pocket of his sweater and took out a blister pack of pills, tossing them to Paul. He tried to nab it out of the air, but his throbbing arms could only slap it down. "Zithromax. Fifteen dollars with Medicare before the dead came to take the city. You may find in the days to come that it is now better than gold."
Rick ignored his words. "How the hell did you do that?"
The old man shrugged. "Do what?"
Rick grunted in frustration. Lyssa eyed the shotgun he was carrying carefully. She had seen Rick lose his temper before on zombies. She realized with an electric chill that she was no longer sure just what he was capable of.
"Don't fuck with me old man. You walked like they do. You went right past them. You practically were one of them. If I'd seen one that could talk and drink tea, I'd say you were one of them."
The old man smiled again, gums gleaming. "You'd almost be right. Almost." He tapped his watch with one withered hand. "Time, young man. Time. A long road stretching out into the distance, with death at the end for each and every one of us. For some of us, the road is short. For me, the road is longer. Seventy-eight years long."
The old man put his hands on his knees as he lowered his scrawny body into the tattered overstuffed chair that faced the TV. "When you start down that road, the destination is strange. Unheard of. What baby do you know of that understands death? What child spends his days contemplating his own end? We're born just knowing life, from the first breath. It is a million breaths later that we learn about death, my boy. A million breaths, and, for me at least, seventy-eight years. When you're near the end of the road, the destination doesn't seem so strange anymore. You've been moving towards it for so long, you have your ideas about what it's going to be like when you get there. You've got a good picture of the end of that road, and I tell you boy, I think my picture is about the best a breathing man has. Look out there." He gestured towards the window. "This is a city of the dead, my boy. The dead in this city have taken a good look at me and said 'Close enough.' To satisfy their hunger, they need a taste of life. Like her for example."
The old man gestured to Lyssa and cackled, his coarse laughter turning into a hacking cough that lasted for many seconds before finally subsiding. "Worse things, my boy, worse things than to be alone in the world with a beautiful woman."
"Shut up, old man." Rick's voice had gone soft, but gravely serious. Paul looked at him admonishingly and received only a steely glare indicating he was not to speak. "You listen to me. I was with fourteen National Guardsmen from Brighton when the shit hit. They were coming back here to get weapons to put these dead sons of bitches back in the ground where they belong. Paul here is the only one left. I watched every one of the other thirteen go. There's nothing to bury. They're gone, eaten, torn apart. Just like my family. Nothing left. This city was built by the living, and it belongs to the living. If I have to pop every last one of them from the rooftop, one at a time, I'll do it." He reached into his pocket and took out a keycard with a magnetic stripe on it. "This card will open the armory. All we have to do is get there. Brighton Street, old man."
"I'm the one that is going deaf, and it seems though that you're the one with the hearing problem," the old man said placidly as he creakily stood. "Brighton Street? One block over. Let me show you." He gave the cord to the blinds a yank, sending them hurtling up and letting the fading light of the day into the room. The street beyond was packed with the walking dead, bumping into each other, shuffling slowly up and down the curb and sidewalk, milling aimlessly in the street. It was the most any of them had seen in an outdoor area in one place. "Just one block, boy, but it may as well be a hundred. This city belongs to the dead now. There is no going back from death."
"We can make it if you show us how you did it, old man. You moved like they do. Show us how you did it."
"Rick," Paul said quietly, "maybe we can...."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Rick screamed shrilly. He wheeled about and looked at the old man. The shotgun wasn't pointed at the floor anymore, Lyssa noticed. "Show us how, old man."
"I told you boy, this is a place for the dead, not the living. You and your friends are certainly the latter. For your own sake, you can start over. This is a cemetery, boy. Leave it to the dead."
Rick said nothing for a moment. He stood silently, and Lyssa was afraid that his next motion would be a flurry of violence. She had seen him take a crowbar to the face of a zombie with relish. He could kill an old man without a thought, and Paul was probably too weak to stop him. Instead, Rick simply dug into his pocket and brought out the two shotgun shells he had left.
"Two shells old man. Not enough to get us to the armory, but enough to do what I have in mind. If you don't show us how you do that walk, how it is you fool the dead, I'm going to load one of these shells. Then I'm going to blow your foot off. Once I put that shell in the gun, I don't give a fuck if you offer to suck my cock. I'll put the barrel of this fucker to your ankle and blow your foot off. Then I will wait until you tell us how you do it. If you don't, we'll sit here and listen to you scream until you die. If you do, I'll save you the agony and use the second shell on your head. Either way, once I load this shell, I'm not going to stop, no matter what. You have until five. One."
"Rick, please." Lyssa tugged at his arm. Rick turned steel eyes to face her. "Two."
"Rick, this is getting out of hand...." Paul pleaded.
"Three."
"Rick will you just fucking listen for a moment!"
"Four."
"RICK!"
"Did you ever think the end of the road would be agonizing pain and bleeding out onto your shitty carpeting old man? Well too bad you didn't see that one coming. Five." Rick pushed the shell into the breach.
"Very well young man." The old man stood quietly. "If you want to know the ways of the dead that badly, I suppose I have no choice but to teach you. Come now. Let us see how well you control that fiery youth of yours. Let's see how well you deadwalk.
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The sun was dropping below the tops of the buildings when the door of the apartment building opened. From it shambled the newly dead. Paul limped, his head hung forward. His wounds were tightly tied and no longer ached so much after he had finished the five days of antibiotics. "The dead don't bleed, son," the old man had said. "Best you wait until those close up a little." Thankfully, they had closed, and scabbed over. Paul had thought it ironic that he had so narrowly been pulled back from the brink of death, only now having to imitate such a state.
Lyssa was next. She was terrified, to say the least. Most of the last five days had been spent trying to talk Rick out of this suicide. He'd taken a knife out of the kitchen butcher block and very quietly asked her to repeat her request to call everything off. She had shivered in silence since that day. Now she played her part as best she could. She was terrified that she would give herself away. Even her sweat would be enough, which is why they had chosen to leave now. Any earlier and the sun would beat down on them. Any later and they would get lost in the dark. Her head lolled on her shoulders loosely. When it did, her hair tickled the back of her neck. She wanted to scratch it, but that would have been a dead giveaway. "The dead care not for discomfort," the old man had said. "Routine, yes, but not discomfort. Nothing comforts the dead like the routines of life."
And indeed, the dead all around them were engaged in those routines. They shuffled in and out of stores. Some held the tattered remains of shopping bags in their arms. One aimlessly pushed a shopping cart down the street, far from whatever supermarket it had come from. A few floundered slowly and helplessly on the pavement. Lyssa had seen lines of crows on the telephone wires above these pitiful creatures, and she realized they were simply waiting for the corpse to stop moving before making their approach to feast.
Rick was last, and his deadwalk was, ironically, the most convincing. He was nearly as good as the old man. When he staggered, or shuffled, he did so with great authenticity. Lyssa knew what it was that drove him, knew what he was thinking. He had lied to the old man. Not all of the guardsmen had been eaten. Two or three were found later, and they were among the walking dead. Rick had remembered the way they shuffled towards him, shuffled and staggered until they were so close that the blast from Rick's shotgun had cut them nearly in half. He remembered, and now he replayed it on his own body.
"It's working!" Paul whispered to Rick. The first zombie held its position for a moment, then brushed past the three. Rick grunted in reply, then staggered on. The zombies were slightly fewer now than before - some of them had moved on and others had made their way into the shops facing the street. Rick had noticed that most of them tended to go "shopping" in the early evening, about the time they probably got home from work.
"We're gonna make it," Paul whispered again. Rick waved a hand at him to shut up, but it seemed he was right. The armory, a police-precinct style building with marble pillars and metal shutters over the front doors, was only a few hundred yards down the street. If they had any doubts, the large blue road sign reading "Brighton National Guard Armor" dispelled them. Rick, now leading the pack, brushed through a small knot of three other zombies to move towards the building. Paul followed hesitantly, but made it through, his wider shoulders bumping one of the trio, an older woman whose hair fell limply around a tattered mink scarf and whose mouth hung slack and open. Lyssa tried to slip between them, but brushed the shoulder of the a tweed jacket wearing zombie. Involuntarily, she gasped slightly. The trio slowly turned to face her. One of them was missing half of his face, and a coat of flies moved over the exposed flesh. With a superlative effort, Lyssa forced herself to remain still, standing and shifting her weight slowly from foot to foot as she had been taught. The zombies stood staring at her for what seemed like an age, then began to shuffle along again. After a few seconds, she continued on her way.
The end of the block was nearly clear of zombies, only two lost souls on the far corner, trying in vain to figure out a mailbox. As they moved up the marbles steps, Lyssa noticed there was no slot for the keycard. Rick seemed to notice it to. They stared, and then Rick began to shuffle towards the alley that ran along the side of the building. Suddenly, he broke cover and began to job briskly down the alley. "Come on!" he shouted. Paul took off after him, Lyssa struggling to keep up.
The side door had the card reader. Rick cackled in triumph as he fumbled it out of his pocket and swiped it.
Nothing happened.
"What the fuck?"
"Do it again," Paul urged. Rick swiped it again. There was no beep, no light. Nothing.
"Fuck, it's not working."
"Oh God," Lyssa breathed. "The power. The power is out."
"That shouldn't fucking matter!" Rick barked. "The thing has a battery in it! It should still work!"
"A battery that has been running since the power went out," Lyssa dipped her shoulders in despair. "It's dead." She tapped her finger against the red light that signaled the door was locked. It was out.
"Fuck! Okay, not a problem. We'll go in the front. I can blast the lock off with the...."
He turned to run back up the alley, producing the shotgun from where he had strapped it across his back.
The alley entrance was filled with zombies.
The shuffled, they staggered, they lolled forward and backwards, but they came on, slowly, inexorably.
Paul moved first, hoping to break through the crowd and at least make a run for it. He aimed hard kick at the leader, knocking it back into the others and halting the crowd for a moment as they ran into each other. For a moment, it looked like he might succeed. Then one of them limply leaned forward, arms outstretched, wrapping around him. Paul stumbled backwards, tripped, fell. His scream turned into a gargle as it gnawed into his throat, blood spraying out of his mouth in a wide fan. Rick screamed, leveled the shotgun at the zombie and fired. A moment before he pulled the trigger, it looked up at him, a scrap of flesh hanging from its mouth. Then its head burst like a balloon and it dropped onto Paul's twitching corpse. Rick fumbled the second shell out of his pocket but dropped it. As he knelt down to pick it up, the crowd fell on top of him, teeth searching for warm flesh at the back of his neck, the back of his arms, the top of his hands. He screamed, but only into the black asphalt pavement. Lyssa covered her mouth with her hands and fell back. His vitals were somewhat protected by his prone position, and it was many minutes of screaming, blood pooling in purplish pools on the blacktop, before he finally was silent.
The old man was at the fore of the crowd as they moved towards her. He grinned at her as he moved forward, head wobbling on his narrow shoulders. "I warned you, my lady, that the deadwalk is not for the living. You must forgive me, now, but I am a guest of this city, and a guest does not refuse his host's invitation to eat." His mouth widened, and she saw his few remaining teeth stuck in haphazardly amongst gleaming gums. "I confess, I suddenly find myself starving."
Lyssa wanted to tell him that she would happily leave, be more than glad to deadwalk back the way she came, out of the alley, out of the city. She could only manage the hoarsest of screams before her invitation to dinner came due and the deadwalk once again no longer the province of the living.
User Reviews
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:56:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I suppose there are good reasons to detract points, but I overlooked them because for me, this entry was the most nail-biting. I mean, I really, literally tensed up and got that feeling. Anybody who's read a decent suspense novel (or The Walking Dead) knows whatfeeling I'm talking about. That makes this my favorite overall entry. Good job dude.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:45:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like zombies.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:31:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:16:02 (#)
Ranking: 2
This shouldn't have been docked for any reason. By any MORON.
SEE??? See, there, Ms. docking BITCH????
---
She raises a good point. One that I believe I addressed on the hub, and meant to bring up when I reviewed. Unfortunately, I got too caught up with reading and reviewing all the posts that it slipped my mind.
Me? I'm pleased as can be that this story exists. It's very, very good.
But it's true...it's much easier to write something when the story grows out of a title you've come up with.
I don't wish to take anything away from the writing. Just saying that there were other options beyond someone coming up with something on their own time.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:26:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bubba, fuck off, you spaz.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-04 23:16:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This shouldn't have been docked for any reason. By any MORON.
SEE??? See, there, Ms. docking BITCH????
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-10-04 22:53:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 19:54:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
There.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 19:54:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-04 19:54:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Excellent.
I was really hoping someone would say this before me, though- There were a few different options discussed on the hub post for what to do in the event your competitor did not give you a title. Because writing to fit a title can change the whole game, I think it's really important to take that into account in this case. I'm going to dock you just a little bit for that.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-10-04 16:12:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice twist
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-04 16:03:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It was a shaky start, but damned if it didn't pull me in. I love zombie stories, and this is the only entry I've read that gave me that tense feeling you get when you don't know what the fuck's gonna happen. Awesome.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-04 15:00:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I could read zombie stories all day.
And a whole lot more of this if you'd chosen to continue. This was ace.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-10-04 14:03:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The way you abuse the paragraph pleased me.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-03 20:15:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I heartily suggest that the orchestrator of this contest remove the drive-by shit
droped here by Wiggles.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-10-02 16:44:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-01 13:54:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent!!
BTW, Wiggles, you are a worthless asshole.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-09-28 23:43:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Wiggles (user info) at 2006-09-28 16:45:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-09-28 14:37:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's a good thing I'm out of this or I would have found a way to give you 'Deadcock.'
Wait... that sounds a lot worse than, aw, fuck it.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-09-28 13:11:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Only just got round to reading this all the way through.
Good job.
Aces, in fact.
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-09-28 11:33:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Have another.
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-09-28 11:33:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for being resourceful enough to make up your own title and for having no reviews to date.
Some people would have sat on their fat arses and don't fuck all. FUCK ALL I TELL YOU.