Waking the Dead.
It had been a month. The stores were running low. Soon they would run out completely- it was impossible to feed twenty people on what was cashed under the counter. Soon one of them would have to venture out into the world to find food. Soon one of them would have to risk their life.
Bartsville was a small town, a lay-by on the way to larger, more important places, nothing more than a collection of ramshackle houses, a convenience store, and a gas station. Alice’s gas station.
Half the townsfolk were cowering in Alice’s house. They’d never done her many favours, but things were different now.
It had been a month. They’d be found soon.
Slowly, Alice became aware of a scratching coming from the boarded windows. The townsfolk’s conversations became muted whispers of fear. The scratching became a dull thud, repeated over and over and over, like the heartbeat of some dying animal.
A child started crying. Alice heard a shotgun being loaded.
The thudding stopped.
Silence descended as twenty people held their breath. Beads of perspiration ran from Alice’s dirty black hairline and into her eyes. Seconds became minutes. Nobody moved.
At first she thought she imagined it. A tiny sound, rising up from beneath the floorboards, perched precariously on the edge of her perception.
Scratching.
There was a definite odour of decay coming from somewhere in the building. It hung thick in the air, choking, like heavy smog that whispered tales of death.
Alice sat up slowly. Her head pulsed in a steady beat of agony, pain spearing her brain in time with her heartbeat. Her breath came in a ragged pattern as she tried to fight off the urge to puke.
The urge overcame her, and she spat bile down her battered dress. She gazed down at herself. What had once been a vibrant blue blouse was now greyish, torn, burned in places.
She rolled onto her knees and stood, her legs struggling to hold her weight. She tottered forward like a child, taking small, unsteady steps until she reached the door. The stench of death intensified; she bit back another convulsion as her stomach protested against the abuse. Willing herself to go on, she stepped out into the room.
What confronted her redefined horror.
A mound of corpses filled one end of the small room, a barricade of putrefying remains blocking her escape.
Memories came trickling back to her. She began to back away from the pile, whispering an arrow prayer as she swept her gaze feverishly in every direction, scouring the darkness for any sign of motion. And she was scared, so scared, scared for her life like she’d never been before.
Until last night.
The same night something had burst up from beneath the floorboards and tried to eat her.
Alice pressed herself to the wall, trying not to make a sound and knowing that she was failing. All she wanted to do was disappear into the shadows, or shrink until she was so small nothing could ever see her.
There was a sound, a squelching sound from the next room. Alice took in a sharp breath, and peeked around the corner.
There it was, peering out of the pile of corpses.
A zombie.
Alice nearly screamed, but much to her relief the sound caught in her throat.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her back to the wall, shaking with fear. A single tear escaped her left eye, running down her cheeks, leaving a warm and salty trail in its wake.
She forced herself to take a deep, shaky breath, and looked round the corner.
The thing was gone.
She froze, hyperaware of every noise, and craned her neck to look into the rest of the room.
Nothing.
Alice took a single tentative step into the suddenly huge room. She’d always moaned about how small the room was, but now it was like being at the centre of a huge amphitheatre, filled with an ocean of shadows that obscured everything under a blanket of evil.
She felt an icy liquid spatter on her shoulder. Long sticky tendrils of mucus dripped down to the floor as if on their own accord. Alice looked up.
There it was, bulbous eyes staring at her as it clung to the ceiling like an oversized spider. Saliva dripped from its oversized mouth, like asps beckoning her to enter.
She turned to run, and it dropped down onto her, growling like a rabid dog as it clawed at her back. The two hit the floor, and the creature clambered on top of her, digging its long fingernails into her arm. She cried out, and tried to wriggle out from under its weight. She felt long cold fingers close around her neck, and threw her body from side to side in an attempt to free herself.
With a grunt she twisted around, and the beast came free, rolling away. She pulled herself onto her feet and ran towards the corpse pile, a single, deranged notion in her mind. Driven by animalistic fear, she dived headlong into the mass of corpses, holding her breath against the stench as she tried desperately to escape.
One thought surged through the degraded, rotten synapses of the zombie.
EAT!
It pulled itself to its feet, rage washing through its broken body. Hunger drove it, forcing it to move like a puppeteer manipulating a puppet.
EAT!EAT!EAT!EAT!EAT!EAT!EAT!
It ran after its prey, howling.
Alice could hear the thing chasing her as she squirmed between semi-decomposed bodies. Already her long black hair was matted with fluid and excrement; it stung her eyes, so she pushed forward by feel alone. The stench of rotten flesh was overwhelming, and she gagged every few seconds.
There was a tremor from behind her, and the corpses began to shift. The game was up, she new, but she was a sore looser.
She writhed between the dead, coated in blood and pus, clawing her way forwards at a slowly increasing pace.
The zombie’s bony hand gripped her ankle, an unmistakable feeling, and her stomach dropped. She gasped, only for her mouth to fill with fluid from the corpses that surrounded her. Clawed fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arm; she cried out, a gurgling sob befitting such a death.
Rancid breath washed over Alice’s neck, foul even among the slowly decomposing bodies. She turned her head away as the beast bit down, leaving it pulling at the fabric of her dress. With renewed vigour, she kicked out, catching the zombie in the midsection and propelling herself forwards and towards freedom. The strap on her dress snapped, and the zombie was left behind as she burst free of the corpse pile and dropped with a wet slap onto the floor.
She spat blood and slime, and wriggled backwards, subconsciously keeping her dress closed as she did so.
Slowly, the zombie pushed its head out of the corpse pile, grinning and hissing as it bore down on her.
The game wasn’t over yet.
It arched its body, and the corpse pile birthed the undead nightmare with a squelch of fluid. The zombie dropped to the floor, and began to crawl towards her in a spider-like fashion, its oversized yellow eyes fixed on her. Alice scrabbled to her feet and ran; behind her, she knew, the creature was giving chase.
She ran for the front door, slipping on the linoleum tiling as she turned into the hallway. Behind her, she could hear the zombie’s long claws scratching for purchase as it tried to keep up.
The door laid torn open from the assault the night before. Memories of fear swam in her head for a brief moment, until a too-near screech focused her mind once more.
Alice sprinted out onto the uncut grass. Her soaking jeans and torn blouse made the wind that little bit more bitter.
She looked over her shoulder, only to see the long fingers of the zombie reaching for her, ready to drag her into the drooling maw. She turned and tried to bat the hand away, only for the monster to run straight into her, pinning her down as it reared up to strike.
From somewhere behind her came the sound of a gunshot. The zombie’s head split as a single bullet penetrated its skull, sending bits of brain matter spattering in all directions. A second bullet smashed into its chest, throwing the beast backwards with a jet of red-black blood. Its body convulsed once, then laid still, arms rigid and eyes open as death once again claimed its body.
Alice turned to look at her saviour. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like something out of a fairy tale. Smoke coiled from a heavy-duty revolver, as it did from the thick cigar in his mouth. A long jacket hung almost to the floor.
The mysterious stranger extended a hand towards her.
“Come with me,”
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