The Walking Dead: Cradle Of Conviction
The following are events and Characters of my own development placed in the world of 'The Walking Dead.'
'Feeble Bullets'
"Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person."
- Gerard Way
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow
- Euripides
So that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.
- Revelation 19:18
Tony
He bunched his fists and tensed his body. Dust blew around the two boys like a tornado, whipping at their eyes. The other children made it ever more claustrophobic through their tight circle and cruel shouts.
Tony ducked under a frightfully fierce air swing, only to be kicked in the back onto the nasty black dirt. He spun to face his attacker, too late; Blake lunged down on top of him, fists flying.
Tony blocked it out, closing his eyes and drifting away.
They teased him for his lanky frame, bright crimson lips and messy brown hair. But he knew it was just because he was introverted, an eight year old recluse.
Whistles. The beating abruptly stopped and the weight lifted. He opened his eyes as best he could and found Mr. Alvarez dragging Blake away across the far courtyard. The crowd had deserted the area, taking off in all directions.
Three days in a row now Tony found himself up at the Headmaster's office, sitting in the plastic blue chairs, waiting to be addressed.
7…
8…
9…
He counted 9 bruises along his arms; he dared not look out the window lest he should see a reflection of his beaten face.
Tony barely spoke. He just sat, face as blank as paper, yet he understood all that was happening around him, often he saw things others did not.
He certainly looked upon the world differently; he saw a fragile enigma slowly falling apart. It was like someone had drawn a line through the middle of the world. People were separated… drifting apart.
The Headmaster yelled at Blake and forced an apology; it was all just procedure.
A long wait while next to him Blake made faces and discreetly kicked his chair. But he remained motionless. Silent.
His mother Evian knocked on the mahogany door lightly and the headmaster ushered her in. A brief exchange of words and then Tony was out… free. Evian stayed silent on the matter and they both just climbed in the SUV and whisked away down onto the highway.
And all before midday.
She kept peeking in the rear-view mirror, looking at Tony with that worried mother look. She pondered whether she should say anything.
All at once they both spoke.
'I hate them mom. With all my heart.'
'Ton' its okay, I get it. Lets go.'
'Home?'
'No, just for a drive.'
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'What if we get lost?'
'We won't'
'How do you know?'
'Tony… '
'Mom, look.'
'Ton' I'm driving, what is it?'
'A shooting star' he said, less than subtly changing the subject.
She saw it now, it was hard to miss. Her tone dropped and she pulled over into the pickup bay.
'Tony?' she called.
'Yes, mom?' he said gazing at the rocketing object.
'Close your eyes. Pray… just do something.'
'Mom?'
'Jus-,'
'-Okay', Tony interjected, squeezing his eyes shut. Beside them, an ambulance swerved across all four lanes before colliding into an oncoming school bus. Glass shattered; flames began to roar.
Evian started to turn the car around, only to find several more vehicles plow into one another, fragmentation hammered into the side of the SUV like thunder. She stole a quick glance to the front only to find the object had become fully recognisable as a failing aircraft, on a crash course into the freeway.
'Tony?'
'Yeah?'
'I love you…"
'You to mum'
Evian began to scream, all the pain of life accumulating in a single moment.
Then the Boeing struck the bitumen.
Lauren
"Time passes slowly in the city of the dead."
Atlanta fell.
Slowly at first, while the military were still in control. Then it spread, and so too did the lack of government jurisdiction over the city.
Thrice men had broken into their apartment building on Courtland Street. And thrice they had shot them dead, a single bullet to the head.
Josie, her sixteen-year-old sister had done it. Though Josie was three years younger, she had the stronger heart. She was stubborn, but in a world where everything is a threat, it becomes a valuable trait.
Max, at fourteen was in complete shock. For the first ten days he'd hidden under his mother's bed. Lauren wished she could do that. But she hadn't, because she had to be tough.
Dad said he needed to go and pick up his own parents.
That was a week ago.
Max had begged him not to leave. But he left, suitcase in hand. He just walked out the door. It was funny, seeing him standing on the sidewalk out the front. People were running, tearing through traffic. It had been loud and chaotic. Everyone was carrying weapons and shoving through.
But there stood father. Alone, separate from the clangor. A single briefcase in a maze of machetes. And then he walked, getting in his little white Commodore and driving off.
And now mum was sick, and she blamed him for it. She hated him for it. Or she thought she did. Mum had stepped outside, calling for hours in heed of him. A terror had come over her, a tremor in her heart. And now a deep gash ran from her shoulder across to her throat.
And so I left, to find something. Someone. Because "I no longer have anything to lose, and yet everything to die for."
She clasped the pistol she'd stolen and took to the streets.
'Dad!' she cried and cried and cried. 'Dad!' There was no answer but from the howl of walkers, as they turned to her.
'Lauren, what are you doing?' Josie ran out screaming, max stepped out behind her, sobbing uncontrollably. In the top window she could see her mothers own face, hollow, afraid. The creatures stumbled down the street, their claws gnashing at each other, ripping each other apart to reach the fray.
Tears rolled freely from Lauren's face. Tears of happiness, because there, in that swirling horde of death she saw a familiar face, the same one that she'd watched leave from the doorstep.
And a smile crossed her lips. Josie ran down to tear her away, so she raised her gun. And she stopped running.
Lauren saw her father.
Her mother. Sister. Brother. Then she saw the barrel of her own gun.
Blam!
And Josie stopped. And max knelt down.
And the world slipped away.
The light dissipated, so the stars could come. But they did not appear.
And the city of Atlanta was jet-black, an inky metropolis set on paper.
Dark.
Desolate.
Dead...
Ruben
The alarm had rung at 12p.m.
Ruben, a small student with dusty brown hair, clear green eyes and thin-rimmed glasses stood shell-shocked in the hallway. Toby, his brother stood down the far end of the long corridor. He looked different. Darker somehow. He was bleeding, hunched over, he stared at Ruben, teeth bared wide.
'Toby!' he called. 'What's wrong with you?'
There was only silence.
'Please!'
Toby began to limp towards him.
There had been an epidemic or something. It was all over the news. It was wrong to call it that, because no one really new what it was. But people were...
Hunting.
Toby came closer and Ruben saw the flesh torn from his scalp. His clothes were in tatters. Ruben compared him to rotting meat.
Then Mr. Aprils, the Hercules of the metal work department dashed out from beside him and raced up the corridor. His dark apron fluttered out and fell onto the floor.
Ruben screamed.
Aprils roared.
Toby gargled in the back of his throat. Then looked up, directly into Ruben's eyes.
This wasn't Toby. This wasn't even human. Its eyes were milky pale, its skin peeling back and revealing a grotesque meat.
Ruben turned away and retched. As he turned, Mr. Aprils barreled into the dying corpse and crushed it into the far wall. Then with out so much as flinching crushed its skull with one large, meaty fist.
Toby's head exploded over the ground and wall. Ruben stared, not comprehending what had just transpired. Time slowed.
Mr. Aprils took to his feet and looked down at Ruben, face as pale as it was covered in gore. Then a hundred thrashing walkers crushed him, and he disappeared in an instant under a surging wave of flesh and bone.
Who knew what took place in Ruben's mind at that point. But his head spun radically, and he turned, tears streaming like ribbons off his cheeks and he ran, back into the metal working rooms and threw the door shut behind him. Turning the lock he hastened to the back of the room, taking a large steel mallet. Crack! The door was hit. Hard. A pallid hand crashed through the square window in the centre of the wooden entry.
Throwing on a welding mask he raced towards the crowd in a screaming rage of both horror and rage. The Walkers exploded through the feeble doorway.
Ruben charged.
The walkers snarled.
And he tripped on his own fear halfway across the room.
Hurley
He pulled the car across to the side of the corroded steel water tank. The old VW rattled onto the bottom of an incline up Mount Charter. Kicking his dirty black jeans out and crunching down on the compact red dirt, Hurley stepped out. His Callused knuckles were dry and cracked, his face no better. Each wrinkle stood out like a deep ditch, his scars ran bottomless. With hands as pockmarked as paint from the sweltering sun he slowly unbuttoned his filthy green shirt. He tucked it into the back of his pants and pulled on his Baseball cap. The sun was high in the sky and the large tanker sent a lengthy shadow across the Earth. Crouching down, he laid a stiff hand on the Gauge, wiping away the dust. All the readings seemed fine, if not a little low. Showers would be short.
Reaching under the stilts of the hulking object he felt around until he found a bucket. Water was still leaking steadily through.
Hurley strolled back over to the car and pulled out a long length of duct tape. Ripping it into several smaller pieces with his teeth. He pulled himself partly under and covered the leak. He crawled back out and stood up, dusting his hands off on his chest. It was dry and unrelenting. The farming had been poor, hand feeding was expensive and the previous rain, a mere four days ago had proved relatively unfruitful.
The farm was running dry in more aspects than one however. The mortgage, the taxes, groceries; it was all weighing him and Anna down. What was worse is that it made them feel like they were letting their two young boys down.
Returning home in the evening he pulled down into the swept driveway. Jaylan his six year old and youngest son ran down to greet his father at the bottom of the verandah. The boy wore a collared pajama shirt covered in pink, yellow and green dinosaurs. Accompanying it he also had a bath towel. Anna ran out behind him, the screen door clacking shut.
'Jaylan, get back here now!' The little boy just ran on, squealing with delight. Hurley stepped from the VW and knelt down. Jaylan ran right up into his arms. Anna's whole aura lifted when she saw her husband. Her eyes relaxed and a smile formed on her lips. She walked down and kissed him on the cheek.
'How's the place keeping on the far side?' she asked.
'Fine as things go. We should be right for the next week or so if we take it easy.'
'It's good to hear… look, I'm going to take a trip into town and pick up some bits and pieces before dark; would you mind getting something into the young ones?'
'Its okay, ill head in.' as he said it, a smile appeared. Corbin, their ten-year-old son had been playing up incessantly and he didn't mind having a bit of alone time with the radio.
'If you want, but hurry.' Anna raced back inside and when she returned handed him a shopping list full of groceries.
'I'll be back in an hour or so.'
'Dinner'll be ready when you get back.' She said.
Hurley lifted Jaylan up by the armpits and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
'Love you's' he called as Anna tossed him the car keys for the families light blue pickup.
'Be good Jaylan' and then, in a much louder voice he called ' that's you too Corbin!' knowing that somewhere he was listening in.
The sun was casting deep hues of orange across the sky. Patch worked blue intertwined, mingling with each tone, creating a collage of color. The pickup drove down into the dying sunset. It glared into his eyes and tinted his windows, it was all the dust being picked up somewhere in the horizon. Just before the waning light descended, clouds began to roll in, it wasn't uncommon, dark clouds came and went often enough; but it was something about the way they lingered.
He rolled down the window and was stunned by the pickup in humidity. The rain… he could feel it in the air, the dampness. Then he heard something, a vehicle. He could smell the diesel before he saw the jeep. It was flying down the narrow gravel road. As it neared, Hurley pulled the pickup across onto the side of the road. The Jeep seemed to roll right down as it came beside him. A thin wily man with a 223. hunting rifle rode on the back of the jeep, giving an unnervingly wicked grin.
'Aye, he called. Where you going mate, in town? Won't find much there at the moment I'm afraid.'
Hurley just stared at him questioningly.
Another bloke, this one thickset with several chins poked his head out the window.
'Oi, where you comin' from, you got some property outta town? Bet it just down this way here ain't it?'
The bony man called back out ' reckon there's a lovely lady with one or two bright young-ens runnin' round her legs.'
Then The driver again, ' and lips the color of Ichor, aha-ha-ha!' they both began to laugh cruelly, revealing teeth like rotten stumps. The man on the back lifted a dead animals rotting corpse up in one hand and snapped its neck, smiling the whole while.
The farmer stood awestruck, wondering who the hell these freaks were.
The jeep took off and as Hurley took one final look back he saw the heads, spines and other gruesome body parts of varying animals stuck or nailed to the back of the truck. Blood rolled steadily from the tray down onto the road, creating a grisly trail.
He drove as fast as the old pickup could go, hammering his way down the strip into the frail old township.
He was late. The sun, or what was left of it, slowly disappeared. He pulled up out the front of the grocers and immediately noticed how deserted it all was. Running over to the payphone out the front he slipped some coins into the slot and prayed the damn thing would work. Silence. It seemed like far too long, but after a panicky minute it started to ring. The long droll sounds seemed like music to his ears.
Anna picked up, 'Hello, Anna Moses speaking.'
'Anna, oh God, it's me, its Hurley. Where are you now? Are you safe?'
'Honey, What's wrong?'
'Men, there were two men. You've gotta go somewhere.'
'What? Just stop. Now, who's coming? Anna said assuringly.
On the other end of the phone, Hurley took a few deep breaths. '… On the way into town I met two freaks driving a filthy old jeep. One of them was carrying a rifle and they were talking of coming your way. Anna, something's amiss, the town's soulless.'
'Hurley, they were probably just trying to freak you out. Why would they want to come out to our property?'
'No, these guys… I don't know, it was something about the way they were so sure of your presence. I want you to take Jaylan and Corbin out to the old shipping containers. Just hang out there, take a rifle.'
'Hurley, I'm not doing that. Just hurry back and don't worry.' She hung up.
He cursed into his shoulder, then straightening up thought about his next plan of action.
He told himself not to worry, that he was just getting paranoid.
Walking over to the grocers, he noticed the lights were now turned off. He pushed open the old glass doors and stepped inside to total darkness.
'Hello?' he called ' John?'
'Hurley, what the hell are you doing out here, get back out to your estate.' A bodiless voice called.
'John, where are you?' Hurley laughed.
A frail old man crawled out from behind the wooden counter.
Hurley had to squint to make him out in the pitch. He ran over to him and helped him to his feet. John flicked on the lights.
'Jesus' Hurley said when he saw the state of his old friend. John's eyes were red-raw and his left arm was hacked in half, a bloody stump was all that remained. His legs were scarred and bruised and both his kneecaps were blown out.
'What, what happened to you?' he stuttered.
'Hurley I… I… there were people, they were dead… everyone… Abby, Lewis, Carter…they're… they're… and I thought maybe you too but…'
'John, What do you mean? What's going on?'
'The radio… an outbreak or… or epidemic...they weren't sure.' But people are killing people. They're dying and then they wake up and eat… eat… Abby. Hurley, they ripped her throat out.'
'John.'
And then the lights died.
Blam!
Blam!
Shotgun shells rocked the small store. Windows exploded.
'Hurley… they're… coming.'
John fell forward down onto the counter and dragged Hurley with him. Then, reaching down he pulled a steel pole wrapped with rusty barbed wire out from the counter. Horrid pale flesh hung from the Barbs. He handed it to Hurley, 'Go… leave out the back.'
'Hold on' Hurley lifted the old man onto his back.
'Just go!'
The Building shuddered once more as another volley of fire erupted in a hail of lead.
Hurley bolted, and the men outside closed in on the building. What was remained of the doors was kicked in.
The back exit led out to an overgrown field of wheat. Frantically he raced up through the crops, hoping to reach the road as it curved back around a mile away.
Four men, covered from head to toe in dirt and dry blood stalked through the old building. Three had shotguns, the third an old hacksaw dripping in gore. The back door drew to a quiet close. They raced for the exit and ducked outside, weaving their way ahead of each other, eager to get to the kill. The men they hunted were pushing through the field, one on the others shoulders. They lifted their guns and fired…
Bullets ripped through the world around them, tearing at a reality Hurley refused to believe. Then John curled in pain on his shoulders, writhing. Bullets hacked into his body. His frame shielded Hurley, but he felt the man's flesh tear and give way.
He went limp. A deadweight he could no longer hold. So he dropped his time old friend with no less than a blink of an eye. And when the tormentors behind him reached the body they dragged him away out of view, Giving up Hurley as lost.
The tall Grasses rose to his neck as he pushed further into the property. At once it cleared and he rushed out into an open plain. A small house sat at the edge of the road.
He took the plank and hastened. Walking up the porch and checking the windows, the curtains were drawn. He rasped on the door to no reply. He tried again.
Nothing.
He twisted the doorknob and it clicked open.
He shuffled his way in.
It was dark.
He moved to the window and pulled the curtains back. A dim pale light sifted in. he walked down the hallway and entered into a lounge area. A body lay sprawled across the entrance; its spine had been torn out. He gagged but held it down. Stepping over the body, he saw suspended from the far roof three bodies hung. One by its feet, the other two choked by their necks. The bodies were pale, or what was left of them. The one hung by its feet had its head lopped off at the shoulders, the others legs had been severed. A pair of milky blue eyes tore open, then a second. The two suspended upside down were still alive.
Grumbling they tried to claw out at him, but he was millimeters out of reach. They bared red teeth. Bloodstained fingertips brushed his shirt.
It was a family, a mother and her two children, a little boy and a girl. It must be there father in the hall. Hurley thought despairingly.
Then a realization hit him like a stone to the back of the head. Those body parts strapped to the back of the jeep, they were hunted creatures of a different kind...
They were human.
Then the rain hammered down on the tin roof, and Hurley beat the living dead with the barbed old plank. And the house shuddered with the rage of a wrathful storm.