Survivor's Rage

Now, Tallahassee didn't feel very guilty that he had survived the Zombie Apocalypse. He grieved for his son's death, yes, but he didn't feel guilty.

It was hard to feel very guilty when you were this angry.

Columbus took a quick peek out the window. He paled, his eyes widening. "They're coming," he announced, quickly striding over to a cabinet. He opened it, taking out guns and handing them to his companions.

Wichita rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on!" she exclaimed. "We just arrived here two hours ago!"

"Well," Tallahassee growled, "you know our policy, don't you?"

Columbus winced slightly as Tallahassee cocked his shotgun. "You know, I think that's more of your-"

Little Rock rolled her eyes. "It's our policy, wimp," she said. Tallahassee patted her on the back, smiling with pride.

"Time to nut up or shut up," Tallahassee declared.

He kicked open the door, shot the first raving lunatic that he saw in the face, and then all hell broke loose.

Columbus, Little Rock, Wichita- none of them really understood Tallahassee. None of them had been close to any of their family when the Apocalypse hit. Of course, Wichita and Little Rock had each other- but neither of them had been killed, had they? Neither of them had been ripped to shreds in front of the other's eyes, had they?

The Zombies had taken his own son, and all he could do was kill them. He couldn't get his son back. Buck wouldn't come back from the dead- and Buck was all that Tallahassee had.

The house in Tallahassee was perhaps the only structure occupied by a human in the entire state- for all the resident knew, the entire nation.

The man inside the house, however, had other, more depressing things on his mind. Yes, more depressing than the thought of being the last sane man in the United States of America.

His son was dead.

The Zombie snarled- a horrible sound, like a chainsaw- right before Tallahassee shot it in between the eyes.

He had barricaded himself in his house for a week since Buck's death, wanting more than anything to escape from the spot where the horrific event had happened yet unable to move- unable to make himself goddamn move from the spot.

"Bastards," Tallahassee muttered. "Bastards, bastards, bastards, bastards, bastards, get away, get away, get away, get away!"

Part of the reason Tallahassee had never felt very guilty immediately after his son's death was because, well, he wasn't all there, exactly.

"Get out!" Tallahassee roared, shooting another Zombie. "GET OUT!"

And the hordes eventually trickled out, and all that was left was a broken man sobbing in a room that stank of blood, death, and mold. Something dripped, and the man didn't know if it was his tears or the blood.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

The words whispered themselves into the man's ears night after horrible night.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

Tallahassee was breaking ,crumbling, tearing apart, and somewhere deep inside him, he knew that he didn't want to go crazy- he didn't want to lose his mind, because then he would be good as dead.

The words kept crawling over his brain, over and over and over again, occupying every crevice they could find and saturating his mind, filling it to the brink when there was nothing else he could think of except those words.

And Tallahassee didn't even know where the words had come from- he just knew that they existed, and maybe, maybe they were the only commands he could follow in this madness.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

The next day, a Zombie managed to break into his house. It almost got to Tallahassee, because for that moment, the man was realizing how nice it would be to just give up- to just let it go.

And then the gun came up and the Zombie came tumbling down, because Tallahassee was afraid of death.

Tears slid down the barrel of the gun and into the Zombie's blood, where the two mixed together and washed away.

Tallahassee almost felt guilty once. Why did I survive, he wondered. Why couldn't I have joined my son?

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Tallahassee wanted to die, right then and there, but he was too scared of death to pull the trigger.

It was when the next Zombie that stormed into his house had a bit of Buck's shirt in between his teeth when Tallahassee snapped.

"BASTARD!" he roared. "You killed him! You took him away!"

And when that Zombie's head was torn apart by his bullets, Tallahassee didn't sit back down. He didn't stop.

He went outside and shot the next fucking Zombie he saw, and he shot the next one, and the next one, and the next one, until he couldn't hear their motherfucking snarls anymore.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Tallahassee chuckled as he remembered the lines from his distant past. But though he laughed, his eyes burned with rage and his knuckles were white. Though he laughed, his heart began to burn in flames as hot as hell. And when he looked- when he looked up and down the street full of dead corpses, he didn't see Zombies- he saw murderers, every single one of them murderers that had murdered his son.

"Daddy ain't going down gentle, Buck," he whispered, "Daddy's going to be rather angry for a while."

Tallahassee wasn't very guilty about his survival anymore. Survivor's guilt, he reasoned, was a fucking disgrace. In his mind's eye, he could see Buck pouting whenever he sulked over that bitch of his wife. He could remember how Buck was sad whenever he was weak- and how he laughed whenever he held him in his arms and swung him around and around and around until it seemed like nothing else existed in the world except Tallahassee and his son.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

And Tallahassee swore. He cursed at the goddamn Zombies, the fucking Zombies, the motherfucking son-of-a-bitches, the assholes- he swore up and down that every single fucking one of them would burn in the deepest, hottest corners of Hell.

After all that time spent in that room, Tallahassee still remembered where the car keys were. He painted a large number 3 on the side of his truck and got in. It was a wonder, really, why he had never gotten out of the place before.

"I've wasted so much time," Tallahassee muttered.

And Tallahassee drove, leaving dead Zombies wherever he went.

The rage never died back down. Tallahassee received a new family, but Buck was still dead, and the Zombies that killed him were still out there. Tallahassee could be thankful for his new family, but he would never stop being angry.

Bang.

"Come get some, freaks!" Tallahassee roared.

Columbus swore as a Zombie broke free from the main group and launched itself at him. He quickly backpedaled, shooting the Zombie in the chest.

"Double tap," he muttered, shooting the Zombie in the head. It stopped convulsing and went limp.

Columbus whipped his head around at the sound of a chainsaw. His eyes widened. "Hey, hey , hey!" he exclaimed. "Tallahassee, that is fucking dangerous!"

Little Rock hit him over the head with the butt of her gun. "Tallahassee can handle things," she said, rolling her eyes. Columbus grumbled some indecipherable words that Little Rock presumed were no doubt uncomplimentary. In retaliation, she hit him over the head again.

Tallahassee snarled, grinning wildly as he did so. These were the monsters that had killed his boy- and Tallahassee wasn't going to leave this world without taking as many of them down as he could. These were the freaks that were trying to kill his new family- and they would do so over his own corpse.

He sure as hell wasn't going gentle. He had said that he wouldn't, right?

"Anybody want some?" he shouted, swinging the chainsaw around. Columbus winced involuntarily.

The chainsaw ripped through the Zombie, spraying blood everywhere.

"Get some here!"

Selling cans of whoop-ass wholesale was Tallahassee's specialty, and he wasn't going out of business anytime soon.

Review, please. Tell me if I got Tallahassee right or not- I don't want to deface such a fucking awesome character. Thanks, and point out any grammar or spelling mistakes.