Where Did It Start?

Note: Why yes, I did create Romeo, however, no, I didn't create zombies. I don't know who created zombies, nor do I care, but for legal reasons I can't claim the little buggers. No, I didn't create the Walking Dead series either, though at this point, none of the characters are original to the show, though the story line is "part" of that series and its ways of approaching zombies. Thank you. And now onto the FANFIC.

Book 1:

Romeo

Chapter One:

The Chase

Romeo wandered through the vacant hotel; he swore he saw at least thirty people the night before roaming about the halls, and that didn't even include the staff! Now, everyone was gone, not even the cooks were in the back. Damn! I knew I shouldn't have gotten that shit-faced last night, Romeo thought to himself rashly before turning and walking down yet another deserted hallway. The eerie echoes of his footsteps were the only sounds resonating through the entire building and Romeo had to admit that it was freaking him out to be so alone.

Another turn down another hallway and Romeo saw a woman. Though she was laid out and unconscious on the floor, he was overjoyed to see another living, breathing, human being in the facility. Romeo began to rush to her side to see if she was okay when he was distracted by a long, raspy, chilling screech. He hadn't seen anyone else in the hallway, and all of the rooms he'd walked past were empty. I'm sure they all were completely vacant, so it has to be coming from her.

He stopped about fifteen yards before he reached her, examining her from afar. He didn't know what was wrong with her, but if it made a dainty little woman like that sound like a beast from the deepest circle of hell, he wasn't going to get close enough to catch whatever it was that had her fucked up.

Within seconds the woman had sat up, her movements jittery and mildly chaotic. She twisted and twitched as she stood to her feet, wavering back and forth before finally straightening her back with a sickening crack. This noise was followed by several other similar noises coming from various parts of the woman's body.

Romeo backed away a few more feet as he watched the woman jostle around the narrow hallway, almost in a blind trance. Minor details started to fill in for Romeo; her disheveled appearance, the small pool of blood on the ground where she once lay, and the shuddering quality of her movement all gave him a sense that this woman was in a terrible state and shouldn't be messed with. As he corrected his position in the hall to back away quietly from the strange, wounded bird, a loud crash echoed from behind him.

He swiftly turned to see that his foot had knocked down a previously unseen tray of food. The noise caught her attention as well, and for a moment, she appeared to be just as startled as Romeo. It wasn't long before Romeo's shock turned to disgust as he gazed upon the face of the woman he began mentally referring to as Broken Bird.

As far as women go, this woman was about a ten in the body department and a negative thirty-five in the facial department. Romeo thought slowly to himself that it was tragic that such a nice rack was wasted on such a hag. I mean her eyes are BLOOD SHOT, and she's yellow, not peach, not golden, yellow. Not to mention that crooked nose, it almost looks broken in a sick way. Don't get me started on this chick's mouth, I mean, half of the damn thing is missing. As Romeo realized what had just passed through his mind, that disgust turned to fear.

A woman, who was injured, badly disfigured, and obviously mentally unstable just set sights on him, and this woman was moving towards him at a surprising pace, considering the bone that was jutting out of her leg, another little detail Romeo noticed right before he started back peddling at almost six miles an hour, trying to keep his eye on the terrifying harpy, as well as, escape her range of motion. At that current juncture, Romeo was almost within grabbing distance of the woman and he knew that because every few seconds one of her mangled hands came whizzing by his face as her yellowed teeth gnashed in anger.

The same screech the kept Romeo from getting any closer to the woman earlier, was erupting from her hollow, gaping, diseased mouth. Fear turned to terror as the woman chomped down on her lower lip, spewing disgusting yellow pus as well as a mixture of spit and blood. Some of that fluid nearly landed on Romeo as he swiftly turned, abandoning his backwards running for a more effective full-speed-ahead sprint out of the hotel and into a deserted and somehow ruined street.

Romeo had little time to contemplate how his beloved Los Angeles had turned into a sickening, dark, and abandoned wasteland. Nor did he have time to wonder what the hell was wrong with Broken Bird back there because "back there" was approaching quickly for him. He could still hear her screeches and teeth gnashing gaining on him. As Romeo ran in circles, attempting to figure out some sort of plan to deal with the crazy bitch following him around, he realized that the only way to rid himself of her was to threaten an attack, a bluff of sorts.

Romeo patted along his waist, while still in a perpetual state of motion, trying to see if he still had his firearm attached to his waist. If angels prevailed he wouldn't have to go back into the hotel, Broken Bird following behind, of course, and dig around his trashed room for his gun. It had slipped his mind when he awoke and though it was engrained in his mind to keep it on his person at all times, when Romeo got drunk, routine and training mattered not. Groping along he finally found the holster that had slid to the back of his pants during the chase.

He drew his pistol and raced ahead far enough for him to turn around and see that there was a reasonable amount of distance between him and the crazed, chomping, oozing, shuddering, and moaning maniac. As he raised his pistol, he noticed that the woman hadn't slowed down a bit. At first he thought that the gun hadn't registered in her mind, but as she got closer and closer he realized that she just didn't give a fuck about him or his Desert Eagle.

"I will shoot if you persist to advance on me, lady!" Not a lick of acknowledgement came from the woman. Broken Bird didn't care that there was a man with a gun threatening to shoot her, all she cared about was the fact that there was a man, and that the insatiable appetite and instinct in her mind were screaming at her that it was time to hunt.

A loud, drawn out screech was her response, and her rebuttal was to pick up speed near the final stretch of parking lot between her and her happy meal. The hunt was coming to a close and she would finally be able to quiet the voice in the back of her mind.

The hunt ended with the echo of a gunshot, and the sound of a limp, lifeless body hitting the ground. Fortunately for Romeo, he shot her where it counted, between the eyes. Broken Bird ended her second life with a weak howl before she fell…broken… to the ground.

"Crazy bitch," was all that the victor could mutter before walking over to inspect his opponent's dead body. The smell was what hit him first. He hadn't noticed it before when he was running for his life, but up close, that bitch stunk, and it wasn't the "I haven't bathed in days" stink, it was more like the "I have been dead for days" stink.

At that moment, epiphany struck Romeo as he looked around his once great city and then back down at the body before him. He wasn't a big movie person, nor was he into comics, or videogames, but it didn't take a movie buff, nor a gamer to tell him that what he just killed was already dead, and that there were more things like that all around, threatening to make him into one of them. Zombies, Jesus Christ. I'm facin' the mother-fuckin' Apocalypse.

O O O

Seven Weeks Earlier...

"Rom! It's so good to see you again, after all these months without any contact!" Angeline, his parole officer grinned from ear to ear. It had been seven months since he was incarcerated for a crime he almost didn't commit, at least that was the way he told the story.

"Good to see you too, Line. It's been way too long, then again, I wasn't exactly staying at the Hilton Hotel." Romeo sat on the other side of Angeline's desk; he looked the woman over, grinning from ear to ear. He hated having to go see his parole officer; it reminded him that he was a convicted felon, and that he had thrown his life away for some useless bitch who never appreciated a damn thing he did for her, or his country for that matter. But that didn't matter anymore, he was dishonorably discharged and as far as the system was concerned, he was a civilian again. That meant no military medical facilities, no welcome home parades, not even a letter of recommendation to ensure that Romeo was able to get another job sometime in the future. No, all Romeo received was a big, steaming, healthy pile of "Fuck You".

It was a gift from his wife, the fucker she was cheating on him with while he was on tour in the Middle East, his father who abandoned his son for "dishonoring the family", his bitch of a mother, and his best friend. His best friend was the worst of all, that asshole put a bullet in his brain when Romeo needed him the most. It was the most selfish thing Romeo thought that he could ever have done. I can't believe that he killed himself over Agatha's ugly ass. All that back fat, and zero personality to make up for it. I tell you she wasn't worth it, Matt.

Angeline's cheery disposition wasn't helping his mood at all. It felt like she liked seeing him here like this. It pissed him off royally, probably more than it should have. She shuffled through a stack of papers thick enough to comfortably kill a large insect. Romeo knew that every last piece of paper in that file was about him; his psyche eval from his enlistment, his various reference forms, the memo that was sent to him directly in prison letting him know that he was dishonorably discharged for his negligible conduct while on tour, all of those things were stuffed into a single manila folder. The poor thing's sides were screaming because of the excess. Romeo watched impatiently as Angeline fumbled. Probably the worst Parole Officer I could have gotten. Po? Yeah, more like Princess of Shit.

"Found it!" Angeline exclaimed loudly, waving a piece of paper around triumphantly, "Your release forms from prison were sent over earlier this week! I just couldn't find the durn things!" A small laugh escaped her lips as her eyes focused on Romeo, the man she was charged with "babysitting". He wasn't like all of her previous cases, however. He was much more together, very organized, very neat, very respectable, and if it didn't show in his eyes, you wouldn't have none that he did time, nor that he'd beaten his wife. Angeline knew that it was against the rules to justify the crimes of any particular parolee, but she couldn't help but think the attractive man before her would have done what he did without a very good reason.

He is like an Adonis in the flesh! Angeline thought to herself every time that Romeo was in her office, He is gorgeous, those big light brown eyes could swallow me up! And his curly brown hair, he looks like a Greek god. Never have I been so happy that a man went on a rampage.

AN: Okay, so I know this seems a little inconsistent. I stopped working on it very close to the end and I had to take a week off. But if you can get past that, I would like constructive feedback. That's all I'm really asking for, oh, and a head's up if you would like to see more. As you can tell, I had planned on doing a lot more with this concept, but I didn't want to post it all up here if no one was interested. Just saying. Okay peeps, OUT!

~Myrdock