The Beginning of the End By: VanishingPoint Racing

You awaken from your sleep to be staring at a figure at which you can't identify at the foot of your doorway. The figure looks like a man; you roll over on your bed and turn on your bedside lamp. Your eyes lay upon a figure with blood dripping from the man's decaying lips and brutal scars all along his face and arms. He lets out a blood boiling moan; you jump from your bed as he runs towards you. As you reach for your revolver on your bedside table you get tackled to the floor.

His skin feels as cold as clay as you wrap your hand around his throat and with the other, pull back on the firing hammer with your thumb and position the barrel under his chin. As you pull the trigger blood sprayed onto the ceiling in a short burst as you roll the deprived of life corpse off of you. As you pull the disoriented bed covers off the floor you begin to get dressed.

With spurs chiming with each step and duster coat flapping in the delicate wind you raise your hand to your lips and blow a high pitched whistle into the dawn. You notice your horse from the corner of your eye come galloping up to your side. You notice the horse's crimson brown coat is as smooth as an egg and the luscious black main is all neatly combed and as smooth as silk. As you mount your horse you make your way into town.

Instead of being greeted by the common traders and the local business owners as you come to the outskirts of town; you find yourself entering a town with blood smeared over windows which are mostly smashed or cracked and buildings with horrible messaged painted along the walls and other buildings are mostly ablaze. You don't know what to think, the town is dead silent. All that you hear is the sound of fire crackling over burning planks of wood.

You don't remember drawing your weapon, you remember dismounting from your horse and peering into a barber shop and noticing a crowd of people huddled into a tight circle in a compact corner. You sense something is wrong and yet you ask is everyone ok. They turn towards you; each separate silhouette has a pair of glowing dark red eyes. With arms stretched outwards, the group stars towards you.

You take a few paces backwards; a man who was in the crowd emits a blood churning moan. You noticed hordes from a nearby hotel shatter through the doors and glass at which most of the glass was already broken. You see sixteen to your front as they lurch towards you and six to your back, you have to fight. You turn towards the group of six and aim your revolver at a deranged man in the group.

As you pull the hammer back you aim at the man's chest and fire. As the bullet makes the man stagger backwards he quickly regains his balance and starts towards you again along with two other men, a woman, a little girl, and a teenage boy. You take a more careful, focused aim at the man's head and fire again, a short spurt of blood emits below his right eye, and he falls to the town street. You take aim at the woman and fire, you notice her head yank backwards as she falls to the street; the pack behind you is within reach.

As you open the revolver side gate and reload two more bullets you aim towards the teenage boy and fire, blood begins to run from the bullet hole on the right side of the boy's head. You look towards the little girl, blood stained her dress and you notice a bite mark on her right bicep, she then screams which makes every hair on the back of your neck erect as she leaps towards you. As before, you place the barrel under her chin but without looking, you pull the trigger.

You hear the gunfire and you hear her lifeless boy fall limp to the ground, you don't look towards your feet, you just run. You whistle again while you run, the horse matches your pace as you climb upon your steed, the horde is at your heels, you finally manage to get into the saddle as you ride away from the town.

As you travel through the night you notice a small farmhouse to your north, you feel very tired and you dare not to go back to your home that is possibly a new hive for the horde as you now call them. As you dismount from your horse you walk into the house. Broken shards of glass seemed to litter the floor as you accidently stepped on a large piece while entering the doorway.

The sharp sound of glass breaking makes you freeze, hoping to not have made too much of a disturbance. After a second of two of observation you finally ease up and continue searching the home. You notice a fireplace and you make your way cautiously towards it.

You wave your hand over the coals and notice heat still radiating from a few; someone had just left not too long ago. You take a quick moment to place two more bullets into your revolver. You then notice you're standing in a puddle of red liquid, you swipe you're index finger and middle finger across the liquid; in the moonlight you identify the liquid as blood. You look towards a room at the end of a long hallway, the door was partly open. Curiosity gets the better of your mind as you walk towards the halfway open door.

You peer inside, you catch the glimpse of the silhouette of a bed and you notice a ruffling sound at the side of the bed next to the window. You place one foot into the room and a sharp creek from one of the wooden planks breaks the silence. You see a pair of glowing red eyes settle upon yours. A deep moan from a man emits from him as he starts runs towards you. You withdraw your revolver, pull back the firing hammer, take aim between the eyes and pull the trigger. As you hear a quick, deep moan of pain the man falls onto the wooden floor. As you exit from the house out through the front door a woman wraps her hands around your neck, she feels as cold as clay. You manage to look into her eyes, no emotion shown. Her teeth are painted with yellow pigment and blood as she leans towards you with mouth open.

You didn't think twice, you don't even remember pulling the trigger. All you remember is watching a quick second of blood emit from the top of her head and her falling toward the earth. You then notice a barn to the East. You wanted to rest, your body aches for sleep. You climb upon your steed and with no other lead, you spur you're horse towards the barn.

You come upon the barn to see bullet holes in the doors and blood smears along the doors but no bodies. You see an oil lamp burning on the second floor next to a ladder. You then think that the light is supposed to be illuminating the ladder. This sudden thought pushes you forward into the barn. Suddenly, you hear the ratcheting of a repeater rifle and a man say, "Are you one of them?"

Before you can answer you are startled by a sudden ear splitting shriek to your back and you are suddenly tackled to the ground. You flail and kick until your attacker finally releases you. You withdraw you revolver and try to fire but all you hear is a sharp clicking noise, out of ammo, you start to panic. You're attacker is a woman, she is mostly bony, she looked like a prostitute, her body looked like a skeleton with skin over her bones, she screams again. You observe her ankle, her foot is bent completely towards the side, you watch in horror as she leaps towards you again.

The blast of a rifle explodes in your ear as her body lands in a tangled position next to you. You look up at the man who is signaling you to climb up the ladder. As you grasp the wooden ladder you notice the man reloading his Henry repeater as you recognize the body of the rifle. You notice a couple of bowls of apples and other fruit and a couple of cups full of water. You look at the man and he looks at you. After a moment of silence he finally says, "You alright mister?"

He looks as if he is in his mid-twenties, his soft and steady voice sounds like music when he speaks. You look up at him and say, "I'm just glad to see somebody else alive." He tells you about his family before the Hell Plague swept across the land and how the dead began to rise. He calls them the "Undead" and you quickly accept the name. He shares the revolver ammo piled onto the floor and you tell him about how you entered a house which he quickly says it was his home.

You look off into the East; the sun begins to rise over the hills, another day from Hell that you have to live to the fullest. You just hope the food and water will last the two of you. You peer out through the barn second floor door to be staring at a horde of Undead lurching your way. The apocalypse has begun.