Rude Awakenings
Chapter 1.
"No eyes, No Freedom, comes the pale rider known as DEATH to mankind. His sickle dragging through the air as a calling card to the living, before the next one is pulled across to the other side."
Written to and in loving memory of Brian Vickers,
from his father, Jonathan.
The message was the last thing I dreamed about, and it would stick with me long after this ordeal. It was the last thing I found in the grip of the old man, who's house I had broken into the this night. He was holding it so tight that even a boa constrictor would be jealous, but I was able to pry it out over time and read it. The understanding of its meaning would create a world in my dreams that sings out with reality of the present.
My eyes weren't even open from the land of dreams when I heard the faint noise of something moving against the hardwood floors. The sound drifted toward my general direction on the master bed. as opened my eyes to see the face of true death standing right above me with hunger on its breathe and my guts ready to be it's next breakfast. It was a nightmare made real but I was always prepared for this. My mind calmed allowing me to react to the situation quickly.
I took this WALKER, its jaws flailing at me and drooling like a waterfall of infestation, my hands wrapped firmly around its head and dug deep into its decaying eyes, blinding it to my movements. It reared up like a speared horse and seemed to take it as pain. This reaction gave me time to slide my hand under my pillow and reach for my "Nighty Night" stick.
The "Nighty Night" stick was not just a stick as it was a knife or sword. I had killed many WALKERs with it. It's curved to perfection blade to slice and throat cutting silenced a lot without notice. It had been extremely useful and effective. On the Dead. And the Living.
The angle I took toward the infected was violent and sturdy. The blade hung through the air before it hit its designed target. At this precises moment I had a sick but funny thought to myself.
The sound of the blade slicing through flesh seemed to excite me. In Yesterworld, the world before the infection, it would have rang out in alarms and crazy white mental vans ready to strap you down and take you away. Not now, since there really wasn't anybody to argue the sanity of ones thoughts of things and of others.
After my internal chuckle, I watched as the head of the monster split in half. The top portion began to slide and finally falling to the floor beside the bed. The hands of the monster grabbed for the covers as it collapsed to the floor and laid there now motionless.
I stretched out my arms to release the pent up stress of current events and gave out a nice size yawn that echoed through the room. Flipping off the covers, I watched as my feet swung around and over the side of the bed landing on each side of the chopped off brain helmet. Laying their between my feet I could see some blood beginning to puddle around the edges of the skull cap.
"Another God damn morning of this crap. When is this going to end? When is the horror going to end and human morals going to take over and make this world a better place? Never!"
I opened the second story window tossing out the piece of the WALKER's top hat with his foul smelling body out the window to the ground below with a thud. The sound wasn't to quite as I was hoping and drew a few neighbors to check out what the noise could have been. The were not alive neighbors but the walking dead, ready to serve you as dinner to their blood stained teeth and mindless bellies.
This was my house now and I was going to reinforce it the best I could and begin a new way of life. This would be a first for me but it was needed to begin to live a normal life. This was MY HOME.
DAY 1, of the rebuild idea.
I walked down the stairs, of this two story house, and made way across the picture framed hallway to the living room where I put my heavy bag of supplies. I had to get the crow bar and peel of the wooden boards I had put on the front door to reinforce the door from people intruding on my newly found house. Apparently also keeping in one I happen to miss on my clearing of the house before I rested. A mistake with a cost of life attached around its gangly neck.
I finally got the boards off in about five minutes and proceeded to open the door. I reached out grabbing the ammo bag, along my trusty "nighty night" stick, before the sun could beam across face and the new found future that I was now embarking on since my arrival here.
The outside screen door creaked back to the house as I made my way down the red wooden stairs of the porch and onto the round marble stone spacers laid out as a path to the driveway. My feet hit the pavement but took to a new direction making my momentum pull me toward the two car garage adjacent to the home I just left. It was well built and seemed to be empty with no inside noise to be heard..
I reached into my pocket and took out the garage opener I had found in the living room the day before. I was fearful of the noise it would make going up but the flesh eater this morning seemed to egg me on to maybe coming face to face with another and concluding with the exact results. I pressed the button with higher hope than usual.
The door didn't react the first time of pressing it but it did after another with extreme force. The door didn't make to much noise for something pulling up metal not so smoothly bent to take that kind of angle to move open. It did open my jaw to the sight of what was glowing in front of me.
It was two cars that looked like they were packed for escape reasons. They had two bags in each car with enough supplies to last long enough to find another place and live to rebuild. This will come to use right now and for future threats to my newly acquired house.
Looking down under the spare tire I found two handguns already loaded and ready to be used if the situation needed it in each car. I took one out and strapped the holster with the gun onto my waist. The weight was not even enough to adjust to and it helped me feel even safer from the dead. I wasn't even expecting this from my first thoughts on this house but it has been a blessing on this day, from how it started out of course. I had more supplies than I needed at the moment and had enough firepower to hold off a small hoard of Walkers.
After putting away the newly found items inside the house, I again made my way out the front doors and down the path to the wall surrounding this home. This home was one of those gated communities I always hated and despised on principle of the people who usually live in these homes. Wealthy with no regard for the ones that put them in and keep them in these newly built homes, the small guy. But, now I was a new owner of this neighborhood community and I guess I now hated myself, GOD BLESS!
I would be able to get this anger out as the people I just thought about would be the people I would run into while trying to make my way to the town square to loot the supplies needed to fortify my home.
They were tall, small, thin, and fat, while ranging in all different ages. There bodies were laid across the ground they once drooled on and I enjoyed a thirsty fantasy I dreamed insanely in my head as a put upon in the old world.
I took a few steps onto the green grass of the town square's community park before I noticed two Walkers moving slowly and grunting in my direction. I quickly ran around the side of a slide attached to a couple of children's swing sets to get out of view. I was breathing hard enough to be heard so I began to calm my breathing by thinking of a Miss "YesterWorld" Pageant and being a backstage stagehand getting to see all these incredibility hot and sexy women change clothes with their bodies being fully undress before your eyes. It only made my breathing worse.
I peaked around the slide to reveal to my eyes the location of the two threats to my well being and saw that they had moved on. They were busier with a car alarm going off down one of the four streets intersecting to the Square.
If I keep getting breaks like this, I might have to just kill myself.
After carefully scouting the area for any other Walkers I proceeded to make my way to the closest stores I could find. I found a few stores to explore but a lot been burned by a fire that was started many weeks ago, as the burnt wood would suggest. The stores open to scavenging were a Hardware store, Bank, Police Station, and a fast food joint call Bigger Burgers. They would all have something to offer me and would help aid in my idea of rebuilding.
The hardware store windows were busted out and the door maybe hung on one hinge wide open. Many people have been in this store and not in a respectful manner at all. Blood stains on the door handle from the inside and on the front windows would suggest a struggle had accrued or someone might have been thrown either into the store or out to the streets and gutter to be eaten. Who really knows? I don't but sometimes it can add extra excitement to these missions by myself.
I walked through the open door with the "Nighty Night" exposed at my side and ready to unleash hell on its next undead victim. The walk inside was quite but any foreign sound what so ever needed to be investigated completely before any supply count could be taken.
My first rule: Clear to eat,Clear to sleep, You don't want to be Zombie meat.
I had broken this rule before and it never fails to come to fruition when I lazy about this rule of concern for my own safety out of convenience.
In this abandoned hardware store I found many nails and screws to help keep the doors sealed off from the rest of the world. The hardware tools in this store had been pretty much taken from here by bandits and survivors needing these for the same reasons as mine. I didn't expect to find anything of use but I really did.. I found a tool box in the bottom of supply closet, behind the dirty mop, and it had tools to help make some ideas of mine easier.
The store seemed like it was safe and could even be turned into a safety home if my current one ever got over run and I needed a place to find cover. That's when I heard banging coming from the back of the store.
My mind was telling me to just take what I have and move onto the next store and make the walk home smoother but instinct took over and I had to know what was making such a thud echoing down the employee hallway from the bosses office. This wasn't something I could rely on if I needed this place to keep me from Death.
I uncovered the "Nighty Night" stick for it's purpose and looked down the darkened hallway. It was a fading darkness with out the use of a lighting fixture connected to an electric source. The hallway also was covered in what looked like scattered "The Jericho" Band Night fliers from the road outside, a gust of wind must have brought them inside when the door was once open at another time.
My steps were brutal with thought of what might be stirring inside the dark and what was hidden behind the Boss's door. The Boss might be lurking around to give it's next costumer half off their own neck, I did not need these kinda deals this early in the day.
Moving in the darkness now with one hand reaching out for the door handle and the other gripping the stick with excitement. It was now time to take this idea seriously and take these bastards out completely.
One at a time.
The handle was cold to the touch and started off moving smoothly before the door was hit again with an echo and vibration that led through my body and down the hallway behind me. It resonated through my hand that reached to my brain quickly enough to make me move back from the door with a reaction of my stick pointed forward ready to kill. Taking a one breath I reached out again for the handle.
The door moved open slowly before it was grabbed by two cold hands. They pulled the door inside to open the gap for it to move to me and take my life. It's body moved quickly through the door, as I took many steps back and into the light of the rising sun spreading across the shop.
"What are you doing here?" said a voice stunned by my pink face, and not a decaying mess.
"Do not run at me mam, you could have been unable to rise again."
"This place is mine and I don't need you to bring on the devils." her heart on her sleeve she pushed me away and her eyes seemed to cry out for help. But I walked away as I saw her shield herself back into her safety zone, locked away into her room.
No matter the city or camp, you could never hide from the fears of the mind and it's awful choices it brings out in the brain of the host. Sometimes it would evolve into something far worse than any WALKER shuffling around the crust of the earth.
