Short of Decay
She stared at him, hugging her knees to her chest. Her lover, her husband, her daughter's father. Dead.
The man was sprawled out on the kitchen floor awkwardly, limbs twisted as if his body were a rag doll. A lake of blood stretched far and wide, his torn, chewed flesh making up the center. The creatures had ravaged him, broken him beyond repair, and consumed him. Literally.
"J-John…" she murmured, her face drenched in warm, salty tears. She sniveled, her face falling into the wet fold of her arm for a hundredth time. Why, John? Why did you have to die? I need you.
It had been an hour since she found him, yet still she refused to leave. Lifting her head, her watery, blue eyes latched on to where his face should be. It resembled bright red meatloaf, clumpy and glistening. The gruesome sight would surely make most people vomit, but not her. Never her, she wasn't most people. Camille Breen was accustomed to the dead. She gazed at them almost every day, as if they were her colleagues at lunchtime. For you see, Camille served as a coroner for the police station's homicide division. Only, not once did Camille ever imagine she'd be taking work home with her…
Or that reanimated corpses, the unanimated subject of her profession, would be her husband's killers.
It all seemed completely impossible, a figment of some long-lasting nightmare. Unfortunately, despite how much Camille wished it were a nightmare, this was not and never would be true. The truth was that Camille could smell her husband's ripe corpse, feel the cool Fall breeze on her skin from the ajar window, and fully knew her heart was broken. The truth had immobilized her for the past hour. And her husband's corpse had permanently implanted itself within her skull… a cruel reminder of what her world had become overnight.
Peeling her glossy eyes from the corpse, she found hope in a picture held by a magnet to the fridge. My daughter, Sarah… where are you?
She had searched the two-story house high and low for her daughter. Expecting the worst, the same fate as her late husband. Miraculously, Sarah hadn't been discovered. In fact, the house remained entirely intact… nothing disturbed but her dead husband in the kitchen. Which meant Sarah could possibly be alive…
I have to find her, Camille thought desperately, clinging to the slim hope. It granted her the strength to stand, her fists clenching. She's alive. I know she is.
Camille rushed upstairs to her closet, tossing her husband's black duffel bag to the bed. She proceeded to fill it with clothes, family photos, her handgun, and anything else she thought useful. Briskly pulling on her blue wind jacket, she snatched the bag and descended the stairs, her breath growing rapid with exhilaration. Every second I waste is another second Sarah is out there alone. She could be anywhere by now.
Returning to the smelly kitchen, her black sneakers squeaked to a stop upon the tile. Her sympathetic eyes fell to the deceased man again, lingering in sorrow. After mere seconds, she swiped at her tear-soaked face, then continued forward for the front door. Just as her hand gripped the icy, metal knob, the door flew open in a blur of motion.
A man burst into the house, a symphony of moans reverberating behind him. He spared Camille a brief glance, his ocean-blue eyes wide in panic. Abruptly, he shoved her away from the door, and slammed it. Putting his back against it, he pushed shaggy dirt-blonde hair over his head and stared at her.
"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Camille demanded, her eyes alight with hostility.
The man scratched his beard stubble, his movements frantic and skittish. "Oh yeah, because it's perfectly fine to be standing outside right now. Such a beautiful day!" He scowls, the door starting to thump and buckle against him. Wretched, inhuman growls threaten to overwhelm his voice, so he raises it to an audible level. "Besides, what do you mean your house!? Nobody has a house anymore! This is a brand new frontier called hell, lady!"
Camille unzipped the duffel bag, drew her pistol, and cocked it. "Right. A new frontier? That gives you all the reason you need to break into people's homes and steal their things, yeah?" The gun takes aim at the man, his eyes widening. "Get out. Now."
"Are you that fucking heartless, lady? I can't go out there, those things are knocking on your fucking door for crying out loud! It's suicide!" He bounced, his weight proving inefficient against the creatures' combined strength. Surprisingly, his recovery was quick and remarkable, and somehow the door held. "Come on! We need to get the fuck out of here!"
While her body didn't twitch, the gears in her head spun. If she forced him back out the door she sentenced him to death. If she let him in… who knows what he's capable of? But am I really willing to let this man die? What would Sarah think of her mother? What would John say?
"Fine. We'll run to the backdoor," she said, turning away only to stop and look over her shoulder. "But if you so much as dare to step back into my home, I'll kill you. We clear?"
The man regarded her with an uncertain twist of his head. When he bounced against the door again, he gave in. "Alright, yeah, fine! Let's just go! Please!"
Camille nodded, her distraught depression fading with resolve. If she brooded over her lost husband, these things would devour her too. She didn't intend to die… not when she had a daughter to live for.
"Let's go, then." Camille said, breaking into a sprint without a second thought. Her intruder followed, his heavy breathing and footsteps right on her heels. An earth-shaking SNAP signified the kitchen door's destruction, a fleet of ragged footsteps smashing against the tile. "Hurry, through here," Camille urged, throwing the mudroom door open. The stranger didn't think twice, running right past her. Camille remained long enough to see the first grizzly, undead round the corner, then slammed the door in her swelling defeat. Goodbye, home. Goodbye, John.
She spun around to find the lean man peering over the edge of a white, picket fence. Her neighbor's fence, actually. Moments later, he gave her the thumbs up.
"Hop the fence," he said, adjusting one of three purple armbands on his wrist. "They can't jump fences. They just run into them." He looked up from his trinkets to meet Camille's reluctance. "What? You want to live or not?"
"Of course I want to live," she retorted, taking a fierce step forward. "My daughter is out here somewhere… I need to find her."
For the first time, the stranger takes a deep breath. His body's light trembling disappears in the depth of his thoughts. For Christ's sake do something right with your life, Dom. Biting his lip, a compassion he wasn't sure he still possessed poured through.
"Okay, yeah," he started nodding, his dirt-blonde hair swaying to the motion. "We'll try to find her. How old is she? Maybe I saw her earlier today."
"She's twelve," Cam said instantly, the house door behind her whining. Camille shot it an irritated look, then pointed to the fence. "Come on, let's get over the fence and give ourselves some distance."
"Worst idea I ever heard," he joked back, already halfway over the fence.
Camille followed diligently, landing in the other yard with her gun aimed. As much fear as the man seemed to have for his life, she refused to take any chances and let him get any sort of advantage over her. His clothing, tattooed hands, and unkempt hair didn't impress her. He looked to be typical scum, the type of person who bent the rules or worse, broke them all together. Assumption in place, she decided to keep a strict, watchful eye on him.
Scanning her neighbor's backyard, Camille did the only desperate, motherly thing she could think of to find her daughter. "SARAH!" She waited a few seconds, then called out again. Every inch of her being begging her daughter's sweet, sing-song voice to respond. "SARAH! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Dom charged her, grabbing her shoulders despite the pistol jamming into his gut. Expression wild, he spared the gun but a glance then met her cold glare.
"What the hell are you doing? You'll call the whole fucking horde!" He turned his head to look at her sideways, his brows raised. "Or do you want to die after all? We're not doing Sarah any good by getting ourselves killed, you know."
Patronized by a punk. Jesus Christ, he's right. What am I doing?
"Get your hands off me." When he obeyed and cautiously backed away, she lowered the gun. "You're right," she relented, her downcast gaze falling to the grass.
Gathering the reins on her crazy desperateness, a steel-chain wrapped itself around her heart. Too strong of emotions could very well get her killed in this new, ghoul-infested city. That would not bode well for Sarah… if the poor girl was still alive. Camille tightened her grip on the pistol and clenched her other hand into a fist at the awful thought. The worry tortured her motherly soul. But if Sarah was going to be found at all, then first things first. She, Camille Breen, needed to live.
"You okay, over there," the man asked, scratching one of his arms. "Sitting here all day doesn't help us find your daughter either."
"I know." Camille spared her neighbor's house a glance, then focused on him. "You've been out here in this… longer than I have. So tell me, what's the best way to look for her? A car?"
Dom shook his head violently. "Cars are a bad idea. I've seen three cars try to maneuver the streets today. They all ended up trapped, cornered and well… you know." He walked to the backyard's opposite side, peeking over the fence. "I recommend a much more subtle approach. We stick to houses and stay off the streets." He moved back from the fence to unlatch the gate on the house's side. "Can you think of any place she might go? A neighbor's or friends?"
Camille frowned and shook her head. "No. Not really. All I know is she started from our house. She couldn't have gotten too far, at least… not on her own."
"Well at least we know where she started out from," he sighed, brushing the hair from his face again. Abruptly, he extended a hand for a handshake. "My name's Dominick by the way, but uh, friends call me Dom."
Hesitantly, she gave his hand a quick, solid shake. "I'm Camille, but people call me Cam." He nods and starts toward the gate when she continues, "And… thanks for helping me find her." He whirls around in surprise, her tone completely serious as tears well up in her eyes. "Sarah means the world to me."
Talking over the mutilated, mob below wasn't easy. Worse yet, the monsters continued to grow in numbers, clawing uselessly along the structure's brick wall. Kyle had been watching them dismally for the past few minutes, while the others argued.
"So let me get this straight, he's in cuffs because he's a criminal you picked up on patrol last night?" Cheri questioned, as if she didn't quite believe what she was saying.
"Yeah, I've got my badge. I can prove it," Gary replied, fumbling in his cargo pants' pocket. His so-called 'criminal' didn't agree.
"Didn't know you were such a good liar, Texas," Theo cooed, from his seat on the building's overhang. He smirked when Gary shot daggers from his eyes. "Oh what? Was I not supposed to tell them the truth? Hm, well that wouldn't be very noble of me would it?"
Cheri flicked her chocolate eyes between the two newcomers, doubt trickling along her spine. One of these two is lying…
"Can it," Gary grumbled, producing a police badge from his pocket. He handed it to Cheri, putting on his best poker face. "Despite the circumstances, this man is dangerous. He should be kept in cuffs."
Cheri returned the badge with a wry smile. "Well I'll be damned, officer. Things gonna get better now that we got you here?"
"You actually believe that liar," Theo piped, leaping to his feet. His strode over to them pugnaciously, his body etched in anger. "He's lying, he picked the cuffs and badge off a dead cop on the way here! I was unconscious and when I woke…" He held up his restrained hands. "Well I'm sure you can imagine the rest." Theo narrowed his pale-blue eyes at Gary in resent. "Liars don't make for good cops."
"I said can it!" Gary presented Cheri an apologetic smile, but she folded her arms and frowned. That's when he knew the jig was up. He had always been a bad liar and this woman had seen right through his deceit. "Okay, fine. I'm not really a cop and he's not really a criminal. But he did attack me in my own home earlier." He indicated the bulbous, red-black bruise on his forehead. "See?"
Theo protested, his tone accusatory and crude. "Only because you threatened to kill me! He has a gun, what was I supposed to do? Let him shoot me?"
"You're a fucking rattle snake with a wicked tongue!" Gary snapped, his frustration climbing. He stepped into Theo's space, jabbing an index finger into the younger man's sternum. "One of these days, I might just rip it out."
Cheri intervened. She touched his broad shoulder gently, the bat secretly ready to swing in her other hand should the big man's anger retaliate. "Tell me what really happened. Come on, man… we can't survive this shit and be lying to one another." Cheri gave the restrained man a pointed expression. "Or killing each other for that matter."
"Words well spoken," Theo agreed, lifting his wrists at his captor. Gary eyed them in hate, but nonetheless produced the key from his pocket. Instead of freeing Theo however, he pushed it into Cheri's hand and stormed across the roof's threshold. Theo's lips twisted into a mad grin. "Sorry about him, Texas is a bit of a nasty customer. If you catch my drift."
Cheri sighed, removing the cuffs from the stranger's chaffed, pale wrists. "You got a name?"
"Theo. Theo Snowden, my lovely angel." Gratefully, he massaged his freed wrists, his smug grin maintaining. "And your name is?"
"You can call me Cheri," she said, flashing a brief smile. How do I trust people after they lie in this kind of a situation? She spared the other man a glance, he was pacing restlessly along the rooftop's other side. Apparently searching for a way down. But he never told me what really happened...
"Ohhhhh Cheri!"
There's a familiar, trustworthy voice. My little dude…
"What's up, little dude," Cheri asked, jogging over to Kyle's position. The dwarf had moved away from the alley to keep watch on the intersection. Even if Kyle had never moved though, the approaching vehicle's roar would have alerted everyone on the rooftop. "Oh I gotcha, now we're talking," Cheri whispered, her eyes glued to the scene below.
The black Jeep Wrangler rolled into the intersection urgently, its growling engine notified every moving corpse within the vicinity. The jeep's operators were prepared however, each armed to the teeth with the biggest guns Kyle and Cheri had ever seen.
"Well, well, would you look at that," Theo hummed, suddenly appearing between Kyle and Cheri. "The cavalry has finally arrived."
The four men exited the jeep promptly, each taking a knee to face down a different, devastated street. Gary made it over to the group just at the assault rifles bellowed, viciously echoing throughout the city. The guns' unified roar tore away the group's hearing, drowning out all sound except that of the shootout down under. The cannibalistic ghouls fell in stows, shredded to bloody chunks by the unforgiving, machine guns. After three, heart-wrenching, gore-filled minutes, every last creature in the area was dead yet again. This time in pieces...
Kyle whistled in awe. They were staring at salvation. A pinnacle of hope… for humanity's survival.
A/N: Sorry this chapter took awhile to crank out! Introducing the new characters always take awhile. A poor mother's anguish this chapter... and quite the disorderly foursome we got on the rooftop! Also, sorry if there are grammatical errors, I try folks! My editing is not always the greatest though!
P.S: Three more openings for OCs BTW!