Trick or Scream!
By: Kulmanari
Cody sighed in frustration as the tip of his pencil broke, the piece of sharpened lead rocketing off to the side of the table where it went over the edge and plunged to its doom as the vacuum cleaner passed by. He was having a hard time concentrating on his homework and the fact that his mother had picked this very moment to do some house cleaning didn't help matters any. It was Halloween night and while everyone else his age was out partying or trying to get in one last year of going door to door trick or treating, he stayed at home. Maybe it was the fact that people dressed up in costumes depicting scary or evil manmade creations that was bothering him. After all, Cody had fought more real Demons than he cared to count just a scant month and a half ago.
Laying his forehead down on the open page of his textbook, Cody admitted defeated and closed his eyes in an attempt to make his headache go away. All day he had been feeling weird and this led to him blowing off Zack's invite to go out one last time to try and score as much candy as possible. With a groan he sat up straight, the open page briefly sticking to his head, and massaged his temples.
Carey Martin has disappeared somewhere into the suite and thankfully she was done vacuuming which came as a relief to Cody's headache. His ears were still ringing from the loud noise of the machine though. He needed to go out for a walk and get some fresh air. Maybe he'd even run into his twin and see if Zack could make Cody change his mind about tonight.
"I'm going out for a walk." Cody called to his mother as he pushed himself away from the dinner table, stood up and pulled his lightweight jacket off the back of the chair he had just vacated to go along with his navy blue jeans and black long sleeve shirt. It was supposed to be a bit chilly tonight.
"Ok, have fun honey!" Carey replied from the bathroom where was wiping down the marble counter. Without further ado Cody left and walked down the hallway to the elevator.
On the ride down, Cody started humming the soft tune of the elevator music having heard it for years. As he neared the ground floor Cody felt his power suddenly swell all on its own accord and had to briefly wrestle with it in order to maintain control over it. The power of the light, which was hiding just out of reach when he wasn't actively channeling it, had never done that before except for the very first time he used it. Ever since then he'd had to pull it into his body in order to tap into its energy.
"Weird…" Cody muttered, holding his right arm in front of him and seeing the fine hairs on said arm standing up due to the static electricity that the light energy was creating. The elevator dinged as it arrived at the lobby and he took a couple of steps out of it before he stopped dead in his tracks as his mind finally processed what he saw.
The normally busy and well staffed lobby was currently empty, devoid of Tipton employee's, guests checking in and people making complaints which were usually about the twin's antics. He felt a chill run down his spine as he looked around. Where was everyone? What was going on?
Cody slowly wandered around the lobby looking behind the check in counter as if Mr. Moseby might be hiding behind it waiting to jump out and surprise him, but he found no one there. Looking outside at street running in front of the main entrance he saw that it too was devoid of anyone. Feeling a sense of growing apprehension Cody walked over to the revolving glass door and went outside, the cool air was refreshing to him after having been cooped up in the hotel for the past couple of hours.
Just off to his right he was met by the scene of a bad car wreck, several cars had crashed. There was something wrong though… Despite all of the damage, the shattered glass lying in the street and the occasional splash of bright red blood here and there, there was no one around. No police or paramedics and no curious onlookers. More disturbing yet was the fact that, upon closer observation, there were no bodies in the wrecked cars.
"What the hell?" Cody whispered as he drew closer to the totaled vehicles, glad to have his power surging through his body. A scraping sound behind him made him turn around quickly. Standing a short distance away was a man in a tattered black business suit with bloodstains on the white shirt he wore under the jacket. He was slightly hunched over and stumbling towards Cody. Had this man been in one of the cars? He sure looked like it…
"Do you need help sir?" Cody asked as he took a few tentative steps towards the stranger, his left hand reaching into a jeans pocket for his cell phone to call for help on. The injured man didn't respond, he just kept shuffling forward. That was when Cody noticed a really nasty wound on the man's leg, it almost looked like he had been bitten by an animal…
Terror flashed through Cody for a brief instant as the man suddenly lunged towards him, making incoherent gurgling sounds as he stretched out his arms and tried to grab Cody. Instinctively he powered up even more, causing his aura of golden light to appear, sending a wave of energy rippling outward which threw the man off him just before he touched him. The injured man fell down onto his back, but immediately started to get up and come back towards Cody.
"Look man, just sit down while I call for some help." Cody said as pulled out his phone and flipped it open. Immediately after that the man rushed at him again and Cody had to drop his phone in order to grab a hold of him and attempt to restrain him. Infused with light energy, Cody's physical strength was increased ten-fold and he easily grabbed the man's arms and held him back. Cody got a good look at his eyes, seeing that they were glazed over and bloodshot and now that he was this close, he could smell the stench of death and decay.
As the man made several attempts to bite him, Cody made up his mind that this guy was a zombie. There was no other explanation… He immediately took a step back and hurled the creature into one of the wrecked cars. It hit with such a force that it dented the otherwise intact drivers' side door on a silver sedan and crumpled to the ground. The zombie refused to stay down though and started crawling towards him. Cody drew his right arm out to his side and summoned Excalibur into his hand. He really hoped that he was right about this man being a flesh eating zombie…
"Stay." Cody commanded as he decapitated the zombie, the tip of his sword sending up a shower of sparks as it bit into the pavement underneath the abomination. The zombie finally lay still and Cody looked up at his surroundings, unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched.
Then all at once, dozens of zombies poured into the street from all sides converging on him. Cody gasped in surprise even as he readied Excalibur for battle by shifting into a high guard stance. What the hell was happening? Where did all of these things come from?
Cody met the first zombie with a downward slash, cleaving it in half. He sidestepped another zombie as he recovered and sent his sword into its back as it passed. Very quickly Cody realized that no matter how good he was, he couldn't defend himself on all sides against their sheer numbers. He fell into a dance as he shifted stances and lashed out against the transformed humans, trying to come up with a plan of action. As they pressed in on all sides, threatening to overwhelm him Cody powered up to his maximum strength knowing that he had no other choice.
"I'm done playing with you all," Cody shouted, feeling a cool gel-like substance spread across his skin replacing his clothing. The gel gave off a brilliant golden glow as it hardened into his suit of lightweight plate armor that protected him from neck to toe. Now with his magical weapon in hand, suit of armor covering his body and the power of the light surging through his body Cody went of the offensive.
Excalibur flashed in wide arcs, clearing out a short radius around him which gave him enough room to pull light into his left hand and launch devastating lances of golden energy into the masses of zombies, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. Cody cleared a path back to the Tipton using Excalibur's deadly thirty six inch long edge and shaped energy attacks in short order.
He backed into the lobby doors, continuing to blast the zombies as they rushed at him and shattered the door behind him with the hilt of his sword. Stepping through the destroyed door, he launched several more lances of light into three zombies that were jumping in after him knocking them right out of the air before he turned and ran to the elevator. It was still on the ground floor thankfully and he started frantically tapping the button for the twenty third floor, willing the doors to close faster.
One of the zombies managed to get to the elevator before the doors shut completely and reached in trying to grab him. Cody slammed his gauntlet encased left fist into its head and the zombie dropped like and unstrung puppet, leaving a gory mess covering his armor. The doors finally shut and the annoyingly cheerful music started playing from the speakers, oblivious to what was going on in the world.
A moment later Cody exited the elevator and ran down the deserted hallway to his suite, determined to get his mother and escape. Once they were away from this place, he could go looking for his brother. He hoped that his twin was ok, wherever he was.
As Cody flung open the door to the suite, he was met by the scene of his mother lying on the floor, a bite mark on her neck. NO! The zombies had already gotten to her! Just as he took all of this in, the zombie responsible for infecting his mother rushed towards him and knocked him down. It looked really familiar…
"Oh god… No Zack! NO!" Cody cried as his zombie brother fell on top of him, grappling with Cody and succeeding in pushing his arms to the floor at his sides. He saw a hungry gleam in Zack's glazed over eye seconds before he opened his mouth revealing bloodstained teeth. Time slowed down as Zack's head dropped, his mouth aiming for Cody's neck.
Pain exploded through Cody as he felt Zack's teeth pierce his flesh and bite down on his jugular vein. A stream of warm blood escaped the wound and flowed down his neck, pooling on the floor beneath him. This wasn't happening, Cody's mind cried as he started to black out from the pain. He felt his body relax as it started to shut down. Cody knew that after he died, he would awaken as one of the living dead…
"NO!!!" Cody yelled in horror. He suddenly jerked upward in a sitting position, the page of his open textbook peeling off of the side of his face as he did so. Cody looked around dumbly, seeing that he was sitting at the dining room table with his homework in front of him. His mother came hurrying over to him from the kitchen even as he reached up and touched his neck where Zack had bitten him, feeling no wound and seeing his fingertips come away dry. It had all been a bad dream…
"Cody honey, are you ok?" Carey asked with concern coming over and wrapping him up in her arms. When he gave her a simple affirmative she said, "You looked so cute and tired after you passed out, I didn't want to wake you up."
After assuring his mother that he was fine and that he'd just had a bad dream, Cody collected his jacket off the back of his chair and went down to the lobby. He just had to be sure…
"Not again…" Cody groaned as he saw an empty lobby.
"Not again what?" the familiar voice of his twin asked as Zack appeared off to one side of the lobby. Cody playfully punched him in the arm, happy to see his brother alive and well.
"Ow, what was that for?" Zack asked, surprised by Cody's actions.
"You bit me!" Cody accused the grin on his face a telltale sign that he was only playing around.
"What?" His twin asked in confusion. Cody quickly told Zack about the short nightmare that he'd had and while Zack throught it was kind of creepy, he also thought that it was pretty cool too. He was a little upset that he had been turned into a zombie though, telling Cody that he should have been the hero who saved the day and got all of the girls.
"So where is everyone anyway?" Cody wondered, indicating the empty lobby.
"Looking at the car wreck outside. Let's go check it out." Zack replied simply. Cody felt a chill run down his spine.
It had all been a dream right?
Right?
Happy Halloween!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: So yeah… I couldn't figure out what to write for Halloween, but Hurricane gave me the tie in idea so I figured I could do something similar with my Chaos Demons AU. It's cheesy horror mixed with Resident Evil and my own creations the Children of Light, but I like it heehee!
Hope you enjoyed, please review =)
