Prologue: Let the Living Rest
There was a ruckus outside. Inhuman screams bellowed through the metal doors. Creaks and groans had been the typical sounds these days and even then, very rare. Noise was always strange inside a tomb.
Asylums must sound like this, Greggs thought, as he stared out the window, wondering what moved in the darkness. Silent. Peaceful. Then medications run out, and pandemonium ensues.
Perhaps that's what had happened. Greggs was an asylum patient, the commotion outside just doctors and guards bringing order back to chaos, one baton or pill bottle at a time.
Greggs chuckled. If only that was the reality.
His knees buckled. It had been hours, maybe days, since he last stood, and just five minutes of it was untenable. Inhumane howling, horrifying delusions, and a body dropping out a rent hole in the ceiling onto a filing cabinet tended to sap one's energy, even if in a fetal position.
That, and the smell. Greggs pinched his nostrils as he walked towards the window. No air freshener can sweeten the aroma of urine and rotting flesh.
The wails grew louder. He winced. Whatever was out there sounded furious. What prompted such violent fanfare? Perhaps they realized Greggs was hiding in his office… He placed a hand on the window, and continued to stare out into the medical room adjacent his office.
The lights flashed on, and carnage was on display.
Hands and legs, chewed and torn apart, were littered across the floor and atop overturned stretchers and trollies. A torso, hip, or head would stick out amid the death field. Burgundy-tinted blood trailed behind like a glitching RIG's line-guided nav-system. Yet, in spite of the morbid scenery, there was movement at the room's far end.
Greggs pushed his face to the glass, nose squished.
They wore dirtied and torn medical scrubs, fabric bulging in the back, where neck and spine met. Hunchbacks. That alone might have occupied his mind for a few hours, if he hadn't noticed more alterations. Extra arms flailing around from the abdomen region, talons spurting around the ankle, and scythes that replaced hands. The latter change glistened.
Even though there were several inches of glass and metal protecting him, Greggs's legs wobbled. Don't piss yourself-again. Maintain a little dignity, George.
Instinctively, without care, his hands went to his right breast pocket. What lay inside it, what he felt beneath the fabric, gave him comfort.
Nausea struck Greggs. Terrifying images, worse than the monstrous assembly outside, assaulted his mind. Intestines were piled at his feet, falling out a cut gut like a C-section gone wrong. Talons descended upon his person, pecking out his flesh, one painful stab after another. Air fled his lungs. Another corpse soon—
The lights flipped off, and everything was gone. Sudden darkness erased the visages, real and imaginary. As Greggs calmed, he noted his hands were gripped around his neck.
Greggs released his hold, and breathed. The terror experienced in the last few minutes caused his heart to pound inside his chest like a pneumatic hammer. Situation considered, a heart attack was a pleasant end.
There was a loud thump. Greggs looked up and lost his breath once more. A red Rorschach blot stained the exterior glass window, its diameter spreading like a fast-growing cancer. Not fast enough, though, to obscure the source.
Milk gray eyes stared at Greggs. The globular organs were like any found in any corpse, in any morgue. That hazy film, decomposition's earliest sign, represented finality. Perhaps that was why he failed to comprehend what his own eyes saw: an adult male corpse with a cracked open skull and a hole for a lower jaw, scanning his office through the window.
The corpse's eyes settled on him. Its bloodied, pale face a scowl. Greggs took a step back.
A roar, deep and penetrating like an ultrasound, echoed throughout the room. He dropped to his knees. Submission angered the corpse more. Its face clenched so that its brow and forehead melded together into a dozen horizontal ridges. A blood streak (from the head wound) raced across the skin folds like a red river through a tan-yellow canyon. Its…mouth-hole suddenly expanded, displaying rows and rows of serrated teeth. The expression was similar to the shark photos in his e-books: wrathful and ugly.
Bile exited Greggs' mouth. After a few agonized coughs, he was on his hands and knees. Somehow, he had enough strength to keep from falling into the vomit pile before him. The corpse roared and screeched; Greggs sobbed in counter.
Greggs tried to reach for his breast pocket, but lost his balance and fell face first into the vomit. He laid there. Face and hair covered in yellow spew, slowly drying and caking, head turned so he could breath. A spoiled milk aroma polluted his nostrils. Tears streamed from his eyes. A soft wail escaped his lips.
What's the point? –Greggs's wails turned into deep, long moans—Survival is moot in a ship where the dead creep inside every vent!
The corpse now banged at the door, trying to tear it down. How long? A few minutes? An hour? Greggs would probably pass out from exhaustion before then. That was a relief, of sorts.
"Hey! Anyone in there!"
Greggs raised his head. The dead speak, too?
Doubt kept him still, though. How could someone survive the monsters out there? That possibility was improbable in a ship-turned-charnel house.
More bangs followed. Whatever was on the door's other side wanted an answer.
The weight in his breast pocket permitted a brave thought: Perhaps it is not a corpse…
Greggs raised himself up. His still shook, but got onto his feet anyway. Before long he was striding towards the door. "Who is out there!"
The pounding stopped. "Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead: Space Edition."
Popular culture wasn't his expertise, but Greggs recognized sarcasm. Only the living snarked back at simple questions. The organ replacement technician smiled.
A handwave, and the door receded in the wall to the right. Expectation was that he'd greet his savior face-to-face. Instead he stared at bare pectoral muscles. Red pectoral muscles. The singular pigmentation, against a hastily tied together white loincloth, guided his eyes downward. Coal black hooves—and a hairless, segmented tail resting on the floor—were easily observed.
The red savior took a knee, and Greggs lost his breath. Plain features such as a raven-black goatee and sideburns clashed against extraordinary amber eyes. Horn stubs stuck out from a wide forehead, frightening despite their pointlessness. A fantastic face for this realistic nightmare.
"You okay?" the red savior asked in a scratchy baritone voice.
Greggs's lips moved about an inch apart, before consciousness left him.
A/N: This is a first...everything. First chapter, first story, first author's note. It's a little daunting (and scary). All I can say is this: I'm happy to have grown confidant in my own craft to publish a work that others-complete strangers-may read, and (perhaps) enjoy. Before anyone asks, though, I am writing the first official chapter, along with other prologues and chapters for other stories. I should hopefully have more published in six months. Job and school willing. In the meantime, leave a review or a like. And have a happy holiday, and a happy new year!