Disclaimer: I didn't invent the zombie movie genre. A lot of random people did. Dawn of the dead, was created by george romero and I thought I might be sure to mention that since i'm disclaiming. Though this isn't truly a dawn of the dead fic, it is a fanfiction of the zombie movie genre and this is the only place I could really put it.
Warning: This chapter involves graphic depictions of violence, a great deal of horrible imagery, necessary to the story but still incredibly foul language, and mentions of rape, torture and some of the worst ills of humanity.
Chapter 6: Divine retribution.
He once told me that he wasn't sure whether it was the undead and hell beasts that roamed the land, or the true monsters that disgusted him the most. It wasn't till he told me about the first time he'd gone shopping in the 'new world' that I finally understood what he meant.
Journalist Lana Kohl, a one time compatriot of the 'man' called paladin.
It was the middle of the afternoon and the heat was beginning to get to him. At this point he just wanted to get out of his armor, but he knew that would be the worst thing to do. If it came off, he wouldn't be putting it back on again for a while and he had several things to do in a limited time. The winter day may be hotter than normal, but the nights still come early. Judging by the sun's position he did a rough estimate that he might have maybe two hours of daylight left.
He glanced down at his watch and noted the time. "A little after three... we'll definitely have to try and weigh anchor for the night afterwards.", muttered the man to himself followed by, "After I make some kind of anchor anyway."
Scott finished prepping himself, and stepped into the little boat. He'd have to risk leaving Maribeth behind and hope the barge didn't drift too close to shore now that they were heading into the center of a small lake area. He should in theory have enough time to get everything he needed, but only if he could get past any random undead that are around.
"Hey, Kid.. remember what I said." said Scott perfunctorily.
Maribeth blushed cutely and said, "Y-yeah. Keep my head down and shut my mouth.. so the bad people won't come get me?"
Scott nodded and hefted the boat hook. The shaft on it was long enough to reach the bottom, but he'd have to be perilously close to the shore due to the small lake deepening about fifteen feet out.
With a small sigh Scott set off towards his next stop of the destiny express.
Maribeth watched him pole his way slowly over to the store about a quarter mile away. She hoped her mummy and daddy would be ok. Those bad people had been very mad.
It was an eerie feeling that snaked its way along Scott's spine as he poled a mere ten feet from the bank. There was not any sign of a zombie in sight, but the closeness to the shore unnerved him all the same.
Contrary to film and the typical stories it actually took him quite a few minutes to shove Maribeth's little boat towards the store. Usually in stories and film the boat cuts through the water like a knife. He found his pole tended to get lightly stuck in the mud now and then and caused a little drag that slowed his progress. Maybe he was simply pressing down too hard? Whatever the case, he didn't change his motions since they did manage to work.
The unnatural silence unnerved the man more than he would likely admit. The whole place felt empty, and despite the heat he managed to get a sense that there was a kind of chill in the air.
Silently he glided slowly through the water, keeping wary eyes on the banks, but forcing himself not to look back at the barge. If he looked back he might convince himself to turn around, and they needed these supplies too desperately to allow that.
As the store came closer in his view he could make out clearly the signs of struggle and violence. The bridge leading to the shore had been completely destroyed in the middle portion, a few pylons and braces still lingered above the water's surface.
He didn't quite know why but something about that caused him to feel great concern. He took a deep breath and focused his eyes on the target ahead. The little boat dock in the back.
He noticed the back door standing wide open as he came upon the dock and his eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. He no longer had time for idle fears and mental phantasms. He had work to do.
Nothing had moved inside as he lightly tied the boat to the dock. A single knotted loop he'd fashioned before getting there. It held the boat there, though it did leave a short three foot distance of water between the boat and the dock as the slow and mild current gently pressed against it.
With a deliberate slowness of motion he stepped onto the dock, making certain to only step on places that seemed to be directly nailed down. The noise that creaked out was insanely loud to the man, but he knew that to step casually was to cause the decibel levels to be much higher.
His axe came free and the doorway soon became wide before him. No longer a possible necessity, it was now a portal to danger.
He took that first room in a bold fashion he knew as the only way. He rushed in at an angle, slamming the door against the wall and doing a quick scan of everything in the immediate area the smell of rot and death almost overpowering him. The time for stealth had ended, there would be too many hiding places, too many easily over looked spots for him to creep around without being attacked by the undead.
He waited there in that first room, a small storage area, for the undead to clamor through the narrow hallway adjoining it to the main part of the store. He was at a good angle where he could see them, but they could not see him. If they could even see at all. His time in the tunnels had given him much to ponder on that subject. Several tense minutes passed as he readied himself, but nothing happened.
The place reeked of death, but it wasn't likely to be undeath. He had almost left his spot when he heard voices attempting to be stealthy. I say attempting because they were obviously whispering. Scott couldn't quite make out the words, but it still showed lack of knowledge on their part. It's actually much harder to hear normal speech in very soft tones, than the harsher forced sound of a whisper.
A much louder whisper that sounded like, "probably just the fuckin wind again.."
A few more harshly whispered responses he couldn't quite make out and then the sound of heavy footfalls heading his way. Scott waited out of sight knowing that he'd be knee deep in shit soon enough. The boat was right outside and easily seen at the end of the narrow dock. Even the least competent person on the planet could not fail to see it bobbing there.
Scott got his first view of whispered number one when he rounded the corner. His immediate thought despite the unfairness of it was, 'man what a douche.' The guy was covered in grime and filth. Understandable really considering the situation. What wasn't understandable was why he seemed to be wearing several cans of beans and franks. Hell, some of the beans were stuck in his zz top style beard. All the blood stains hadn't escaped his notice either.
The leather vest, and random paraphanelia should have given him a hell's angel, biker gang kind of look. Sadly though, all it did was make a guy wearing patchwork armor made of old clothes and wielding an axe made of an old piece of farm equipment think he was a douche.
Scott slowed his breathing and too light breaths. The angle would prevent the man from seeing him unless he made a proper search of the room, behind every random box and barrel.
The douche stopped at the door and stared at the boat for a second, then snorted. "Feh, just the fuckin boat knocking against the dock..." Scott could hardly believe his ears when he heard that. Was this guy really that dense?
What he heard next changed his attitude from incredulous to down right murderous. "Those two bitches we found hiding here need to wake the hell up soon, i'm gettin tired of this shit. Wonder where that little cunt went that was ridin that thing. Probably fell off or got eaten or some shit. Good riddance. She woulda only been good the first time anyway."
The man never had a chance to turn around as a one time farm implement became a contemporary instrument of divine retribution, crashing into his skull with riotous fury.
Scott's luck wouldn't hold out though, as behind him came an outraged shout of, "What the fuck?!"
Whirling around to face the next opponent Scott found himself staring down the barrel of a twelve gauge shotgun.
----
Maribeth had been a bad girl and now the bad people were going to eat her. She'd gotten lonely and peeked over the top of the railing to see if she saw Scott, but all she saw was the boat tied at the grocery store.
She hadn't kept her head down and now the bad people would eat her. She just knew it. The little girl hugged her knees and cried softly while rocking back and forth.
---
Scott spat blood on the floor and struggled against his restraints again. His armor was in a tattered heap in the corner, and his weapons were tossed in the river. It was a strange feeling for him, being consumed by rage and hate for the first time in his life.
Despite the horrible beating the guy had given him after the other three members of his five member douche gang showed up to back him up, Scott didn't feel fear. People don't tend to fear things they have every intention of killing with extreme satisfaction.
His left eye had closed over and he thought he might have a few cracked ribs, but otherwise it was all superficial damage. These guys might consider themselves badasses, but as far as fighting goes, he had no doubt even in his sorry state that if he got free he could take them one on one.
Problem was they weren't giving him the opportunity.
"The buttfucker is staring at me again Hank. Think he likes me?" smirked a douche with a crew cut and earrings. Far be it from him to disrespect a normal man's desicion to wear pink frilly aprons, but this particular man made Scott's skin crawl. Especially since the apron had a hello kitty print on it.
"Yeah, he's a pretty boy. Bet he has a nice tight ass. Haven't had me none of that since I got parole." sniggered the guy that had the only firearm that Scott had seen in the place. Hank, as they called him, was a potbellied idiot that wore a rebel flag head band and seemed to always have a bottle of liquor in his hand.
Scott had a sudden urge to vomit, but he wasn't sure whether it was just because of the not so subtle homosexual rape intentions, or the fact that all these idiots were like some walking talking stereotype of the worst aspects of humanity.
You had your rebel flag wearing drunken gay redneck douche. Your obvious cross dresser that probably wants to lose his 'manhood' and change his name to 'candy' douche. There was the hill-billy biker douche, now dead thankfully. There was the black guy douche that had been spewing bullshit and always seemed to argue with the drunk redneck, and seemed to hate 'the white man' for treating him wrong despite the fact that he was here with four white guys, raping, pillaging, and all kinds of hypocritical crap.
Then there was the guy wearing glasses douche. He hadn't said more than a few words the entire time, but he kept polishing his glasses and occasionally quirking his eyebrow. Scott wasn't sure what messed up charicature of humanity he was supposed to be, but he had to have some kind of gimic.
"I wouldn't be surprised, cuz all you white fuckers are always trying to screw the black man."
Hank pointed at Malik and said, "Shut that shit up, nobody wants your black ass, bitch."
"Fuck you!" eloquently snarled the perpetually enraged man.
"Ohh me too me too!" exclaimed billy buttpirate while tugging his hello kitty apron. His real name was Bill, but Scott didn't care. He was billy buttpirate to him.
Scott couldn't understand how any of these sick freaks could even consider sex or rape or even eating in all this stench. There were rotting bodies stacked in the far corner, most likely truly dead zombies.
"Hell yeah you too, you gay bitch, but not right now." snorted Malik.
Scott carefully kept his eyes off the two prone forms lying next to a busted counter top. His peripheral vision gave him the vauge impression of female forms. While he was very curious as to who they were and how they were doing, he knew that if he looked at them directly these idiots would probably do something they'd later regret. Even with the idiotic background noise that passed for conversation here he could hear one of the girls breathing. It was shallow and ragged and very loud.
Well, they'd regret more. Scott was already going to kill them after all. He wasn't generally a violent man at heart, but with all the horror and despair in the world right now, the last thing the last vestiges of humanity needed hanging around were the true monsters that would do this during a crisis.
Zombies he could understand and hold no true hatred for. These creatures though, deserved nothing more than death in his eyes.
Scott pondered that thought when a curious sound, or lack there of occurred to him. The girl's labored breathing had stopped.
The douche brothers didn't notice, but Scott did. After a minute the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He worked as quickly as he could at his bonds, trying to loosen them any amount he could.
The girl began to tremble a little and Scott's wrists were becoming bloody and raw. The rope, however, was beginning to loosen.
"Hey! Stop that shit!" snapped Hank, as he finally noticed Scott's frantic movements.
Scott didn't and hank turned the shotgun on him.
"Little murdering bitch, you stop or i'll fuckin end you."
Our hero, well as far as this messed up story goes anyway, stopped and quirked an eyebrow. "Sure.. i'll stop but you really have more to worry about right now than me."
"The fuck.. you talkin about?" snapped hank testily, a split second before the now zombified corpse of a poor young woman snarled and tackled him, the gun flying out of his hands and into the air as the living dead girl bit down with terrible fierocity and ripped a large chunk of his side free.
Perhaps it was simple irony, mayhaps coincidence. Scott would later view it as a form of divine intervention, but as the shotgun slammed to the floor the gun fired and billy the buttpirate was shot, his entire right leg being blown off at the knee.
Screaming in agony he went down, while Hank shrieked for someone to 'get this fucking dead cunt off of me'.
The unnamed glasses douche went for the gun and turned it on the zombified woman. He pulled the trigger and an audible 'click' was heard.
"It's empty!"
Hank screamed in agony as he struggled with the far stronger girl, but soon his screams ended as she took a chunk of his neck out.
Scott had been using these brief few seconds to his advantage and had rolled his way over to the corner, and finished freeing himself from the poorly knotted rope.
By the time he was on his feet, Malik had bashed the zombie girl's head into an unrecognizable mass with a crowbar.
"Fuckin bitch!" snapped the continually enraged man as he slammed the bar into her again and again.
Scott glanced down at what was left of hank and watched his eyes pop open.
Glasses saw him finally and thankfully yelled, "The bastard's free!"
Malik spun around and roared out a racial remark heavily slurred by rage, and made like he was going to run at scott. As fate would have it though, his roar of outrage caught zombie hank's attention and he went down in a screaming heap as the undead man grabbed his right leg and tore a large chunk of calf away despite the jeans the man was wearing.
Denied the tasty morsel it had tried to obtain, Malik struggled with it in vain as the physically superior zombie clawed it's way forward and managed to catch and bite down on his arm while he pushed at it.
Glasses fidgeted trying to figure out what to do, and then did the only sensible thing in his situation. He ran for the front door and tried to make his escape into the woods. Woods that were fast becoming re-inhabited by the shambling undead due to the noise of a recently fired shotgun.
Scott edged out of sight of the feasting zombie, it's attention occupied with the squealing meat in it's grasp. The tool section wasn't too far away and hopefully the owner hadn't sold out of what he was looking for.
Scott's hackles raised again as Malik's anguished wails went quiet. Then they subsided slightly when the moaning buttpirate started screaming again, he had another brief moment. Zombie Hank had found more dinner, and now zombie Malik was waking up to join him.
He saw the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen in his life as he turned the corner. Fishing nets on one side, sledge hammers on the other.
Taking one of each, Scott hopped up on to a counter and glided as quietly as possible back over to the feasting idiots. He had one shot at this and he hoped he could still cast with the best of them. He gentle sat his hammer down.
The net sailed out and hung in the air briefly before dropping down on top of the tightly compacted trio in the open section of floor.
Immediately they began struggling, and Scott pulled on the cord. Zombie hank became hopelessly entangled but Zombie Malik was managing to wriggle free but before that would be allowed to happen Scott gripped his prone hammer and jumped off the counter top towards them. His heart beating a marathon, he raised the hammer as he landed and slammed the head down hard onto the struggling Malik. The first shot was off a bit and landed on his left shoulder, crushing it utterly.
Less mobile now, Scott managed to hit him on the second swing smashing his brain open in a display of violent imagery that would definitely earn an 'R' rating anyday.
He jumped back a little narrowly avoiding an attempt by zombie hank to bite his exposed leg and slammed the top part of the hammer forward in a lunge to rattle the monster, before whirling it around in an arc to bash him in the head.
Panting, and winded our naked bloodied hero glanced down at the dead image of billy buttpirate and raised the hammer. He waited. It took only a moment, but the eyes flicked open and the hammer came down with swift unrelenting justice.
Some might if they saw that say they had seen a man be humane and wait to see the life had faded from another human beings eyes and then slain a monster. The cold reality though was far different. Scott had wanted him to see the hammer coming, even if these creatures did turn out to be blind.
He resisted the urge to raise his gore laced hammer in triumph and let out a primal roar. There was no time. He'd wasted nearly the entire two hours and to be honest, he was exhausted. Though it did occur to him a moment later that he probably didn't have a cracked rib. He did manage to lift a sledge hammer and kill a few douche bag zombies with it after all.
----
Maribeth jumped with a start when she heard the gun shot coming from the store. Her Scott had been gone a long long time. An hour and a half could be an eternity for a little girl, especially when she was sitting all alone in a barge.
She hugged herself tight and silently prayed as her mummy had taught her. Please god let her Scott be ok.
When he'd become her Scott is anyone's guess, but in a childlike fashion her loneliness and subsequent rescue and then loneliness again, had caused her to latch onto him. Even if he was a stranger that would probably offer her candy and make her ride in his car.
Right now riding in a car with anyone sounded like the best thing ever.
-----
Scott had briefly washed himself off with a pot, some rags, and a jug of water he'd set aside for the occasion.
Sweat, blood, bits of brain matter, all had been washed away. Not as thoroughly as he liked, but it would do. He'd cleaned up and donned his tattered armor again, before he remembered something. There had been two girls.
He grabbed his sledge hammer, for some reason electing to use the gore covered one instead of a clean one, and walked calmly over to the prone form.
The first thing he'd noticed was that she was breathing. So even if she was infected she wasn't dead yet.
She wasn't bad looking and would probably clean up nice once all the external bruises healed. The bruises and scars on her psyche might take a lot longer. He hadn't notice anything about her exterior though beyond the lack of immediately noticeable bite wounds.
She was naked already, so he didn't have to deal with the guilt of taking her clothes off to search her. She was banged up, and definitely had some abrasions, but nothing beyond that. She did have a nasty bruise on her head though and it might be why she was unconscious.
Out of morbid curiosity Scott went and examined the other girl and was more than a little disturbed by why he found. Unless she had been bitten on the face or head she had no visible bite wounds. She had a bad gash on her chest that looked dark and disturbing, a bandage torn off nearby had soaked up what looked like a great deal of pus. It could have been a normal infection that killed her with the lack of medical care in this crisis environment.
That tidbit of knowledge did not sit well with Scott at all. If she hadn't died from a bite, then was it possible that any who died might turn? It would certainly make sense to him. I mean, where would the first zombie had come from if it needed bites?
He had no time to ponder this at the moment as he began rapidly filling a white twenty gallon plastic tub with canned food. He'd have to work with a swiftness.
The sun had set, and the last vestiges of daylight were fading as Scott poled his way back to the barge. There was no longer an eerie silence about the place though, as he could hear loud crashing sounds in the woods and the occasional scream of 'Please god help me.'
The zombies had found something nummy that sounded a lot like a guy who polishes his glasses with an obsessive compulsion.
The girl lying in the boat moaned softly, the first sound she'd made besides breathing. It wasn't the erry blood chilling moan of the undead though. It was far too normal for that. Scott thought to himself. Maybe our new friend is going to wake up sometime this century. Poor bastard, she'd be better off if she hadn't.
-----
Ok there's chapter six.
For those wondering what happened to Maribeth's parents, who this unconscious girl is, and why she and another girl were found hiding in a place that apparently had been overrun by zombies. That's a bit of information for chapter seven I should think. That is unless someone already knows her story, or if she actually wakes up to tell that tale herself.