Soul Survivor: A gripping tale of the living, the dead, and the struggle to survive in an apocalyptic world. (2 page)

BOOK: Soul Survivor: A gripping tale of the living, the dead, and the struggle to survive in an apocalyptic world.
12.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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Mrs. Lee ran into the path of another one of them who grabbed her by the neck and raised her arm to his mouth. She screamed in agony as its teeth sank into her flesh. There was nothing Amy could do and Mrs. Lee’s attempts to escape were futile.

  Fred
ran past them and bolted down the street. He was met by three more of the slower moving ones who grabbed him as he passed and dragged him to the ground. Fred’s son leaped onto him and began to rip his chest and abdomen open with his bare hands.

  
He held two handfuls of entrails high above his head and let go an evil scream unlike anything Amy had heard this side of a movie screen. The scream echoed through the neighborhood as Mr. Lee was butchered alive.

  
Amy stood terrified. Hardly breathing and frozen in place.

 
A crowd had converged on Mrs. Lee who was on her back and flailing wildly. One of the un-dead monsters ripped her throat out, the wind pipe dangling from its mouth. The screaming stopped. She laid there, her body seizing and convulsing. Blood flew into the air in all directions as if she had stepped into a buzz saw. The ravenous diners screamed with evil delight as they ripped her from limb to limb.

   “Oh my God!”
Amy exclaimed. “There eating her.”

   The
rest hadn't seemed to notice Amy or Tommy yet. They were all converging on Mr. and Mrs. Lee to join the others for breakfast.

  
Other than the now defunct Lees, and possibly the lady she saw earlier across the street, it appeared to Amy that she and Tommy were the only ones on the street not affected by whatever this was that was happening.

 
"Tommy, get back on you bike and get home as fast as you can!" Amy said. “Are your Mom and Dad ok?”

  “I don’t know I
left before any of them were up.”

 
"Go tell your Mom what happened and tell her to call 911. Then lock your doors and stay inside until the police arrive," she told him. “And stay away from those... things.”

“You mean
zombies,” Tommy said matter-of-factly. “They look like zombies.”

“What-ever just stay clear,” she said. “Now go!”

   Tommy jumped on his bike and rode off. He flew by the two groups of dead so fast that when they looked up he was gone.

 
Amy turned to go into the house and almost bumped into the lady from across the street who had walked up behind her.

 
“Are you ok Lillian?” she asked noticing a grey haze over the old lady’s green blood shot eyes. Blood ran from her nose. A Bloody tear leaked from the corner of her right eye. “Lillian?” she repeated realizing now that she was looking a dead person in the eyes.

 
Her heart raced and she expected the lady to lunge at her. Instead they both stood there for a moment as if frozen in time. Then Lillian bent down and picked up one of the newspapers from the ground. She looked at Amy, grunted something unintelligible, then headed back toward her own house. Amy watched her as she high stepped across the street once again walking as if she were wearing swim fins or trying to step over something.

  
The screams of the mob devouring Mrs. Lee brought her back to reality. She raced back into the house, grabbed the phone and dialed 911. There was a fast busy signal. She tried her cell phone. It was dead. She called the city police station. There was a recording telling everyone to stay in their homes and keep the doors locked. It said the situation was under control.

  Yeah right,
she thought as a siren wailed off in the distance.

   For a very brief moment she thought about calling in to work but abandoned that idea quickly.

  
Amy turned the TV to one of the news channels. There were reports coming in from all over the world of widespread bloodshed and death. Billions of people were dying only to get up and walk away minutes later.

  
Whatever it was circled the globe quickly, the announcer said. Far more quickly than any rational could explain. In a matter of hours no island, city or continent was spared. Widespread infections were reported on every land mass on Earth. Ships at sea fought outbreaks onboard or drifted with the ocean currents, no one at the helm. Manned only by crews of the undead.

  
I wonder if this has anything to do with the meteors?
Amy thought,

  
For most, death came quickly. The symptoms appeared without warning. High fever and vomiting followed by unconsciousness and coma. Death soon followed. Then, reanimation only minutes later.  A small number of people were immune.          

  
The talking head was telling the public to stay in their homes and keep the doors locked. These zombies, as they were calling them, were everywhere and they feed on the living. This disease was highly contagious they said. And lastly, they were almost impossible to kill.

 
   “Unless you drive a lawn sprinkler into their skull,” Amy commented. She made a mental note of that fact for future reference.

 
The announcer continued. While their grip can be very strong, and their bite deadly, in general they are weak, slow and uncurious creatures who become excitable quickly when stimulated by the smell of fresh meat.

  “Fresh meat?”
Amy said out loud to herself. “You have got to be kidding me…”

  The last bit of advice given was to stay inside and not bring attention to yourself. When a
survivor was spotted they will always attack.

   Ok,
she thought.
Slow? Most of them were but what about Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s son. He was anything but slow and he seemed much more evil than the rest. And that scream.

  
She could still hear it echoing through her mind.

  
And if they always attack the living why didn’t Miss Lillian attack me when she had the chance.

  
None of this made sense.

 
"Shit! I forgot about my coffee!" she said. “No wonder I’m so nervous.”

  
Some things never change. The end of the world or not Amy had to have her morning coffee.

     She poured her
self a cup, cream no sugar, locked all the doors, closed the blinds and drapes and peered out the front window.

   The walking corpses
were wandering around the streets grunting, snarling and looking otherwise quite unpleasant.

 
Strangely enough they weren't the least bit interested in each other. Only fresh meat would do she guessed.

  
There were two standing in the front yard looking down at Amy’s dead neighbor. These things obviously weren't very intelligent. Without a clear target to go after they just wandered around aimlessly, waiting on one of the others to sound the alarm whenever a survivor was spotted.

   Mr. and Mrs. Lee lay
where they had fallen. Both far too damaged to make a comeback. The crowd gathered around them was starting to disperse. The bodies had been quickly picked clean as if by a pack of hyenas.

  
Amy watched curiously as two of the walking corpses began to fight over a scrap of meat. The fracas ending only after the meat had disappeared down the gullet of one of the them. The other looked at him disgustedly, screamed then shuffled away.

  
Amy went to the kitchen, took several long butcher knives out of the drawer and set them on the dining room table. She then retrieved an aluminum softball bat from the laundry room. She placed it by the back door then went to her nightstand and took out her 9mm pistol. She had fired the weapon exactly once.

  
Oh my God,
she thought.
I hope I remember how to use this thing.

  
She had several boxes of ammunition for the pistol which she stuck in the waistband of her pants and laid the ammunition on the table. Next she gathered three flash lights and all the batteries she could find.

   She
topped off her cup of coffee and went to check the news again.

  
Amy turned to one of the local channels. They had a camera on the roof of their building filming the chaos. The living dead were ravaging the city and everyone in it. Hundreds of the un-dead filled the streets. The few living that could be seen were running for their lives. Most didn’t get far before being overtaken.

   The picture then cut away to the Mayor. He was sitting in a chair in the TV stu
dio. It looked as if he was going to make a statement. He was pale and sweating profusely. He looked very confused.

 
He started to speak, but it was as if he couldn't think of anything to say. A strange look came over his face and he threw up on the desk in front of him. Then he calmly pulled his pen form his pocket, held it in front of his face, and studied it closely for a moment.

  
Suddenly he screamed and plunged the pen into his right eye, twisting it as it went in deeper. Blood shot out and splattered the front of his shirt.

  A tall heavy set man calmly stepped from behind the camera, walked up to the Mayor and hit him in the head with a steel pipe. The scream stopped and the Mayor fell from the chair.

 
The man reached down and took the microphone from the Mayors jacket, stepped up to the camera and spoke, "This will be the last broadcast from this station. God help us all."

 
There was a crashing sound and the camera swung around. Streaming through the doors of the studio, a group of the dead was coming directly at them.

  
The man who stepped in front of the camera with the pipe, went on the attack. He was soon overwhelmed and disappeared in the crowd. Then, the camera was rushed. The screen went blank as the camera was knocked over and blood covered the lens.

  
Amy sat there for a few minutes staring at the screen. Not believing what she had just seen. She turned the channel again and there was a televangelist. She didn't wait to see what his message was but was sure it had something to do with how disaster could still be diverted if only everyone would send him one thousand dollars.

 
The signal suddenly faded and then was gone completely. The satellite was out. She began to regret sending Tommy away. She hoped he was ok.

   She
retrieved the radio from the cabinet and put in new batteries. She would try to find a station that was still broadcasting later. Right now she knew she had to concentrate on turning the house into a fortress.

 
She double-checked all the doors and windows and made sure they were locked and properly secured. The house had a large attic. Because of possibly needing to retreat there, she decided to keep most of the food and water there just in case.

  
Amy was just about to pull down the ladder when she heard a scream outside. This wasn't one of the dead. It sounded like Tommy.

  Running to the front window and looking out she could see Tommy peddling
up the road on his bike weaving around the dead and being chased by the ones he had already passed.

  Running to the back door she
took a quick look outside. The coast was clear. She unlocked the door, pulled the 9mm from her waist band and ran to the hedges that separated her yard from Bob's.

  
Slipping through bushes she went around the back of Bob's garage and up to his back door. It was standing wide open. Bob lived alone so she hoped as she ran through his house that no one or no thing would be inside.

  
The front door was open. She ran to the sidewalk just as Tommy was passing, jerked him off the bike, and held him up in front of her.

 
"It's ok Tommy,” she said. “It's me Miss Amy."

   Pushing
him toward Bob's house, she screamed for him to run inside. The living dead were at their heels, howling like ravenous hyenas. Tommy made it to the house first. Amy was right behind him with one on her trail breathing down her neck.

  
As she reached the top of the steps she turned and raised the pistol. The zombie was close enough to grab her shirt. She clutched him by the throat and pushed him back. At the same time she put the gun to his forehead and tried to pull the trigger. Nothing.

   “Shit!” she screamed. “The safety.”

   She flipped the safety off with her thumb, still holding the zombie by the throat, and pulled the trigger again.

  The back of the zombie’s head exploded as blood and brains splattered the ones behind it. She shoved the body down the steps as hard as she could sending it crashing into the ones behind it. They fell out onto the lawn like bowling pins.

 
Amy turned and rushed into the house. As she came through the doorway Tommy slammed the door shut, locked the dead bolt and latched the chain.

   "Wow
!" Tommy said. "That was freaking awesome!” He looked around the room. “Why are we in Mr. Jones house?"

BOOK: Soul Survivor: A gripping tale of the living, the dead, and the struggle to survive in an apocalyptic world.
12.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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