Whew, finally got this finished. Life kept slapping me around. I couldn't think of a name 'cuz I suck at naming. The thing comes to 3,552 words. I hope that it isn't too long for anyone. Enjoy.

Morning
Again, for the eighth time, the broadcast is interrupted. Another person has been reported missing, this time a twenty year old man. Bill and Christine Finn are eating a breakfast of eggs and toast: the eggs, runny and laden with peppers, the toast with a skilled dash of butter. Christine speaks first,
“What do you think is going to happen if these kidnappings increase?”
“I don’t know. Police will put all their effort into this and probably start a large scale investigation soon. Capital is having a fit.” Bill puts down his fork.
“You know, yesterday, this new recruit to the mill; great kid, and only been working for a month, didn’t show up yesterday. He didn’t answer the phone when we called. Last night I saw his name on the list of missing persons.”
“Be careful, Bill.”
“Don’t worry about me, Christine. I’m worried more about you.”
They kiss and Bill dons his old Marines jacket and pockets his keys, wallet and cellphone while Christine cleans up the plates. Before the TV is turned off, the Chief of Police is at a podium on stand making a formal declaration amidst a flurry of photography.


The shrill screech of the alarm causes ears to ring. The alarm was a message as clear as crystal. Wake up. 6:00 AM. Jack Leer sluggishly pulls himself up with sheer force of will. Turning off the alarm was another thing. “I shouldn’t have gone to that damned party.” The alcohol is still in his system and now needs to be drained. By the time the alarm shuts up on its own, Jack is already in the shower and stretching his muscles. At twenty-five the lean Valedictorian thought he would be the man surfing down a mountain back to a bright hotel, a mug of hot chocolate and a hotter secretary; not slaving away under an idiotic, report fanatic manager.
Clean shaven and wearing the usual white collar dress shirt, black dress pants and one of five ties, Jack checks his answering machine and prepares a cup of an extra strong brew of coffee. “No sugar please,” he tells himself but pours in two packets of sugar and a bit too much milk. “Bombs away,” and he drains the coffee quickly in several gulps. The answering machine pings: “Hey Jack. I have today off so I’ll be coming by later. Love and Hearts. End of Messages.” On the news more headlines regarding the missing persons. “This is getting fucking annoying. Idiots can’t do shit.” Jack grabs his keys, jacket, wallet and cellphone and locks the front door of his apartment behind him. This makes the number of people missing nine for the week. In total for the month: thirty.


In his old Ford, driving down the streets of the city Bill notices how empty the sidewalk is. Cars are packed as ever but no one is walking and everyone is silent; not a single radio is on and no one is talking. Somewhere off in the distance screams are followed by sirens. The sounds seem to echo through the street, turning around corners and twisting guts.
The cowards have already fled the city, looking for places where the body count is lowest, leaving the people without the option to run; alone to themselves and even more afraid. Just a crime wave everyone kept telling themselves. Every face tells the same depressing message, “Shit, I wanna leave, forget this… Damn it! What the fuck can I do?” Even Bill thinks so, in fact he has been looking at a place in the country, but damn it, it was bought yesterday.
Turning the corner of Stone and Miller the sudden four car collision ahead almost causes Bill to rear end the taxi in front. It was a wreckage of steel, glass and fire; completely blocking the intersection. A fire truck manages to squeeze up to it and men in yellow suits jump out to clear the way. Shit. Bill manages a lucky u-turn and drives back home. The same look is seen on every face he drives past. “What the fuck is going on?”


At the other side of the same intersection, Jack also manages a u-turn in his Mitsubishi and is too heading back home. I wonder if I can use this as an excuse, Jack thinks to himself. Jack has one hand on the steering wheel and the other calling the office. “Uhh, Hello? Yes Karen. Umm, I can’t come to work today because of this huge accident… No, I wasn’t in it; but I can’t get around… yea the Miller-Brick intersection… So who else is at work?... That’s it?!... Damn. Okay then. have a good day.” Jack couldn’t understand why he said “have a good day” because this was obviously the worst day for anyone. Jack’s cellphone lights up. A message from Samantha: “I’m at your place right now. You need to come. Hurry.” Another scream rings through the air sending chills down Jack’s spine. “Damn!” He rolls up his window and speeds up.


At home Bill greets his wife. “Why are you back so soon?” “A pileup blocked the way and I felt like coming back.” “I’ll prepare some lemonade, alright? Sit down.” Instead of sitting down, Bill walks over to his locker. In it he takes out his old handgun and checks the magazine, eight rounds. He puts on his belt a pouch holding four more magazines. After a few seconds of looking at the black gun and remembering, vividly, every time he used it he holsters the weapon. A heavy feeling has come onto him and for a while breathing was a little bit difficult. “BILL! HELP!” At the front of the house, the door is busted and barely hanging off its hinges and stumbling to his wife was one of the skinny neighborhood thugs wearing a hoodie and jeans. “Hey! Get out of my house!” Bill has the punk’s attention and when it turns to Bill, its chest is exposed and a large kitchen knife is sticking out. “Holy Shit! Hey son, take a seat. I’ll call the ambulance, don’t worry. Christine, pull yourself together and call for help.” His wife runs into the kitchen, and Bill takes a step towards the boy. It snarls at Bill and clamps its jaws. The arms are outstretched and reaching for Bill. “Hey, fuck off!” “Bill, the line is not answering. I’m getting nothing.” Bill kicks away the boy who loses balance and falls down with a slop and landing on the knife, the tip has broken through its back. “Shit.”
“Bill, look! In the back yard!” More people have broken down his fence and smashed his windows. “Shit. Christine let’s go!” The both of them run out onto the porch and down the steps. Down the street Bill sees another thug, but with a mac-10 in his hands. He opens fire on several people and gunned them down. Bill and Christine crouched, ran to the Ford and got in. The thug heard the sound of the engine starting and yelled at them to get out. But hiding behind a nearby SUV a woman with long matted hair grabbed onto the guy around his neck and bit him. The thug screamed out loud as Bill accelerated the Ford as fast as possible; a few bullets snap the back window and the rear view mirror explodes while more bullets pound the steel door of the bed. The clock on the dash board reads twelve o’clock.


Afternoon
The old grandfather clock in his room chimes for the start of the afternoon. And a figure in the dark shuffles around the room…
Jack is racing to reach his apartment; he’d rather not spend another minute outside. An ambulance flashes by just an inch from grazing the Mitsubishi. The stores he passes are looted and people are running with TVs, stereos and money in hand and are ducking into alley ways. Some are rushing to hit the other stores and others are fighting with bats and crowbars, poles and fists. Some have tried to stop Jack’s car and a windows is broken. They all had a scared face on. They scream, yell and verbally abuse. Speeding cars are going into headlong collisions, smashing their faces together and the countless shards of glass glitter the sidewalk. And the wounded.
Samantha’s car! Jack rushes up the stairs of his apartment, leaving the car off but doors wide open. On the third floor, fifth room from the stairs, his front door is blasted from the lock and the room is dim. “Samantha?” The grandfather clock in the living room chimes. “Jack?!” He flips on the light switch. The room is empty and trashed, he had been robbed. “Samantha?” “Over here.” Samantha’s head pops up from the window; she’s on the fire escape. Samantha brushes away her long, black, curly hair and slips inside the apartment. “I just came in when hell broke loose and I locked the door. Then some people broke in and took some things from your apartment. I only had a few seconds to climb out of the window. Are you alright?” Samantha grabs him and looks him over. “I should be asking you, any cuts or bruises?” “I’m fine. But it is mayhem on the streets.” Stomping, hurrying feet on the fire escape prompt Jack and Samantha to shut the windows and draw the curtains. “Jack, I can’t call my family. I don’t know what is going one. No one is answering; do you think they are okay?” “I don’t know.” “I need to go see them Jack.” Jack grabs his hair and turns around, his eyes darting left and right trying to think things through. “Ummmm. Okay! Let’s go. Grab your bag and put everything we might need in my backpack. Then we’ll drive to your parents place and stay with them until this blows over.” Money, water bottles, a change of clothes, passport, certificates, snack foods, a few eating utensils and two kitchen knives. “We need to stop by my place for my things too.” “I know. We’ll start heading to your car later when things die down.”


In front of Bill and Christine the second dead end. More contorted and splayed cars. An ignited car rams head-on into the jeep following Bill, propelling it through the light pole and dipping into the corner shop. Molten figures of people inside swaying and drooping. The Ford is blocked in. “Shit, people have gone mad!” “Let’s get out Bill, we’re stuck, Salina’s house is not far off, we can walk it.” Bill draws his gun and holds it tight. “Christine, get up on the sidewalk these SUV’s are real high, anything can crawl underneath. And be as quiet as you can, don’t talk unless you really have too. Follow me.”
The carnage is on full display on almost every surface. Blood is stained on cement, street corner light poles are bent over, and windows are blown out, fire from most every car. An occasional arm drooping over an edge or bent over body. A few of the bodies were lying on their backs grotesquely disfigured with their clothes ripped and skin a cold marble white that is webbed over with black and purple lines; and faces look chewed over and becoming sickly, dark red stumps. Missing flesh here and there is common. Why?
Cannibals? There’s movement on the edge of Bill’s eye. Behind the tinted window of a car. Bill signals to Christine to circle around and away. They cross through a black iron gate under an arch and they end up on the apartment grounds. “I don’t know Salina’s room number.” “We’ll cross to the front office then.” The sky has long been cloudy and grey. A woman still in her night gown stands in a doorway. Her long hair is drooped over; covering her face, but the obvious puddle of blood dripping from her mouth makes that fact unimportant. Jerks and twitches across her body. Bill draws the gun and aims. “Please move.” Just one shot, one drop of rain, one dead, one dying and one more. And another, and another, and another.


On the first floor the ground is left riddled with trash. Abandoned TV sets, safes, furniture. Money is strewn all around, and down the block a dirty, unshaven, old man in rags picks up as much as he can; by habit he pushes along a shopping cart laden with soda cans. Samantha’s car has been broken into; the glass was bashed in from the outside and her papers, pens and coupons tossed around the seats. Jack seats himself in the driver’s side of the Honda, and starts up. The gas tank is half full.
“We’ll need to refill the gas tank at some point, Samantha.”
“I know of a place down the street in some crowded neighborhood, I think it’s going to be empty there so we can grab some lighters and chips.”
“You mean steal?”
“Unless you want to leave some money on the counter.”
“Grab a twenty from the ground.”
“Oh my god, Jack.”
When Samantha reached down to grab some bills a shadow under the Honda shifted to a side. “Here, forty dollars, you can leave a tip.” Out of fate or some form of sheer luck or unluckiness the shadow latched on a rail of the car and is carried along; dragged over glass shards, asphalt and shrapnel.


Christine knocks on the door of Room 367. No answer. Bill hands over the boy to Christine and takes a chance to pound the door three times. “Herbert are you in there? It’s me, your uncle Bill. Open up if you’re in.” Footsteps at last and the unbolting of the door, three bolts in total; Herbert cracks the door open just a thin sliver. “Stop your damn horse playing, and let us in.” The door opens up all the way revealing a short and chubby man, his unkept hair is cut short, smells hint at needing a bath and the Cheeto stains on his t-shirt are old. Slob. Herbert eyes his Uncle and Aunt briefly and checks the hallway, satisfied. “All right come on in. Who’s the kid?”
The little boy, around seven, unconscious in Christine’s arms was found earlier in the main office. On his upper arm, just past the shoulder, the woman from earlier had bitten him. The boy had just popped out from inside the office, when the woman jerked around and rushed at him, Bill fired a shot into her back but it did nothing to slow her down. A hard kick to the ribs Bill managed to get the woman off. Some doors broke open and more people stumble out, and instead of fighting Bill grabbed the boy and ran, letting Christine go first when she found Herbert’s apartment number.
“A boy we found downstairs. How have you been holding? Where’s your mother?” “Fine, went shopping.” Bill looks out the window and sees a slew of the pale faced people wandering aimlessly around. “What the fuck?” A black SUV is swerving and rampaging through the groups, smacking into several people before disappearing from view. Some had managed to grab hold of the SUV and began clawing at the windows.
“Hey! What the fuck! The kid is bleeding.” Turning his attention from the outside Bill walks over to the boy and looks over the bite.
“Yea, he was bitten down at the office; do you know where the First-Aid kit is? Christine check the bathroom, I know Salina always keeps one around.”
“Are you fucking stupid? He’s gonna turn on us and fucking kill us!”
“Shut up Herbert! He is dying here. Go grab the First-Aid kit and a damn towel!”
“You fucking retard, he gonna become a damn zombie! Kill the son of a bitch!” Herbert grabs the gun from Bill’s holster.
“Herbert, I am going to kick your ass if you don’t give me the gun right now.”
“No way, don’t you know what those things are? They’re fucking zombies, undead. If you don’t move right now I’ll fucking shoot you, I’m not going to die because of your stupid ass.”
Bill quickly grabs the gun with his left hand and jerks it to the side and with his right hand delivers a solid punch to Herbert’s cheek right when he pulls the trigger.
On the couch the boy is starting to shake. His chest convulses on an interval and the spasms are increasing. Herbert is crying and rolling on the floor holding his scream in and Bill holsters the gun again and straps it in. Christine found the First-Aid kit and is pouring alcohol on the bite with one hand and picking up the gauze with the other. Herbert forgot to check the safety on the gun and didn’t realize the magazine was still empty. Herbert mumbles something but it comes out an incoherent mess, most likely about the boy and zombies. “I told Salina that you’re fricken spoiled and lazy. Idiot.” Down the hall, the sounds of several shuffling feet.


Shit. Shit. Shit. Runners. They came up from the sides and latched onto the car, their teeth snapping and bloody. The glass is cracked from the pounding fists. To the left of the sprawled half naked mass on the wind shield stands a concrete wall and before long the wall centers itself. “Jessica, watch out for the wall!”


The door is cracking at the bolts, splintering. “Shit, you guys brought them here.” “Herbert shutup and get your fatass over here and push!” Instead the tub dashes for his room passing by Christine, going to help, and the epileptic boy on the sofa. Rotted and bony hands claw at the door and erupt from every cranny. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! “Help! Help, get him off me.” Behind Bill the boy has latched onto Herbert. Shit! “Move Christine!” Taking a step back Bill launches all his might on the door pressing everything on the other side up against the wall. “Let’s go!” Bill rends a gap between the crowd before anything could react and drags himself and his wife through and down the stairs. His shirt is torn to shreds.


“Jack wake up. Hurry.” Thud. Banging, banging and more banging fists. “Please Jack.” “Samantha?” The world is red. No. It’s just blood in his eye. And the blood on the wind shield. Even when pinned by the car and the wall, the bald man still scratches and scraps at the hood of the car. “Jack we need to get out. I can’t open the door from my side.” “My head… Shit. Where to?” “Those apartments over there, look at the metal gate and the door’s open.” “Okay I’m ready, on the count of three we’ll run.” “Now!”


6:00 PM
Jack, Samantha, Bill and Christine charge into the lobby of the complex. Their paths converge and they head up several flights of stairs towards the roof.
“Look Bill, a couple.”
“Are you guys okay?”
“I’m a little bit bashed up. Where are you going?”
“This way up the stairs.”
Behind them runners are quickly gaining. Bill turns around and whips out the gun. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. One tumbles down the stairs on her back. Another with a white blood stained t-shirt and torn jeans staggers and slumps down against the wall with more blood streaming down his forehead. One bullet rips a cavity in the heart of a business man. The next flight of stairs has blood streaming down the steps. “Bill up there!” Jack grabs at the short Asian man and throws him over the railing. On the ground an old woman stares at the group of four people, unable to move, her body quakes from blood loss. Bam. Bam. Bam. More and more are crowding up the steps. Dozens and dozens, all dark and grey skinned. Christine slips on a step coated with blood. “Hey lady! Samantha, help me pull her up.” Christine struggles to her feet, but she is tired. Bill flings an empty magazine at the nearest person and knocks the woman on the head, falling off balance she crashes into the throng. “Shit!” Jack can see clearly the mass of bloodshot eyes. Closer and closer. With a yell Bill pulls back his foot and kicks into a head.


Run. “C’mon Samantha.” Jack grabs hold of her shoulder and pulls her with him up the stairs. “Hold on, what about her?” Jack pulls at the arm harder and Samantha doesn’t struggle. Bill continues to yell as he tries to fight off the horde and soon all Jack can hear are yells of pain. They reach the top of the building and break through the door to the roof. Thick, massive plumes of smoke reach high into the sky. Facing away from the setting sun the darker walls of buildings light up from gunfire. In the distance a helicopter lifts off from a Fortune 500 company and desperate people cling to the landing bars. Some are kicked off and fall down, and one man, who saw the door behind him break, open jumps off the roof to fall short of the bar while his coworkers are slaughtered. The deafening rings of alarms cover the creak of Jack and Samantha’s own door being opened.

End.


Whew. Done with that. Comment Please.

Not bad.

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Brilliant, I especially love the last paragraph, your description of the city and the pandemonium that has befallen it is awesome

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Thank you.

epic success

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take THAT canada

thank you.