The Beauty and the Redneck

Chaos

My head was spinning. A shiver went down my spine as cold sweat dipped from my forehead. I screamed inside my mind, shouting at myself to wake up from this awful dream. Desperately I pinched my arm and prayed to be woken up by the sound of the alarm clock.

"I'm calling the security guards.” Henry's barely audible voice could be heard.

"This is insane! I'm calling the cops!" His entire body was shaking as if it were made of jelly. He was staring at the sight in front of him without even blinking looking scared out of his mind. Hesitantly he took a step back then he darted out of the room. I couldn't move. My body was frozen in place. If I weren't a reasonable person I would have said this was a bad joke. Still no sane person could deny that what was happening right before my eyes was by no means normal. It chilled me to the bone.

I could feel myself weaken as my vision started to get blurry. My feet went numb and my heart was beating out of my chest. Soon after I was hyperventilating. In an attempt to steady myself I grabbed the sheets that were laid on the bed me and Henry just brought in a few minutes ago. Just as my hand touched the sheets I felt an ice cold hand grab my wrist. Instinctively I turned my head to look at the person who was grabbing my hand.  And then I screamed. I screamed so loud I swear it could have woken up all the dead in heaven and hell. The man I declared dead not even half an hour ago was now sitting upright on the bead looking at me with his cataract eyes, hissing and moaning at me while forcefully trying to bring my arm closer to him. When the five cannibals heard me screaming they turned to look at me. All of them had the same eyes the man who was grabbing my wrist had. The cannibals started to slowly rise from the ground and walk towards me.

Panic like I’ve never felt before ran through me so I did what every cornered and scared human being would do to survive. I grabbed whatever object I could reach and bashed it against the crazy, previously assumed dead guy’s head. He dropped back on the bed and the tightness of his grip lessened. I saw a chance so I took it. Just as the cannibals were about to reach me I freed my hand and made a run for the door, stumbling and almost falling on my face a few times.

When I got out of the morgue I could hear the commotion on the halls of the hospital.  Henry came back with a security guard and they were heading towards the hellish place I just escaped from. Chasing after me the cannibals came out of the morgue one by one.

“Freeze!” the guard yelled while pointing his gun at the monstrous humans in front of him. Still scared but relieved at the same time I hid behind the security guars. Henry came to me and hugged me.

“Are you ok?” he asked me softly.“I’m sorry I left you there like that. The hospital is a mess! The government declared a state of emergency. Whatever took over these people is affecting others inside the hospital. There’s a whole bunch of them! On the radio…”

“Freeze or I shoot!” the yelling of the security guard interrupted Henry’s talking. But the cannibals didn’t stop. It looked like they felt no fear, like they were driven by nothing but impulse and instinct. When none of the odd looking humans stopped the guard started shooting. At first he shot a cannibal in the leg but it kept moving like it felt no pain. Even the blood that came out of the wound looked strange. It had a dark red color, like a putrid cherry. Panicking the guard tried to shoot it in the heart. But the creatures didn’t die. They kept coming at us. Only when they got shot in the head did they drop to the floor.

‘No! No! No, no, no, no, no! This is not normal. This is not real. No one can survive a clean shot through the heart. No living thing…Oh my god.’ I thought to myself. I knew where this was headed. I think I knew from the moment I saw what they were doing to Dr. Lukas but I denied it because it was not a reasonable possibility. But right then and there it was all clear to me. This were no people. This were no cannibals. Hell this things weren’t even alive. These were freaking thoughtless, emotionless, moving corpses.  I mean it all felt into place right? All the deaths, the desire for human flesh, the scary looking eyes and them not feeling any fear or pain. They seemed to be driven only by pure instinct and physiological needs.