Father Figure
by creator_by_heart [published on 13-07-2018, word count: 2764]
"How inhumane!" I exclaimed with boiling temper, as I zipped open the bag and took out the notepad along with an audio recorder.
"Indeed, sir. The man did not hestitate to bury his only child, his daughter. He won't confess with the media. And sir, I suggest handing the bag in my custody."
I handed the bag as he was suggesting, "Just because he wanted a son?" I asked, quite surprised myself.
"It is shameful, but true," he said, possessing the bag. "And do not apply pressure on him because he did not speak to other reporters friendly."
"It will be quick and nice, I assure you. Besides in the mankind's darkest days the last thing you want to do will be losing a job. What is to be done with the man?"
"Execution. Left among the crowd outside in the zone at 11:35 a.m, I believe."
The crowd, right. Awful way to execute.
He opened the vault, my vision ushered me in towards a man.
At the other end of that long vault, the person was sitting clutching his legs close to his body, sound of humming scratched the air. It wasn't a song though.
"You are, Wilson Pond?" I asked, scratching my leg with pen through my jeans.
No response.
"Sir, I assume my presence is no longer needed here." Officer's altered tone of voice urged me that it was not going to be a pleasant meeting.
"Yes, please. Whatever suits you," I forced a smile.
"Inform me when you are done. I will be outside."
Vault's door shut close.
I steered back to the man.
He was full-on vibrating mode, but I hoped not on silent . . .
I sat next to him, "Okay, I will write later and record later, journalism and stuff" I kept my notepad and the recorder aside. "First things first, just satisfy my urge to thrilling information access, why did you do it?"
He didn't respond.
"Just because the child that you wanted was a boy? Or something else. If yes, tell me . . . you're secret will be kept safe with me."
I tried to make it look convincing by coming straight to the point.
Silence followed for a tick-moment.
"I will not tell anyone, not a soul. I would scribble in the paper, a . . . a self made fiction story. Because I am curious just for knowing what happened. I am not even recording, feel free to express whatever you have."
I heard a sound. My guess, it was him swallowing hard. I was trying to convince myself that there must be a reason for killing her newborn daughter, I wanted to believe that there was a reason behind the vicious act. Just don't ask why.
He lifted his face, and . . . my god, a drop trickled down a line after another one down his cheeks, dark moisture resided around his eyes like he already hadn't had pearls of sweat all around his face. He was crying all along. I pitied him. At least at the moment. People don't born to become evil, surroundings make them.
I saw his face, that red, guilty, a father's face.
I didn't know what to do.
"Okay, just tell me why you did this? Not that the outer rotten world is the least of mankind's problem, then why kill our own kind?"
Journalism isn't an easy task and you have to be amiable while interviewing, even if it is a criminal. He hadn't confessed till yet with any other reporter, a mere thought that I may become successful. But curiosity is a thing.
"Why? Wilson, why?"
His breath quickened and became heavy.
"It can't be undone, what you have done. You will be executed few days after, left among the hungry crowd. Isn't there something you want the world to know?"
His shuddering body tickled me to press a little more.
"Why? Why? Why, I ask."
He bashed his head in the air at such intensity that his face blurred.
"Because I wanted a son!"
I froze.
"Oh, Wilson," I sighed, just relieve me off my rage.
What? I didn't want to believe that. Sure, the voice seemed crackling but with no guilt.
That voice shooked me. The man was crazy, the thought alone made me cringe. This was the act of pure madness.
I'm a reporter, it wasn't my place to judge but something like this, no one can tolerate. Could you?
The service at GenTex was far pretty good for a prison. The officers I met were friendly and incredibly formal to me. I, sometimes, needed to find words to speak.
Not to mention, later that good service found us in the vault punching, kicking, scratching and rolling over each other on the floor.
I was kicked out. Temper is a thing too. A whole different one.
* * *
I eyed in through the slit-opened door. The meeting was still in progress, I didn't need to disturb Mr. Penchant then or dare to.
I decided to sit in the waiting room, to wait.
An hour passed.
Soon a brunette woman came,
"Mr. Sen?"
"Yes," I replied with an air of professionalism.
"You've been called in." She smiled, I don't know if I could fake a smile like that even by taking training sessions.
I confronted the door, touched the bandage near my eyebrow. That Wilson man was clawy.
I stepped in. Gate closed. Mr. Penchant contorted a grin. I grinned back, awkward moments. Believe me, it was a lot better than when he stares past me.
"Welcome. I heard about the prison stunt you pulled there in GenTex," he said, without losing the grin.
"Oh, that was unintentional."
I dropped onto a seat.
"Things were pretty smooth till he confessed, outrageously," I tried to copy the lady I met outside, and smiled.
"But I assume we have what we needed, huh?"
I nodded and removed the glasses from my eyes, "Here is the cam recorder, it should cover up."
I removed the silver plate placed on the water glass to take a sip, and ended up finishing whole.
Something peculiar filled my guts, no not the water genius, something else. He hadn't attacked me verbally, yet.
Two reasons it could be: He was in a good mood (FYI, never happens) or he wanted something out of me.
"You're going into the zone."
I tried to smother the cough coming up, my stomach turned into knots, and I stared at him like a stray dog does to a stranger.
Could he be joking?
He carried on, "Look we need to cover one of the rescue missions that GenTex's armed force are conducting. We will be broadcasting video feeds on the channel, and you will be the man."
"You know what you're talking about?"
"I do. Look I assigned you as a secret journalist so that I could gain such information we desperately need to beat our rivals. Besides I did not say a word for some criminal you punched."
"He was asking for it!"
"And I'm asking for this."
I twisted my head away.
This is non-sense.
He paced to me, "Look if you do that, I owe you. You're the best that I have, and this here, this is huge. No one has ever done it, going outside the zone among the walkers and presenting the live feed."
"There are walkers, you know what that means. I go there, and there are chances that I may never make it back."
"What you need is to keep us updated, plus there will be strong millitary men with arms, you'll be in and out."
"Just like tha-"
"Just like that," he cut me out.
Mr. Penchant slowly walked to the large window pane at the end of the big room, clutching both hands together at the back.
"What do you say?" he asked, and his unveiled glances hit me as unnerving.
This was the most unexpected thing he ever expected with me.
"I completely understand if you don't want to. I can't force you."
No. You can't.
"Okay, I'll think about it. I am quite ready, like seventy percent."
He turned back maybe as surprised as I was with myself, "Ha! Good. That's some enthusiasm! Tomorrow will be day generation of the company will remember. There will be several other teams separated for different coordinates. You'll have a cameraman there so no need of specs."
My smile only lasted till he was looking at me.
In truth, I was not ready but since the world fell apart, fences were drawn between the living and dead, walls and border were constructed, he was always there for me. I would have been jobless if it were not for him. Plus there was the incident where I am taking the narrating to, where that big monster's breath stank up to my nostrils and the intense screams that almost tore my ears apart . . . well that's later.
Coming quick to the point, I decided to do it for him, Mr. Penchant. Because I saw him as
a . . .
. . . father figure.
* * *
It took us three days of continuous travel to reach the borderlands between the infected zone and us. I was with my cameraman or camera mannequin, you can say. He didn't talk. There were the teams of the reporters, all from our company, 24/7 News.
From there we were taken through the choppers to the infected zone. I acknowledged some soldiers there, one was titled as 'General', nicknamed maybe. I tried to joke all along the way to aid the stern atmosphere but I got a little response. My cameraman Jose didn't speak, it was the fear I supposed. I convinced myself everything will be fine, little did I know about the situation when my chopper was forced to emergency landing.
There was a strange thing, that I knew everyone in the chopper when I stepped in, there were seven of us including my cameraman and pilot, but the moment it landed I forgot everything because of the scenes of destruction.
"Where are the other choppers?" somebody asked.
"They disappeared into thin air."
somebody replied.
"Maybe they landed before us." I said with hope.
"Be ready, we may encounter the crack-heads anytime," the voice was someone else's, maybe the third soldier, general or whatever they called him.
We were out of the chopper, through a deserted road way leading to two contrasting building joined into one.
"I'm getting a bad vibe outta this!" distinct voice, hence the fourth soldier.
The crooked lampposts, spread of eradicated gravel on the ground and black smoke that rose in the sky gave away the spoilers ahead.
Suddenly the small trans-receiver on the shirt of a soldier blew into life.
"We . . . facing . . . beset danger . . . need backup. The thing's just too big and bew-" And then what prevailed was the static, then voice reborned, "The Big one . . . too fast, a-"
"Hello! Damn it!"
What's going on?
"We need to get to the rescue call first. It was a woman, she's a survivor and she said she has a baby," said the one with trans-receiver.
"How is she even alive till now?" asked another one.
Everyone seemed to ignore the thought.
We marched towards the rescue point, while I started reporting, "We are here in nowhere of the infested zone, it's a live broadcast that is being made by our channel. I am Karan Sen with cameraman Jose Richard. The situation is under control except the other strike team went missing and we are not able to communicate them till now but our brave soldiers has decided to respond to the rescue call first." I paused to inhale a breath, and motioned the camera to turn to turn towards the buildings which resembled to half-eaten fruits.
While I wondered about the black smoke rising, others stumbled onto an image of a large radial crater extended over the road and covering carcasses of the buildings.
"There is a crowd of four or five inside the hole! I am discharging a grenade," said the general as our group went closer to the crater for a good overview.
And that was really the first time I had ever seen a horde, broken limbs, half-heads painted in crimson and the insides that were outsides at the time. Most atrocious of all the big one, probably the one that other soldiers tried to warn us about. It was fighting the horde, throwing them apart.
The general scraped the grenade, almost ready to throw it. But an animal roar tore the air, just at the moment I noticed some of them climbing up.
My heart skipped a beat.
Stretching out the bony hand clawed at the air, desperate to wrench any of us into the abyss . . .
Everybody backed up, and the grenade in general's hand slipped and kissed the gravel. It was only matter of time.
Boom!
The memory of the time is kind of blur when the explosion parted me from the group, into the abyss. And what I remember is singing of bullets fire, explosion after explosion and darkness gulping my world.
I was probably half conscious when I found myself in the center of the crater.
Another explosion became an eye-opener. I rolled over the wet dirt, covered in blood and tried to snake towards a safe place.
I saw the big one, utterly big, fighting the horde and the soldiers aiming at the big one. I was confused, a little more than a bit.
There was crashed chopper without the roof just behind that big monster, I noticed. That big thing was trying to protect something, what was the something? It was like my brain had lost power to a voice, a shrill cry coming from the remains of that chopper.
I struggled to pull myself up. I wasn't thinking. I began to limp in that direction, walking right through the massacre, one by one the dead ones of the horde going down around me. Soldiers shouting, warning me as I toddled into the black smoke coming out of the chopper. I figured out that Jose was not with them, which meant . . .
Poor Guy.
The big thing screamed at the sight of my limping self. It was horrible. The hands were elongated, mouth drooping of blood which mingled with the air every time it screamed. The stench collided my nostrils that pulled a puke out of me.
But like I said I wasn't thinking, not even when the thing launched towards me. I was thrown on the glass shield of the chopper, the thing above me crying it's own throat out.
That huge zombie never saw the soldiers raining bullets at it.
The monster collapsed.
Me? I stood up in the deadly silence just to follow the shrill cry coming from the chopper.
We are born. Wide-eyed, innocent with saliva-laden tongue.
I tried to reach there faster.
What we become or what happens to us, our fate, totally depends upon our nurturers.
Faster.
May the deads win, because they have unity, and perception to recognize their own.
Faster than the word.
But could humans drop the weapons for the sake of influence on their own, not for greed but for right to live peacefully, or pick up weapons to protect each other, rather than believing in being divided by unusual means.
I tripped and stumbled right onto a body of a dead woman, who clutched a walkie-talkie in her hand. Rolling over, I saw a child. Merely months old, and probably infected. The child's body was pale, sick and hungry. Like it would snatch anything to eat.
An infant zombie.
To my great surprise, it was a pleasure to see something unique like that, cuddling, crying, huddled in a corner. Like it was understanding everything, like it had an instinct.
"You're okay in there?" a voice asked, barely recognizable.
I drew a breath in. "I . . . I am fine."
I simply wrapped the little guy around in blanket it . . . no 'he' was in and took him outside.
Turning back, I saw the woman, probably the mother and glanced forth at the big thing, which was gaping in silence at the chopper.
There was it. Right in front of me.
An epitome of a father.
* * *
Check out creator_by_heart's profile and leave a comment or vote (or both :D) if you liked the story!