Black. Pitch black. We could barely see our hands in front of our faces and the sounds of the night brought shivers down my spine. To get to the road we had to cut through the small woodland at the back of the school, making our journey even more treacherous. The setting was dark and sinister with the obvious dangers haunting us.
As we walked through the shrubbery the groans of the dead grew louder, hungrier. The odd set of teeth would lurch out from the darkness, the smell of our living flesh driving them insane with desire, the desire to feel our bones crunch between their teeth. One on one, the teeth were barely a threat as long as it was put down quickly and quietly. It’s when you’re attacked from all angles, from all directions by a horde of monsters that life starts to get risky.
There’s very few that survive an attack like that, especially when that person is alone. I was that person once. One night out on the road, I had just settled for the night in a small open area of the woods. I’m not completely sure where abouts in the country I was, place names n longer seemed to matter. I had a small fire lit to keep me warm until dawn. I couldn’t sleep that, or any night, I had leant not too.
I was alone, in the dark and in the beginning of the outbreak. It seemed somehow even more dangerous then. Over time, you adapt to the environment you’re in and I became all too familiar with the new dangers at hand, but back then it was all new and frightening. Anything new is always frightening; a new job, a new house, a new baby were all scary and unpredictable. Now fear has a whole new meaning.
I huddled around that fire desperate to keep warm, winter was slowly creeping just around the corner and the icy threat promised to steal every ounce of body heat I could harbour. I remember staring absently into the fire watching the colours of the flames flicker against the night. The oranges and the reds of heat contrasted beautifully against the harsh dark canvas if a winter night. I listened intently to the sound of flames burning through the wood. That’s when I heard them. Behind the intensity of the flames, I heard the growls, the moans of hunger.
They were hiding in the night’s masquerade whereas the traitorous fire rendered me vulnerable. There was 8 of them surrounding me, it was as though they had learned to hunt their prey and feed together, like lionesses of Africa. Their jaws snapped between their grotesque groans and their arms left outstretched, reaching for me. Their blood shot eyes saw only food; no mercy.
I had a simple knife and fire, that’s all I had to protect myself. At first I called for help, foolish enough to believe anything other than a mindless corpse would hear me and if somebody could hear me I doubted they would risk their lives to save me. Instead, two more bodies joined the circle of predators. I thought I was a goner, no I was convinced. All I could see was the teeth surrounding me, absently licking their lips, drooling at the sight of me. But I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I jumped to my feet and pulled the blade from my belt, my grip firm around the handle. My knuckles went white. Adrenaline surged through, my veins like a relentless drug. I was going to survive this, I had decided.
So I ran towards the closest corpse and drove the black through its skull. Feeling its body go limp, I pulled back my knife and throw the corpse to the ground. A head brings itself round to take a chunk from my neck, but not before the knife made it through its temple. Two down, eight more to go.
I reached for dry branch nearby, still covered in crisping leaves and stick the end in to the flames, quickly it became a flaming torch. I waft the branch towards the teeth only delaying them for seconds, but those few seconds may be the reason I’m still alive today. I drew a large circle in the ground around me and the ground grew into flames, separating me from them. I stood motionless in the centre using the time to catch my breath. Fatigue was catching up on me.
It didn’t take long for the bodies to wander through the flames to greet me. It was sickening. I could smell their decaying flesh burn. The forest had become a crematorium. The bodies still through themselves in my direction, but as the flames grew hotter the bodies grew weaker, slower. Slow enough I could take each one of them out before they made it to the centre of the circle. Ten corpses laid motionless and in flames around me.
I had survived, but now the flames grew closer and threatened my victory. The heat was dire. Sweat poured down my face stinging as beads dripped in to my eyes. Ash from the burning leaves stuck to me like glue, my hands a mangled mix between red and black. I had two options, burn or jump. I went for the latter.
With a brisk count to three, I ran the short distance between me and the flames and leaped through. Throwing my body instantly into the ground, I rolled in the dirt to kill the flames. With my body alight, I could feel the fire bite at my skin, the pain as merciless as the teeth. But I was alive. I lived. I was lucky.
The mission into our enemy’s camp, however might not end with similar success. We walked through teeth infested territory in order to infiltrate the camp. There was a strong possibility that we wouldn’t walk away unscathed. My stomach sat heavy and it tossed and it turned. All I could feel was the anxiety running through my body. I just hoped for the best. I had gone too far to turn back.
Then a corpse ran out from the darkness. Its teeth baring savagely and arms wrapped dangerously around Robert. But Robert was strong, stronger than any of us could have thought for an ageing man. In just a few moments, Robert had thrown the set of teeth over his shoulders and onto its back. The body hit the ground so hard we could see the ribs snap through the missing chunks of its torso. Swiftly and quietly, Robert ran his blade through its forehead and returned to his feet.
“Robert, are you okay?” I whispered urgently, hoping he hadn’t been bit. The lack of light meant I could only tell the tale of events from hearing alone. I feared the worst.
“I’m good.” He said plainly, panting to catch his breath.
Once we made it to the road, we stayed away from direct light. We stayed on the edge, so we would see ahead and see what was coming. I couldn’t really tell which was better; the uncertainty yet coverage of darkness or the revealing light that surrendered our safety.
Cars scattered all across the road into town. It would be impossible to drive a vehicle through here. The cars were either empty with doors open wide or home to a body that would never be recovered. With the street lights I could see that some of the bodies moved, heads rolling side to side as though in a struggled sleep. Only we knew they weren’t simply sleeping.
Some of the corpses staggered in between the cars left askew, their breathing heavy and wheezing. So we split, taking our own path through the wreckage. Robert and Jake took a side of the road each, whilst Lenny and I head through gaps in the middle. Each one od silently took out the teeth walking the streets, clearing them, making our escaped safe – hopefully.
As we made our way through, something in one of the cars grabbed my unwanted attention. A woman sat dead in the driver’s seat. A gun in her hand a bullet wound in her head. She must have been there a while as maggots crawled and gnawed at her rotting flesh. But It wasn’t her that caught my attention.
Across the back seat was a series of toys, a rubber duck, a children’s book and a little ring of multi-coloured plastic keys. There was a muffled sound, almost like a groggy cry. Just next to the array of toys was a simply baby seat strapped in, with a blue blanket showing the outline of covered little body. Then the outline moved, little arms outstretched reach for something it couldn’t see.
I could only picture the desperation in the poor baby’s mind, surviving alone in the back of a car as its mother laid dead in the front seat. It’s slowly starving body nothing but skin pulled tightly over little bones. I could only question how the poor little mite had survived. As I pulled the blanket back, what I saw was much worse than I could imagine.
Just a small baby sat in the seat, dressed in tiny denim dungarees and a blue stripped top underneath. A dummy clipped to his collar had fallen to hand down his sides. His shirt was stained red and I desperately hope it was splatter from his mother’s suicide.
The blood was dark and outstretched as if it had pooled out from his body, like a wound, like a bite. And there it was. Across his cheek was the deep indentations of teeth marks; one row of teeth across his cheek and the other circling the back of his ear. His skin was pale, white as snow, and the veins in his arm and neck shone through. His eyes were harsh and... Evil. The colour of a greying sky with what looked like a thin film covering his eyes, making something once so innocent appear like the devil.
“Kid, watch out!” Lenny called.
Suddenly I felt hands grab my shoulders and drag me to the ground. I fell on to my back as a corpse pinned me down, teeth snapping only inches away from my face. Dried blood had been wiped across its face and up past its haunted eyes. It was sinister. It was going to eat me.
Its body was so strong, I struggled to fight back. Decaying hands grabbed hold of my wrists and held me to the tarmac, no matter how hard I tried I could not budge. I tried to kick but only moved the teeth closer to my face. I could smell the rot, the mould growing in the body of the teeth. That was going to be me.
Panic surged through and I fought and I called for help. The teeth clamping closer and closer to the vein in my neck. This was my fate. I had survived the world alone only to feed the dead to save a group. I would die at least knowing I had given others the chance to live.
All of a sudden, blood scattered across my face and the corpse went limp. I instantly pulled my face away. It just laid atop od me. It didn’t rip me open with its bare hands of dig its teeth into my flesh. It was dead.
“Boy, that was lil’ too close for comfort don’t cha’ think?” Lenny huffed with his knife firmly in his hands, crimson dripping from his blade.
I threw the body off of me and on to the tarmac and scurry backwards on the palms of my hands until my back pressed firmly against the metal of a car. My heart was racing, sweat and blood had gather in the palm of my hands. I could hardly think. I could hardly breathe.
“Far too close.” I finally said through heavy breaths. I dragged a hefty hand through my hair mechanically just as Lenny held out a hand. I grabbed it and was instantly pulled to my feet.
Adrenalin lingered within me, my head dizzy and my body ached. It was times like this that I missed those dreaded iron bars of my old life. At least there would have been that security of being hidden away from the horrors that took the world.
The body at my feet seemed to twitch and convulse, as though the rotten mind was fighting against its final death. I decided to help the bastard out. I rammed my foot into the head and my boot easily broke through the skull. In seconds the body was still. Finally the soul could rest in peace.
I leaned into the back of car that was the grave of the mother and infant. There I retrieved the toys from the back seat as well as the little blue blanket, careful to avoid the reach of the little nightmare with its reaching claws and violent clenching teeth. The baby was gone and replaced by a monster. He no longer needed the comforts of society, but Rosie’s baby still had a chance and would hopefully live to see the world as it was.
But there was no time for thoughts to linger on what I hoped would be, there was only time for the now. So we marched forward to the enemy camp, prepared to carry out our mission.