didn't escape because the frenzied marine was a poor shot. I escaped because the minivan's rear wheels slipped and slid on a corpse's rotted guts and sticky-slick half congealed blood. The Minivan went into a skid and the arc of bullets went right past me, but not by much. I over corrected and almost lost control, fishtailing from side to side at high speed. I went around a semi, its bulk shielding me, finally escaping the deadly encounter.
I survived without a scratch, the minivan didn't. Within a mile smoke and steam started billowing from the engine.
Fate, the Gods, or destiny had decided where I ended up. As the vehicle started to die, a suitable building came into view. It was a strip club of all things. It would serve well though, solid masonry brick building with no windows and a heavy set of doors. It was set apart from the surrounding neighborhood and commercial buildings, with access to the freeway nearby and a noticeable lack of the undead.
I had no sooner checked the front doors, hoping they would be open, which they weren't, when I started around to the back. Before I could run around the corner I heard the front door open and someone from inside called out.
"Quick, come in here," a distinctly older male voice said in almost a whisper.
All I could see of him at the time was an expensive suit sleeve and white shirt cuff. The hand holding the door open belonged to a black man, that only meant that I couldn't tell from where I was if he was infected or not. I had my rifle and I had my pistol so I entered the darkened club.
The interior was dark, the only light shining was behind the bar. A lone neon Budweiser sign lit the interior. As the sturdy doors closed behind me, I paused, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.
"Welcome to my club. Are you here to put in an application?", he laughed then, an almost good natured sounding laugh.
My eyes hadn't completely adjusted and I almost stumbled on a table while I followed him to the bar. He had stopped on the other side of the long bar, like he was going to wait on me and fix me a drink. I still couldn't see if he was infected yet and I leaned forward to get a better glimpse of his eyes to see if they had started to turn black.
That's when he flicked on the bright over head spotlights and strobe lights. The unexpected switch from darkness to intense light blinded me and I instinctively closed my eyes. He suddenly grabbed my M1 carbine way too easily from my grasp. He caught me completely off guard. That's twice someone had stripped me of my firearm in barely over a week. First Mike did it and now this crazed maggot. I have got to find a rifle with a strap or make one for this somehow, so I can wrap it around my arm and stop this nonsense. Nobody will ever do that to me again I assure you.
He laughed manically and I could hear him removing the cartridge and ejecting the loaded round. That was his mistake and he will never do that again, guaranteed. I didn't need to see him to know where he was, his laugh was loud and filled with madness. I simply reached into my rear pocket and shot into the sound of that laugh. The abrupt end to his laughter told me he was dead and I knew it before his body hit the floor.
I walked around the bar and put another round in his head just to make sure. He died with his eyes open, they were black globes. He was infected alright, even if he wasn't, it didn't matter. Pull a stunt like that and I will shoot anyone.
When the sound of the gun shots stopped echoing in my ears and my eyes were back to normal I saw another disgusting sight.
There were two stripper poles on a stage at the far end of the club. Both of them had an undead horror handcuffed to them. Dead flesh in heavy make-up and glitter strained against their restraints at the sight of my young, warm body.
When I walked up to them, to put them out of their misery, I saw open tubes of K-Y and used rubbers. The zombie strippers had the sheen of the lubricant on them, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the sick freak had been doing.
This place isn't too bad. There's a little kitchen well stocked with food. There's running water and even a small shower in the girl's dressing room. Electricity, heat, and even surveillance cameras. I should be OK here for the time being.
Friday, October 5, 2012
I stood there and simply stared at what once were young women, who didn't appear to be much older than I. They were handcuffed to the stripper poles, the shiny steel cuffs had cut and sliced open their wrists. Having become the unliving monstrosities that they are now, the deep wounds went to the bone, if they felt any pain at all they didn't show it. The steel of the cuffs had carved through skin, muscle and tendon without a drop of blood spilling on the stage. I could plainly see deep black patches on their bodies where the blood that had been in their poor bodies had pooled and congealed when they died. Eventually I knew they, in their unceasing struggles to be free and devour the living, would end up cutting and separating their dead, unfeeling hands from their wrists.
I could have simply shot them in the head then but chose not to. I already had one mess behind the bar to clean up. I might have to stay here for a week, maybe more. I really didn't feel like having to clean bits of dead flesh, hair, skull and brains any more than I already had to. I figured I could take the opportunity to experiment with different ways to more cleanly kill them, silently.
To kill the first undead stripper, I searched for and found, a nice long skinny knife in the kitchen. I stood behind her, grabbing a fistful of her filthy black hair and pulled back on her head. It came to me that this must be nearly the same way the insane owner must have had his vile way with her dead body. Instead of holding a knife in his hand though, he must have wrapped it around her waist and pulled her back, using the nasty things handcuffed wrists for leverage. It was an interesting way to control the thing, to say the least. I, however, took the opportunity to slide the blade into the base of the skull, where the spine meets the head. It was gross, I could feel the blade scraping around on the bone of the spine and skull until I found the right angle to sever the spinal cord. When I did that the body collapsed but the head still snapped its jaws and the eyes still tried to track my movements. The body was dead but the parasite controlled brain was still active. I gritted my teeth as I reinserted the blade up through the small opening, where skull meets spine, stabbing into the remains of its brain. As soon as I did so, there was an immediate reaction, the eyes rolled spasmodically and its black tongue rolled and stuck out so that the jaws bit the end of it off. After a couple wriggles of the knife, scrambling and dicing that part of the brain, the eyes stopped and even the facial muscles slackened. Now I knew another way to quietly kill the things. I practiced my new skill on the second, working on my technique.
I found the key to the handcuffs in one of the pockets of the corpse behind the bar along with the keys to the strip club. I dragged the dead dancers to the large dumpster out back. It turned out to be a harder job than I thought it would be. I thought dragging my little sister’s corpse to her grave (twice) was bad, but she weighed next to nothing compared to these grown adults. By the time I was ready for the third corpse, that of the man I had shot, I had to take a break. The large dead man had to weigh as much as both of the girls combined. Maybe I would just drag his body outside and leave it for the crows.
I saw a couch in the VIP room and almost collapsed into it. I felt exhausted, like all the energy had just drained out of my body. Whether it was from not sleeping well for the past few weeks or the stress or a combination of the two I can't really say. I just felt worn out, both emotionally and physically. I passed out then and fell into a deep, dark, dreamless sleep. I don't know how long I slept, there are no windows or clocks in the bar.
I awoke famished, hungrier than I had been in a long time. To my surprise and joy the club's freezer was well stocked with whatever I desired. This place had obviously been shut down since the animal madness swept the planet, when food was still abundant. I ate like a pig and when I was finished I slept again.
For all the good points the building had going for it, I found I was lacking even the most basic hygiene products. There was no s
hampoo or soap and I had failed to pack even a comb or toothbrush. I wanted a blanket or sleeping bag. I was going to have to risk going back out into the zombie infested world to do some looting.
I knew the area, I knew my best option was to hit up the Wal-Mart a couple of miles away at the most. I traveled light, just me and my weapons, on foot. On the way back, depending on how much I was carrying, I decided I could always try my luck and find a car to drive back in.
When I got outside things seemed to be more active than they were just a few days ago. Not in a good way though. There were more of the undead in the streets. There were more gunshots and distant screams as survivors found their house was no safe place to hide anymore. Thick black smoke from burning buildings billowed into the sky all around.
While none of the zombies were as fast as a living person, many of them were capable of moving at more than a slow shuffle. It seemed to take forever, hiding, waiting for a break and then dashing from cover to cover, avoiding the undead. At times I had to backtrack. Other times I had to shoot my way past small groups, drawing the attention of even more walking carcasses. Every time I had to use my weapon I had to go into a more circuitous