OUTBREAK (A collection of Zombie Stories) |#Wattys2016|

PRETTY MUCH DEAD ALREADY (#1)

The only thing his mind was focused on was running... running away from those things. His entire body was numb with pain. His left leg flared like it had been stabbed with a red hot poker. His wrists were chafed by the handcuffs that held his hands behind his back. His throat was parched and his head throbbed like there was no tomorrow, but he drowned it all out. Even the burning pain in his side. All he was focused on was running...

The sun beat down mercilessly on that deserted stretch of road as the person ran down a crest in it. Following him, was the biggest herd of Zombies he had ever seen...

PRETTY MUCH DEAD ALREADY

An outbreak story

It had been the better part of an hour since the boy had begun his run from the herd. Sure, he could've gone into the forest, but on this stretch of road, the Zombies packed the forests as well - as several of them had - and would emerge from the dense undergrowth, attracted to the commotion. So, the boy had no choice but to keep on running until he found a safe place to hold up. The handcuffs meant that he couldn't even use a car, or a bike, or really any fast means of transport to get away from the herd. All he had were his two feet, one of them badly damaged, possibly a hairline crack, as it throbbed like Satan himself was slow roasting it. But the boy knew that he had to run as fast as he could to even have a remote chance of staying alive.

The surroundings began to get blurry and out of focus, but the boy willed himself to keep on going. A Zombie emerged from the forest, its rotting form shambling towards him, arms outstretched as if preemptively trying to grab him. Its skin was horribly decayed and grey. Its eyes were sunken in and completely rotten away. Its teeth were liquorish-black and it stank of rotten flesh. The Zombie fell on the boy but he slammed it into the side of a broken-down car. The boy took a step back and kicked it square in the head, breaking through its softened skull and smearing Zombie brain all over the car's windows. The headless corpse flopped to the ground.

The boy took in deep draughts of air, but his throat was dry as the Sahara and it quickly reduced to a coughing fit. In the background, he could hear the ever increasing moans and groans from the Zombie herd closing in behind him. The herd was fast approaching and he needed to out-speed it, but his lungs had other ideas. His coughing got so intense that it shook his core and shredded his throat. Tears began to stream down his eyes as the coughing got worse and worse with no release. He swallowed, coughed, swallowed and coughed some more, until the coughing fit eventually subsided.

The boy shakily got to his feet, tears streaming down his eyes. In this moment of pause, all the sadness that had been building up inside of him burst out. Why...? He thought. Why... after all that had happened, why like this? Shackled by handcuffs, forced to run away from a Zombie parade after nearly being shot... and then there was... no. I can't go there. Not that place. Not again.

Though sheer will power, he got his legs moving again and he focused his now bloodshot eyes towards the horizon. I need to survive. For me, for them... for all of them. The ones who died. I need to get off the road... as soon as possible.

The boy kept on running, his eyes scanning the road in front of him as well as the forests surrounding him for any sign of settlement. A place he could hold up in until the massive horde passed. That worked out great earlier, the boy chuckled, but deep down, he knew that staying put and waiting out the horde was his best bet.

'Eureka!" The boy exclaimed as his eyes caught something distinctly man-made amongst the monotony of the trees. He made his way to the edge of the road, swerving around the broken down cars and minivans that dotted its expanse. He took a closer look at the structure and confirmed his suspicions. It was a building! Several buildings in fact!