Better off Undead

Chapter 27: A World Apart

The story so far...

After arriving at town to collect supplies, Eli and the others were attacked and captured by a sadistic, talking zombie. With the help of a second group they were able to escape, but Eli sacrificed himself to save the others and struck out on his own. Finally having survived his ordeal and returned to the camp, he is about to discover that even more secrets await for him at his new home...

Bright morning sunlight fell over the prone form, coaxing it back into the waking world. The figure, Eli, stirred and, with great resentment, opened his eyes.

His entire body hurt. His head hurt, his throat hurt, his back hurt. His hands felt a little like they were on fire. He tried to wiggle his toes and immediately winced. Even his toes hurt. With immense effort he rolled over, and to his surprise found himself on the floor. He pushed himself up and glanced around. For a moment his heart seemed to stop. He did not recognize his surroundings in the slightest. He was in a small, square room. About halfway up all four of the walls they turned into windows that stretched to the ceiling. On one wall there was a door, and on the wall opposite there was a console with various monitors and switches and other controls. There were two chairs below the console.

On the floor was a mattress – the one he must have slept on – and it was tied up in a thick rope. He winced as he realized that he had slept on the rope as well as the mattress, which was probably a large part of the reason why his body hurt so much. In fact, as his mind focused around this revelation, he became more and more certain that he could actually feel where the rope had been pressed against his body all night.

The rope was tied off toward the center of the mattress, and a strand rolled away down across the room where it looped around the floor mounted pole for one of the chairs before bundling up into a little pile on the floor.

Eli blinked rapidly and then cupped his hands around his eyes in an effort to block out some of the sun's glare. The world seemed far too bright, the creaking of the room and the wind blowing by outside seemed far too loud, and his head felt like it was physically throbbing. On top of that, his brain seemed to be on vacation. He could not seem to wrap his mind around any coherent thoughts. He could not figure out where he was, he could not figure out how or why he was there, and he could not figure out why there was a rope tied around his bed.

He rose to his feet, but only made it about half way before losing his balance and being forced to stumble about in an effort to stay upright. He collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily, and letting its unyielding surface provide him with stability and a respite.

After a time he opened his eyes, surprised to learn that they had been closed. He realized from the wet spot against his cheek that he had fallen asleep leaning against the wall. He pushed himself away from the wall until he was standing almost vertical. The world seemed to dive for cover. Eli blinked several times and shook his head. When his vision cleared, everything looked normal once more.

With much greater balance and determination, Eli stepped over to the door and flung it open. He started to step outside of the room, but drew back with such suddenness that he fell off balance and collapsed onto his backside. Outside the door was only a thin walkway circling the room followed by a drop of twenty or thirty feet. In a striking moment of clarity, he realized where he was: up in one of the guard towers.

At some point in the night, he must have become so drunk and angry that he came to the decision that he did not even want to live near the other people in the group anymore. So, with surprising ingenuity for a drunk person, he had tied up one of the dorm mattresses in a rope and dragged it up a ladder into a guard tower. The process must have been such an exertion that once he made it up into the tower he had just collapsed on the bed without bothering to untie the rope.