Mall Rats (reposted)

September 8th, Keep Running

Luck flitted away from Matthew butterfly fast the moment he pulled up that hood and ran from that store.

Matthew ran and ran and ran some more. He was maybe halfway across the city, maybe more maybe less, when he finally allowed himself to stop. He would have kept going, not trusting his current safety, but there was a painful stitch in his side that refused to be ignored. Winded, he clutched at the throbbing and tried to find a stride that relieved the pressure.

"I'm never doing that again," he promised breathlessly. "I am never, ever, ever, going to do that in my life I swear I will not."

Talking made the pain ten times worse but he couldn't stop. The words spilled out of his mouth before he could stop them, as soon as they formed in his head they were out his mouth. He could think and he could speak and he could hear because he was alive and all the pain meant that he was too.

"You couldn't pay me enough to do that again. I mean it."

Forget town, forget cities, forget everything. He was going to forage for berries and hope they don't kill him. He'd rather live off the land through trial and error because that grocery store nightmare was never happening again. He couldn't take another one. He lost ten years of his life back there. He wasn't even sure he had ten years to give.

"I swear I can't wait to get out this forsaken fu-"

Of course, when Matthew turned the block with strange gait and clutching side and breathless speech - turned left just like when he turned that aisle only way worse - there was an entire horde of undead standing in the middle of the street. Staring. Staring at him.

Matthew counted twenty at the glance. Six or nine right in front of him no more than five feet. Only the length of a person between him and something that wanted him as a meal.

One of them opened its jaw and screeched.

With icicle fingers and burning ears Matthew watched as the crowd turned towards him. His blood stopped in his veins. His heartbeat was in his ears.

Another screeched.

Matthew ran.

The zombies followed, loudly.

Before Matthew was one boy on an empty street. Now he was one boy plus many clumsy zombies on a street full of obstacles. Their feet slapped and smacked, and an odd one or two bulldozed through garbage bins and disposed boxes. One had the audacity to ram into a car and trigger its alarm. The sound shot out through the silent city.

"I'm gonna. Kill! That one."

Talking was stupid. It was stupid and useless to talk and waste his breath.

Curious zombies, doing whatever zombies do when they mind their own business, flocked to the streets, attracted by the noise. Every corner Matthew tried to take, every alleyway he went to duck into, was blocked by more incoming bodies. He couldn't outrun them. It was impossible.

He'd scream if he wasn't one hundred percent sure it'd attract the other five zombies that missed the big commotion.

Matthew didn't scream. He kept his mouth shut, bobbed and weaved, and ran. He ignored the stitch in his side, the shortness of his breath, and the burning of his lungs. If he stopped he was going to be zombie lunch. He need a place to hide. Or to climb. To cling onto until they lost interest and dispersed.

He couldn't outrun this. But he couldn't go on for much longer.

He couldn't breathe. Every breath burned. Down his throat and in his lungs. Coming out of his nostrils burned. The air he sucked in was hot and dry, and the air he expelled was the same. It scratched like swallowing glass.

The pain in his side was arguably worse. Like someone jammed a winch handle into his gut and was twisting with every step. His insides were pinched together. Everything was out of place and he felt it with every step. Organs lifted and fell with the rise and fall of his feet.

But he couldn't stop running. Because if he stopped he was dead.

The monsters would descend with no hesitation. One pause, one misstep equaled death. That frenzy on his flank, attracted by is pounding heart and quickened breath, that frenzy would tear him to shreds. Pop open his organs like bags of chips. There wouldn't be anything left to turn him into a zombie because there was not enough of him to go around and they knew that. It was every man come for himself, first come first serve.

Matthew couldn't stop. And he couldn't outrun them. He needed a place to stop and hide or climb. Anything before the wind finally left his chest and he collapsed.

So he kept running. He looked out for abandoned poster stands and he kept running. Through the city. Across the highway. Putting of death by just a little bit.

That was, until he ran directly into the parking lot of a huge, busted down mall and faltered.

"Of all!"

He coughed and stumbled and tried again.

"Of all the! Fucking! Places!" he screamed at the lot.

Author's note in the external /profile link.