Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  Deacon pulls his Glock up and places a single round in the rotting flesh of the thing’s head that’s eating Casey. It falls backwards into the crates. Casey’s munched on body crumbles to the floor half eaten, blood and chunks of meaty red flesh dangling from her bones.

  On my knees and trying to focus every bit of strength I have left, I grab Pete’s arms and pull back. In my mind, I’m pissed off to the point of a nuclear meltdown, but my body feels tattered and worn, crippling my ability to do anything but watch him sink further into the unknown. I know I dislike the bastard, but I don’t need him dead just yet. Man, does that make me sound like an asshole or what?

  I hear the army of undead echoing through the corridor and dig as deep as I can go, leaning back and pulling with all my might.

  Both Alice and Deacon join in. Pete’s body reverses direction and slowly emerges out of the crates.

  “So, tell me again, why are we saving this asshole?” I ask jokingly. My body is on the verge of a total shutdown and the odds of me getting back up and getting the hell out of here are looking slim.

  “Because he may be an asshole, but at least he’s human,” Deacon replies through clinched teeth.

  Well, human may be a stretch. Am I any better?

  Kneeling there and paying no mind to what else is out for our succulent bodies, I don’t even notice the undead monster come up on us. It is slow moving and quiet, almost as if it was hunting like a lion in the Savannah. Its arms and hands are stripped of most of its flesh, leaving a thin layer of mutilated meaty skin that clings to the dull white bones. The skin from its face is torn and ripped all over, its eyes missing and leaving two hollow spaces.

  “Behind you!” I yell to Deacon, sending his head twisting around.

  Its hands are already reaching for Deacon’s shoulder, its mouth ajar. I could have sworn I saw it lick its dried up, crusty lips, like dinner was served. Deacon lets go of Pete’s arm and turns to the vile thing, grabbing its throat with his right hand and shoving back. Its jaws snap and it gives that crazed moan.

  Things are quickly getting out of hand. With Deacon letting go, I can’t hold on to Pete any longer. I feel nearly drained and don’t need to risk our lives any more for a lost cause. I let go and Pete’s motionless body slides back in the darkness, disappearing from sight.

  Deacon manages to remove his Glock and places the barrel under the dead man’s chin, its meatless fingers gliding around Deacon’s face as it tries to move in closer for the kill. I can hear him grunting and straining to hold it back. The gun sounds off and the thing’s brains splatter out the top of its head. I struggle to get to my feet.

  Deacon turns my way, his gun pointed to the ground as Alice grabs my arm and helps me up. I’m in bad shape and almost feel like a burden to the others, feeble and without any energy to spare. I don’t know why I’m nearly spent, but I’m thankful the others didn’t ditch me and run.

  “We need to get . . .” Deacon is cut off mid sentence when another one of the infected, more preserved, materializes out of the darkness and grabs him. It tosses him with relative ease against some barrels and crates, creating a clanging sound that echoes through the musty stale air.

  I remove Alice’s hold on my arm and shove her behind me. I will do what I can to stop it or at least slow it down, allowing her to run somewhere. My spaghetti legs wobble uncontrollably and my one remaining good eye is dimming by the second.

  Man, we are so screwed.

  I’m not sure what happened to the gun I was carrying. I must have kicked it away in all the commotion.

  The thing stands there, breathing heavy, its black eyes staring right into my soul, bearing sharp, stained red teeth and a pale face that still looks fresher than most I have seen thus far. But this one is different. It’s dressed in some kind of black combat gear and is much more agile and stronger than the others. The way it just tossed Deacon to the side like a rag doll doesn’t give me much confidence about beating it.

  Saliva oozes from both corners of its crusty dried lips and its body heaves like it’s getting ready to charge us. The other moans are so close now. If we make it out of this alive and in one piece, it will be a miracle. “Whatever happens, I want you to run and get the hell away from here.”

  Alice holds firm behind me, her hands gripping my sides and her chin resting on my shoulder as the dead combat solider darts forward with arms and hands reaching for us. I muster what little strength I can and collide with the dead soldier, grabbing its arms and feebly kneeing it in the side. Its breath smells of rotten flesh and some putrid concoction that nearly burns my eyes up. I think all I did was piss it off more.

  It easily overpowers me and throws me to the side, slamming my already aching body against some crates. The wood splinters and gives way as I bust through it, sending something dull and jagged into my side. It feels as if someone’s digging a rusted knife into my kidneys. Blood flows freely from the gash and my breathing goes from shitty to almost nothing.

  “Alice . . . get out . . . of . . . here.”

  The dead soldier takes his attention away from me, and stares at Alice. Not sure if it’s saving me for later or just wants more of a challenge. Maybe it’s the chase that tastes so much sweeter. The thrill of the hunt, if you will.

  Alice turns to run, but is confronted with a solid wall of dead bodies marching her way. Heads cocked to the side and arms reaching out in front of them, the crowd of mindless man-eaters surge forward. Watching a man bite it and get ripped to shreds was hard enough, but having to witness a woman engulfed is unbearable.

  The dead soldier rushes forward and grabs Alice from behind, trying to sink its teeth into her succulent skin. Its arms wrap around her chest and lift her off the ground, sending Alice’s screams like a dagger into my fading heart.

  I’ve become so soft. Damn it!

  All I can do is watch the soldier toy with its food, its jaws snapping at the nape of Alice’s neck like a wild animal. She thrashes around, and dodges its every attempt to take a taste, keeping her neck and body forward as much as possible to avoid its lethal bite.

  I’m right there on the floor, bleeding to death as far as I can tell, and I can’t even swat at the damn thing. It’s getting so close to sinking its teeth into her. One nibble and that’s it for Alice, and I’m stuck here like a helpless piece of crap to watch this horrid scene play out like a stomach churning car wreck. To add insult to injury, the murder of undead souls is getting within striking distance. Perfect!

  I try to will myself over to the soldier, to kick it, punch it—hell even insult it to make it let go and temporarily forget about her. No dice though. It doesn’t act like I’m even there. But Alice seems damn determined to not end up on the dinner table.

  Amidst the screaming and squirming, Alice tosses her dirty blonde head back and whacks it in the thing’s pale, decaying nose. A loud crunch fills my ears and the sight of its thick, black, coagulated blood oozing out of its nose like a leaky faucet sends joy down my spine. Too bad she just pissed it off that much more.

  The strikingly hard blow did jack to deter it from keeping after its meal, and it still advances its teeth at her. Somehow, Alice wiggles out of its grasp and falls to the floor, twisting her head around and looking upon death itself with a scared shitless expression. It wastes little time with thoughts of “should I or shouldn’t I” and advances again, but is suddenly stopped cold by something that grabs it from behind.

  Where the hell did that come from?

  The unknown savior wraps its arms around the soldier’s chest and sinks its teeth into the side of the soldier’s neck, pulling away and ripping a massive amount of rotten flesh away that sends blood squirting out the side. Half of its neck missing, the soldier convulses like an epileptic while the mysterious thing devours the meaty mess.

  The soldier crumples to the floor hard and lifeless, again, right at the soles of my feet as this rogue infected kneels down and digs in. Now I have witnessed some pretty messed up crap since being her
e, but I have yet to see one dead bastard eat another. I’m not complaining, just really confused about which team this thing is really batting for.

  I keep my movement to a minimum and twist my heavy head towards Alice, trying to get her attention while this thing feasts. My eyesight is super blurry now, and I feel as if I will faint at any moment.

  Alice has this petrified look on her face, her mouth ajar as if she might hurl. The squishing sound is nauseating as that thing continues tearing chunks of bloody, dead meat from that soldier. My stomach churns and burns, the smell gripping my nostrils and filling them with that putrid odor.

  “Alice.” I try to keep my voice low and unnoticeable, finally breaking Alice’s trance of utter fear and uncertainty. She looks my way, tears slowly trickling down her reddish checks. I can see the vague outline of something coming up behind her. I know what it is and again I’m helpless to do anything.

  “Get up and get out of here now!” I finally yell at her, not caring that one of them is right next to me. It still seems occupied.

  Alice scrambles to her feet and gives me one last look of goodbye, but two more dead souls, a man and woman dressed in dingy, light blue medical scrubs, grab Alice from behind and start snapping at any part of her body they can sink their rotten teeth into. I try to lean forward and help, but my body feels as if it wants to go into a deep hibernation. I guess it’s better to be asleep when the dead start to eat me. If she gets away from them somehow, maybe I can get their attention.

  The screaming and yelling Alice is doing distracts the rogue infected from his meal, his rotting and decaying head twisting around. He bolts to his feet and grabs the nurse, ripping its skin challenged head clean from its body with relative ease. A single thick stream of what looks like purple liquid shoots up from the nurse’s exposed neck. It releases Alice and falls to the side, motionless.

  The black haired woman, whose jaw is fully exposed and her left half-eaten breast is poking through her torn scrub, doesn’t pay any mind to what is happening, still fighting to get a taste of Alice’s supple skin. Alice screams, and struggles to escape its clutches any way she can, kicking her legs and swinging her arms in every direction.

  The wolf in sheep’s clothing, for the moment, appears to be helping out the living, ripping Alice away from her voracious attacker and pushing her to the side. It darts for the woman that is still focused on Alice, not paying any mind to me or anything else that is coming between its meal.

  With almost a brutal and primitive nature, the rogue infected sinks its jaw into the side of the woman’s face and clamps down, tearing a sheet of sagging and mangled flesh from her already decaying cheek.

  That must have snapped her out of her hunger induced state, turning her rapacious attention away from Alice to the man standing in front of her. Too bad she’s sluggish. Before she can get her deformed arms up to grab hold, the rogue infected reaches for her neck and snaps it. Her glazed over eyes and unyielding search for flesh ceases, and her mutated body falls limp to the ground as her head bobbles loosely on her shoulders.

  The rogue infected whips around and gazes upon Alice, its chest heaving hard and chunks of blood soaked skin mashed between its teeth. Instead of going after her and claiming its meal, it just stands there. I’m not sure why or what its motive is. I mean, it’s taken out the competition, momentarily that is. The murder of flesh-eaters are so close now that I can nearly see their discolored teeth.

  For a brief moment, I think Alice is frozen with fear or maybe uncertain what to do since this one is unlike any of the others. But that’s not it at all. She stares at it intently, as if trying to pierce the dead flesh and rotting skin to see the person within.

  “Trent . . . is that you?” Alice mutters, carefully getting to her feet and looking the creature in its cold, dark black eyes.

  Trent? I remember her calling me that when we first met. Is it her husband, brother, distant cousin or something? I’m not sure, but considering how she looked at me with those longing eyes that held some blip of hope, I would venture to say that he is someone important to her. In either case, I feel it’s a pipe dream that will soon blow up in her face.

  The moans and shrills from the approaching murder must have brought the rogue infected out of whatever was keeping it focused on Alice. It lunges forward, scoops Alice up by the waist, and tosses her over its shoulder. I can hear her breathing a little hard, panicking somewhat, but still keeping her composure as if she feels safe. She’s not even fighting to get free, slung over this creature’s shoulder like a rolled up rug. I don’t know how she can remain so calm and even feel secure in the arms of some dead man that has an apparent hunger for flesh, regardless if it’s living or not. At this point, she is on her own.

  It twists around and looks me dead in my fading eyes, blood trickling down from both corners of its crusty lips. With a snarl and a shrill of its own, it bolts in the opposite direction, Alice’s body bouncing up and down on its shoulder as they both fade into the blackness beyond. In my mind, I say goodbye to Alice, hoping that her death is swift and painless.

  I reach around to my back and probe the deep, meaty gash that has spilled so much of my blood. I feel like a gutted fish that has been thrown into shark infested waters to bring the masses to one central location.

  I lay my head back on the cold, wet cement floor, the army of cold-blooded killers passing by me while one of them stops and stands over me. I hope I pass on quickly, not wanting to be awake when my body is torn apart like a wounded animal.

  Breathing hard and something wet dripping from its mouth onto my face, the infected kneels next to my body. Its mutated hands poke and prod me all over as the herd of infecteds passes through and oddly enough, none of them is paying me any mind.

  I keep lying motionless, thinking for some reason it might treat me like a bear would—play dead and they just walk away. My eyes are clamped shut, mostly due to the fact that I can’t keep them open. I guess it’s out of pure morbid curiosity, but I want to see what’s going on. I want to see what the hell this thing is doing.

  I force my eyes open for a short second and nearly defecate myself, finding the infected right in front of my face. It looks into my eyes deep and hard as my vision becomes narrow, falling backwards into a tunnel of blackness that seems never ending. I take a couple short, deep breaths and pass out, it’s mangled and horrific face the last thing I see as I fade away.

  9

  I can’t move. My body is limp and unresponsive to any sort of command I give it, but my mind bounces all over, still firing on all cylinders. I have no idea how long I’ve been lying here on this cold, unforgiving floor. Seems like a damn eternity. The only body function that seems to be working is my hearing. It’s quiet, extremely quiet—except for the intermittent dripping of water hitting the ground.

  I try again to move something, anything. Open my eyes, smile, wiggle a toe, move a finger, but nothing. For all I know, those death dealers ravaged my body to the point of leaving nothing more than my severed head—tossed to the side like unwanted garbage. If that’s the case, why is my brain still functioning? Why haven’t I bled out yet like a stuck pig?

  At this point, I would say that my heart is racing and I feel as if I could hyperventilate, but I’d just be going through the motions of someone who is having a nervous breakdown in my head.

  All right, I need to calm my brain down. Stop thinking about what I can’t do and regain some sort of sense of self. Bombarding myself with all these questions and being scatterbrained isn’t going to do any good. It will just make matters worse.

  I stop with the interrogation on my brain and let it relax, my thoughts drifting around aimlessly, trying to focus on something that I can hold onto. I’m not thinking of anything in particular, but just letting that muscle flex and do its thing. I instantly feel calmer and at peace. Memories of my past play through my mind like a home movie spliced together randomly. The last time I drifted off and retreated back into my mind it was horrid and dam
n near broke my soul in half. Watching my sweet angel die in my arms from what I had done to her. I know it was a dream, a nightmare even, or was it?

  I shake the thought from my head while my brain keeps fast-forwarding through my past, zipping by memories that I hold dear. I can feel myself not worrying so much about the here and now. It’s a good feeling.

  But the joy that builds up inside me suddenly stops and confusion sets in. The replay of Mike’s Life takes a turn to a memory that seems really fuzzy. Like a dream where you remember it the next morning, but it’s fragmented so badly that it leaves you trying to figure out what the hell it was.

  I remember that day, well some of it anyways. The morning was great. The sun was shining and I had breakfast with Becky. I can still smell her famous eggs and waffles, smothered in butter and maple syrup, and the smell of a fresh pot of coffee flowing through the kitchen. The morning paper lays folded in half next to my plate. Looking back now, I wish I had made more time to spend with her, even if it is five more minutes. But all I did was wolf down the hearty meal, gulp down the black coffee, and jet out the door with no conversation to get my day going. At least I gave her a kiss, which always seemed to bring a smile to her face.

  I was starting a new job as a security guard for some pharmaceutical company. For some reason, the name is escaping me right now. Anyhow, I felt lucky, being out of work and a former military man, not too many jobs fit my work history of killing people for a living. This job seemed like a God send. Good pay, good hours, good benefits. I felt as if I had hit the proverbial job lottery, especially considering how many people were still unemployed.

  The morning commute was rather quick and unobstructed, the freeway flowing uncongested as far as the eye could see. A sign of the times for sure.

  After listening to my favorite sports radio station for thirty minutes and wondering what the day had in store, I hit the front gate of my new job. No guard was in sight, just a single keypad that stood semi-concealed in the thick, green brush. Actually, from the street, you couldn’t see any of the building due to all the overgrown vegetation. Not sure if that was intentional or just part of nature.