A Zombie Story: Pushing Through the Madness

They both let out a snarl and advanced towards me slowly. I glared back, cursed, and spat at them while keeping a tactical distance from them. We squared off like in an old western, where each party waited to make the first movement.  I took a half step forward and lowered my rifle so that the tip of my bayonet was almost touching the floor. With one hand I unbuttoned the snap on my holster and freed my side arm. I held it loosely and brought it to my side, and maintained a tactical ready pose.

With a blink of an eye, I sent two .45 acp rounds into the skull on my left, dropped the gun, then ran full charge at the remaining carrier, and rammed the tip of the bayonet into its eye socket. The carrier tried to fight me off, but I applied more pressure to the rifle, and like a knife through butter, it cut deeper as I twisted the blade. I slung the rifle on my back, and picked up my XD and holstered it. Walking over to the first carrier I had killed, I yanked the axe clean out. There was only one left, and that was the amputated one, who was still scurrying ever so slowly towards me. I walked over to it, and the creature grabbed a hold of one of my boots. The thing tried to tear them off my feet. I pulled away, and spat on it. Raising my weapon high above my head, I felt nothing. Not even a shred of mercy for this poor soul who never intended to be a monster. With no remorse, I brought the axe down over its head, and blood and water splashed about, and the moving stopped. I was never one for religion, but this was good enough a time to begin believing in something again. Hopefully this God would still hear my prayer. Around my neck hung a rosary that my mother gave to me on her death bed, which was blessed by the Holy Pope himself. Maybe there was a God who was watching over me. I kissed the rosary, and pushed on.

The area was just like the ones behind me. Bodies of security men and carrier alike were scattered about, like a slob who had thrown their clothes around the room. I began looting their supplies and taking whatever I needed from their bodies. My magazines of 5.56 rounds were at full capacity. No one else carried .45 mm rounds for my XD. At least I had more ammo, but it still didn’t mean that I could waste them. Melee combat was the only effective thing at this point, and if things were to get ugly, I still had one more grenade left. I reached the elevator that would take me down, but to my luck the power was out for the lift. The controls had been damaged as well. The only option was to head down the stairwell, and I didn’t like the idea of having to go down four flights of enormous stairs in the dark. I reached into my survival satchel, and pulled out three road flares. I popped them one by one and dropped them over the railing and onto the fourth floor down. The stairway was huge, and going down four stories wasn’t going to be easy. I had no rappel rope anymore because I used it to save that coward Stockman. It still boils my blood, I should have just pulled the pin and shoved that frag into his mouth just so I could see how much shit he was full of.

I had to take on the stairwell one flight at a time. I took one knee and listened for any movement or for any other voices for that matter. Hearing none, I began my flight down. I was making so much noise, but to my surprise there was nothing coming after me. These weren’t normal flights of stairs, mind you. They just kept going down into darkness. If it had not been for the flares I dropped, I wouldn’t have known where to stop. I was exhausted, and I had only gone one flight down. I couldn’t stop, so I pushed myself to go further. After two more flights of stairs, I rested for a little while. My rest was short lived when I heard snarls from above me. I couldn’t see anything, but I could definitely hear movement. Grabbing another flare form the satchel, I sensed a presence behind me. Popping the flare, I turned around instantly.

Staring at me face to face was an enormous creature. Its face contorted into a grimace, and then roared at me. The creature dropped down and I backed away quickly, hugging the wall. In this light I couldn’t tell what it was, but my guess it was probably an infected lab animal, quite possibly a gorilla. The creature came at me at full speed, and I jumped out of its way. I watched as the monster crashed into the wall, sending pieces of debris crashing down. This thing was definitely strong, and could tear me to pieces. Picking myself up off the ground I threw the fire axe aside and unslung my rifle, with the bayonet ready to impale. Again, the beast came at me in full charge, and I let out a barrage of bullets that seemed to do nothing but make it angrier. Making my way to higher ground, I figured that I could try to mount an aerial assault on the creature.