The following story is an original work. It may not be reproduced or published elsewhere without the author's permission.
To obtain permission or to get more info, contact Scuttles@ScaryPlace.com.
Living Deadby David Brookes
Copyright 2001 All rights reserved
davidbrookesuk@yahoo.co.uk
Through blood-caked eyes and matted hair he looked at the man entering the room. Sat in the wooden chair with a shredded shirt and injured legs and stared, his eyes misted over. Blood flowed down his filthy face and lay there crusted and discoloured. Obviously the man had been through a lot.
The person entering the room, distraught and frightened, arrived with a policeman. He looked at the man in the chair with deep eyes and moved closer to examine him. "Where is my daughter?" he asked.
Then the man in the chair laughed. He curled back his bloodied upper lips and let out a howl that echoed through the rotten and filthy room, a hidden urge coming to surface. The hearty, painful laugh must have lasted for a full minute. The man stared deeper into his eyes. "Your daughter is dead," the seated man said. "She's dead, and I'm the only one left!"
The man before him stood in a daze for a moment, eyed out this ragged person on the chair at his feet. He could see and hear the pain, understand the frightening recent past. With a dry throat he said, "Tell me what happened."
In his chair the man breathed heavily. He hadn't had a sip to drink that whole day, and his blood was dry due to dehydration and bleeding. The policeman wanted answers, but he opened a flask of harsh whiskey and let the brown fluid flow down his gullet. "My name is Matt Larkin. I've been trapped in this damned flat for at least fifteen hours." He faced the suited, balding man. "Your daughter. Was it Carolyn?"
"Yes."
"Well Carolyn's dead, as I said. It's funny really," the two men eyeballed each other. "She was the one who told me we would both get out. Alive, that is. She'll be leaving a black bodybag."
"I don't get it," the policeman said. "What happened here? Who caused all of this damage, to these flats, to you?"
He laughed. "You won't believe me, but I'll tell you anyway. What have I to use?" They waited. He answered. "The living dead. Zombies, whatever. They'll put filthy, rotted fingers up your nostrils and pull out your brain, and they'll suck the blood from your still-beating heart after ripping it roughly from your chest ..."
The policeman stared at him, obviously he had heard some stories in his time. The balding father of Carolyn Price was visibly feeling sick."Go on."
***
Larkin leaned back on the wall of the elevator and lit the cigarette. Looking across the five-foot box he saw Carolyn Price, dressed up from the party she mentioned earlier. He was about to lean forwards to talk some more when the banging started. Loud banging. There was a deep clang, accompanied later by the sound of a single cable thumping against the box.
"Shit," Larkin said. He flicked the cigarette to the floor and stamped it out. "Lift's bust."
Carolyn said nothing and watched as he approached the lift door and tapped the metal close to the floor: Clang, clang. He moved his fist higher up, near the top: Cling, cling. "We're between floors. If we could get the door open, we can climb up through the gap." He moved a little closer and pushed his fingers between the rubber lining and pulled, the muscles under his shirt tensing. It took two tries, but the door eventually hissed and slid open on a mechanism. He beckoned for the women he barely knew to climb upwards.
"What if it starts moving while I'm half-way through?" she whined.
"Stop whining. I hate that. Get moving." He waved her closer and lifted her by her waist through the gap. When he saw her legs straighten and move to the side he jumped up himself with ease and pulled his way through. He stood and looked down the corridor at the mess before him. "What the hell happened here?"
Lights flickered a little down the unlit corridor, sending blue sparks out over the reflective polished floors. There was rubble broken from the walls and litter from toppled bins had fallen across the tiles by their feet. The window at the end of the corridor was smashed, and broken glass lined the small balcony, thirty feet off the ground.
"It looks like a bomb went off!" Carolyn said. "Something's wrong."
Larkin guided her to the stairs and went to his apartment by foot, going up another two floors before he arrived at the splintered door, the brass numbers knocked off and lay scuffed on the floor. Although the door had flakes it was in relatively good condition - apart from the fact that it was laying on its side by his feet. Pushing the door open he shushed the relative stranger standing behind him.
There was someone inside his apartment. Maybe they knew what had happened, and even if they didn't they had no right to sneak around in his home . . . Larkin moved towards the sound, through the wrecked lounge/kitchen and through the entrance to his bedroom, the door held on by only one hinge. The noises were coming from inside, muffled but clear.
He jumped as soft flesh hit his shoulder and spun his around, his heart rate increased, his pupils dilated . . . It was Carolyn. "I couldn't let you go in alone."
"Fine, just be quiet." He pushed her to the side. People often condemned him for treating women like he would a man, but in his view there was no large difference. If he could take it, she could take it.
He moved aside the already half-open door and tried to peer into the darkness - heart beating, breath harsh - and stepped inside. There was nothing there.
Then it jumped out, the hideous creature, moving on two legs and outstretching its flaky arms to grasp around his neck. It's face was horrible to behold, the skin peeled around a thin blood-red mouth and eyes black, like dark pits of never-ending mist and night . . . Larkin recoiled but couldn't escape it's grasp, and he balled up his fist and punched it hard in the face, once, twice. The man-beast shrieked as the fist pounded his face and the flaky skin came off in chunks. The flesh fell away, and as Larkin saw bone beneath his fist the creature dropped finally, the fingers still grasped around his throat.
He tore them away and breathed heavily. "Was that . . ?"
"I'm not sure," Carolyn said. "It looked like a person . . ."
"No-one I knew. He looked like he had been dead for a week, and the smell . . ." He stopped there, knowing exactly what it was, what he thought it was. And he knew that Carolyn knew also . . . But was he right? He rubbed the red finger marks and knew instantly. "We both know that he was dead." He looked at the body. It looked a like a corpse, but it was alive. "What do we do n-"
He was suddenly cut off by a searing pain in his head, and his vision disappeared into a misty darkness. He was vaguely aware of a woman's voice calling "Are you alright?" but it soon dissipated into the high-frequency pitch that filled his head. The inside of his head thumped and the ringing noise got louder. He knew that he must have been screaming, but he couldn't hear . . .
Then it stopped. And he was somewhere else. White walls, polished floor-tiles. He was in some kind of cell, blocked off by an invisible wall he couldn't see, but there was a pale ring of lights that went around the door-frame. He felt afraid, though he couldn't be sure it was his own fear; the vision was powerful but much like a dream. He heard a voice scream in pain, and saw a pair of men in white coats rush past the invisible force-field. What the hell was this?!
Again it stopped, and the white light faded away into the murky red darkness of his trashed apartment. Carolyn had her hands on his shoulders. "Are you alright?" she asked. "You were in some kind of trance, I couldn't get through to you!"
Larkin rubbed his aching skull. "I'm fine," he said, out of breath a little. "Yes, I'm okay. It was some kind of vision . . . Or hallucination. I'm not sure what it meant."
"Well whatever happened you have to stay with me. I don't know what's going on in this place, but I need someone here with me. I can't handle this on my own . . ."
"Come on." He guided her out of his 'shack', as he called it, and they moved out into the corridor towards Carolyn's own place.
***
The policeman looked skeptical. "So, you fell into a trance, where you saw mad scientists and heard someone screaming? Oh, right, that's after you were attacked by the living dead . . ."
Matt Larkin laughed, but was interrupted by a cough which sent a splatter of blood over his chest. He lifted up part of his slashed shirt, already coated with his own fluids, and wiped his mouth. "Yeah, that's right." He smiled. "So, you wanna lock me away now, or do you wanna find out what happened to his daughter?"
***
This door seemed strangely fine, and looked almost habitable from the outside. The wood was not splintered, and there was no blood over the polished brass numbers of Carolyn's apartment. Larkin carefully pushed open the door. "Be careful," he warned.
They could already hear voices, or more accurately groaning, coming from where the lounge was. Creeping around the corner and keeping Carolyn back, he looked around. There were at least three living corpses, talking and almost laughing, together in the sofa area. One stood and attacked another, his claws shredding into her skin and splitting the rotting flash. The female 'zombie' shrieked and lashed out, catching the attacker's neck and a chunk fell away. The beast dropped and writhed on the floor, and was silenced by the third corpse.
Larkin looked back at his new friend and asked her if there were anything he could use as a weapon in her flat. She told him "in the kitchen," and he decided to sneak his way around the outside of the room, caste into darkness by the broken light, and find a knife or something. He moved around the room anti-clockwise - it was closer to the kitchen area - and his foot tapped lightly on the tiles. His fingers ran around the counter behind him, and he always kept his eyes on the things in the centre of the room.
Then one looked up. It groaned, and beckoned to it's friends. They stood also, and slowly shuffled towards him. Shit, he thought, as they moved closer. They were surprisingly fast, and were already halfway towards him, dragging their injured legs along the floor with the good one. They moaned and reached out, like a sleepwalker with a bad-skin-day, and the nearest one made a lunge.
Larkin used the closest thing he could find to his hands - a food blender - and pulled it forwards, slammed it over the zombies face and flicked the switch. Blood swirled around inside as it's head was ripped apart by the silver blades. The plug was tugged out of the socket, and the blender stopped, the dead-man-walking fell to the ground. But the other two were getting closer and closer. For a split second Larkin looked around and saw a large sandwich toaster. Gripping it strongly he swung it around and caught the creature n the side of the face. Hard. Hard enough to knock the cataract-covered left eye out of it's socket, so that it swung on a loose tendon. He swung again, but the thing wasn't going down easily. The zombie raised a fetid hand and grabbed his throat, and Larkin swung again, and again, but with no avail. It tightened its grip on his neck . . . And squeezed . . .
Carolyn had moved into the room, against Larkin's wishes. She saw him struggling against the two zombies, one gripping his around the base of the neck and the other just behind, getting ready to strike. She lifted up a table lamp and smashed it over the head of the nearest. It turned round and smashed it's hand around the side of her face and knocked her down, and she screamed as she hit the coffee table.
Larkin had dropped the sandwich toaster in attempt to add strength to his defense, trying to force the filthy hands away from his throat. He couldn't breathe . . . His breath escaped in short gasps, but he couldn't refill his lungs . . . He balled up his fist again and thumped it in the jaw, and another chunk of curled skin fell away. His fist connected again and it fell, and he drove his boot into it's face in anger. It was clearly no threat, but he carried on kicking until there was no face left to kick. He finally stopped.
He looked up - Carolyn had been knocked to the ground, and the thing was standing over her, in its hand a knife from the kitchen. It lowered until it was in striking range and raised its arm high, ready to stab . . . It fell over backwards, and Larkin looked at the dirty-red blade in his own hand and down back at the body by his feet.
"Are you alright?" he asked. He wasn't in the habit of being nice, but he might as well start somewhere. "You looked injured." He pulled her up roughly to her feet.
"I feel a little dizzy, but I'm okay. Let go of me." He hadn't realized he still had his hand gripped around her arm. He let go. "Why were they all in here?"
"I'm not sure." Larkin looked around and surveyed the apartment. The place was dirty, as was the rest of the flats. "Maybe they were looking for something?"
She stammered, not knowing exactly what to say. She paused, and looked at Larkin strangely. "Are you okay?"
"I feel fine," he said, a hand to his head. "I just . . ."
His hand was flat against his head again, and he gritted his teeth. And then it started again. The searing pain, the burning white light that filled his whole mind. Sound blotted out from around him, and as suddenly as it started he was back in the place again, the strange white place with white walls and white tiles. But he wasn't in the same place exactly, a different part of what his subconscious mind knew to be some kind of laboratory. It felt strangely familiar, though he was sure he had never been there before. He tried to move, but realized he couldn't. He was staring straight at the ceiling, and realized that he couldn't move at all, not just his arms. His legs were tied down also, and it seemed his forehead was tied down to the table or bed or whatever was holding him down, stopping him moving. He heard voices again. They were talking - no, arguing. Arguing about what? He concentrated . . . "We already have enough to proceed," a male voice said. "But . . . Well, there's something wrong, and I'm not quite sure what it is."
"We should carry on straight away!" A female voice said. She sounded large, and her voice was sharp and authoritative. "One week . . . Then we start."
Larkin listened as though he had already heard it, like a deja vu. But still he listened, and footsteps were heard coming from the direction of the speech. He saw two of the scientists walk by, the man and woman who had been talking. They were rushing, and he felt their white coats flutter as they rushed past. Larkin forced his neck muscles to expand and somehow the straps around his head released. He twisted his head and looked at the commotion.
What he saw struck cold horror into his heart. A man, strapped down like he was, but writhing, twisting in pain. The man screamed, and Larkin saw his flesh ripple and tear. His eyes seemed to turn in their sockets, and a creamy-white cataract formed rapidly over the blue iris and pitch black pupils. He screamed, screamed for help. The strap around his head snapped as Larkin's did and he looked up, managed to wrench an arm free, hold it out to . . . Then the scream turned to a snarl, and the man grinned and hissed at Larkin in a hideous twist of behavior . . . Larkin turned away, and felt the vision fade away back to reality.
Carolyn was waiting with puffy eyes for him to recover from his bout of meditation. When he came to she asked him what he saw. "There's somewhere in these flats," Larkin explained, the headache drumming again. "Somewhere near here . . . In laboratories. They were deliberately turning those people into the zombies, or whatever they are. Strapping them down, doing something to them to make them change."
"Where were you?" she asked.
"I was strapped down also . . . I'm don't know what happened. I think . . ."
"What is it?"
"I think they're not visions, but memories. I'm not certain, but all the way through I had this strange feeling of deja vu."
"But, if they are memories, how come they you don't remember them properly? How come you weren't changed?"
"I don't know. I guess . . . I guess I escaped or something. Maybe they released me, wiped my mind. Not compatible or something, I don't know. But they were memories, I know it." He rubbed his head. "We have to find those labs."
***
"But that still doesn't explain what happened to my daughter!" Mr. Price yelled. "Tell me what happened, now!"
Larkin grinned the sick smile again. "We made our way to the basement, and we were ambushed. There were dozens of those things, and someone - a person - in the background. I couldn't see his face."
Mr. Price shuffled in his collar - something was seriously bothering him and it wasn't his dead daughter. "Than how come you ended up here? I assume this is your apartment."
"It is. And I don't know how I arrived here, the last thing I remember was being swamped by those . . . things. I have vague memories - real memories - of that white place, the labs. I think they must have taken me back there . . ."
"I have had enough of this!" The policeman said. "You're under arrest, Mr. Larkin. I've heard enough of your bull-shit. Stand up." He roughly grabbed Larkin by the ripped shirt.
"No!" Price yelled. "This is nothing to do with the law - this is my problem, and I'm going to solve it!"
"That's not for me to decide, Mr Price," the policeman said. "It's for the jury. Let's get this man out of here . . ."
Then Price pulled out the gun. He pointed it straight at the policeman and grinned a sickly smile. "I think you already know too much." The gun fired. The policeman fell. "Now Larkin, stand up."
The other man laughed. He laughed until he cried, that painful sound that came from his scream-ripped lungs. Price looked at him, this strange, already half-dead man, and moved the small pistol closer to him. "Move it. I don't know how far along you are, but I think it would be best to end this now."
"You think I have anything to live for now? No family, no apartment . . . No Carolyn? Shoot me, see if I give a damn." And the gun fired. Larkin went limp in the chair and his suffering ended.
Price put the gun back into his jacket and blew the dust off his hands. "Oh, well. Shit happens, I suppose." He smiled. "At least you never got to tell anyone."
As he walked towards the door, he murmured the name of his deceased daughter. Why did everything have to be so hard to decide? In the name of research, everything he had done - it was all acceptable in the great scheme of things. Like he said, shit happens. His thoughts were interrupted as he was suddenly pulled back as a flesh-torn hand wrapped around his face, the death and decay filling his nostrils. Around a moldy, dirty face pale milky-coloured eyes looked mockingly at his silent scream, as Matt Larkin feasted.
fini