The following story is an original work. It may not be reproduced or published elsewhere without the author's permission.
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Repopulationby David Brookes
Copyright 2001 All rights reserved
davidbrookesuk@yahoo.co.uk
Even through the slits between the mattresses over the broken windows he could see the bright glare of the pickup headlights. Charlie Moor, hiding with his family behind the makeshift barricade made up of mattresses, a desk and a chair, turned to his wife Mary-Jane and said, "He's here - let's get a move on."
She was holding the shotgun all wrong, like a baby, the butt upwards by her shoulder and the barrels underneath her wrists, balanced on her forearm. She passed the gun to Charlie and took the baby, little Joe, from her other son Billy, who had just come back from a road-trip through Vegas. What a welcome he had had once he arrived home.
Charlie shouted, "Come on!" and pushed over the barricade and held up the shotgun. It was automatic and ran off clips of twelve rounds. He had one spare clip inside his shirt breast pocket and hoped that would be enough. The three moved towards the boarded-up door, Mary-Jane clutching the eighteen-month baby, and Charlie wrenched the mattress away.
The door had totally been smashed in from the outside, but they must have stopped smashing when they realized there was another barrier. Lucky for Charlie and his family.
They moved through the door-frame and into the cold night, wrapping their ripped coats around them as the wind chilled them to the bones. All looked around but couldn't see anything of their attackers . . . Safe for the time-being.
Mitch was waiting in the pickup, not wanting to risk honking the horn. "Get a move on!" he yelled from across the street.
Charlie thought it was too quiet. There was nothing here to 'greet' him as he left the house? They had been stuck in that mostly-wooden shack for ten, twelve hours, and they had just left? That wasn't right. They were here . . . Somewhere.
Hiding.
Suddenly one burst out from behind the rickety shed in the front garden, it groaned and shuffled, ran, towards Charlie and the family. Charlie was aware of Mitch yelling something from the pickup, but it was faded, and he raised the shotgun as the thing, it's teeth bared, it's rotten flesh peeling and dropping off, it's milky-white cataract staring deep into his mind . . . The curse of the dead. Living dead, attacking him and his family. Charlie felt his temperature rise, his blood-pressure the doctor warned him about going higher than it should be, and as the white flash from the gun blinded his vision for that split second he realized that if he didn't cool it, he might experience what the doctor had been warning him about.
The thing fell to the floor, but it kept moving. Instead of the horrible moan it was uttering it let out a strange gurgling sound, like the last bit of water going down a drain. Its body stopped, its legs didn't move, but it's hand was twitching, moving, trying to get away as the other part of its body lived on. It somehow tore itself away from the corpse, which had been underground and rotting for nigh on ten years - Charlie recognized the zombie as the body of Tony from down the road - so the twitching hand didn't find it much of a job to pull itself free.
It hopped into a posture not unlike the face-hugger alien from the films and scuttled towards Mary-Jane, fast as lightning, and Billy leapt in the way, slamming his foot down on the moving thumb and it scrambled, trying to get away. None of the five people watching thought this strange compared to the happenings of the day before. The grasping fingers reached up and scratched at Billy's ankle, drawing blood. Billy swore and the hand scuttled away, Charlie blasting away with the gun but missing each time.
"That was a hand," Billy said, out of breath. "A moving hand."
"You think that's strange?" Mitch from the truck said. "You ain't seen nothing yet." He beeped the horn and the family got in. "I've been fighting those things off all night. Came through the windows, moanin' and groanin'. Martha . . . She . . ."
"It's okay," Charlie said. "They'll get what's comin' to 'em."
"But where did they come from?" Mary-Jane cried. She had been in constant tears since about eleven the morning before. "What are they?"
"The cemetery," Charlie said simply. "Must've The dead have risen, M-J, and I don't know how, but here they are, and we just have to survive until we can skip town."
"But what about the others?" Billy said. "My friends - they'll be goin' through the same thing!"
"There's nothing we can do about that now, boy," Mitch said. "We just have to concentrate on living past today, that's all for now. Until morning, then we'll be alright."
"How do we know that though?" M-J asked. She had always been called a needless worrier, but now she had cause. "How do we know they ain't gonna come back during daylight?"
"They seem to not like it," Mitch said. "The attacks on my home tripled as soon as the sun set. But they don't die in the light, just . . . Don't like it. There's a powerful torch in the back . . ."
Charlie pulled it out. "Think this'll distract 'em enough?"
"At least until we fill'em full o' lead, it will. I've got two more inside the basement. Go back 'n' get 'em?"
"Sure thing," Billy said. "As long as it gives us advantage . . ."
"Now listen, boy," Mitch said, tilting his head but still not taking his eyes of the dark road ahead. "Jus' cos' you've been to a fancy college don't mean you know better Ôn' your Daddy. It's his decision."
"I think we should go get'em," Charlie said. "Like the boy said: if it gives us an advantage. And like you said: he's smarter Ôn' the rest of us."
Billy smiled and Charlie smiled back.
Suddenly Mary-Jane screamed. Charlie gripped her shoulders. "What is it?!"
"The . . . The baby!" He looked and pulled his hands away. She screamed, "What's happening to him?!"
"Give him to me!" Charlie yelled. "To me! Give him to me!"
"What are you gonna do?" she cried. "What's wrong with my baby?!"
"Give him to me!" Charlie took the child, only a year and a half old, and took a good look at him. Little Joe's skin was rippling slightly, like when someone slaps a waterbed. It moved like water over plastic, wavering in slight waves, and Charlie looked into his blue eyes and saw no blue, no colour. The pupil and baby-blue iris' were completely covered by pale white cataracts. It was crying, and when Charlie saw his teeth he screamed himself.
There was nothing wrong with the teeth.
Only little Joe shouldn't have any teeth.
But they were there, plain as day, white as milk, but now they were turning yellow, and his breath turned rancid as the skin and flesh around his face turned a pale gray and peeled.
It suddenly jumped up and sunk it's new teeth into his arm and Charlie screamed, gripped the baby by its neck and flung it at the far corner of the open-top pickup
Mitch shouted, "Shoot it! Do it, Charlie, shoot it!"
And Charlie did. He opened up the young child with one blast of the shotgun with a tear in his eye. But he hadn't really known the baby, not like he knew Billy. He had been away on business for the baby's birth, and had never fed it, never kissed it good-night. He had always felt a strange detachment from the child, but never knew why. There was something strange about it, and now he knew.
But Mary-Jane had always had a strong bond, as all mothers do, with the baby, and now she cried openly and loudly, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry," Charlie whispered, as the pickup drove down the road towards Mitch's place.
- - -
BANG!! BANG!!
With the second kick the door fell in and the beam of the flashlight shone through into the darkness of Mitch's old house. "This is nuts," Mitch said out-loud. "It's crazy. This whole crazy bunch o' shit is nuts. I don't deserve this, I don't deserve this . . ." He muttered the last sentence over and over again.
Charlie wasn't surprised. The guy had lost his family, and Charlie himself knew what he felt like. He had killed his own son.
Just shot him.
Dead.
Charlie rubbed the tears from his eyes and dirt smudged it over his cheeks. Forget about it, his mind told him. That wasn't your son, it was a monster. Like everyone else in this town, he had turned into a monster. Maybe he would too, maybe everyone here would. But what the hell. If he was going to die, it would be a laugh to carry on going.
He let out a small painful chuckle and then burst into quiet tears.
Mitch was shining the flashlight and wielding it like a starving man would wield his final piece of food. He held it like he was taught in the police before he retired: Arm up, held in the palm of your hand facing away from your thumb.
At least there was a little warning before the zombie attacked. There was a shuffle and a groan that first alerted the group, and then the door that lead from the corridor to the lounge splintered as something with huge force pounded from the inside.
Apparently zombies couldn't use the door knob.
After four or five hard pounds the door gave and the gnarled arm of the moving corpse groped, the tiny space above its arm glowed from the white light of the zombie's cataract. It was grinning through the gap.
Mitch flashed the torch at its face and it snarled and pulled quickly away. He and Charlie moved gingerly through the door, now swinging on it's hinges, as Mary-Jane and Billy stayed in the corridor. Mitch shone the torch around the room and it caught a quivering red mass behind the sofa.
He shushed Charlie and pointed. Charlie aimed the shotgun at the thing hiding there and with one shot he fired . . . The thing shrieked and stood, and revealed that only its arm had been hit, the stump was bleeding only slightly but the bone stuck at least three inches outwards, sturdy and strong. Charlie aimed and fired again . . . Click . . . The gun misfired at the worst possible time. The zombie, still able to walk, lunged at Mitch holding the torch and sunk its teeth into his face . . . Blood poured freely. Mitch - what was left of Mitch - fell to the floor and somehow the zombie escaped. When Charlie looked around it was gone.
He looked at the faceless body and wished it was him that was dead. It was getting too much. Then he thought of M-J and Billy and was glad, in a sick sense, that it was Mitch that was lying there, faceless and in a pool of his own blood. He was suddenly filled with the need to survive, and he rushed out of the lounge to his wife.
She was sobbing.
"What's the matter?" he said. But he knew: it was little Joe.
But he was wrong: it wasn't Joe. "Billy!" she cried. "Billy's gone!"
"Where?" he said, his eyes darting wildly. "Where did he go? Upstairs?"
She nodded. Charlie wished he was dead again. "Stay here," he told her. "Don't move."
He walked slowly up the wooden stairs. He held the shotgun in his right hand, the torch in the left. He had both raised at a right-angle from his body as he crept. When he arrived at the top he was met with a short corridor. "Billy?" No answer. "Billy?"
A figure stepped out from the shadows. It shuffled slowly towards him. Charlie raised the gun and prepared to fire when the zombie stepped into the light and he saw his face.
Of course, it was Billy. It was so obvious, he thought. Like any good zombie story, he would have to fight his own son. The baby - the thing that would slow them down the most - had gone. It was the only way. Mitch - the only one who could protect them on their journey - had also gone. Mitch was the one who had helped them, and like all good zombie stories the only one that could help must go, to make it a little more interesting. Now it was Billy's turn. It all made sense to Charlie. This was all beginning to play like a bad black-and-white horror film about the living dead. This wasn't a brand new colour conversion, putting a new twist on things. This wasn't what Buffy the Vampire Slayer had done for vampire, or what The Teenage American Werewolf had done for the wolves of the full moon. This was full-on, cheesy, cheap, vintage zombie stuff.
And it was happening to Charlie.
So, of course, he would have to face his son. Of course, he would struggle, like he was now, his hands holding the shoulders of the zombie son as they grappled each other, and the zombie seemed to get the upper hand, and then it would reverse, Charlie towering over the creature. And it would switch back, and all seemed lost.
No, Charlie thought as the zombie's teeth moved towards his face. The main guy can't die. He's the main guy, he has to be there for the sequel. Maybe at the end; but this wasn't the end. Mary-Jane was still downstairs. Films can't just forget about the character downstairs, waiting for their husbands. Something had to happen, something to give him an edge . . .
He was pushed against a small table with a vase of flowers . . . Of course, his head screamed. Smash it over his head! Stun him! Get the upper hand once more . . . And he did, the flowers and water spilt to the floor, and Zombie Billy stumbled backwards, dazed.
Charlie raised the gun and remembered it was useless. Of course it was useless; that was too easy. What could kill a zombie? Chop off it's head?
The torch. Charlie smashed the flashlight over the head of his former son and as it fell to the floor let the white light of the torch burn the flesh of the creature, and the light sizzled, as did the skin, and then all movement stopped.
Charlie remembered Mitch saying something about light not killing the zombies, just annoying them. Oh well - all the old films had mistakes. He kicked the corpse by his feet to make sure it was dead and went downstairs to his wife.
She was crying. "Billy?"
Charlie shook his head. "Come on. The story's not finished yet."
"What?" Mary-Jane looked curiously at him as he pulled her roughly to the door. "Stay put," he said. He went to the small closet under the stairs and pulled out another flashlight, handed it to his wife. "Here, take this. It might help you." He grinned. "Then again . . . There's always a surprise ending."
"What are you talking about?"
"Come on!" Charlie pulled her out the door and soon they were in the truck once more. He half-expected a horde of the living dead, the whole town now turned to zombies, to crowd around the truck from behind. And the truck wouldn't start, and they would surely die, surely, but then it would start and they would get away, get away to the border of town and they would be safe.
But the engine started right away, and the truck sped off to the border of town. Ten meters from the border it stopped dead. No sputtering, no bangs or crashes. It just died, twenty steps away from the safety of the town-border.
This would be the final test, the bit before the half-peaceful, half-happy ending of the film, where they would say "well it was alright really we'll survive now". The final leap, the leap of faith. They would run, and they did, towards the sign that said "YOU ARE NOW ENTERING" dot dot dot. But now they were leaving, and glad of it.
One step away from the sign Charlie stopped. He pulled hard on Mary-Jane's arm and she stopped also. They were so close now. One step away. Nothing could stop them. Charlie stepped forwards, back into town. "What are you doing?" M-J cried. "We're almost safe!"
"It's not right," Charlie said, looking around. "Where are you?!" he yelled into the night. "Why aren't you here? To finish us off? There's two of us - one must die! You can't finish the story with two survivors, it's just not right!"
He looked at M-J. "The wife!" he cried. "You can't have a sequel with the same wife, what good would that do? You need a new actress, someone to get the audience watching. A whole new cast, with the only survivor left as that connection through into the next film. How many people survived Alien? Just one. How many at the beginning of Evil Dead 3? Again, just the one . . ."
He looked around at Mary-Jane and grinned. "So which one of us dies, M-J? The big strong man, or the wife, which can be replaced?"
"What are you talking about?! Let's get out of here!"
"Be quiet! It's not finished yet! The end is nigh!" he cried. Then he stopped, waved a finger. "Of course! The surprise ending . . ."
"Come on!" Mary-Jane screamed. But it couldn't be helped.
"There's got to be a surprise ending! Let's look at it another way: who survives, the main character, the one who's supposed to survive, or the one who's least likely to survive? It's me! It's me who gets killed! The raving lunatic, the babbling manic who's stalling for time! It's got to be a sur -"
And the zombie sprung out of the night and dragged him away into the darkness.
fini