The end of the world
Jun. 13th, 2007 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonFresh off the slab, folks, so please be kind...I started to write a funny little "Write Like It's the End of the World" post and wound up writing a short story. Oy.
Ash coats everything outside, drifting down in a near continual fall in the dark, so it's hard to see exactly what's going on out there. Flashes of fire, of course, winking in and out of the black clouds they make. Seeping in through the gaps in the boards over what used to be basement windows comes the smell of gasoline from the flame throwers and that other, stranger, chemical smell: embalmed bodies set to burning. Not all of the bodies out there made it to the embalming stage.
They rose up out of morgues in a putrid tide, stumbling, groaning, snapping their teeth, hungry. So hungry. I barely managed to get out alive myself, and that was only because I was up front near the reception area, schmoozing with one of the morgue wagon guys who'd just brought in a fresh cadaver. The thing, once a jogger who'd pushed it too hard in the heat and smog of an L.A. summer, slammed open the doors of the wagon and grabbed the driver. I didn't have a weapon, but I grabbed the fire hydrant off the wall and sprayed him—that kept him away from me, but it was too late for the driver. When I heard the screams from the back of the building, the horrified shouts of "Zombies!" and sounds of groaning and ripping and gnawing, I kicked off my high heels, unplugged my headset, and jumped into the empty corpse wagon, screaming out of there just ahead of the former jogger, his eyes glowing red as he looked my way.
He was well-toned for a zombie, and ran a long time behind that wagon, keeping up with me until he passed a school yard. I tried not to think about him turning into that school yard. I hoped the teachers got the kiddies inside in time. I kept going. I had to make it home, find out why my husband, Will, wasn't answering his cell. He was supposed to be home finishing up that damned screenplay he'd been working on for months. Where the hell could he have gotten to?
I passed Forest Lawn on the way—probably not the best choice of route, but the place stretches on for miles and by then the traffic jams on the freeways and side streets through downtown had brought every other route to a standstill. The dead made short work of those sitting ducks stuck in their cars. Who knew LA had so many dead people in residence? I had to plow down several of them as I floored it past Forest Lawn, and all of them had those same awful red-glowing eyes.
The older dead had dug themselves up straight through their rotting coffins, up through the earth—so decomposed, some of them, that they were little more than bones held together with stringy strips of flesh. But most of them were in that hellish half-rot phase, dripping nightmares on bony feet. All of them wanted to eat, even the ones who had no soft tissue left at all, and all of them had those red eyes, even if the glow emanated from empty eye sockets. They yanked people out of their cars (nobody walks in LA), and tore into them, the gobbets of flesh falling through their bones to splatter undigested.
I kept going. I tried not to think about it. I had to get home to Will.
Finally, I was over the San Gabriel mountains and driving through the giant, aged trees lining my street in Pasadena. The neighborhood was quiet, as it always is on week days. No signs of incipient disaster. Had it been a purely localized effect, something left behind in LA, like so many other unsavory things?
I pulled into the driveway of our two-story Spanish style. Will and I had worked hard to save up the down payment on it. Or, I'd worked—at the city job with good benefits and decent pay, though the working conditions left a lot to be desired. I'd worked. Will had that screenplay to write. The one before this one. The one that hadn't sold like he'd promised it would. The one he now called his "practice effort," assuring me the one he was working on now would be so much better and make so much money.
I'd had to leave my purse behind at the morgue, so I fished in the planter for the fake rock where we'd hidden the spare key. It was remarkably quiet opening that door, not the usual clacking of my high heels or jangle of keys to announce my presence. As soon as the door swung open, I heard groaning and moaning coming down the stairs. Will! I rushed into the living room and got my dad's shotgun out of the window seat, opened the chamber to make sure it was loaded, and ran up the stairs. Had to save Will! The bedroom door was open and I rushed through.
Every day of every week of every year someone faces an apocalypse of some kind. Not the worldwide ones like was happening in LA that day, but personal apocalypses, nonetheless. Maybe it's the death of someone you love, or the ruination of all your careful plans and hard work, the loss of everything you hold dear. Maybe it's finding your husband having sex in your bed with the slut next door.
The shotgun exploded. I swear I don't remember pulling the trigger, but the recoil nearly knocked me back into the hall. There was no more moaning from the bed. I didn't want to look, but I had to. The blast had taken off part of Will's head and part of the slut's face and they both laid still as...death. I guess I should have thought about what that meant, but it was like my brain melted, my insides, too, the world gone so ugly I didn't think I wanted to be part of it anymore.
I turned the shotgun towards myself, but the reach for the trigger was hard doing it from that angle, and the barrel was still hot from the explosion—too hot to hold onto long enough to struggle for the shot. And what if my struggling left me wounded but not dead? Then what?
The moaning started up on the bed again. I looked up to see Will crawling off the slut. Both of them regarded me with red-glowing eyes—only one pair between the two of them. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted to die. Certainly, not by having my brains eaten.
I ran back down the stairs, and started out the front door, but the street out there wasn't so quiet anymore. There were zombies everywhere! They must have come down from the foothills, like coyotes. From Forest Lawn, and probably from Shady Pines a mile to the north. I slammed the door shut.
Will and the slut were lumbering down the stairs by then, one beady red eye each trained on me. I rushed to open the basement door before they got to me, got inside and slammed it, throwing the deadbolt. Will and I had joked a lot about the previous owner installing a deadbolt on the basement door—a really sold piece of oak, too. What had he been trying to keep down here? But I was glad for it now. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it would slow them down. I rushed down the stairs to the workbench, laying the shotgun down and picking up a hammer. Plenty of hammers and nails there, and a neat stack of lumber in the corner. Our house was old and run down, the only way we could afford it, and we'd spent most of our weekends remodeling. When Will could spare time from his screenplay.
Will and the slut pounded on the door by the time I'd hefted a couple of two-by-fours up the stairs. I hammered the boards in place, a neat X across the door frame. I rushed back down to get some shorter boards to hammer crossways over the door and had just begun that when Will's fist came through the wood—I recognized his wedding ring. The next nail when right between his ring finger and middle finger and he withdrew it. I put a board over the hole and hammered it into place.
The pounding stopped. I heard feet shuffle away. I hammered more boards into place just to be safe. I thought I heard screams outside. I rushed down the stairs and got up on the workbench so I could look out the basement windows. Mr. McGeevey, the mailman, had just walked his last route.
Windows. I got more boards and hammered them over the three basement windows, leaving just enough space between them so I could look outside.
And that's as far as I got. Too bad, almost done. Remember: this is fresh off the slab.
Ash coats everything outside, drifting down in a near continual fall in the dark, so it's hard to see exactly what's going on out there. Flashes of fire, of course, winking in and out of the black clouds they make. Seeping in through the gaps in the boards over what used to be basement windows comes the smell of gasoline from the flame throwers and that other, stranger, chemical smell: embalmed bodies set to burning. Not all of the bodies out there made it to the embalming stage.
They rose up out of morgues in a putrid tide, stumbling, groaning, snapping their teeth, hungry. So hungry. I barely managed to get out alive myself, and that was only because I was up front near the reception area, schmoozing with one of the morgue wagon guys who'd just brought in a fresh cadaver. The thing, once a jogger who'd pushed it too hard in the heat and smog of an L.A. summer, slammed open the doors of the wagon and grabbed the driver. I didn't have a weapon, but I grabbed the fire hydrant off the wall and sprayed him—that kept him away from me, but it was too late for the driver. When I heard the screams from the back of the building, the horrified shouts of "Zombies!" and sounds of groaning and ripping and gnawing, I kicked off my high heels, unplugged my headset, and jumped into the empty corpse wagon, screaming out of there just ahead of the former jogger, his eyes glowing red as he looked my way.
He was well-toned for a zombie, and ran a long time behind that wagon, keeping up with me until he passed a school yard. I tried not to think about him turning into that school yard. I hoped the teachers got the kiddies inside in time. I kept going. I had to make it home, find out why my husband, Will, wasn't answering his cell. He was supposed to be home finishing up that damned screenplay he'd been working on for months. Where the hell could he have gotten to?
I passed Forest Lawn on the way—probably not the best choice of route, but the place stretches on for miles and by then the traffic jams on the freeways and side streets through downtown had brought every other route to a standstill. The dead made short work of those sitting ducks stuck in their cars. Who knew LA had so many dead people in residence? I had to plow down several of them as I floored it past Forest Lawn, and all of them had those same awful red-glowing eyes.
The older dead had dug themselves up straight through their rotting coffins, up through the earth—so decomposed, some of them, that they were little more than bones held together with stringy strips of flesh. But most of them were in that hellish half-rot phase, dripping nightmares on bony feet. All of them wanted to eat, even the ones who had no soft tissue left at all, and all of them had those red eyes, even if the glow emanated from empty eye sockets. They yanked people out of their cars (nobody walks in LA), and tore into them, the gobbets of flesh falling through their bones to splatter undigested.
I kept going. I tried not to think about it. I had to get home to Will.
Finally, I was over the San Gabriel mountains and driving through the giant, aged trees lining my street in Pasadena. The neighborhood was quiet, as it always is on week days. No signs of incipient disaster. Had it been a purely localized effect, something left behind in LA, like so many other unsavory things?
I pulled into the driveway of our two-story Spanish style. Will and I had worked hard to save up the down payment on it. Or, I'd worked—at the city job with good benefits and decent pay, though the working conditions left a lot to be desired. I'd worked. Will had that screenplay to write. The one before this one. The one that hadn't sold like he'd promised it would. The one he now called his "practice effort," assuring me the one he was working on now would be so much better and make so much money.
I'd had to leave my purse behind at the morgue, so I fished in the planter for the fake rock where we'd hidden the spare key. It was remarkably quiet opening that door, not the usual clacking of my high heels or jangle of keys to announce my presence. As soon as the door swung open, I heard groaning and moaning coming down the stairs. Will! I rushed into the living room and got my dad's shotgun out of the window seat, opened the chamber to make sure it was loaded, and ran up the stairs. Had to save Will! The bedroom door was open and I rushed through.
Every day of every week of every year someone faces an apocalypse of some kind. Not the worldwide ones like was happening in LA that day, but personal apocalypses, nonetheless. Maybe it's the death of someone you love, or the ruination of all your careful plans and hard work, the loss of everything you hold dear. Maybe it's finding your husband having sex in your bed with the slut next door.
The shotgun exploded. I swear I don't remember pulling the trigger, but the recoil nearly knocked me back into the hall. There was no more moaning from the bed. I didn't want to look, but I had to. The blast had taken off part of Will's head and part of the slut's face and they both laid still as...death. I guess I should have thought about what that meant, but it was like my brain melted, my insides, too, the world gone so ugly I didn't think I wanted to be part of it anymore.
I turned the shotgun towards myself, but the reach for the trigger was hard doing it from that angle, and the barrel was still hot from the explosion—too hot to hold onto long enough to struggle for the shot. And what if my struggling left me wounded but not dead? Then what?
The moaning started up on the bed again. I looked up to see Will crawling off the slut. Both of them regarded me with red-glowing eyes—only one pair between the two of them. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted to die. Certainly, not by having my brains eaten.
I ran back down the stairs, and started out the front door, but the street out there wasn't so quiet anymore. There were zombies everywhere! They must have come down from the foothills, like coyotes. From Forest Lawn, and probably from Shady Pines a mile to the north. I slammed the door shut.
Will and the slut were lumbering down the stairs by then, one beady red eye each trained on me. I rushed to open the basement door before they got to me, got inside and slammed it, throwing the deadbolt. Will and I had joked a lot about the previous owner installing a deadbolt on the basement door—a really sold piece of oak, too. What had he been trying to keep down here? But I was glad for it now. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it would slow them down. I rushed down the stairs to the workbench, laying the shotgun down and picking up a hammer. Plenty of hammers and nails there, and a neat stack of lumber in the corner. Our house was old and run down, the only way we could afford it, and we'd spent most of our weekends remodeling. When Will could spare time from his screenplay.
Will and the slut pounded on the door by the time I'd hefted a couple of two-by-fours up the stairs. I hammered the boards in place, a neat X across the door frame. I rushed back down to get some shorter boards to hammer crossways over the door and had just begun that when Will's fist came through the wood—I recognized his wedding ring. The next nail when right between his ring finger and middle finger and he withdrew it. I put a board over the hole and hammered it into place.
The pounding stopped. I heard feet shuffle away. I hammered more boards into place just to be safe. I thought I heard screams outside. I rushed down the stairs and got up on the workbench so I could look out the basement windows. Mr. McGeevey, the mailman, had just walked his last route.
Windows. I got more boards and hammered them over the three basement windows, leaving just enough space between them so I could look outside.
And that's as far as I got. Too bad, almost done. Remember: this is fresh off the slab.
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