Here we go. This was it. The dead have risen.
Stuck on a freeway clogged with vehicles into darkness, the Survivors had no choice but to flee into the dark shadows of the railyard. Already they had faced the crazed infected and could hear screams and violence from up and down the highway. The scientist Dr Zara zhar had lost a shoe in their flight, and Zooey the jazz singer had on only a sequin dress and high heels. Luckily they had some bandages from a lost medical kit, and so fashioned some padded footware for the journey. Zooey did not want to damage her favorite heels and Zara felt chagrin at the lost of her cross-trainer. She had to special order them, where would she find a replacement? A bubbly blonde in a softball costume chance met on the highway promised her house was just on the other side of the railyard, in North Kansas City. It was a two bedroom walk-up with a chain link fence. She pointed across the railyard to the lights of the suburb, like stars in the darkness. They set out.
After crossing a slow moving coal train, they came to a space of a hundred yards between tracks. The next train was a cattle car, clanking and creaking in the dark. The sky above was becoming overcast, hiding the black expanding scar high in the atmosphere above the clouds, the meteor’s trail. It was very dark, with only a few railyard lights high and far between to light the place. It was becoming increasingly cold and windy, and grey flakes of snow mixed in the blown dust. The weather was interfering with cell phones, and the last radio message before leaving the highway was a public service announcement advising everyone to seek immediate shelter sue to extreme weather “fallout” from the passing meteor. No mention of infected maniacs surviving gunshot wounds and trying to feast on the brains of the nearest uninfected.
As the snaky line of survivors reached the middle of the field the jazz singer head a scuffling in the gravel in the darkness to her left. A low moaning sound followed. Peering into the darkness, she saw the outline of a cow, its head lowered, and whispered “just a cow” to the others. The line continued. At the word “cow” the mighty bull raised its head, showing a rack of horns hidden previously, and charged. The horns nearly caught Italia d’Italia, but Zooey was not so lucky, and she was gored and lifted high in the air. She grabbed its ear in one hand and its ringed nose with her other and attempted to pull herself from the horn as she was whipped around but lacked the strength.
Suddenly two shots rang out as the quiet kid with the backpack full of dr who videos let loose with two fist full of fury. Two red blossoms bloomed on its shoulder blade. Another crack sounded as the erstwhile softball princess broke the bulls foreleg. The bull staggered Zooeys daughter Amber was able to pull her mother of with Dr Zhar’s aid. They pulled her clear of the bull and watched, mesmerized as the bull slowly toppled face first into the gravel. It snorted and pawed with its back legs, slowly inching itself forward muzzle first and they saw a pale green reflection in its eyes. It was infected.
They backed away, applied a bandage to Zooey’s side – fortunately just a flesh wound, though her dress was ruined – and continued. The cattle cars were becoming more active, and booming sounds could be heard as the cows hurled themselves against the sides of the train cars. The survivors passed through safely and entered the outskirts of the town.
They passed through a silent area of factories and warehouses and into town. It was mostly empty but alarming sounds of chaos could be heard echoing through the streets: screams, gunshots, sirens, the screeching of tires, breaking glass, explosions. Turning into the residential district, they saw a four way intersection ahead. A police squad car, lights flashing, blocked the intersection, and an old station wagon idled in the middle of the street with a dark bundle in the pavement in ront of it. One headlight was out. The softballer’s house lay at the end of the street, they had the option of cutting through the small park to their left, an old cemetery actually, or to go through the intersection. Zooey, in pain, asked them to consider the short cut, but prejudice against the dead won out, and they came to the scene of an accident.
The police car was on but empty, its front doors left open. They could see a silhouette in the back. The other car had a crashed fron end and a body lay in the street. All four doors were open and standing around the body was a family of four. Two teens looked on in disinterest, as a middle aged man and woman argued about what exactly happened. They looked up and waved the others over to them, with a warning.
They had a strange tale. Mabel was driving, they were trying to get out of town for the holidays, when out of nowhere a someone popped up in front of the car. She slammed on the breaks but it was too late, and struck the body. It was a woman in a wedding dress. A woman who had obviously been dead for a long time, and was little more than rags and bones. Her skull lay crushed in front of the dented fender, arms outstretched, rotten silk trailing in the wind. There was no pale green light in those dark sockets. Bob and Mabel and family got back into their car after hearing the survivors tale of mayhem on the highway.
The players meanwhile were inspecting the police car. They found no weapons but a long flashlight. They planned to drive the police car down the street to the blonde’s house. Zooey waited int he drivers seat while teveryone got situated, including sticking the video store clerk in the trunk, ad her eyes were fixed on the corpse. She noticed a few fingers start to twitch, and the hand started dragging itself forward. She watched the fabric tear, speechless, as the arm pulled itself out of the socket and continued to crawly slowly toward her, free of its body.
“We gotta go people, we’re gonna have company!” she wailed as she looked up to the open gated of the Shady Rest park and cemetery. Dead bodies were pulling themselves from the dirt within and beginning to stagger out of the gates. Mabel apparently saw the same incredible sight, and hit the gas, leaping forward, crushing the corpse bride, and slamming into the back end of the police car. Thankfully no one was hurt but the axle was damaged and the wheel threatened to come free with every rotation. Zooey gave it as much gas as she dared, but the police car rolled along barely faster then the walking dead.
Six corpse made it out of the gate and into the street as the police car slowly rolled past. They reached out with skeletal fingers and grasped whatever they could, pulling themselves toward the windshields as the lost balance and were dragged along. Yhey clinked their rotting teeth against the glass trying to bite their way through. Somehow the disembodied corpse hand had found itself up onto the hood of the squad car and was gouging screeching scratches into the paint as it pulled itself toward Zooey.
Amber used some deft work with the wiper blades to fling the hand free of the car, while they timed a suddenly burst of speed with the opening of the car doors to fling the rest of the zombies free. It worked for all but one, who clung on the whole ride down the sreet to the blonde’s house. When they arrived, the were able to quickly exit the vehicle and get into the house before it regained its feet. It followed them up the front porch and started scratching against the door. They needed to do something about it, so with a bat and some well placed kung fu kicks from the scientist they reduced it to a quivering mass of rotting flesh and broken bone. It was still quivering though, so they got out the hose and washed it off the porch and into the yard. Who knows what that will do for the roses next spring.
Survived.
As they were sorting out sleeping arrangements, one of the survivors realizes with horror that her church’s youth group was having a lock-in at the local amusement park, Worlds of Fun, and that they needed saving. There was nothing she could do to help them survive the night, other than pray, but they had a plan for tomorrow – ad next week!
