Spoiler! :
Slaughterhouse.
Aaron had discovered the slaughterhouse while searching for food. It was dark, damp, dilapidated. The reek of rotten carcasses hung thick in the air.
The freezers had held little bounty for the wandering Aaron, who needed far more than scraps to survive. Without a backup generator, they had lost power along with the rest of the city.
It was the same story wherever he went; entire cities at a standstill, frozen forever as things had been when the ground had buckled and burst as hands clawed up from the underworld to retake the Earth.
The slaughterhouse itself was, however, a place of unprecedented security for Aaron. In a world where so much as to blink was asking for trouble, a lockable room was a godsend. It was hardly the lap of luxury, but the cattle pens in the rear of the chasm-like building were more than he had dared hope to find. A little semi-rotten bedding in the corner substituted for a bed, by which lay a compact shotgun. This too had been discovered by luck more than by design, stored below the counter in a small-town convenience store.
Aaron couldn’t sleep, however, not tonight. Well, he said tonight. It could have been midday for all he knew- no natural light penetrated the dark underbelly of the slaughterhouse.
Whatever time it was outside, Aaron knew instinctively that danger was fast approaching. He was no soldier, but he had always just known when something was about to go wrong. It was a feeling deep in his gut, telling him things were about to go very, very wrong.
Screaming.
A primal wail tore through the slaughterhouse. He leaped up and grabbed the shotgun, the blood washing out of his face in a fraction of a second, leaving him ashen and shaking. The scream continued to reverberate through the building; he imagined animal carcasses flailing in the air, glass smashing, the whole building imploding.
The scream died away as suddenly as it had come. Aaron’s eyes opened a fraction- to his relief, the slaughterhouse remained standing.
He looked slowly around. Pig carcasses, half-rotten and festering, were chained to overhead supporting bars, obscuring his vision. An exposed metal gangway lead up to the overseer’s office. The cattle pens were behind him.
He knew he could slip away and seal himself in without being noticed, but what then? He’d be trapped in there to die, or until they broke in.
Aaron took a step forward, and flinched as the sound echoed through the vast chamber. More cautiously, he took another, and peered around the nearest chained animal into the next room, a small lobby. Sure enough, a body stood in the entrance, its mummified features cast into shadow by the dim light of the doorway.
He stared, frozen by disgusted awe. It still looked vaguely human, but its movements were reminiscent of a wild animal.
The thing stepped fully into the room, and its features were briefly illuminated as it looked first left, then right, searching for its next meal.
Aaron fought the urge to vomit.
Its face was a picture of decay; pitted and pockmarked, with flaps of flesh hanging from its bony cheeks. What struck him was the thing’s mouth.
The mandible was missing, leaving the throat a gaping hole in its neck. Its tongue hung useless, blackened, and rotten almost to liquid. It had the characteristic eyes of a zombie; bloated, yellow, clouded with rage and hunger.
The thing turned and stalked off into a side room. Aaron let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and turned around.
Movement caught his eye. He squinted, hazel-brown eyes peering between the regimented rows of rotted swine, trying to spy the source, but to no avail. He took a nervous step forward and glanced left and right, scouring the semi-darkness for any signs of life.
A noise, to his right: a wet sound, accompanied with the familiar protest of rusted chains.
Carefully, he slid a cartridge into the shotgun, followed by another. He began to pace forward, hyperaware to any tiny motion and minute sound in the otherwise silent slaughterhouse.
He slipped the next cartridge into the side of the shotgun. Half full. He knew it wasn’t enough to hold off these merciless creatures.
These zombies.
He turned the next cartridge over and over in his cold hands. A voice played with him in his head, tempting him to take the easy way out.
He swallowed hard. The barrel of the shotgun began to drift up towards his chin.
Will I survive today anyway? He thought. Would they give me the choice?
He dropped the cartridge. It bounced on the bloodstained metal floor, clattering, acting like a beacon to all undead.
He cursed, and grabbed the cartridge, slotting it into the weapon as he started to run. He wanted out. Wanted to get away from these walking nightmares.
Wanted to go home.
He slipped and fell. The jolt woke him from his thoughts, leaving him winded on the cold floor.
Aaron twisted around and surveyed the room. Intestines, putrid and rotten, hung from the nearest pig. Blood and gore covered the steel floor.
The carcass from which the guts were strewn began to swing, oscillating violently back and forth. A head erupted from the dead animal, shrieking in anger.
There was only one thing zombies liked more than decaying meat:
Fresh meat.
Aaron threw himself backwards and raised the shotgun. The beast tore apart the carcass and leaped towards him, its mouth distending like the maw of a black hole, threatening to engulf him wholly.
He fired. The sound tore the silence like a sword through butter, and hot tongues of flame lanced from the barrel. Lead shot entered the creatures head, tearing it apart. The body continued, momentum carrying it into Aaron and knocking him to the floor. Blood and chunks of flesh spattered his face; the impulse to vomit overwhelmed him.
He spat bile and blood, wiping his face on his arm. A shriek caused him to look up, his heartbeat doubling in a microsecond.
Another banshee scream responded, this one from the other side of the chasm-like slaughterhouse. His heartbeat doubled once more, and redoubled at the sound of a third cutting wail.
He slid two more cartridges into the shotgun and, with effort, rolled the headless corpse off himself and stood.
He spat blood again, and grimaced.
“Where are you, rot-face?” he muttered, and marched off the way he had come, following his instincts. He nervously scratched at his stubble-and-blood-covered chin, eyes wide with a cocktail of fear and unbridled fury. It was him or them.
He vaulted the railing and dropped into the lower section of the warehouse. Perhaps once it had been another building, consumed by the consumer and their demand for meat.
He pushed the thought from his mind, focusing on the task at hand. There were three of them, minimum, and he had twelve cartridges left, counting the five in his gun. He could hold out somewhere, provided there were no unsavoury surprises. He stepped onto the metal gangway. It was rusted and warped, unsafe. He wasn’t convinced he’d ever be able to get down again.
Purging doubt from his mind, he sprinted up the gangway. It shook beneath his weight- he was far lighter than he had been, but only a little girl could have navigated the path safely. With a grunt he threw himself onto the rough carpeted floor of the overseer’s office. From here, Aaron had a clear view of most of the slaughterhouse. He saw motion. Carcasses swung back and forth as zombies poured from the jungle of animal bodies and ran for the overseer’s office.
Four hit the gangway simultaneously, scrabbling to get at their prey. The metal groaned, buckled, and broke, and they dropped back to the hard floor. One writhed on the floor, its legs bent at obscene angles. Two more joined the trio attempting to scale the wall directly up to the overseer’s office. The final one leaped again and again, trying to hook its bony fingers around the metal crosshatching of the gangway and haul itself back up.
Dismay washed over Aaron. He was stuck up here; with these beasts waiting for him should he ever manage to escape. Hell, might as well jump, for all the good it would do him.
Starve, or become food. The irony of his impossible situation didn’t pass over Aaron completely. Good old gallows humour was his only companion in the weeks since these abominations had burst from the ground like giant, raging flowers of death and decay.
He was going to die, that much was certain. One lonely question lingered in his mind: how many could he take with him?
He cast about, looking for options. The shotgun wouldn’t be greatly effective at this range - he’d need to find another weapon. He grabbed the top half of a broken office chair from where it lay toppled on the tasteless grey carpet. Pivoting, he hurled it with all the strength he could muster at the central pane of the large window looking out over the slaughterhouse. The pane shattered, and the chair dragged glass fragments down with it onto the zombies below.
Next was the turn of the fire extinguisher parked neatly in the corner of the office. He took hold of it in both hands and, raising it above his head like a caveman about to beat in the head of a defeated animal, hurled it down. The creatures amassed below scattered as it fell and it struck the ground, useless, and carbon dioxide fired from the nozzle, launching it away in a comical fashion.
Aaron turned to grab another item, and then paused. He looked back, looked down at the zombies at the foot of the wall, and cursed.
There were only three. A brief glance confirmed his suspicions; the others were hauling anything and everything they could lay their hands on into a pile beneath the wrecked gangway. He spotted the half-chair in the pile, and his stomach turned at the thought that he had helped bring about his own end.
No time to feel sorry for yourself! He chided, cringing at the hoarseness of his own voice.
He stepped out onto the gangway, shotgun clutched in hand, and fired.
The head of one of the zombies snapped back to an inconceivable angle, and fine red mist coated the two behind it. It let out a primal howl of rage and toppled backwards, but quickly scrabbled to its feet.
Aaron cursed yet again. He needed to get closer, but he didn’t want to, no sir-ee. Instead he chose to retreat back into the relative safety of the overseer’s office.
There was no way out, of that Aaron was sure. It was only a matter of time before the horde would be up here with him, wailing, tearing him limb from limb. He loaded another cartridge into the shotgun, his resolve to go down fighting strengthened.
There was a shriek from the gangway, as one by one the creatures leaped onto the rickety metal and ran- gangly, uncoordinated, yet unspeakably fast- towards him.
He waited as long as he dared, then unleashed the shotgun on the first of the zombies. It stumbled, and he fired again, tearing into its guts and knocking it clean off the gangway. The next was close behind and gaining ground quickly. He roared with white-hot rage, and fired off another shot, hitting it full in the chest and carrying it backwards to roll pathetically to a stop partway down the gangway.
The third and fourth came almost simultaneously. Jostling for dominance, they launched forward, eager to feast. Aaron fired yet again, tearing the left arm from the shoulder of one zombie. The other closed the distance in a fraction of a second, batting away the shotgun with one gangly arm and reaching for his throat with the other.
He gripped the creature’s wrist, his knuckles white and muscles burning as he fought to keep it at bay. They wrestled on the floor, before the one-armed monster threw itself into the fray. Aaron leaped for the shotgun, primal fear driving his actions, and rolled, squeezing the trigger as he did so.
The creature he had grappled with was carried backwards, where it flopped like a rag doll and remained still.
The one-armed zombie leaped for him. He pulled the trigger once more, and barely had time to register the click of the empty gun before the flying creature hit him, knocking him to the floor and forcing the air from his lungs. He felt a rib crack under the weight, felt the creatures probing claws scratching at his tightly squeezed eyes.
He forced his knee upward as far as it would go, desperate to shift the zombie before he became lunch. It connected with a gratifying thwack, and the beast relaxed its assault for a brief moment.
Aaron pushed his right palm up under its chin, forcing its head back as far as it would go. With his free hand he punched it in the gut, pouring every ounce of his strength into every strike.
There was a crash from above, and another zombie smashed headlong through one of the large glass windows. It rolled to the other side of the room, and grinned.
If he didn’t shift the deadweight of this assailant, Aaron knew, the next could just saunter over and kill him in its own time.
Aaron kicked the knee of the creature pinning him to the floor, there was a crunch as the patella slid partway down the shin. Blood and black rot squirted from the injured knee, soaking his trouser leg. Aaron gripped one of the fragments of glass and drove it through the hand now supporting the weight of the creature. It shrieked in pain and rage, but could do nothing to stop him rolling out from beneath it.
He stood, only to be tackled by the next zombie in line to try and kill him. It pushed him against the only remaining pane of glass in the overseer’s office, kicking and biting as it did so. Aaron threw his weight forwards, pushing them both to the floor, and punched it full in the face. Blood trickled in a line from its forehead, and he brought his fist down again, knocking out its blackened and decaying front teeth.
He raised his fist again, and it roared a challenge. Adrenaline surged unchecked in his brain, he punched down with all his might straight into its gaping mouth.
The palette tore; blood and pus shot up his arm. One tooth became embedded in Aaron’s wrist. Its tongue found its way into his hand, and he yanked, pulling the beast upright, only to smash it back down with a powerful left hook.
Aaron stood; the zombie lay motionless on the bloodstained carpet, blood pouring from its ruined face. He panted, looked about himself. No attack came. Breathing deep, he tried to calm himself, to slow his pounding heart.
With a growl of menace, he kicked it in the side of the head, hard, just to be sure.
He turned to leave, only to realise that much of the gangway no longer existed. At the sound of a hiss, he turned back to see that the last two zombies had finally succeeded in scaling the front of the office, and were now clambering through the broken window.
He grabbed the first thing he saw- a heavy industrial stapler- and hurled it at the invading zombies. It struck one on the head, causing it to slip and almost fall. Aaron charged the pair, determined now more than ever to escape the prison of the overseer’s office.
The zombie that was first through the window leaped, and Aaron threw himself forward to counter it. The two dropped to the ground, but Aaron was up before even he knew what had happened. He kicked, catching the monster under the chin and sending it sprawling into the other, which was just now scrabbling back through the window.
The result was satisfying. The zombie he had hit with the stapler lost its grip, glass fragments tearing into its hands as it tried, and ultimately failed to stop itself falling. The other lurched, trying not to follow the first down to the steel floor one story below. It wobbled on its feet, and Aaron placed a strong kick into its midsection, sending it tumbling across the room. It hit the last remaining window, and Aaron grabbed it by the throat and pinned it there.
He struck, in much the same way as he had before, punching at its bulbous eyes. There was a crack, and rivulets of blood ran down its face, past its screaming mouth to drip to the floor. On the fourth strike, the glass behind it started to crack. The damage to face and window grew with the fifth punch, and on the sixth, the glass shattered.
Aaron pushed his advantage, forcing the creature through the broken window to land with an echoing crack on the ground below. He watched as blood rapidly pooled around it, framing its corpse like a portrait of everything bad in the world.
With a sigh, Aaron turned to leave for the second time. He had made it partway through the door when he felt the unmistakable, vice-like grip of a zombie’s bony hands around his ankle. Before he could turn to look, his leg was pulled from under him, and he fell face-first to the floor. His nose crumpled, and blood ran from his nostrils like crimson waterfalls.
He twisted. A zombie laid, one hand pinned to the floor by a fragment of glass, the other clamped unforgiving around his ankle.
He rotated his body further, and kicked out with his left foot. His boot connected, and the creature’s head snapped back. It ginned at him, yellow eyes sharp with savage intention, and it roared. Aaron kicked again, harder. Its jaw fractured and hung limp, but still it roared at him, goaded him. He lashed out once more, the heel of his booted foot entering the mouth and pushing the head back further than ever before. It came back studded with teeth.
Aaron changed tactics, kicking at the arm by which he was held. There was a pop as its elbow dislocated, but still he could not break free. He kicked out yet again, and struck the beast full in the chest, breaking its collarbone. It grinned.
Turning its head further than and human- any living human- it bit into its own shoulder, gnawing at the decayed flesh. Black bile, blood and pus welled in the wound, spilling out in long, sticky tendrils reaching for the ground. Aaron watched, frozen by disgust, as it bit into the soft, rotten flesh.
What the hell are you doing, rotbrain? His mind scrabbled for answers but found none.
With a shriek of painful victory, the creature tore free of its right arm- the arm by which it was pinned to the floor. Too late Aaron realised what was happening; already its bony fingers reached for him, scratching, mauling. Drool hung from its broken jaws, as it clambered forth to finish him. He scrambled backwards equally fast, struggling to rise as he did so.
The monstrosity leaped for him, shrieking with an ear-splitting, skull-cleaving intensity. He threw a wild punch, which connected with the open flesh of the shoulder. His fist sank partway into the rotten meat, and in his revulsion, he failed to counter the zombie’s own strike. He felt his jaw pop partway out of its housing as the bony hand struck, and fought back a scream. Long talons punctured his thigh; the scream broke forth as agony overwhelmed him.
Its maw loomed ever closer; he could almost feel his life essence draining into it. In a last-ditched attempt to save himself, Aaron threw his head forward in a powerful head-butt. He felt teeth puncture his scalp, but he played through the pain, driving forward with his skull like a primitive battering ram.
The zombie rolled backwards, and a fusion of relief and renewed fury washed in equal measure over Aaron’s conscious. He felt the barrel of the shotgun against his knee; it was empty, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t useful.
He knelt and, swinging the shotgun like a baseball bat, smacked the zombie in its already disfigured face. It careened backwards, and he took the time to stand and raise the weapon behind his head. He swung again, knocking the creature back further. It scrabbled backwards- did he see fear in its animal eyes? - And crawled back out onto the gangway. Aaron marched after it; shotgun raised like the scythe of death himself, and batted away the outstretched arm of the monster. He swung again, back across himself, and the handle of the gun connected well with its forehead.
It fell from the gangway, but succeeded in hooking its obscenely long, bony fingers through the crosshatched metal footing. Aaron raised his boot, and struck the zombie in the chest. Its grip faltered, but before he could retract his leg, it once again had him in its grasp. He slipped with it, smacking his head on the gangway as he fell. Blackness clouded his vision; he passed out, concussed.
Aaron awoke on the slaughterhouse’s cold metal floor, ice-cold against his exposed cheek. He sat up, head throbbing, eyes sensitive to the light that spilled through the open doorway. With a moan, he tried to stand, only to trip backwards. He fell awkwardly to the floor, his body stiff, then recoiled reflexively at the sight of a zombie, only to realise it was dead.
His sluggish brain caught up with the situation a moment later; the zombie had unwillingly cushioned his fall from the gangway.
He rose shakily to his feet. Every muscle in his body ached. His head felt like it would at any moment split in two, like a melon being hit with a machete. His nose, broken to one side, was the icing on the proverbial cake.
Cake... Aaron could go some food. His stomach groaned in protest, feeling even more chasm-like than usual. How long had he been out?
Placing food top of the agenda, Aaron left the slaughterhouse, running out into the daylight in search of a meal and a new hiding place.
The description of the zombies was perfect, and instead of being like a typical zombie story where the characters suddenly have no gag-reflex, Aaron actually acts how a human would, gagging when touching intestines and stuff...
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Points: 2005
Reviews: 29