The Room - Chapter 1

Silence.

Can you hear silence?

Does nothingness make a sound?

I don’t know but I don’t hear anything. I open my eyes and I don’t see anything either. Am I blind? I hold my hand out in front of my face to make sure but I can’t see a single thing. I push myself up off the floor and can hear dirt rub in between my palms and the concrete under me so I’m not deaf. Where the fuck am I?

“Hello?!”

I call out but all I hear is the sound of my voice bouncing off the walls. At least I know that I’m in a room. A room that doesn’t seem too big by the sound of my voice coming back at me. I get up on my feet and start to reach out for anything I can grab. If something happened to my eyesight then I have to be smart about this. I take small steps forward and with each step I reach out a bit further hoping I touch something. Finally I feel a wall. It’s cold and from what I can tell it’s made of concrete too. I start to carefully move to the left while still keeping my hands on the cold wall and eventually I reach another wall. Great, a corner. At least I can lean against this and not worry about being scared that someone is going to come from behind.

“Hello?! Can anyone hear me?! Get me out of here!”

Nothing. No response. Why? Why am I here? My body starts to tense up as I hear footsteps in the room with me. You know that feeling you get when you can feel the presence of someone next to you. I’m getting that now. I can feel someone right in front of my face. I hesitantly reach out but nothing is there. Then I hear a deep gravelly voice that chills me to the bone.

“You will sufferrrrrrr.”

I start to kick and punch into the air almost on instinct just hoping that I connect but kept feeling nothing but air.

“What the fuck did I do to you?!”

Then suddenly a light on the ceiling of the room starts to flicker and come on. It’s so bright and takes me a bit to focus my sight. Okay, well at least I’m not blind. I look around and I’m the only person in the room but the weirdest thing is that there are no windows or doors. It’s just an empty concrete room that couldn’t be more than 10’x10’. Where did that voice come from though? No intercom or vents. What the fuck is this?

“I want out! Let me out of here!”

I start to walk around the room inspecting the walls to see if there’s any weak point. Who am I kidding? Even if there was a weak point I have nothing to hit the wall with besides my hands and feet. I just don’t understand this. I’m trying to think back at where I was or what I was doing before I woke up here but I can’t remember. I remember what I had for lunch last week and I remember that it was raining yesterday but not anything after that. I seriously don’t understand this. I don’t get it. I walk over to the wall on the opposite side and press my hands against it.

“What kind of game is this?!”

Then I hear the mysterious voice again like its right in my ear.

“Games? There are no games. This is only the beginning.”

Then I hear a thud from behind me. I get startled and turn my body around quickly to see a door in the middle of the wall in front of me. What. The. Fuck. How the hell did that happen? Am I going crazy? I walk slowly and cautiously towards the door and very reluctantly reach for the door knob. Before I can even touch it four loud bangs come from the door like someone is pounding on it from the other side. I pull my hand back and watch the door knob as it shakes and turns. I can see the door being pushed from the other side and with each push I can see the door frame wanting to give. I do the only thing I can think of and lean all of my body weight against the door in hopes that I can stop whoever is on the other side.

“Leave me alone! What do you want from me?!”

As soon as I finish my sentence I start to hear guttural and raspy heavy breathing coming from the other side of the door and that’s when I realize I’m not dealing with someone but a something. The door frame starts to crack and my body starts to slide as the pushing gets harder and harder. Then everything stops. The pushing, the breathing. It all just stopped. I wait, still pushing my weight against the door and not wanting to move an inch. I lean my ear closer to the door to hear what was going on and I start to hear a gurgle. Almost like bubbles in a glass of water. That’s when I look down and see blood rushing in the room from under the door. I get up and step away from the door as blood continues to flow and create a bigger pool that begins to spread quickly across the floor. It reaches my feet and starts to surround them. I back up as far as I can and that’s when I hear the door knob jiggle, a click and then suddenly the door creaks open a few inches. I prepare myself to fight but I highly doubt I’ll be able to take on whatever is on the other side. I wait and wait but nothing happens. No noise and the blood on the floor seems to have stopped flowing. If I don’t step through that door then there’s a possibility that I’ll never get out of here. There’s also the possibility that something is waiting for me out there. I start to step towards the door and that’s when the blood on the floor begins to bubble. I step aside but everywhere I go it starts to bubble more and more. I can see something faintly different about the bubbles so I take a closer look. Very tiny arms start to protrude and with each bubble that pops they start to get larger. They are as red as the blood on the floor and seem to be trying to claw their way up. As I look on in disbelief, one of the demonic hands grabs my ankle and I immediately scream in pain. It feels like someone threw hot water at my feet. I stomp on the hand with the foot that I have available and look at the room. It’s filled with full sized arm pulling themselves up and I catch a glimpse at what wants to come through. It looks like a man with six small horns on his head with the face that looks like a skull. I then make the quick decision to run for the door. As I turn and make my way towards the only exit I have I can see what seems like thousands of arms coming from the floor. They try to grab me on my way out and a few are able to graze their fingers across my pants which immediately start to burn. I make it through the door and it slams behind me. No turning back now.

A Dark Day: Part XVII

"What's your name?" I ask the motel owner. "Hank.... the name's Hank. What's your given name?" he asks. I hesitate for a moment but tell him anyway "Aiden". "Well hey, I don't mean any harm. I was just bringing you back some meds. You looked like you needed them. You're not gonna get much further the shape you're in." he says. He hands me over some pills and I grab them. Slowly my shoulders begin to drop and the adrenaline fades away. Hank starts to talk but all I hear is garbled speech and the only thing I can make out is "you need to get some rest". I can't rest anymore. There's too much to do. I get up and start to make my way out of the room. "Hey!" Hank yells "If you're gonna leave, at least let me help you out a bit". Hank walks past me and gives me a hand motion to follow him. He leads me back down to the lobby and up to the front desk. He sees the money on the counter. "Did you leave this?" he asked. "Yeah" I told him. "Thanks!" He grabs the money and shoves it in his pocket. "Now comes the good part!" he says as he reaches down and opens up a trap door behind the counter.

We make our way down a rickety staircase and into a makeshift basement. The sight I see when he flicks on the light is complete insanity. "What the hell is this about?!" I ask. He begins to tell me "I'm not proud to admit it but this motel was known in this area to accommodate drug dealers, hitmen and the mob. When certain deals went sour then we had to step in and clean up the mess. You can consider this the scum of the earth version of a lost and found". The room was packed from wall to wall with guns and all sorts of weapons. The one item I start eyeing specfically is a grenade launcher. This would be perfect for taking out a horde of those things at once. I look to my right and see a big plastic bin full of shotgun shells. Thats so perfect. I walk over and start stuffing shells into my bag like a madman. These are exactly what I need. I can still travel light and not worry so much about ammo. I pause for a moment and I hear what sounds like footsteps above me. Human footsteps. Then there's silence. The trap door slowly opens. Hank and I look up waiting for someone or something to come down. I start hearing a clinking sound coming from above then I see a light quickly zoom past my left shoulder and a shattering sound against the wall behind me. I look back and everything is on fire. Someone threw a moltov cocktail down here hoping to get rid of me. That just means I'm getting closer. Hank runs over to the trap door and it slams shut. I hurry over and try to help him open it but it wont budge at all. I look back at the other side of the room and the fire is continuing to spread. There's not much time left.

A Dark Day: Part XVI

He picks me up from the floor and starts walking me over to the bathroom. He slides me into a claw footed tub and leaves the room. My first thought is to jump out of the tub and run because he's probably going to come back and hack me to pieces with a machete but I'm so weak that I can barely move. I try to pick myself up but I keep slipping back down into the tub. I should've pulled the trigger on this guy when I had the chance. I should've known better. People are desperate in this "forgotten world". Well the few people that are left anyway. Its crazy how when the world went to shit everyone that didn't become those things turned on each other instead of banding together for the greater good. It sickens me to know what we've become. No better than any of them out there.

I make one last effort to pick myself up and with the last bit of strength I have I'm able to dump myself out of the bathtub. I need to get to my gear in the other room. My vision is blurry as hell and I can't stand so I have to resort to "army crawling". Every inch I take I have to stop for a breather. I can see my gear from here but it still seems so far away. I keep my ear open for any indication that he's coming back and sure enough I start to hear his heavy footsteps getting closer and closer. I start to scramble towards my stuff faster and finally make it to my sawed off. I aim towards the door and wait. The door opens slowly once again and I'm ready to take my shot. I see a foot step through the doorway just like before. My hand begins to shake slightly as I continue to hold it up. As I look at my hand shake, in walk four of those infected sons of bitches. I jump straight to my feet out of reflex and take a shot. I take out a shoulder and part of its face but that not enough to stop it. Along with the three others they continue to make their way towards me pretty fast. Actually, faster than usual. I stand my ground as they get closer and one walks right into the barrel of my gun. I pull the trigger and watch its head blast open like a party favor knocking the one other one down in the process. I jump across the bed leaving a decent amount of space between them and me and as I'm about to take my second shot I realize that I need to do this the "smart" way. I look at my bag and estimate that it's about 8 feet away or so. I take the chance while I can and flip the mattress onto those rotting fucks, pushing them back against a wall. I hurry and grab my bat and without even much as a second thought I go to town on these things. Their heads turn to mush, almost like ground beef, as I swing so hard and so much that I start making a hole in the sheet rock. Suddenly I hear something to my left so with my bat in my right hand I draw my gun out with my left and aim. It's the owner of this place. "What the fuck happened?!" he says as he walks in the room. I take a quick look at him. He has no weapons. I hear a scraping sound coming from the floor. Its the last one crawling towards me. As I comes closer I look at it and see the total "blankness" in its eyes. No ones there. Just like an empty room. This is all it knows. It doesn't know any better. It gets pretty close to my feet and for a moment I almost feel sorry for it..................almost.

::Stomp::

A Dark Day: Part XV

I had been traveling for too long and I feel like I'm running on empty. I needed a place to sleep so I stopped and rented a motel room. Yes, rented. I had a few bucks that I found, left them at the front desk and helped myself to a nice room on the second floor. During times like these I needed a sense of normalcy. It feels like I've been holed up here forever without being outside. Honestly, who would want to be outside anyway? Me. That's who. I lost everything and everyone that I love and if I can at least find out who did this and why then I'll have a little bit of peace. On top of everything else, I don't think I'm not feeling well. My bones ache and I think I have a fever. Now is not the time to be sick. In a world that has pretty much come to an end medicine is pretty hard to come by. I have no other choice but to rest up until I start feeling better then maybe I can try to see if I can scrounge up some drugs. Surprisingly enough it doesn't look like those things have really gotten to this place. This room I picked looked like it hasn't even been touched besides a knocked over chair, a broken vase.....oh, then there's the blood stained couch. Looks like a cow was butchered on it. Other than that the room is pretty tidy. I think I'll just sit on the floor for now.

I must have dosed off because I got woken up by a loud crash. I jump up and move my back to a corner of the room. Feels like I closed my eyes for a second but I'm sure it was more like a few hours. You have to be awake and alert at all times. Even while you sleep. Maybe something fell or the wind knocked something down. As I try to convince myself it wasn't those things I hear another loud crash. Then another and another. I ready my sawed off and make sure I have extra shells handy just in case. The movement keeps getting closer and I can hear "whatever it is" coming up to the 2nd floor. I crouch down just a little lower to the ground and tense up a bit. I need to conserve my ammo so I'm ready to head at this thing like a linebacker. I'll knock the shit out of it and shoot a round off if I really have to.

Its at the door. It creaks open and all I see is one foot step through the entrance. I don't hesitate and bolt straight for the door. I push the body up against the wall with so much force it makes a big dent in the wall and with one complete motion I grabbed the body by the waistband of its pants and tossed it to the other end of the room. As the body falls I hear a groan and some panting. I pull out my sawed off, raise it up and go in for the kill. As I get closer I hear a mans voice say "What the hell are you doing?!" My eyes widen and I drop my gun back down to my side. "Who the fuck are you?!" I yell at him. He replies back "I own this place" while he slightly groans. I pick him up, grab him by his shirt and push him against the wall. I think I used my last bit of energy trying to be a football star just now. I feel my body wanting to shut down and sweat dripping down my forehead. "Hey, you don't look so good." he tells me with a concerned look. "I need...some......medicine." I say as I slowly begin to lose grip of his shirt and drop to the floor.

A Dark Day: Part XIV

I've been walking this desolate city for three sunsets and have only run into a handful of zombies. Yesterday I started noticing scriptures written on some of the walls so I know I have to be headed in the right direction. The latest one read "And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence - Jeremiah 21:6". It almost seems like this weirdo is leaving me a trail of bead crumbs to follow. Like he wants to be found. Lately the only way I've been able to get through my days is imagining what I'm going to to do The Pastor once I get a hold of him. Imagining really bad things. Things that would probably make the manliest of men cry like a 10 year old with a skinned knee. After walking this long I finally reached a neighborhood.....what's left of it at least. Cars are sitting in the middle of the road, some with doors open. As I get closer to take a look i notice that some of these cars still have bodies in them. Decomposed and partially dismembered. Poor people. Poor weak people. I continue to walk down the streets and for some reason it's starting to look very familiar to me. Like maybe I've been here before. I continue to walk down the street that's littered with debris and I spot a bush of pink roses. I remember how much she liked pink roses. The sadness starts filling my body and my eyes well up with tears just a little bit. I look up at the house the bush belongs to and that's when I realize.......this is my home. I walk up to the porch as the tears roll down my face. This is, was, my life. The door is unlocked as always. She used to tell me that I was way too trusting. I walk in and see the house in the same condition it was when I left it, like a war zone. All the memories are coming back to me like a tidal wave. I grab a picture off the wall and the tears fall on it like rain on a window. It's a picture of my wife and daughter. The night the horde attacked they didn't stand a chance. They came in the middle of the night. I tried to save them but before I knew it they both had been overwhelmed by them. I don't know if my heart can take being in this place anymore. I'm squeezing the picture frame so hard that it snapped and the glass completely busted. I grab the picture and slowly fold it up as the tears continue to fall. I stick it in my pocket and turn head straight towards the door. The blood covered hand prints stained on the walls stopped me in my tracks. That's when I spot a note on the floor. I pick it up and it reads "Aiden, I'm sorry about last night. I know we shouldn't fight over petty things. I think I may have scared Betty with my yelling. I just hope that as soon as you read this note in the morning you'll get your ass off the couch and come to the room and accept my apology. -Amy" I swear, if I hadn't slept on the couch that night I would have been able to protect them. The last day that my wife was alive I spent it on the couch pissed off at her and I didn't even get to tell my little Betty goodnight or give her my usual four kisses. One on her forehead, one on her nose and one over each closed eye. I miss them. so much. The sadness turns into anger as grab my bat and start swinging at everything in sight. I can't be here a second more and continue to remember this house this way. I slam the bat into cabinets and tables that shatter like it was made from glass. I know exactly how to make this all go away. I make my way to the garage and grab my gas can. I do exactly what needs to be done to help me move past this. I pour gasoline over anything and everything that I can. I go to the kitchen and grab the only box of matches in the counter and walk towards the front door. At this point the sound of the match scrapping against the box is like music to my ears. Goodbye Amy. Goodbye Betty. I love you both so very much. I drop the match and walk away from my past.

A Dark Day: Part XIII

I go on in a full on sprint for as long as I can handle it. I look back and I estimate that I must have sprinted at least four hundred yards. I've always been good at running, its just been my thing. I knew keeping up with it would come in handy one day. I take a look around and quickly notice that I've walked into a makeshift morgue. It looks like the CDC set up shop here and ran out of room to put the bodies because as I walk down the street the sidewalks are lined up with body bags. Side by side and stacked up on top of one another. I continue to tread carefully because you never know where these things are. The rain has now slowed down to a slight drizzle and the howl of the wind continues to pound my ears like a drum. The smell on this street doesn't even phase me at all. There has to be hundreds of bags here. I eye a bar called "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" on the right side of the street. Not really the time for a drink but that would be the only place at the moment I can find some sort of weapon. I make my way across the body bags on the sidewalk and check the door to the bar. Its open of course. Surprisingly enough when I enter the bar it looks like nothing has been touched at all. No chairs or tables knocked over. No broken windows or mirrors. Weird. I move behind the bar and take a look to make sure there's nothing or no one around. Nothing. Now to look for a gun or something. I start digging through drawers and cabinets. Come on, the bartender had to have had some sort of protection in case of unruly drunks. Jackpot! A sawed off double barrel shotgun! This is so perfect that I think I may cry. Even better, there's a pretty good amount of ammo here too. I spot a small courier bag in one of the cabinets and start filling it with shells. I think I'm ready to go. I look around the bar and see a bat in a glass case above all the bottles of liquor. I could use a nice Louisville Slugger. I smack the glass case with the shotgun and take the bat. It feels kinda old and has writing on it. Who the hell is Ty Cobb? Reminds me of corn. Oh well. As I keep wandering around I see the first sign of an attack here. I see a group of five people on the floor grouped together around instruments. Must be the house band. They are so decomposed that I can't even tell if each person is male or female. There's a table set up close to them with CD's on it. Looks like they were selling their music the night of the outbreak. The Tipsy Whiskey Gypsies? Sounds interesting. I miss listening to music. I can't even recall the last time I heard a good song or even hummed any kind of melody. Maybe if I come across a CD player or something I can pop this in. I grab a CD and throw it in my bag. I walk over and take a seat at the bar. "Bartender, I want a whiskey!" I say to no one. "You make sure its 20 year Pappy! What?! You think I've had enough?! No! YOU'VE had enough!". No one answers back. "Fuck me?! Fuck you buddy! Just give me my whiskey and I'll be on my way. I said. Give. Me. My. Fucking. Drink!" I start screaming like a madman as I take my bat and start bashing everything in sight. From mirrors to bottles to light fixtures. Nothing is safe from my rage. The corn guy that signed the bat would be proud. I take a moment and realize what I just did. Am I losing my damn mind? Maybe. Do I care? At this point it might be the most useful tool I have. What I do know is that there's one person I need to find and ask a few questions........The Pastor.

A Dark Day: Part XII

I make my way to the sunroof and bust it out with my feet. The rain seems to start coming down as I make the opening. With my spear in hand I climb out on top of the vehicle and within what it seems like to be minutes the group doubled in size. I need to make my move now if I plan to get away. I take two steps back, run and completely slip off the top of the SUV. Its as if its all happening in slow motion. As I'm falling the only words I can think of to sum up this situation is "Oh shit". I look and I can see the section of zombies I'm about to fall on slowly start looking up towards me. Without even a moment more to react I fall straight down onto a group of at least five of them smashing their heads in the process. You would think I fell on a pit of hot coals as fast as I got up off the floor and ran. As I run I realize that of course I dropped and left my spear when I fell. It was nothing but a stupid stick anyway. I look back and of course the group of zombies are heading my way......at an alarmingly slow speed. I start to slow my running down to a brisk walk and look around for something to use against these things. If I hide then they're just going to find me eventually and then I'll be backed into a corner. I can see a sign for an italian restaurant in the distance. They have to have something there. I get to the restaurant and enter carefully. Its dark as hell in here so it takes a little while for my eyes to adjust. This place looks just like the city itself, run down and destroyed. There's tables flipped, chairs broken and menus scattered across the floor along with dirt and silverware. I head back to the kitchen and I quickly spot a big propane tank. On second thought if I use this I might blow myself up too. Maybe if they have a smaller one around here then I could use that. I start looking through all the counters and cabinets. Jackpot! Got one! I head back outside with the tank in hand and I turn it on. The group has now gotten a lot closer. I would say roughly about twenty yards away. I throw the tank at the group of zombies and realize that I may have jumped ahead of myself seeing as I have nothing to ignite the tank with. I see a telephone company truck that crashed into a building across the street. I head over there and start busting open the storage compartments on the outside. I finally find a road side bag with flares. I light the flare a bask in its glow for a quick moment then send it soaring towards the open propane tank. The tank explodes right as soon as the flame gets close to the escaping fumes and sends the zombies soaring in the air and in pieces. I didn't really compensate the distance between me and the tank because even at a rough 20 yards away I still felt like I just got sucker punched when the tank went "kaboom". Pretty much knocked me on my ass. Well it did the job, they are all gone. I get up and walk over to the big black spot on the floor where the pack of undead used to be. All that's left is partially flaming and completely charred flesh on the floor. Almost smells like a barbecue only not. I better get going before the explosion attracts more of these things.