The Pit (Zombie story pt VII)(second draft)

The Pit1

The music went louder, then louder again. The clumsy cacophony of the several thousand dead was lost under the layers of heavy metal. It was just the music and the occasional bash at the window nearest my head. Gritting my teeth, it was all I could do to stop myself climbing the stairs and taking up my rifle. I wouldn’t even have a bullet for each zombie. Perhaps thinning their numbers would suffice… Ridiculous as it was, I would be dragged off as the centuries greatest butcher. Closed eyes, I tried to lose myself in the music. There was one problem I soon discovered, I hated heavy metal! I didn’t hate this music as much as say, pink, bubblegum, pop, but still, it was bad. Out of the lounge chair, I hauled myself against the musical tide. Pacing around the living-dinning room did little to still jagged nerves. Beer, a cool beer should solve everything! The thought was sarcastic, but I wanted a drink. 2

Fridge still open, one hand bracced on the door, the other tilting the bottle to my lips. The first went down quicker than the Trade towers on fast-forward. Perhaps it is politically incorrect to compare a burning building full of people to a beer being sculled by a yob on the edge, but perhaps it is somewhat fitting. I grabbed another, beer, not a tower, and went back to the lounge room. This is where I had watched it all unfold, the towers, not the beer. It was fitting that I should also witness the beginning of the end in the same place. That’s how everything happens now. It happens out there, and then it’s beamed hear, straight into our safe little worlds. We forget it all pretty quickly. Soon all that is left is the cry-foul and the knee-jerk responses. Maybe this time things would be different. 3

The sound of smashing glass rose above the full metal racket. Head spinning, glass on the floor, something, flailing arms no doubt, pushing at the curtain. 4

‘Bastards.’5

The curtain rod was torn free from the wall and crashed to the floor revealing the face of death, several in fact. They eyed me blandly as they attempted to grope the distance between us. 6

‘You bastards.’7

Not a dog’s chance they could reach me. Still they tried and spoke in their inarticulate, moaning, lament as they did. 8

The beer bottle left my hand, hurled the short distance to the closest decomposing face. With a shower of beer and glass, the bottle exploded on the bars. Fragments of glass cut through the air, one grazing my cheek with a sting that brought me to my senses. There was no way to silence the inarticulate babble of the dead, their smashing of glass and tipping of bins. They were out there, and there was nothing I could do about it.9

Curiously I decided to go upstairs. I unbolted the door, the moan of the dead surging as I passed through onto the balchony. Thousands! Unbelievable masses, more than I had thought. They must have begun dumping the “affected” within the blockaded section of Newtown. How many more were out there in the alleys and streets, city, region, state, country, world? They were all down there, the suited elite, businessmen, students, emergency response services, homeless, children, tourists, joggers, even an undead living statue. None were exempt regardless of standing. The awe and shock quickly subsided. My gaze turned to the tobacconist. As I had suspected, from this distance and angle, there was nothing I could discern of the occupants. Maybe they were still inside; maybe they had decided to risk an escape. Looking back at the seemingly endless mass, I couldn’t imagine any back exists out of the area not clogged with the dead. The eldest, he was bitten. I wonder if he had turned yet. Would the others handle him? I entertained wild notions of heroic rescue. Stupid and slow as the dead are, the reality of the situation was very clear. Those boys were on their own. I made sure of that when I turned them away. It had been the right decision. I leant over the rail, looked up the street, then down the street. Unbelievable… with a sudden surge of inspiration I went to look for my camera. 10

For shots like the ones I captured from my balcony, the survival nuts would go… nuts. A lot of those guys were out in the sticks, some of them hadn’t even seen a zombie. Sure, I wasn’t exactly sitting up there in my machinegun nest “kicking ass”, but still, nuts was nuts. I was annoyed I had missed capturing the events of the previous afternoon. There wouldn’t have been anything particularly unique about the picture. It was likely the same scene had been recorded a thousand times all around the world. With one last unfulfilling look at the tobacconist I went back inside bolting the door and pulling the curtains shut. I had had enough of life up hear. I typed a brief message to Tahni so she wouldn’t freak out when I went off line. That done I shut the computer down and unplugged it. Piece by piece I carried it down into the disaster shelter, the pit. The computer back together and booting up, a guilty thought entered my mind. I climbed back up into the house and made my way to the kitchen. I claimed another beer and put my last frozen pie in the microwave oven. I drank as I waited. Merry as all hell, I raised my drink to the zombie that appeared at the uniformly barred window. 11

‘Get your own, you ugly bastard.’12

In typical zombie fashion, the thing cleverly utilised its head (literally) in an attempt to pry the bars apart. Failing in all but pealing large sections of its face off, it changed tactics, feebly beating at the window. I drew the blind. I could still see its thought deprived, mangled face in my mind. The beer disappeared, I got another. I flicked the top at the blind which masked all but the rap, rap, rapping at my kitchen window. Finally the microwave bell chimed. I took the pie from the tray and smothered it with tomato sauce, just the thing for the ass-tasting pastry. About to head back to the pit I paused, went to the fridge, another beer… for later.13

I set the pie and the beers by the computer and went back to the blast door. I went about sealing the shelter so that the heavy rug above covered the entrance. A paranoid measure one may say. Not me. Soon the sound proof cavity that was the pit was filled with the Me Fist and the Gimmie-Gimmes cover of "Walking on Sunshine". Loud as the system could handle, loud enough to permanently damage my hearing, it was likely not even the faintest bass thud would be heard above ground on the street. I turned my browser to survivalnuts.com and uploaded my images to a new thread titled, “The Flood at My Castle“. The site was still buzzing. Updates of all sorts were being posted continually. There were maps illustrating the spread of “infection”, notices of utility outages and major military operations. There were pages of links and statistics. One thread was entitled “Shambler Trophies”, a vanity thread where members posted pictures of themselves with their kills. There was a photo of a couple of quaint, traditional looking English farmers, rifle cocked, a dozen overlapping dead bodies arranged in front. There were photos of people, mostly men holding up severed heads punctured with gaping bullet holes. There was even a score board for confirmed kills. Going back to the main page a new topic had sprung up, “India Nuked”. I clicked immediately. There was only a short sentence and a link to a BBC article. Apparently just minutes before Pakistan had fired warheads on the populated Pakistan - India boarder regions. I followed the link to the BBC article. Nothing other than the detonation of high powered explosives, most likely low yield nuclear devices, had been confirmed. It was suspected that nukes had been used and that Pakistan was the instigator. There were fears of a larger Indian counter attack as supported by their nuclear weapons doctrine. And again, I was thankful for my mothers grand paranoia. 14

I typed a response. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there would be much left to get upset about, the whole region is among the worst affected in the world. Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Amritsar, New Deli, Kolkata, they’re all fucked.’15

‘Both countries would have been blaming the other for the whole problem,’ came a speedy response. 16

As many would have predicted, India launched its counter attack not long after. Not much about the extent or targets of the retaliation was known, but it was suspected the damage would be extensive. With so many devices worldwide and the precedence set, it was anybodies guess as to which desperate leader would do what. Suddenly the half forgotten nightmare of the cold war loomed large again. It didn’t really matter anyway, it was a mix and match endgame scenario. With a shrug of my shoulders I decided it was time for another beer. 17

The re-emergence of the old survival nut staple drove activity on the site to a new level. Wild speculation, fear, bravado, calls to battle. As far as some of the members were concerned, it wouldn’t be long till they were lifted off to heaven along with the other true believers. The rapture, they called it. Some of them just wanted to see it all burn and taunt the ashes. 18

I logged out, and signed into my instant messenger service.19

‘Where did you go?’ Tahni asked almost instantly.20

‘No where, party at my place. Want to come?’21

‘Be there soon XD’22

The chatting went on with the net typical banter.23

The two beers and the pie were gone too soon. Sadly I realised there was a chance I would never eat another horrible pie again.24

‘It’s ok, none of us are going to live long enough to miss them lol,’ replied Tahni.25

‘You always know the right things to say.’26

More drinks… I had resolved earlier that day, while hungover, not to get fucked up again during the end of the world. Fuck that, it was one of the few joys left.27

I was greeted by the endless zombie drone as I heaved the blast door over. I pushed the rug aside and climbed out of the pit. The window in the kitchen was smashed in, the blind dragged half out the window. The same zombie was there. Still it was trying to pry the bars apart with its head. Not settling for one or two beers this time, I filled a cardboard box. The cold glass on my skin made me wish I could drag the fridge down into the pit. An image sprung to mind, of a fridge falling through the blast door, and landing with a mangling boom on the concrete two meters below. I emptied the kitchen of all food containing snack value. 28

Once again I left the real world behind me, sealing myself with the small impenetrable other world that was the disaster shelter, my pit. The keyboard and monitor was my link to a parallel universe. I went to it. For now I wasn’t so much interested in the turmoil occurring on an insignificant blue-brown planet, but rather; one particular inhabitant. 29

‘How is the booze situation?’ I asked with a rapid click-clack of the keyboard, my trans universal communications, input device. 30

‘Green,’ came the response.31

‘Drink with me?’32

‘We were meant to be waiting? lol.’33

I turned on my webcam and mic. A moment later she did likewise. Her short hair was dyed a rich purple; her eyes were like smiling weapons, sharp blue I called them; her lips thin and straight slowly curved into a smile; her pale white shoulder, bare except where her tank top cut close to her slender neck. It wasn’t just her eyes that were weapons, she herself was. Schooled in armed and unarmed martial arts, she could hand the arse of her opponents back to them with a lightning flick of her wrists. 34

‘Hello, Jake,’ said a dishevelled gaunt looking character.35

‘Hello, ferret. I hope you aren’t enjoying Tahni’s hospitality too much.’36

The guy laughed, but I detected, or imagined I detected a nervous note. It was ok. Tahni had an understanding. 37

‘I could leave the cam on for you later, if you like.’38

She wasn’t joking, I could see it in her yes. She was ready to go. The wave of lust that had silently been building was unbearable. Damn the thousand kilometres between us. Cold showers all-round.39

I raised my drink. ‘To the end of the world and whatever new beginning which may follow.’