Alternative Zombie Intro - Epic Win (unfinished rough draft)

                “Why did I even say yes to this?” Winston says to the table in front of him as he slumps down into the well-used chair. His right hand slaps down lazily onto the table top, causing a small rattle from the empty coffee can and the wobbly, hand-crafted, wooden sign which both rest on the uneven tabletop. He sighs heavily and looks around the common grounds of the college at the various people moving from one place to another, oblivious to each other as his hand picks and pulls at the name-filled paper in front of him.

                As the day meanders on, picking turns to penciling and Winston slowly, methodically tortures the paper on the table with inquisition precision and merciless persistence. He brushes a roll of raffle tickets away to dig in deeper to his torture as he administers the thumbscrews on the edge of the sheet. The little red tags of unwon prizes slides neglected to the cash box to pout unnoticed. Winston stretches and tears at the paper, grinding on it looking for any form of vocalization from the list of names but none comes.

                “Hey Win.” The melody floats through the air directly above Winston’s sandy blond faux hawk and beyond the realm of the cafeteria style table. The melody is repeated and finds the same lack of response. Again, the table claps, this time from a hand other than Winston’s, which causes his head to pop up like a startled meerkat.

                Standing before Winston on the opposite side of the table is a smaller woman with a very pleasing frame and yellow hair layering over her one-piece denim skirt-suit which clings tightly to her shape and accentuates her feminine curves. Winston’s startled face transitions to joy, “Hey Jennifer. What’s new?”

                “Just getting ready to go to class. What about you, what’s all of this?” She asks as she waves her hand like a game show hostess at the table and the various items scattered across it.

                “Oh. Well this is a fund raiser my business club is doing. Want to buy a ticket? They’re only a dollar.” He sets his hand on the reel of red tabs and smiles half-heartedly.

                “What do I win?”

                “Well, we aren’t really giving out prizes. The deal is you pick someone on this list,” he taps his pencil at the scarred paper, “and you buy tickets on them. The instructor with the most tickets bought on him or her has to kiss a pig on graduation day in front of everyone.”

                “Oh, how very interesting.” She feigns enthusiasm but her cynicism seeps through her glowing white teeth. “Have you been very successful today?”

                “No, it’s been pretty quite.” He points at the emptiness throughout the indoor courtyard. “No one wanted to show up to school today.”

“I am a little surprised to see you here today.” She motions around to the rest of the college.

                “Why.” Winston slides back into his chair, scratching at the edge of the tabletop.

                “Well with the bomb threat and all, I figured you might have stayed home.” She leans up against the table and Winston can’t help but notice how the table’s ledge presses against her hip flesh.

                “Oh that. That’s no big deal.” Winston flicks carelessly at the reel of tickets.

                “What do you mean, no big deal? Doesn’t this bomb threat cause you at least some concern? This is a big deal.” Jennifer tries hard to be genuine with her words but again, her biting condescension is more visible than she thinks it is. She is so confident in her intelligence that it doesn’t dawn on her that her belittlement is dead obvious.

                Winston sighs out his boredom with the conversation, “There is no bomb. It’s all just a hoax”

                “Oh?” She provides mock surprise. “How do you know this?”

                “Yeah.” Winston leans forward and props his forearms up on his knees, “Think about it for a minute. There are two reasons why this can’t be legitimate. First off; this threat was issued yesterday and the ‘terrorist’ said it would explode today. I sincerely doubt anyone in this town has the knowledge necessary to make a timer that will go off a day later.” Winston smiles and waves at the college president as the man in the suit walks toward the cafeteria. “Second, if this was legitimate, the ‘bomber’ would have a real reason for doing it and that reason would have been sent to the paper or TV station, not scrawled like a juvenile on a bathroom wall. I mean, if you were going to bomb something, wouldn’t you want people to know why they’re being punished?”

                Jennifer pushes off the table and resumes her power stance, “I guess that makes sense.”

                The ground shifts and chaos runs from the cafeteria in an earth shattering roar. The walls tremble at the sound, shaking off paint and mortar. School chairs and other normally stationary items escape from the sound in a flight and billows of dust, smoke, and debris chase after the errant items in a frenzied rage, spitting trash and cement in anger.

                Winston uprights himself in his seat, scooting his torso back onto the chair but cannot move. He rolls his head brokenly forward, stooping slightly before regaining equilibrium. The young student tries to stand but is stopped dead by the length of steel bar which has pierced his left knee and embedded into the concrete, putting him in his place like an insect on corkboard. Winston’s eyes focus for the first time since the explosion. They stare at the knee, trying to understand why it refuses to move and finally realizes the source of his immobility which causes a slight wave of nausea.

                Jennifer pulls her feet underneath her and stands on them a good four feet from where she was standing before the blast. She stabilizes herself by holding onto the floor with one hand and her curvy hip with the other before drawing herself up onto shaky knees and grabbing at nearby air to keep her upright. “Oh my god…” she stammers through a muzzle of disbelief as a cascade of ash and dirt pours from her straight blond hair.

                The fingers of his left hand gently investigate the spot where Win’s knee and the steel rod connect as he calls out to Jen, “Hey! Are you alright?” He tries pulling on the gigantic pin and when he does, his vision flees and beads of sweat form on his hairline.

                Jen orients herself and turns to let Win know she’s fine as she is blindsided by a blur of human mass. The force of this second battery throws the woman again and again she is tossed to the ground, this time, she is covered by a pair of ragged bodies. The mass of bodies slides to a halt next to part of the ceiling which has fallen and Jen finds herself pressed to the ground by the college president and a culinary student wearing a smoldering apron. The culinary student, lying on Jen’s legs and holding her right arm, pulls her hand to his torn face and drops his exposed jaw onto her fingers. She screeches in pain which causes the president to prop up on her shoulders and look down at her. He cocks his head to the side and allows a sound to fall from his bloodied mouth that sounds like a choking pig. His head twitches twice like a skipping record before he also descends upon the face of the screaming student, teeth exposed.

                “Oh shit!”  Win grabs the bar above his knee and jerks on it. Pain sails up his leg and into his stomach. The wave crashes in his belly and rolls to his throat, widening his eyes. The pain freezes his movement and Winston is paralyzed, eyes fixed on the two men attacking his classmate. The president pulls his perfectly styled head back from Jennifer’s face with all the force his strained and sliced neck muscles can muster. His mouth full of broken teeth drag Jen’s cheek like stretching bubble gum before the tension causes it to snap roughly mid way between faces, sending strings of skin slapping up at the president like spaghetti noodles and flecks of blood and fluid spurting into the air. This sight breaks the spell and Winston understands the need to move now! He jerks on the unmoving bar again which sends another wave up through his gut and into his throat, this time unstopped by his esophagus, the previous meal spills out from his face with sloppy splatters onto the table in front of him.

                The culinary student chewing through Jennifer’s hand raises his own into the air with his boney fingers pointed at her stomach. Without watching, he plunges his fleshless finger knives into her midsection, tearing through her tight denim outfit and her abdominal wall. He reaches elbow deep into the student and retracts with a handful of intestines. Sections of the meaty rope slips between the student’s jagged fingers and slap at the body below. The student rips at the new handful of organs with a clap of the teeth and gnashes at the rubbery meat. The sight forces another round of convulsion from Winston and the sound causes the feasting student to snap his head at Win and jolt forward. Win shakes the bar, fighting back the waves of pain, rocking the bar back and forth as the culinary student half crawl, half sprints at the pinned student. Knowing that his arm strength isn’t enough, Win begins kicking away from the bar with his trapped leg which begins pulling the impaled rod from the concrete. With a scream, he kicks away from the cannibal and the pole flips up. Winston tries to run from the crazed cook but his mangled knee doesn’t even try to support him and he slides away from the table as the other student leaps across it and crashes into the now vacant chair.

                Winston begins scrambling toward a set of nearby stairs while the sprinting student throws chair to the side and launches into another tackle. Knowing he can’t get away, Winston rolls onto his back and scoots backward to the stairs, keeping a frightened eye on the lunatic student as he jumps again. Winston grabs the rod and points the unoccupied end of it at the heart of the flying student. The pole punctures the landing person and protrudes from his back which stops his forward momentum. He shoots his bloodied hands at Winston and falls short of his target so he grabs the post and pulls his body closer to his prey.

                With the additional weight, Winston quits trying to pull the bar out of his leg and instead butts it up against the bottom stair and scoots closer to the stairs. This pushes the bar out of the wounded student’s knee along with meat and chips of bone. Once the pole gets too far through Winston’s knee to hold the weight of the advancing lunatic, it begins swaying off to the left and Win pushes it in encouragement before realizing that doing this tears at the remaining flesh connections between his body and his lower leg. With sound of splitting rope, the bar severs most of the ties keeping Win’s foot and the culinary student sprawls to the side clumsily sprawling backward. Winston bellows in agony.

                The college president’s head flips up, covered in crimson. He draws to attention like a meerkat hearing danger. His throat clicks a few times and his head cocks twice rapidly before tasting the air with his tongue. He draws in scent with fluttering eyelids and a slow gasp of wind before his head falls sideways, eyes landing directly on Winston’s soul. Without the assistance of his hands, the president rises from the corpse of the girl, knees buckled together and head not changing axis.      

                Winston is stricken with another wave of nausea and panic which is compounded by watching Jennifer’s body rise to a sitting position and then stand as well, faceless and with innards pouring from the hole in her midsection and dangling at the end of chords of tendon and artery from deep within her torso. He wheels about and scrambles up the stairs, dragging his nearly severed leg behind, not realizing how much it resembles a fish out of water flopping up each stair and spinning in the air or tumbling around itself.

                The college president and his recently undeceased classmate begin stalking the wounded student. As they close in on the stairs, the reset of the college erupts in a new chaos, bringing panicked students and staff out of the woodwork screaming for ambulances or nine one one. The door bursts open behind the college president and his hefty secretary charges out of the door straight to her boss with a box of Kleenexes in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. No sooner does the woman get her stubby fingers to the president’s mangled face is she beset upon by a pair of hungry dead and shortly joined by the third famished attacker.



Glance

Carrie poses awkwardly in front of her standing mirror, questioning her satisfaction of the slightly thick woman peering back at her. She rotates her broad hips and runs a hand down her shapely silhouette, frowning. "Maybe if I cut my hair..." her thought trails to nowhere as she scoops a handful of blond curls and presses them to her scalp. The bangs still frame her dollish face, allowing her pink, pouty lips to give attitude. Her focus is stolen from her flaws as a large void of light momentarily slips across the background.
Instantly, Carrie tastes her heart as the roots of her cherry wood hair lights aflame. Her hazel eyes scour the mirror, trying to glimpse the shade but has no such luck. Fear and desperation wheel her at the speed of panic away from the reflective surface and toward reality in hopes of locating the distraction. Her gaze races from nook to corner, running under the pillowy couch, behind the matching recliner and screaches to a halt at the partially open closet door across the room.
Between her audible breaths, a whisper escapes, "Has that been open all night?" Her finger absently jabs an accusing point at the door that holds back the darkness. No one answers her. Trying to dismiss the blackness of her shut away, Carrie visually investigates the room again without moving, for fear of giving away her location. Nothing.
In an attempt to remain calm, Carrie hopes to convince herself that she is still alone by voicing confidence building remarks such as, "It was nothing..." and, "You're just imagining things." This helps, if only a little, and, sheepishly, she turns back to the mirror, trying to regain focus on the frustration of her appearance. The criticism comes half heartedly as her eyes scout the room on the other side of the glass. Eventually, Carrie's terror subsides and her self esteem takes control again as it decides the black slacks she is wearing should not be where they are. Resigning to the will of her abused ego, Carrie watches her alternate self deprive her sandy hued legs of covering, exposing both her blue pearl panties and her non-matching peach colored stocking socks. She throws her rejected pants to the bed and scoops up a long black skirt, all in one motion.
When she turns back to her mirror, the negative presence is caught for the briefest of seconds in Carrie's view. Again, she tastes her heart. Rust coats her tongue and electric shocks bolt to the center of her body, just below her belly button. Her wide eyes try homing in but the presence is no longer present. Again, she spins about, hoping to catch her watcher but finds herself just as deprived as her legs. "Hello?" She sounds out to try greeting her peeper. Her voice is full of quiver, betraying her projected courage and showing her truth. Fortunately, she thinks, nobody responds. Perhaps that isn't fortune.
No longer thinking of what outfit to wear to work in the morning and the feeling of Carrie feels compulsed to try locating her stalker. Before she moves her feet, her hand snakes down to the vanity next to her and feels for a weapon as her eyes continue to act as lookout. Her shaking fingers weave around the nail polish bottles and lipstick cases and other such feminine products before finding the solidity of her hairbrush. Her digits cling to this as a drowning swimmer would cling to a lifeguard and her feet begin the longest journey to the front door so Carrie can determine whether it is still locked or not, being very wary with each step to avoid furniture and doorways.
Millions of footsteps later and Carrie finds herself at her front door, one hand pressed against the painted wood and her porcelain cheek resting at the frame. Her eyes scrutinize the brass knobs and levers, tracing each mechanical device to its proper locked position. "Still locked." She sighs. A thud sounds from behind her, on the far side of her two bedroom living area, near the restroom and she breaks out in a sweat. "The windows..."
Chaos erupts. She hurdles end tables and damages blinds in an attempt to secure the perimeter at each glassy entry way and at each look out point, she peers out, searching for more optical intruders. The next painful minutes are filled with swinging latches and scraped knees. She races from window to window, causing her partially buttoned peach blouse to flap in the wind her speed creates, forgetting that her legs are bare and she could be exposing the neighbors to her flashy underwear. Midway through her kitchen, Carrie slides to a stop in front a counter and whips open the knife drawer. Care escapes her mind as she rifles through the drawer, creating thin red lines across her hand and knuckles until she finds the most monstrous blade in the small wooden compartment. Leaving the hair brush behind, she continues her pursuit for security. 
After all entry ways have been barred, Carrie begins the hunt for the invader inside her home. Like a tiger in the brush, she stalks slowly and deliberately, plotting each step before taking it. Her golden mane sways as her keen eyes survey the prairie for the hidden gazelle. A bump to her right. She jumps. An open door to her left. She swings her knife wildly as she crosses the threshold. Her void watcher is nowhere to be seen in this room and standing motionless in the room, too afraid to move are a pale washer and an equally white dryer, both waiting for the partially clad woman to strike. In rage, she grabs the front of the dryer and throws open the door, unknowingly knocking her mop into an off kilter balance as she stabs inside the dryer barrel. Carrie then moves over to the washer and begins gutting the sunshine scented metal beast until she is satisfied that there is nothing worth stabbing inside.
Carrie stands, her round hip nudging the dryer and the dryer, in turn, taps the ill stabilized mop, which finally takes a spill and skitters across the ground, bringing along with it a couple brooms, a precariously perched dustpan and two mostly empty bottles of cleaning fluid from the neighboring shelf. The smashing clatter causes quite the start in Carrie and she spins about, knife jutting out and foot sliding through an oily scented substance freshly covered the floor. No longer able to contain her balance, Carrie begins the panic dance as her arms begin flailing in all directions, looking in futility for an anchor. Her hand refuses to release the knife, following strictly to its first orders of survival. She lurches forward, trying to grab the side of the washer but connecting to the corner of the dryer instead and with her jaw rather than her fingers. The blow knocks her equillibrium off. She instinctively attempts to correct but finds herself in a timeless descent to the ground, stopping just inches past the blade of her north pointing kitchen blade. The void comes into the room and covers her vision but her fear is replaced with comfort as the body numbs. Carrie's blood mingles with the bleach and she welcomes the embrace of the shroud as he carries her softly into oblivion.

God's Tears

"Why God?!" My hands thrust toward the sky and dropping on my knees to the muddied earth below me, I cried out louder, "Why have you done this? What have I done to deserve this hell?"
But no answer came. No remarkable sign or wash of feelings, just me, firmly in my place within the same soil from which I was supposedly created. Why then does the ground not bleed as I pour red from my engraved wrists which joins the rain and runs toward the grass like lightning looking for ground.
"I'm done with you! I'm not calling out to you for forgiveness, I've done that too often. I don't want your damn help anymore, I defy you! I deny you! Come on you wicked bastard, strike me down! I'm a sinner! Stop making me suffer and just punish me!"
I thrust my chest out, arms back; offering a target to the clouds and with clenched fists, I scream, "Strike me down! Punish me for my sins! My suicide is my last act of treachery and still you do nothing! I dare you, cast me down to Lucifer's infernal pit for my actions! You are nothing!"
Yet, there was no lightning. No earthquake. He didn't even send a runaway semi truck to plow me down. Nothing struck me but the weeping of God's tears streaking through the skies, striking my face and intermingling with my own pain, though, by this time I could no longer feel their thousands of little assaults.
I stewed in my own emotional Armageddon with silence and stillness as I bled out from the ends of my arms for an eternity. Suddenly, I noticed a sensation that had been with me for a while as my face gained a utopic warmth and a chaotic pulse of pin prickling brought my awareness to my gashed and gaping wrists, though my sight was dimming and I couldn't witness the crimson waterfalls. My ears caught the movement of dozens of invisible bees. It was no sooner than this point that God had finally decided to answer my challenge as his voice cut through the swarm, "I'm here to help you poor child."
By this time, my eyes have gone and my mind was following, so I couldn't glare into God's face. To double my rage, the dirt below me pulled all of my strength from my body so I was too weak to throw my fist but I intentionally radiated my immeasurable hate. Not even this deterred the almighty one from attempting to saving me by offering.....to call for paramedics?
My ears were the last to fail me and I was finally fully cloaked in the warm void.

Charlie

The surrealism of dusk has passed and the infinite empty of night is becoming painfully present. Uneasiness is rocking me to my feet in my would-be antique store I call a living room. I know this cannot continue and I have to take action before the claustrophobia crushes my body. I give another shake of the matchbox in my hands to hear the rattle of a dozen skinny little pyromaniacs, which serves to confirm my growing resolve. It is time to ask my uninvited guest to leave.

From the thick mustiness of my front room I make my way past the mantle to the doorway, which leads to where I have eaten so many meals with my family. The dining area is easily twice the size of the living room but it has afforded no space as my own reality has pressed in on me from all sides. I take pause before entering this room, struck to a standstill by the only light in the house, which is coming from the kitchen entry across from where I stand hidden by the evening's darkness. My eyes swim in their sockets. There he is! Just sitting there, in my home! Resting his filthy elbows on the small table in my kitchen, taking in the infernal cancer from his cigarette. I don't know this stranger but I'll be damned if he isn't Charlie Manson! I have to remember to breathe again.

I shake my matchbox.

Taking the first step into the dining hall seems to be the most difficult decision ever but I manage to put into motion the concrete poles I had once called legs. My steps don't take me closer to the kitchen but deeper into the dining room. Now is not his time, not yet. Each step I take does brings me closer to the moment of truth and further from the warm comfort of what I used to consider the safety of my comfortable life but my body is following the plans of a secret mission my mind knows but will not tell me. Finally, I make it to the edge of my dining table. This is the corner where my two boys would sit, constantly playing the game of one-upmanship. "I'm already to level twelve."

"Oh yeah? Well I rode a wheelie for half a block today"

Gone. That game will never be played here again.

The table as my guide, I walk silently and deliberately from the only light in the house to the darker corner of this room. Why does there never seem to be any colors of life in the bleak grays of darkness? These next two chairs often sat empty with only each other as company but always hoping for the company of others. My trek across the room is taking an eternity and there suddenly seems to be thousands of chairs in my way, scattered ever so gently about the perimeter of the table. I shake my matchbox. The rattling pyro sticks sparked not flame but fear from under the table. With a slight bend, I can see directly underneath to a pair of desperate, cornered eyes. Inhuman eyes, eager for freedom and I know they belong to one of the two German Shepherds the stranger brought with him. This poor beast, like his brother at the end of the table is worn and dirty with patches of hair missing and signs of life missing. These frightened dogs could easily be mistaken as homeless people reincarnate. I continue walking.

Across from me now is where my girl would sit, next to her Grammy, not my mother but my wife's. I didn't care for her much then and I don't suppose I miss her now but my daughter loved her so much.

I shake my matchbox.

It feels as though a lifetime has come and gone but I make it to the end of the table. In some way, I guess a lifetime has come and gone. I guess a few have. I sat here with my wife, the king of the castle and his queen. This is where I would often sit proud, knowing that it was due to my protection and care that the evils of the world would not, could not permeate and defile the sacred sanctuary that we called home. It was here that fate was so often waiting to prove me wrong.

I shake my matchbox and look down. The two pathetic excuses of life look up at me from scarred and beaten faces. I kneel down and hold out the matchbox. Their quivers work to push the fear off their seemingly sandblasted coats as it comes to me in pulsating waves, nearly knocking me off my perch. Suddenly, it comes clear that our captor has his own matchbox, the one he carries to keep his habit ablaze. Maybe he shakes it before he beats his dogs. Maybe he holds it as he swings the hammers at the end of his arms.

"I'm sorry," I plead as I set the box down in front of these two chained slaves and slowly wrap them only in compassion. These poor animals don't even feel alive. My arms are telling me, as I hold them, that this must be what it feels like to pick up animal carcasses from the highway and for the longest minute in my life, I just hold them. I talk to them quietly, soothe them, and swear to give them freedom.

For these two, I regain my resolve and stand. This is it. I tell my self repeatedly, this is it. Our Charlie must die. On the back wall of this dining area, near the entry to the living room, there is an inset cubby where my wife and I felt placing a stereo was a spectacular idea so that we could play music while the family ate. That is where my gun is. That is where retribution is. The fear of death will give even the clumsiest oaf a military class stealth level and I find that I am no exception as I steal my way to the cubby. From here, I can catch glimpse of Charlie. Still he sits there, enjoying the calm before the storm and I know that time is nearly gone as he puffs away on the time bomb in his mouth.

Wait. What about the neighbors? What will they hear? I can't bring my drama to their doorstep. Will they call the police? Is prison in my cards? NO! This is self-defense. This is survival. I know that's a lie. The burn in the back of my throat doesn't taste like survival but of hatred. Pure and rancid hatred.

I need music. I need loud distraction. I must have the ending spelled out like the climax of a movie. Mostly, I need something to drown out the ability for witnesses to clarify how many shots emitted from within this Hell. My hand closes around the cold comfort of steel as I slip my favorite Monster Magnet CD into the changer and demand it play.

The bony chill hand of Death slides up my spine and my peripheral senses tell me that Charlie has disappeared from the kitchen and materialized directly behind me! Possessed by a cyclone, I turn and fire. The burst of noise from my weapon beats the beat of drums to any nearby ears but the bullet sails into the void of nothing. Oh god. I was wrong! My eyes slice the room apart, ripping through the gray of darkness. Nothing.

I have to swallow my heart before I can move again but once I do, my eyes like homing missiles zero in on the yellow wash of the kitchen doorway, being blocked by his silhouette. I didn't realize anyone could be so evil that he could even imprison light! His presence invades this room just as he did the very first minute he walked into what I used to call a life and by sheer will, he thrusts invasion upon me. My chest is on fire with the pain of pressure. I can't take this eternal instant of panic and stumble backward. I realize my feet want to run the other way and I find myself falling. I may never stand again! With blind hope, I fire a shot at the kitchen doorway. The pistol's kick burns in my elbow just as lightning strikes the back of my head from landing where my feet used to be.

My senses all assault me at once! Oh god! He's right on top of me! How did he move so fast without making any moves at all? His silhouette blocks out any light the kitchen would give as comfort. He has become a specter of the underworld, a shade that descends mercilessly upon my throat, nicotine stained nails excavating my collar bone as his dirt caked hands feel for my throat. The drums and guitars from the CD player suddenly get as frantic as my pulse and I feel his ruthlessness shaking my neck and taste his acrid breath spill out onto me! My arms are pinned to the ground by his knees from behind torn and crusted jeans. The pain shoots like my gun should but never gets to the receptors in my brain as it gets backed up just like my blood, waiting for his hand made dam to break from my throat but it never does.

As my vision and the hauntingly frenzied whirl of Monster Magnet fade, a half groan and half scream escapes my captive throat which is muted only by the haziness of an impossible distance. This instantaneous, yet endless primal cry carries me into black oblivion. Through this, the only image that tattoos my mind is that of Charlie's two broken dogs, yet, even in the last fleeting moments of consciousness, even those two poor beasts slowly leave.