Julian Hernandez's main concern was how to rid himself of the disease that threatened to turn him into a mindless corpse.Largely, no one took notice of him, and those who did stared at him for a long time. He could almost read their minds and hear the questions being thrown because of him — Who was he?Why did he look so haggard?Was he crazy?Of course, he was crazy enough, losing his mind over how best to rid himself of the virus and unable to get the fact that he was walking around with a leg that rotted even more with each breath he took.For most of the afternoon, he moved about endlessly and in terror, afraid that the police would be looking for him after his killing spree at the hospital, done out of necessity. There were protests in the streets of the city, and he kept away from places where people would see him, or even scarier, smell him.He continued like this, before going to rest under a bridge, tired. There, he pulled up the trouser and saw that the infection had gone
Moving on the sea, the ship named the Giant Waterdrop pushed her way through the waters in one smooth, sailing motion, leaving the white bubbles frothing in the water where she passed.Her captain stood alone on her first deck, staring into the darkness with pride. There was every reason for him to, as he was the captain of the world's biggest cruise ship, and one of the biggest ever built by mankind.“And keep us safer than the Titanic, my Lord,” He whispered, inhaling the sea breeze as he prayed. It was his usual prayer, which he believed had kept him safe through all his years as Captain.One of the staff captains came close, and he turned at the sound of the man's footsteps.“Anything for me, Larry?”“No, captain. I only wanted to get a feel of the wind up here, and half expected to meet you.”He nodded, continuing to stare into the darkness. “You could find anybody here. There are 4,102 other people on this ship besides us, and any one of them can be anywhere.”“Not you, Captain,
The Giant Waterdrop was not alone in her doomed voyage that night.The Neptune's Net, a fishing trawler, had half of her nineteen crewmen playing a game with a pack of cards, laughing and cursing. The other half were distributed about the trawler when her master made the call.Cheers rose from the men. They'd been at sea long enough, close to a month, and although many of them had come to love life at sea, home and the families that awaited them without rest still existed, waiting for them with open arms.The lights were switched on as the trawl was drawn in and the contents released into the fish hold, while a few of the men wore the gloves so they could start sorting out the fish by hand. It was no easy work, but it had to be done. One by one, they entered into the hold, and as soon as the first man put his foot in the water, the fish they caught all started to swim towards him.“The fish are in love with you today. What have you —”The question being asked was left off halfway, as
The Allfather was looking at his screen, proud of how far he had come.He had announced himself to the world with the help he coerced from the World Commissioner for Health, to let them know that there was someone known as the Allfather, that he was coming and that they were all going to feel it, knowing it was him. He was so close to wiping humanity, and purging the Earth of these ridiculous, strangely intelligent, four limbed beings.All that would remain would be the preselected members of his special race whom he had taken the pains to program genetically, so that they would remain unharmed even when attacked by the zombies. For the first time in long, his mind went to them. They were represented by purple dots, largely unnoticed by him over how few they were on the screen, well outdone by the red that indicated the zombies. His eyes went to Middlestown, which had long been turned into a desert area without a single human or zombie, and there he could count three, still in the ve
“Breaking news,” cried the journalist whose image and voice projected from the television early that morning at 5 AM. “News reports reaching us speak of a ‘Bermuda Catastrophe', which refers to some kind of mysterious activity that suggests the sea may have developed an appetite for ships and all forms of marine craft this night.”On and on he rambled about a potential holdup over the hours of the night that had brought some kind of chaos over the seas and sent the Universal Marine SOS Helpline into a standstill, with SOS calls issuing from practically every ship that had set sail, and even reports of some aeroplanes missing.“What is happening is yet to be ascertained, but it is our hope that morning will bring us the answers we need, and our loved ones as well.” The man finished, nodding his head in that professional way akin to journalists.Two men sat before the television in the lifeguard room, both of them professional lifeguards working on the Perania Beach, an expanse of land
Phil was the first to get in, and he locked the door so quickly that Aaron, who was only a few paces behind, hit uselessly against the hard wooden door.“OPEN THE DOOR. OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR.” Aaron cried, panicking as his fists drummed against the barrier that stood between him and safety, even if for a few minutes.The door had still not opened, and he dared to turn and look at whatever was coming from behind, his heart thumping in his chest. They were drawing even closer, and the sheer number stunned him — so many that every inch of the beach was lined with them. He could also see what they were with the rising sun : octopuses larger than anything he had seen, giant sea worms that looked like mighty tubes with teeth on one end squiggling through the sands, jellyfish whose size were also terrifying, eels squiggling their way on the sand and humans, if they could be called humans, when they were better fit to be called zombie men from the sea.He did not wait for Phil to open the doo
Ioso had not fared any better.The few people in the streets that night had seen the zombie that had been Julian Hernandez howling through the streets and made their runs from it, only to find themselves before the zombies coming from the lake, including the zombies from the eighty-seven people who had disappeared around the lake. That was the exact time when the true pandemonium started. They started to run all over, yelling and crying out in panic, while the creatures for the lake attacked all the people they could, even breaking into houses and turning the sleeping people into prey. The governor was a busy man, and was sitting awake that night, pouring over some office work when a call from Jose Mateo alerted him to the danger they faced, “You have to get away. Those zombies are attacking us.”There was no time to think for him. He woke up his sleeping wife and daughter from their slumber, got them in his car, cocked a loaded gun which he used to warn all of the housekeepers to st
Aaron remained where he lay as they drew closer. They seemed to fill everything and everywhere as they moved inwards and even further into land from the sea they came from. As they moved, the sea animals infected by the virus made no sound to alert him that they were coming — only the human zombies did that, and his attempt to run and get away before they reach him could only carry him a few steps further before he fell into the sand once more, defeated.He would have tried to move again had four fingers not curled around his foot to pull him, and when he felt even more hands on him, the tears ran down his face as his pleading fingers dug uselessly into the sand. He gathered the courage to look at what was pulling him, and there was the now familiar, rotting face of a zombie as it screamed at him.His entire body pulsed as he screamed back as if in response, until there were so many grasping at him. At last, he felt it. The pain of teeth going in his neck.It burned him so much that