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2024-10-29 19:42:56He fell back with the ladder into the attic where the zombies were reaching out to grab him. For a moment, he gave up on life and living, his heart broken from being betrayed twice in less than an hour.
His back hit the floor and he reeled from the impact. All around him, the zombies were jostling to reach him, and he kicked at them in panic, flailing his hands in a feeble attempt to keep them away when one of them touched something. It was a brand new chainsaw he had very recently purchased. With all the effort he could muster, he reached out to pull it towards him when he felt a zombie bite into his leg. Holding the chainsaw with both his hands, he swung it with all the force he could muster, sending a few of them off and cutting into the head of the one biting his leg. Another swing gave him some space to stand, and he started the machine. It buzzed, alive and dangerous, the sound vibrating over the whole room. The zombies began to shriek and yell and rush towards him, obviously affected by the sound the chainsaw made and in a bid to turn it off. Without waiting for anything else to happen, Kevin cut a zombie that had been rushing at him in half. More of them filled this room, all of them struggling to reach him and stop the sound, shrieking as they came close, and Kevin cut all without mercy as well, crying as he did. His leg hurt from the zombie bite, but the pain he felt did not transcend his will to stay alive. They rushed at him in increasing numbers, and he cut them all, sawing and cutting until he was almost entirely soaked in their rotting, grey blood, scores of them dead at his feet. Realising that he was far too powerful for them to finish off, they moved back while he stood defensively. Slowly, they went back through the doors they had rushed in from, leaving Kevin alive. Exhausted, he fell to his knees, switching the chainsaw off and letting it fall to his side. As he sat on the floor with a pile of zombie bodies forming a circle around him, he cried, moving himself till his back rested against the wall in the attic. There, he sat and let the tears he had been holding fall free. For a moment, his cheek hurt, and he rubbed his hand against it only to feel more pain. When he looked at his hand, there was blood on it, and he realised that the zombies had scratched his face as well, a burning cut that stopped above his right eye, another wound in addition to the bite in his leg. His thoughts went to Gina and Felix, wondering how they were feeling at that very moment, and if they were at peace with the fact that he was most probably dead, his body joining the swarms of mindless zombies ravaging the city and seeking more to join in their ranks. It felt to him that they would be happy that he was out of the picture, leaving them free to do as they wished with each other. “They will pay.” He swore to himself, standing up. “But for now, I have to survive. I cannot have my vengeance on them if I die.” Cautiously, he climbed down from the attic door and into the room below, switching the chainsaw on as soon as his feet touched the wooden floor. There, a zombie stood shrieking and he cut its head off without sparing a second thought, yelling as he did. Another one came rushing at the sound of his chainsaw and he cut that one as well. Four more came and in one angry swoop of his chainsaw, he had their heads on the floor. He soon reached his room, where he had caught his girlfriend cheating, and then he locked the door behind him. He turned around again and came face to face with three zombies, killing them in the same way he did with the others. They fell dead, the only ones in the room and he stopped, turning the chainsaw off and panting. Throwing the chainsaw aside, he went and sat on the bed, tired. He fell back on it before the image of Felix thrusting into Gina resurrected in his head, and he sat up on it again, shutting his eyes and biting on his lips. His rage filled his heart, and he wanted to take it out on anything, just right about anything. Going through the room like an angry tornado on the rampage, he kicked and broke everything in his path until he was tired, the zombie bite in his leg hurting and the one on his face itching. Like in the attic, he sat with his back to the wall, and as he did the gun he had used in killing the zombies slipped out of his pocket. He picked it up, cocked it, and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not shoot. Remembering he would have had some extra bullets, he went to the drawer that had the gun in it and searched for them. Soon, he found enough for six rounds, and he loaded his cartridge with them, picking up his chainsaw again and returning to sit in his position where he would wait for anything to happen. His eyes blinked for want of sleep, but he struggled to stay awake until he could no more, clutching his loaded gun and his chainsaw close to himself, ignoring the slimy grey blood on his body and his weapons. He did not know for how long he slept, but when he awoke there was a zombie screaming above him, its deathly mouth wide open before his eyes. Around him, even more zombies were reaching to grab him, and he yelled in panic, sitting up. Looking around him, he saw that there were hundreds of zombies around him, but none of them could come close enough to touch him. To him, it looked as though there was some kind of protective layer between him and the ravaging horde of walking, rotting corpses.
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“We saw you on the TV, Uncle. Mamma made us watch it and the journalist said that you were a superhero.”“Really?” He asked the little girl, drawing out the last syllable even though deep within, he was unsurprised.“Yes, Uncle.”He smiled, thinking of the pay he would give to reward the soldier who had done it, Sergeant Malik. The man had one of the most cunning brains, helping him to record the session and ‘leaking’ it to the public. By now, it would be all over and hot like wildfire, with people moved by the video of him declaring his passion for the world, for what remained of humanity.The family members who had gathered to welcome him now moved away, each to his own business as he settled into the clean white sofa, with only Esmeralda to keep him company. The familiar sense of shame she made him feel had just hit him when he noticed that one person had not yet come to see him.“Where is Mama?”“She's asleep in her room.” She answered.“I should go see her,” General Rico muttered
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WEARY MAN
When all departed, he remained alone in the silence.The shirt was back in place, adjusted neatly on his form, but he did not have the heart to say all the goodbyes, handshakes, and greetings that followed after such meetings… all the officiality and pretence towards diplomacy. Physically, mentally, emotionally — he was exhausted on all fronts, and he rested his head on the table.It wearied him that he had ended a war on one front that began another on himself. Where were the heads of state when himself and the army put themselves at risk to save everyone else. Now, they came to ask for power — which he had not taken, but had quite naturally drifted towards him as the hero of the war.He managed to get himself to stand and dragged himself to his car, half attentive to the salutes the soldiers who saw him gave, their bodies stretched to the maximum while their feet stomped hard enough on the earth beneath them to cause earthquakes. At the car, his chauffeur offered to drive him, but h
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HIS REACTION
All was said and done, and they waited for his response.The 119 important pairs of eyes, and all the rest of those who were there. He felt his legs go weak, refusing to rise, but he would eventually cause them to, clenching a fist to the right side. Finding an excuse in the water — General Rico had never been a fan of drinking water, and was quick to boo in his thoughts when doctors advised it, but he took a hearty swallow then, followed by a deep breath.They were waiting, and he had to say something. The words he would say now would be immortal, remain after he was dead and gone, and be etched into the history books, if and when humanity found her feet and spread the beings that were her kind all over the face of the Earth again. When he said them, the words would have to be wise, worthy of being attributed to a wise and powerful leader. To him. And he knew that he wanted to be remembered as a great one. When his subject was taught in the history books, or made into biopics, or s
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HOW DARE THEY?
There are men who know how to inspire dislike in the people who set their eyes upon them within moments, and without any effort, and the particularly thin man that stood up when the Head of State who had been speaking laid back in his seat was one of these.“Your Excellency, General Rico Stone,” he began, adjusting a large pair of glasses that appeared to weigh his face down. “And to all 119 Heads of State seated here at this august meeting… I salute.”General Rico now found himself more irritated by the man, forming an image of him in his head. These were the kind of men who acted high and mighty, who would wrinkle their noses at the sight of poorer people, and rather throw crumbs of bread at their dogs than at people who needed them. He did not like this man.“I, elected spokesperson of the newly created Union of Heads of States have come, as the lowly servant of theirs, to speak to you on a number of matters. Firstly, is the issue of the governments, and how all power seemingly res
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THE TEARS THEY SHED
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ESMERALDA
The doors swung open into the room where 119 heads of state were waiting for him. He raised his hand to his head in salute before going to the seat reserved for him, while his guards stood on either side of him, armed to the teeth with stern faces and guns.Even then, his mind returned to Jose.Where was he now? Was he alive or dead? Had he even made it past the end of that horrid year? Or had they even passed one another without knowing?He would never know.It was why his thoughts shifted to another sibling he knew, Esmeralda. She had been fourteen at the time, with pretty hair and eyes. He still remembered how her body had still been forming into a womanly shape at the time — things he was quick to look away from. Brothers could not look upon their sisters with that kind of desire.The problem was that other eyes did not turn away the way his did.In the face of disaster, nothing is ever the same, and nothing matters to the victims more than staying and feeling alive. Could General
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ALL FIVE OF THEM
He marched in his military regalia to his villa, flanked on both sides by two armed men as they started on their way to the military headquarters, where he had demanded that they come to see him. They had asked that he come to the presidential villa of some other country, but he refused, presenting an imagined fear of a coup d’etat for his reason.The true reason was that General Rico wanted to hold onto power for a bit longer, and wished to delay the meeting for as long as he could. Life had changed so fast for him over the course of the war that he did not want to go back to the past, to the scarcity and poverty and hunger he had come from.Who would if they were in his shoes?He was born into a poor family, where his parents were farmers on a small farm. They had guarded that farm with their lives at the time, knowing that any problems with it would keep them hungry for a year, but there were things his parents and the five children which he was the third of were helpless before, t
