Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Death Unites ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Droplets of rain collected on the soaked ground, forming puddles that rapidly grew in size. Those puddles melded together into small streams, which began their uncontrollable track downhill towards an overflowing stream. A foot interrupted one of these stream's path, becoming sucked into the mud and taking the water with it deeper into earth.

This caused Elisa, a girl in her early twenties, to become unbalanced and fall to the ground, wet and stained gray shirt to become coated in mud and grass. She gasped for breath as she pushed herself from the soil, chest burning and eyes filled with tears. There was no time to recover. Quickly, the scrambled back up, pulled her feet from the mud with a loud suction noise, and resumed her sprint. She could see a cabin in the distance.

Behind her, the echoes of undead overpowered the storm. She could hear their footsteps, marching as an army. Those creatures did not tire.

Elisa reached the cabin, but the building was old and worn down and would not provide her safety against the might of the horde. Instead, she saw a small opening beneath the stairs, where maintenance people would crawl beneath the house for repairs. She fell to her knees and quickly crawled inside.

Once there, she sat near the opening, where with a simple turn of her head she could look out into the field. The creatures were not in sight. Elisa leaned her head back against the dirty wooden boards and breathed deeply, struggling to gain control. The horde was not here yet, but they were rapidly approaching, and when they arrived they would hear her panicked gasping.

Tears fell down her eyes softly. Her bones, muscles and head throbbed with pain, stomach rumbled with hunger, and mouth quenched with thirst. Days had passed without a meal, and sleep only came in spurts. Elisa shivered from the cold, but the rain was a blessing. Heaven's strong downpour would muffle the scent of her sweat.

Elisa had realized long ago that waiting was not the worst part, as people she could no long remember used to tell her. Waiting was a blessing. Waiting meant survival was a real potential. A human could only run for so many miles, lack water for so many days, and handle terror for so many weeks.

Through the woods she saw them approaching, the mindless horde. Death was one thing that united all humans, but the crowd blurred together despite their individual uniqueness. Each individual creature wore different clothing, originated from a different race, but each creature's skin rotted. Elisa had noticed over time that their conditions worsened, and as days turned into nights and her loneliness began to transform into insanity, she had realized that the death of the dead was her only true hope for salvation. There would be no sanctuary in Alaska or developed cure from Europe. Those creatures hungered for flesh just as a human hungered for meat or a deer for vegetation. They ate to survive, and that was the only instinct to guide them, and if they needed to eat, they could die without that nourishment.

As the creatures reached the cabin, they began to spread out. A few wondered off to the woods behind the cabin, a few continued their mindless trek forward, and two of the herd stepped up onto the patio. There was a bang of flesh against wood. A scream followed the noise.

Elisa's eyes grew wide. Someone was inside the cabin she hid beneath, a real human, a living breathing person, and she had led the zombies straight to them. Her heartbeat froze and her breath caught in her throat. Panic began to take over, but with a shudder she gripped it inside and pushed it far down.

Another bag, then another, footsteps pounded above her head. Peering through the spaces of the steps, she saw the horde converging. More climbed the steps to the cabin, more banging echoed out from the door above her head. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn't help the person inside. Their life would end because of her.

Her vision grew blurry, mud and darkness merged together. She wiped at her eyes and tried to stable her breaths. The rain was loud, but it would not overpower uncontrollable sobs.

“Fix it! Now!” An enraged voice echoed in her head. Elisa tried to look around, but her vision was still too blurred. She blinked once, then again, then a third time, trying to clear away what she assumed were here tears, but to no success. Where had that voice come from? It was too clear to be from the person in the cabin.

Glass shattered as her vision suddenly cleared up. The zombie had found a window. Another scream echoed. “Now! Hide!” This time it was a man's voice from above her head. Elisa's heart stopped again. More than one person was hiding. Footsteps pounded above her, and then a door slammed. She heard the sounds of fighting, and then the sounds of breaking bones.

Elisa was compelled to try to help the people she had placed in danger. The young woman scrambled to her knees, placing her hands on the wooden floor above her head. She could see faint flickers of light from candles or lanterns, but no shape or form or image of the scene occurring above her. Moving as fast as she could in an awkward position, on her knees but hunched over, hands above her head, she searched the length and width of the building, looking for hinges or weak boards. Elisa wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she hoped that she could find the people, pull them down with her to safety.

She reached the entrance of the underground area again without any success just as she was struck with blindness. Having a vague knowledge of her exact location, she fell backwards and scrambled to push her back against a wall. Elisa rubbed her eyes frantically, smearing mud and sweat and tears all around her eyes, but she was only greeted with darkness.

The man in the cabin screamed over and over again. Elisa could hear the sounds of shattering bones and terror. A door was slammed above her and footsteps rapidly followed. The sounds of crashing items echoed out. A loud thud hit the floor. “Daddy! Run!”

“Get out!”

“Daddy!”

“I said NOW! She's becoming aware!”

Elisa blinked as her sight returned. She looked direct at the entrance. Another crash, and then the girl in the cabin screamed out. Familiar sounds of flesh and blood and breaking bones caused her stomach to cringe. Elisa scrambled to the entryway. The people above her had fallen silent. She could no longer help them, and with the horde occupied in their feeding frenzy, this was her opportunity to escape safely.

With the upmost care, Elisa crawled out from beneath the stairs and took off in a sprint. Before she was able to make it five steps from the cabin, blinding white light consumed her vision. She collapsed with a yelp, feeling a bone in her arm snap. As she hit the ground face-first, she also sat up with a gasp, her body freezing cold and choking on something in her throat.

She could not see, not from blindness again but from the blinding light immediately in her face. Frantically she waved her arms in front of her, surprised when she struck something metal. The light swung from left to right. Briefly, she saw a large mirror, and reflected in that mirror was a woman with her skull cut open and tubes engulfing her body.

“Shit!” a voice screamed. “Put her back in! You're fucking fired, get out of here!”

The blinding light consumed her again as the lamp fell back into place, followed immediately by darkness, then rain, then mud… then the hungered groan of zombies. Elisa looked up, her body shaking uncontrollably. With a slight turn of her head, she saw them pouring down the steps, eyes locked on their next meal.

Broken arm hanging limply at her side, she struggled to her feet and ran.