Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Mechanical Affection ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Mechanical Affection- Chapter 2

I would just love, love, love to say that I was smart enough not to walk straight into a trap. But, let's face it, I really wasn't and, in my defense, I was concentrating really hard on the task at hand.

I had been trudging along, staring intently at the ground as though the spots might disappear the moment I looked away. That or I was afraid I might get distracted and end up somewhere I didn't want to be. Don't ask exactly why I wanted to be there, with that particular group of breathers. Maybe easy pickings later? One was wounded… Nah, I didn't think that far ahead.

Anyway, the ground had turned from asphalt to grass and that grass into shrubbery. Nature wasn't exactly the kind of place I normally found myself in. Way too easy to fall and it was such a bitch getting back up on un-level ground. Also, even a slow human can outmaneuver a zombie in the trees. I was likely to starve. So I just stuck with the good old `burbs most days. Less crowded than the city, but still a good spot to nab someone still living trying to scrounge up supplies. But I was so concentrated on the chase, slow as it was, I took no heed to my previous reservations… I probably should have.

`Follow breathers…. Follow breathers…' The mantra got old before it became refreshingly new again. Blood on the leaves, blood on the grass, blood on the dirt. It was a wonderful game of I Spy, but an increasingly difficult one as the spots grew further and further apart. Then it stopped completely, it seemed, and I stood dumbstruck. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that he would stop bleeding, not that it was a difficult concept to grasp in general but my mind wasn't capable of multitasking.

Well, fuck…

Swinging my body back, I straightened up from my hunched over stalking stance and took a look around. Middle of nowhere… Trees, trees, trees, a bush for a change of pace, some trees, more trees, and, oh! Big surprise, more trees…

I moved onward in hopes of picking up the trail again. I did so until I was presumably lost beyond a doubt and ran into some kind of a barrier. It kind of looked normal, like a couple of trees had fallen over, and I didn't bother to try climbing over it lest I get stuck or fall and break my own damn head off. Instead I walked alongside it until it opened up, miraculously, and like a sheep to slaughter I just wandered on in without a second thought. Wasn't like I had a reason to be worried, right? The living weren't on the constant hunt for zombie blood or anything, right? Right.

A few steps later and bam! Face meet dirt, dirt my face. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I won't be staying long.

With a deep groan, I struggled to get my hands under me but instead ended up flopping around like a fish out of water. I'd like to blame the dirt for this miserable failure, but if we're being honest (and zombies are honest) I was so confused I don't think I really knew which way was up. At some point I ended up on my back and managed to sit up from there, it required a lot less coordination.

I stared blankly at my feet. They were tangled up in a rusty looking wire that may or may not have been sawing my legs off at the ankles. That was normal right? Wires lining the forest floor. I gave a kick and in the distance there was the clanging of something metal… Probably a little less normal, even I had to admit. So I kicked my leg again and listened curiously to the clink-clanking of whatever it was. To say I was fascinated would have been an understatement. That something far away made noise in response to something I was doing was simply amazing and whatever I was doing before left my mind completely. I had to find the source of that sound. Had to.

A few flailing kicks later, my legs were freed. I thrashed around a moment, falling when the dirt slipped under my boots, until I fell into a tree and shimmied up to my feet. Then I struck out towards the source of the noise because I really was just that stupid. I mean, yeah, I'm the smartest zombie I know but the bar isn't set all that high.

I thought I must be drawing near the origin when another noise shot out through the forest like a bullet. Which was an accurate description because, when my mind caught up to it, I realized the sound had been gunfire. Upon further inspection of myself, I came to realize that whoever shot at me had even made contact.

A dumb, groggy sounding murmur left my lips as I bowed like a wilting flower to examine the wound. A clean shot right through my left thigh. That wasn't likely to heal anytime soon. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever had the misfortune of actually being shot while I was the undead. Which would probably explain why I stood there dumbly doubled over and gaping at hole in my pants.

Another eardrum shattering bang clapped through the trees and I dropped like a rock. It had grazed my shoulder, much less serious than the hole in the leg thing I had going on, but I was still smart enough to know when to call it quits. I'd learned pretty early on that most of the living don't give a grounded zombie the time of day because: a) it was already dead, b) if it wasn't, it couldn't crawl fast enough to catch them, and c) zombies generally don't fake being downed because being on the ground is just down right unnatural. My shooter proved to be no different in reasoning. The firing stopped and nothing came to bother me.

I felt black bile building behind my tongue and I felt sick lying there, well as sick as a zombie can feel. Shifting my head, I pressed my face into the ground and opened my mouth to groan quietly. No noise came out but a couple of mouthfuls of black sludge spread across the earth. Bleck… So gross.

Flopping over onto my back, my milky eyes stared up at the fuzzy leaves. Then I blinked and the leaves had gone from dry and matte colored to wet and sparkly. Huh, I guess it must have been naptime.

The morning dew shimmered like diamonds. Pretty… Then wind blew and droplets of the cold water hit my face. I jerked and croaked some weird sound I didn't know I could make and flailed around as fast as I could to get up. In the process, I probably got more wet than I would have had I not panicked. I hate being wet.

I shook my head, ended up convulsing for a minute when I lost control of the action, and raised both arms to wipe the water from my face. My arms came away black and I recalled vaguely having thrown up my innards recently. Unfortunately, I no longer remembered what I had been doing and stood there staring at the forest as if the trees would direct me where to go. They didn't.

Something else on the other hand, decided it would be much more helpful in giving me somewhere to go. It was a noise, constant but variable in pitch and tone, and I followed it. As I approached, it sounded like speaking but I could not make words. Something was distorting it and I grew increasingly more curious of it. What could possibly be speaking that I could not understand even slightly the words? It wasn't just fast speak, it was something else.

It grew so close I could almost touch the noises as they came, but then they started to fade. I must have passed the thing making the sounds and I circled back. It took a good four loops before I discovered that what I was looking for was on the ground. A small dull grey box… I stared at it and bowed down to look closer. It was talking, certainly, but its constant crackling made it hard to understand and for a long time I couldn't figure what it was. It was not warm and when I kicked at it, it didn't react. Not alive…

It seemed familiar and I made a gurgling noise at it. When it made noise back, I suddenly wasn't so lonely anymore. I didn't need to know what it said as long as it was talking to me, or at me.

Swaying on my feet, I continued with this exchange. It was nice to be having a normal conversation again, or not so normal. Only when it suddenly stopped making noise completely did I snap out of my little conversation trance long enough to grasp what it was. Now that I wasn't distracted by its noise, I realized it was a radio. But that didn't seem right.

I looked from side to side. Trees… I looked up. Sky… I looked down. Radio… I was having a hard time making the connection.

I gave it a long stare. One of these things was not like the others. So I gurgled at it, implying the question `why are you here radio?' though a better question would have been `who turned you on?'. Surprisingly, noise came from it again followed by a continuous string of other noises, voices presumably. Some radios do have two-way audio… I lost interest in this line of thought when something better turned up.

Warmth… Oh, man, and the hunger pangs struck me like a baseball bat to the gut.

Turning to the source, I spotted something or, rather, someone. My cotton dry mouth dropped open farther than it already had been hanging and I let out a hollow gasp. If I could have sucked in hard enough to vacuum the breather up then and there, I'd have gobbled him down with pleasure. I forgot temporarily that there was no chance I could catch him in the forest and staggered after him fast as possible. Oddly, he seemed to have been watching me because he was already turned towards me when I saw him. Now he only stepped back a few times and raised a hefty looking shotgun. Oh boy, that'd do some damage but I was too hungry to care.

He stood his ground and I was almost upon him when I stopped. The warmth in his direction swelled. I couldn't see it, but there was danger there. Had he called reinforcements?

I stared at him, studied him. There was something dark on his arm. A tattoo, something like a fork… Maybe more like the devil's pitchfork or a merman's trident. Solid and black. His face, though blurry, looked familiar from somewhere. And, damn, he had skinny legs. Did he know me from somewhere? Why didn't he shoot? I was… Curious and drawn to something about him, something that wasn't the flesh on his bones. Don't get me wrong, he'd be super tasty right about now and I'd enjoy every inch of his frame. But he looked at me in such a way-

Oops! I remembered why I'd stopped in the first place and got an eyeful of couple of other breathers. I couldn't tell you how many there were, since I can't do that counting thing anymore, but it looked like more than enough for me not to stick around.

With a frustrated growl, I swung my head away and my body followed my sight away from the living. They didn't come after me.

As it turns out, barriers are not only at good at keeping things out but also in. I stumbled across the natural looking wall again, not that I particularly remembered it, and found I couldn't get quite as far as I would have liked. After a few hours wandering, being directed by obstacles I could not overcome, I conceded on my efforts and went back to my normal meanderings away from it. I was so hungry by this point, I felt like I might actually implode and begin consuming my own body. But, as luck would have it, and I was a terribly lucky zombie, fortune shined on me.

As I drew further from the unexplainable or at least incomprehensible wall, I picked up on some more warmth and followed it. What I found when I got to the radiating mass was peculiar. I was quite unaccustomed to finding meals simply dangling from the trees but there it was. A deer hung by its neck and leg from a spry little sapling. It kicked its back legs a little and its mouth was open wide as it gasped for breath. I considered it but I was far too hungry and too much of a zombie to really think the situation through. It was immobile, I was hungry, and I wanted to eat it. That was that.

Picking my way through the bushes and trees, I wasted no time in chowing down on the delicious feast laid out before me. Grabbing the beast by the back leg, I sank my teeth into its tough hide. It was harder to chew through than human flesh, prickly too with the bristly fur, but after a few minutes of gnashing my teeth I tore a sizable hole its rump. I wasn't the most gracious of hosts, eating it from the legs up, but the wretched thing eventually did die as I continued to eat around my first bite. I gnawed off every bit of flesh I could from the bone and by the time I was done, there wasn't much left. What was still suspended in the tree consisted of tendons, bone, and some skin on the less meaty areas like the face and lower legs. The guts remained untouched on the ground and I was drenched in blood.

I so enjoyed myself, that I'd clean forgot about the guy with the gun from earlier. It must have been nearly nightfall by the time anything of any particular interest happened again. Zombies aren't particularly known for being interesting when there's no overwhelming need to do something. So I'd spent the better half of the day standing around in a sunny patch of grass while I enjoyed the feeling of being full and warm.

“Hey, you!” Now that surprised me but my reaction time was so slowed by my contentment that I might as well not have been surprised. Turning around slowly, I saw a skinny breather with a shotgun. It took a moment, but I did recall him after I caught a flash of that arm of his. Mr. Trident. Normally, I might have heard or sensed him coming but not this time.

I let my head drop to one side, cocking it curiously at him. His gun wasn't raised but hanging at his side. He was just staring at me expectantly. If he was expecting some sort of understandable response, he was out of luck because all I did was make a gurgling sigh. However, that seemed to be enough to get him going again, feisty little thing. His mouth opened and a stream of sound spilled out that I couldn't catch. When I didn't do anything, he shifted uncomfortably. He might have said something else but my brain skipped right over it. Then he raised the gun and aimed at me, the dick. I wasn't doing anything.

Jerking my head back upright, I pulled my lips back in an ugly black scowl. He stared at me hard and then said slowly, “Just a few steps.” I had no idea what he was talking about so I did a little twirl for him and looked around to see if there was anything near me. There wasn't. I stopped and stared. His gun was down again and he was smiling. I didn't attempt to smile back; I wasn't good at it so much anymore. I think part of my face was probably paralyzed because grimacing was pretty much as good as my expressions got. And I get the feeling a scowl just wouldn't have the same effect.

I took a few steps towards him and he jumped back a little, keeping the distance between us. I couldn't blame him but I tried to get closer anyway. Heck, I just wanted to give the guy a hug. Ya know, for not blowing my brains out and for fucking trying to talk to me. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside… Wait. That might just be the deer. Either way, I could use a nice warm hug.

Mr. Trident stepped carefully and then darted away. I stopped and he stopped too to look at me. Then he waved his hand, “This way!” He called. Seemed like good advice at the time, but the next thing I knew the world was distinctly not the way I remembered it.

My brain sloshed around in my skull and my eyes did a wicked rolling thing in my sockets while I attempted to figure out what the hell had just happened. I let my head hang and felt as though I was looking up with ease. That wasn't where the ground was supposed to be. I looked down, struggling to crane my neck. And that wasn't where the sky was supposed to be. Oh god, and everything was swaying back and forth around me.

Try as I might, I could not remember how I had suddenly come to stand on the trees. If lying on the ground was unnatural, this was doubly so.

“You okay,” Mr. Trident paused as he reached towards me and grabbed my shirt. He tipped his head to the side, “Mitch?” I might have been more enthusiastic about a breather voluntarily touching me if I wasn't so sure he had something to do with my current predicament. I snapped at him and he quickly let go to jump away. His mouth moved but the words didn't reach me. What the hell had he done to me?

I tried to look at my feet but failed, so I settled on letting out a distressed zombie cry. Not that any of my brethren would care to help me if they heard.

Another breather appeared beside him. They were upside down to me so I couldn't tell if the new one was male or female. I was having a hard enough time making sense of the world to bother with what exactly it was. Whichever, man or woman, had a gun pointed at me and Mr. Trident let out a cry and batted it away just as it went off. Oh, how I wished I was just upright again!

“Don't… I want him.” Said Mr. Trident. So he really did know how to talk slow, he just couldn't be bothered to take his time with me. God, stop being such a prick. I like to be let in on the conversation too, every now and then.

“Want him?” Repeated the newcomer, a female I suppose, “Like, to keep?” Her slow speak seemed the result of surprise. Surprise that I currently shared. What the hell did that mean? Did I look like a dog to him?

“Yeah.” Then he started talking gibberish again, words too fast for me to comprehend. Then she started doing it. Great… It was contagious, this form of speech. Hey, girls and boys, I was right there. Slow it down, why don't you? There they were, discussing my future non-life like I wasn't even there. Didn't I get a say in this matter?

Apparently not.