Zombie Apocalypse: Fractures

Chapter 2: Bruce

This southern man was one who's lived his young life partying, hunting, fishing, and being a reckless boy. Now a grown man he's grown out a full beard, showing the patience he had. His brown eyes like pools of the earth he walks on, his black hair short like he's always had it. His life was consumed with his wife, daughter, and still fishing and hunting. That is, until something weird began in the small town he lived in.

Bruce heard gunshots, cars putting on their brakes in futile efforts as they crashed, screams from men and women. He tells his wife and daughter to stay inside as he opens up the living room closet, grabbing a pistol and a hunting rifle. Bruce lights himself a cigar before heading out the door to see what was going on. To his disbelief people were being chased by others without even trying to fight back. "What in God's name is goin on here?!" When he said this, a few of the people began walking towards him in staggering steps.

"I kindly suggest ya stop right there. Wait, that you Mrs. Walker?" He said in confusion as he almost didn't recognize this woman as she groans at him in hunger. Bruce immediately realizes that she wasn't herself as he draws his pistol up and out of its holster. Aiming it at her chest and squeezing the trigger, a bullet now soaring into the air. It hits her in the chest but she only stumbles back before staggering towards him again. Bruce fires another shot as it hits her in the head this time.

He watches as her body falls limp now scared for his family, Bruce rushes back into his home. "No time to explain hun! We just need to get a movin!" He rushes them out of the house firing a few shots behind him as two bodies dropped to the ground. He was holding his wife's hand as she carries their daughter in her other arm. "Just don't look back y'all!" He says in fear but he keeps a calm and collective look for his family. He runs with them down the street to go downtown and head for the police station, firing shots to any of the weirdos trying to come after them. Soon enough after a little bit of running, Bruce turns around the corner down the straight away towards the station. Bruce rushes them into the police station with policemen and women shooting the weird acting people.

He looks at his wife and nods to her in a non spoken understanding. He goes back out to help the police with the weird acting and seemingly decayed people. The loud booming gunshots were drawing more and more of these weirdos in so they all retreat into the station. Bruce helps them board up the front doors while others board up all other exits and windows. After everyone relaxes as much as they can, Bruce walks up to the chief to ask what's going on only to be told that those walking corpses are what caused everything.

"So, yer tellin me that these dead folks are what's goin crazy?! Well I ain't scared of nothin! C'mon hun!" Bruce commands his wife to grab their daughter and walk out of the station through the back emergency exit. They sneak their way out of the alley after Bruce smashes the head of one of these dead walking people as he put it in his mind. They make their way out but his wife and daughter are grabbed by the weirdos, two shots going off as he grabs his daughter to put in his left arm. But he watches as a bunch of them start eating away at his wife. The horror in his eyes as he watches her life being taken and her muffled blood filled screams ring out.

Bruce takes this time to run with tears in his eyes as he had to keep his daughter safe. He runs down the street to the left of the police station and into the hunting store as a way to keep them safe, but that proves futile as his daughter screams in pain. This made him turn around seeing his daughter having a piece of her neck gone. He shoots the weirdo in the head in rage as he then catches his daughter. "No. Please God don't do this to me! I've given my faith in you, please don't do this!" Tears swelled up in his brown eyes as his daughter's body goes limp, all life being taken from her. "Damn it!" Bruce had gotten up quickly and pushes over a rack of camo jackets. He just sits in a corner of the building where he could look over to his daughter's dead body.

After what felt like an eternity but was only just a few hours, Bruce notices his daughter's lifeless body start to move with slight twitches. "Oh thank you God!" He rushes over not knowing what has happened to her. He brushes away the brown hair from his daughter's face as her eyes open, only they were white and she starts groaning like the weirdos from outside. She reaches out to try and bite him but he pushes her away with a pang of hurt in his chest.

What he thought was a revelation had quickly turned to a horror filled with pain. "Oh please no. Don't make me do this." He said between sobs as he realizes that he had to kill his own daughter. Bruce lifts his pistol up with an unsteady aim, firing a bullet but it misses his daughter's head. He lets out a scream filled with sadness, hurt, and regret with each missing bullet he fires. Bruce then sees she was trying to bite through his steel toe boot, that's when he takes out his pocket knife. He looks through his tears as the engraving on the handle of the knife had said, I love you daddy with his daughter's name on the other side of the handle. He reads her name on the knife handle, Ellie, before he sinks the blade into his daughter's head slowly.

The thought of her body going lifeless, he couldn't decipher what was worse. Her dead or what she had turned into for until either him or someone else had killed her. His thoughts were then interrupted by the sound of glass breaking from the back of the store. Bruce quickly grabs ammo and a bag to put the ammo in for his hunting rifle and pistol. "I love you my Ell bear," he says through the pain as he storms out of the store and makes his way to the grocery store. Keeping away from the main roads on the way there, he soon makes it. He sees a group of these undead freaks were by the front entrance, attracted by the cart being hit repeatedly by the automatic doors.

He just smashes the window of a nearby car and the theft alarm goes off on it so he could sneak past them. He climbs in the store and removes the cart so the doors could close fully, now making his way through the store. He had learned that these things were attracted to loud noises so he had a hunting knife in his hand, ready to take the next freak down.

Bruce makes his way to the back half of the store and hears what sounded like a little girl crying. He quickly followed the crying to the office of the store and sees a bunch of dead bodies on the ground. He also finds the source of the crying as he steps over the dead bodies. The little girl quickly grabbing the axe, "Stay back!" He sheathes his hunting knife and puts his hands up, "Calm down now, not here to hurt ya." She swings the axe and Bruce jumps back in enough time to dodge the axe.

He just calmly steps back a few steps, with his hands still up. "Look, I know a lot of crazy things been happenin n' it seems like a nightmare. But ya got to trust me darlin." He tries to calm her down with much success as he takes her into a hug. He lets out a sigh of relief as he knew she wasn't one of those things. She reminded him of his daughter but she was definitely older than his daughter.

This was the start of the southern hearted man, Bruce. Lost everything and ends up gaining something that will ground him to keep on living and move on.