Home is You ('Home Is' Book One - Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 9 - Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)

NATE

There's a ginormous elephant in the room and sooner or later? We're gonna have to acknowledge its existence.

But for the moment we simply sat in shaky silence, not daring to look at each other. Knowing we'll lose it if we do.

Every now and then one of us took a sip of water. Heads turning towards each new scream, crash and gunshot bursting up from the streets below.

Half an hour passed. Then the sounds were obliterated by the thunk....thunk....thunk  of helicopter blades.

Three of them passed low overhead. Weaving through the buildings like pterodactyls swooping through pre-historic canyons. They're huge and flew so close we saw the soldiers inside, swivelling mounted guns yet not firing.

Leo and I jumped to our feet and rushed over to the parapet. Gawking at them, then down to the streets.

It's absolute carnage.

Abandoned cars, some burning for whatever reason are scattered along the roadway and on the sidewalk. One has hit a fire hydrant turning it into a huge fountain. Bags and scattered belongings litter the street.

Now and then a living person would scoot across an open space, before ducking into a doorway or slithering under a vehicle.

There are also the dead or dying. Some are laying on the ground. The blood from their horrific wounds is being washed down the stormwater drains by the water gushing from the hydrant.

Most are motionless, a few are screaming in fear and pain. Some begin twitching and rising....just as the young German had in the lobby.

Was it really only a couple of hours ago?

And amongst them all are....the truly un-dead.

Lumps of nothing more than flesh, bone and blood. Walking as if they're being controlled on invisible strings by a giant puppet master. Their movements are drunken and shambling, seemingly without purpose.

Until a sound or a movement draws them.

Then they all turn as if part of a choreographed dance. Heads raising up as if they're....sniffing the air? Following a scent like bloodhounds?

"They're dead"  Whispered Leo, his eyes never leaving them.

"They have to be dead. No one could survive injuries like some of them have. How can they be walking around? Why? How can any of this be real?"

Suddenly there was a blur of movement. A young woman raced between some cars, dragging a suitcase behind her. Stopping suddenly when one of the wheels got caught on a manhole rim.

She tried frantically to tug it loose. And I was about to scream at her to leave it....when the mob of un-dead surrounded her. They're so deceptively quick, neither she nor I even noticed them until they fell on her.

Her screams....Oh fuck....her screams.... 😨

I twisted around and crumpled. My butt hit the deck, back slumping against the parapet. Straining to breathe as tears poured down my face. Hands dangling between my bent knees.

Just crying....crying yet not making a sound.

Leo kept a solo vigil over her.

When the screaming eventually stopped he slid down next to me....our bodies touching. I peered up to see tears of horror streaming down his face.

I reached for him, he reached for me and we sat there. Sobbing in each other's arms.

The dam of absolute fear has burst and it'll burst again and again for us both over the coming days. As everyone around us in Atlanta and most likely the whole world fights for their very lives....

....their existence.

Fighting to survive. Only to die horribly at the hands of an ever-growing army of the un-dead.

Then some will rise up again to take their place in the ranks. Lazarus-like corpses with no aim and no intent. Just a voracious need to kill and eat.

Leo and I are now shipwrecked.

Marooned on top of a building in a land that isn't our own. Totally surrounded by death on two legs.

If this is hell? Then I guess we're slap-bang in the middle of it.

Our only thoughts now are....how it got to this....

....and how long until it's us down there with them?