Dead End Daze Ep 1

Episode 1 – Better Daze

         It was a typical summer day in my home.  A friend of mine and Marie had come over with her kids so that our kids could play together. Just as we were about to start a movie for the kids the phone rings while I am in the kitchen making popcorn. Marie comes in the kitchen and hands me the phone and says that it’s Sal and he sounds frantic. I roll my eyes and take the phone. Sal really does sound in distress, he start apologizing and apologizing. This cannot be good. I have known Sal for years and he has never apologized for anything. You see Sal is a cleaner for the one of the local Mafioso’s. On an important side note, my grandfather is the head of another important Mafioso. I am not a part of either but sometimes collateral damage spills over into my life. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don’t know where Sal is. So I start asking Sal where he is. Sal is avoiding the question and he starts babbling about how the two families had a falling out and then he gets even more upset and starts apologizing again and again. I repeat my question one last time, this time with a little more force behind it and he stops crying and says goodbye.

         I throw down the phone and start yelling for Marie and Amy to get the kids to the basement. Marie yells back that the attic would be a safer place due to it being shielded. As I round the corner, I see Jason and Michael still in the first floor crib.  I assume Marie knew I was coming through this way and left the kids for me to grab. So I scoop them up and start running up the three flights of stair as quickly as I can. As I get to the attic door an explosion rocks the upper left part of the house. I scream for Marie and I open the door to find out that no one is up there and there is a huge gaping hole in the roof of my house I look out the hole and I see Sal four blocks away standing next to his beat up Oldsmobile reloading a rocket launcher. I spin around and start running down stairs screaming for Marie and Amy. Amy pops out from around the second floor bathroom and says she will take the kids and that Marie is on the first floor waiting for us to get the kids to the basement. I think very little on the fact that Amy was on the second floor waiting for me.

         I get back down to the first floor and start yelling for Marie again. This time hear her voice came from in the kitchen. I take off for the kitchen and when I come around the corner Marie is standing there pointing a gun at me crying and saying over and over again that it is the only way. She pulls the trigger, the hammer falls and that lead slug tears out of the barrel and into my chest. The force from the bullet knocks me against the wall. I look up at the woman I married and I can see the pain in her face. Then I think back to how I met Marie. She was Sal’s cousin I think.  He must have gave her a choice, me or the kids. 

         My vision begins to fade and I just want to tell her that it is going to be okay. I would tell her if I could that she made the right choice, but it is too late for that now. Everything is black and there is only a buzzing noise. Like a million flies rushing over me at once and then nothing…

Normally this would be the end of my story, but in the cold reality it isn’t. For what seemed like an eternity in a void blacker than the blackest night, something new appeared, an opening in what could have been a ceiling,  a light from the opening engulfed me and it felt like I was being pulled through water at sixty miles per hour towards the opening.  The light got whiter and hotter as I got closer to it. I could faintly hear my brother’s voice telling me something about getting up, but it was still just mumbles. I start screaming for him, trying to tell him that I am down in this hole. Then I ascend through the light. That’s when the world went mad…

Air rushed back into my lungs.  My blood slowly begins surge its way through my body and my eyes flutter open to my brother holding the barrel of a shotgun at my face. I quickly give out a scream and try to roll off the bed I am on, but for some reason I am tied down. Mark put the shotgun down and grabs hold of my face and pries my eyelids open and starts examining my eyes.  When satisfied he steps away and begins unbuckling me all the while assaulting my ears with questions that seem so foreign to me. I get up and for the first time I see my surroundings. I am in a hospital room, covered in blood and corpses. Like some strange ritual had taken place out of some cheesy B movie. I give my brother a good hard look as well. He looks like some guerilla fighter or something. I speak in for what feels like the first time in weeks, I ask my brother questions like where are we, what happened and how long have I been in this blood soaked hospital room.

A very sad look washes over my brother’s face as he begins to answer my questions. I was shocked to find out that I died, but not buried. Shortly after my death, a new virus broke out in town; people started dying all over the world, but then didn’t stay dead. The first zombies were also seen here in town from this very hospital. From there everything else went pretty quick, those who were immune to the virus started being picked off by the roving hordes of zombies. Finally the big shocker, this all started … two weeks ago.  The world ended in less than that. My brother began to tell how the family has been holed up at our Grandfathers house in the mountains and that he was set out to scout for food and supplies. While trying to ditch a mob of zombies he came across this hospital.  For some reason he felt a pull to go inside. That’s where he found me, tied up to a gurney and covered in blood. After weeks of running and fighting zombies he broke down and started to yell and scream. That’s when I woke up; he was so scared that he instinctively pulled the shotgun on me.

After hearing all of that I clapped him on the back and told him about the events leading up to my stay in this hellish hospital. Once again to my surprise he knew about how Marie had shot me in order to protect the kids. After that he said that Marie had gone to live with her parents. When the zombies came they lost track of Marie and the kids.

That’s when Mark stood up and said that we had better get going, it would be night soon and that is when the zombies are more aware and mobile. So we packed up some medical supplies and headed for the jeep that he had parked on the edge of town.

The stories were unbelievable enough, but as we got outside I could see all of the destruction and chaos from the last two weeks. Then I heard a strange shuffling noise and the low moan of an unending hunger commonly stylized in the movies, but it was so much worse. It wasn’t just women and men, but children, toddlers, grandmothers, dogs and cats… nothing was safe, save the vegetation. The sky had changed too; it was yellow and the sun seemed to burn just a little bit hotter because of it. I wondered for a second if this was hell or not…

Gun fire brought me back to reality, as Mark let off a few rounds he put down a few more zombies. I looked at him again, more than his appearance had changed in a few weeks, he was colder, more cut throat. I realize now that he wasn’t kidding when he said he was about to shoot me when I was tied down on that gurney.

We begin walking again this time with gun drawn and ready for anything or at least I thought I was ready. We gunned down a few zombies and then I had to stop to empty whatever was left in my stomach. After I recovered Mark hurried us along until we came across an old preschool, there is where saw the most disturbing thing of my life, little preschoolers feasting on what probably was once their beloved teacher.

I let out an involuntary gasp. Then one of the tiny tot zombies slowly turns its head towards us and lets out an ear deafening shriek. The other preschoolers turn their heads to us and began doing the same. Without a second though Mark pulls out the shotgun and begin letting of round after round into the mob of little zombies as they begin rushing towards us. I fumble for my gun and manage to take down a few of them, but Mark finishes the job with ruthless efficiency. I sit there on the ground as one of the little monsters with only one arm is still trying with all of its might to get to me. Mark walked over to what was left of the thing and stomped on it with his boot until it stopped moving... Again I looked at my brother and tried to imagine what had happen to him. What had changed in him or was it simply this is what it meant to survive in this new world. As almost on queue he grabs me by the arm and drags me up from the ground and barks off something like if you do not get your head out of the clouds you are going to die here and I am not going to lose you again.

It is almost night fall when we get the jeep. So much has changed and I have a sinking feeling that I am somehow involved with what has happened.  As we drive back I can hear screams in the night as we speed through the old paths that lead to my grandfather’s house. So many questions are left unanswered. Where was Marie, are she and the kids still alive? What were those strange markings that covered me and the wall of that hospital room? I had a feeling I was going to find out or die trying…



The End of Part 1