Tag: zombies

Time travel multiverse

On By Jacob WallaceIn flash fiction, reddit1 Comment

This is a short I wrote for a writing prompt from reddit.  In it, a man travels back in time to save the world.  Unbeknownst to him, multiverse is in effect.

Shouts came from the radio. Voices were drowned out with static and gunfire. Gunshots were replaced with screams and the liquid sound of flesh ripping. Color drained from David’s face and he motioned for Dillan to check the window. He raised his binoculars. A moving wall of zombies had breached the perimeter. He lowered his binoculars and swore as he raced down the stairs. “We got a horde coming!”

“How big?” David asked.

“Looks like over a thousand.” Dillan panted. “Twins are dead.”

“Shit.” Sharon typed faster on the keyboard. “Almost done.”

“Take your time.” David patted Sharon on the shoulder. “It won’t do us any good if we send him to the ice age.”

“I still don’t know about this,” Dillan said. “Nobody has ever been documented to travel through time. What if it just disintegrates me?”

“We’re all about to die anyway,” David said.

Machinery hummed and golden light emitted from the metallic arcs. Dillan took a deep breath. “Are you two coming?”

“We’ll be right behind you,” David said.

Metal warped and slammed as the door was thrust open. Zombies poured into the relatively small room. David and Dillan fired into the crowd, and a few fell. Many more were coming. David gestured to the portal. “Go now!”

“Not without you.”

David kicked Dillan into the chest so that he stumbled backward. He barely caught himself before he fell into the white portal light.

“You are the only one with access to the Z virus.” David blew off a zombie’s head just before he was tackled by a dozen more. Horrible screams interrupted his speech. “You are the only one that can fix this mess!”

Dillan looked to Sharon, and she shook her head. “I need to manually shut off the portal, or else they’d follow you through, and the whole thing starts all over again.”

A tear fell from Dillan’s eye as he stepped into the portal. It felt like he had fallen into an ice cold lake and squeezed through a narrow tunnel. Almost as soon as the feeling started, it was gone. Flourescent lights illuminated his old office. It had been months since he’d last seen it, and the last time was when the plaster was peeling off the walls and lights hung from the ceiling.

People walked in the hall as if there never was an apocalypse. Heels clicked on the tile as Sharon approached, and her eyes went wide as she looked at Dillan. This was an earlier version of her – one who hadn’t seen the entire world destroyed. One who didn’t have her family turn into ravenous monsters and come after her. “What the hell happened to you?!”

“Long story.” Dillan sat in his chair and logged into his computer. It was only slightly difficult to remember his old password.

“I just saw you leave for lunch five minutes ago.” Sharon looked Dillan up and down. The other Dillan would undoubtedly be wearing a suit for office wear instead of the torn, dirty, and ragged clothes he was wearing. Blood from various people stained the fabric. Dirt and sweat caked onto his body, and it had been months since his last shower. “How did this happen?”

“Long story.” He searched for the Z Project and deleted every file associated with the project. He typed a few more keys, and he watched the lab robots load the Z serum into the furnace to disintegrate it.

“What are you doing?!” Sharon rushed to the window and watched the apocalypse she’d never know be erased. “This is your life’s work!”

“Not anymore.” Dillan typed into the computer to send the memo that all work on Project Z was to stop immediately. All the researchers would be at lunch, and the specimen zombies were held in containment. One push of a button, and they’d all be bathed in fire and reduced to ash. Dillan leaned back in his chair as he imagined every zombie in the future disappearing in a smoke of paradox.

Meanwhile…..

Sharon watched her boyfriend seemingly disintegrate as soon as he hit the portal light. As soon as he was gone, she hit the killswitch. Light dissipated just as a pair of zombies were about to lunge into it.

“Come on, any second now.” Sharon whispered to herself. “Any second, the timelines will merge. He won. He’s alive, Sharon.”

Stench of death approached Sharon, and all she could do was make herself smaller in the seat. A dozen pair of hands grabbed and pulled on her clothes. She braced for it all to end, and she told herself Dillan fixed everything. The first bite didn’t even phase her; she knew that reality would snap back. Any minute, she’d be in a soft bed with Dillan by her side. As the Z virus aggression started to overpower her mind, she realized that Dillan had failed. The time machine disintegrated him, as it had disintegrated everything else. Using the last of her strength, she reached into her jacket pocket to pull the pin on her grenade.

Zombie short

On By Jacob WallaceIn flash fiction, writingLeave a comment

Here’s a flash fiction story I wrote.  It is about one of the last humans getting turned into a zombie.

****

Zombies bashed down the barrier to my shelter.  Adrenaline moved me and I was barely aware of grabbing my shotgun as they started to enter.  Brain, blood, and bone splattered on the walls and floor.  Gunpowder smoke rose, while I frantically shot each one.  A terrifying click came from the mechanism when I got ready to shoot the last one.  I swore before reaching for a shell.

Clumsy arms grabbed onto my barrel and I bashed its head with the butt.  It snarled in reply before latching onto my forearm.  I put my foot on its chest and thrust the creature away.  It stumbled back and I loaded the shotgun shell and blew its head off.  I breathed out a sigh of relief and let myself fall to the ground to sit and lean on my makeshift wall of sheet metal.

Something warm and wet slid down my arm.  Sharp pain burned on my wrist and my heart jolted when I saw the bloody teeth marks. I swore as I frantically tried to clean it. Somewhere deep inside me, I already knew it was already too late. Nobody lasts after a bite, and there was no reason that I would be an exception. Denial kept me from killing myself. I wanted to believe I was the one exception until my fever started to set in. Beads of sweat form on my face and there was no way to deny it. At that point, it was over.

All of my extremities started to go numb and I lost control of my fingers. Everything became blurry and I panted as my strength left. Thoughts of using my gun to blow my brains out crossed my mind. I didn’t want to be one of those monsters that I had spent months fighting, but even more I feared death. Part of me wanted to chuckle at how pathetic I was. All this prep, all those times I had to shoot friends and family after they were infected, and I was too cowardly to shoot myself when the time came.

I grabbed a shotgun shell.  At least, I tried to.  It was near impossible to get my fingers around that thing and the round bounced all over.  A feeling of triumph radiated through me when I held it, and I brought it to feed it into the ammo slot.  My hand didn’t have the strength to push past the spring, and it fell to the ground.  I didn’t even have the energy to be angry.  Everything became darker and all I could do was shut my eyes and accept it.

When my eyes opened, I had a sense of unity. Zombies may seem dumb, but we were still social creatures.  After months of watching everybody I care about die, and weeks of being alone in a shelter that I made, I finally belonged somewhere. None of our perceived differences mattered. Rich and poor was a thing of the past. Alpearances mattered little since our flesh was peeling off.  Zombies never fight each other, and I knew any zombies I met would have my back.

All the aches in my body were gone and my hand didn’t hurt at all. Hunger only pained me when I thought of it, and even then it wasn’t the growling pain in my stomach from rationing non-perishables for the past several months. It was more like I just knew that I needed to eat flesh.

I shambled from my destroyed shelter with the rest of the hoarde. There were no hard feelings that I killed half a dozen before that one bit me. All that mattered was that I was one of them now, and we searched for food in the form of any living being left in the world.