a fragment of a scene
scgryphon
To start (or is that restart) the group, here is a fragment of a horror story that I came up with last week. It is still raw, and I don't plan on working on it directly, however when I write the scene that it fits into it will be revised.
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Silence. It was a devastation lack of sound that filled the city like a poisonous snake slithering through tall grass. The windows in the buildings were dark, with only the occasional glint of something inside, a mirror, or computer monitor, reflecting the moonlight to show that at one point in time the rooms had living occupants inside of them. No electricity was humming through the wires that traversed the entire city, nor were any cars running. The gas in their tanks having run out many hours before. There weren’t even any rats to scurry about in the gutters.
There was some movement though.
The sound of footfalls running raggedly through the streets sounded as echoes that traveled much farther than they normally would have. The footfalls were accompanied by the ragged breathing of someone running hard. She was running not just for fear of her life, but for fear that if she was caught she would be turned into one of them, one of the ones that had taken over this city. This city was dead, but all of the residents were still wandering around, they were zombies.
Several of these undead were stumbling through the streets in pursuit of this woman, the biological disease responsible for their gruesome condition whispering that they needed to consume her flesh.
She fell several times as she constantly looked back, trying to keep ahead of the horde. And as she turned a corner she screamed as she ran into a man. She struggled in his grip for several seconds until she realized that he was not trying to eat her, but was rather trying to keep her from making too much noise. With a deep breath, she stepped back out of his arms and took a look at the only other alive person within the city.
He stood at around five feet ten inches tall, with a strange metallic looking clothing covering his body. It was dark though, and blended well in with the concrete of the buildings. A long staff was strapped against his back, and she could see that it had strange glyphs written along its length. A mask covered the mans face and hair, but she could still see his eyes. They were a dark green, and they stared down at the girl as if determining what her fate was going to be.
The girl stared at the man dumbfounded until a slight moan was heard from where she came from, reminding her why she had been running in the first place. She looked back and saw a shadow in the moonlight; the zombies had caught up to her.
She opened her mouth to scream before she bolted again, but a gloved hand covered her mouth. She could only stare silently as the undead monstrosity appeared in front of her and began to close the distance. However it never got close enough to attack, the man stepped forward and pulled out his staff, and in the same movement ran the suddenly sharp end of the staff through the zombies head. As the zombie slumped down, the man pulled the staff back and positioned it once again onto his back, the end of the staff blunt once again.
The girl seemed to gain her senses, and pulled on the man’s arm. “Hurry there were more behind me, we have to get out of here!”
The man looked down at her, then nodded. He led her out into the street where they saw seven more zombies ambling around. They quickly noticed the live bodies and began to stumble towards them.
The girl turned to run, but the man held her back again. “Look at them,” he said. She glanced at them and tried to run again. “No,” he said. “Really take a look at them, see how the move, how they see, and how fast they walk. Watch their reactions, their ability to stay upright, and how they react to each other. Then we walk.”
She did as she was told, and she noticed how slow the zombies were, they seemed to be able to only move at about two miles per hour, and even then they were not walking in a straight line. The stumbled about, as if their sense of balance had been compromised, and she briefly wondered if they were all really drunk. A pair of the zombies stumbled into each other and they began to fight. Clawing and biting the other until they were no longer fit to be able to move. Suddenly these zombies didn’t seem like such a big problem, there was no need to run blindly through the streets.
“Good,” the man said as she began to understand. “Now we go.” He led her away from the zombies at a speed barely above their pursuers, and they even weaved around several who were too far away to strike at them. “You should always remember to assess the situation before you run away in panic, otherwise you might run into a group of them before your realized it. What if I had been a zombie you ran into at the alley?”
The girl didn’t respond, the thought brought a shiver to her body. “Wait a second,” she whispered. “Why aren’t we heading straight out? Why are you taking me farther into the city?”
The man chuckled, “sometimes the way out leads inward.”
She stared at him with a confused expression on her face.
He chuckled again. “But in this case, it is because my ship is docked at the harbor.”
Nicholas DeVivo
are always joking about how zombies are the worst horror movie monster
ever because they don't move fast enough to be a real threat. But
here we see that the zombies are merely a hazard and the threat is our
own fear of them. Like the man said, being afraid of them causes us
to act rashly and get caught in a situation were we can't escape, but
if you keep your head you can remain a step ahead of them. Its fear
that makes the zombie an effective weapon as much as their
tirelessness and massive numbers do.
scgryphon
of the dead) because I thought they were
not really zombies, but just an attempt of Hollywood to turn the
traditional zombie into something that was 'scarier.'
For the few of us who remember the old zombies, the ones who were raised
by necromancers from their graves,
the zombies were creatures who focused on a single task set about them
by the one who raised them. They would
ignore everything besides this task, even if it meant that they would be
destroyed. Of course sometimes the necromancer
would do something incredibly stupid and order the zombies to kill
everything (like eat all humans brains).
For these newer zombies they focus only on eating the living flesh of
humans, and ironically they don't cause people
already dead to come back, but instead cause anybody bitten to turn into
one of them. Almost as if they are some
kind of cross between a vampire and a zombie.
Anyways, before I ramble on too long about this...I am planning on
writing a fantasy essay discussing the 8 types of zombies.
I know it isn't traditional fiction, but would anybody be interested in
reading something like that?
Thanks again for the reply Nicholas.
>
Nicholas DeVivo
On Jun 25, 9:30 pm, scgryphon <scgryp...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> For these newer zombies they focus only on eating the living flesh of
> humans, and ironically they don't cause people
> already dead to come back, but instead cause anybody bitten to turn into
> one of them. Almost as if they are some
> kind of cross between a vampire and a zombie.
>
Of course, the idea that a vampire can turn you into one just by
biting you is ill-conceived. In effect, it turns prey into another
competitor, so not only are there less resources but there are now
more vampires competing over them. Eventually, every human on Earth
would become a vampire and there wouldn't be any humans left to feed
on. It makes more sense that someone would have to be made into a
vampire intentionally.
> Anyways, before I ramble on too long about this...I am planning on
> writing a fantasy essay discussing the 8 types of zombies.
> I know it isn't traditional fiction, but would anybody be interested in
> reading something like that?
>
I think I would.
This reminds me of a scene from an episode of the X-Files. I'm not
sure which one, but I think it took place in Hollywood and I'm pretty
sure it involves zombies. Anyway, at the end of the episode, Mulder
puts forth an interesting theory about why zombies would go around
eating people. He suggests that the undead wish to do everything they
couldn't do while dead, and the first thing they want to do is eat.
After that, they'll want to drink, and finally to "dance and make
love."
I was thinking about it recently, and it gave me this idea of Undead
Evolution, a sort of growth in intelligence and power by a reanimated
creature. First, the undead becomes a zombie, unintelligent at first,
but rapidly growing in intelligence, strength, and agility as it
feeds. Eventually, it ceases to desire flesh and begins drawing
energy from blood, essentially becoming a vampire. At the vampire
stage, the undead develops supernatural powers that eventually become
so potent that it no longer requires a physical body. It then becomes
an incubus or succubus, a demon that feeds on the energy of the
living, usually in a sexual manner.
> Thanks again for the reply Nicholas.
>
You're welcome.