Highway to Hell

4-Home again, home again

The highway remained packed full of cars all the way to the city. It was late afternoon when they finally arrived, greeted by a make shift wall rather than the familiar streets they remembered. It looked like it was put together at the last minute, the gate collapsed in on a few cars. To get inside they had to crawl on top of a car, over the steel gate, and in through the opening left when it collapsed.
Aden was the first one through, jumping down from the toppled gate he froze. He was too stunned to gasp, he could only stand there with his mouth hung open as he looked over the city that was once their home.
Jaina, whose reaction was much the same, followed him. Then Adrianna came through, followed by everyone else. They all shared the same reaction, complete shock.
The entire city was in ruin. As far as they could see, the streets were lined with cars, fallen power poles, debris, and portions of buildings that had collapsed. A few buildings looked to have burned to the ground a long while back; some of them were only the burnt shells of buildings. Others stood tall, the only sign of them being abandoned were a few broken windows and the aged surroundings around them. A light breeze carried through the empty streets, rustling a few papers.
“What … what could have done this? What happened? Everyone’s … dead.” Adrianna said softly. “Everything was fine just the day before, what could have done this in a single day?”
No one responded. No one knew what to say. They’re home, everyone they knew, was destroyed.
“…We have to keep moving, there’s probably people still left somewhere. We have to find someone,” Aden said, stepping forward over a mailbox tipped on its side.
Tears ran anew for Sera and Adrianna as they again resumed their endless walking. This time a few damp streaks ran down Jaina’s cheeks as well. At the time, no one could fathom what had happened. They only knew that everything was gone, and they were left alone.
Skeletons were scattered about in the city as well. Some hanging halfway out of the broken window of a building, others strewn atop cars, some laying in the streets, all were forever trapped in poses of death, remaining as they were the day they died.
As they walked through the ruin city Aden led the way. He noticed something lying near the street curb, it was a corpse. This struck him as odd, all the other remnants of people were skeletons, while this one was still in the process of decomposing.
They continued on their way, until he seen yet another one. It was lying halfway underneath a car. The smell was awful, the entire city smelled dead; along with countless other foul smells drifting in the wind.
When Aden saw the third corpse he stopped. It was in a sitting position on the sidewalk, its back resting against the wall of a building.
“Hey, look at that,” he pointed to the rotting body. Half of the face was missing, revealing the still bloody bone of the jaw, teeth, and cheekbone. It was a male, wearing a blue button down shirt and a pair of white dress pants. Both were stained with blood and torn. The left side of its abdomen was missing, along with the flesh over its ribs. It looked like something tore the thing to shreds; it wouldn’t normally decompose in that manner.
“What about it? There are hundreds of dead all over the place,” said Jaina.
“I know, but look at it. The rest are all skeletons, but this one’s not. We passed two others like it on out way in.”
“So, maybe these died just recently?” Jaina felt it hard to talk about the dead so lightly. These were the people of the city she once lived in, now all corpses.
“I don’t know, something just doesn’t feel right,” Aden continued.
Felix came up behind the two, urging them on. “Well we wont find anyone if we keep standing here, lets keep going. This place is creeping me out.”
Aden glanced back at Felix, then to the corpse before he continued on. Adrianna followed behind Connor, Sera behind her. She was having some difficulty maneuvering over the rubble and trash littering the street in a skirt. Had she known yesterday would have been the end of the world, she would have dressed for the occasion.
They stopped at the first intersection they came to. Three ways to go, all packed with cars and debris.
“Where should we go?” Aden asked. Sera walked up beside him, looking down the road to the left of where they stood.
“When anything went wrong, like with really bad weather, they always turned the school into a shelter. Maybe we should check there?”
The others agreed, and they moved onward in the directing Sera suggested. A light breeze picked up down the street they had just come from. The body that had been leaning against the wall was gone, as was the one lying near the curb. The corpse lying halfway beneath the car was missing as well. A low groan came from beneath the car, as well as the sound of something being dragged along the pavement.
Aden and the others weren’t saying much as they walked down the street, mostly just looking around at all of the destruction, chaos, and the dead. They passed a few more corpses that stood out from the usual skeletons, but thought nothing of them.
They were a little further down the road when they began to hear sounds coming from behind. Aden was the first to notice, slowing he turned around. Jaina did the same, wondering what he was looking for, followed by the others.
All at once they breathed an immense sigh of relief; a group of ten or so people were walking down the street towards them. They were too far to see still, but they could tell they were people. As they headed towards them, Aden could see others were joining them. Some came from alleys as they passed; others seemed to stand from the ground.
“Come on! Maybe they can help us, tell us what’s going on here,” Connor was the first to begin trotting towards them. Sera and Adrianna followed, as did Jaina glancing back at Aden. Something didn’t feel right to him, this seemed wrong. The people heading towards them seemed wrong. Reluctantly, Aden followed. His nerves were getting the better of him lately.
As they drew nearer Conner slowed to a stop, as did everyone else behind him. Something was wrong with the people heading towards them, they were all corpses. All of the bodies they had passed on their way into the city had … come back to life, and were now heading towards them. But that’s impossible, Aden thought, he was certain they were dead when they passed. And most of them were missing parts and pieces, important pieces that they needed for the body to work.
They were walking sluggishly, dragging their feet, limping. Aden recognized the one with half of a missing face, he was at the front. When they came into closer view the dead seemed to get excited, speeding up their staggered steps.
Felix turned to the side when one of them came out of an alley right next to them. Everyone else followed his view, and began stepping backwards away from it. It was a naked male, most of its middle missing. A string of its intestines hung down its thigh, and a bloody, fleshy column ran through the empty spot at his middle, his spine with some muscle still left wrapped around it.
Sera screamed, and Jaina frantically hit at Aden’s shoulder, trying to get him to turn and run. “What are they… this isn’t possible. What the hell is going on?” she was shouting.
Adrianna was in a near panic, “What do they want? We have to get out of here!”
At once they all broke into a run, heading in the opposite direction of all the dead. They all broke up from their usual group to move faster through the scattered cars, each taking their individual paths to gain the most speed. Occasionally one would cut back, and run a short distance along side the other, but they soon broke off to round a vehicle in different directions. They all stayed together for the most part though.
For being dead, the corpses kept up pretty well. They were almost gaining on Aden and the others; it was the new ones that popped up that posed the most threat. Coming out of alleys or standing up from the streets, to avoid running right into one Connor had to leap onto a car, running over the trunk, roof, and hood of the car to keep clear from the corpse.
Adrianna was running between to cars when a rotting hand reached out from beneath one of them, grasping her ankle and sending her sprawling to the city street. When the others noticed her fall they all came to skidding stops. The dead were closing in on them, they couldn’t waste much time. Aden was the closest to Adrianna, but trying to get to her became out of the question when two dead blocked his path. On the other side of the car Jaina and Felix were on their way to her, but yet again the dead cut them off. Adrianna was cut off from everyone else, and closely getting surrounded.
The corpse that tripped her began to crawl out from under the car, making a sound that was a cross between a hiss and growl. She rolled onto her back and began crawling away, but the rotting corpse again reached out to her, grasping her ankle and keeping her from getting any farther.
Adrianna cried out as the corpse’s fingernails dug into her flesh, leaving trails of blood. The dead thing was decomposing so much that the remaining fingernails broke off rather than continue scratching her.
With a grunt of effort she pulled her other leg closer to her body, and then launched it back at the corpse. Her heel was planted firmly in the center of its decomposing face, the bones and flesh giving way easily. Her entire foot disaredared into its head, causing her to cry out again, but in disgust this time. She pulled back and began crawling away again when another corpse approached her from the side, digging its nails into her forearm and biting into her shoulder. Yet again she was crying out in pain.
With a strong elbow she knocked the body off of her. Rolling onto her hands and knees, she crawled for a second before stammering to her feet. Her eyes darted around looking for a way out, but she found none; they were all around her. She seen Aden and the others standing together, but they were cut off by the dead. Looking around, she saw the car beside her without any dead on the other side of it. The building not much further away had its door ajar by a few inches; she could make it if she ran.
She turned back to the others and shouted to them, “Go! Run! I’ll be fine!”
They still stood there, not all that eager to run away and leave their friend to fend for herself. Adrianna struggled to climb atop the roof of the car beside her, being in a skirt making it all the more difficult. It dented and crumpled a bit under her weight as she slid across it, and then dropped down to the ground on the other side. As soon as she reached her feet, she was running; corpses close behind her. When the others seen her heading for the door they got the idea, and resumed running down the street.
Adrianna reached the door and slammed into it, making it swing open. As soon as she was through the threshold of the doorway she slammed the door shut, not taking the time to see where she ended up.
Immediately there was constant banging on the other side of the door, she didn’t have time to look for a lock, but the dead didn’t seem to grasp the idea of a doorknob. She took a few steps back, keeping her eyes on the door.
The room was dark, but from what she could tell it was probably once a clothing outlet, or something along the lines. She wasn’t looking where she was walking, and she backed into something somewhat solid, that gave a little. She gasped and jumped, spinning around to see what it was. Even though it was dark, she could tell it was the figure of a man. A man without bloodstains or missing parts, a man that wasn’t dead. She breathed a sigh of relief and sagged her head low.
“Oh thank god,” she placed her hand on his upper arm. “There are these things out there, they chased me and my friends! You have to help me, what’s going on here?”
The man didn’t respond, he remained silent and stood still. Adrianna blinked, and took a step back. So many things were wrong now, nothing seemed to fit reality, and she didn’t know if she should trust this or not.
She shouldn’t have trusted it. The man’s mouth opened wide, wider than it should have. Out of it a long, black tentacle slithered fourth. It had joints like an arm, and at its tip was a spike that opened up into a type of second mouth.
Before Adrianna could scream the tentacle type thing blurred through the air, piercing the base of her neck right at her shoulder. It penetrated far into her body, through her lung and into the center of her torso. Once deep enough, it began gulping down pints of blood and swallowing chunks of flesh it bit out of her. The pain was too intense for her to scream, her vision went white, gurgling sounds coming from her throat as her instincts to breath fought forth. Her body began to convulse and twitch as her abdomen sunk in. In a matter of seconds she became still, the tentacle pierced her her kept her body from falling to the ground.