tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63081755679846446082024-02-02T20:02:29.154+02:00Zombie Rust Must Be Destroyed!Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-44744323615427439072023-06-07T19:17:00.003+03:002023-06-07T19:17:38.172+03:00We Hide From the Sun<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghDOZviI160Q1miuaVrleJbmGb2NamP-waxC9CKzOVVwSAPXeoH8IDMD64MkwWfiVjrQqAPVJatAiS9bBk7adqj6A8Y0FaXLB_JVtTPTbvsv98bmv3VTSH0IoFw7SisMbgrNIlE7Rcrqgpl2CTWfKrIbpTLG6lAJdF9LCp8EN5LrXBcDBtxbyehw/s2250/We%20Hide%20From%20the%20Sun%20Cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="1410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghDOZviI160Q1miuaVrleJbmGb2NamP-waxC9CKzOVVwSAPXeoH8IDMD64MkwWfiVjrQqAPVJatAiS9bBk7adqj6A8Y0FaXLB_JVtTPTbvsv98bmv3VTSH0IoFw7SisMbgrNIlE7Rcrqgpl2CTWfKrIbpTLG6lAJdF9LCp8EN5LrXBcDBtxbyehw/s16000/We%20Hide%20From%20the%20Sun%20Cover.png" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>The shadows creep and night prevails,</p><p>We hide from the sun's enflamed nails.</p><p>Our veins ablaze, eternally doomed,</p><p>Endured by blood, foul and overgroomed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Under the moon we thrive and we blush,</p><p>Existence ebbs and flows with each slash.</p><p>Driving our hunger, sweet our despair,</p><p>In darkness we hunt for the unaware.</p><p><br /></p><p>Denied of light, our souls lie still</p><p>Banned from life, our voices shrill.</p><p>Through veils of gloom, our spirits abide,</p><p>As dawning falls in, we wither, we hide.</p><p><br /></p><p>Alive we were once, now weary and pale,</p><p>All one's born days seem rotten and stale.</p><p>Unable to feel the sun's warm embrace,</p><p>We don't see life's colors nor its deep grace.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sentenced to blackout, forever strait,</p><p>Crosses upended, destroyed in our hate,</p><p>In hollowness, vacant, we are undone,</p><p>Resenting survival, we hide from the sun.</p>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-71731798147872405422019-01-07T20:18:00.001+02:002023-05-04T20:31:31.085+03:00Housewarming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0OSagXXR6jh4TYEmQHW9myOEh4k3YofG0AhJS4lS_ib5DKMlPmBG-ZCudnwdoQucKXK3TIGC11QGXD8BXw-shXELFz7YUAhtmIlfzp6QG66V45_xZaRZ642O6iA0tYuvbTpB0ztdz4_G1mNO8P3kmdi0L0epCUN4MYZh1ys-VWEDMBCW4JT57g/s1501/housewarming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1501" data-original-width="938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0OSagXXR6jh4TYEmQHW9myOEh4k3YofG0AhJS4lS_ib5DKMlPmBG-ZCudnwdoQucKXK3TIGC11QGXD8BXw-shXELFz7YUAhtmIlfzp6QG66V45_xZaRZ642O6iA0tYuvbTpB0ztdz4_G1mNO8P3kmdi0L0epCUN4MYZh1ys-VWEDMBCW4JT57g/s16000/housewarming.jpg" /></a></div><p>The only person who seemed less delighted by the get together than myself was a plump twelve year old boy. He was some distant cousin of mine, sucked into a handheld video game, unkempt into a suit that was forced upon him. The art in the game looked good, but the game itself seemed pointless and stupid. From what I could make out, it was about a beefed up heroic someone who was going nuts shooting everything that moved. That kid wasn’t following any storyline. He just didn’t want to be there. He wanted to escape into something different. So did I, but I was not a child. The way out couldn’t be that easy for an adult.</p><p>My suit looked awkward on my skinny figure too. That kind of style was not my own, and such occasions where I had to dress up and be somewhere were very rare. I was obliged to borrow a formal kind of outfit from an acquaintance who trusted me enough to lend it to me. He happened to be a little bigger than myself, but I wore the stupid clothes anyway. Black suit, white shirt, dark blue satin tie, lame. It was a very hot breezeless day, and I was feeling uncomfortable even outside. If I took the jacket off I would have looked like one of the waiters. I suffered through the ceremony with patience, and then I settled for an untucked shirt and an untied tie.</p><p>Uncle go-getter got married at fifty-six, someone quite younger than him. I used to know people that didn’t get to reach fifty-six. I was feeling old at twenty years younger than that. My thick uncle had it in him to start anew at that age. To each their own. I was only there because my parents had dragged me, and I wanted to be on their good side for a change. The initial intention was to be polite, keep my head up for a couple of hours and scram as soon as everything wrapped up.</p><p>I was fortunate to have dozed off in my chair for most of the ceremony, hence the most tedious part went on swiftly. The reception took place at the enormous yard of the bride’s home, a huge two story house which screamed of wealth and spoiled upbringings. Both families were big, and the newlyweds were rather popular people, so the attendance was good. As long as the booze kept flowing, I was okay to hang around for a little while, for my parents’ sake, although I was already annoyed by the looks and sounds of all those people socializing, wearing fake smiles and making small talk, asking about each other’s news only to get a chance to talk about themselves.</p><p>I endured the first interaction with the first nosy uncle. He kept asking me about my current situation and I handled it well. I was expecting it to be rough, but I managed by answering in the most generic way possible, trying to minimize the chances for the conversation to keep going. For a tiny moment it felt like it was possible for me to live through it all. I did my best at first. Uncles and cousins, and relatives of all kinds came and went, stepping on my throat, asking about what I do, the degree I never got, how long I had been unemployed, my income, my crappy apartment, marriage and children, cats and dogs, and my views on the President. I was hammering away on champagne, giving them the most non-specific, monosyllable answers I could think of. Soon I ran out of those.</p><p>I snapped at an aunt I didn’t recognize. A drunken, barking rant came out of me about welfare, about art and creativity, about your abortion and your miscarriage, and about how grateful I was for all those things. With all my might I threw my half empty glass on the house’s beautiful, spotless beige exterior wall, and yelled out two words which felt like poetry to me at that certain point.</p><p>“Motherfucking misery!”</p><p>The din of the crowd stopped, and everyone was staring at me over the sounds of some familiar swing jazz music. I stormed into the house, up the stairs and into a bathroom which to my surprise was not occupied, despite all these people drinking up outside. I knelt before the shiny toilet and vomited hard, gushes of alcohol and crackers coming out, producing a godawful smell that made me want to throw up more, and I did until there was nothing left. It took me a minute to compose myself, wash my ugly pale face in the sink. I popped in a trusty Adderall and some prescribed anti-depressant which my pockets always carried.</p><p>I walked out in haste, bumping shoulders with random people on the way out. Distant voices called me out, but didn’t get a response. I was quick, down the stairs, through the yard, out the front gate, down the road.</p><p>My parents were my ride home, and I didn’t have any money for a cab or a bus, so walking was my only option. The town was about ten miles away. I thought I should make it in a couple of hours. I did it in three. It was past midnight when the surroundings started to become more familiar.</p><p>Three low life adolescents were chilling out on a bench, at the park were I used to score drugs back in the day. A bicycle and a couple of skateboards stood next to them, together with the used up, empty beer cans which were laying on the ground. I went closer to them, said hello and proposed to trade some of my Adderall for some weed. I was sweating my ass off.</p><p>They looked at each other, as if they were holding a fast conference and nodded, “yes.” The biggest guy got up from the bench, approached me and punched me straight in the teeth. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground next to the smelly beer cans. They beat me up more, robbed me off my pills and took off, left me there bloody and sore.</p><p>I drowsed off down there for a while, and when I found the strength to get up and shake the dust off, a car came by and blinded me with its lights. On its back seat there was that bratty cousin of mine, returning from the party, indifferent, still playing the game. I looked at him straight in the eye as the vehicle passed by, and he gave me the finger.</p><p>About half an hour later I was at your apartment. Luckily the teenage thugs hadn’t took my keys, so I got in, climbed the old building’s stairs three stories up due to the elevator being broken as usual. I found you sleeping in a pool of sweat on the mattress on the floor, with the old crackling fan facing out the open window, blowing the hot air out of the room. I was exhausted. I dropped my clothes on the floor and got in bed with you. I clinched on to your back which woke you up for a while. You mumbled that I stank, and I said that I was sorry. You said that it was alright.</p><p>Everything was alright.</p><div><br /></div>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-1486586774348624822018-12-30T23:50:00.001+02:002023-05-07T23:56:44.551+03:00 Trespassers Will Be Eaten<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDpvs8BPfsAL_MQkzyQewjmv6pJ93yTycrEfllpIv_5pmRv1-A4nXxGmOEVQSfT4Fd3Al5rL5xZq9lAhh4wi-ZtrWiGi4Ffb_I5TGzqfjWApPrEYqbhFJ2UMYsKNd6jjoa8eEJoUrhVnxKFaOAHTZ0RZMEip7wUisgRU83Maa7Gk_jhCeWpDyQg/s1500/Tresspassers.2022.B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCDpvs8BPfsAL_MQkzyQewjmv6pJ93yTycrEfllpIv_5pmRv1-A4nXxGmOEVQSfT4Fd3Al5rL5xZq9lAhh4wi-ZtrWiGi4Ffb_I5TGzqfjWApPrEYqbhFJ2UMYsKNd6jjoa8eEJoUrhVnxKFaOAHTZ0RZMEip7wUisgRU83Maa7Gk_jhCeWpDyQg/s16000/Tresspassers.2022.B.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p>The football hit the tin sign pretty hard, causing a loud hollow sound and a crude bump on its surface. I went to fetch the ball, and lifted my head up to read its proclamation for the first time ever. </p><p>"TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN," it read in bold red letters on an off-white background soiled by dirt and rust.</p><p>I was ten years old then. We had just moved to the neighborhood, and that was my first encounter with the sign. It was sitting on a big wire fence gate outside a big holding. In the middle of it there stood a weird, mysterious, tall, windowless building; a big white block. Nothing on the outside. It looked like a colossal brick.</p><p>I asked the other kids about the place, and our game immediately ended, and everybody went home. I asked the teachers at school, my parents at home, the lady at the grocery store, but I never got an answer. Everyone refused to acknowledge my question like it was never uttered. One night my mother came to my room, woke me up and whispered to my ears, and she made me promise that I would never go near the place. I gave her my word and went back to sleep. We never talked about it again.</p><p>Several years later, I was on my way to a job interview. My sole printed copy of my CV escaped my hands. A strong breeze carried it straight to the front yard of that mysterious place, while I chased it like an idiot. Sign or no sign, I didn't care, I climbed over the fence, destined to get back the precious piece of paper than could earn me a paycheck next month. Although I had spotted it on the ground before, the document was nowhere to be seen when I got to the other side.</p><p>I was on the grounds the sign was protecting, and nothing had happened to me. Everything was peaceful and quiet, and nothing threatened my well being. I felt compelled to explore the place, so I took a few steps ahead, and I kept on going until I reached the building.</p><p>I went around it a couple of times. There seemed to be no way in, but when I felt the walls with my hands I noticed an imperfection on one of its four sides. I gave it a little push, and a door opened. It was pitch black inside, I could not see a thing. Part of me wanted to run away and never look back, but my curiosity was eating me up. I had to know more about this place's existence.</p><p>I took a couple of steps and then I whispered, "hello..." My voice echoed through the walls, and vanished as it went up. It was a hollow building, there was nothing in there. After a few more steps, it felt like the floor suddenly disappeared and I was falling on a slippery slide. On the way down I was thinking about wild animals. Lions, tigers, alligators, bears, pythons; I though that they would be waiting on the other side of the slide to eat me, and I regretted the minute I ever saw that godawful place.</p><p>At the end of my ride a round hatch opened and I went through it. It lead to a brightly lit place, a big, immaculately clean room with white walls and a white shiny floor. A slim guy in his early fifties stood there smiling, with his hands behind his back, like he had been waiting for me to arrive. He was dressed in a black turtleneck, white creased pants and white shoes. He had round spectacles on, and his short grey hair was very well trimmed, like he had just had his haircut. He looked like either the world's smartest businessman or its biggest pervert.</p><p>"Hello. How was your ride?" he asked through his smiling, clean white teeth. Then I heard a growl coming from another person, and I went out like a light.</p><p>I'm not sure how much time had passed when I regained my senses. I was feeling drugged, dizzy and in pain. We were in another room, a warmer one, with its walls and floors covered in wood, and embellished with old framed pictures of people and families, shelves which carried expensive china and knickknacks. There was a huge dinner table with many seats, but only one person was sitting. It was the guy who had greeted me before, still smiling, with a glass half full of red wine next to him, and the tableware all set up.</p><p>A deformed, hunchbacked, atrocious human, dressed in rags and mumbling nonsensical sounds, entered the room, carrying a big platter with a silver cover. He served the table from the left of the diner's side, removed the cover from the big dish and let an incredible meaty smell fill the room. He exited the room after bowing a little and mumbling some more.</p><p>I tried to compose myself and put together a few words in all my dizziness. I asked where I was, who he was and what did he want from me, as he was carving the big chunk of meat in front of him, smiling back at me.</p><p>"You people, and your prying. Always with a question troubling your petty minds," he said playfully.</p><p>My pain was getting worse, until it became excruciating in very little time. I looked down. The seat that I had been sitting was a wheelchair, and my left foot from the knee down was missing. </p><p>In shock, I felt my insides curling up into a ball, and I threw up on myself. I thought that I was going to faint, but a deafening alarm went on and kept me up.</p><p>The ugly creature stormed the room. His grotesque face looked excited, and he was repeating the same word, over and over again.</p><p>"More, more..."</p><p>The dining man wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin and got up in a hurry.</p><p>"Twice in a day," he said. "We haven't had two of you in a day since… I think it was 1996," he said to me, winking and with that annoying smile still imprinted on his mug.</p><p>From the door that they left open behind them, I could see that the next room was the bright white one were I had arrived. A big round door was waiting open on the opposite wall, absolute dark behind it, and the guy waited there patiently with his hands behind his back. There was a big thumping sound. Someone new had fallen through the slide, and I heard the guy voicing his salute again.</p><p>"Hello. How was your ride?"</p><p>It was the second time I lost consciousness after hearing that phrase. The fear and the pain that I was feeling had taken over, and my body couldn't handle it anymore. A young woman woke me up, shaking my shoulders. She was a tall, athletic girl, probably in her mid-twenties like me, and if I had to guess, I'd say that she were blonde, although I couldn't tell for sure because she was covered in blood from head to toe.</p><p>She told me that we were leaving, and helped me stand on my remaining foot, hop into the next room, where the previously unspoiled white was brutally violated with splatters and pools of vivid red blood. She carried me to the door where we both fell from, slipping on slime and almost falling a few times. She told me to wait there, that she would come back for me, and crawled into the black. I didn't want to be left alone, but I was too weak to speak. I heard her grunt, climbing her way back up where we came from, until I couldn't hear her anymore. I sat there, taking in the smell of fresh blood and the dead silence.</p><p>A big rock tied to a thick rope fell down after a while, and I heard the woman shouting from far up, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. I figured it out though. I hanged on to the rope and used all my might to climb, while she pulled me up from the other end. We got out.</p><p>After much time and struggle, we were on the street, me crawling like a wounded worm, and the girl covered in dried blood screaming her guts out. We heard sirens. A police car and an ambulance came and took care of us. Me and her held hands as the ambulance rode us to the hospital. I passed out looking at her eyes, and hearing her reassuring words, that we were going to be okay. It was the last time I ever saw her.</p><p>At the hospital bed, I was all cleaned up and taken good care of, with my family by my side. A team of police men comprised of two detectives and a couple of uniforms came and took my statement. I told nothing but the truth. </p><p>Next time I asked the doctor when I was going home, he did not acknowledge me. I asked my parents too and didn't get a reply, just like how it went when I was asking about the sign. Several days later they dressed me up, put me in a wheelchair and drove me to a private mental institution. I've been on heavy mediation ever since, lost in my own thoughts and everything is swell.</p>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-5634109446927779902015-07-26T23:42:00.002+03:002023-05-11T23:45:22.730+03:00The Sociopath Seven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyE-BAYO2bqJ9gbc1D4twoyLKp9r5v9Xx2aOCAlfI5fzKRxtOht8zNuMRPI8euco88ZGEToJHa-HtmwG5hna8B8kWQZl6Kg0YCCJLt07HIv6e_rBD4Qth-ZqZeFkfwsFtepywCaLqUxJ7-FRqNyOTeSuU1odaFP34ijkxWmda1hPg7NbLQFBVgZQ/s1573/Socio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1573" data-original-width="983" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyE-BAYO2bqJ9gbc1D4twoyLKp9r5v9Xx2aOCAlfI5fzKRxtOht8zNuMRPI8euco88ZGEToJHa-HtmwG5hna8B8kWQZl6Kg0YCCJLt07HIv6e_rBD4Qth-ZqZeFkfwsFtepywCaLqUxJ7-FRqNyOTeSuU1odaFP34ijkxWmda1hPg7NbLQFBVgZQ/s16000/Socio.jpg" /></a></div><p>Looking at that man's dead body lying there motionless, with no life left in him, gazing in terror at the night sky through his broken eye frames, I felt sick to my stomach and was not able to hold it in for long. I took a few steps backwards and threw up so hard, like I was being possessed by the most evil demon there is. Until then I had always felt like I had it in me to handle the sight of a corpse or even kill a person myself, but that was all in theory. As it turned out I didn't have the guts for hardcore situations like this, not even close. I took the time to catch my breath and comprehend that I was both unfortunate to get my ass involved in those circumstances and lucky enough to not have done it myself. That exact moment I promised to myself that I would get it together and straighten up. It couldn't be more transparent that I had to get out of it first. </p><p>It is commonly known that when you're young, you take everything lightly. If I were accountable for the stupid things and the decisions I made when I was fifteen, I'd still be in big trouble today. Adolescence is the trickiest phase of a person's time on this earth and like everyone before me, it left quite a huge mark on me. A teenage person doesn't decide or plan to be an antisocial personality, like they do work out in their minds how to become an athlete, a scientist, an artist or how to take over their parents' business and what they will do after they retire. You become antisocial because either you were born a wacko or your surroundings made you one. My buddies and I back then were different that most kids our age. We took every thing that was happening seriously, but every one, causing the every thing to happen, lightly. We didn't see any value in almost any of the people in our town's community, we nothing else but despised our peers and every little incident that was happening, we were under the impression that occurred to piss us off, like we were the center of the universe. </p><p>There was a bunch of us that stood out from the crowd in our quiet, law abiding, peaceful little place, where it felt like every citizen was a conservative, all kids feared their parents and no dogs had ever bitten their owner. However, not everything was rightful and constitutional. Wrongs were plaguing every corner of our lives, we just wouldn't point them out because no one ever wanted to cause any trouble to themselves or anyone else. Teachers were unfair, parents were cruel, noises were loud, cars were double parked, con men passed as business men, junkies were slowly rotting in our town's darkest alleys, beggars were begging and they did it until they were too weak to even stand on their feet, and us, we were living our day to day routines. It was decay all around us, we just pretended that everything was by the book, just to keep our quiet lives quiet.</p><p>We would get together in the skate park every day after school and hang around until the sun went down. We'd share our disgust about the place, the times and the people and we'd talk it over until we were worn out. Then we'd go home to our folks and pretend that everything was mighty alright and act like we were like them, one of their own. It was like playing a game in their own rules and terms, up to the point when all this hatred built inside of us by those conversations, it overflew, and one of us cracked.</p><p>I remember my friend's face, describing me what he did to the high school principal's car, as if it happened a moment ago. His cheeks were all red and you could spot the adrenaline rush on his expression from a mile away. He had arrived at the park with a black and yellow cutter reaching out of his back pocket, having just slashed the old man's tires, all four of them, motivated to do so by the fact the bourgeois, conformist son of a bitch had told him the previous day to get a haircut and wear better clothes at school or he would call his parents and even have him expelled. My friend didn't respond with anger to the threat at the time, but for sure that was the drop that spilled the glass for him. He did what he did and came running back to us to brag within limits and figure out if his move would be considered acceptable from the rest of the gang. Not one of us told him he didn't do well, his act didn't even cross our minds as wrongful. We high-five'd him, called him “the man”, promised to buy him a beer in another town when we'd get our hands on some fake ID, and never questioned the slashing of the tires. To us this person was a momentary hero and slashing tires was a divine act of justice he had the right to carry on. It had awaken us all, inspired us, revealed to us that there were ways to grab the bull by the horns as to whatever was troubling us. He was encouraged by our reaction to do it again and so he did.</p><p>Tires and cars in general became his thing. Whomever he was seeking revenge on, that's what he would do. Double parked cars, handicap spot parked cars, owned by jerks cars, garbage music blasting cars, noisy honkers, show-offs, all of them would become his targets and sooner or later his victims. When he'd be absolutely certain that the coast was clear, he'd pretend he knelt down to tie his shoe by the side of the spotted vehicle and he'd tear it a new one. At some point he even developed a signature by scratching a row of inverted crosses at the car's side or rear, that in his mind was the official seal of the vigilante he had become. He obsessed over this new trademarked act of his. He felt like it was going to be his purpose in life from then on, like it was something that he was born to do. He embraced his new identity with all the enthusiasm in the world.</p><p>Meanwhile the rest of us were stirred by, and even jealous of our friend's endeavors, and little by little each one of us started their own thing going, as if each of us had their own super power. The first one to follow the tire slasher's footsteps, became a prank caller, but not your average one. He wouldn't just call you and hang up or come up with a curse word between giggles. He wasn't dumb. If you became his objective, he'd pick up a phone and he would destroy you. He'd call day and night, again and again, until he would cause you a mental breakdown. He'd do it from public payphones that couldn't be traced back to him and he'd change his voice talking through toilet paper tubes or whatever else he could think of. Depending on how hard your punishment should be, he'd make up stories that would concern you, made from information he had previously gathered by stalking you, and catching on who you are and how you live. To everyone's surprise that kid had developed top class P.I. qualities. In altered voices that would come out sounding weird, eerie and in some cases frightening, he'd tell you that your wife screws the mailman, the mob's got a hit on you, your test results came back showing you got a pretty bad case of cancer, your brother was killed in a car accident or that every day after school your teenage son becomes a male whore for sickos who like to fornicate with underage boys, when all that time you believed he was at his friend's house playing video games. His stories became his art form and he would take it several steps further to make them believable. For instance, he would find the right chance at school to plant a condom in the backpack of the said teenage boy, so that his parents would discover it when they'd confront him about the phone call. In my buddy's hand a telephone device became a weapon, and for a brief period of time your personal life was his to toy with.</p><p>My upstairs bedroom was the easiest spot to sneak out of the house. Right outside my window there was a climbing plant growing on a wire grid which most nights I used as a ladder to climb down and go meet with the guys or take a stroll on my own. It was just as easy to climb back up, at least back then when I was still skinny and almost athletic. My weapon of choice as a vigilante was food. It began with stealing eggs from our fridge which I threw at the houses, stores and vehicles of my own targets during my nightly escapes. Soon I was worried that someone would notice all the eggs missing and I started buying a few of my own out of my weekly allowance, but that couldn't work for long as I was going out of budget in no time, and I needed the precious money for food that I would actually consume, records, magazines, clothes and the VHS store. A more viable and headstrong plan for my new ventures came through my mother's badly cooked food which I always hated and thought of as inedible and indigestible. To my convenience the rest of my family never waited for me to join them at dinner, because I was always late anyway and after a while it became a habit for me to eat alone, much later than the others' scheduled time. So since the egging thing couldn't work, I thought I'd collect the food in small plastic garbage bags and hide them in my room for a couple of hours, until I'd go out and throw them wherever they needed to be thrown at. It was gross. No matter how you'd look at it, I was winning. My revenge against society purpose was fulfilled, I was getting rid of the disgusting food with ease, and mum loved me more for suddenly developing a liking for her cooking skills, because she evidently thought I was eating all those huge portions. It was triple win.</p><p>The homemade food was a good option for me, but like the other plans, it couldn't go very far. At some point I overheard my parents discussing how the old hag from the convenient store who was always eyeballing me pretty hard since I first ever set foot in the dump she called a store, had stepped on a rotting portion of lasagna bolognese, and I remember my mother pointing out the coincidence of us having for dinner the same thing the previous night. I thought they were onto me and even if they weren't, it wouldn't be very long until they would figure out my poorly planned scheme. Though they never mentioned anything about it to me, I quit messing with my dinner and ceased my operations for a while. I resumed after a short time by going back to buying few pieces of fruit and letting them go bad before I'd use them, as well as other stuff, liquids in particular, like milk and orange juice which were very effective the way I threw them on the recipients' front doors and porches. Those did the trick just fine. Dumpster diving, another option that I tried, wasn't working well for me, as I would get grossed out pretty easily. Ultimately, spending out of my own pocket was leading me to a dead end. I became less and less active until my vigilant expeditions became in all respects rare.</p><p>On the contrary to the prank caller who'd make up fictional stories about you via telephone, the xerox avenger would tell the bare truth about you. The straight-A student and on the outside friendly looking and average next door type of kid had found and earned a dear place in our little gang because of his intelligence and shared hatred towards society. He would use his excellent writing skills to type what you were doing wrong on his old typewriter, expose you in the best way words could describe and then sneak into his dad's office when no one was there, where he'd get access to a xerox machine. He'd make dozens of copies of his writings and late at night he'd spread them all over town, always starting from his prey's homes, like a modern day Martin Luther nailing his theses on the chapel door. He was the most self conscious, most skillful and maybe the only real intellectual among us.</p><p>Of all seven of us, I belonged in the most innocent group of avengers, the ones whose actions were getting no one directly and physically hurt. The remaining three, one could say they had become ruthless criminals almost overnight, crossing the lines of felony like there was no tomorrow. We were all troubled juveniles and we all felt oppressed by society's injustice and bothered by the imbecility of all the idiots that comprised our community, but it turned out that some of us were way more cold blooded than the others. It was one thing getting a call lying about a family member of yours or stepping on a gone bad yogurt on your way out in the morning, and a completely different matter when you had your house trashed to pieces from the inside or set on fire.</p><p>The fittest and most energetic of the gang was the best skater too. He was very competitive, he didn't like to lose, whether it was a skating trick contest, the arcade machine or a card game. If he lost at anything his face would turn red and he wouldn't speak to anyone until hours later when he would manage to control the anger and let it cool out. Like the prank caller, he too would do excellent scouting work before each attack, learning about his targets' schedules and their neighbors' too. He'd arrive at his destination on his skateboard with a backpack on that contained a baseball bat among other things, and he'd have no trouble breaking into the selected house. He'd always have latex gloves on, so he wouldn't leave fingerprints behind. Each time he had to be quick and flee the scene as fast as he could, because all the noise he was making in there could attract a neighbor or a passerby. He wouldn't steal anything, not even the valuables that were easy to notice. Stealing would ruin his statement, because it would make him a regular burglar, so he always resisted the urge to grab the things he wanted or those worth a lot of money for the sake of his bigger purpose. Whoever was first to return to the place, they'd find it trashed to the ground. Everything inside would be wrecked, destroyed beyond repair. The longer my friend had stayed in the house, the bigger was the damage. He didn't waste a single second. I'd picture his escape in my mind, his black silhouette skating away in the sunset like Lucky Luke, scored by some hardcore punk record that would play on the timeworn cassette player that was hanging from his belt.</p><p>One of us was a freaking pyromaniac. We'd watch him trip out, gazing on lit matches, until they burned out completely. Even without a fire in front of him, he spaced out often. That little dude's mental problems were obvious, but we wouldn't blame him for being that way. He had the misfortune of becoming an orphan while still a toddler and had to live with his aunt and uncle. While the old couple took him under their wing and didn't have him locked away in an orphanage, they weren't the best guardians they could have been, and didn't care about him like they did for their own children. I'm not sure if he shared our views against society or he only played along because he was motivated by the talks and all the hate speech he had heard from the rest of us and took everything as an excuse. It seemed like all he wanted was to do some damage. He started by setting their garbage on fire, then advanced to gathering rolls of toilet paper right outside their doors and set those ablaze, until he settled on his ultimate stunt. He prepared some unorthodox home brewed molotov cocktails and sent them flying right into their living rooms, smashing the windows and scaring the hell out of the occupants. He was lucky never to have been caught and never to have injured anyone, but a lot of damage was done, and the police was baffled and disoriented about those attacks. Both he and the home trasher were dangerous vandals that didn't strike very often due to the enormity of their deeds, but their actions were becoming front page news at the local paper, and the talk of the town, at least until people would get tired of it and move ahead to something else.</p><p>The baseball bat the home trasher used inspired the last one of the bunch to do his own original act. He was the biggest dude of all of us, the strongest and the hairiest. He could easily pass as an adult, although we were all the same age. At school he minded his own business. He wasn't much of a talker and never bullied anyone, despite the fact that it was obvious he could win any fight if he'd get himself involved in one. For those close to him he had a good heart. He expressed lots of love for his family, respect for the few friends he had and revulsion for pretty much anyone else. Concerning that big fellow, it wasn't his size or strength that made him dangerous, the ideas on his mind were. He took to the extreme what each one of the rest of us tried to do to teach society a lesson. Though no one knew who we were, they'd thought of us as troublemakers, punks, bullies, hooligans, vandals, criminals, while on our end we were under the impression that we gave people what they deserved, that we were righting wrongs and considered ourselves open eyed watchers on constant alert, vigilantes, avengers, superheroes even. Perhaps our big guy friend designed his persona more like that of a supervillain than a hero. He dressed in all black, put a full-face mask and a hood on, armed himself with a metal baseball bat and went out at nights beating up people.</p><p>He started by throwing strong but single swings at them, more often at the torso or legs. When he realized he was quick enough and able to escape, and getting caught wouldn't be that simple, those swings became a couple and then a few, until he went on giving his victims the beating of their lifetime. He would follow them on the streets until he could corner them at some quiet dark place, and he wouldn't hesitate to do it even if they were two of them or three at a time. He beat up teachers, parents of spoiled classmates of his, public servants, bank tellers, and in some cases the innocent bystanders who happened to be in the company of his targets. At some point we were worried that the hits had become random. Some of us soon enough became afraid of him. We thought of him capable of doing it to our own parents or ourselves. The adrenaline rush had made him unstoppable and to some extend, clumsy. On an instance he was spotted and chased by a patrol cop, but he got away and showed no remorse or fear of getting caught. He hunted down the same victim again the very next night. Although the poor guy followed a different route back home, he didn't escape our buddy's wrath. He was given the beating that was reserved for him from the previous night. </p><p>One night about half an hour before midnight, he called me at my house. It was me who answered the phone and on the other end I heard him panting. I struggled to make out the words he was saying between his heavy breathing. My parents were annoyed by the phone call and wondered who it was calling that late, but I didn't give them any specifics. I just told them that everything was alright and that I had to leave. I ran to the pay phone he had told me he was calling from, hoping I'd gotten his words right among all the incoherence of his short winded ramblings, and when I got there, I found him sitting down on the sidewalk with his head hung down. I stood above him and his face was all red and soaked in tears. I almost didn't recognize him. He looked disfigured, like he was a different person. He stood up and asked me to follow him which I did, without asking where we were going. After ten or twelve minutes of walking in silence, we were at the town's industrial area. There were huge zones bathed in artificial light, taking turns with absolute darkness. We tried the best we could to stay out of the lights and avoid being seen by the night guards, until we reached our destination. It was a spot right behind a manufacturing plant that produced agricultural equipment, at least that's what I figured out, judging from the vast amount of chisel plows and other stuff that looked like tractor parts that were stocked outside. When I saw the baseball bat painted in blood, lying on the ground, half of it exposed to the night lights and half hiding in the pitch black shadow, I realized our silent midnight walk was over.</p><p>I stood beside my friend trying to distinguish what was happening in the darkness. While my eyes were trying to get used to the darkness and little by little recognize each object in the surroundings, I felt hesitant and afraid, and in a way I was regretting the fact that I had run to my friend's aid. When my eyes got familiar with the intimidating blackness, I saw the remains of that human being and all those feelings became a mess and curved to a ball in my abdominal. The man lying there was a regular Joe, a short haired guy in his early forties, dressed in pale coloured clothes. He had a mild beer belly like most men his age. I couldn't pick out his face features because those were disfigured beyond recognition. His eyes were still wide open and his glasses had been bashed into his face. The thick wedding ring on his right hand proclaimed that there could be a wife back home, worried about him at that exact moment, maybe kids too. I didn't ask who he was or what he had done to become a target. Whatever it was, I didn't want to know.</p><p>After I threw up, my friend asked me to help him move the body and attempt to hide it, but I refused. I didn't want to get deeper involved into this, and most of all I didn't want to become an accessory to murder. We argued for a while and even though we had both our shit lost, we kept whispering and never raised our voices. We did not draw any attention. For a moment I was concerned that I could soon end up like the stranger over there, but I managed, and did the best I could do which was to calm my friend down and convince him that since there were no witnesses, we could just retreat, run away and lay low from then on. We took the bat with us after my friend wiped it clean with his black hood. We were very careful not to be seen, even when we were far from the scene. I walked him home, gave him an extra reassuring speech and went back to my place. I told my parents who were worried sick the way I'd taken off earlier, that I had gone to meet a girl that I liked and they were still mad at me for going out so late, but they believed me. I tossed and turned in my bed for the whole rest of the night. I fell asleep at dawn but woke up an hour later, it was a regular school day and anyway. I didn't want to sleep more.</p><p>On my way to school I dropped by the fresh killer's place to pick him up. I thought he'd appreciate a friendly face at the start of his day. To my astonishment there was commotion right outside, police cars, a few officers of the law, men dressed in sharp suits and both his parents crying their guts out. The kid had hung himself in his room the previous night, using his own torn sheets. He didn't leave a suicide note. They found the bat and the hood drenched in blood and it didn't take them long to link those to the dead guy a few miles away. They held my dead friend responsible for all the attacks that the town suffered those recent months. They called them hate crimes and concluded that he was a mentally disturbed person, the sole perpetrator behind everything that had been done. They blamed puberty that hit him harder than he could handle, the aggressive music he was listening to on the records they found among his things, the horror movies, the video games, but they never blamed themselves. The case became national news for a while. They called him names and everyone thought they knew everything about him, what he was thinking, how troubled he was, although in fact they didn't know shit. The only people that knew the real incidents and how they happened were his six left alive friends and we were sworn to silence, to protect the truth, together with our own sorry asses.</p><p>Not one of us ever resumed their act again. We followed a straight line to college and the perks of the adult life that came after that. We rarely speak to each other now and even if we do, we don't philosophize. We go through our day to day routines and we are grateful for what we got, those things our friend never had a chance to get. We just make ends meet.</p><div><br /></div>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-71606931689637639632014-11-18T23:32:00.002+02:002023-05-11T23:36:46.725+03:00Arson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKs57B3ZGwbUKN1VbmmnyBaqNCk9uAnntYxTrYG9wVnyf5KB0MHJGZXW_iAETlUq947C-HfauEKOZMM7Ept09WsP2dRDPfW-v49UQbmucYUV1a_Uel0wYk9mjHUM5BGFXz63wiyhn4rWT6-9WAKOwwufHWgViKGeVbwJy6isn1Cg45eUugpDMRUw/s1573/Arson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1573" data-original-width="983" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKs57B3ZGwbUKN1VbmmnyBaqNCk9uAnntYxTrYG9wVnyf5KB0MHJGZXW_iAETlUq947C-HfauEKOZMM7Ept09WsP2dRDPfW-v49UQbmucYUV1a_Uel0wYk9mjHUM5BGFXz63wiyhn4rWT6-9WAKOwwufHWgViKGeVbwJy6isn1Cg45eUugpDMRUw/s16000/Arson.jpg" /></a></div><p>The only distinct sound in the darkness of the woods was of her running. She sprinted fast, as her bare feet disturbed the fallen leaves and their peace, with each of her hard steps ruffling them and lifting parts of the piles a few inches from the ground, just to fall back down and rearranged. The slight noise they made as they touched one another midair, and while settling on the dirt again, was the only audible movement in the forest. Each step was agonizing, each step meant small branches cracked and pointy rocks stabbed at the bottom of her feet, but after a while the biting cold made her whole body too numb to feel any pain. The icy breeze cloaked around her like a hostile entity bound to harm her, but she kept going; she kept running ahead like she was running for her life. Every few seconds she would turn to look behind her back, to see if anyone was following, but she could only see as far as the faint moonlight allowed her to; all else was pitch black. Her knees were bloody from having slipped and fallen, as well as her arms, covered in scratches and cuts caused by the sharp branches of the trees. Those wounds on her fragile body looked like claw marks, as if she had been attacked by some ferocious animal. The light white nightgown she was dressed in wasn't that white anymore, but all dirty and torn in places, as though it had been dragged through the mud. As her breathing was becoming faster with each step, her strength began to betray her, until on the next stumble and fall she didn't have the energy to get up again. Her weary feet tripped on an out of place log, she lost her balance and hit her head hard on a thick branch that out of the blue blocked her way. The collision was sudden and it caused her to fall down hard and slip into unconsciousness in an instant.</p><p>She awoke to the first rays of morning light. She opened her eyes and looked around. The woods didn't project the same inhospitality by the light of day, but the mountain cold was creeping through her whole being, it caused her every muscle to shake beyond control. Her face was sick pale, her lips had turned purple and she could hear her teeth chattering inside her head, although she couldn't feel her jaw's movement. Her wounds looked worse, as the blood on her knees and arms had dried and appeared darker and more repulsive than before. The once full of grace sixteen year old girl was long gone and had given her place to a trembling being, a terrifying sight that could have scared the bravest man. Still lying on the ground, after a lot of effort she brought her shaking hands before her eyes and examined her fingers, as they were all covered in a black substance from the nail to the middle phalanx. She attempted to wipe it off, but it was pointless; it would smudge anything she touched, but wouldn't come off. When she touched her face trying to put away the hair that was hanging in front of her face, blocking her sight, the black substance left markings on her skin, contrasting its eerie whiteness. Exhausted and hypothermic, she got up shivering, crossed her arms before her chest, she began walking back where she came from. In slow movement the petite hunchbacked figure was crouching through the frigid morning woods like an apparition.</p><p>It took her a while to return home, but she got there. At that moment she was at the weakest she had ever been, but her home being within reach made her feel safe again. It was an old but well-kept farmhouse that sat on two hundred acres of green land. It wasn't much, but it provided a decent living for her and her family. There was no other place she had ever called “home”. Getting nearer, she felt sentimental in a very strange way to see the familiar surroundings up close again; the poultry yard, which sheltered many chickens and a few turkeys, and the pigsty containing only a couple of pigs, but most of all the place she was most connected to, the imposing barn, located a few feet away from the family house, a home for many bigger animals like sheep, goats and cows, which she used to help with, even if she had to miss school and skip homework to do it. A few feet outside the main house's entrance there was an old rusty wagon where she sat for a minute to catch her breath and compose herself before entering. Tremors were still dominating her body but at that point she had trained her mind not to pay any attention to them. She reached in her bra and pulled out a key, which she used to unlock the dilapidated wooden front door and enter.</p><p>The entrance led straight to the small living room filled with cheap, but durable furniture and that did not match one another. The disarrayed shelves on the rough white walls held all kinds of useless junk, from frames with old family photographs to novelty bibelots, like little porcelain animals and antique clocks. A tabletop transistor radio was reporting the news in poor, fuzzy reception. Among the inelegance of the room's disharmony sat her father, a man in his early fifties whose weary face reflected how much of a hard worker he'd been all his life, having coffee for breakfast and appearing devoted to the newspaper he was reading. He was startled to see his daughter entering in such condition. He got up, threw his glasses off his face and onto the table and followed her, concerned to death. He was confused about what had happened to her and why she was in that state. He chased her around the house, asking whether she had been out all night, if she were okay and if she needed any help or a doctor to call, but he didn't get a reply. The girl rushed into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her, locked it and turned on the hot water, the sound of which running covered some of the volume in the man's voice. After a couple of minutes he gave up asking and returned to his original seat, worried sick, but hoping that he would have her talking after she was all rest and calm. “At least she came home in one piece”, he thought to bring himself some peace of mind.</p><p>After she took a long hot shower and treated her wounds, all cleaned up, she locked herself in her room. She felt better as the shaking and the trembling were becoming less intimidating by the time. She was in warm clothes at last and she kept a heavy black blanket wrapped around her shoulders for extra warmth. Although she was tired and felt like she wanted to sleep for hours, she couldn't stay in bed for long. She tried to force herself to sleep by laying still on her bed, staring at the posters of the musicians and the record covers which wrapped all four walls from top to bottom like a tapestry, but each image sparkled such exiting thoughts in her brain, thoughts based on song lyrics or certain sounds, making her feel rather awake and not drowsy at all. When she realized that sleep wasn't an option for her at that point, she got up for good.</p><p>She reached to the bottom shelf of the record storage unit which beside her bed stored a few dozen vinyl albums. She pulled out a record and gazed upon the cover image for a bit. On an all black background, right below the band's indistinct logo, a monochrome illustration depicted the top of an imposing building which had the appearance of a grandiose Cathedral. She unfolded the gatefold packaging and with care she pulled out the black vinyl record from its white inner sleeve. The combined smell of vinyl and paper hit her nostrils hard and excited her like a child in a candy store. With both hands she placed it onto the player that sat on top of the furniture, put the needle on and began spinning the album.</p><p>A dynamic, unpolished sound made of razor sharp guitar riffs and fast monotonous drumming, built up to a point where it met with the growling, unfathomable vocals, that sounded like they were coming straight from someone's filthy gut. From the second the track kicked in, the whole place shook under the music's enormous powers; the extreme sounds filled the room in loud volume like an avalanche of noise and sadness and although it might have sounded like cacophony to most people and it would most likely make an average normal person uncomfortable, for the first time in a while she felt calm and composed. She sat in front of the mirror and stared at her own reflection, motionless and with no expression on her snow white face, lost in the music she selected to score her early morning isolation with. She reached for the near-at-hand drawer and took out a make-up kit which she had set up herself; nothing but a worn out off-white paper box full of cheap accessories. The first item she got out of it was a black lipstick, a larger than usual amount of which she applied on her lips. Then, with a fluffy, synthetic brush she painted around her right eye with eyeshadow until she covered a large area in black, from her eyebrow to nearly her cheekbone. Next she used a thick black pencil to drag lines down her eyes with precise moves, irregular lines that looked like tears and gave her whole appearance a rather supernatural dimension. She looked frightening but confident. She continued doing the other eye and adding details to her corpse-paint make-up, in which she perceived a part of hers that had been stayed oppressed for too long; a part of hers that was living under the floorboards for her whole life, a haunting spirit in wait to be set free.</p><p>In the living room the father seemed disturbed by the loud noise but at the same time he felt relieved. He thought that if his daughter was in the kind of mindset to blast out music, it must have meant that she was fine or at least better from whatever the matter was. He wouldn't have heard the knocks on the front door if they hadn't occurred in the interval between songs. He answered to greet the nearby village pastor, a man around the same age as him, who looked distressed and unusually overworked for that hour, still being early in the morning. After he expressed his surprise and asked about the reason for the unexpected visit, the priest told him that they needed as many hands possible and asked him if he was able to join the rest of the villagers and help with whatever he could, for during the previous night the old village church, an important historical landmark for the place and its people, had burned to the ground. </p>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308175567984644608.post-430677702195185742011-01-01T23:58:00.000+02:002023-05-11T23:38:05.873+03:00Cannibal Feast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl0Y44vWeLhWXKsTiYwcgzv14T4JVXqnld2vtBNsM31P96m6oV6wIowPxLlY0jGjYIei8Ms6bu1S4K4mZ_gv57Yx7BQSfYzfS9BfzOapqr1oOpS6q9rj40Mo36v_ypSXSqzKzpWh5WsrDItLRBsvS3ATqjcWzdlE42O8ASXE9XpJahdhggF1PJXg/s1501/FEST.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1501" data-original-width="938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl0Y44vWeLhWXKsTiYwcgzv14T4JVXqnld2vtBNsM31P96m6oV6wIowPxLlY0jGjYIei8Ms6bu1S4K4mZ_gv57Yx7BQSfYzfS9BfzOapqr1oOpS6q9rj40Mo36v_ypSXSqzKzpWh5WsrDItLRBsvS3ATqjcWzdlE42O8ASXE9XpJahdhggF1PJXg/s16000/FEST.jpg" /></a></div><p>We never expected that a simple shortcut would lead us to our own potential death trap. We lost our tracks and got ourselves trapped by the heavy snowfall. Those mountains were as hostile as they could be. We thanked the Lord that cave was nearby and became a shelter for us. We would have froze to death in a day if it wasn't for that cave. It was still mid December and the snow fell merciless.</p><p>It wasn't long until the food supplies ran low. Snowbound and desperate we all started soon becoming vulnerable, breakable by infinite fear and unbeatable hunger. No matter how much hopeless I felt, I always found the strength to pray to the Almighty Lord to get us all through this misfortune safe and to fear no evil. Not all of us managed to keep it together in the long run. </p><p>We killed the horses one by one, all four of them for the six of us. They lasted for five or six weeks. We even boiled the bones over and over again to make soup and that was it. It was our last distasteful nourishment until then. Sick and exhausted as we were, we just sat and waited to die.</p><p>Colonel Red was the first one to lose it. Disciplined as a war veteran can be, nobody expected him to prove himself as the most fragile one. He once was our leader and our guide. Maybe it was his guilt for having us taking that fatal shortcut, maybe his conscience was distressed on its own or maybe what was happening in his mind was just what starvation can do to man. Famished as he had become, he attacked us, kicking and screaming and scratching and biting like a madman. As I barely overpowered him, trying to tie him up, Graves fell onto him and split his head in half with a big rock. Next thing I remember is the smell of cooking meat hitting my nostrils like a tidal wave, awakening me in a new day of hope. I felt alive again.</p><p>After a week I was strong enough again to go out in the cold and look for some roots to dig up and wood to keep the fire burning. I was away for about three hours and when I got back, out of the cave came that same sweet smell I smelled the day Red died. Inside it was bad. It was massacre. Graves had them all our comrades killed and chopped up to shares. There was enough meat to last us two survivors throughout the whole winter. Stunned to the horrific sight, I didn't spell a word. I stood there in awe, staring at the bloody mess. Graves was already holding a hatchet, butchering the bodies like a maniac when he turned his crazy eye on me. It was clear that I would be his next victim.</p><p>Looking with greed at me, he assaulted me, showing teeth, froth was coming out of his mouth, ready to lay his sharp blade upon me. He cut me twice before I smashed the bastard's face on the cave's rough walls. To this day I wonder if this makes me a murderer or not. I don't know whether I should call myself a killer or a survivor. I try to ease my sense of right and wrong by telling to myself that this was a pure act of self defense. Yes, that's what it was.</p><p>I ate him first, Graves. Some of his parts I didn't even bother to cook. I preserved the rest of the stack of meat outside, dug in the snow. Some of it rotted when the snow began to melt, but the most important thing was that I made it to spring, alive and healthy as a horse. </p><p>Hesitant but full of life, I gathered my strength and headed out to find some civilization.</p>Zombie Rusthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09100688921362986798noreply@blogger.com