I awoke with a jolt, my body jerking upright. Confusion set in, then panic as my body still sat calmly. The last time I tested the hibernation pod, my lungs couldn't wait to evacuate the hibernation slime. Perhaps something went wrong this time? Perhaps I was actually suffocating? Immediately I stuck a finger down my throat. Like clockwork, my body reacted and I began coughing up the neon green slime that made the hibernation pod possible. My hands kept a tight grip on the interior handholds to prevent the natural urge to roll out of the pod and crack my skull on the ground. Slowly I began testing my movements while still lying on my back. The hibernation pod and the chemicals in the slime prevented as much muscle atrophy as possible but it was always best to test the results, especially after sleeping for a thousand years.
Satisfied, I climbed cautiously out of the pod. Around me, similar coughs and groans echoed the room as my roommates for the passed millennium also awoke from hibernation. Seven others climbed out of their pods, stretching and waking themselves to the tasks we prepared to undertake. The next forty-eight hours would be crucial for us. The pods sustained us while we slept, but now that we were awake we would need to locate shelter and supplies.
"What about them?" asked Denise, motioning to the other five pods, still closed and their inhabitants still inside.
I inspected the five still-sealed pods as well as the electronic pads connected to each of them. Though Dr. Soares made the read-outs easy enough that an idiot like me could understand, I still preferred to put some faith in looking at the bodies inside the pods too. Especially since all five read-outs said their inhabitants were dead. Two were definitely deceased, decomposition slowed over a thousand years by the internal climate-control devices within each pod. The other three, well they could simply be asleep. "We'll have to leave them," I said making my way to the exit. "The computers say they're gone. Even if we forced open the pods, if they don't wake up then we'll be carrying a couple lifeless bodies through the unknown. Best to leave them here for now. Maybe the pod will awaken them as it's supposed to later, or maybe we can find someone in the new world that can do it." As I passed my pod, I picked up a steel spear, made from the same newly forged metal that the pods were built from, one of the few things guaranteed to survive a thousand years into the future. A couple of the others also had bows and arrows made of the same material.
I paused at the shelter door, two feet of steel separating us from the rest of the world for a thousand years. Before we went into hibernation, the world was descending into chaos as the government was on the verge of collapse and society was giving way to anarchy. The zombies, I thought and my body gave an involuntary shudder. The virus had spread worldwide and there didn't appear to be any hope for a cure soon. It was a losing war and so our small group, and probably dozens of other groups throughout the globe, took the only ride out of the madness. We planned for several different scenarios to emerge once we awoke. Would a utopia emerge after humanity eradicated the zombie threat? If the government decided on using nuclear weapons, would we be stepping into a nuclear wasteland? What if the zombies somehow survived after all this time despite the weather and the rate of decay of a human corpse?
"Are you sure it's safe to go out there?" Raymond asked, turning back to look at the pods.
I shrugged my shoulders and placed a hand on the door. "I have no idea. But we can't go back into hibernation, if that's what you're thinking. We're all out of the drugs they used to put us to sleep. Also, the only guy who could operate the machines died a thousand years ago. No, there's no going back." I gave the lock a twist, and pushed the door open.
I stood frozen in the sunlight as I took the time for my eyes to adjust. A humid breeze gusted passed, the smells of nature overwhelming after a thousand years in sterile isolation: a recent rainfall, decaying undergrowth, animal droppings. A howl from something that once might've been a dog. Trees stood taller than any house in the cul-de-sac had ever been, reclaiming the land as their own. And, standing just outside the door were two figures cloaked in some sort of rough fiber or hide, one of them a couple inches taller than me, and the other several inches shorter.
Immediately, my hand gripped my spear tighter. It took me a moment to realize why. Though they appeared as simply two people cloaked from head to toe against the wind, it was the smell of decay that gave them away. Zombies. The thought crossed my mind as a spear lunged forward and hit the taller figure in the chest. Anna always was faster than me.
"Please stop that," said the smaller figure as it pulled back the hood to reveal a clearly deceased man, blackened veins streaking his corpse-pale skin. In his other hand, he cradled a thick, leather-bound book. There wasn't a title, but instead the cover depicted an angry, bestial face that looked almost alive.
The taller figure simply grunted and yanked the spear out of its body, it's chest covered in tattered clothing beneath the cloak. Anna stepped back and I raised my own spear. I heard a couple arrows notched and strings being drawn back. "Sharp but too light," it said as it buried the spear tip in the dirt.
"Wait, the zombies can talk now? What kind of future did we just wake up into?" I heard Raymond ask from behind me as his spear lowered just over my shoulder.
The two figures exchanged a look and the smaller one smirked. "No, not zombies. At least not like the ones brought back from death by the virus. We're ghouls. Undead resurrected by magic to serve a master."
"So there weren't any zombies when we went into hibernation?" said Raymond.
The smaller ghoul shook his head. "Sorry, I think you misunderstand. There were zombies. There are zombies. What I meant is simply we are not zombies."
I knocked Raymond's spear away from my face. "And this master you serve, did he or she send you to get us?" I asked as I planned my next action.
Again the smaller ghoul shook his head. "No, The Master is long dead. Not many things can survive for more than a few centuries, even with magic." The ghoul held out the giant tome to me. "Unfortunately, we still aren't free to die, and in the state we are in, we can't decipher his texts to free us. Hopefully your group may assist us, freeing our souls from these bodies and moving on."
I stood motionless, trying to process everything I just learned. A primal roar erupting from the trees brought me back to the present. "A hunter. Could it be Meyers?" asked the taller ghoul, its hand reaching above it's head to something strapped to its back.
The smaller ghoul just shook his head. "No, Meyers would have kept his hunters quiet until the moment they struck. Probably just a small horde of zombies. They should pass us by."
The grip on my spear tightened again yet my chest was filled with a strange sense of calm. "Sorry, did you say 'zombies'? And what's a 'hunter'? And who is Meyers?"
Both ghouls turned to face me and I saw a look of terror fill the smaller ghoul's face. "Oh no," he said, "the humans."
Another roar exploded from the trees, and from the gloom three shadowed shapes rushed toward us in a barreling charge. "Zombies?" I asked, amazed that the monsters we originally tried to escape from could evolve into such creatures.
"Hunters. A particular mutation of the virus-created zombies. When it consumes enough muscle they turn into those behemoths. We call them hunters. Normally they pass us by since we are dead too. They must sense your group here." The smaller ghoul, now clutching the book tighter to his chest, moved closer to the taller ghoul.
"Don't worry. Though we expected nature to take care of the zombies before we awoke, we did practice for hunting wild game in case civilization collapsed. Taking down a few zombies shouldn't be as hard." I motioned for my team to spread out. Three split off to my right, three others to my left, Anna staying with me and readying a bow.
"These are not like the zombies you encountered before your long sleep," said the taller ghoul as it guided the other to the bunker while it unslung a gnarled branch from its back. "Destroying the brain is still the best way to put them down though."
No comments:
Post a Comment