Adventures in Urban Exploration: Level Two

[jack_babalon]

Ghost Factory Dekalb


I cross wrists. Flashlight under pistol. Standard shine and shoot procedure. I can hear them clearly now. Awakened by the scent of our flesh and the stink of our fear, they're clawing their way out of the mounds of trash, pulling themselves free from the carapaces of abandoned machinery, crawling through the holes in the brick walls they hibernate in. Each one slowly making their way towards us. Pupiless eyes refract what little light is left in the dusk back at us a phosphorescent red. Trapped air is pushed out of dead lungs releasing a collective groangrowlrumble of dust out of torn open throats. One of them stumbles into my high beam, hisses and shrinks back from the light. Gray skin the color of rotting meat pulled taut over a sharp skull, Charles Manson beard thick with hardened blood resembling a dried paint brush, long hair with pink brain crumbs tangled in it, rictus grin of nicotine fangs. Undoubtedly this face will haunt me for the rest of my life, that is assuming of course, that the rest of my life isn't down to it's last few minutes. I step backwards and my heel taps a wall.

Surrounded and up against the wall. No where to run. Nothing I can do but wait for it. I level my pistol and take a deep breath. I have a full clip and one in the chamber. Sure shots only and a suicide bullet is not an option. It might come down to hand to hand. I steady the shaking in my hands. My only regret is not seeing her face one last time.

This is it.

Here they come.

The first one stumbles into range. A nasty looking fucker at that, it lunges forward at me. I fire...

There is a whir-click-Ph'tchooo. Camera flash pops the dark and lights up the Magpie.

"Hey... there you are. What're you doing?"

"Shooting" I check the LCD for the image to load up. After a few drawn out seconds a blur of shadows and white light appears.

"Come here a second. I got something I want you to check out."

I step out of the room, over a pile of molded romance novels and into what appears to be the loading bay. The shadows here feel palpable. Like you could scoop them into a jar or paint your face with them just by wiping your fingers against the air.

"Fuck me!" I whisper

"Creepy huh?"

"Yeah... let's check it out!"


"We can see you, Jack"
February 10th, 2007
~Rob M

Comments

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I had to read this about seven times to get the right vocal tone in the "Fuck me!".
I mean, it still sort of makes sense the way I wanted to read it, but it was getting ready to be a completely different story.

[(Anonymous)]

This is the absolute best description of the undead I've ever read. Period.