Dead!

[Moondancer]

(( Intro time! ^^))

Gabriel smashed the last of the small crowd of creatures that had been surrounding him over the head with the crowbar he had gripped in his hands. It kept coming at him, one arm raised and face twisted beyond recognition. Gabriel growled in frustration and began backing away slowly, ignoring the sounds of the miniature battle going on around him, his free hand fumbling for the gun he kept in one pocket. Eventually he managed to get a firm grip on it and whipped it out of his pocket, shooting the creature pursuing him right between the eyes, or what had once been eyes anyway. The zombie collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut, and Gabriel let out a small sigh of relief.

The crowbar he had let drop to the ground during the brief struggle was retrieved, and Gabriel leant on it heavily as he observed the scene around him. As far as he could tell, all the zombies that had ambushed them had now been taken care of and most people had already retreated back to their various hiding places. People may come together to fight the undead creatures that now occupied most of the city but that was generally as far as it went. They looked out for themselves, family or friends if they had any left. They stayed in their own small groups and left everyone else alone. Gabriel himself hadn’t stayed with anyone for more than a day or two. Being alone made it easier. If you were alone, there was no one to lose but yourself.

Gabriel hoisted up the crowbar again and examined it. It was rusty, covered in congealed blood as well as a few other substances that Gabriel preferred not to mention. It was even bent in several places (zombies could have surprisingly hard heads). He’d picked it up in an abandoned garage, in the early days of what he called ‘The mini apocalypse’, and it had just stuck with him. It could be very handy in a fight, more useful than his gun on occasion.

There was a small, muffled sound coming from behind him, like someone trying to stop themselves from sobbing. Gabriel turned, gun raised, but immediately relaxed when he saw that the source of the noise had been a small child crouched in the shadows of a half collapsed-building. Still slightly cautious, Gabriel approached the child with the gun held loosely in one hand, ready to fire if need be. The child didn’t look infected, but you could never be too careful. He knelt beside the small form, raising one hand and resting it gently on the child’s shoulder. She instantly turned around and clutched Gabriel tightly, the need for comfort outweighing the fear of strangers. Gabriel awkwardly patted the girl’s head, scanning the nearby street for any signs of someone who could help.

He pushed the girl away slightly, checking her for injuries, and his heart sank when he saw a familiar wound on one of the girl’s arms. A bite mark, the flesh around the wound dark and mangled, already looking dead. He sighed softly and pulled the girl close again, rocking back and forth and humming a lullaby in his native language. He waited until the child seemed to relax slightly before snapping her neck in one clean move, letting the body sink to the floor. There was no point in wasting good bullets.

Work done, he stood up again, eyes blank and seemingly emotionless. He gave one last glance to the body of the girl before heading on his way.

[Phantasmagoria]

Onix quietly tightened his grip on the stock of his weapon, flipping the little switch on the side near the trigger from safety to single fire. A single gunshot. Gunfire meant people, people meant zombies, zombies meant gunfire, and so repeated the cycle. He inwardly smirked at his thought of how it was not a gun. His dad had drilled the 'correct' terminology that into his skull a long time ago:

"It's not a gun, it's a weapon. It's not a handgun, it's a sidearm. It's not a clip, it's a magazine."

He raised the '47 to his left shoulder, moving the corresponding hand to the wooden grip, indexing, as usual. His right thumb was looped around the back of a handle, his index finger resting on the trigger guard, the other three fingers wrapped to meet the thumb. He hated how loud his weapon was without ear protection, which he had grown accustomed to using when he was young. He hated shooting the things that were once living, looking them in their milky, baby blues and squeezing the trigger. The exhilaration of taking another being's life had left with what little sanity he had possessed before there were zombies making an all-you-can-eat-buffet of his friends and neighbors..

Remorseless and blood-thirsty, that is what you would have to be to enjoy what the world had become.

He stood silent, not moving save for his breathing and eyes. He contemplating seeking out the location of the shot, the human nature of wanting company threatening to over-ride his common sense. He still had the scene from Land of the Dead where the zombie killed the guy with his own gun running through his head. It wasn't exactly a comforting picture. He shuffled his feet and kicked at the gravel on the road, the ensuing arguement between rationality and instinct a stalemate. He let off a sound that sounded partially like a whimper, kind of like a sigh, and slightly like a yawn before he started walking again.


[ For those of you who are gun-illiterate, indexing is when you run your pointer finger along the side of the gun, it helps your aim and is necessary if you have a flashlight with a pushbutton. c: ... I just now realized I made Onix left-handed.. meh. Whatever. ]

---

Alexander snarled, the jingle of his dogtags and the wicked, cracking sound of a skull fracture filled his ringing ears as he watched to last of them drop. It's brains spilled onto the concrete from the large fissure created from the blow delivered by the butt-stock of his M-16. He wiped to sweat off his forehead, only to get the stinging liquid off his skin replaced by the brown blood on the back of his hand. "Sons of.." he studied the nice little ring of corpses around him, there had been at least fifteen of them, by his rough estimate. He pulled back the charging handle and released his half-empty magazine, replacing it with a new one.

Another day, another bunch of dead people trying to eat him.

He stood there, once again bored as he waited for to come, since they seemed to like attacking in waves. But no more ever came, much to his relief. They weren't like regular enemies, in most wars, you just scared the other side enough that they turned tail and ran, to regroup and fight another day. That was not the case with the zombies, they kept coming, and coming, until you put an end to them. They were waging total war against anyone with a heartbeat and warm flesh. Total war.. something no other species was capable of. They would never tire, they would never rest, they would never surrender, never run out of troops. Alex was sure even when every last animal was gone, they would still roam around, looking for prey to devour.

"Ha, now I'm a damn philosopher." he laughed half-heartedly before breaking into a coughing fit, patting the pockets of his BDU pants for his cigarettes out of habit. Then he remembered, they were all gone. Yet another strike against the zombies, they were keeping his from his precious oral fixation. Addictions are definitely not helpful when you're being chased by freaks who wanted to eat you..

[Moondancer]

Gabriel stopped walking once he was a safe distance away from the scene of the fight, leaning against a wall and resting his head against it tiredly. He let the crowbar drop to the floor with as little sound as he could manage and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes and rubbed them slightly, groaning.

Coffee, that was what he needed right now. Proper, scalding hot, black coffee. Unfortunately, since the 'mini apocalypse', descent cafes had become something of a rarity. Abandoning the desire for coffee for a while, Gabriel gave a glance to his clothes. His shirt was just about ruined now. It had already taken a pretty bad beating and now it was splattered with various zombie fluids. Sighing softly, he pulled it off and quickly replaced it with the clean one from his bag, making a mental note to find some more clothes in the near future. It was a pity really: he'd quite liked that shirt. For now, he'd have to stick with the jeans he was wearing. At least they weren't as messed up as the shirt he'd been wearing. He did a very quick check for injuries and saw nothing serious, a few scratches.

Post- zombie attack check done, Gabriel stuffed the crowbar in his back and started off again, trying to find a descent place to spend the night. Gabriel never stayed in one place for long. He kept one hand resting on the gun in his pocket, always slightly wary. He couldn't see any people nearby (no zombies either, luckily). It didn't suprise him really. People tended to stay in hiding unless they had to emerge for some reason. It was too dangerous to stay out for long. Gabriel always considered himself reckless on that point. He tended to spend entire days walking the almost-abandoned streets, fighting when he had to and otherwise wandering aimlessly. He was begnning to think he had a subconcious death wish.

((Ugh, short post >.<))

[Phantasmagoria]

"You have a first aid kit?"

Onix lowered the gun he had been holding, a .45, no less, staring scrutinously at his ever annoying neighbor, then shifted his gaze to where her hand clutched her forearm and blood ran down to her wrist. Her saccharine smile no less happy than usual as she stepped through the backdoor's threshold into his kitchen. He mumbled something to the lines of "no, just come right in, don't be shy" rather sarcastically as he started opening cabinets, looking for what she seeked whle she held her arm over the sink. Of course, he had to be the only person in the neighborhood who knew how to apply peroxide to a wound. She just needed an excuse to come to his house and stare at him, in his opinion.

He finally found the first aid kit, three of them to be exact. He grabbed one and hoped by chance that it was the one he was looking for. In the flesh of her arm were teeth marks, not sharp and round like dog's, but more like.. human?

"I always imagined you to be the type who stayed in their underwear all day." she giggled maniacally, but they were soon ceased, turned into a yelp by the sting of iodine. "The fact you imagine me in my underwear at all concerns me." he snapped, seeming to recall that he was wearing boxers and some random T-shirt that had been buried in one of his drawers. It was rather large on him, but he was running short on clothes, he had been planning on washing them, but he couldn't figure out how the new washer and dryer worked. Damn vague instruction manuals. She pulled back her arm and grinned, just as sweetly as possible, the sugar laced kind of smile that made Onix shiver.

"So what bit you..?"

"Nothing bit me, I just.. slipped with a knife." her curtain of cheeriness dropped, replaced by a veil of nervous squirming and eyes that revealed the truth, refusing to lie with the brain. "See you tomorrow!" she said, her usual self back as she tried to wrap her arms around him in a hug, only to be held at arm's length.

Little did either of them know at the time, for her, there was no 'tomorrow', only .45 slug with her name.


Onix had stopped, he was staring at his feet with what appeared to be guilt, with just a touch of shame. He played with a lock of his hair, twirling it around his finger, supporting himself with one hand pressed against the pole of a streetlight. He could still see her eyes, frozen in time as half her skull splattered back against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to forget how many people he had shot, and could still see them as they fell. Trying to forget how many faces he had recognized as they lay with a bullet in their brain, slowly rotting, their still open eyes beckoning him to just end the fight, one bullet would be all he would need.

He forced his eyes open, and the images disappeared.. but they would return when he closed his eyes and once again tried to sleep, with little to no avail. He was staring at himself in the window of one of the stores, close enough to see the remains of the eyeliner he had applied almost a month ago, still sitting on the second floor of his house, watching the world unfold into pure chaos. He nibbled on his lipring, which he still hadn't bothered himself to take out. He stared back at the reflection of his brown eyes, blood-shot and tired looking. He hardly recognized himself anymore.

Onix made himself turn away, still blinking back the memory of his last day in a normal world, where humans were still the dominate species. He quietly stepped forward, the crunch of glass under his feet making him wince as he tried to tread lightly. He didn't know what had possessed him to walk all the way to Clearwater, Florida, where he was hoping his parents were still alive. Maybe he wanted a familiar face that wasn't oozing with brown, dried blood from a hole in the middle of their forehead, or maybe, he just needed to know he could survive.

... But whatever the case, just because you hoped for something, didn't make it true.

[Moondancer]

Gabriel continued walking, brushing a few strands of matted blonde hair out of his eyes. He could really use a haircut soon. His curly hair had started off slightly too long before this had all started. Now, it was getting annoying. Without stopping, Gabriel pulled a strand of torn fabric out of one pocket and used it to tie his hair in a loose ponytail, scowling when some of it came loose and fell right back in front of his eyes.

Gabriel stopped at the window of a grocery store and glanced inside. It looked empty. He kicked the door open with ease and began searching for anything he could use. Most of the food was already past gone but he could always rely on alcohol. He grabbed bottle of Southern Comfort from the nearest shelf and took a gulp, stuffing another bottle in his bag for later.

A soft sound echoed through the otherwise-silent building, alerting Gabriel to another presence in the store. He gently put the bottle down on one shelf (no use in wasting it) and pulled the gun from his pocket. No more sound. Maybe he'd just imagined it.

Reaching out with one hand, he knocked over a pile of tin cans, the resulting crash resounding through the store louder than Gabriel had intended. He winced, but raised the gun and waited. There it was; the familiar, slightly gurgling sound of a zombie approaching. Gabriel reversed so his back was against one of the aisle. At least then, he couldn't be taken by surprise. Eventually, he saw the source of the noise: a zombie that could've once been a woman shuffling down the aisle. Gabriel raised the gun and shot it twice in the head, just to be sure. The zombie fell to the side, crashing into the shelf beside it.

Gabriel hurriedly grabbed the, miraculously-unbroken, bottle of southern comfort from the falling shelf and began to run. That crash could’ve been heard from blocks away and more zombies were sure to come running at the hope of fresh meat. And there they were. Gabriel glanced behind him and saw three, maybe four following already. He sped up slightly, letting out a string of curse words, and pointed the gun behind him. He couldn’t take out all of them but he could at least thin the herd.

He took two down but another one almost immediately joined the chase. Gabriel had to find shelter, or help, and quickly.

[Phantasmagoria]

In any life-or-being-eaten situation, there are usually two choices - fight or flight, stand your ground and shoot or run.. or given the zombies' lack of coordination and speed, just walk quickly. So in the circumstances when five of them come shuffling and moaning from behind you, most everyone would choose the latter. With the resounding clatter of metal against what sounded to be tile, Onix was ripped away from his thoughts, his mind brought back to the present by both two gunshots, followed by yet another crash, and the sounds of zombies limping steadily towards him. He recognized two of the zombies, one of which had started tailing him around two days ago, she was a n00b, likely recently infected from her lack of wounds and decay, well, aside from the fact her neck had been ripped out by human teeth. Blackened and congealed blood still oozed from where the other's arm had been severed, leading to an unbalanced gimp when it walked that was by then familiar to his eyes.

"Never give up, do you, motherf--" he was cut off by a couple more gunshots, by the sound it was likely a pistol, before he glanced down the ironsight and fired, hitting One Arm center mass, only causing it to stumble back before resuming the pursuit. He instinctively retreated back a few steps, watching as they came onward, the one completely unaware of the new bullet lodged in its chest cavity. He was about to aim again when one from town had the audacity to come clambering along from a side alley just beside him, grabbing onto Onix's shoulder just before half it's skull magically disappeared.

Well, most of your head would be gone, too, if you got shot point blank with an AK-47.

He had to force himself to breath as he pried the body's fingers off his shoulder, whimpering while he watched the others advance slowly. Where was Jack Bauer when someone needed him?

'Probably dead on the set of 24, the Glocks and Sigs they use aren't real you know.'

"Thanks for the damn support." he mumbled to himself, taking a few more steps backward, glancing over his shoulder, expecting another zombie to be looming behind him, waiting. But there wasn't, it appeared to be a clear shot down the street, and so, in the most uncowardly way running away can be, he turned on heel and, to be perfectly blunt, tried to get the hell out of there.

[Moondancer]

"Je vais mourir, je vais mourir, je vais mourir" Gabriel muttered to himself repeatedly as he ran, switching back to French in his panic. He made a quick turn into an alley, making a rather impressive leap over a dumpster that he was sure he'd never be able to do again. He thought heard the distant sound of gunshots, but he couldn't be sure. He emerged into another street and made a sound of exasperation.

"Oh avancé" he moaned, raising the gun again. More zombies, and what looked like the fast-retreating form of another human. That would explain the sound of gunshots. He yelped in surprise as he was tackled by one of the decayed forms surrounding him before he could call out to the only living person in view for help. He automatically reached for his gun before he realized it was several feet from his head, completely out of reach. 'Perfect'

Quickly drawing his arm away from the snapping teeth of the creature pinning him down, he reached out desperately for the handle of the gun. For a creature that had a severely depleted number of limbs and not much in between, it was surprisingly heavy. Eventually, still keeping the zombie at bay with one hand, he managed to grasp the handle and quickly drew the gun back in, firing at one eye socket.

The zombie slumped bonelessly, still on top of him, and Gabriel had to struggle for another few seconds to stand up. When he did, he realized he was in even more trouble. There were still six more zombies around him and he was pretty sure he could hear the previous lot making their way through the alley.

If he was going to die, he was going to go out with a fight. He raised his gun in one hand and the crowbar in the other, leaning against the wall and waiting for the first to attack.

[Phantasmagoria]

The loud cracking sound of a 7.62 bullet rang as Onix squeezed the trigger, and another body hit the hardtop. He took aim and pulled the trigger again. Click. Clickclickclick. "Motherf... I can't catch one damn break can I?!" He tilted the gun and glanced at the chamber, where one of those 7.62's was caught on the firing action. Lovely. Sliding the sling off his shoulder he lashed out at a nearby zombie, the stock catching its chin, and he was sure he heard its neck snap. He was even more sure when he saw its head slump to the side, still biting at him while the body slumped to the ground, the connection to what held it against gravity broken. Its jaws still snapped angrily and its eyes rolled upward at a grotesque angle, the whites of the eyes all that was showing. "Nggh, gross." he whimpered like a girl, stepping back away from the body. He glanced up at the slowly advancing zombies that had come to get him, or the other person with the gun. Either way, they wanted to eat somebody.

He threw the AK-47 up over his shoulder, unzipping his jacket in one swift jerk and grabbing his back-up from its holster. He held it up, automatically correcting his thumbs and flicking off the safety. The triceps of his arm were glad to no longer have to bear the weight of his primary weapon as he held the gun at arm's length, firing off. Yet another one hit the asphalt. "[censored].." he mumbled, watching as more stumbled from the shadows of the buildings. Now was the time when being a coward came in handy. But, another person.. no more shivering and whimpering until around dawn when he felt he could sleep.. another person who might be able to shoot better. Humanity over-rode common sense and instinct, he turned to the side glancing towards where he thought Gabriel was.. mostly because of the zombies congregrated there. He lined up the three white dots at the back of one of their heads. A burst of blood and greyish mush that appeared to be brain splattered as the bullet's impact shattered most of its skull. He felt another one of those rotting hands lay on his shoulder, he immediately slammed his elbow back, gaining a few seconds of time, before turning and lashing out with his foot, knocking it flat on its back.

Why hallo thar. CRACK. He watched it ooze that weird congealed blood from the big hole in the middle of its forehead, relieved it hadn't sunk its teeth into him, but also wondering where the Hell he'd learned to do that. He turned back towards the fray and the other human, who he was hoping wasn't bitten. Because if he was, that meant he had to shoot another person. Yay. He aimed and fired again, wincing slightly as the bullet missed his target by about a foot and embedded in a wall.

[MirrorMask]

-

[Phantasmagoria]

[ Have you read The Zombie Survival Guide or something..? 'Cause in that book there's someting about using animals to bait in zombies. x3 Accepted. If it was legal I would marry you also. -nod- ]