Matthew R. Stitt // The Writer’s Archive

Tag: City of Zombies

  • Chapter 1 -Get There

    Erik wiped sweat from his brow as the summer heat loomed over him. His hands trembled as he set the duffel down, though he didn’t need anything it. He released the pry-bar and let it fall the short distance to the ground. He shook off the anxiety, wishing he had a shot to medicate it away. His knees throbbed and he knelt.

    “We shouldn’t stop here long,” voice low but urgent. Rebecca, who stood nearby, nodded silently. Her eyes darting from one sleeping thrall.

    In front of them a large patch of towering grasses mixed with stalks of corn and pigweed.

    “Let’s go,” he said to Rebecca. “Be careful, anything could be in here. Follow behind me, please.”

    “You may want to be extra careful…” Rebecca tried to add the Erik had already disappeared. She swore and followed.

    Erik parted the grasses and stepped carefully. Took a second step, then a third. Every step rustling. The noise felt louder then it should of been. Every step felt like a signal to the monsters outside.

    The inability to see what’s mere steps away. The corn, towering over him, swiped at his bare arms. The waist high grass brushed against his legs. The pig weed scratched at his vulnerable skin. Erik was on edge. Rebecca was somewhere behind him. He could hear the steps but another problem is he couldn’t be certain it was her and not a thrall stumbling through to snatch him up.

    He began to recall the day his life changed. The moment the monsters destroyed his wife and stole his daughter.

    “Five years, it’s been five years Erik.” He said to himself.

    “They came into my home,” he replied. “They were targeting me, I know it.”

    “For what, Erik? You have this fantasy that you’re important. You were a janitor. It was a coincidence.”

    “A coincidence my ass. Why did the Collectors target the house. Answer that question. Why did they swipe Diana? I never found her body.”

    Erik fumed. The world had disappeared. The stalks fell over by themself and he walked forward automatically. That was until he tripped and tumbled forward. He crashed into a pile of thorns. Something tighten around his ankle. It pulled him forward thorns digging into his back and head. He wanted to scream to just end it… till she showed up. Her brown hair fell over her little face. Her brown eyes looked down upon him. Horror reflected in the afternoon sun. Erik remembered and it hurt.

    “Give up Erik?” He said to himself as he looked up at her.

    “In front of her?” He said silently, as he started to struggle. He tried to clear the bramble thorns from his head. The points digging in. The tentacle pulled. Erik lifted his knee and tried to back up.

    “She’s not Diana,” his thought continued.

    “I’m aware she is not Diana. She looks like her. What would she say?”

    “She wasn’t the same age. She was younger but I would like to think she would want you to live.”

    Erik watched as Rebecca flashed her knife. She pointed it down. She stabbed through the fleshy appendage.

    Something screamed. A pained scream but it also sounded like a warning or a lead for a trap.

    Rebecca stabbed the tentacle again. A second tentacle struck out and punch Rebecca in the side. Erik watched her fall backward and into the stalks.

    Erik sat up in seconds, his doubts vanished. He tore the remains of the thorns from his head. He kicked the remains of the tentacle from his ankle. He leapt. His ankle was sore but functional.

    Rebecca began to sit up. Erik held out his hand to slow her down.

    “Let me help you.”

    Rebecca looked up. Blood tracing paths down the crevices of her dirty face.

    “I’m sorry,” he apologized. Bent down and grabbed her arm. Rebecca stood. She held her left arm. Her face was red and would likely bruise.

    She suddenly snapped at him, “I’m not some helpless damsel! I know things. I’ve been here 5 years!”

    Erik said nothing.

    “I could have stopped you from running into that… we call it a Groundling. It’s a mass of flesh, teeth and tentacles. You, seriously, just run headfirst without thinking.”

    Erik smiled, a bit, “Ya.. I tend to do that. You call that octopus thing a Groundling.”

    “Yes, and a siren because it calls the thrall and they are headed to us now.” Rebecca said.

    “So we need a new plan,” said Erik. “The thrall still can’t see but can hear. I think we can whip them into a frenzy by messing with that puddle thing.”

    “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

    “Got a better one?” Erik asked.

    Rebecca was silent.

  • Coyote- Tommy

    “No! I said don’t do that. What the hell!” 
    Tommy stepped toward the woman as she attempted to sprint between two pair of outstretched arms. The eager arms trying to find lunch, which was the source of the screaming. Tommy winched as the zombie on the left grasp her ponytail. The woman’s face, joyful she had made it past them, would soon change to horror if Tommy couldn’t help her but he had his own problems. The woman’s screams had attracted a mob of zombies but worse, other prisoners had made the zombies ravenous.

    The zombie we’re blind, their eyes covered in a cancerous white film but they felt everything. Tommy had developed a particular set of skills, allowing him to avoid the sun bleached, hungry grasped but he also avoided stupid moves like running between two zombies expected a miracle. 
    “Miracles didn’t exist”, Tommy thought as he watched the woman fall backward landing on her ass first, then her back. 
    “Miracles were part of that Christian revolution that disappeared once the world changed.” He continued the thought as he crouched low and walked forward, careful to avoid any noise. 

    “Some of the Coyotes take a stabbing approach…,” he silently explained to himself, running through a speech he planned to give at the Rail Station downtown
    later in the day. 
    “… but I prefer the silent, stalking, carefully planned approach. Avoiding conflict, wasted energy and potential surprises. It’s a far smarter approach.” His thought concluded. 
    He grabbed the woman by the ankles and pulled. The zombie holding her hair grasp tighter as he as his partner began to bend down. 
    “Her screaming doesn’t help.” Tommy said to himself as hope of rescuing this group of prisoners disappeared along with the credits he would receive from the families.

    “Five thousand credits per, multiplied by ten, now three… possibly two if I can’t rescue this dumb screaming woman. Hold it together Tommy. You can only do so much.”

    Tommy lifted the woman by both ankles and violently pulled her toward him. She slammed her head on the concrete beneath her but the zombie holding her hair lost his hold. Tommy pulled again, careful to be as stealthy as he could. Other zombie stood waiting, listening groping for a clue. 
    The woman lie under him. “Shut up!” He said looking into her terrified eyes. The look, familiar always haunting. “Your going to kill us both. Stop screaming.”

    The woman stopped screaming, for the moment, and Tommy helped her to her feet. 
    “We are 200 yards from Station 1,” Tommy said. “You can do this.” He encouraged her as he pulled a large gauze pad from his bag to stop the bleeding beneath her blond ponytail. He held it to her head for several moment as the two zombie approached from behind. 
    The two other survivors, that had listened, stood like statues. Every bone and muscle in their body shook but they stood silently waiting. 
    “Let’s go, quietly,” Tommy instructed. 
    The four, two woman and two men walked slowly toward Station 1, a run-down restaurant with a large plate glass window in the front

    Tommy placed the screaming woman’s hand on the gauze bandage and encouraged her to move forward quietly. She seemed to want to comply this time.

    The two zombie behind them, encouraged by the interaction with the woman, approached. Their hunger insatiable. Tommy, was aware and searched for anything to lay in the pairs path. 
    A shopping cart, covered in weeds, would work. Tommy suggested the group continue forward carefully and quietly as he veered off the the left to get the shopping cart. 
    He freed the cart, in moments. Picked up the cart so it would not make noise and turned. 
    All three survivors had began running toward the restaurant. 
    Tommy cursed like he had never before. “The ignorance of these people,” he thought as he watched one of the men fall and get brutally beaten up, then eaten. The women ran erratically around the zombies that approached. Skillfully, avoiding the hungry lunges of the predators. 
    “The zombie, though would overwhelm them,” Tommy thought. He knew it would happen, because it always did.

    The numbers around the women grew till the commotion had drawn all the zombie from around where Tommy stood. He stood alone, behind a shopping cart, watching the entire scene. The tragedy of the inability to listen and check the fear for sake of survival. Tommy was void of fear anymore, reborn to this brutal new world of terror. He walked pass the growing mob of zombie and headed toward the back of Station 1. He approached the back door, withdrew a key and unlocked the door. He opened the door and disappeared.

    Coyote Part 2

  • The Coyote – part 2

    Mornings within the walled off, reclusive world are the worst part of an already fucked up life. The smell of decay mixed with body order, sprinkled with a constant moaning.

    The moaning was worse then the stench at times. A twisted symphony of pain expressed in guttural “Ohhhhs” all day and night.

    Tommy stared at the dangling plaster above his head. The room had seen better days but as was the world.

    Zombies milled under his window waiting like dogs hungry for breakfast

    “Tommy!” Shouted Mary , the station chief.

    “You have a phone call.”

    Tommy dressed, grabbed his weapons and walked down the neglected wooden steps to the small cafe on the ground floor.

    At the bottom of the stairs was a kitchen. The kitchen was immaculate and cooking on the polished stove was a skillet filled with rice, onions, peas and carrots. On a counter to the left was a dozen beautifully polished red candied apples.

    Tommy fingered one of the apples and listened to Mary on the phone.

    “I understand, Mr. Carter.”

    “Tommy O’Neil is the coyote, yes sir.“

    “He’s on the way, sir.”

    “Listen, Mr. Carter. We give you our word. We will find your daughter.”

    “Don’t do that,” Tommy said as stepped into the cafe lobby. In front of him sat a large plate glass window. Mary sat at a small table. A phone sat in the center.

    “Don’t promise anyone anything. I am no superhero.” Mary, a thin woman, eyes that understood the horrors of the world, placed the phone receiver in Tommy’s hand.

    “Mr. Carter,” Tommy O’Neal began. He sat the phone on his shoulder and slicked back his hair.

    “There are no guarantees in this zoo.” He said. “I lost 8 people just yesterday because they wouldn’t listen. “ This daughter is what 22, 25 and a criminal?”

    “14, not possible,” Tommy snapped. “They would not push a 14 year old into this shithole.”

    “Snuck in! That is ridiculous. No one would sneak into this place. Are you calling from a radio show, your joking right.”

    “Your daughter is dead,” Tommy said. “Yes, it’s true. Your daughter has a 15 minutes time-to-live and that has passed.”

    “Your apparent sphere of influence has no bearing. The Maxwell-Carter family may have some pull outside the Zoo, but within these walls we make the rules.”

    “The Network can be a very powerful enemy, Mr. Carter. I’m just saying, be careful what you wish for… but honestly how much and why should I care?”

    Tommy gently tapped the glass on the whiskey bottle. Mary did her best to ignore him and pretended to work nearby.

    “I’ll get it myself,” he whispered and she countered by shaking her head no.”

    “500,000 credits?” Tommy said with disgust. “What am I going to do with credits. Toss them at the undead?”

    His words trailed off as he noticed an odd zombified creature approach the large restaurant window. He pointed with his free hand.

    Mary whispered, “I believe those are called satyrs. Half human, half goat.”

    “Looks like a demon,” Tommy replied while covering the receiver.

    The satyr had a horn twisting from the left side of his head and a second horn, broken protruding from the right side.

    It’s fur showed up in patches over its pale, dead human face. Open wounds tracing exposed compound fractures.

    “When did they start putting the Freaks in here?” Tommy said as he swept up the bottle of whiskey and poured a second shot.

    Tommy swallowed and Mary took the bottle from him. “Your not finishing this bottle,” she said.

    “I am listening to you Mr. Carter. You would like me to rescue your daughter and your daughter just happened to slip into a prison full of zombies… and other monsters… with a stone that has the power to create or take away life. So this is a mission to save the world. Did I get that right?”

    “Fuck off, with your goddamn super hero mission. I ain’t no super hero. Do it yourself then.”

    “I want something else. I want you to have me released. I want out of this shit hole.”

    “How did she get the stone.” Tommy asked. “A family of thieves, I see. That certainly makes this job more interesting and more valuable. The Stones haven’t been free from the Maxwell-Carter family for four years.”

    He paused, “Mr. Carter this must be embarrassing for you. You seem that type.”

    “No one outside the prison will not do shit for 50,000 credits,” he said, replying to Mr. Carson. “I doubt they would step into this zoo for 100,000 and they are definitely not looking for your daughter in West Ransom. They may take your money though.”

    The smell of candied apples drift into his nose.

    “Mary, can I get a plate of your awesome fried rice and a candied apple. I love those candied apples.” Tommy said waiting for a response.

    “Sure thing, I got you. Anything else?” Mary said.

    A glass of water, please.” Mary disappeared into the kitchen of the diner.

    “Are you changing your offer for this job, Mr Carson. You have no other options.”

    “500,000 credits, guaranteed by the Carter family and Northeast territory… Nice. Where do you believe they were heading.

    “That’s a three station hop and some of the most populated areas of the city. Still very likely she is already dead but I promise I will do my best.

    “How will you guarantee I get paid? I am on the inside of this hell on earth zoo. The Blackguards are corrupt as hell and I can’t get out.”

    “The Garden. Sure. The Network’s central station. I’ll meet you at the top.

    Tommy placed the phone on the receiver. “Looks like we have another suicide job, Mary. Can you call…”

    “They are on the way, already. Held up at station 11. Will be here in an hour.”

    “You are my favorite station chief, Mary and I love your apples. Gawd.” He said as he bit onto the candied dessert.”

  • Michael and Jacob – Plywood derby

    “Do vampires have feelings? Asking for a friend.” Narrator

    Michael’s head began to swim then a wave of nausea struck. He heaved and this was followed by a second. His throat screamed as nothing came up. Michael looked down to notice blood on the ground when his body seized and he fell to his side.

    Michael woke up strapped to a piece of plywood. The plywood was canted upward and he was moving backward. Michael could see someone above him. A monstrously tall man with a large backpack under a black trench coat. To the right Michael noticed Jacob strapped to a second piece of plywood. Thick leather straps held him securely as his sneakers dragged over the asphalt.

    Michael looked himself over and found a large, bandage wrapped around his waste. A large red stain near his wound and a second near his chest. His boots dragging the ground. Behind him was a mob of zombies. Michael began to get a better sense of his surrounding as he continued to wake. The houses had begun to get bigger as he realized they had left his previous street and were now moving toward the center of the city.

    “What is this?” He thought. “Broadway? Richie riches used to live here. Now they are all dead or fled to the North. The monster do not like the cold up there. Leave us poor folk to lie and steal and spend eternity in the City of Monsters. Frick’n backwoods justice from here to Buffalo. If that city still exists…”

    Michael’s driver suddenly dropped him with a thud and he complained. He watched as the zombies approached. To the left was a large gate. The tall man was struggling to close. To the right was a small army. They fired and Michael’s ears rang. A row of zombie lay motionless. The tall man strained to pull the heavy gate further till a zombie approached and attempted to surprise him.

    “Holy crap,” Jacob said as the tall man grasp the zombie and bit into its rotten flesh. The man didn’t chew but seemed to suck from the zombie victim. He then tossed it away, shook and pulled the gate closed like it was a thin sheet of paper. He turned to Jacob and Michael, his face covered in gore.

    “Come on, no! This is not happening,” Michael began. “I understand the zombie apocalypse and all and the shit show my brother and I started by stealing from the Governor. I get that the punishment was life behind the walls of the city for me and my family. All that sucks and now my family is dead but this is not going to happen. I’m done. I am not staying here strapped to a wooden barbecue plate waiting to be sucked dry.”

    “Michael.”

    “No Jacob. This is the end for me. I’m not being left a husk of skin and bones.” Michael struggled to free himself but was barely able to move.

    “I understand,” said the tall man as he grabbed a towel from a go bag and cleaned up his face. “I should of introduced myself.” He said.

    “John Peterson and I am a vampire.”