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Original Fiction: Don't Forget Your Helmet Chapter 11-12

It's been a long time comin', been busy with life for a little while, but here is another installment of "Don't Forget Your Helmet", Chapters 11 and 12. A bit more action in these chapters, hence only 2 this time around. We're slowly approaching the grand finale!

Let's recap! Alrighty...Where were we? We left poor Scott in a state of becoming, an undead cat scratching at the door, we got Roger the Roto-Rooter guy, an unlikely hero come to save the day for a few helpless disabled folks. Tiffany pleading for help and her cries answered as she searches for Scott in the rainy chaos of zombies and night! And her poor parents receiving unexpected guests... Let's see what happens next!

Dont Forget Your Helmet Chapter 11-12

Chapter 11.

The SUV had barely made it down the end of the block when shouts from all over were heard. The lights of the houses that were previously dark were now lit up; it looked something like a street riot. There were broken doors and windows, people dragged out of their houses, people running in every direction from what appeared to be hooligans dressed up as the walking dead. Except they weren't costumes. You could see that. No amount of FX makeup could produce actual ribs and ruined flesh and decay; or people attempting to walk on busted, twisted legs... It was unbelievable.

There was a man shambling around in the rain with no face. No fucking face, man Joey thought to himself. How can you explain that? How can the human mind even process that? Oh sure, he had a fine growth of hair on his head, sprung out in all directions, walking like he was drunker than a skunk. But that wasn't posble because drunk people are alive. And living people don't have their entire facial skull exposed. So that's a contradiction of ght.

And not too far off to the right of him, Jen noticed a woman whose face had literally thousands of maggots crawling in and out of it. You could see their pale glistening white bodies clearly even in the rain. A woman with maggots all over her face. No fucking way, Jen thought to herself. She couldn't bring out the words, they had died in her throat and remained as thoughts.

She had a crazy urge to open the door and run into the night, stark raving mad. She was able to quell it.

"Holy shit, look at that! What's going on here?!" Tim yelled. He indicated an elderly women being dragged by her curly white hair off of her own porch by 2 muddy humanoid shapes. Her walker left there, laying on it's de. She was screaming hysterically, and for good reason.

Her plump old legs were waddling and kicking up in the air, and she could feel teeth and flowing warmth all about her face, neck, and the top of her head. The screaming stopped shortly and became gurgles, which eventually died out too.

John Berg surveyed the scene of chaos with an almost clinical detachment. Once you've seen your own leg blown off from an IED, once you've spent months in a hospital with other wounded soldiers who suffered much greater damage than that... once you've shot and killed other human beings and watched in staggering slow motion as their life just kind of blew out of them, like a puppet with its strings cut, and then they fell backwards; once you've seen these things before, what difference did a misng leg make? What was all this to what he witnessed in Mosul? It was just another war zone. Different rules, different terrain, but a war zone nonetheless.

Just another.

Oh, he remembered.

This was familiar territory.

"That's old Mrs. Potters!

And look over there! That's Mr. Higgins!" Dale Higgins was currently being bludgeoned to death on his front lawn by his own cane, wielded by a grotesquely mishappen shape. The crack of it off his skull, and his screams of "No! No! Nooo! N---"...

"We gotta help them out!" Tim urged.

"Keep driving Tim, don't stop. And don't let these things catch up." John ordered.

"We gotta do something man, this is...I don't know what this is, but we need the cops!"

"Listen to me very carefully Tim. They're all dead. These things walking around, the people they're attacking. All fucking dead. Keep driving. If they get in front of the car, run them the fuck over, but keep driving. Don't stop, do you understand?" John had said, almost calmly.

"But... they're people!"

"Look at them. Do they look like people? Run them the fuck over, Tim!"

Tim had a look of absolute flummox set upon his face. It was incredulous. Imposble. How could I posbly... And that's when the slap came, it felt like being hit with a slab of granite.

"Snap out of it, you dumb asshole! Just get us out of here!!"

"Alright! Alright!" Tim floored it.

There was a group of 3 walkers, walking stupidly, staggering. The SUV busted right through them as if they were 10 pins, and sent them mangled and broken, rolled under by just over 2 tons of steel.

"What about finding Scott? He's out there somewhere in the middle of this!" Tiffany exclaimed.

"Lady, fuck Scott. If he's smart, he's somewhere safe. Look at all this shit happening!" John barked.

How could something like this be happening? There weren't any answers, no announcements, no police, no heroes. Just stark, raw chaos.

The SUV was stopped roughly 50 feet from Scott's empty truck; the lights dimming, the battery slowly fizzling out to nothingness. The SUV's occupants were more or less rendered speechless from what they were now witnesng. It looked like a bad horror movie set. The cemetery gate lay on it's de, debris littering the street. Tiffany could feel her gorge rise as she couldn't take her eyes away from what appeared to be several severed body parts laying in the street.

"Look, there's his truck!" Tiffany pointed. "He's got to be around here somewhere!"

The SUV rolled slowly past the truck, past the broken gate, and then stopped. Tim was staring wide eyed at the shuffling woman ambling in the middle of the road.

Cindy Travers.

"Jesus God no.

Please God no." Tim spoke, choking on emotion.

Tim was a closet "chubby chaser". That information was not something one would typically tell anyone, especially friends. But 3 months ago on a terribly humid summer night he had a hinkerin' for some ice cream from this local place called 'Cliff's', and there serving him his 3 scoops of pistachio and chocolate sauce was this breathtakingly voluptuous girl, long red hair flowing like orange sangria, with curves in all the right places and such big innocent beautiful green eyes. She had a thing for chewing gum and blowing bubbles. Blowing other things too. She flashed him a perky smile, pointed her big tits right in his direction, and exposed her tongue ring while asking "What'll it be, sweety?". And that was all it took to get Tim's heart racing and his mind developing such lovely lustful ideas on what he'd like to do to this little chubby redheaded beauty. Tim returned her smile, wrote his number on the 5 dollar bill he handed her and said "It'll be nice if you called me." Not particularly sharp, or witty, or charming, but goddamn it, it worked and she looked right and left to see if anyone was watching as she shoved the 5 dollar bill down her shirt with a wink.

And to Tim's surprise, she did call him. And they got to talking, developed a kind of friend with benefits thing, much to Tim's delight. 2 people who never knew the other existed, living in towns right next door...All it took was a decion to go and get some ice cream and then fate and chance took a backseat to pure pheromones and unparalleled lust. And she would stop over his house after work, and ride him so fucking hard that Tim's eyes would roll back into his head and the feeling and power of it blasted away the dull hours of his routine life.

After a month of this, he was beginning to love her. He had never told her so. Didn't want to risk being clingy and chang her away. He enjoyed her company and body too much to want to jeopardize any of it.He asked her to come to John Berg's party. And she never made it there. And never knew how much he began to feel for her.

And now she was vacant eyed, slack jawed, her once glorious red river of hair completely disheveled, drying blood under her nose; blood on her legs which stepped inexorably slow toward the headlights of the SUV. Whatever this poor girl could've been, what she loved, and all of Tim's dreams and fantaes of a future with her were as dead and gone as her green eyes were now. She had no future. But post mortem, she wanted to attend the party after all.

Tim put the SUV in park, unbuckled his seat belt, began fiddling with the door handle. John tried to grab him by the shirt sleeve but Tim yanked his arm free.

"Don't go out there man, I'm warning ya. She's not who she was, and never will be Tim. She's all kinds of fucked up now! Tim, don't you fucking go out there!" John yelled to no avail.

John turned around and gave a look that meant buness. "None of you leave this goddamn vehicle, I mean it."

Joey tried jumping into the front seat to grab Tim's shoulders and wound up falling headfirst onto the horn which blared a short burst of sound, as Tim opened the door and exited the vehicle.

"Son of a bitch. Tim!" John yelled again, opening the passenger de door.

"Why did he leave? W-w-hats going on?" Jen asked. Her nerve was about to break again. Tiffany was too busy looking out the back window to try and find her bearings on where Scott might've ran off to. The sound of the horn had gained the attention of several walkers that were now showing an interest in the idling vehicle.

"Oh Jesus, they're coming this way!" Tiffany exclaimed.

Tim's spirit was completely crushed, there was no fight in him.

He could not contain the feelings and emotions that were kept shackled inde to his heart. He had to go see and touch, and fix her. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't. And even though it was, his mind just could not let go of the fact that just yesterday he had seen her. They had cuddled post coitus, and talked about the future, talked about where they were going in life. Talked about their hopes and dreams, and she smelled so good, and then she fell asleep in his arms. And he felt like everything was going to be looking up from then on.

He slowly approached her, and the thing that was Cindy was now facing his direction. Tears streaming down his face. He stretched his arms out slowly.

"Cindy, no... Please God no!" Tim wimpered. She was maybe 2 steps away when John hobbled over on one foot, and clubbed her in the face with his own prosthetic leg.

The problem with equilibrium is it requires more than poor footing to establish. And the swing was much too strong to keep John on his remaining leg.

The metal bar collided with Cindy's nose effectively breaking it, and sent John hurdling to the ground.

Completely long his nerve, and his mind temporarily, Tim snapped and clocked John right in the jaw as he began to try and stand again.

He still couldn't accept the fact that Cindy was no longer part of the human race. She'd never cuddle with him and share her thoughts anymore. She sure as shit wouldn't be serving ice cream anymore, that's the truth. And John, as surprised as he was angry looked up in horror as the words died in his mouth.

Tim, standing over him looking as if he just witnessed seeing Jesus Christ in a cloud, fists trembling was about to open his mouth to say something when Cindy's hands grabbed onto a shook of his hair and pulled back. Tim had enough time to croak a noise of startlement and then Cindy's mouth tore a chunk out of his left cheek.

"G'aaaahhhh!!!" Tim yelled, shoving her away. He felt the blood pour down. And reality began to set in. He was bit. And the ramifications of such an action were not known to him at the time, but the prognos was not good.

And as she dipped her head in for another bite, the shots rang out in the rainy night. 2 in her head, one in her back, one in her chest. Tim witnessed as Cindy collapsed, almost in slow motion. And as her face went slack temporarily, and before she landed, she looked a little something like she did while sleeping in his arms.

"Scott!! He's alive! Oh my God, you're alive!" Tiffany screamed, depresng the door lock, opening the door. Joey followed suit, after regaining his own bearings.

They both quickly ran over to meet this newcomer and savior.

"Oh Scott! What the hell is going on?" Tiffany half cried, half pleaded, ran to embrace him. Scott held out a hand to stop her, acknowledging the confused look upon her face.

"Man, you better have some answers for us! What in the blue shit is going on around here?" Joey yelled, and was promptly ignored.

"Shouldn't....Shouldn't get too close to me Tiff. That old lady bit me, I think....I think I'm..." His words were stopped by Tiffany's embrace. Her sobs of joy and fear shuddered heavily through his chest. He hugged her back. And when the smell of her hair hit him, the Other inde of him began to stir again. He had a crazy urge just to bite into the top of her head, even opened his mouth wide...and then closed it again.

"So you're Scott eh? Well Jesus, help me up asshole, what gives! And give me that goddamn gun." John demanded, holding his hand up. Scott removed himself from Tiffany, helped John to his one good foot. Handed him his prosthetic leg from the street, as well as the Glock. John deftly snapped the prosthetic back into place, inspected the firearm, chambered a new round, stuffed the gun into the front of his pants.

Back in the SUV, Jen was tting there clenching and unclenching her hands and kind of moaning to herself.

A sort of ghastly humming in short bursts was coming out of her mouth, and she vaguely understood that she was unable to control it. Her nerves were shot.

And that's when groaning sounds from outde began, and the plodding footsteps were heard...and when she turned around to see that 5 dirty shambling things were less than 20 feet from the vehicle, her mind cracked entirely and she opened her door and ran out into the night screaming. Chapter 12.

"You're dead Butch!! You're dead! I buried you myself!" Bill screamed in horror through the barricaded front door of his home. The banging of fists on the door just kept coming and coming. And little Sandy and James were no longer in their rooms, they had tasks now: To scream very loudly if anything was coming through a window or prying its way through a door. The neighborhood was beginning to look a bit like Woodstock, except stoned hippies could be reasoned with.

"Fucked your wife. Fucked your wife, Bill. Open up. Let me in..." Butch said, unbelievably. His voice sounded rusty, from the gut, like a moaning wheeze that carried words. Horrible words. The whole tuation was so completely surreal. Butch should not be here. More than that, should not be talking, or banging on the front door. Bill knew that, but it didn't stop it from happening.

The Mills' undead cat was still scratching on the front porch. There were a few bangings and rattlings on the garage door. A rock was sent through the upstairs bedroom window; Tiffany's bedroom window. And now Bill was making a stolid effort in trying to keep Butch-that-was from entering his house.

"You're not supposed to be here Butch! You're dead!! You're fucking dead!!!" Bill hollered. His voice was growing hoarse. He felt if he kept yelling, maybe Butch would disappear and his daughter would no longer be pregnant, and everything else would be back to normal.

"Sandy in there Bill?" Butch asked matter of factly.

"Leave us alone! God damn you, Butch! God help us!!"

"No God, Bill. Never was. Just us. Comin' in Bill! Can smell your wife's cunt! Tell the whore I'm comin' in!"

Eleanor, upon hearing this, decided it was time to take the kids upstairs and lock themselves in the bedroom.

"I'm scared! What's going on Mom? What's going on?" Sandy asked innocently.

"What if they get in? Where's the police?" James inquired, shakily.

Eleanor didn't have answers to these questions; no answers at all. She had one thing on her mind and that was keeping as much space between what was outde and herself.

And so she ran with her 2 kids in tow, up the stairs, into the modest bedroom. They began at once moving and sliding furniture in front of the bedroom door.

Eleanor scrambled to the nearby de table, grabbed the old King James bible that had been tting in the drawer for years, untouched. She opened it to a random page and began reading from Isaiah to her children. But it didn't help. Not one bit. She read and cried along with her kids, and the bible was as useful in this tuation as a bucket of water to a burning city. Her mind swam wildly for options. The window was no use, and to leave the house was suicide at this point. Suicide.

"Goddamn it Butc---" Bill had began yelling when his voice died in his throat. He had lost his voice completely. As well as his marbles.

"Bill! Are you ready? Danny found his keys, Bill!" Butch informed.And up the street, barreling through trash cans and debris, sending garbage and refuse up in the air, blasting Gladys Knight and the Pips, rolled the 1959 Chevy Impala. Danny

(whose face was now an absolute wreck) behind the wheel. The car jumped the curb, and slammed right into and through the Mills' living room.

The sound and the shock rocked the house, and Bill fell backpedaling through a small glass coffee table that broke his fall. The modest entertainment center was completely demolished, the living room couch was driven through the plaster wall, and into the downstairs laundry room. The toilet burst, the oil burner became completely disengaged from the flue piping and was sent barreling out the back door. Picture frames fell and shattered, Mussolini the cat was no longer on the front porch. Eleanor's muffled screams as well as those of her children rang out and seemed to echo and reverberate through the rain of falling plaster and carnage. She had completely lost her mind.

Bill began to feel like everything was going in slow motion; forgot where he was and who he was momentarily. Those little electric flashes of light spun in front of his eyes like fire flies. His mind was still trying to grasp, understand, make sense of it all. Why? How?

Just..how?

It was futile at this point. No explanations would ever satiate the fervent imposble reality that Bill found himself in. He didn't have the time or the means to put the pieces together. He sat there, arms bloodied from the shattered glass, eyes wide like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He didn't realize it at the time, and never would; didn't have the time to realize it, but his death was walking towards him. Death and a new un-life, a new perspective was soon to become Bill's future.

And when the dust had settled, Butch was there standing in font of him. Danny in tow. Both looking horrendous and foul.

"Told you I'd get in Bill." Butch said quietly. And he smiled an open mouthed rictus, and drooled a kind of black gelatin down his chin.

Mussolini made his presence known; through a kind of tick tap tick tap that his fleshless paws and nails made on the debris that was once a linoleum floor. The cat became a whirling dervish of claws and teeth and screeching as Danny picked it up and hurled it right at Bill's head. He saw the cat flying in slow motion. Saw the bony matted limbs extend, the cat's maw opening to show what looked like laser precion needles filled with infernal venom; saw the black empty sockets from which nothing looked. And when it finally landed, clawing and biting, and kicking, Bill was absolutely petrified beyond the ability to defend himself. A moment later, his heart stopped.

William Mills was then mauled, and beaten, ripped asunder, fed upon, and bleed out right there on his living room floor. He couldn't even scream. Upstairs, when the crash occurred, Eleanor's spirit completely broke. Her 2 children were huddled at her des, shaking, weeping, utterly confused and terrified.

"W-w-what if they come in here, mommy? W-w-what will happen?" Sandy asked, as tears flowed, and a line of mucus dripped from her nose.

"T-t-they can't get in here, can they? C-c-can they mom?" James asked, his composure faring only slightly better than his ster's.

Eleanor held them tightly, and stared at the door, stared through it, stared beyond it. Her focus was not on the house, or the carnage downstairs, or what would happen once Butch and Danny, and eventually her late husband began to ascend the stairs. No, her focus was on Heaven. And she was not going to be sent there by anyone else's hand. She would make her own fate, and the fate of her children. She calmly stood up, went to the nearby dresser drawer, rummaging, finding 2 bottles of Unisom. She went to the closet and gathered several 3-packs of ps that she had to hide there or else they wouldn't make it through the day to be put in her children's school lunches. She found a few chocolate pudding Snack Packs there as well. She crushed up a goodly amount of the pills with the heel of her shoe on the bedroom night table, swept the powder into an empty wine glass, mixed the contents with the ps, added some to the chocolate pudding, mixed it up.

"What are you doing mom?" James asked apprehenvely. Sandy was still sobbing, not even paying attention.

"We're going away to a nice place James, a better place. Here drink this honey, you'll be safe."

Footsteps on the stairs. Two pairs? No, three. Sounded like heavy footed drunks shambling in after a night of debauchery.

"I don't want to drink that! Mom! I'm not drinking that!" Eleanor ignored him.

"Sandy dear, look at me. Drink this, listen to mother, dear." She held the cup to the sobbing girl, and she drank.

Footsteps closer, and a groaning. A kind of earthy yawn, like old trees bending in the wind.

"Sleep honey, rest. We're all going to Neverland, would you like that Sandy?" The effect was almost immediate, given her young age and the dose. Sandy curled up in a fetal potion on the bedroom rug, and never woke again. At least not in the way she was supposed to.

Another crashing sound occurred, a bada bump bump bada bump. Bill and company took a header back down the stairs after accidentally planting his large foot on top of Danny's, who weighed far less, resulting in an undead landslide.

Sandy taken care of, Ely turned her attention onto her son, with a new completely and astonishingly realistic tone.

"Listen here you little fucking prick. I'm going to pour you a glass of this mixed with sleeping pills, and you're going to drink it. You don't have a choice, you're going with me tonight and we're leaving this place together. One way or another, you're not leaving this room. Now drink! There's no time!" Ely shouted, her eyes filled with fervor and exasperation, and insanity. James went from scared to absolutely terrified, eyes wide with disbelief.

She popped 12 into her own mouth, drinking feverishly from the ps box. She began crushing up the rest to add into the glass which Sandy (whose breathing was becoming more and more shallow by the minute) emptied. She filled the glass, gave it a stir, and outstretched her hand.

"Drink it! Drink it now before it's too late!"

"No!! I'm not drinking that! Mom! You...You killed Sandy!!" James yelled, knocking the glass out of his mother's hand, spilling the drugged juice onto the rug, shattering the glass.

Eleanor went to grab her son, and James backpedaled. Eyes wide with fear, he jumped onto the bed out of her reach. His mind frenzied for options; saw the bedroom window, and maybe just maybe he could.... Could what? Climb onto the roof?

"You're coming with your ster and I! One way or another, you're coming!" Eleanor was now a drugged complete lunatic lunging for her son's feet. He jumped away, screaming. She could feel the slow inexorable effects of the Unisom, and now frantic as well, time was running out. She could hear the thump thump of feet on the stairs again, and it was just a matter of time before the banging on the bedroom door began. She picked up one of Bill's belts that was left haphazardly on the floor, noosed it. She was intending on strangling James to death and then posbly hanging herself if the pills didn't completely knock her out in time.

"No mom! Don't do this! No!!" James cried, as he kicked out, clipping his mother in the chin. She toppled back to the floor, and the room began to spin; and that's where she stayed. James scrambled to the window. It was the kind that opened outward with a swivel bar, maybe a foot or so of space to squeeze through, and the screen. He went over to pick up the nearby standing lamp, and the room went dark as the cord unplugged. He slammed it through the screen, cracking the window. Slammed it again.

Footsteps continuing up the stairs. More determined now, no falls, no crashes. Making their way past Tiffany's room, past Sandy's and James' shared room....

The lamp finally crashed through the window, letting in rain. James was now scrambling to try and get through the cramped space with hopes of making it onto the roof. He didn't think he'd survive the fall to the brick patio below.

Thump...Bannng. Thump Thummp. The handle turned, more bangs.

The door held, for now. James hearing the sound began to urinate in his own pants. Now the door began to shake violently, the cheap fiberboard wouldn't keep them out forever. Soon the door began to give way and cracks appeared. The dresser barricaded against it began to shake.

More bangs, more cracks. Moans, grunts, shuffling. Finally a hole burst through the door, the ze of a fist, and hands came through, flailing wildly, pushing on the dresser. They'd gain entrance in mere moments. James jumped up, grabbed the broken window frame, glass digging into his palms, hurled himself up. The dizzying distance from the window to the patio below caused almost instant vertigo, but he steadied himself on the window ll, grabbed for purchase on the gutter above. He boosted himself up , one hand on the aluminum, one foot on the ll, another hand on the outde of the house to steady himself, and hoisted himself up onto the lower incline of roof that was just along de. The bedroom door burst open, just moments after James' escape. Eleanor would soon be joining little Sandy in Neverland.

To be continued...

Copyright 2012

Intense! Loved it!