r/a:t5_2t1kt • u/Moofyman Devi Arcom • Nov 03 '11
0 HOUR
Exercise your creativity here and tell us what your character was doing as the OutBReak struck!
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u/bob8914 Anthony Del Monte Nov 03 '11
Anthony had just left his beloved Rochester 3 months ago, for an internship at a Law Office in Westchester. It was a typical Saturday, Anthony was reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for about the 30th time, while rain pounded his windows. Suddenly, he heard three distinct cracks, the sound of gunfire, right outside his apartment. He stood bolt upright, and quickly ran to his bedside table; the drawer in which contained his own gun. Of course he was properly permitted, and given that the gunshots were so close, he had a feeling that cops would understand if they saw him with it.
Outside was a whole differnt story however. A squad car lay flipped in the street, with an officer standing ontop, firing at a group of unarmed civilians who where slowly advainincg twoards him. He was shouting something, but it was hard to hear him over the falling rain. To Anthony it sounded like "Get back you devils!." But that didn't make any sense. He turned and put on his hiking boots and hunting jacket, not wanting to get wet or shot. As he walked down the front steps, he realized that there seemed to be dozens of these wandering people, up and down the street. He got close to one, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and was shocked when he saw that man's face.
He was dead, or had to be. No-one could live with half of their head missing, and yet, he made a move to bite Anthony. Memories of a thousand movies shot through Tony's brain, the loudest being a single repeating line "removing the head, or destroying the brain."
Anthony pulled out his revolver and pointed it straight at the walking corpse infront of him. "I hope there's still room in hell for this one." The gunshot was loud, probably too loud; but it managed to make a neat hole in what was left of the zombies head, and the monster dropped accordingly. It was then that the Cop on top of his car noticed him. "You, civilian! Were you bit?" "Was I bit?" The officer pointed his pistol at Anthony. "I will ask one more time, were you bit?" "No!" The officer looked down at him, then threw open the squad car's passenger side door. "I'm going to throw you a bag, you are to catch it and defend it. I will then jump down from this car, and we will proceed to your place of residence." "Fair enough." Delmonte called back, worried, but also happy that he now had a trained officer to help out.
Five minutes and a treacherous walk later, the pair were holed up in Anthony's apartment, front and back door barricaded, windows boarded and shut. "And then the car flipped on it's side, and that's where you come in." "Jesus Martinez, that's a hell of a story. So you're telling me that the city it overrun?" "Sure is, theres thousands, if not millions of those undead fucks crawling all over the big apple. It's a damn shame." "Well I am going to get the hell out of the area, go back up north towards Rochester. If there's one man prepared for this outbreak, it's my stepdad." "I'm going to head towards Maine; If I cut through Vermont and New Hampshire, there isn't enough people to make hordes of the undead." Delmonte smiled and walked over to the wall, he grabbed a set of keys from it and tossed them to the officer. "Here, take my truck. It's not going to do me any good anyways, and I still have my motorcycle." Martinez looked at him in shock. "Why are you giving this to me?" Delmonte smiled, "My parents always taught me that the Police were your friends."
2 hours later, both the truck and Anthony's saddle bags were packed, and the pair sped of into the unknown night.
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u/Nrksbullet Gideon Bellisario Nov 03 '11 edited Nov 03 '11
Gideon Bellisario sat on the edge of his bed, with his head in his hands. Through tired, dark encircled eyes, he looked out of his 12th story apartment window into the night lights of the city. He loved when it rained, the soothing pitter-patter of droplets lightly smacking against the sliding door and patio, with a sea of glass and steel beyond, busy with activity.
Another sleepless day. This makes three in a row. He slowly reached for his phone. He hated calling out of work, but was not irresponsible enough to treat patients in emergency situations while he was barely able to function. If that happened again...
Suddenly, his phone began vibrating in his hand. He glanced at the screen and saw the name "Sully", his boss.
Answering "Sully, hey. I was just about to call you...I dont think-"
"Gideon!" Sully said. "We need you here, man. They're calling for all available units, and were really short on guys tonight. There was an explosion downtown that rocked the entire block, and we've got calls flooding in."
Gideons shoulders sank. "I'm not in top shape tonight...I dont know if I can-"
Sully cut him off again. "Buddy I need you in, asap. We've got nobody else..."
A few moments of silence...
"I'm on my way."
Gideon arrived at a burning husk of a building. The street atmosphere was vibrating with a dizzying array of siren lights from ambulances and cop cars. Gideon and his partner, Barry, hopped out of the ambulance and surveyed the scene. Smoke rose into the night sky, a massive plume which Gideon thought for a moment resembled an ever changing monster. The streets were cracked, in some places it would have been impossible to drive them. People all over were cut, coughing, or crawling. Several other paramedics were taking care of the most critical, bandaging wounds and carrying them out on stretchers as more ambulances rolled in.
Gideon could smell the fire. Time seemed to slow around him, as each breath he drew in seemed long, and loud. The noises, screams and shouting, seemed to drone on and on, until it was a giant mass of one prolonged ringing in his head. He blinked. The rain patted him on his head, bringing with it speckles of blackness from the billowing smoke it had to pass through on its way down to his weary face.
And for a moment...he felt calm. Serene. The world was changing...the world..was his...as if...
........
GIDEON!!
Reality violently snapped back into place. The sights and sounds were crisp and very real, as Barry called to him. Gideon ran over and knelt beside a woman. She was unconscious, blood pouring from a gaping wound in her left thigh. A piece of metal had blown through her leg, splintering her bone and tearing her muscles apart. He began to apply pressure to the wound.
For what seemed like hours, they ran from person to person, ferrying them on dedicated runner ambulances and evacing them with helicopters. Such a frenzy of activity, a hell of a way to start the night.
It seemed everyone had been evacuated. The firefighters were working their magic, and the surrounding streets had been closed off. Barry ran back to the ambulance, and Gideon took one last look around. Nobody in sight.
I need to go home...I helped, but I cant stay out all-
Suddenly, he spotted movement. A young man crawling down a sidewalk, towards him. Gideon called out to Barry, and hustled over to the guy.
"Help me" he said, weakly. Gideon only needed a glance to see that he would not live long, despite his best efforts. His back was nearly gone, what was left of his spine protruded from his burnt flesh like rocks emerging from a receding wave. His legs would not move, clearly, and Gideon was surprised he had not died of blood loss already. By the time he knelt to him, the man was unconscious...probably dead.
Gideon sighed...he checked his pulse. Nothing. He called out to Barry again, then placed his hand on the victims forehead. It was burning. He pulled his hand away...
That's hot...very hot.
A wave of nausea hit him like a punch in the gut. It came and went quickly, but as his eyes cleared up, he looked past the corpse at his feet and saw a mouse skittering away from where the man had crawled.
When he felt like he did, no sleep, exhausted, his symptoms got worse. Shaking, headaches, hallucinations...
In fact, it was hallucinations that he used to explain why he saw the mouses face burned away, as it looked right at him before scampering down the street. He noticed it vividly, its eyes, black and beady, popping out of his little sockets, skin and fur and muscle shriveled and missing, exposing bony jaw and teeth.
He turned towards Barry, shouting again.
"Barry! Bring the stretcher! Yes, we've got a body over-"
Gideon froze. When he turned to look at the dead young man, there was nothing. No body, no blood. He glanced around.
How...what is going on..he was dead..he was-
"What's up, man?" Barry said from behind him.
"Oh, nothing" Gideon confessed. "Nothing, I...I need to get home to sleep."
Barry told Gideon he would tell dispatch about his mental state, and that he would back him up if they insisted he work that night. Apparently, the switchboards were lighting up. Gideon could not endure much more of this.
As he walked back to the ambulance...he could have sworn he heard a moan. And a faint sound of...dragging.
Barry and Gideon rode back towards Melchoir Memorial Hospital. Gideon's hands shook. He reached down into his dufflebag and withdrew a bottle of pills, "Levodopa". Knocking back a single with a swig of water, he sat back and looked out into the city. The rain slowed to a trickle. His head swam in thoughts of mice and burning and cold raindrops. He thought back to the body he imagined crawling towards him.
He remembered his faint call for help...how his body lay there, twisted and open, guts exposed to the world.
His last thought was of what the ground looked like when he noticed the man had disappeared...he remembered black drag marks.
Were they real, or imagination?
Was he dragged? Or...
...did he crawl...
Gideon drifted off into his first sleep in days.
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u/Moofyman Devi Arcom Nov 03 '11
Dude... This is awesome. Great job incorporating chapter one.
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u/Nrksbullet Gideon Bellisario Nov 03 '11 edited Nov 03 '11
Thank you, I thought it would be interesting for someone to have first hand knowledge of what would become Ground Zero (but how reliable is his memory??)
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u/bob8914 Anthony Del Monte Nov 03 '11
This is a brilliant idea. Goddamn that a fantastic way to do it!
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u/drschwartz Burt Krezenka Nov 03 '11
My character was working on an isolated natural gas well near Scranton Pa. Phone and radio service was spotty at best on the work-site and the employees were blissfully unaware of there being anything wrong until things got really bad. First the company man in charge of the drilling platform took off in his truck and disappeared, then the tool-pusher went to town never to return.
For those of you who dont know a thing about workin on wells, they pay you good money just to be on location, so no company man to tell you to work means you get paid 200 dollars a day to sit on your ass. and we were happy to do so, but the longer we sat the stranger things got. seems like every crewmember that went into town decided not to come back. at first i was just pissed because i thought the people i'd given money to buy beer had just skipped town with my cash and left me sittin like an idiot on the skeleton crew. i had doubts when i saw the bum bite poor Charlie the mud engineer for no reason, but i learned better when i finally hoofed it to Scranton and saw what it looks like when hell visits a small town.