Beyond the Walls

Odd Things

Finding himself under a strong yellow light and clean ceiling.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ~!!” A woman with a chocolate cake in her hand showed by the door singing a birthday song.

She put the cake in front of him. A number 8 candle was lit in the middle.

“Happy Birthday Son!” The woman ruffled his hair and kissed him in the forehead.

The table is full of food and everyone is laughing and singing him a song until the television program was interrupted and someone is announcing something that shocked everyone.

The next thing is he is riding in the back of the car with heavy traffic outside. Honking cars.It is noisy and chaotic. The woman continues to hug him and caress his back despite all the mayhem from the outside.

The scene jumped into, he was in that woman’s arm while running away. They are running away, in full sprint with all other people. With him facing the things that chases them, the woman’s warm hand is clutching him hard. A person had dropped to the side and some people started mutilating that person. He is roaring in pain and the people causing him pain look at his direction. With fresh blood and flesh dripping to his mouth he starts screeching like some animal and begins chasing them.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” He finally screamed in horror.

“ARGH!!!” Lucas felt a paralyzing feeling throughout his body as he woke up from a very distressing feeling. He is sweating and having a hard time to collect himself.

“Nightmare?” The girl with the piercing asked. She placed the chair near the window.

Lucas scanned the surroundings. He is back to reality.

“Aren’t we still in a nightmare?” Lucas asked back. There is no difference between his dream and reality. He stood up and looked outside.

In darkness, the undead are twice as slow than in the morning

*Click

Lucas and the girl looked at the opening door.

“Relax.” The girl said and soon carefully entered by the door as one of their companions.

“Eh? You are up? Did I wa-? Ah. Nah. That’s impossible.” Elijah greeted them carrying a duffel bag.

“I told you, it was easy.” Proudly, Elijah put the duffel bag in front of the girl.

“Good Job.” She said and squatted down.

While opening the duffel bag, Elijah scratches his nose and mutters some things while acting coy.

‘Why is he doing that?’ Seeing the funny expressions of the companion, he momentarily forgets the nightmare he just suffered from.

“Would you look at that?” The girl commented as she opened the bag widely.

“Woah!” Even Elijah was amazed at the contents of the bag.

Only Lucas felt disgusting inside. The things inside this bag proves the dirty feeling he had felt from earlier. His fist closed tightly and frowned.

****

“What now?” Impatiently tapping her boots as she waits for the report of her soldier.

“The wheels had been busted.” A man in black shirt and military black pants identical to his superior is wearing.

“How long will it take?” Looking past her soldier, she watched several soldiers checking the condition of the transport truck.

“Couple of hours.” He answered.

She looked at the sun setting from the distance before clicking her tongue.

“Soldiers, Listen up!” The woman clapped her hands and got everyone’s attention. She waited until everyone was within the distance to hear her out.

“We are camping here. You know what to do. No noise and no lights. Stay inside your vehicle at all times. For watch duty, no sleeping and be attentive and report any minor odd things. Got it?” She said with full authority while scanning her listening soldiers/

“Yes, Sir!” They responded. Despite being a woman, all military ranking officers are called sir.

She dismissed everyone and settled on their own vehicles. The woman is chewing a toothpick as she watches the sunsets from a distance.

Parked in the side of the used to be main road of a destroyed city, the orange sunset color reflected a little on the rusty and wrecked remains of what is left of the city.

Bored, she spit the toothpick and raised her leg on the limited space she had on the driver seat of her jeep.

Soon the darkness envelops the ruined city, she puts her wireless earpiece on her radio and listens to the report of the on duty watch soldiers. Despite having hundreds of trips outside the wall, she can’t help but still feel restless seeing and hearing nothing at the space in front of her. She opened the top roof of her jeep and hung her head then pushed her entire body up. The cold wind welcomed her.

The watch guard salutes to her and she signals to carry over their duty.

She stares at the darkness and lays flat staring at the starless sky.

Another wind had blown and this time it alerted her. She sits up and scans the surroundings.

“Be on your guard.” She said as she pressed her earpiece.

“Yes sir!” The soldiers answered.

The wind blows again, this time, she looked in one direction. She slid down the jeep and pressed her earpiece.

“If I am not back in thirty minutes, alert everyone. Holland will take charge.” She said and stealthily ran. She pulled her gun out and attached a silencer as she ran forward.

She sniffed the air again and turned left.

As the watch guards lost the sight of their commander the newly recruited soldier asked.

“Senior, is it alright to let the commander go alone?” He asked.

“You haven’t heard of our commander back in the military academy?” His senior asked back.

He shook his head.

“Sir Gabriella Rosetta is known as K9.”

The young soldier didn’t get it outright but there was a simple explanation to it. The commander has exceptional olfactory sense.

She can track rotting flesh and blood even from a distance. Just like a K9 dog who can tell drugs and bombs from the pre-apocalypse period.

*Thud

At the same time, Gabriella arrived at the destination where the foul smell is the strongest.

She stands in front of a building. Scouting carefully around it she finds some odd things around it. Dried blood marks that might be from a few hours ago.

“Survivor?” She frowned at the tire marks.

*Groan

She looked over the groaning sound and frowned even more. The undead has a dislocated shoulder, limping and shards are all over its body on top of a half opened head. Analyzing it more she side step and slap away the hand of the undead.

When the wind blows once more, the stenched gets stronger to the point she covers her nose as she looks up to the building.

“What the hell.” She mumbled.

“Uwarggh!” Tried to bite her, the undead got closer to her but Gabrielle was faster, she drew her sickle from her back and beheaded the undead.

On her right hand is her gun and on left is a freshly stained sickle short sword. As she gets closer to building the rotting smell is becoming thick. To her surprise, the building’s main entrance was blocked by metal bars. It is not simply blocked, it was customized to reinforce. It was intentional.

She pulls out a flashlight and lights the inside of the bars. It wasn’t clear vision but it was enough to confirm her thoughts.

“Multiple Level 1 Undead.” She mumbled and closed the flashlight.

*thud thud thud

One by one the undeads banged their body through the bar, attracted to her light and now they are reaching for her. She observed undeads.

“They smelled like long dead.” She muttered and glanced back at the beheaded undead from earlier, “...but not that one.”

She circled the building and oddly enough all the way out were sealed. She jogged around more and spotted several dead bodies. Squashed like a jelly that fell to the floor. She looks around before she approaches the body.

“It’s cold.” She examines the body of a woman. Despite being in poor condition Gabrielle still finds several odd things. Bite marks on her neck, legs and arms. She rolled up the body.

The disfigured woman died with eyes wide open. Gabrielle didn’t bother to close her eyes and proceed to frisk her body. There was nothing in her.

There are bodies with the woman but Gabrielle didn’t bother to check because their smell gave them away. They are undead.

Gabrielle looked up and a portion of the building had been scaffed away so it is hard to know what floor she fell from.

It doesn’t add up.

She found a way to the parking ground. She threw a pebble in the dark way down and waited.

There was nothing.

She opened her light and walked down. It was eerily quiet and looked like a junk shop for cars inside with wires hanging and destroyed pillars. There are tire tracks all over the floor. At least 10 vehicles had been parked here. She thought.

There was a faint smell of dead and blood mixed in the air. She cautiously proceeds to where it was coming and sees a two door entrance with a little less than two meter in height.

*Plop

She stepped on something wet, when she lit it, it turned out to be a pool of blood spilling below the door.

She knocked on the door and she was greeted back by violent growls. Her eyes widened at the violent banging.

Even with the loud beating from the other side, the door didn’t budge. Gabrielle looked over the corners and saw the whole door was wielded in place.

Exiting the underground parking and turning around she came back to the main entrance. She took a few steps and observed the building one more time. It was no different from the buildings she had seen before, that is if she didn’t see it upclose.

She backed up without averting her eyes to it.

*bzzt

“Sir Gabrielle! Come in!”

On the other side of the earphone she had, an urgent voice called her name repeatedly.

“What is it?” She answered.

“Sir Gabrielle, Where are you? We couldn’t get hold of you for a while now. Sir Holland went looking for you.” The soldier reported.

“I am coming back.” She said, clicking her tongue and turning her back on the building.

*Bang bang

A faint banging sound reached Gabrielle’s ear. She rolled to the floor and took cover on a scrapped car with her gun drawn close to her cheeks. She slowly looks over and scans the surroundings but there has been no change.

She gets up from her position and still observes the quiet surrounding before she cracks her neck and starts heading back.

With her turning the corner, Gabrielle didn’t see what changed. Somewhere on top floors, a window had a fresh bloody handprint with still blood sliding in the glass.

Lone and silent, Gabrielle walks on the freeway towards her military company. Greeted by salutes, there are more soldiers awake now.

“Where did you go? I was looking all over for you?” Holland, a man with blonde hair and light green eyes turned up.

“Double the watch guard. Be more attentive and ring the alarm if two or three undeads are seen.”

“Really? Alarm for just three undead?” Holland looked skeptical.

“Yes. Really and go supervise the first shift, I’ll take the second.” She passed by Holland and proceeded to her jeep. Despite saying she will take the second shift she is unable to rest properly. Her hawk-like eyes keep on watching the road to that building.

She can’t picture what happened there. It’s more than 10 years since the last of the survivors has been rescued from the outside walls and how many years had it been since the horde of level 1 Undead were spotted?

“This needs to be reported to the HQ.” She mumbled.