Survivor - Halloween Story 2018

 

It has been 273 days since it all started, since the outbreak. 273 days since the world turned dark and cold. It all started with my parents dying in a car crash. I didn’t know it at the time but it was when it started. 273 days ago they were driving down an icy forest road on a cold winter night. It was dark and cloudy with snow storming in and out between the trees impairing their vision. The only light they had was from the headlights of the car and still they couldn’t see further than a few meters ahead. Something big jumped out from between the trees and hit the car. Even the police was unsure of what animal it could have been. There was no trace other than some frozen blood in the big dent on the hood. They had never seen anything like this before. The car was wrapped around a tree and my parents had been thrown out. Their bodies were disfigured into a bloody mess; their limbs were broken and twisted with bones sticking out everywhere. The eyes and tongues had been pulled out from their heads and the skull had been cracked open like something was trying to eat from their brains. It was a horrifying sight. When I buried them I thought that, that was it. I thought that life would go on and that I was safe. I inherited my parent’s apartment in the city and a large amount of money. It was hard moving into their home, my old home, now that they would never come back. But the ghost of their memories I feared would haunt me, turned out to be comforting. Everything everywhere has a small memory to it that makes it feel like I never lost them. My girlfriend and friends helped me set up the apartment. Back where my life started I was now going to face the world anew. This was the last protection they could provide me. But the world slowly changed. At first I didn’t notice that it slowly became harder and scarier to go outside. I didn’t realize how much protection this apartment gave me from the scary world.

243 days ago on my way home from work I came face to face with the monsters. I was sneaking home through the alleyways in cover of darkness when I heard a sound from between some trashcans. I hurried on for I was not taking a chance on checking on the sound. But the sound was following me, someone was following me. I ran down a few streets to escape my follower. I didn’t look where I was running for the fear had gotten a hold on me and it ran cold down my back. I turned a corner and ran into two big monsters with snarling faces. They were ugly as they stood there looking down on me flexing their grotesque bodies and ready to attack. I grabbed some snow from the ground and threw it in their eyes before turning around and running the rest of the way home. With monsters lurking around outside in the dark it was no longer possible to keep up my old life. The dangers lurked around every corner. I didn’t go out of the apartment, of our base, unless it was necessary. And even then I only went out for short planned trips in order to loot more food. Though spring was coming strong, the world continued to be dark and cold. It was like all happiness and light got smothered in a thick blanket of despair that followed the outbreak. From my apartment I could see how more and more people turned to monsters. First they looked sick with liquid dripping from their tired pale faces and then it just got worse. They all became horrible horrifying monsters wandering aimlessly around snarling at everything. Every now and then I could see an uninfected sneak around between the monsters trying to find a safe place to survive. 

Even my friends started to change. I lost the first couple of friends to the monsters 233 days ago. I had noticed how they started to withdraw. How their faces started to become pale and drip with liquid. They just stopped coming around to the save house and my girlfriend told me that they didn’t meet up with others or check in. I had feared that our small group would not survive but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast. They all fell one by one to the monsters; even my girlfriend got taken and changed. She was one of the last that I lost. One day when she had gone out scavenging I kept an eye on her from the apartment. She had just stepped out of the door when a big slimy man of a monster attacked her. He just grabbed her and started to gnaw on her face. When she came back I asked her about it and about how she felt. At first she denied it but then she turned. She started to yell and snarl. She said it was all my fault and that she couldn’t and didn’t want to stay save with me. It was a hard intense fight with her but I managed to fend her off and lock her out of the apartment. I sometimes see them wander around on the streets from my apartment. They never look up. They are completely unaware that I survived. I miss them and I am sad that they are gone but it would be suicide to meet them. They are no longer my friends. They are no longer them. They are monsters now like everyone ells. I haven’t heard any news about the outbreak or about other survivors since I lost them. I am just all alone here in my safe apartment waiting for the world to get fixed, to turn right again. I can sometimes hear the monsters scratching and knocking at my door. I even hear my name being called once in a while but I am sure it is just my imagination running wild with me. I am the last survivor here. No one knows me or where I am.

I haven’t talked to anybody for the last 150 days. My apartment is at all time death silent. I dare not to break it with music in case it would attract the monster’s attention. Besides it is quite comfortable. It is meditatively peaceful giving me a sense of safety from the world. As long as it is silent no one is trying to invade my base or breakthrough the defenses. The sound of silence helps me forget how the world has gone wrong. Not like out in the streets between the monsters where there is a constant echo of screams and the world getting destroyed. I hate being out to scavenge for supplies for there is too much noise pulsating from everywhere. No matter where you go you will find monsters creating clatters and rackets for no apparent reasons. Last time I snuck through the streets I was followed by a devastating roar. It was a beast of a monster slowly rolling down the streets on a look out for any pray it could find. It didn’t care if it was heard as it was out to fun hunt for sport. It let out roar after roar as it circled the streets I was passing down. I was not far from a hidden passage when it found me. It let out a piercing scream of exhilaration before charging at me with murderous intent. I ran as fast as I could to escape. I just had to get two streets down and then jump inside the passage to get away safely. The monster was right on my heels. It was way faster than I could run. I avoided its first attack but it swung around with laughter. It enjoyed hunting me. It enjoyed playing with me. Now it stood between me and my escape and roared like a savage beast waiting for me to take my next move. I ran towards it and it set in motion and almost flew in my direction. In the last second I jumped to my left down a street and pressed my body against the wall. The monster followed down the street but didn’t notice that I had stopped and it passed right by me. With its back to me I hurried back out on the street and ran as fast as I could to the passage before the monster could find me again. With the sound of silence comfortably filling my apartment I know I am safe.

Though I kept safe and never took any risks I could not keep the darkness from infiltrating my base. The more people I lost the more the darkness seemed to close in on me. When I lost my girlfriend it finally got a grip on me and infected my body and everything I own with darkness. It wrapped around me like a thick stuffy blanket forcing me down to earth. My apartment became gloomy and dead not even the daylight seemed to make it better. I tried to fight it off but it drained my energy. The more I fought the harder everything seemed to get. In the end I just gave in and then it changed. Instead of a suffocating force trying to crush me it became a warm protecting coat. I still had no energy left to fight but I didn’t mind as it is easier to sleep in the dark than in the light. And with the dark covering me like this warm fuzzy blanket protecting me there was nothing to fear. Except when I tried to go out for supply runs. It seemed like the dark was against me leaving the apartment. Its pull became stronger on me the more I spend in it and the sun was burning me. The darkness was changing me not like everyone ells changed into monsters. No the darkness was feasting on me and it could only do so as long as I didn’t turn into one of the monsters. It had become some sort of symbiotic relationship. It would keep me safe as long as I let it eat of my energy. I was willing to take this deal for though I was alone and maybe the only survivor left I had to stay alive in case I wasn’t. I would have let the darkness consume me completely if it wasn’t for a small hope that humanity wasn’t dead and I would stay alive for the chance that they needed me. Since then the days went by hibernating in the dark silence of my apartment while the darkness was syphoning my energy.

Two days ago I got a text message on my phone asking for sign of life. I thought the phone network was down. I don’t remember the last time I got a text message. But this was the sign that there could be other survivors. Someone out there had survived and was trying to contact me. I sent a short reply before the darkness pulled me back into hibernation.

Yesterday I was woken by explosions of sound from someone or something hammering against my door. I think the monsters have found me. I didn’t hear anything from the phone since I answered. For a short moment I had hoped that someone survived but maybe I was wrong. I waited for the hammering to stop. Somehow something found me. I didn’t dare to open the door. It could be the monsters or worse people who would come to hunt me. I let the darkness and silence surround me for the protection and fell asleep curled up hidden away from the world.

Today I was once again woken by the hammering on the door. The loud noise broke the comfort of the silence that is protecting me. Even the darkness seems bothered by it. Small fractures of light appeared in the darkness like my defense was being teared down. They kept throwing themselves at my door. But I won’t open. I dared to look through the door spy and I could recognize the horrifying faces of the monsters out there. Grinning like savages that has gotten the scent of a weak prey to feast upon. I moved back into the darkness but every hit on the door made it crack just a little bit more. They started howling and glamming. They must have seen something when I check on them. And then silence again but this time it wasn’t protecting me and bringing comfort. No I still sensed that the monsters were lurking outside and the silence just fueled me with anxiety. What did they plan? How did they suddenly find me? Then came a slow rhythmical clinking that moved closer and closer. It stopped outside my door. With what sounded like a long nail scratching down the door and left a big hole in the darkness. The lock started to turn and ended with a deep clonk. The handle got pulled and the door flew up with the monsters running into my apartment in a furious rage. The darkness got splintered into a million pieces and scattered in the wind. They stormed right at me. Screaming they surrounded me. I tried to back away but it was too late. I was trapped and now they would start to feast.

Their bodies close around me was quite nice. It felt like the darkness had felt but a lot warmer. They didn’t let go. They just stood there in a group trying to crush me. The longer they put pressure on me the more the darkness seemed to disappear from my heart and the world. Many of the friends I had lost to the monsters were now here pulling me out of the claws of darkness. And now I look at their faces up close I can see that they didn’t turn at all.