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The following is my entry for the Dawn Of The Dead - Zombie Army essay challenge. Although I did not win a spot in the top 10 I do run my own website and therefore I'll give it it's own spot here. Hope you enjoy. Peace.
I Was Reborn!
By Patrick Romandy-Simmons
If the light had been just a little better, if the sun hadn't chosen that exact moment to dip behind a cloud and bathe the area in a premature darkness, I might have seen that first zombie before it was too late. But I doubt it.
There they were, filling Times Square in mass with their pale, hideous features and haunting animalistic moans. They were the un-dead and they were all that stood between me and the barricaded rescue center no more then 50 yards away. It seemed almost in slow motion, as they turned in my direction! They had seen me and they were hungry! All I could do now was run in the opposite direction. And so I ran…away from the rescue center and away from salvation. Further and further back into the decimated city streets stained with human blood, I ran. My lungs were aching as I gasped for each precious breath. Further into the clutches of hell. Running faster now, not giving up, searching for someplace to hide-someplace where they would not find me. Moving at an incredible speed, all the while hearing them gaining on me, their pained, urgent cries of hunger pounded like a death toll in my ears. I turned a corner, the street was empty save for a few mangled, motionless bodies, but they were still continuing their chase and so I kept up my escape. Around another corner and I was down an alley, heading for what I did not know. This had once been the theater district of New York City, and so I searched for a back door to a building that I could enter. All the doors were locked! Panic began to set in. I raced further into the alleyway, knocking over trash cans and almost stumbling off my feet as I trampled over the slippery, lifeless remains of what had once been a human being. Further and further until finally…
…a DEAD-END!
To say I was trapped would be untrue. I was more then trapped, I was now to be handed over to the minions of hell itself. I could hear them getting louder behind me now. It would only be a matter of seconds and they would have me. I turned to face them, to look into their milky, dead eyes and stare into what I would become. My heart pounded in my chest as I saw the first faint, dark images of the un-dead horde nearing me.
Thoughts of what my life had once been flashed through my mind. They were fleeting, random, desperate thoughts of my wife, my kids, my family, my friends, the home where I lived and of a world that would forever be gone.
And then they attacked.
I felt the sharp pain of the first bite as it gnawed away a chunk of flesh from my right hand. I must have instinctively put my arm up to block them. What a fool, as if I could. The second and third attacks came swiftly and soon my mouth was filled with the warm, sickening taste of blood rushing up through the back of my throat as my jugular vein erupted. My neck stung with unspeakable pain. Tears had begun to flood my eyes. I put my hand up to my throat. I choked and spit up blood as I realized that half of my neck had been torn away. With all I had left in me, I let out one last gut-wrenching howl, like that of an animal being hunted and torn apart in the wild. And still they continued to feed. These were soulless, mindless creatures of horror with wild unearthly screams and gnashing teeth. And all were feeding on me. They were tugging, ripping and tearing at my flesh, pulling off hunks of muscle and skin right down to the bone and bleeding me dry as I slipped further and further into fainter thoughts. How cloudy my mind had become as I collapsed to the cold, grime covered concrete of this unimportant alleyway that would soon become my tomb. As I lay in a pool of my own blood, I could still hear them swarming about, their fingers digging into my soft skin, ripping at me, consuming me and feasting on my body as one, last final thought entered my brain.
“How painful it had been at first, and yet now I feel nothing…nothing…noth…”
My eyes closed, and then…
I was reborn!
Copyright © 2004 - Patrick Romandy-Simmons.
All Rights Reserved.
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Copyright © 2004 - Patrick Romandy-Simmons
Trademarks belong to their respective owners.
All Rights Reserved.
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