Before My Eyes - Part I

This is the first (and the introduction) of ten parts of the fantasy story I wrote entitled "Before My Eyes", written for a class's second semester project. It was fun as hell writing it, and I think I may have done a better job, but I did do the whole thing in first-person which I may or may not have failed to fulfill with satisfying integrity (because time-crunches are really hard to deal with). I had a little fun with religion and common morals, throwing them out the window... sorta. Hehe.

Download the entirety of "Before My Eyes" by clicking on this sentence. (70 pages, 1.5-spaced)

I

Interlude

I can surely say that most honorable people who have taken a number of human lives greater than one would say they are not very proud to have done so. Most people could imagine the mentality they would come to hold for taking just one human life. I, though noble but barbaric to some in the public eye, will finally say that I feel no sorrow for what had to be done. I have eliminated many demonic or delusional human beings, a long list of them, for the sake and welfare of others for the better-half of my existence. What I will say in retrospective of the events that happened so many years ago is that those lives I took were of guilty men. They held no honor, discipline, or understanding to their hearts. Behind their public portraits were beasts. Their under-skin was bloodied and soaked with power and the screaming of an innocent soul held helplessly captive, and that soul was forced into the bidding of a savage mind.

This is the historical account of my beginning, my preparation, and the most important souls delivered to their rightful resting place; the infernal underworld.

Before that, I shall duly note that there is little personal gain of my actions. The gains of my actions were surely shared to most of the people under the now-extinct Russian empire which was a hateful, obscene, totalitarian government that held its people at the lowest level of hospitality and importance. Our leaders were too busy caring about themselves, selective extinction, and the expansion of the empire which by the end of it was expanding into the African lands and Western Europe.

The Russian empire, officially established in 1721, expanded and built up quickly with many volunteering soldiers and commanders who felt the sense of nationalism and loyalty to there country which was prospering in power. After czar Peter Romanov (or commonly referred to as Peter the Great) was assassinated in 1723, all hell broke loose until the latter half of that year when Russian Military General Gregori Vedran settled on the throne as the second czar of the Russian Empire. He ruled, governed, and harshly suppressed the people below him. Bastard turned his own men against him due to the numerous punishments of lashings and beatings to those below him who failed to fulfill their duties or even made the mistake of stepping on his toe. Vedran was eventually stabbed and killed by his own men in a coup and was replaced by a young bishop, Martin Rostislav, in 1736.

At that point, the only big change in government was the inclusion of religion in the law and in the order of society. Anyone who wasn't a devoted orthodox Christian was not only frowned upon, but often beaten half to death. There were still a heavy weight of corruption in the government which was holding quite strong with a firm grip on its people and an even stronger on anyone who attempted to interfere. Any threat was imprisoned or disposed of. Alongside the religious persecution, Bishop Martin ordered hundreds of slaves to begin a mass excavation all around Russia for many years from 1737 until 1762. This government stayed in place until the empire's fall in 1784, which I will get to later.

I was not very fond of the history the Russian empire had gone through from my birth until its fall and it should have fallen many years before then. This whole history of the empire relates to me because I am a one being who wanted to break it down to the very foundation it stood upon, to make it tilt, struggle, and fall off the edge into oblivion.

My parents believed in Judaism, my parents' parents who moved from the southern region of Europe prior to my parents’ births were too, and their parents on my grandparent’s mother’s side were as well. I renounced my religion after receiving the revelation that it is a waste of time, even if I was my family's last bloodline, but the man of the underworld gave me the truth ninety-nine percent of the world didn't know. Anyway, we prayed three times everyday, but we unfortunately did not keep our religious status secret enough and word did spread that there was plenty of the Jewish community located in Ukraine as well as much of Eastern Europe. Soon after the secret of a large number of Jewish homes in countries to the west of Russia, the Dantalion Raids began.

Ninety-six orthodox Christian men in the Russian Army were quickly reassigned to an external military force to eliminate any threat against their governing religion throughout the empire. I was surprised by the little amount of soldiers they had selected, but these men were sturdy. These actions made hundreds of thousands attempt to flee towns, small villages, and cities west for the coastal countries that hadn't been taken over yet. The empire, the leaders, the powerful were so blinded by their own ignorance and corruption that they were completely unaware that there were forces soon to be released inside its own black-heart. It always takes time to change things in ways against any government, but this took more and less than just a single death and an insurgency to build against it over a small period of time.

This religious army I mentioned, who began the Dantalion Raids in 1759, made it through many towns on its journey going west until they unexpectedly disappeared into forests somewhere in northern Ukraine about three years later. There wasn't any account of their exact disappearance because their conducted elimination became reckless and spread into butchering Christians and non-Christians alike. No one cared to be a witness of the disappearance anyway. The soldiers were caught up in there activity and turned into grim, barbaric blood-drunks. Distracted, the government never looked into it for reason of greater importance on their schedule. Less than a month, the army that fell out of existence came back without any one really noticing, and they continued their butchering for five more years before heading back to Moscow and taking higher occupations or retirement. All these things occurred when I was just a boy, who enjoyed drinking fine water from the well and tried to follow in his father's footsteps in the skills of woodcraft. I abandoned that when the legion of genocidal soldiers finally came to my town of Mariupol on the south-eastern coast of Ukraine.

I remember those years very well. They were the most bizarre years of my entire life, witnessing things people only dream or are fearful of.

One more aspect of this memoir is the changes; dialogue and language. Everyone spoke an Eastern European language, but they almost always spoke Russian. The words and translations would be an agitating storm if it were to be as accurate as it was in at the time. To prevent people from jumping overboard, it has all been made more modern.

Circa Survival Part I

I'll start just posting the first couple of parts of this story I wrote back (with the editing of a great friend). It's a zombie story, but it is not as Romero depicts zombies, or depict people even. It ain't nonstop violence. It actually has dramatic moments. Hell, you might spot a few little themes here and there. But what am I? I'm just the dude who wrote it.

Feel free to download the full story here.

I

With & Without Preparation

He walked quickly up the stairs to the third floor of the building and found his neighbors gathered in front of his apartment. Even with the sound of his neighbors’ discussion, he distinctly heard something banging around in his home. One of his neighbors heard him and turned. “Hey, York! You got a dog or some beast in there? Tell me I’m not up in the middle of the night because of some damned animal.” Aaron, the speaker, wasn’t a man who was easy to frustrate.

“Alright, alright, I’ll take care of it.” York scratched his dark chin as he pushed through the crowd, and carefully pressed his ear to the door. He heard something inside the apartment scuffling and growling. With his left hand York inserted his rusted key into the bronze knob in the door and turned it while, with his right hand, he drew his police-issue SIG 9mm from its holster under his shoulder.

---------------

Having been a part of the NYPD for over fifteen years had given him more than enough experience dealing with criminals. He’d seen thievery, domestic abuse, muggings, murder, and worse, but none of that would help him now. The reality of his situation devastated him, and the pain tugged at his mind even as he sped through the chaos that New York City had become. The steering wheel rumbled, clenched in his bloody hands as he drove through Forrest Hills from his apartment in Queens. The life of the city that he had known for many years had become a hell that burned anyone that it could.

These creatures, once people he might have known, walked in the filth of cannibalism. There could be a dozen or so of them on a careless person so quickly that there would be no way of saving them. Each of them was a bloody mess covered in boils, blisters, scabs, and bleeding under the skin. Because of their rotting skin, dead eyes, and dead minds these infected couldn't be called anything more than zombies.

York drove on, passing through Bushwick and then over the Williamsburg Bridge, finally falling under the shadow of the high-rise jungle of Southern Manhattan. Panicked figures rushed through the streets and into stores looking for loot or to escape the zombies wandering in search of food. He turned the car left at an intersection, driving over three bodies in the process, away from a burning van. An explosion of smoke and fire behind him filled the air with debris, blood, and flesh, but York continued on. He watched as police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks flew through the streets, some of them toward where the explosion had been; York knew that they would do no good, not with so many zombies around. They and other vehicles collided, throwing people from their cars, and the detective shook his head sadly at how quickly people forgot even the most basic safeties. His thoughts always came back to the same question: What the hell is happening? Almost without thinking he side-swiped a pick-up truck with zombies clinging to the back. The truck swerved, hit something, and flipped, throwing several zombies down onto the scarred street.

As he pulled up to the precinct, York saw that there would be no way of getting in. It was packed full of civilians, who were backed up out the doors because of the size of the crowd. Those unlucky enough to be on the outside of the crowd were being torn to shreds by the infected. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his partner's number. He waited, but no one answered, so he tried again. Again, there was no answer, which meant he was either stuck in the precinct with loads of witnesses, or that he was dead. On another day, that might have been a blow to him, but York only drove out of the officers' parking lot and back into the street.

Well, he figured, given that the precinct gun locker was impossible to get into because of the crowd; his next best option would be a gun store. His 9mm wouldn’t get him far, if all of New York was infected.

Another image flashed through his mind, of a cradle in a darkened room, and a corpse by its side; both bodies lay unmoving.

The roar of aircraft overhead brought him back to reality. York shook his head, trying to banish that thought; it wouldn’t help him survive. He got out of his sedan, drew his weapon, and walked toward Patriot Arms, one of the places he had had to keep an eye on before but had not found anything on. As he reached the door, a hand grabbed his arm. He pulled away and stared down his sights into the pale face of what had once been an elderly woman. A screech and moan assaulted his ears and small red spot appeared on her forehead when he pulled the trigger. He turned back to the door and she hit the concrete sidewalk, spilling blood from the new void in her head.

Most of the rifles and shotguns were already gone, probably taken by looters, and so was the clerk. “Anybody here?” his voice echoed quietly through the open aisles. York leveled his pistol on a human shadow coming from a back room. The figure halted and readied his own weapon.

“Who the hell are you?”

“None of your business.” The unknown character’s response was almost nonchalant, but his sawed-off shotgun never wavered.

“Well, then, I suppose I’ve got to be the adult here. My name is Officer York,” he said, never dropping his sights, “and I suggest you get out of here.” He was in no mood to try a bust in a situation like this.

“I’m Red.” The young man pulled back his hood to show a long-haired, thing-bearded face. The dark pouches under his eyes betrayed the fact that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in some time. York relaxed and slowly lowered his pistol. Red picked up a large blue duffel bag and walked towards the door.

“Okay, Red, let’s move our asses. What’s in the bag?”

“Only the best of presents. Not for you, really, but I can share.” Red set the bag on the store’s counter and opened it to reveal an assortment of firearms and boxes of ammunition for each.

“Good,” said York, “grab a set of binoculars or a scope or something.” Surprised by York’s foresight, Red did so. The few words shared gave neither much trust for the other, but both knew they didn’t have much of a choice. Any delay or infighting now would waste precious time and energy, which would likely mean death for both of them.

With their equipment in hand, Red and York headed for the door, York with his pistol and Red with his shotgun. A car engine roared outside and a single vehicle smashed through the barred and windowed front of the store. Both men covered their faces to keep flying glass out of their eyes. When they brought their hands down, the groaning of the car’s driver was growing louder. York only watched as it pulled itself from the car, leaving its legs behind. Red walked up as it reached the end of the car’s hood, trailing entrails. He calmly pulled a Beretta from his bag, covered his eyes, and hesitated a moment before pulling the trigger. The zombie convulsed once and went limp. Red dropped his arm and replaced the pistol in his bag. He turned to see York staring, and wiped his bloody hands on his jeans. “gotta be careful, it’s a bad idea to have some bastard’s blood spatter into your eyes or mouth. Whatever caused this is probably in their blood.” Red’s reaction and attitude worried York, but it didn’t matter as long as Red did what was necessary.

They walked out the door onto the sidewalk and got into York's sedan. York drove himself and Red north-east toward the Holland Tunnel, but traffic was terrible. Between the fear the zombies inspired and their actual presence in the streets, where they banged on windows trying to get at those live humans inside of vehicles, many cars filled the same streets they needed to travel. This was not normal traffic, however, as those trying to escape the city were driving as quickly as they could. Even as fast as York drove, cars blurred past over bodies and through zombie after zombie.

York's car had just turned the corner to enter the tunnel when another car bashed it from the rear. Once York had his own car under control, he checked and saw that the other vehicle had overturned, and that the roof on the driver's side had caved in. Fortunately, York and Red ended up with only a few bruises.

“Ah, shit,” Red yelled, “time to huff it, I guess.” York nodded and opened his door against an abandoned car, and Red followed suit, slowly standing up out of the wrecked car. Both climbed onto York’s car to get a better view of their path to the tunnel, which was littered with trashed cars and several visible undead roaming toward the living or ripping the flesh off of those who were truly dead. Several of the infected had noticed the two new arrivals and were slowly advancing toward them. York led the way toward the tunnel, hopping from car to car to avoid the zombies on the ground. Red panted as he ran because of the weight of the bag on his back, but York moved steadily and calmly, with his pistol ready. When he hopped down onto the hood of a small sedan, a hand shot out of the broken windshield and grabbed York’s leg. The hand jerked York’s ankle from under him, bringing him down backwards to dent the hood. He raised his weapon and fired as the mouth of a young chilled pulled toward his ankle. The body fell back into the passenger seat with a blacked red spot through its jaw and a gaping hole in the back of its neck.

Red hooked his arms under York’s shoulders and helped him up. “Avoid broken windshields” York muttered to himself as they started again over the cars. After a dozen more cars, they reached the exit for what would have been oncoming traffic, and started down the elevated sidewalk. A few undead were also in the tunnel, trying to crawl out of vehicles that had been abandoned by their previous owners hours or minutes before. Some people had been so suddenly stricken by the infection that they hadn’t even removed their seatbelts. Several of those struggled to unbuckle or break their belts when they saw York and Red, but they couldn’t evidentially remember how.

“Where’re we headed, exactly?” Red panted beside York.

York remained quiet as he continued jogging down the sidewalk.

“Okay, I guess we’ll see. You have any idea what has happened that made so much shit hit the fan? I’m not exactly up-to-date on the news,” Red continued.

“Don’t know, don’t really care. Just keep moving, try not to talk.”

They ran out of the tunnel into the gloomy atmosphere, and found helicopters hovering overhead. “Looks like they may try to lock New York down.” York stopped to watch as he spoke, while marines and traffic officers appeared near the vehicle entrance to the tunnel.

“Yeah, Good luck with that. I mean, this shit seems to have gotten around fast. Real fast. I didn’t know about it until I looked out my window and saw people going crazy on each other. I thought I was either going insane from energy drinks or I was dreaming. Either way, it just didn’t look good. Maybe the military could help us out, though?” The teen was getting jittery. York shook his head, and they continued jogging down the street, over cars and behind houses.

They broke into a two story house and made their way out to the roof by way of a balcony. Sirens rang over Newark. Red stared out in surprise at the clear sky and the silent skyscrapers. “You think that place will be any better? I mean, it will obviously be better than New York City, but do you think it will be sane?”

“Nope. I hope I’m wrong, though. We’ll go around the edge of it, though, just to be safe.” They looked over their shoulders at the New York skyline, which was clouded by helicopters, smoke, and fire. More sounds of screaming and gunfire came from the city of over nineteen million lives. “Never mind, I’m not wrong.”

Writing

This blog just got redone, since it was once an art blog but then I decided to screw that up.

Now its for the stories I write (which isn't often enough). Mainly for what I saw on io9, the Thursday Tales. Sounds fun and a way to share my stories.