Chasing Echoes
Zombie chronicles
I looked down at the heart shaped locket that has been around my neck for as long as I can remember. This has been my talisman when my mom died; before all of this started. Before the world fell apart and my biggest problem was I had a bedtime. Terrible things like I was forced to eat vegetables or I had to do homework; I wish those were still my problems. Instead we are in an abandoned house that you can tell was once somebody’s family home that is now destroyed. Ransacked by the original family in their attempt to escape. Pictures and clothes construed throughout the hallways. Pantry had been completely disheveled. It’s a two story Victorian style home with cracked paint on what was once a blue awning. This was once a home of a doctor or someone prestigious.
Now here I am hiding up in the corner of their daughters bedroom that looks as if she’s the age I’m close to now. I wonder what she was like and if she’s even still alive. I’m worried and trying not to make too much of a sound I don’t want to alert them. When you’ve seen a million zombie movies society has you thinking what a zombie apocalypse would be. They were wrong. You can never be prepared for the horrors I’ve seen in the short life I’ve lived. Unfortunately there was no way to describe the infected it was harder in the beginning to take them down. These people were my friends, neighbors,people that I’ve known my entire life people that I’ve had to put a bullet through their head.
This all started with a green light shooting across the sky. I knew then my life changed forever. I was swimming in the lake hoping to enjoy my last bit of summer. I was depressed it was the year I lost my mom to cancer. I hated the world and everything in it I just didn’t think the world was going to end. We stayed close to the area were by the Great Lakes in Michigan and I can look out and see the water and the memories of the shell I’ve become. Sometimes I sneak to the windows gazing at the water wondering how far I could escape.
The undead start off slow,almost like a child learning to walk and then they learn to run. At that point nothing could stop them in their path that’s when you have to worry. After some time has passed they start to lose their vision and when that happens then you should really be concerned. This is when they turn in what I call echoes.
An echo is a zombie that alerts other zombies. Imagine a baby crying but magnified, they will come out and alert all of the zombies around them that you are there. Their only request is they get the first bite. When you see them you run and you don’t look back. If you don’t you’ll see as soon as they open their mouth their cry to scream.
You’ll see their blue cracked tongue with purple veins all throughout their mouths burying its way through their skin that is now translucent from lack of oxygen their eyes dead and when they cry it looks like blood is gushing out of their retinas. I made the mistake of looking at the ones truly looking in my childlike mind the pictures branded of what they look like. It’s starting to get dark out so I’m looking through the boards on the windows watching the sun start to set.My dad‘s resting this truly has aged him that worries me because he’s all that I have left. When he wakes we’re gonna have to move on or at least go on a trip to find food and then come back and hold up here for a little bit longer. I’m sitting here writing all this in my diary I hear them. Everybody thinks that they would sound like they’re moaning and groaning but that’s not what the sound is.
This sounds like it’s piercing and gut wrenching you feel like they are trying to completely swallow you up and there’s nothing you can do about it. I shake my dad and whispered him it’s time to go. I gather up my supplies my father completely wakes himself up and gets ready to go. I creep downstairs to peek out and see what the damage; is I see that there are only 15 of them newborns so they’ll be slow but you have to be careful what they lack in speed they make up for it in strength. I take a deep breath pick up my locket and kiss it I pull out my machete look up at the sky and say “all right mom I need you to protect me again I love you always”. I open the door and that’s when the massacre begins.
About the Creator
Marissa DeShields
Just a woman with a lot of words to say. Thank you for all of the support even if it’s a read it means so much to me so I hope you have a great day.😊
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Cabin in the woods
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."I remember Jack and I wanted to check it out. We were 17 years old it was the summer of 95 the last summer before college. I got into a bunch of schools but I knew in my heart I wanted to get out of Pennsylvania so I chose one of the ones that were further away. Se off to the University of Georgia I planned on going Jack got into a lot of schools but he wanted to be closer to me so he chose the University of Tennessee because it was the closest school that he got into we’ve been best friends since we were seven years old and we’ve been dating for the past three years in my heart I thought we were gonna be together forever and nothing was going to stop that. So with the University of Tennessee only being four hours away from me we decided that we would see each other every other weekend and call twice a week we would make it work but even though long-distance didn’t work for everybody else It could work for us. Just like every other summer we like to play in the woods we would go on these adventures and we would play in the river we’ve always and every time we did we would always joke about this cabin that my parents told me about that their grandparents told them about. This cabin was built in the 1700s and how there was a witch from Salem that moved there for refuge. She and her lover came together and they were peaceful and they were happy she very rarely went to town to get supplies for they grew most of their things but she needed some cloth to make herself a new dress. She and her lover were going to get married thinking their past was behind them. All was well until a flood of smallpox hit the town children dying left and right. Some of the parents were taken out too. Elizabeth was the witch‘s name gets her lover's name was James. Since they did not go into town much they didn’t have the same issues the other said plus Elizabeth did a protection spell on them both to ensure they have good health people started talking because they noticed those two were not affected by this their ignorance is where the problem started they assumed that they were doing something wrong but the point of the matter was they just didn’t come around the other townsfolk enough. The final strong was a brother and sister who went out into the woods close to the cabin they kept going further into it and they got lost. Their mother was distraught so she and her husband who was the town sheriff gathered up a search party to look for their children it took them two days and their children were unscathed but when they ask them what was the last thing they remember seeing it was the cabin that was enough to fuel the fire. In a fit of rage, they went to the cabin later that night while James and Elizabeth were in bed. They were making love passionately only they didn’t know it was gonna be the last time. The towns folks men first until the door dragging James Elizabeth outside Elizabeth had to watch as all of the men beat James to the brink of death but they kept him alive just long enough so they can see as Elizabeth was tied to a stake and they caught her on fire while they all celebrated burning the witch. Elizabeth‘s last thoughts were an act of revenge not only for her but for her poor sweet James. After they finish burning her they killed him as well slicing his throat as he lay there. No one has ever lived in the cabin again and everyone has always sworn that it was cursed. They’ve tried to burn it down and it just would not burn they say if you go in there you can still hear Elizabeth calling out for James. I was always told that it was forbidden to go in there so I never did. That was until we decided to camp in the woods that night and as we were going past the cabin as we had 1 million times there was a candle lit in the window.
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