Into the Darkness (theycallmemunchkin x Reydan)

[theycallmemunchkin]

(This is my first time writing for anything other than 1x1. If anyone reading wants to give me feedback or ways to improve, I'd love to hear it via PM. Really though, let me know what you think)



"Jake, you there? Copy" The elderly mouth spoke into the walky talky, answered by the soothing sound of static, just as successful as the previous three attempts had been. The weary eye'd farmer stared for a moment at the black portable radio in his hands for a moment before laying it carefully on the coffee table in front of him, atop a couple of magazines that his girls kept on up. Fashion and such.......he didn't really have much use for such things of course. But it still brought a sparkle to his eyes to see them light up at the sight of a new purse or some other shiny trinket. Something better than the dirt floors he had grown up with.......

He took one last sip of lukewarm coffee before leaning back on the old couch cushion, sparing a glance at the shotgun sliding down it and onto the armrest after having been disturbed. A reminder, in a way, about how the world around him was finally punching into his happy little bubble. Like a weed sprouting amidst the corn, slowly turning from one into two. Then four. Even the watered down news reports had made that clear enough in their own sanitized language. The seasons changed, and a new kind of winter was approaching.........

Steeling himself he hefted himself to his feet, clutching the trigger to the shotgun like an old friend and he rested the barrel lovingly on his arm. Sparing one last look around the darkened house in a quiet moment before his boots quietly made their way to the front door in the predawn hours, just as they had every morning for the past four decades. But this time he spared one last look back inside. The furniture about fifteen years past needing to being replaced, the old TV with its same old shitty rabbit ears antenna that never got any station other than 34. The loads of family photos dotting the walls, drawings and trophies and every little kind of nick-nack that he could collect throughout the years.........

The sound of the door clicked closed behind him sounded like a gunshot as the pitter patter of rain started to sound softly against the tin roof of the porch as he gave the door a last tug to make sure it was tightly closed. Sometimes it stuck a little, and didn't close properly. "You just have to make sure......" He said quietly, barely above a whisper as he turned his gaze towards the darkness off of his backporch, the fainest hit of fire on the horizon from the rising sun starting to crawl across the edge of the sky. "This is my home......And the lord sayeth.....The curse of the lord is on the house of the wicked. But he blesses the homes of the righteous.........JACOB! JACOB CAN YOU HEAR ME?" His voice boomed out across the black fields, drowing out the coming storm for a moment as he perked an ear for the voice of his young farmhand. Instead a shriek tore the air, dark figures suddenly springing to life at the intruder into their own personal hell. Breathing heavily as their dark forms made a straight line through the tomato and cucumber patches towards the lone figure standing on the porch.

"Com'mon you cocksuckers, I climbed Hamburger Hill. You aint nothin..." The old man said coldly before raising the shotgun to his shoulder and pulling the trigger.

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

The crack of the gunshot sent the 17 year old upright in her bed, her covers falling off of the black Nirvana tshirt she wore as PJs nowdays as her heavy breathing was the only sound she heard save for the raindrops against her windows. Ashleigh kicked her legs out from underneath the covers, her bare feet found her slippers quickly, letting the skinny redhead yank open her bedroom door and stick her head out into the hallway. "What the hell was that?"

 

[Reydan]

Teddy was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if he'd ever see Shawna again. She was the archetypal girl next door, a bubbly blonde whose shared childhood with him and his sisters had not stopped the young man from fantasizing about her for most of his adolescence. She just looked fantastic in checked shirt and jeans, quite possibly the hottest thing on two legs in the small rural corner of New England he and his family had grown up in.

He sighed, sitting up in bed, and fiddling with his mobile. He didn't know why he bothered, really. There was no reception anywhere nearby. He had to drive over to Danforth, the small town a couple of miles down the road, to even check his messages. He looked over to the side of the bed, to the pile of college prospectuses. Soon, he thought, soon. He and his father had had another blazing row about it that evening. Teddy had been working for two years, pushing himself solidly, to try and raise some of the money needed to bankroll college. Yet his father couldn't see the point. Needed him here. Especially now.

Now. The world seemed to be shattering, slowly coming apart at the seams. The infection, Asian Rabies as the banner headlines in the papers an the scrolling text on the news seemed to call it, had spread slowly but surely across the Third World and into the First. They had watched, horrified, some of the shocking images coming out of Florida that week. The Army barely containing it. Small pockets seemed to be flaring up across the country, like the seeds of a wildfire spread by the wind. He frowned. Maybe, for once, this little bit of the sticks wasn't such a bad place to be.

He settled back, trying to picture Shawna Long again. Trying to imagine the way her legs rose, gracefully, up to the swell of her hips. The smile on her lips, a perfect rouge red, as she turned to smile and wave at him, her blouse tumbling a little open at the action....

BANG.

BANG BANG.

He bolted up. Dressed already in a red checked farm shirt and dark jeans the young man, a little over six foot and sporting a scrubby beard in addition to the family trait of a shock of red hair, sprang out of bed. He tugged on his riding boots, all fingers and thumbs, as the noise outside changed from the boom of a shotgun to a strange howling snarling mix of sounds. He burst into the hall, stumbling on the loose carpet as always, and almost crashing straight into his sister Ashleigh.

"What the fu..." he asked, almost in sync with her, when the window at the end of the corridor erupted in an explosion of glass and fragments. Shawna Long stood there. But...it wasn't Shawna. She was caked in blood and mud, her face and mouth smeared in the dark matter, and when she turned to look at them she did so with eyes that were entirely white. She opened her mouth in a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a scream and Edward shook.

"G..get behind me Ash" he insisted, not taking his eyes off the thing, whilst reaching with numb hands for the wooden baseball bat propped against the wall by his room. His bat he'd had since he was fourteen.

 

[theycallmemunchkin]

"Shawna, what the FUCK!" Ashleigh said hotly, brushing past her brother's protective arm as she stayed true to her hair color. She wasn't a dummy, it would have taken a blind girl not to catch the way her brother had been looking at her everyday when he 'accidentally' ran into her in the hallways between classes. But for reasons she didn't quiet understand she felt a little bit of resentment creeping up every time she saw them together, it was just, like, all the boys thought she was the best thing since Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. All the girls knew she was a whore though, and Teddy deserved better.

"Are you fucking drunk? What about the fucking window? I'm going to kick you butt for this" Ashleigh gritted her teeth, the blank look of Shawna looking between them only making her all the more angry as she shoved her shoulders. Rather than the catfight she was expected though, the redhead took a step back at the enraged, bloodthirsty scream that answered it. Shawna lunged forward with surprising speed, slashing her once neatly manicured nails like talons across Ashleigh's face.

With a squeak of surprise the redhead fell backwards, slipping on that same stupid carpet that they both always did as she raised her arms protectively over her face.

 

[Reydan]

Before Teddy could move his sister, all five foot nothing of her, was pushing past him and shouting at the....thing in front of them. If it had been any other situation he would have laughed. Laid down on the floor and laughed until his sides hurt. Instead the situation froze him to the spot. His heart seemed to grind to a terrible halt.

He watched, as if in slow motion, as the thing that used to be Shawna Long turned to look at his sister and let out a low, keening, scream. Her jaw seemed oddly distended, long past where it was natural for a mouth to open, and her mouth was a cave of bloody horror. Mangled flesh and bloody teeth. He wanted to throw up. All desires ever to have Shawna's red lips wrapped around his cock were gone forever in that moment.

His sister squeaked in alarm, her heel catching on the stupid carpet, and tumbling back past him with her arms over her head.

The creature leapt but Teddy, suddenly freed from his inertia, was quicker. The sight of his little sis, little Ashy, squealing in fright was too much. His hands closed around the handle of the bat and he brought it hard down on Shawna's head as it dived for his sister. The noise was sickening, something he would never forget, and his felt the shock jar and judder up his arms in waves. Shawn's head caved as she was knocked back by the force and time seemed to speed up again as her body flew back to slump against the wall below the shattered window. Dark blood spattered the carpet.

"Fuck" Teddy gasped, feeling sick, before hauling Ashleigh to her feet. Outside, beyond the splintered glass, he could see dark shapes prowling and stalking. "Shit. Its them...." he said to his sister, eyes white with panic, "We...we gotta get out of here. We...."

They hadn't packed. Hadn't prepared. Hadn't, like most of America, taken the undead threat seriously until it had come gnashing and snarling through their own windows.

 

[theycallmemunchkin]

Ashleigh felt the hand tighten around her forearm, expecting another slash at her body before finding herself yanked to her feet. She flinched back for a moment, her hands dropping to reveal two slashes down her right cheek that were starting to foster a couple drops of blood down her pale skin. Her earlier bravado broke as she wrapped her arms tightly around her saviors shoulder and hugged him tightly, her green eyes fixed like a laser to the sight of Shawna.....or what had been Shawna....slumped against the wall.

"Is she...." The redhead gulped, trying to steel herself against against the urges to just break down right now in tears. Life or death hadn't been a thing she had ever known, the worst that she had been used to do what to spend her allowance money on. The handbag or a little bit of Starbucks everday. The limp girl that she had seen everyday between classes laying boneless with her caved in only made her feel numb yet unable to take her eyes away, before the 17 year old turned her head away and gagged. Shivering, she spit the bile her throat brought up onto the out carpet beneath her and wiped away the tears. "Dad's gonna kill me....." she whimpered softly, taking a sharp breath in as she worked to compose herself.

"Yeah.....yeah you're right....." She breathed, stepping forward and closing the hallway door to their bedroom, shoving a chair beneath the doorhandle just like she had learned to do when she had wanted a bit of private time from the house of guys when she was younger. "We should empty out of backpacks. There's a pack of bottled water in the fridge. Maybe we can head to the woods until this blows over?" She suggested, staring at the ground to avoid the dead girls collapsed face staring in her direction. "I mean.......this can't just be happening here right?....It's not just our house......."

 

[Reydan]

He let his sister's little body wrap against his, feeling her shiver against him, and he held her tight. "S'ok" he muttered, insides churning like hers, "s'ok".

Then Ashleigh booted all over the carpet. He rubbed her back, trying not to look at the pile of what used to be Shawna by the window. Trying to block it from his mind.

"Dad's gonna kill me....." she whimpered softly.

His heart froze. Their Dad. Where was their Dad? He looked wide-eyed, at her, but she didn't seem to have made the connection. She moved them into her bedroom, slotting a chair under the handle, and started mumbling about backpacks and the woods and....

Teddy took a deep breath. Tried to center. "Okay" he said slowly, a small cowardly part of his brain telling him that it was, deep down, ok to assume that his father was already dead. That they would not be abandoning him. Okay. Backpacks".

It took seconds, maybe a minute or two at most, to assemble their backpacks and grab, on their way back out into the main part of the house, the large bottle of water from the fridge. He slotted it into his backpack and then, turning to his kid sister, looked her dead in the eyes. The eyes they shared. Their Mom's eyes. He handed her the other bat, clean unlike the one he carried, and let her take the weight in her hands. This one was aluminum, closer to the softball bat Ashleigh played with, and he smiled reassuringly. "Take it and stay close". His hand closed on the handle of the back door, ready to swing it open and begin the dash across the fields to the woods beyond. His closed his eyes. He couldn't not say it, even though he knew it would just upset and panic her. "And...an....And Ash? We'd better keep an eye out for Dad."

 

[theycallmemunchkin]

Ashleigh returned her brothers gaze as she took the bat slowly, closing her hand around it's handle slowly and hefting it up in front of her face. She gave it a couple test swipes in the air in front of herself to get a feel for it's weight and heft. She wasn't the sort of physical athlete her brother was, baseball and football and all that. Skinny, a girl, and short usually made her the sort of last pick for these type of things. But she had gone hunting enough with her dad to gauge a feel of the predator-prey relationship; even if she didn't know where she fit in with those......things stalking around outside.

"For dad........" She said, giving another swipe of the bat through the air before sliding the strap of her loaded backpack across her shoulders and heaving it up. "We both knew Shawna. She was a bitch even if you totally drooled over her.......but that wasn't her. If they turned her into that THING, then Dad deserves better. If you ever see me like that, bash my brains in......." The redhead said darkly, sliding the other strap across her shoulder and readying herself for what she knew was to come. She gave a look around their home, soaking in the last little bit of the life that was dying before her eyes as their world unraveled. A home that she would probably never see again.

"But whatever happens, I love you"

 

[Reydan]

He watched her swing the bat inexpertly, more enthusiasm than skill, and had to repress the sudden urge to shove Ashleigh back into a cupboard and lock her away safe and sound until all this was over. He grimaced, looking at his kid sister with anxious eyes, before placing a hand on the doorknob. Before breaching the outside world.

"Stay close" he whispered, looking deep into those eyes, the same colour eyes as his, before swinging the door open.

Teddy had expected to have to charge out, swinging, to find a snarling pack of things outside. But the night was cool and dark and empty. It was all the more unsettling for the absence of the creatures hunting them.

They set off, feet crunching softly in the grass of the backyard. Step step step step, across their backyard that had once been the scene of triumphant play fights and camping excursions and paddling pools, but was now empty and neglected. He could hear, over his shoulder, the moaning and gnarling coming from the front of the house and, not for the first time, Teddy's heart sank at the thought that they were skipping out on their Dad.

"If you ever see me like that bash my brains in..."

He looked over at his sister, recalling her dark words from earlier, as she prowled, bat in hand, behind him. Her eyes were wide, her movements fretful and a little clumsy, but she was keeping up. He swore, in that moment, that he would do anything and everything in his power to keep her safe. To protect her.

They shimmied over the whitewashed fence at the back of their garden, Teddy cupping his hands to help Ash swing up and over before following her. Still no sight of anything or anyone else. They trudged on, up the hill at the back of their house, only stopping when they reach the summit.

There they paused, panting for breath, at the treeline. Before them, stretching out in the valley, was the little town of Bakersfield. "Awh fuck" was all Teddy could say when he saw it. The town was ablaze. Parts of it were burning, spirals of red-orange flame reaching upwards, the pall of night hiding the plumes of thick black smoke that must be down there. The sounds were feint but you could hear gunshots, the screeching of tires, and the odd muffled bang and crash. Their world was falling apart. He let his gaze, reluctantly, leave the town and travel up the hills alongside the one they stood on. Up off to their right, nestled at the foot of the mountains, was the State Park. And the cabins that made up the Ranger Station. It was the only place he and Ash and their Dad and Mary had talked about as a possible place of refuge. Isolated but with its own water supply, the dozen holiday cabins clustered around the Ranger Station would be pretty safe. IF none of the things were there....

"We should head up to the Rang..." he started to say to Ashleigh, then his blood froze in his veins. His eyes snapped back to the town. Mary. Shit. Their sister had been at a sleepover in town tonight. No longer able to resist being cooped up in the house.

His face white, he turned to Ash. "Mary. Oh God Ash, Mary's down there." And he pointed, as he spoke, to the hellish scene playing out beneath them.