So there are actually two versions of this story. Well, more like one and a half. Anyway this is the grosser, more depressing version. It's pretty bleak and violent and cynical. And yes, I understand that most people would not react like this in the face of such adversity. But you have to figure that at least one unstable individual (and possibly more) in this crazy world of ours, when presented with such an ugly and seemingly hopeless situation, would react similar to the character in this story.
People are assholes. Did anyone miss that memo?
So check this one out. Hope you enjoy it!
The Bell Tower Blues
Desperation and the compulsion to survive can make a man do unpleasant things. It almost seems ironic how our subconscious drive to endure can actually push us to make drastic, spur-of-the-moment decisions that inevitably lead to our collapse.
And God only knows how brutal that collapse can be.
Well… maybe God has nothing to do with it. In fact, when you’ve seen what I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours, it kind of leads a guy to believe that God is either on vacation or just offering a big ‘fuck you’ to all his unruly, disobedient children. It’s punishment time from Big Papa and he’s really taking us over his knee.
Or maybe the more logical conclusion is that there is no God. No devil either. Just a big fucked up scenario we got here in front of us. Yup… ten pounds of fucked up in a five pound bag; a veritable surplus of awful. That’s how I’m starting to see it anyway.
I guess the promise of isolation is kind of what drew me up here to begin with. But now I just feel like Noah without his animals. I’m definitely on high ground, but I’m floating on a flood of misery and gore. There are bodies down there, hollowed out like aspiring canoes; innards on the outside, puddles of blood producing dark stains on the pavement beneath them. These are the ones that are too decimated to come back. Every now and then a desperate Wanderer will come by and start chewing on the remnants of another’s kill. He or she will pick up the entrails and gnaw on them until they feel they’ve exhausted their resource. Some even pop out the eyes to assuage their hunger. From the scope on my rifle, I can see the gooey, pussy insides burst through their discolored teeth and lips. At first I considered taking these bastards out. But frankly, preserving the dead is none of my concern as of now.
I know if I off a few of those motherfuckers, the shots will just lead the rest of them up here, and I can’t have that.
I know I can’t stay up in this tower forever. My food and water are going to run out sooner rather than later, unless I climb down and manage to find sustenance in close proximity.
Okay, maybe Noah is a poor comparison. How bout Anne Frank in her attic, but without her family to keep her company. If I call too much attention to myself, I’m sure they’ll find their way up here in no time.
And then I’m dinner.
Or breakfast.
Or lunch.
I guess it all depends on the time of day.
When I first came up here, one of my initial thoughts was to find a way to destroy the stairs that ascend to this little perch. Of course that leaves me in a bit of a pickle: with no way to get down, once my food and water runs out, I’m a goner. So I left the stairs as they were and just found some old furniture to barricade the door. I don’t know if it will stand up to a swarm of them, but it’ll provide a little resistance (or at least a deterrent) to any of those ravenous fucks that want to get up here.
And I do have a great view of the chaos from my perch. Although it has settled down quite a bit by now. The streets are relatively quiet, with just a few of the Wanderers stumbling around, undoubtedly searching for their next meal.
I can even see my old Chevy on the far end of the shopping center parking lot, probably about 300 yards from the front door of this old church. The front end of the pick-up truck is smashed-in something ugly. I could probably get it running again, but not without taking some time to tweak a few things under the hood. And without knowing exactly what’s fucked in there, well that means it would take way too much time. I’d have teeth chewing on my flesh before I could even assess the damage. And I’ve got the firepower to fend em off for a bit, but if they swarm, I’m fucked.
So for now it’s just me, my thoughts and the scenery, just trying to stay alive until the Calvary comes in. Hell, this is why we pay taxes. This is why we have a government and a military. This is why we keep em around, right? To protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Or undead as the case may be.
I pick a granola bar out of the box and start to unwrap it. Hunger has been forcing itself on me for the last hour or so, but I need to become accustomed to rationing. Who knows how long I’ll be up here. I chew the granola slowly, making some effort to savor the nourishment. I wash it down with a sip of bottled water. After finishing the bar, I lean my back up against the aging wooden wall of the bell tower and close my eyes. Rifle in hand, I put my chin into my chest and fall asleep quickly.
It’s the screams that wake me. I haven’t heard any signs of human life in hours, besides my own thoughts and breathing of course. And these aren’t just screams of someone in the process of being torn apart (those I've gotten pretty used to). These are screams for help. They’re lively and surprisingly hopeful, like this person hasn’t been a witness to what’s really going on.
“Please! Someone… anyone… HELP MEEEEE!”
I move to the edge of the tower and look through the opening. It’s completely dark outside now. The power’s been out for at least twelve hours, so the only illumination comes from the moon—which struggles mightily against wavering clouds—and a few fires that have popped up here and there as a result of small explosions. But even in the poor light, I can see the girl stumbling through the parking lot across the street.
I put the rifle to my shoulder and peer through the sight like it’s a telescope. The girl is young—probably shy of twenty—and she looks unharmed. Her clothes appear surprisingly neat, as if her evening has been without incident thus far. Nonetheless, I can see the fear and urgency on her face. She walks carefully through the parking lot, swinging her head somewhat wildly and calling for assistance.
“Please help me! Dear God, someone PLEEAAASSE! I’m all alone! Someone please… FUCKING HELP ME!”
Silence replies. In fact, she’s lucky that’s the only thing that replies. If she keeps making a scene like this, those things will come like hungry children to a dinner bell.
“Christ, is anyone still alive?” she calls. I can hear the hope dwindle in her voice with every attempt. “Is everybody fucking dead? Tell me there’s someone out there!”
She’s looking at the cars in the parking lot now, checking in through the windows to see if anyone has left their keys. This is an act of pure desperation. Even if by some chance someone has left their keys, where could she go? Who’s to say this shit isn’t happening everywhere? Best to just find a place to hold up and wait for the heroes to stroll in with tanks and helicopters and whatever else.
Suddenly there’s another sound. I can hear it from the department store, not 100 feet from where the girl stands. She hears it too and freezes. It’s the sound of glass shattering. Then there’s a scream, but this one isn’t human. It’s horrid and piercing and guttural, and even those who haven’t heard it before can probably guess that it belongs to a creature you don’t want to interact with.
The girl backs slowly away from the department store, but she keeps her eyes on the source of the scream. I set my sight on the front of the store and only have to wait a few seconds before I can see the silhouette of something that would appear to be human. Of course to the naïve eye, the silhouette of any Wanderer would appear human, but if you look closer you can see the hunched form, the hanging arms, the apparent lack of competent motor skills. And although the young lady in peril seemed slightly ignorant to her situation at first, it appears as though she’s reading between the lines now.
Her gradual distancing from the department store ceases. She stops, turns towards the church and sprints. The thing in the department store dashes after her, letting out another violently guttural screech as it takes off. And those things are not as slow as their stumbling appearance may lead you to believe. Once they sense a meal, it seems as though their once-human instincts take over and their speed is comparable to that of any living person.
I watch as the girl gets to the end of the parking lot. To her right, another figure emerges from the darkness, this one running too. She’s got two on her trail now and I’m sure there are others not far behind.
The girl darts into the street. She avoids running into a car that sits idle in the middle of the road—another motorist who thought they could escape, but was clearly proven wrong. As she hops over the curb that leads to the lawn in front of the church, her foot catches the lip of the grass and she goes down… hard. Her left arm gets caught awkwardly beneath her falling body and her head smashes against the edge of the concrete path that cuts through the church’s front yard. She’s on the ground and not moving. Her two antagonists are closing in on her, maybe only 50 feet away from her limp body.
If I don’t do something, that girl is as good as dead. I steady my rifle and set my sights on the closest Wanderer. I put my finger on the trigger. Not a lot of time now—he’s practically on top of her. All I have to do is pull the trigger and that fucker’s pale, ugly head will explode like a ball of wet confetti.
I take a deep breath and relax my finger. The first wanderer jumps on her like a rabid animal. His teeth go straight for her neck. He’s ripping into her flesh and geysers of blood are shooting up from her jugular. The second creature is there only moments after. He goes to work on her midsection, using impressive strength to force his hands into the skin of her abdomen and bring handfuls of dripping meat to his mouth. He buries his face into the pile of flesh and devours it sloppily.
Of course any hope of the girl remaining unconscious through this attack is abolished within just a few moments. As those teeth rip into her neck, she wakes with a start and screams with such pain and anguish, it’s all I can do to keep the rifle at my side. I consider putting a bullet in her head, just to end her misery, but I know I can’t afford bringing any attention to my hiding spot. A few gunshots coupled with a few dead wanderers would bring an army of those goddam things right to the door of this church, and I can’t have that.
The sounds of this grotesque feast may be even worse than the sight of it. Even from the tower—easily 60 or 70 feet above the scene below—the sounds of tearing flesh and ravenous chewing are all-too audible. I close my eyes and move away from the edge of the tower. But even on the inside of my lids, I can see the pained expression of that girl being torn apart. And I can still hear the screams, which grow weaker and weaker. The shrieks eventually fade to feeble, gurgling moans and then there’s just the sound of frail flesh being torn by strong teeth, along with an occasional animalistic growl.
Suddenly my stomach turns and I retch. I spew the minimal amount of food I’ve eaten all over the wooden platform of the bell tower. And once all the food’s gone, I dry heave for another minute or so. I can feel a few of the capillaries in my face burst. Tears stream from my eyes and I fall to the floor, collapsing in a pile of my own vomit.
I’ve seen death. I’ve stared it in the face and held its hand. But watching someone get ravaged by those things is a whole different story.
Fuck.
I manage to crawl away from the food I’ve expelled and force myself into a sitting position with my back resting against the old boards of the tower. I look at the tarnished bell hanging above. It’s old and rusted, but not without its shimmering portions. I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in one of the shining patches. Is it possible to age twenty years in the course of twelve hours? I don’t think I ever pictured myself looking so old and haggard, even in the late stages of my life.
The world can wear you down. You’re only as old as it wants you to be.
The world and civilization are collapsing around us. It’s incredible how fast things can come apart. After millions of years of development and evolution, it only takes a few days for everything to come crashing down, for people to revert into the harshest forms of themselves.
I watched a girl die from my perch in the sky. I could have stopped it. I could have saved her life. But I decided to sit here, aloof and self-preserving.
Maybe this is how God feels… if he even exists I mean.
And yes, I’ve done some pretty terrible things since the shit hit the fan. But if we’re reverting, I’m not going to be the one left behind, confined by compassion and morality. It’s about survival of the fittest now, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose my life defending some little girl who’s stupid enough to go running around a parking lot screaming at the top of her lungs.
She’s not made for the new world. She wouldn’t survive. Best to just thin out the herd now. I’m sure provisions are going to be limited and the weak will never take priority. If that girl didn’t have enough common sense to lock herself in a safe spot and wait for help to come, then she doesn’t deserve to survive. It may sound cruel, but these are the cards the world has dealt us and we don’t have much choice but to abide.
I grab a bottle of water from my small stash and rinse my mouth out, attempting, without much success, to get the taste of puke and bile out. I look at my unimpressive collection of provisions. If I hadn’t been forced to dash from my crashed car, I could have taken more than the few items I had in the pick-up’s cab. I know what I have here won’t last me very long, but it will get me through a few days.
If those greedy bastards I used to call neighbors had been more generous, I’d probably be in better shape up here. Fucking assholes—if they had just given me the goddam flashlight and the radio I would have been on my way. But no, Daddy had to get all tough and righteous in front of his wife and kids; had to prove to them what a big man he is. Telling me to go fuck myself, telling me his family is more important than I am, telling me I need to get the fuck out of his house.
He couldn’t see how useful a person like me can be in a situation like the one we’re facing. He wanted to be a hero in front of his family. He wanted to throw me out.
Sure his family started squealing when I drove the butt of my rifle into his face. Sure his wife started yelling at me when the blood gushed from his shattered nose. Sure his kids started crying as he refused to stay on the floor and came at me with a kitchen knife.
What can I say? Survival instinct took over. He came at me with murder in his eyes so I shot him in the neck. I let him bleed out on the floor in front of his shrieking family. And they just wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I shouted at them. I warned them. I told them if they didn’t shut up I was going to lose it. And guess what? They kept screaming.
A family of disobedience.
A family that would never survive in the new world.
In truth, I like to think I did them a favor. Better to be gunned down quickly and in your own home than eaten alive somewhere on the streets by those fucking things. Families should stick together.
And they’re together.
Maybe I snapped. I know what I did would never be accepted in the civilized world we used to live in. But we’re in a world of animals now. It’s all chaos and it’s all violence and I will do whatever I have to do to survive. I’m a fighter—always have been, always will be.
Nightmares have never killed me before and they won’t kill me now. Besides, I’ve got some medicine to help me through the ugly memories.
I reach into my little survival bag and pull out the bottle of Jack Daniels I managed to grab from my house before paying my (former) neighbors a visit. I take a healthy swig. The strong flavor removes the taste of vomit from my mouth—more effective than mouthwash.
I settle back against the wall, as far away from my own puke and the edge of the tower as I can get. I take another sip of Jack and try to picture the rest of the world: a flaming disaster of hostility and bloodshed; a mishmash of bedlam slowly sinking into some ancient primordial soup. It’s almost beautiful in it’s own…
CRASH!
I hear the cacophonous reverberation of sound as it echoes through the whole bell tower. One more time and I’m on my feet, rifle in hand. From the top of the tower I can see the door at the bottom of the tall spiral staircase as it’s forced into the barricade of old furniture I placed in front of it.
Fuck. They’re trying to get in here. They’re in the fucking church and trying to get into the tower. Shit… they must be able to smell me.
I knew I should have found a way to destroy the goddam staircase!
I reach into my survival bag and pull out the rest of my bullets. If there aren’t too many of them, I might be able to pick em off as they come through the door. One by one, I’ll splatter their fucking brains all over the bottom of this tower until I run out of bullets, making sure I save one for myself. If I’m out of options I’ll blow my own head off. I’m not going to end up like them and I’m not going to be food for these fucking things.
The door hits the furniture hard again. Each time the door is able to open a little more. Just a few more tries and they’ll be able to squeeze through. I set my sight on the slowly expanding bit of open space. I see a body try to wiggle its way through, but it doesn’t have enough room. It’s stuck—the proverbial sitting duck. Kiss your ass goodbye motherfucker.
I fire off a round but miss the thing’s head. Instead I hit it on the back of the shoulder. The thing lets out a pained yelp that sounds surprisingly human and falls to the ground, still stuck between the door and the door jam. I aim at its head and catch a glimpse of its face in my scope. I watch the lips move as it murmurs, “stop.”
Then I hear it: a weak voice trying to yell.
Fuck, this guy is still alive.
“Please help,” he’s more audible this time. “They broke into the rectory. You have to help me.”
That’s when I see the spot of white around the guy’s neck. Fuck me… I just shot a fucking priest. Not some undead wandering priest either, but a real man of God that has yet to succumb to the hell outside.
I freeze, unsure of what to do.
“Please,” he repeats. He manages to wiggle his way to the inside of the tower door. He closes it behind him and leans his back against it.
“You’re gonna lead them in here.” That’s the only thing I can manage to say. “You’re gonna lead them right to me.”
“No,” he replies weakly. “They were in the rectory. They didn’t see me come in here. I don’t even think they’re in the church yet. If you can please just help me barricade the door.”
He looks young for a priest. I can see as his bright blue eyes look from me to the barrel of my rifle. He presses his right hand over the wound on his shoulder and screams in pain.
“You have to shut the fuck up,” I yell down at him. “Just shut up or they’ll hear you.”
“Please,” he says. “You can help me. The wound isn’t that bad. You just winged me.”
I remain at my perch at the top of the tower, gun trained on the injured priest. I know he’s full of shit. He’s hurt bad and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. If I bring him up here, he’s just going to need medical attention. And once he’s up here I can’t let him leave. I don’t even have enough food to keep us both alive for any significant amount of time.
I know he’s a man of the cloth, but that means he doesn’t deserve to suffer. He deserves a dignified death; not one from fever or infection or consumption. He deserves better than that.
Besides, God has no place in the new world.
I squeeze the trigger and splatter his brains on the door to the tower. I can actually see as one of his teeth exits the top of his head and becomes lodged in the old wood of the door. There isn’t even time for a look of shock on his face, not that there’s much of a face left to speak of.
I move quickly to the bottom of the tower stairs and pull the priest’s body away from the door. I put the old furniture back in its barricading position.
I’m really not a monster, but times like these a man needs to look out for himself. If that were me caught in the door, I’d understand anyone else’s decision to take me out. Sure, I’d be pissed about it—probably furious really—but I’d understand the compulsion to survive, the natural instinct to prioritize your own existence over that of anybody else.
We’ve thrived as selfish creatures. No reason to abandon that now.
There’s a crash from the other side of the tower door. I push my ear against the splintering wood, careful to avoid the father’s blood spatters and brain fragments. I can hear them in the church. It’s impossible to tell just how many are in there, but I can hear their dragging footsteps and their low moans. I would guess at least four or five, with more probably on the way.
I knew that fucking priest would lead them here. I knew they would follow him. Christ, those things know there’s food in here and they’re just going to set up shop right outside this door. It’s not like they have anything better to do. They’re not going to go looking for a meal somewhere else when they know there’s one in here. And once they realize they can’t get through the door, they’re just going to wait and wait and wait until I’m out of food and out of options.
They’ve got all the time in the world.
So who starves to death quicker? A human or one of them?
I can already feel my stomach growling. Those granola bars and canned beans aren’t going to last me very long. And who knows what the government and the military are doing. It could be weeks before the bureaucrats get their heads out of their asses. I’m going to need some real protein to keep my strength up—make sure I’m not totally weak if they manage to bust in here. If I could find some meat—even just a little to keep me on my game for a day or two—I’d be in much better shape for the coming days.
But any kind of meat is going to be real tough to come by at this point. I can’t just cut up a flank steak or a chicken breast. There sure as hell isn’t any meat in this fucking tower.
Unless…
I look down at the dead priest. Do you really need to cook flesh before you eat it? That soccer team stayed alive eating their dead. So did the Donner party. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The world is moving on and only those willing to do what others won’t will survive.
And I’ll do what I have to. Cause I’m a fighter—always have been, always will be.
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