章 295: fd1
The day I died started out the same as any other. I woke up at eleven, got dressed and ate dinner before driving into work. I was working night crew at a grocery store, stocking shelves to make enough money to pay the bills and maybe buy some games and movies for my collection every once in awhile.
It's not that I was lazy, or an underachiever. I was intelligent, creative, learned extremely fast. I was also in the middle of a low point with the chronic depression I'd been suffering for years. Maybe once I had my actual degree in hand I'd feel better, be able to move forward and make something of my life. But for now, I went to work, played video games, and wrote.
Work that night was also nothing out of the ordinary. I joked with my buddy about stupid co-workers. Got pissed when I found something day shift had screwed up in my section, then immediately let it go and fixed it. Wasn't worth the stress. Life was too much stress anyways. Lunch was a bag of chips and bottle of root beer because I'd actually eaten something substantial for dinner that night.
When I got off work in the morning I picked up my latest paycheck and drove to the bank, just like I did every friday morning. In the past I'd been bad about depositing paychecks on time, so now I'd gotten into the habit of making a beeline for the bank once one was in my hand.
Usually that was a good thing. This particular day, not so much.
I was just walking into the door of the bank when one of the other patrons, a twenty-something man wearing a brown hoodie, suddenly raised a pistol and fired into the ceiling, yelling for everyone to get on the floor.
In the moments this occurred, I calculated the distance between me and the man, who thankfully was facing mostly away from me. As I got to the floor I saw the three tellers behind the counter, the woman with her two young daughters starting to cower from the madman with the gun, trying to shelter her daughters, and the retired cop working as a security guard carefully removing his gun and sliding it to the gunman as ordered.
Maybe it was the feeling that I hadn't done anything of worth with my life. Maybe it was the way the woman's two daughters reminded me of my little sisters when they were kids. Maybe it was the part of me that had always wished I had the strength to be a hero.
I acted.
The man was already turning towards me as I leapt from my prone position like a sprinter's start in a hundred meter dash. I could see the panic in his eyes as he swung the pistol around, trying to get it into line. Involuntarily I closed my eyes. I didn't need to see anymore. No one else had been in my direction. No one to get hurt. Either the shot would miss me or it wouldn't, but either way this fucker was going down. I popped the blade up on the exacto knife that had still been in my back pocket from work.
I heard the bang, felt the shot of pain through my chest. My body tackled into his, my arm swinging and striking true. My blade sank into his neck, severing his jugular. Then the black claimed me.
Subject Selected::Beginning InstallationXxXxXxX
I woke to clouds and a distinct lack of pain. Sunny blue sky above. Cool breeze across my face. Grass beneath me. No sign of trees or buildings in my field of view, so either in a large grassy field or on top of a hill.
I slid my hands up to my chest. Clothed, that's a good sign. No sign of tenderness or a hole. So apparently whatever sort of afterlife I'm in doesn't involve forcing you to experience the trauma of your death as a constant reminder.
Another check of my body shows another surprise. My body is in better shape than I've ever been in my adult life. I actually have abs. That's...a bit disconcerting actually. Am I dead? Or am I experiencing the aftereffects of amnesia? DId I suffer brain damage before being saved at a hospital and am now waking up years later without my memory.
I unbutton my shirt and examine my chest in the region where I had felt the bullet's impact. No sign of scar tissue at all. There goes the amnesia theory.
I lean my head back and stare up at the sky again.
So, dead then. At least the afterlife is fairly pretty. Not absurdly hot like home was the last few weeks before my death.
I'm not sure how long I lay there. Long enough that I start sweating from the direct sunlight. And start wondering why I can see so clearly without my glasses. I'm just about to push myself to my feet and take a look around when I hear it. It's an odd, raspy sort of sound. A growl maybe? Someone or something struggling to breath. It's irregular and has an odd moaning quality to it that strikes the pit of my stomach and causes me to go cold.
I scramble to my feet and spin around, taking stock of my location and looking for any threats. I notice that I'm in a wide, unkempt grassy field by the side of a four lane road. Trees surround the clearing and a similar space on the opposite side of the road. There's a small concrete brick bathroom and parking lot across the road as well. Then I see them.
There are three of them, stumbling across the field towards me. Bodies appear to be mostly intact, but with the grayish cast of dead or decaying flesh. Eyes pale and milky, mouths colored with dried blood.
Apparently I'm not in heaven, I'm in some sort of hell. I'm looking at three honest to god Romero-style zombies stumbling towards me.
At least, I hope they are Romero-style zombies. Potential survival is a lot higher in that sort of situation than either Resident Evil or any of the series inspired by it. If this was Dead Space I didn't think I'd be somewhere that looked like rural Earth. If it were Halo or Prototype these things would be mutated and fast as hell and survival would be practically impossible.
Still, I had three zombies stumbling towards me faster than I liked, and no weapons. All I had on was a pair of steel-toed black leather boots, blue jeans, and a button up flannel shirt. I panicked, wished with all my might that I had some impenetrable suit of armor like Master Chief had when he first encountered the Flood on Installation 04 and a weapon to defend myself.
Selecting: Terminus Assault Armor, M-11 Suppressor: Confirm {y}{n}?To this day I believe that had I not panicked in that particular manner I would have simply frozen there, been bit, and turned in that grassy field. Instead, my deep knowledge of, love for, and appreciation for science fiction saved my life in the most remarkable of ways. It activated what I would later discover imbedded within my body. The collection of advanced nanotechnology I later dubbed the Proteus System.
Confirm: {Y}XxXxXxX
Deploying SelectionThe world around me became muted, sounds muffled and colors shifted as I felt something shift in the space around me. Air flowed as matter and energy were drawn together and manipulated to produce an advanced suit of armor. I reflexively closed my right hand around the grip as an advanced pistol carbine formed within it.
What the hell had just happened? Had I really just seen what I had seen, matter being made out of nothing? Or perhaps simply reorganized, as I had noticed a haziness coming from my body moments before it had formed. Perhaps some power of this body which may not be my own? I made a mental note to find a mirror as soon as it was safe.
I was so stunned that the zombies were almost upon me before I reacted. One of them, a woman wearing a nurse's uniform, grabbed my arm and stumbled forward, trying futilely to bite it. I stumbled backwards out of surprise, not due to any motive force from the zombies. My body felt stronger than I had ever been before. This suit seemed to be amplifying that strength further. reflexively I swung the pistol up and held it against the dead woman's head. But I don't pull the trigger.
I'm safe for the moment. These zombies can't get through this armor. As I stare at the dead eyes of the zombie trying to chew on my armored forearm like a puppy teething at its owner's hand I see no sign of intelligence. I remember a line from a recent zombie show. It fit my mood at the moment. Certainly it was helping keep my focus off the fact I had apparently died and woke up in a zombie apocalypse.
"I give you mercy." I speak, pulling the trigger.
The gun makes a surprisingly soft sound as a hole is blown open in the other side of the female zombie's head.
Two more pulls on the trigger and her two friends, dressed in scrubs, join her on the ground.
Lowering the pistol and staring down at the dead before me I wonder. Just what kind of world have I woken up in?
The first thing I did before beginning my journey was visit the bathroom at the rest stop. Who knew what that zombie spit would do if I let it dry?
It didn't help that I now had zombie brains coating part of my suit. I was doing my damndest not to freak out, but I was sure a panic attack was only one jump scare away.
God freaking fucking damned zombies.
Why couldn't it have been Zerg instead? Zerg are comprehensible enemies even if they do have bullshit abilities.
Zombies are just...dead who won't stay dead. And again, zombie brains on my armor!! Unclean! Unclean!
I booked it even faster towards the rest stop. If the water pressure was still on I was going to break something to make an impromptu shower.
XxXxXxX
Walking along the abandoned road I watch for any sign of surviving civilization. A car actually driving. Maybe a building that looks like it's been fortified against the undead. So far, three hours of walking and no real luck. I found a portable cooler with some bottles of water and a case of protein bars in a crashed SUV. Further along the way, I dug a climbing backpack out of a jeep and strapped it to my back. It was a little awkward given the structure of the armor but, even once I'd filled it, it was surprisingly light. This armor was amazing.
I'd found a crashed ambulance a couple miles down the road, probably where that nurse and the two doctors had come from. There was a dead body strapped to a gurney in the back, a scalpel shoved through it's eye socket, a vicious bite wound on its leg. Apparently they must have been transporting him when he turned. Probably bit one of the others before they killed him. I take a moment to say a prayer for the deceased before I begin searching the ambulance. Took a while, but by the time I was done I had two portable first aid kits, a variety of additional medical supplies, as well as a beyond decent supply of antibiotics, painkillers, and basically every medication I could scavenge.
I had left the ambulance grateful that no looters had hit it yet, but annoyed that none of the few vehicles I'd found on this backwater road had been working. They were either out of gas or damaged, and I simply did not have the knowledge to really deal with either. Besides, I was safe for the moment and the walk was doing me good. I had at least identified the armor I had apparently made in a car's sideview mirror. It was called the Terminus Assault Armor, and had been a particular favorite of mine from the Mass Effect series. Dark, intimidating, and vaguely medieval looking. Sufficiently that it could just pass as well made armor instead of as highly advanced armor possessing kinetic barriers and a power source based on an element that shouldn't even exist.
The first real sign of survivors, or at least potential survival, had been when I crested a hill in the late afternoon. Before me the road had stretched out past a four way intersection with another road. At the intersection however was a glimmer of hope. I could make out a large gas station, the kind found on the major highways designed to support large numbers of transport trucks. It took up one entire quadrant of the intersection, and I could see signage for a couple of different fast food companies at the station.
The remaining three quadrants were taken up by a small strip mall, maybe six or seven shops in an L facing the intersection, a fenced in motel, and a diner of some kind.
What gave me hope though was what was around the intersection, and what I could see within it from my vantage point. A ring had been made around the entire intersection and the buildings, trailers from transport trucks tipped onto their sides. Some sort of gate was set up and appeared to be closed at the nearest point where a road led into it, same with the one on the opposite end. Inside I could see numerous vehicles arranged in the parking lots. Three ambulances, two fire trucks, and numerous military vehicles were among them. There was even a full on main battle tank sitting in the center of the intersection.
I couldn't make out much detail at this distance, but what I didn't see was movement. I prayed that that was because most people were hunkered down inside, or still so as not to attract more of the undead. While there were a few dead bodies scattered around the 'walls' of the impromptu compound, there was also a smoldering pit dug into a field a distance away. Probably where they had disposed of the corpses to prevent other diseases from spreading.
With a sigh and a faint prayer of hope I continued down the road towards the compound, praying to find another soul. The oppressive knowledge that I could even be the only person left where I was was weighing down upon me. I tried to ignore it by humming 'Suicide Mission' to myself.
I marched on, carbine held at the ready.
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