I'm Not A Monster

It was dark.

He couldn’t see a thing – had he lost them? Were they gone? Had he finally escaped?

Listening hard, the only sound he heard in the blackness was his own quick, shallow panting and the adrenaline-amplified sound of his own heart pounding in his ears. No more vicious, angry snarling or ragged fingernails screeching desperately on the thin metal walls he was nestled against.

Just silence.

He was safe.

Max Green let out a long, shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, slowly stretching his legs out of the cramped fetal position he’d curled them into upon diving into the tiny luggage compartment underneath the tour bus in near-hysterical panic as he fled from his relentlessly hungering pursuers.

Those people…

He didn’t know what they were or where they’d come from. And to be honest, he didn’t want to. All he cared about right now was the very real possibility that he was going insane. He had to be. Because the alternative was impossible. This sort of shit happened in movies and nightmares, where it belonged. Not in reality.

Not like this.

Was he hallucinating right now? Was he really just asleep in his bed, dreaming through the filter of a mind poisoned with chemical cocktails?

He wanted to believe that. He wanted it so badly.

But this all just felt far too real.

The dead were dead. They were gone forever, doomed to an eternity of dirt and rot beneath society’s unconcerned feet, and that was where they were supposed to stay.

The dead didn’t walk. They didn’t eat.

Sure, he’d seen the movies, heard the stories. He’d enjoyed them, intrigued by the ideas they presented, but never taking any of it seriously, dismissing it as ridiculous, unreasonable fantasy.

But there was no denying it when the evidence was right in front of him.

Those…things out there…ripping people apart, devouring them like it was the last meal they’d ever eat, deaf and blind to their terrified pleas…the half-eaten corpses rising from the blood-soaked earth to repeat the cycle on a new group of stunned, horrified onlookers…

This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

But the fact of the matter was, whatever was going on out there…

It was…

Scrape.

Max’s head snapped up, tangled hair flying into his face as he peered into the near-total blackness of the sealed luggage compartment for the source of the sound, his slowly-fading panic from before returning full force.

Nothing.

It must have come from outside, he realized, relaxing slightly. Something hit the bus, that was all. He just had to stay inside until all this – whatever it was – passed over.

But what if it didn’t?

Max shook his head from side to side jerkily. No. Thinking like that wouldn’t get him anywhere. This would pass, this would end, and he would be fine. After all, something that had started so suddenly, one hungering body stumbling through the masses at half past eleven that morning, had to finish in the same way.

It would be fine. He was going to be okay.

Scrape.

And then he saw it. Legless and grotesquely twisted, it dragged itself across the rough metal floor with gnarled fingers, blind, dead eyes glistening in the darkness as it pulled itself closer and closer to where he huddled in the sheltered corner.

“No,” He gasped, terror consuming him as he pushed himself away from the half-devoured abomination, his chest tightening and hands shaking as he backed himself farther into the corner in a desperate attempt to escape.

He'd thought he'd escaped, he'd thought he was finally safe, shut tight inside a cramped metal cage, immobile but safe.

When really, while he’d thought he'd been locking them out, he was locking himself in.

"No, no, no!" Scrambling to his knees, Max lunged out of the corner, feeling blindly along the cold metal walls for the tiny door he'd slammed shut behind himself only a few minutes before.

Scrape.

He had to get out.

At least there he could run.

Crawling desperately across the compartment, the slow, ominous scratching of jagged nails on metal following behind him all the while, Max finally felt his searching fingers collide painfully with the side of one of the suitcases he'd used to barricade the door and began to frantically toss them aside, desperate fear giving him strength.

Scrape.

He was almost there...he could see the thin slashes of afternoon sunlight that slipped through the cracks where the door didn't mesh with the side of the bus quite right. Three suitcases left...two...one...

And then a pair of cold, dead hands gripped his ankle and wrenched him backwards.

Max let out a wordless cry of shock and fear as his legs were yanked out from under him, sending him to the floor of the compartment with a loud thump. A cracking sound echoed off the metal as his jaw hit the wall, sending his teeth deep into his tongue and spilling warm red iron into his mouth.

“Shit!” He shrieked, scrabbling desperately against the smooth metal for something, anything, he could grasp to escape the monster slowly pulling him back into the dark recesses of the underside of the bus, its hands wounded but its grip like iron on his flailing legs.

Kicking violently, he turned to look at it – dragging his writhing body steadily backwards, watching his futile struggle with inhumanly cold, hungry eyes. The stench of rot and blood hung heavily in the air, a cloud of suffocating death in the darkness.

This wasn’t a dream. This was real.

And he was going to die.

Max started to scream, hysteria bubbling in his throat and crushing his lungs as his movements lost all meaning and devolved into mindless thrashing.

“No! No! Craig! Robert! Monte! Help me!”

Scraaaape.

More of them. Crawling out of the darkness, bodies shredded and disfigured, moaning, snarling, eyes fixed on their prey as horrified shrieking tore at his vocal cords and broken fingernails scratched helplessly against the unforgivingly smooth metal, leaving splattered trails of bloody red in their wake.

“Please!”

They were on him then, hands holding him down, tearing at his clothes, rotting, fleshless fingers tangling in his hair. Max was still screaming, throat raw and body shaking, writhing desperately against the inhuman strength of the half-decayed fingers crushing his struggling frame into the floor as rancid death dripped from broken, blood-encrusted teeth.

Hands. Clawing at his stomach, digging in. Rotten breath in his face.

He was going to die.

He was going to die, and for some reason, only one thought flashed through his mind.

You know I’ll always be here to protect you, right, Maxie?

With his last, shuddering breath, Max screamed the name of the one man who’s smiling face was always branded across his dreamscapes at night, kind words reverberating through his memories as he felt his skin tearing apart at the seams.

”Ronnie!”

And then there was nothing but teeth and nails and blood.