Damocles

[softsponge]

This is the first part of a story set in a world overrun by zombies, it begins just a few short days after the outbreak,feel free to comment below...



DAMOCLES Chapter 1


As the Damocles bobbed up and down in the water; lifted and caressed by the neverending sigh of the Atlantic Ocean, the skipper looked across at Christopher and shook his head. “Look lad, we can’t waste any more time out here, there’s no one left, alive that is……..”. Chris looked at the old sailor with a mixture of contempt and pity. The skipper had lost family too but he hadn’t lost his life like the poor souls of Providence.

Chris felt the next wave lift the prow and not only did he feel his lunch coming back to greet him but he also saw the impressive figurehead of Missy rise with the force of natures own power. Seeing the contents of his stomach empty into the sea, Chris was reminded once again that he would never be a sailor, even if he sailed the waters off Rhode Island for the next forty years.

Maybe not a sailor but he was a writer by trade, an author, a storyteller in a profession second in age only to prostitution.
The stories he wove; for a sometimes adoring public were of perhaps a less horrific vein than the tapestry taking place across the world today but they had their moments of fear and terror, even if his target audience was children.

The Closet… never heard of it, number one in five European nations and a bestseller in Ecuador, Chris chuckled at the thought of corpses flicking through his books in undead libraries across the globe. Still it had earned him a tidy sum; enough to buy his own apartment and take six months off from writing while he researched his next novel, “Rhode’s War “. This was going to be the make or break novel, a tale of high seas piracy in 1798; cursing to himself when he thought of how little he’d accomplished before God or whoever had smacked the world in the face.

Just one week ago Chris had approached the skipper about buying passage on his tourist ship the Damocles. It was a beauty of a ship based on a design of a nineteenth century three mast sailing ship. For thirty years the skipper had taken fat tourists up from Florida and states further south out into the Atlantic to “experience” the life of a real sailor. Of course $20,000 had turned the skippers initial reticence into something approaching civility and so Chris had spent the last few days learning how to “run” a ship.

Seventeen blisters and eight lost meals later he was beginning to wonder why anyone actually wrote anything that required researching. However in light of current events his money had been well spent; he was alive and while his wife and children were dead, or at least he assumed so, he had been given the unique opportunity to chronicle mankinds end.

There had been no radio signals for two days now and the skipper’s powerful binoculars showed a welcoming party of corpses lined up against the docks. All was not lost though; Block island was free of corpses and several boat load’s of survivors had reached safety before the mainland had been overrun but a thousand people was a drop in the ocean compared to the billions who’d perished so far. Chris; his face the colour of a blade of fresh grass, rose from the deck and continued his argument with the skipper.“There’s bound to be someone, we saw that helicopter fly over two days ago and there’s no way they’d fly in if there was no-one to rescue, surely?.

The skipper his weather worn face tightening around the eyes said “ damn you to hell city boy, have you any idea what those things will do to us if they get on board here?, I tell you son, I fought in Korea , I’ve seen death up close at Inchon and I’m not going to kill myself on some fools errand today..”

Chris rolled his eyes and walked unsteadily away; he couldn’t believe that everyone was dead, and he was going to find out for sure, one way or another………..

Later as the sky darkened and began its struggle against daylight; the skipper looked around, and after checking that Chris was below deck raised the binoculars to his eyes. On the shore the mirror was flashing again, sending the same message in morse code that the skipper had been watching for days…….

SAVE OUR SOULS…….

[Egekrusher]

AWESOME story!!!

What direction do you plan to take it in? I'm sick of all of the zombie stories out there with a happy ending. I want something a bit more realistic (I know, the irony). If the world really was being overrun by zombies, there's no way in hell that you would survive more than a couple of days at most.

[softsponge]

lol, sorry im a bastard...the stories finished plus its sequal so ill add them slowly..and yes theres never a happy ending in zombie stories, nor should there be one

[softsponge]

DAMOCLES Chapter 2

The proud ship parted the waves before her like a hot knife through butter, a blustering gale pushed the Damocles faster than she had any right to expect….

As a new day began on the 16th of March., Chris was grinning, smiling wildly like a loon, because for the first time in over thirty years he was sure of his path.

He gripped the wheel tightly, salt spray plastered his hair to his face and caused his eyes to sting in the twilight hegemony of dawn...still he smiled. The skipper was out cold, the rum which Chris had smuggled onto the ship had served its purpose. The skippers insensate snoring reverberating still around the galley he had claimed as his bed.

That had led him to here; utilising all the skills he had accumulated over the past week, he managed by no small amount of luck to not only lower the sails but also to raise the anchor and steer the ship roughly towards shore. Not that the last part was particularly difficult, there was a lot of ocean and not so much land, and so the Damocles moved inexorably towards her fate and dry land…

On pier 19 Herbert Yardley looked out to sea for the umpteenth time since becoming trapped in here with the other survivors from the harbour rescue centre. Twenty two deadmen walking, well not quite, there were three ladies but that wasn’t quite as good a mental image, he mused to himself in yet another moment of despair.

Looking at his surroundings Herbert had to stifle a grin, of all the places to be trapped, a bloody medical waste depot. More than one of his fellow captives had fainted at the body parts contained within. Being British by birth and English by the grace of god, Herbert had adjusted to the new world order surprisingly well. After all at seventy two, life held few surprises. The walking corpses outside had been one to be sure but even they held little fascination now; Herbert was more interested in whether he’d run out of pipe tobacco or not.

Edie Rowley walked up to Herbert, her ample bosom stirring his ardor even at his advanced age, and asked “any sign?”, he turned and smiling the smile that only incorrigible old bastards and naughty children can ever truly get away with replied “ well there’s a great big pirate ship on the way in but I might have had my tobacco exchanged with whatever young Simon’s been smoking over there…………..”

Chris heard the banging coming from the wooden door to the galley below, an mixture of hangover groans and expletives that came out more like the moaning of some mythical beast, not the vented anger of a salty sea dog. As the shore reared up before him Chris could see the shambling creatures the government had insisted were reanimates but Chris new otherwise, he’d seen the movies those fuckers were zombies...

[Vodstok]

Very nice. Good descriptions, nice feel to the whole thing.

Ege, here is a nice little zombie story with a down ending: *Vodstok pimps self*

http://scaredyet.net/lit/shamb.aspx

[softsponge]

thanks for the praise vod, just read yours really enjoyed it :)

[Vodstok]

Why thank you :) You have fulfilled a dream of mine, I always wanted to see a zombie story that happened on a boat. Never got around to it myself....

[kpropain]

That's awesome softsponge I like it :)

[softsponge]

DAMOCLES Chapter 3

Dawns early light washed over Chris as he pulled hard right on the ships wheel. The first rays of the sun caressed the freckles and fine lines on his face, softer than any mothers touch. His smile; still fixed upon his face, was a masque, reflecting both his turmoil and fear at the future, a future, both unfixed; uncertain.

Through grim determination though; Chris had succeeded in allying a growing darkness within his mind to a steely determination not shown since Chris had been a small boy, struggling to learn the oft’ useful art of putting one foot in front of the other. These factors alone had enabled him to pilot the ship thus far, not prettily maybe but she wasn’t sinking and he hadn’t lost his breakfast yet either, if you count saltines as breakfast.

The coastline loomed in front of Chris; and while the ocean was daunting with its vast expanse and overwhelming harshness, the thought of approaching a land riddled with walking, honest to flesh eating corpses left a taste in the writer’s mouth not too dissimilar to sawdust and ashes....

One hour later……

“Shit, Columbus never had to deal with zombies”, Chris thought to himself as he watched the dozen or so corpses meander through packing crates and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity’s demise. Even though the Damocles was anchored barely twenty feet from the Rhode Island shore the dumb-ass fleshfuckers hadn’t spotted him. He listened to the gentle venting of the skippers anger against the galley door and thought about letting him out. He decided against that option when he heard the rusty warble of the skipper, threatening yet again to “gut him with a fish hook”.

Chris looked upwards and watched the cumulonimbus swirls of a promising cloudy morning, he’d always had his head in the clouds, maybe afraid of what was below, yes but in the clouds were the thoughts, ideals and the dreams of a million starry eyed children. He’d always been fascinated with the human minds capability to make a viable image out of anything stared at long enough and today was no exception.

As he watched the clouds coagulate, form and reform Chris saw a tapestry evolve. Within the sky’s canvas flames licked against a building beset upon by a horde of nimbus clouds. The image though was sundered by a phosphorescent light trailing across the sky. Chris watched the flare move across the clouds with a sense of wonder only a child on the fourth of July could imitate. His pleasure was only dampened by the splintering of the galley door and the threats continuing to issue from within.

Ignoring the curses of the skipper; Chris cupped his blistered hands and shouted “Is there anyone there?”….His voice carried across the short distance to the shore and instantly, as if someone had pulled a cord on the corpse’s backs, they turned in unison towards the Damocles and switched from semi-lifeless marionettes to blood hungry monsters.

Chris stood shocked at the image being indelibly burned onto his retinas. He.....; he’d never expected this, shit watching a Romero movie did not qualify anyone to view objectively a scene straight out of Dante’s inferno. The corpses even at the distance they were reached out for him with a desire born of frustration and psychosis. No celluloid monstrosities these, the ghouls in front of him were mothers, brothers, sons, spouses, infants and aged. Their unified cause one of homicide and vengeance. The dead in front of him weren’t mindless; they were jealous, envious of the living and breathing. His eyes making mental note of the pleading; the wailing, the woman who’s underwear didn’t match?....whatever.

Never would he forget the sight in front of him; nor would he ever take for granted what he’d had the temerity to call a life, not as long as the unloved, loved ones walked and lusted for what he still had…….

Then the first of the corpses stumbled off the docks as they urged their stiffening bones towards the Damocles......

With a simple splash the creature who had once held his wife close while watching scary movies on the couch and who’d kissed his daughters knee when she’d fell off her cycle, sank into the cold embrace of mankind’s progenitor. The same corpse who’d run the local kid’s baseball team; a nice guy, a normal guy, now a dead guy.

As it thrashed about in the freezing waters off providence; it failed to remember how it had cried at Forrest Gump, or how it had once stole a dollar out it's dad’s wallet. As it sank down to the bottom of the bay it never realised that once it had been able to swim, nor that it had never even looked at another woman in twenty years of marriage, and as it performed a water ballet of the undead it never once realised just how much it had meant to those around it. And as the creature landed on the sea floor it never even realised that its head had become impaled on an abandoned, rusty outboard motor.

As the curse left it’s ravaged body and the sea reclaimed her own, the greatest light it'd ever seen appeared and he remembered………………

[Egekrusher]

To you and Vodstok- both are excellent stories. Keep up the good work.

[softsponge]

DAMOCLES Chapter 4

As Chris watched the dead stumbling into the waters off Providence, he found himself almost feeling pity for the “living impaired” creatures. He didn’t have too much time to dwell on the plight of the creatures as he felt a rather sharp object, not so gently pricking the skin of his throat. With some difficulty; Chris turned his head slightly and looked down.

The skipper flanked him, holding what appeared to be a harpoon to his neck. He felt a slow lazy trickle of blood begin to meander down into his thick denim jacket. Absently he wondered how much pressure the skipper would have to exert to pierce his jugular vein. Watching the eyes of the skipper change, from bloodshot red to an almost friendly blue colour, due to the influence of sobering fresh sea air was a most unnerving sight.

Chris scrutinised the skippers gnarled, well worn face, not that he had much choice, he couldn’t move his head and he was pretty sure that if he closed his eyes he might wake up somewhere else altogether. So he studied, watched and noted the coarse, white whiskers beginning to sprout on the grizzled chin of a sailor born. He imagined that once the skipper had been just plain ugly, now with a nose pitted and swelled with the infusion of several hundred too many bottles of rum, the skipper was a sight to behold. A mixture of Ernest Borgnine and Karl Malden, the skipper would never collect $10 for finishing second in a beauty contest but he did however put the fear of God into the increasingly scared booksmith.

“If you ever fucking do anything on this ship without my express permission, I’ll fucking kill you, and feed you chunk by chunk to the fishes, capiche?” said the skipper, understandably somewhat angry.

Chris always one to listen to such germane advice; answered with as deep a voice as he could muster “whatever you say skipper”. Instantly Chris felt the pressure ease from his throat, the skipper lowering his weapon spat vociferously on the deck and said “How in the name of Poseidon’s balls did you manage to get us this close without scuttling her?”

The once and future author looked at the skipper and said “skip, I have no fucken idea”……..

The skipper looked at the dock and watched the slow dance of the corpses as more and more gathered awaiting the arrival of S.S Fresh Meat……

From the building he’d been watching at night for days he saw a face appear, anxious, nervous but full of hope and determination. The skipper turned once more to Chris and said “ get me my gun out my bunk, and for God’s sake raise that damn anchor”…..

Chris rushed through the shattered door to the stairs leading below. Taking them two at a time and leaping onto the galley area Chris found the wreckage of both the skippers drunken fumbling last night and the viscious anger he’d displayed when awaking from his drunken stupor.

Heading straight for the skippers berth, Chris entered the inner sanctum of the bucolic skipper. His mind registered photos of both military personnel and a young guy with his arm around a pretty young Asian girl. Further imported data consisted of skidmarked long johns and a dozen empty bottles of rotgut lying haphazardly across the wooden planks. While this may have been collated and stored within the recesses of his mind, all Chris could think of was the rifle lying across the skippers bed and the several full clips of ammunition lying beside it.

Gathering them into his arms and running back up the stairs; (no mean feet in choppy Atlantic waters) took more time than Chris had imagined. Whilst he hadn’t felt the reassuringly gruesome tug of seasickness since yesterday, the constant rolling of the boat made any movement a chore, running across the deck with his lethal load proved impossible.

Sprawled on the deck, a victim of a puddle of seawaters sick sense of humour, Chris felt a fool. This feeling wasn’t helped by the roaring laughter of the skipper and the catcalls of the dead coming from just a couple of dozen feet away.

The skipper looked down at the suitably embarrassed Chris and chortled “ shit boy I thought I was going to have to shoot you but your too damn funny, for a landlubber your alright”. With that backhanded compliment the skipper stooped to collect his weaponry.

Standing unsteadily, knees bruised, pride hurt, Chris watched the horrifying sight of a man with a gun going bang……

Amidst the smell of cordite and devastation Chris saw what one lone gunman was capable of, where before a dozen zombies had stood in anticipation, now stood none….

With ears ringing from the recital of lead, Chris wondered just how in the hell those corpses had won when there were men like the skipper around…….

[softsponge]

5


Chris muttered obscenities under his breath as he listened to the skipper issue yet another order, this time on the best way to inflate the friggin’ dinghy. Never one for D.I.Y or household chores, Chris was not only struggling to make the dinghy rise, he was also making himself look stupid in the process.

Eventually, watching with hands in pockets, face suitably flushed Chris watched the increasingly frustrated skipper throw the fully inflated dinghy attached only by a thin rope to the Damocles into the chilly waters of the Atlantic.

The skipper, moving with a speed belying his age swiftly threw a rope ladder over the side and picked up his rifle before promptly falling flat on his face, twitching wildly, his arms flailing like a jacknifed truck full of bricks.

Tears welling in his eyes and fear gripping his heart, Chris ran to the side of the grizzled sea-dog and looked down at his face whiter than the snows of Hoth, with foam bubbling at the corners of his jagged mouth. He watched as the skipper mouth silent words and saw his fumbling hands reach inside his coat…

Chris grabbed the skippers hand and found a small, round mother of pearl box within.

Upon opening the container; Chris was surprised to see hundreds of small round pellets. Still not having a clue as to how to save the skipper, he felt the skippers knotted hand reach into the box and take a pill and place it reverently underneath the nicotine stained tongue of the irascible old man.

Minutes of soul shaking, concern riddled time passed, and as it did so Chris watched the skipper slowly, agonisingly return to something approaching normality. Eventually though, even time catches up with most ardent attempts at avoidance and so the skipper slowly, gingerly sat up.

Looking less like a hardened veteran, and much more like the lonely old man that he truly was, the skipper turned to face Chris and spoke.

“Son; that was an angina attack, have you ever left that landlubbing, city dwelling cocoon of yours?”……

Chris, both embarrassed and concerned replied, “I’m…sorry skipper, I just froze”.

Smiling, his somewhat less than handsome face transformed into something approaching just homely laughingly said “ Son, don’t you ever stand behind me with a loaded gun, now get me up before I get piles off the f***ing deck”.

And so the two spectrums of life experiences climbed into the dinghy, swirling eddies lifting and caressing the would be heroes as they rose and fell, safe for now in the hands of nature’s greatest cleanser.

If only the wind had not been blowing inland, and if only the strange bedfellows had been listening harder they may have heard the sounds of a fierce battle for survival taking place less than two miles away.

[softsponge]

Damocles chapter 6


Being caught up in the maelstrom of the end of days had taught Chris some very valuable lessons. The most important of which was Life; it’s said that a man is only truly alive when he knows he is dying.

Well Chris was dying and it felt wonderful; every lungful of sea air that he inhaled took him closer to his grave. “It’s only a matter of time” Chris thought to himself, “one day they’ll get me but f*** it, until they do I’m alive, alive and for once able to make a difference….”.

The dinghy, finally crossing the short distance between the Damocles and the shore bumped gently against the now deserted jetty of pier 19. Chris; drawn once more to the sky above, noted with pleasure the clear blue sky and dazzling sun, completely oblivious to the carnage being wrought below it.

The skipper roped and knotted the dinghy to the wooden struts of the jetty, using skills honed from a lifetime afloat the skipper stood up, balancing against the swell and surge of the tide and clambered up the wooden ladder with an agility even a cat would be proud of.

Chris followed the skipper like a mule, sure and steady, afraid of drowning and clowning in equal measure.

Once on the piers wooden, well trodden boards Chris took in the view of a postcard sent straight from zip code 666. The lack of noise and distraction told the tale of a world in ruins...

Fires, now smouldering, sent smoke signals heralding the end of the plastic age and the replacement of Homo sapiens with Homo cadaverosus.

The skipper, punching Chris’s arm somewhat harder than necessary whispered “they’re holed up over there by the forklift truck” ….Chris didn’t need the skippers arm pointing, to work out where the refugees of the apocalypse were staying…..

As the survivors rushed out of the storage facility and began hugging and kissing the stunned rescuers, Chris couldn’t help but remember the black and white footage of the liberation of Belsen….”surely we haven’t fallen this far again?” thought Chris his soul seared from searching for an unimaginable answer.

Several minutes had passed; gentle backslapping and vigorous handshaking over, the throng fell back and Chris found himself facing an elderly man in a tweed jacket, unlit pipe hanging rakishly from his mouth.

“Yardley, Herbert Yardley, damned glad to meet you” stated the high browed, intellectually appearing man in front of Chris. The one time writer replied “I’m Chris, this is the skipper” as he hooked a thumb towards the well creased captain.

Herbert coughed and said “nice to meet you but perhaps it might be wise to leave, before our flesh fixated friends realise there’s a bunch of ready meals on offer?”

The skipper turned and said “ fine then boss man, sort it out, women and children first”, with that the skipper pulled his rifle off his back and deftly removed the frontal lobe of an approaching corpse.

Herbert swiftly began separating the survivors and moments later five woman and two children were moving with all speed towards the dinghy. Chris could see that approaching from the far side of the harbour were a couple of dozen walking dead, flesh in their sights and teeth bared, the corpses ambled ever on towards their blackened hearts desire.

Loosing off volley after volley of high velocity fire, the skipper ended the miserable existence of several of the dead but the rest continued to move forward, now only fifty feet away.

Chris watched a panicked man run back into the former “safe house” and slammed the doors shut. The sound of bolts slamming home was a potential death sentence for the frightened crowd awaiting rescue.

Turning to Chris the skipper snarled and shouted “ get the f*** out of here Chris before I shoot you myself”, his face was set like stone but his eyes were twinkling like diamonds, full of pride and friendship.

Chris nodded and ran to the ladder and descended, he looked around one last time to see the men folk running in all directions trying to evade the ghouls, now only a heartbeat away.

Only the skipper and Herbert stood firm, their advanced age a major factor in their bravery.

The dinghy was full of tears, whimpers and excess weight, Chris undid the rope and pushed away from the pier with an oar and a curse.

Arms heavy and muscles strained, Chris reached the Damocles guilt his companion and regret his new best friend. Fighting back tears Chris lashed the dinghy and spent the longest time helping the survivors of pier 19 aboard the Damocles.

[softsponge]

Damocles chapter 7


Never looking back and refusing to dwell on might have been, Chris clumsily lowered the sails and prepared to leave Providence and the rightful captain behind. The wind had picked up; and already a strong south westerly breeze was breathing life into the silken wings adorning the Damocles strong oaken masts.

Moans and wails pierced the air, suffusing it with dread and malaise, their arms raised hopelessly, dry mouths barking guttural sounds, and the survivors of pier 19 were already starting to piss Chris off. The women and children were anything but pleased.

“Why can’t we go back?”…

“There isn’t a ladies bathroom…..”

“We can’t survive on rum……..”

“Aren’t you going to leave now?.........”

“WILL YOU SHUT THE f*** UP” replied Chris with venom and grief overriding his normally checked self control,

“MY FRIEND DIED BACK THERE, AND ALL YOU GIVE A f*** ABOUT IS A LADIES PISSPOT?........f*** OFF AND SWIM FOR SHORE IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT”

.”f***en landlubbers” Chris whispered under his breath, never realising just how much he sounded like the skipper at the moment in time.

Running up and across the deck, swells no longer bothering him, Chris readied the ship for the open sea; he guessed he’d head for Block Island and drop the screamers of there. With a derision born of apathy Chris spat a large wad of phlegm onto the decking at his feet. Just then a child screamed.

Racing across to the stern of the Damocles; Chris was confronted by the hysterical blubbering of a half dozen wretched civilians. Chris followed the pointing fingers and globular eyes down to the side of the Damocles.

Then Chris laughed; the laugh of a prisoner reprieved, a loved one reunited or even that of a man, hope renewed and faith restored.

Splashing in the water, saturated and soaked swam both the skipper and Herbert, alive and well, pride bruised but their capacity for cuss words intact, in fact if anything improved…

“Get me the f*** out of this water, you Lilly livered snotrag”, sang the skipper his dulcet tones ringing threw the air, beautiful in its own unique way.

“I say old chap, would you kindly throw down a rope please, I’m somewhat wet here”, replied the educated, understated voice of Herbert…

Just minutes later, the two bedraggled old men sat, with blankets wrapped around shoulders, stained perhaps but warm definitely, the portable heater in the skipper’s cabin providing comfort and warmth. Sipping rum laced with coffee the two silently thanked God for saving them and Chris for not leaving them.

And at the wheel of the Damocles, the new captain of the ship sailed out of Providence, towards the island and safety.

THE END



All work copyright David Heeley April 20th 2004-07-12

[Egekrusher]

Good story man. Very well written (though it could use some grammatical correction).