When Chris came to, the air was thick with ash. His lungs burned as he was coming back to reality. eyes opened, his head pounding like someone had dropped a mortar inside his skull. The apartment was dark except for a dull, furnace-orange glow leaking through the blinds. For a second he thought there was a fire outside, but then he remembered.
The broadcast.
The sky twisting like wet glass.
That voice that wasn't human.
He pushed himself up off the the floor. Slivers of debrie crackled under his palms. The right wall was split from ceiling to baseboard, a jagged like vein cut through the room like the building had flinched. The living room was in ruins. His TV layed shattered on the ground, the coffee table in broken pieces, and there was a dinner plate embedded in the drywall at shoulder height.
Silence. Not power outage quiet, but vacuum quiet. The kind that happens when you are in the eye of an storm. The kind that seems to swallow sound whole.
Chris said, "Hello?" Shakely out of reflex. The word barely cleared his throat. Already not expecting an response
He quickly found his phone near him gripping it out of habit from. The apartment smelled like iron, like hot pennies after being basked in the sun too long. He went back to the window shakely approaching, hoping that it was all over. Chris peeled the blinds back, and stood in horror, his mind grasping at straws!
The city glowed it seemed. Streets had split open into glowing fissures; buildings leaned like drunk men. Far off, something like a black tornado climbed into the clouds, pulsing. Each pulse set the glass in his slider trembling. He counted that it happens five seconds apart. Almost like a Heartbeat.
Chris had to run, he had to leave his instincts screaming at him. He quickly put on his boots, a jacket, and grabbed a small backpack he kept by the door. Stuffing everything he had food and water wise. Along with a multitool, batteries, and shitty little chem lights.
The hallway reeked of hot metal. The hallway lights flickered, As he continued downstairs he noticed Mrs. Ramirez's door folded into itself cast aside in the hallway as if it was a prop from a movie. Quickly poking his head inside because she always tried to make him feel cared about.
Her living room looked as if it was stuck mid-moment: TV stuttering static, a dropped mug hovering midair halfway through a spill, the glaze of coffee hanging in a membrane that quivered without falling. In the corner, a stain seemed to be crawling up the wall , almost oil-slick in color. It seemed to pulse once and flattened ad if it was greeting him.
This all felt wrong, he had to leave, to keep moving.
On the stairs almost passing by it a phone lit up and buzzed, the screen was cracked but functional. Picking it up he saw A text preview from someone named Kira:
"They're saying the dead are moving downtown. Don't go outside. Don't"
Cut off. He slipped the phone into his pocket anyway, thinking the more the merrier when it comes to light sources.
Outside, the street was warped but passable. The light post burned unevenly as if someone had dimmed reality by hand. Somewhere a dog barked once. The sound died without an echo.
The streets were filled with bodies of those who seemed to of been burned to death, some had their skin that seemed to be a melted sludge. Vomiting as he ran fearing the worse he reached his truck.
Hopping inside desperately hoping this was all just a dream. Chris had to leave the city. His truck started on the first turn. He let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The radio came to life with a hiss of static, Voices, Voices he shrieked inside his mind trying to pay attention grasping at straws.
"Atmospher *static* stay indoors"
"entities"
"level readings *static* off the"
The signal gave out resulting in what it seemed like a mockingly hiss of static. He cut the radio. The hum in the air remained as if the surrounding were holding their breath in anticipation. Slowly he began to drive away from the heart of the city avoiding debris and bodies alike.
The city slid past in a slow-motion nightmare. Storefront windows cracked or destroyed. A bus angled into a storefront like a beached whale. Overhead, the clouds continued to rotated in what seemed to be a spiral. The same five-count pulse shaking everything, even his soul he thought.
He took side streets toward the old industrial district; if there was anywhere safe it would be where there are fewer people, fewer buildings, but most importantly fewer unknowns. He rolled a stop, eased through an intersection.
Something flickered in the high beams.
A figure stepped from behind a wrecked sedan and ran at him.
Not a stumble. Not a lurch. A sprinter's drive. Eyes like complete glass absorbing any light that tried to pierce it. It's body was just moving wrong.It seemed that it's left knee was torqued backward, and with with a wet pop it fell. He was going to get out to help but then It kept coming, dropping to all fours, the abomination nails skittering on asphalt.
"What the fuck" Chris punched the accelerator. His tires screaming refusing to move for a second, before launching off. The thing was matching his speed almost! For three strides before its ankle scissored and it tumbled, scraping along his tailgate. Metal shrieked. Watching from the rear view mirror, Chris saw the creature roll, and then continue to chase on all fours. Suddenly two more spilled out of a side alley! One seemed to be just as fast as the previous one, while the other was dragging a mangled leg. The fast and the gluttonous he said in his mind laughing at his cruel situation.
He blew through another intersection. A shadow vaulted from the hood of a parked compact car, and hammered onto the roof above his head. The windshield fractured. He quickly decided to drive under a half fallen street light, hoping it would hit his unwanted passenger. The roof buckled! A collision made of what could only sound like a wet ball of meat hitting the wall the moment it hit the street light!