screaming armadillo
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Tuesday, May 24th
7:14PM
72°F
As the glow of day faded beneath the horizon and darkness began to overtake rural Pennsylvania, something rather unusual was occurring on the outskirts of Fairview. In this quiet town huffing its last precious breaths, the two highways which fruitlessly drip-fed it life were now effectively blocked off. Unmarked and unassuming vehicles alike brought with them passengers who turned away any who tried to enter the old mining town. Some of these people fit the bill for construction workers, others as cops. Why they had the roads blocked didn't matter, nobody was passing without their say-so. Meanwhile, in more secluded areas away from the infrequently visited cordon, dozens of individuals prepared for a slaughter. And the people of Fairview were the unknowing livestock.
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Carol Hartman was sixty-four, and today she felt like it. She was the principal of Fairview High and had been for twenty-six years. Before that she had been a teacher, and before that she had been a student in the very same classrooms she once taught in. Ever since her husband Ron died three years ago it had just been her and Mindy, her little brown dachshund. Carol was one of the few left who was proudly born in Fairview, and while she picked through the red apples, the order was given for her to die there.
As the aging principal loaded her cart with a bundle of Red Delicious there was suddenly nothing. Or rather, there was an overabundance of oppressing inky blackness. The power was out, and in that brief time between the outage and backup generator kicking on, she hears from some distant isle the startling sound of toppling cans. She jumped at the noise, and when able to see again mere moments later she almost immediately wanted to laugh at herself.
But something was wrong.
There was a sensation at the back of her throat as if something was trapped there. She coughs, yet that only makes the feeling worse. Unable to breathe Carol begins to panic, her throat now overcome with a scratchiness that works its way down to her chest. Her hands are shaking, but not out of fear. As she feebly stumbles for help there comes the taste of blood.
Starved of oxygen, Carol only makes it ten feet before stumbling and then crashing into the onions. Several white bulbs scatter along the floor while one of the most respected members of the community retches and shakily claws at her throat which is being coated in her own blood. As the last remaining oxygen in her body disappeared she finally undergoes violent convulsions, mercifully she feels nothing when the back of her head thumps against the polished concrete.
The last sounds the greyed woman heard come from the checkout lanes. It sounded as if a brawl was taking place as carts, shelves and bodies hit decades old ground just as she did.
In forty-three seconds after infection, Carol Hartman has died. It only takes five more for her to start moving again.
Her movements began as sporadic twitches in the appendages. While that happens her bloodied mouth slowly opens and closes at intervals like one trying to breath, however her chest does not rise or fall. After ten more seconds she manages to pick herself up and stand. At first Carol’s movements are clumsy and uncoordinated, she moves in a lurching fashion, but move she does.
Then, from the front comes a worried voice and something inside her clicks. Whatever section of her mind that still functions commands her to investigate. To hunt. In a graceless near trot she moves toward this noise, her arms uselessly dangling by her sides. She bounces off the end of the bread aisle and nearly tumbles to floor in a dead heap yet manages to stay standing.
The voice, now utterly terrified, calls her name. It means nothing to her, as does the fact that the mobility scooter bound man had known Carol almost all her life. Only one desire matters in that moment. She, and a trio of others like her, converge on the old man who only manages a weak cry before they are on him.
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It has now been twenty minutes since the power went out in Fairview. If that wasn’t bad enough the cell reception had likewise gone down and it seemed like a miracle that the water remained flowing. While some sat in the dark to wait things out, others had decided to take advantage of the pleasant night and waste time outside until they could return to their lives. Unfortunately, mosquitoes and nosy neighbors were not the only things to worry about tonight.
For the residents of Greenpoint life was darker and maybe a little drearier than normal. With nothing better to do they could used the time to get some extra shuteye, mingle with the neighbors, maybe get in their weekly complaint to the super or simply panic. Whatever they chose, they were interrupted by the harsh sound of squealing tires and almost immediately after, the heavy collision of steel on steel.
From the ground floor came a, “Holy shit!” with such volume that it could only come from the boisterous trucker living in Room 103. Whether he carried good intentions or in his inebriated state simply wanted to see a show, the man left the apartment as quickly as his drunken legs could take him.
What he, and anybody else who peeped out a window or followed after, were greeted by was the sight of an awful, but almost explainable wreck. An old white Ford had somehow been turned on its side while twenty feet away the front end of a grey sedan was practically nonexistent. Yet, miraculously one of the sedan’s headlights remained attached and working. It would have been better broken, because in the light of that single beam there was the horrid and unmistakable form of a human. Busted and bloodied this broken figure was impossibly dragging itself along the dark asphalt toward the wreckage.
If one could take their eyes off that gruesome sight they would see others at the scene, four or five perhaps. It would be hard to tell with only the illumination of car lights to aid sight, however it was the sounds that told a terrible story. From within the overturned truck came a pair of screams, screams of terror that came from the depth of souls. This total fear seemed to only encourage an incessant slapping and pounding against glass from figures below. Rescuers, yet none of them were hollering for an ambulance let alone help. As the front windshield weakened by the collison started to give the yells began to turn into curses and desperate pleas that only fell on death ears. If anything the beating grew more relentless.
As it turned out the trucker had a good heart. Despite any hesitation he may have carried and a lack of shoes, the noisy drunk ran -to the best of his ability- toward the wreckage. His benevolence was rewarded with the mob turning onto him, the shadowy figures once so intent on their trapped prey quickly shifted their attention to the one that literally bounded into their arms. And as they lunged onto him, for once, the trucker didn’t make a sound as he was slowly dragged to the ground.
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