Music of the Dead

     Screeching, an overheated car came to a halt in the field beside them. Taylor, Natalie, Isaac, and Zac watched as a person rolled out of the passenger side door onto the green grass. He struggled on all fours to crawl away from the car, looking back only briefly to see if someone was following.

Only a few yards away from the crashed tour bus, the guy tried to make a getaway from the lifeless corpse that exited the car behind him. As he stood up, the walking dead managed to grab onto the shirt on his back and pull him closer. The man reached out for the group hoping that they would help him.

Everyone just stood there watching helplessly as the deceased body of someone that poor man had obviously known began to rip him to shreds. The dead one looked exactly like Kate had when she passed, and was doing exactly the same thing… attacking the living.

“Yeah,” Zac started as they all watched the dead person eat the man alive, “let’s get out of here.”

“We can’t leave Kate!” Natalie cried pointing to the shadow on the tour bus that was looming close to the door.

“She’ll be fine in there,” Zac said not wanting to argue.

“He’s right we have to leave her. She’s infected and we can’t risk any more of us getting that virus or whatever it is,” Isaac told them as they began to walk towards the highway.

They could feel the heat coming off of the black pavement as they stood alongside the packed road. There was a steady flow of traffic on both sides coming into and going out of the city. Overhead, a blue and white sign read “Welcome to Louisville, KY. Home of the Kentucky Derby.”

“Come on,” Isaac motioned for them to follow as he began to walk in the direction of civilization.

“What are we doing?” Taylor asked trying to understand what was going on. “Shouldn’t we call for help? We just watched two people die and come back to life suddenly deciding that cannibalism was ok.”

“We can call the cops when we get somewhere safe, out of the way.” Isaac told him as he pulled out his cell phone.  “I’m not getting any signal anyway.”

“I was for a second,” Taylor added holding his shaking wives hand comfortingly. “I just got a text message from mom and dad.”

The other two boys looked at him knowing that there was a chance that they could be dealing with the sickness back home too.

“Mom said that one of our neighbors had been sick and this morning they found her in our garden trying to get into the house. They noticed something was wrong and called the police. The cops had managed to take her away. She had been infected by her son who had died the night before.”

“Oh God,” Natalie whimpered as she struggled to find her own cell phone. “Damn it I left my phone on the bus!”

“Don’t worry about it now,” Taylor told her as the city came into view. “It’ll be ok.”

Up in the sky above, a loud whizzing sound suddenly crept up on them. The pulsing noise doubled as it got closer. The group looked up to see two Army choppers heading into Louisville.

The more they walked, the more traffic that accumulated on the roads. By the time they reached the first exit there were people everywhere. Some on bikes, on motorcycles, in RVs, all of them seeming to be in a hurry.

“What is going on?” Zac mumbled to himself.

Isaac checked his Blackberry again which suddenly had a signal for the moment. “They’re saying that this illness is widespread and people are being infected by their own deceased loved ones and neighbors. They say do not panic and to stay indoors with all of your doors and windows locked until everything blows over.”

“Apparently, no one is listening,” Zac said nodding towards the backed up line of cars on the entry ramp opposite them.

Suddenly, screams and gunshots could be heard the closer they got to a populated area. All four of them went silent not knowing what to say or do, until Isaac broke their fear induced pause.

“They’ve also declared a state of emergency for the whole country and those in the military are being sent back into active duty for further assistance. There are reports that most hospitals and jails are full and to be patient with emergency services because they are getting an overwhelming amount of calls.”

“So basically if any of us start getting sick and turning into one of those zombie creatures then we’re on our own.” Zac said sarcastically.

“Pretty much.” Isaac agreed with a sigh as they walked down a crowded street that ran downtown.

“Then what are we doing?” Taylor wondered as they weaved in and out of other people trying to hurriedly get to their destinations.

“I vote we get a car, and get the hell out of here,” Natalie replied her voice quivering from holding back tears.

“If I remember correctly, there is an Enterprise rental car place downtown somewhere,” Isaac told everyone. “It wasn’t too far from the venue we always play at when we come here.”

No one contested to the plan and continued to follow Isaac through the matrix of alleyways. It was going on 7 PM by then and the sun was beginning to set. Dark shadows loomed around every corner, but the screams of other people in the city could be heard everywhere. The group knew what was probably happening to the victims, but no one said a word as they continued to walk.

Rounding another corner, they turned down an almost completely darkened alley between two tall buildings. Slowly, they made their way through piles of garbage and empty cardboard boxes.

“Shhh!” Isaac stopped suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Zac mouthed straining his ears to hear whatever Isaac was talking about.

They all stood still and looked around until Taylor spotted them. Silently nudging Zac’s arm, Taylor pointed in the direction of three very slow moving individuals.

Only able to see their silhouettes, the group watched as they came closer blocking the entrance to the street ahead. Their arms outstretched as if to grab anyone in their path and devour them on the spot. Small groans escaped their lips that eventually turned to growls the closer they got to their prey.

“Oh my God!” Natalie yelled unable to stay quiet. “Run!”

With that, all four of them spun around to go back out of the alley the other way, but were halted once again by yet another walking corpse.

Natalie let out an ear piercing scream that seemed to copy those they had heard when they first got into the city. 

On both sides, the infected people stalked forward blocking every way of escape. Isaac picked up an abandoned crow bar from the ground beside a dumpster causing the other two brothers to search for possible weapons.

Armed with only tools and metal poles, the boys poised themselves. As the walking bodies stumbled near, they could now make out their features. Two of them were females, the other a homeless bum, but all three of them had white eyes and red liquid dripping from their mouths. The boys surrounded Natalie, taking steps backwards until there was no where left to go. They were almost on top of the infected one behind them when a loud gunshot was heard.

Bam! Bam! Bam! All three of the flesh eaters were shot in the head causing them to fall to the ground. Their finally dead bodies hit the pavement with a thud, revealing the savior.

“Get down!” demanded the one with the handgun.

The group dropped to all fours, hovering around each other for protection.

With perfect aim, the zombie behind them was hit between the eyes and knocked down by the blow. It too hit the ground hard and this time not one of them got back up.

,a href=”http://acinematicsunrise.com/10in10/?page_id=91″> .six.