Behind a Veil of Darkness
by Dave Tyra
I posted my book, "Behind a Veil of Darkness" online at http://www.zombiefictionandothertales.com Follow a part-time college student/construction worker as he tries to survive the infection and help those around him. Here's a a small excerpt: Even though I was actively looking for an infected person, I still used the sneak and peek approach. I didn’t want to mix it up with more than one for now, so I searched for that one victim to find out the effectiveness of the motorcycle clothes. I didn’t have to search far. He’s name was Manny according to the nametag on his filthy and tattered Metro Rail uniform, and I wondered if he was an engineer. Had he been on his way to work, or on his way home? It didn’t really matter and I seldom thought of those things when I figured I might have to kill a zombie, why humanize them? It only made the killing harder, I guess that’s why we had never referred to them as people; they were the ‘infected’, or the ‘zombies’. I was hidden behind a low mound of rubble as I waited, I didn’t want to reveal myself until I was sure he was alone. When he was about thirty feet away I stood up and stepped into the road in front of him and he did exactly what I thought he would do; he broke into a run straight at me. With the tomahawk in my right hand, I did the same and we crashed together, my left shoulder impacted his chest and I felt his head impact the helmet, his teeth sliding down its smooth surface as he attempted to bite me. I grabbed the front of his shirt near his chin and pushed him back to arm’s length while he tried to duck his head down and sink his teeth into my forearm, but the heavy leather of the jacket thwarted his ravenous hunger. I brought the tomahawk down in a powerful overhand blow sinking the blade deeply into the left side of his exposed neck. He began to violently thrash about, but he wouldn’t release the tight grip on my forearm. Working the blade loose from his neck, I raised it again, but spun it in my hand bringing the spike down onto the side of his head. It skipped off digging a deep furrow through the flesh and embedded in his shoulder; I jerked it free again and slammed the point in to the handle, deep inside his skull. His body went rigid, then collapsed to the ground wrenching the grip of the tomahawk from my grasp. I bent quickly and tried to pull it out, but the skull was holding the arrowhead shape of the point and wouldn’t relinquish it, so I violently twisted the weapon and finally it broke free with shards of bone mixed with the hair. I stood up and quickly looked about, it was a clear mid-spring morning with the sun warming the day, with white clouds drifting through the blue sky on their way to the east. It would have been the perfect day to take your children, or your dog to the park to run in the cut grass. Instead, I stood over a man with a bloodied tomahawk in my shaking hand, my breath rapid and ragged, a month ago I would have smiled and nodded to him as we passed on the street, today he lay brutally butchered at my feet. I crouched to wipe the blood and bone fragments on his shirt and caught movement in the corner of my eye. I spun on the balls of my feet and stared into my reflection in a large plate glass window of someone’s destroyed home. I wiped off the tomahawk and returned it to the sheath hanging from my web gear and then walked to the window to stare at my image. It was the first time I had seen what I looked like in helmet, veil and motorcycle clothes, with my web gear, the tomahawk, and the Carbine. Something had been happening to me since the earthquake, the fear I had known was being replaced by hate for the infected. Now it wasn’t fear, which caused me to shake, it was adrenaline; it was the thrill of the hunt and the rush of victory. Somewhere deep inside of me the last flickering flame of compassion was snuffed out. I was dressed to kill, and the fear I had known before was hidden behind a veil of darkness. Contact me with comments at dtyra1950@gmail.com Click here to read or post comments.
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