EYE OF THE STORM: Robert C. Eccles
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011I’d figured my little cabin in Michigan’s sparsely populated upper peninsula would provide a refuge from the onslaught, but I was wrong. I’d had a few days of peace, but then came the morning I was awakened by a terrible pounding on my bedroom wall. Below the pounding I could hear something else: a low, gurgling moaning sound.
I slowly spread the blinds apart and peeked out. In the foot-deep snow I saw a set of tracks leading from the woods to just beneath my bedroom window.
I pulled the blinds up and a horrible, decaying human face materialized on the other side of the glass, staring back at me with dead eyes. I stumbled backward as the monster punched a bony hand through the window, sending shards of glass and strips of rancid flesh skittering across the floor.
I moved toward the shotgun that I kept next to the bed, stepping as gingerly as possible so as not to cut my feet on the broken glass. As I reached for the gun the creature swiped at me, its nails scratching my arm, leaving several trails of blood beads. I grabbed the shotgun and yanked my arm back, and in my rush to back away from the monstrosity I tromped on the broken glass, cutting my feet in several places.
I raised the shotgun, furious that the beast had gotten the best of me. I leveled the gun at the creature’s head and pulled both triggers. The monster’s head disappeared in a cloud of stinking flesh, matted hair and rotten brain tissue.
Scanning the treeline I saw a dozen or more similar creatures shuffling out of the woods toward my cabin. If I hadn’t stocked up on shells for my shotgun before hunkering down in the cabin I might have been overrun. As it was I spent the next hour blasting the approaching monsters from various vantage points around my small sanctuary. By the time the creatures all lay headless and smoldering in the gore-splattered snow the inside of my cabin was thick with gray smoke and the acrid stench of spent shotgun shells. The barrels of my weapon were hot to the touch as I set the gun aside. Out of breath and with my back against the wall, I slid into a seated position.
As I pondered the quiet following the attack I wondered whether this might be the “eye of the storm”, so to speak. Would more monsters come? And as I examined the wounds I had suffered at the start of the onslaught I also wondered whether a zombie had to bite you to infect you. My scratched arm was turning an odd green color, as were my cut feet. The affected extremities were numb to the touch.
I must have passed out, because when next I opened my eyes it was dusk, and the strange green color had traveled all the way up my arm and legs. I heard moaning outside the cabin, along with shuffling footsteps approaching through the snow. I pulled myself up as best I could, my nearly useless legs fighting me all the way, and looked out the window. Zombies beyond number shambled toward me. My last sane thought was that the storm’s eye wall had arrived, and I wasn’t going to make it through alive.
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© 2011 Robert C. Eccles
