The Leaning Tower

From the corner of Richard's ruined mind, he recognized the ding of opening elevator doors as some sort of signal. No longer able to process what the sound might portend, Richard was drawn to the sound by the undeniable force of his unrelenting hunger. Like a living fire blazing within him, the only thing still living within him, Richard's hunger grew with each moment until it was raw torment, a twisting, gaping need that filled him with an unknowable void that must be filled. Had he any semblance of self left in his shattered mind, this terrible need would have destroyed it, ravenously devoured any soul or mind or sanity in this thing, obliterated through this hunger's singular insatiable desire.

Staggering forward, mindful only of the sounds of the footsteps and heavy breathing that followed the ding of the opening elevator doors, Richard made his way out of the wreck that used to be his office. Moving in a straight line, clambering over an upturned chair instead of going around it, doing the same for the boxes of paper and the file cabinet that were now strewn across his previously immaculate office, the thing that was Richard made his way into the hall.

Without the hesitation of thought and doubt, Richard began his slow stumble toward the sounds of a man cursing softly in the office down the hall. The closer Richard got to the source, the more his hunger gnawed at him. His mind was hungry, his very blood seemed to teem with an angry, buzzing need. He began moaning in an ecstasy of anticipation.

As Richard began to moan, the large man sitting atop a mahogany executive desk dressing a leg wound looked up. The man on the desk was easily twice the mass of Richard, and not the type of man who, in saner times, would or should be afraid of a slight, and slightly pudgy man like Richard, but these were not sane times, and the large man's eyes widened in shock and fear immediately. This man, most recently nicknamed "Juice," looked around the office desperately for something to use as a weapon even as Richard pushed forward down the hall, moaning.

In the corner, dusty and unused, near a plaque for the 1999 Century Insurance Invitational, lay a cheaply gold plated golf club. Juice seized the club and held it in his trembling hands as Richard moaned his way into the office, hands outstretched and grasping, mouth crazily snapping, strings of thick saliva pouring down his chin. Juice pulled the club back, raising its weight over his right shoulder, poised to strike, feeling the reassuring bulge of his massive frame ready for the blow.

Richard stepped forward again, still moaning, and that was all Juice needed. That step brought him within range of the club and Juice yelled crazily as he swung, ripping the air with the speed and ferocity of the strike. The weighted wooden bulb streaked through the air crashed into Richards face like a miniature freight train, sending teeth flying from his head like tiny bloody shrapnel, crushing his jaw and pushing it obscenely off to the side, where it hung, stupid and useless. Even as the wooden club's head smashed into Richard's face, destroying it, it broke from the shaft. The continued motion of the sharp aluminum stick ran like a blade down Richard's neck, slicing it if not cleanly, efficiently in a jagged line, deep enough to expose the windpipe. Blood immediately began to ooze in thick, curdled streams from the frightful gash.

For a moment, Juice felt triumphant. He had connected with that ghoul hard enough to kill a god and he knew it. But he wasn't fighting gods, or men, and though his face was an unrecognizable lump of crushed bones and blood poured in thick streams down his chest, Richard didn't go down. Instead he reached out and grasped Juice, pulling and clutching with surprising strength. Juice, still holding the ruined golf club, shoved Richard back with all of his strength. Richard flew back a couple of feet and crashed to the floor in a heap, but before Juice could react, Richard began crawling toward him, and now the moaning started again, this time sounding thick and gurgling as the air in his lungs mixed with the streams of blood still pouring from his ragged neck and face. Juice was beginning to panic, and, thoughtless with fear and rage, raised the stump of a golf club and brought it down again and again on the crawling, bloody former actuary. Juice was a powerful man, and the force of the blows knocked Richard prone, but the instant the club lifted from his back, Richard was beginning his crawl again, and before Juice could realize what was happening, Richard had a hold of his leg and brought his ruined face to it, trying to close the dangling mess of a jaw on Juice' leg. Roaring, Juice raised the bent and nearly worthless club into the air and drove it down like a lance into Richard's back. He could feel the shock of the club as it first hit Richard, then pierced him, crunching and cutting with its saw tooth tip first through skin and muscle, and then through bone and gristle. For a split second, Juice thought he could feel the thing rip a hole right through Richards heart before the tip slammed its way out the front of Richard's chest, through the thin carpet, and into the plywood, pinning Richard like a bug against the floor. Juice, raised his head and began to howl in primal, triumphant rage, when he felt the crushing pressure of Richards decimated, nearly toothless jaw bear down upon his leg in precisely the spot where that bitch had clawed him earlier. Looking down more in amazement now than pain, he realized that this thing was trying to gum him to death and he nearly laughed when one of the teeth still left in Richard's mouth managed to push its way through the makeshift bandage Juice had applied to his leg. That single, sharp piercing rekindled his rage, and juice jerked his foot out of the grasp of the squirming bloody thing, raised it chest high, and began to drive his foot down into the skull of Richard again and again. A few moments later, panting, Juice realized it was over. Richard's head was a mess of bone, brain, blood, and hair, and Juice was covered in the same. He sat heavily on the desk, panting.

A few moments later, Juice jerked his head up, realizing dimly that he'd been staring at the wall opposite him, but not remembering why or for how long. He knew he was in trouble, and was vaguely curious about the corpse on the floor, but even as he tried to remember where he was, the answers seemed to dance out of reach. Vaguely, he understood that he was beginning to drool, but before he could reach up to wipe his chin, his pupils expanded, and the world was painfully bathed in light. Moaning, he reached out, and stood up. He was slipping, his memories growing harder and harder to reach. A moment later, Juice tried to remember his name. He thought for a moment it had something to do with water, but that passed from his mind as quickly as it came, not to be replaced. Even as he tried to concentrate, his feet shuffled forward. He began to become aware, as if from a distance, that he had stopped shaking. A calm settled over his mind, erasing not only worries, but thoughts, and after the thoughts went, memories. With a blank mind the most studious Buddhist monk would envy, the thing that used to be Juice became aware he was hungry.

Turning point

The bite occured quickly, without Richard even realizing it. Thus is the nature of an emergency situation that in the thick of great terror a man can sustain a grievous injury and carry on, oblivious. When the shambling undead finally broke his door, richard had retreated, backpedaling out of desperation against his floor to ceiling office window, pinned against the glass. Richard was not a stupid man, not by a long shot. An actuary at a midsize reinsurance company, he had spent most of his adult life cooped up in an office, balancing risk versus premiums. He had, he realized too late, spent precious little time fighting hordes of marauding hungry corpses. His trained actuarial mind kicked in, quickly assessing the options, none of which looked particularly pleasant. He could, he thought, attempt to fight, but years of fine wine and fine meals had not left him the specimen of physical prowess. He had nowhere left to run, no weapons, no barriers. Doing the math between the unbearable agony of being ripped asunder by the cold dead hands and rotting teeth of his former city dwellers versus a long fall with a short stop from his office window, Richard made the only viable choice. Reaching forward toward the approaching horde, he grabbed a heavy lucite paper weight off of his desk. Hefting it, he swung the paperweight in a powerful, if rather ungraceful arc, bringing it crashing into the window. Initially, he thought nothing happened. Then a split second later, the glazing gave way and the entire window shattered, raining thousands of tiny glass safety pebbles upon him.

Richard turned, looking out the window at the expanse of nothing that lay below. He edged his way out to the precipice, the toes of his neatly polished shoes poking out into space. Even as he contemplated the gap before him, the first of the ghouls grabbed his suit coat. The pull shocked him out of his silent contemplation, and with no more hesitation, Richard's exquisitely trained mathematical mind turned immediately to survival. With a shrug, Richard sloughed the six hundred dollar jacket off, grabbed the window frame, and swung himself out, onto the ledge.

Gripping the edge of the window frame Richard edged as far as he was able, terrified to let go. The first thing he noticed out on the ledge was the wind, ferocious and cold, it threatened at every turn to hurl him off the ledge. The second thing he noticed were the hands and heads of the moaning horde poking fearlessly over the edge, grabbing at his hands and arms as he tried to stay anchored to the building, so many floors over the concrete that defined his ruined city. This must have been when he was bitten. Its the only thing that made sense, but Richard didn't feel it. He finally relinquished his grip from the window frame not from the pain of a ghoul's crushing jaw, but because the undead began trying to literally climb his gripping arms. Pulling free of their grasp was difficult, made even more so by his terror at being unmoored, kept on the side of the building by nothing other than his rather untrustworthy sense of balance. When he succeeded finally, in pulling himself free, he edged as quickly as he dared about six feet from the window frame.

Richard was only on the ledge a moment when the first ghoul fell silently from the window. Failing in their desperate unthinking need to recognize the inviolable laws of gravity and distance, they streamed from the window after Richard, each plummeting hundreds of feet to the unyielding pavement below. After only a few moments, the stream of undead stopped, the last one moaning slightly, reaching and clawing up at Richard even as he fell and ruptured on the pavement below. To his continued horror, Richard could see one of the zombies below dragging its ruined body with undoubtedly shattered arms across the pavement, still pursuing some ghastly meal, trailing its own organs behind its halved body. On shaking legs, whimpering, Richard edged slowly back to the windows edge, and crawled gratefully inside.

A few moments later, Richard jerked his head up, realizing dimly that he'd been staring at the wall opposite him, but not remembering why or for how long. He knew he should try to reach his wife, his kids, but even as he thought this, their names seemed to dance out of reach. Vaguely, he understood that he was beginning to drool, but before he could reach up to wipe his chin, his pupils expanded, and the world was painfully bathed in light. Moaning, he reached out, staggering forward. His precise, orderly actuarial mind was slipping, memories growing slowly harder and harder to reach. A moment later, Richard slowly, laboriously, tried to remember his name. Even as he tried to concentrate, his feet shuffled forward. He began to become aware, as if from a distance, that he had stopped shaking. A calm settled over his mind, erasing not only worries, but thoughts, and after the thoughts went, memories. With a blank mind the most studious Buddhist monk would envy, the thing
that used to be Richard became aware he was hungry.