Rise of the DEAD Chapter 3: The One Who Survives "Speech" [Thoughts] "" ---Dunwich, Miskatonic Valley USA--- Tired, oozing blood from over a dozen wounds and covered in a layer of soot and maggots, George crawled through the muddy leaves of the cemetery. A stout man with salt-and-pepper hair, he weighed close to three hundred pounds, perhaps explaining why three flesh craving ZOMBIES lurched forwards from the grave. Oily hair caked with blood felled forward into his eyes, the viscosity of the coagulating fluid gluing it firmly to a stubbled cheek. Maggots fell from his long hair, squirming into the grass as he reached the wrought iron gates of the graveyard. Squinting through the amorphous fog, twin headlights filtered through the darkness, dredging up some primordial hope in his heart. He had come with his sister to place a wreath on their father's grave, Jonathan Russo had dropped dead of a massive brain aneurysm twenty years ago that day, it had been a Sunday. While driving through the cemetery, they were attacked by twin madmen near the crypts, eyeballs dangling grotesquely from their sockets. They were misshapen monsters, tall lurching creatures whose worm-ridden faces gorged themselves on sister's flesh. He ran through the graves, his soft-soled shoes crunching the stiff, brittle leaves underfoot. It came first as a lingering sigh weaving a rich tapestry of pain through the area. The harvest moon bulged hideously from the night-sky gazing at the proceedings with disinterest, and then it became an incessant moaning cry echoing from the pit itself! The ground under his feet began to churn with movement, fleshless fingers grasping for the freedom of the upper realms. Mottled hair rose from the mire, a gleaming skull shining in the light of the moon, with it came the head, a mass of eye and tooth. The wrought iron gates slammed shut, his numb fingers fumbling with the padlock before latching it firmly to the chains. They were approaching now, he could see their amorphous shadows weaving through the graves while others pulled themselves out of the mud. He ran for the van, knowing that the locked gates would not soon hold so many of their kind. The headlights were on high, their occupants long dead. George scrambled into the back, tripping over half-devoured corpses, and fired the engine. Outside the creatures were already amassing against the iron hinges. "Damnitt!" He swore as the van lurched forward, a black plume of smoke spilling from the muffler. The undead had broken through now, shambling their way towards him, smelling his living flesh. Putrid gray skin flaked off their rotting limbs as they brushed their hands against the doors. The van began to move, albeit slowly, then finally sped up, leaving the decaying horrors to seek out closer food. [Never thought I'd make it out of there alive! Those...those things just ate Barbara!] He passed several others on the road back down to Willard, freshly dead neighbors and friends following the trail of his scent. Two hours had elapsed by now since the horrific occurrence at the cemetery, and not once did he see any signs of a human settlement. The monstrosities wandered aimlessly around the farms in the area, there were no more living beings in the area. Willard was now a city of the living dead. Unbeknownst to him, the three corpses lying back in the van began to stir. The female, at one time a beautiful girl with blue eyes, vomited up her intestines on the floor, her internal organs too badly damaged as the group mauled her. Her eyes had been gouged out, bleeding sockets dripping rivulets of crimson, staining the faces of her compatriots. The men, each missing vital portions of their faces, scrambled to their feet between the rocking and bumps from the drive, their noses and lips ripped off and devoured. George didn't hear them sneak behind him until it was too late. He didn't even feel it as the ghouls ripped his larynx out. ---Japan, Nerima Ward. Nabiki's bedroom--- "" His CODEC warbled as the voice sputtered and died after it's impromptu speech. Things were not going well, the USA would soon be overrun with carriers and there was nothing he could do. As soon as carriers appeared in sizable numbers the area had to be wiped clean, nothing could stop them, he just hoped no one infected escaped the country. "What was that?" Nabiki awoke, her eyes fluttering open. Not the best type of morning person, she hadn't wanted to wake up from the safety and security of her warm bed especially with Ranma dozing next to her. They were in the 'spoon' position, his arm nestled under her breasts, she couldn't remember the last time she felt so safe, so secure, so loved. He grunted from behind her, pulling her closer. "Don't worry about it, I'll deal with it." He inhaled deeply the scent of her hair. She was sleeping in one of her father's old dress shirts and panties, he had put his jumpsuit in the wash and lay in just a muscle shirt and boxers. Her silky legs intertwined with his under the covers. "The CODEC will scan the satellites around your planet for information on any kind of outbreak." "Come on, I have to get up for school." She ripped out of his arms, throwing the covers off them both. "You'd better not let Akane see you like this in my room." "She anything like my Akane?" He leaned forward on one elbow. "Definitely." Baring her nude body before him while getting dressed, she struck a suggestive pose. "You like?" She ran her hands over her breasts. "Definitely." Suddenly he was out of bed, tackling her to the floor, his thigh pressing urgently into her crotch. "I like it a lot." The kiss was blissful, her tongue darting in and out of his mouth. "Come on then lover boy, let's hit the showers." She threw on her bathrobe, offering him another one. Together they made their way to the bath. Undressing, neither embarrassed by their shared nudity, they washed, rinsed then soaked in the furo. "It's spreading." Ranma's tone dropped significantly. Nabiki stiffened as their conversation returned to one of business. "Those contacts I asked you about yesterday won't be needed, soon the plague will spread all across the globe." He laid a warm hand on her foot. "It's already starting in the US." "W-what do we do than?" She was worried now, the prospect of those creatures across the world chilled her to the bone. The plague would spread to all corners of the globe, chaos would reign supreme, society would fall, the world would be plunged into anarchy! The prospects of that kind of world would be enough to drive her to suicide. "If we can't stop it then what do we do?" He had already told her last night he hadn't the weapons to fight off a major ZOMBIE offensive. Aside from basic weapons and some tactical nukes, he was naked in this world. Even his soliton radar system was on the fritz. "Start preparing. Find someplace relatively impenetrable and stockpile supplies." He stood, helping her to the door. [I'm not sure that's even a good idea, it might be better to move someplace isolated, an island maybe.] "I've activated the homing beacon on my CODEC so Biotech will send a rescue team for me." Dressed in his analogue's red silk shirt and black pants, Ranma made his way down the stairs to face the Tendo family. [This might get tricky, I hope Nabs can cover if something happens.] "Good morning Ranma-kun! Did you sleep well?" Kasumi was busy bussing the table, laying out the rice cooker and serving dishes. Soun sat off to the side reading his paper, the headline of which read: "Mysterious disease spreads in United States of America!" The horror was yet to come. "You came home awfully late didn't you? You weren't here for dinner." Nabs had taken a large portion of food up to her room last night, thinking it best not to reveal Ranma just yet. After sampling Kasumi's culinary skills he was eager to taste the delightful breakfast she was sure to have made. "Ah...yeah! I was out late last night." "Doing exactly what!!!!????" Akane came storming in, mallet-sama poised to embed itself into the fleshy softness of his skull. "YOU were out LATE last night because you were out with Shampoo! Or Ukyo! Or both!" The very idea stewed in her imagination, conjuring forth scenes of utter depravity she deemed realistic for Ranma to participate in. "You jerk! Both at once!?" She swung the heavy object down over his head, fully expecting his body to crumple after such an assault. He raised a palm to the heavens, catching the flat end of her mallet in his hand. Ending with a deft twist of his wrist and a pull from his hand into a subspace pocket, and Akane was looking down the barrel of an Armstech Ltd. 100 gigavolt linear launcher. "Don't...even...try." He pumped the fuse, assured the weapon had a fresh cartridge he whipped the firearm up and pulled the trigger in one swift movement. Akane thought as he lowered the heavy piece of machinery to his side, the fuse glowing a pulsing azure. A sharp burning sensation brought her attention to her hands...which were on fire. "You jerk! What did you do that for!?!" The scent of burning wood permeated the room. Poor mallet-sama was no more than a pile of ash on the table. "You attacked me. Be thankful I shot the weapon, not the wielder. I'm through taking your shit!" He spun on a heel, bringing the launcher to bear, his sights dead-locked on the red bow above her heart. The fuse died suddenly, the launcher cooling without the constant flow of energy. "Damn it all! Now I'll have to convert a fuse again!" Nabiki sweatdropped, laughing nervously as her family alternated between bewilderment and awe at his new weapon. "C'mon Ranma, I have a few things you need to do before school!" "What kind of things Nabiki?" He stashed the launcher again, patting Akane condescendingly on the head as he passed. "Just some things to work off your debt." Nabiki grabbed his wrist and flew out the door, not in the mood for her family's questions. Thankfully her dimension's Ranma had left his school bag laying in the foyer. "I'll se you at school Akane! C'mon Ranma!" Dragging the otherdimensional Ranma behind her, Nabiki tried to arrive at school unseen by any of his erstwhile fiancˇes. They had just reached the school gates when his CODEC let off a warning warble. "" Ranma's face drew back, ashen, as Nabiki struggled to wake him from his trance. Fumbling in his bag, fingers shaking like branches in a fall breeze, he drew out a sleek black laptop. Before her stunned eyes, he slid the main CODEC unit off his belt and affixed it to a port on the top of the computer. "This isn't good, I may have to use a nuke." He brought up the central satellite datatrack grid, a pictorial representation of the outbreak in America culled from the simultaneous use of six satellites. "See this red area?" The entire eastern seaboard of the US was immediately covered red. "That is the extent of the outbreak at this time." He felt her shudder as the red area grew to encompass all of the continental United States and half of Mexico. "This is how bad the plague will be in 72 hours." "Can't you do something? I thought you knew how to deal with these things!" They were in the Phys. Ed. Storage room, a small shack by the back of the school. "I'm an operative! I'm not a one man army! I can handle those things in _small_ numbers, not the thousands we're looking at here. As an operative, I only comb a fifteen mile radius for survivors, evade death and go back. THAT'S ALL I DO!" He was standing now, seething that Nabiki hadn't understood he couldn't do anything about this gruesome turn of events. "The main CODEC receiver has assured me that now further ZOMBIE carriers are in this area save for the multitude I destroyed when I arrived, we'd be better off going somewhere isolated, with land to farm and fresh water to drink, somewhere like a fortress." Nabiki was normally fast in understanding abstract concepts, you had to be for her line of work, but the idea that in 72 hours the very world might cease to be seemed a distant event, not even possible in her mind. Even as the mind rejected the idea, her instincts told her that the man in front of her was speaking the truth. "I can't think of anyplace like that in Japan...maybe China?" "Possibly, I'll have the CODEC search for places using the parameters I mentioned during class. I'll see you at lunch with my results." He leaned forward, kissing her soft lips, running his tongue over her teeth. "Thanks for the schedule! I'm gonna need it!" He called to her retreating form. [Let's see, English with...Miss Hinako Ninomiya?!?] ---Biotech safe haven--- "Wow! Look at the size of the kitchen!" Kasumi almost fainted dead away as the doors had opened on her new house. After the horrific events at the jumpstation, Col. Choiler had brought it upon himself to see to their wellbeing. Hinako had gone a bit mad at the idea that there were branching alternate dimensions existing parallel to their own and had since been on tranquilizers to calm her rattled nerves. "Kasumi, if you don't need me I think I'll take a bath and get some sleep." Hinako, in child form, plodded off to the bathroom to rinse away twelve hours worth of fatigue from the hyperlink train ride from Biotech central to the suburbs where agent Ranma Saotome's home was situated. Mansion would have been a better description. As one entered through the main entrance they were assaulted by the enormous staircase that traveled to the far wall and split, leading to two separate landings. From the ground floor foyer was a tearoom with a paneled glass wall stretching from floor to ceiling, and the kitchen which was actually divided by a rushing stream into a sitting area and kitchen proper. The house was built into the face of a hillock, which happened to house a small spring of cold water, after this discovery Ranma had ordered the spring's waters directed _throughout_ the house with small bridges built over the canals. Thoroughly potable, the water acted as a soothing sound that echoed tranquility throughout the domicile. In a time of outbreak or plague, the mansion could be withdrawn into the hillock itself and locked for protection. Kasumi just thought the mixture of high-tech gadgetry and nature in the house gave it a quaint aura. Hinako was still in a bit of shock considering what she had gone through. It wasn't bad enough she saw people torn to sheds and eaten by ghouls in her own world, then survived an explosion at the jumpstation, but also the Ranma that she had slowly begun to fall for was lost in infinity. Still, she had to admit, the house was gorgeous. The bathroom she had entered by crossing over a canal of fresh water was always warm, never too hot, and never too cold. Three walls of metal faced her along with a picture window on the fourth which overlooked the gardens below. A multi-tiered fountain spilled warm jets of water from the centre where one could change the temperature if they so desired. Detachable showerheads lined the far wall, soap, shampoo and conditioner lying on small shelves off to the side. After a long soak in the bathes Hinako walked off into the myriad hallways searching for a bedroom. The second floor held four bedrooms, with ajoining bathrooms and a smaller bath; Ranma's expansive library stretched out seemingly forever at the end of the hall. Reaching a bedroom obviously made for a woman, Hinako stripped off her yellow dress, now stained with blood, dirt and less savory bodily fluids. Retreating to the soft, giving mattress in the centre of the room, her dreams were occupied by nothing more than simple fluff. The nightmares had ended. ---To be continued---