Road to The Undead

I can see their mouths moving, talking, screaming, laughing. They text on their phones and watch loud videos of idiots acting out different stunts. I look away from them and out the window. The trees and the road zoom by in a green and greyish blur. I look back at everyone sitting with their legs in the aisle, stomping around. We’re all in an old bus that creaks as the engine roars louder than a normal one. I can’t hear anything, though. I put my headphones in a long time ago to drown out the people that I am not so fond of.

I didn’t have much of a choice to go on this trip. My best friend is the popular one and she pretty much begged me on her knees to come with her. We are supposed to be going to some camp in these secluded woods where only the ones who are specially invited are allowed to come. My best friend, Amy, says it’s a spiritual camp for people to find their “inner peace” or something like that. I guarantee it’s just a bunch of partying considering the people on this bus that are going are not spiritual whatsoever. I needed to get out of the house, though, so I shrugged my shoulders and packed a bag.

Amy taps my shoulder and I tug one of my earphones out. “Having fun?” She asks with a smile.

I didn’t want to put a damper on her trip, so I smiled and nodded, telling her i was just enjoyin the scenery before we got there.

“Oh, you won’t believe the beautiful scenery when we get there! The trees are taller than you can imagine, shooting up to the sky and there’s even a little lake with a waterfall deeper in the woods that I can take you to! The water in the lake is so clear that you can see all the way to the bottom when you’re floating in the middle. It’s like an iridescent blue and the fish are all different colors.The mist off of the waterfall glimmers with a rainbow when the sun is shining. Oh, it’s amazing to just float out in the lake or sun bathe on the rocks.”

I think about her detailed description of the scenery there and I start to feel a bit of an excitement, but only to see the woods and the lake. “Awesome, can’t wait,” I say as I remember something; I didn’t bring a bathing suit. I knew there weren’t any pools, but I totally didn’t even think about the lakes there. I’ll just have to pretend I’m on my period or not feeling well.

I put my headphone back in and look back out the window because Amy’s interest drifted towards the boys on the bus again. We’ve been going down a long, winding road for awhile now. Nothing out there but woods and birds. My songs turned into lullabies and I began to drift off into a light sleep, leaning my head against the window, feeling the vibrations of the bus.

. . .

The side of my head smashes hard against the window and I wake up, startled, holding my head and scrunching my face up in pain. There are no seat belts on the bus and next thing I know, we are all being thrown against our seats and into the aisles. I look over at Amy and then the sight of sharp tree branches crashing through the windows catches my eye. I scream and grab Amy. I pull her down on the ground, using the large seats as shields from shattering glass and large pieces of wood ripping through the bus. Everyone is screaming and I can see kids being flown across the bus from the impact of hitting trees in the woods. I dared to peek out of our window and I can see the bus is still plowing through the woods, hitting everything in sight. Finally we hit a tree almost wider than the bus with branches sharper than swords piercing the metal sides. The screams lessened until they stopped altogether.

Amy and I were still conscious and barely injured. We sit there in silence for a minute or two, but then I can feel my hand slipping on the floor. I bring my hand up and there’s blood all over it. Confused and afraid, I look down on the floor and I can see a puddle of blood flowing into me. I gasp and Amy looks over to see the horror. She screams. I rise up from the ground to see the rest of the damage and I am so in shock from the sight that I can’t speak. Amy is up beside me cursing under her breath. The bus driver has a tree branch stabbing through his abdomen. The rest of the kids that were on the bus with us were lying on the ground or slumped over their seats, bleeding out.

Amy notices a boy, Todd, moving. He has a large stick hanging out of his leg, but the rest of him seems fine. She carefully steps over to him and kneels by him, asking him if he’s okay and if he can get up. While she helps him, I walk through the bus making sure there was no one else that was still alive. I find Tammy, a preppy girl that I had no interest in ever being friends with, curled up in a wall on the ground in front of her seat. She’s bawling her eyes out but she wasn't’ really hurt, besides a couple scratches from the glass shards. I help her up and send her over to help Amy with Todd. I find and help a few others that were only slightly injured and shaken up. Most everyone was already dead, though…

Our driver was dead, most of the other kids were dead, and we were somewhere in the middle of the woods, lost. “What the hell even happened?” I ask the others.

One of the boys that had an arm full of glass shards spoke up. “I was sitting in the front near the driver. I heard him start cursing and then his head started twitching real bad, I didn’t know what was wrong with him. But his foot slammed on the gas and then he started swerving. That’s when I just slid down under my seat and closed my eyes. I knew something bad was gonna happen.”

“I wonder what was wrong with him,” Amy says between sobs.

All of a sudden I start to hear something that sounds like a growl. I shush everyone and tell them to listen. We all hear it this time. It’s coming from the driver. We all look at each other and huddle up closer. One of the other boys decides to go and find out what was wrong with the driver. We thought he was dead. Tommy, the boy who volunteered to go find out what the noise was, tiptoes up behind the driver. His head was slumped forward but there were gargling sounds now coming from him. Tommy reaches out his arm and touches the driver’s shoulder. At that instant the driver’s head snaps up and turns toward Tommy. Before he could take his arm back, the driver grabs him and tries to bite him. Tommy falls backwards after he’s able to pull free. The driver is growling and biting the air, trying to get up and attack us, but he can’t move because the branch that went through him also went through the seat and trapped him there. Tommy runs back to where we were.

“There’s foam and blood dripping out of his mouth and his eyes are a disgusting yellow mixed with a blood red. Like, it covers his whole eye, not just the pupil. There isn’t even any white in his eyes anymore. What’s wrong with him?!” Tommy tries to talk to us, but he’s out of breath.

There are more growls and movements coming from the other kids laying dead. I know I checked every single one of them to make sure they weren't breathing. Something isn’t right here. “Grab anything and everything you can and get the hell off this bus. Now!” I yell at the others as I grab my bag that I packed and pick up a few other water bottles laying around.

The others jump around the kids on the ground and grab their stuff plus anything else they can carry. The dead ones are starting to twitch more and more. I open the emergency exit door in the back of the bus and jump down. “Let’s go! They are starting to move!”

We all get off the bus safely, slower than I wanted because some of us are injured, but safely. Tommy shuts the back door and locks it. “Shouldn’t we help those other kids? It looks like some of them were waking up,” Tammy asks.

“No. They were dead. I checked them all. They weren’t alive anymore and they aren’t now. I think they might be some kind of zombie or something, but either way we need to get away from here right now,” I urge them to walk.

We don’t get very far before Todd starts complaining about his leg. We sit him down against a tree and I tell him we need to take the stick out. He tries to refuse but finally gives up because he knows it needs to come out if he wants to go on. Tammy had a scarf on even though it was hot out, so I took it from her and told her we needed to wrap his leg it in. She pouts, but lets it happen. The only other person with us was Kelvin, a stockier football player. He pulled the stick out of Todd in one jerk. Right away, I wrap his leg in the scarf really tightly. Todd was clenching his fists and yelling in pain. Amy covered his mouth and told him we had to try and be quiet. She calmed him down. We got him up and moving again and headed through the woods to find the road.

After about twenty minutes of walking, we found the road. We took a chance and headed right. We needed to find the camp as soon as we could to get help. As we walked, we all looked through our bags to see what could be useful. Water bottles, candy bars, and clothes were the main items. All three of the boys, plus I, had a pocket knife. Amy and Tammy didn’t have any kind of weapon with them. It wasn’t good, but there was nothing we could do about it until we got to the camp.

We stopped a couple more times to let Todd rest his leg and to catch our breaths. We kept on until we saw an opening at the end of the road, through the woods. Our pace quickens as we get excited to find help. When we get to the opening, no one's there. I look up to the sky and see all of the trees towering in a huge circle around the camp. It truly was beautiful, but the sight of the camp was the opposite. Most of the tents were collapsed and shredded. Some even had blood on them. It looks as though whoever was here had to leave in a hurry and was attacked in the process. We all split up and search the tents that were still up and the campers that were near by. Amy stayed with Todd while he sat down and rested his leg. She found another piece of clothing to replace the blood-soaked scarf.

Only a few moments after searching a tent that was half up, I heard an ear piercing scream. It came from Tammy. I run out from the tent and scream for her. She stumbles out of a camper and tries to crawl away. Another woman falls out on top of her. Her hair was a mess, clothes were ripped up, blood dripped from her mouth and bite wounds on her cheeks and neck. She started to bite at Tammy, but Tammy was doing her best to hold her off. She screamed some more. Tommy and Kelvin ran over to her and pulled the woman off. “What do we do with her?” Kelvin yelled to me as they held her arms.

“Stab her in the head with your knife! I think that’s the only way she will die again!” I scream back.

They looked at each other in disgust, but Kelvin did it anyway. He stabbed his knife through her temple and she stopped moving. They dropped her on the ground and helped Tammy up. She had a bite on her arm, though. A deep one. “I’m fine,” She says as she covers her bite up, seeing the way we looked at it.

“Tammy… I don’t think you are,” I tell her calmly.

At that moment she starts to twitch and continues to repeat that she’s fine. We watch as the red yellow mix starts to take over the whites of her eyes. Foam appears at her mouth and blood starts to drip from it. I look over at Kelvin and Tommy. They nod and know what to do. Kelvin grabs Tammy from behind and holds her arms back. Tommy holds up the knife and Tammy lets out one last cry for plea before she transitions. He sticks the knife through her temple.

Amy screams for us to come over to her. We run over to see what was wrong. Todd was passed out in her arms. “I don’t know what happened! He just started talking nonsense and then passed out, but he’s still breathing.”

I kneel down and lightly tap his face and pour some water on him to try and wake him up. Instead of waking up, he just starts to rapidly twitch. I grab Amy’s arm and tell her to get up and away from him. “He’s dead.. Now he’s transitioning. We need to end it for him before he turns into one of those zombies,” I tell them. I pull my knife out of my pocket and quickly slide the knife into his temple. I take my knife out and rub the blood off in the grass. We bow our heads for Tammy and Todd.

Kelvin and Tommy search another camper while Amy and I search the rest of the tents. We don’t find much to our use except for a hatchet that Amy can use as a weapon. We call for the boys after we finish looking through the last of the items in the last tent there. No answer. “Maybe they didn’t hear us,” I say. “Let’s go look for them.” We walk over to the camper that they were supposed to be searching. I peek my head in and call for them again. No answer. I hear some shuffling in the back and call for them one last time. They topple over each other as they run towards me. Their eyes were a red-yellow and there was bloody foam seeping from their mouths. I could see their bite marks on their faces. I screamed and slammed the door shut to the camper. They were banging against the door, growling. Amy had her hands over her mouth, crying. I was crying now too. We were the only ones left with a pocket knife and a small hatchet.

“There’s a cave behind the waterfall. Maybe we can hide out there, no one really knows about it,” she takes my hand and we run off to find the secluded lake. When we get there, no one's around, but we can hear the growling and gurgling of the other zombies following us. They know we’re here now.

We climb the rocks behind the waterfall to the cave and walk in. We walk for a couple minutes in the dark, but then I hear splashing behind us in the lake. They are so close… I can barely see, but Amy is guiding me with the faint glow of her phone light. It’s so quiet in here, other than the echoes of the dripping water. The cave walls are cold and wet. The smell that was once fresh from the lake water, started to turn into a musty scent. It became stronger and stronger. We knew that was a bad sign. We stopped to take a break since there were no other sounds of anyone coming behind us and we didn’t want to go any further to find out what that smell was.

I was in the middle of asking Amy how she was doing when a wet and slimy hand grabbed my ankle. It pulled so hard that I slipped and fell on the hard cave floor. It started to drag me into a hole in the cave that led into the lake. I was screaming and flailing my arms. Amy grabbed my hands and tried to pull me up. The horde that was following us was now catching up. We heard their shuffling and growling. They would be here any second.

“Amy, run! They are coming!”

“No, I can’t leave you! I can’t do this by myself, please!” She cries out.

I’m more than halfway into the water now and the horde is here. They all attack Amy at once. She screams for me and I scream back. My screams turned into gargles from drowning in the water as hers turned into chokes from her own blood. Everything goes black and silent.

. . .

I was awake. I’m used to dreams like this, but it was still horrifying to experience. Each one is more terrifying than the last. Each one I lose more people than the last.   

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I have enjoyed the story. A modern day Dante's inferno. Your dream. Taking you to dangerous places. I would awake stressful and concern. I did like the detailed description of people and locations. Thank you Natasha for sharing your dreams and thoughts.
Coyote

[barleygirl]

This is the best thing of yours that I've read so far. It transports the reader so thoroughly, I forgot this collection is about dreams, so your ending was a jolt (which is how a "twist" should feel in a well-written story). Everything is very well structured for a short story, the pacing, the action, the description, dialogue, it's all there, & well balanced. I don't remember your other "dream" descriptions sounding so much like a well-polished short story, as this one does. The transition to the bus crashing is very intense & realistic. My only suggestion would be to maybe use some "sound" words to show instead of tell. One of the best things is the way you use just the right amount of macabre & fantastical material . . . while the rest is realistic & believable, perfectly balanced for a reader (like myself) who doesn't really enjoy reading much zombie type stuff.

[Natasha]

Thank you! I have been using your advice in my newer story on using sounds

[SJ Mullins]

You could seriously write a novel out of this nightmare comparable to one that Stephen King would write. I have had terrifying nightmares to where I could do the same. I need to start writing them down right after I awaken. You have a way with imagery and writing to make one feel as if they are the one experiencing the terror. I am sure it is horrifying to dream things such as this but turn them around to your advantage and write, write, write! If nothing else, you could turn it into a short story. Well written!

[Natasha]

Thank you so much! And I love Stephen King!

[SJ Mullins]

YW. Me too. I read anything I can get my hands on by him. :) I just don't read his books at night, lol

[Natasha]

Yeah they get a little creepy!

[SJ Mullins]

Indeed! I like Dean Koontz also, but I don't read his at night either, lol.

[Natasha]

Oh, he's a good one too. Those guys inspire me to write horror the way I do, also the zombie series I read by Higson and Maberry.

[SJ Mullins]

I've never read those. Zombies scare the hell outta me, lol. Especially, when they drag one of their feet!!!!!

[Natasha]

Lmao, I love zombies!!

[SJ Mullins]

Too funny. I'd rather watch a movie about vampires. I love vamps. :)

[Natasha]

They are cool too. I wrote a short story about a vamp called Mystery Boy. It's on here if you wanna check it out. I am also writing a book about zombies.

[SJ Mullins]

Zombies! :ahhhhh:: Can't seem to get away from them! ;)

[SJ Mullins]

I will have to check it out. :)

[Natasha]

Sweeeet :)

[SJ Mullins]

Can you send me a read request on it so I won't forget?

[Natasha]

I thought I did, but I'll resend one now!

[SJ Mullins]

Thanks. :) You may have. I have over 150, lol. I have A LOT of catching up to do! :)

[Raven Moonchild]

These dreams are facinating. It seems like your subconscious enjoys scaring the hell out of you. I really think you should turn these stories into books or a tv series. Similar to Goosebumps,but for grownups. :)

[Natasha]

Thank you! They do scare the hell out of me. These nightmares are chapters in my book Dream Journal, so i do hope one day to publish it and finish it.