The Town of Barnumdale

This is a story about Sam West, a photographer, who has recieved an invite to his friends wedding. On the way there some odd stuff happens. Lets just say not all stories have happy endings. BWAHAHAHA! ...Enjoy.

     Sam West, a photographer, was on his way home after he finished developing some pictures and closed up his shop. While driving down the highway, in his navy blue pick-up truck, he started thinking about how perfect the day had been. He had a decent amount of well mannered customers in his shop, the weather was not too hot or cold, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky to be seen. Everything seemed almost too perfect to him, but he just shrugged his shoulders and went on with the day.

     After about half an hour of driving he approached his small house. It was just an odinary house with a fence and a few bushes around it, nothing special. He walked up to the door and noticed that someone had left a letter on the steps. the letter was from Jim a childhood friend of his who had moved to California a few years ago. With the letter in hand he entered his house and sat down to read it, wondering why Jim had sent it.

     The letter turned out to be an invitation to Jim's wedding and a plane ticket, it turns out that Jim wanted Sam to be his best man. surprised about the news Sam put the letter and ticket in his pocket and started to pack for the trip. He decided to head out to the airport tomorrow and stay in a hotel for a while since the wedding was only a few weeks away. The next day Sam woke up early and left for the airport.

     It was a pretty long trip to the airport and about half way there Sam was driving threw a small unfamiliar town. All of the sudden the truck stopped and Sam had no idea what was going on. Sam tried to start the car, but to no avail. "Well this sucks!" he said to himself while scratching his head looking at the lifeless truck. There appeared to be nobody around to help him out, so he decided to walk around and see if he could find some kind of mechanic. He noticed a gas station not too far away. While walking to the gas station, he started to think about how this is starting to sound like a really generic horror story, but had no other options, so he proceeded anyway. The door mad an ominous screech when slowly pushed open by Sam's trembling hands. He then stuck his head in expecting some sort of psycho killer to pop out of nowhere, but to his suprise there was only a nice looking old man. Having seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre a few times, he still had his suspicions. He asked the old man if he could fix his truck and the old man smiled and said, "sure thing, now let's have a look at her." They both walked out to the truck and after a few seconds the old man turned around and told Sam that the car would be ready in a few minutes. "Wow, only a few minutes?" Sam asked, the old man replied, "Well you only ran out of gas." Sam said, "Oh," feeling like a complete idiot.

     The old man filled Sam's gas tank and Sam handed him the money for the gas plus a tip for keeping quiet about his little "retard moment". He got in the truck and started it up. While backing out of the small town, Sam made a wrong turn and instead of heading towards the airport, he was heading for a town that may seal his fate.

     He continued down the rough dirt road not knowing that he was heading in the wrong direction, until he saw a sign that read, "Welcome to Barnumdale! The liveliest town around."

     The sun was retreating behind some distant mountains almost as if it was hiding from the sight of the town. "It's starting to get late; I'd better find a place to stay for the night." Sam said while driving past the sign and into Barnumdale. The town was getting darker as night approached and while Sam was desperately looking for some place he could stay for the night, he noticed a mysterious dark mass in the road in front of him. He stopped the truck and honked his horn at the mass hoping that it would move out of the way, but nothing happened. So he got out of the truck and went to go see what it was. As he walked up to the dark lump in the road he tripped and fell right next to it. Sam lifted his head off the pavement only to realize that the thingobstructing his way was a hideous decaying corpse.

     Sam jumped to his feet after seeing it and quickly hobbled back to his truc. The engine roared as Sam started it up and tried to make a u-turn, but the turn was cut short when he hit the rotting heap of decay and skid off the road crashing into a nearby building. Starting to freak out Sam tried to start the truck again so he could back out of the building, but it refused to move. he got out of the truck and started running. Out of breath, Sam made it back to the welcome sign and sat down beside it. "Okay..." Sam said to himself trying to catch his breath, "There's a dead body on the road... my truck is totaled... and it's too dark to do much about it... I guess I'll have to go back there and find some place to stayfor the night... Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, and then I can find some way to start up the truck in the morning... when I can actually see what I'm doing." He stood up and looked up at the sign and yelled, "Lively my a*s!" as he started walking back into Barnumdale. By the time he got back to the crash site, it was almost too dark to seehis hand in front of his face. He opened the truck door, reached in the glove box and grabbed a flashlight. Sam pointed the light ont he road where the corpse once was, but it was no longer there. Somewhat freaked out, Sam quickly walked deeper into the darkened town. While walking, Sam started to feel like someone or something was watching him. Scared to death, he started franticly pointing the flashlight in every single corner and alley, trying to find his stalker. The scent of death in the air haunted him and he started yelling, "I know you're out there! Show yourself!" out of panic, as beads of sweat dripped down his trembling face, but there was no responce.

     He started walking slowly onward quickening his pace with every step until he bumped into a dark figure. Sam's eyes widened and his face went pale when he realized that what he bumped into was the same dead man he found on the road earlier. It moaned and started to lunge its head forward at Sam, but he pushed it back and quickly turned and ran, only to bump into another walking corpse. "Oh my god, I'm going to die!" Sam said to himself realizing all the zombies that surrounded him. He backed up against a wall, picked up a brick from a gaping hole in the old building he was up against and threw it at one of the zombies. It fell to the ground as the brick impaled its face and Sam quickly ran for the opening he had just created.

    He ran as fast as he could until he finally found a building that didn't have any broken doors or windows that the zombies could get into, hastily ran in and locked the door. His back collapsed onto the door behind him and he grasped his chest while trying to catch his breath. "How the hell did I not notice all those... zombies earlier?" Sam asked himself panting. When he finally pulled himself together, he moved every chair and table he could find to barricade the doors and windows. He could hear the shuffling and moaning of the undead outside while he moved every piece of furniture to secure the house.

     With the doors and windows successfully blocked, Sam decided to check out the rest of the building. "I'm sure if there were any more zombies in here, they would have come here by now..." he said to himself reassuringly. He started walking down the hallway, but hesitated, turned around, and grabbed a leg that once was a part of a table that broke while being dragged to the door, just in case. He proceeded up the stairs slowly holding the table leg like he wa sup at bat in a baseball game. When he finally made it to the second floor of the building he looked over at the first door to his left. Sam put his ear up to it to see if he could hear anything inside. Nothing was to be heard so he kicked open the door and started swinging the leg just in case anything lunged out at him. While blindly swinging, he hit the door frame and a chunk of the roof above hime fell on his head and knocked him out.

     Hours later Sam woke up, "Uhhh... what happened?" he mumbled as the light shined on him threw a nearby window, "What a nightmare" he said as he walked to the window and looked outside in a daze. After a minute or two Sam's eyes adjusted to the light and he looked down only to notice that it had not been a dream and the dead were still not so dead anymore. "God d****t!" he shouted with his hand on his face.

     Sam turned around and let out a huge sigh as he started walking back down the hallway. But while walking by the door he kicked open the night before, something caught his eye. The room had a glass encasement on the wall opposite the door and in it lied just what Sam needed right about now, a shotgun. Sam broke the glass with the table leg and grabbed the gun and a box of ammo that was next to it. "It's time to kick some zombie a*s!" said Sam with a grin on his face as he loaded it up and started walking for the door.

     With shotgun in hand, he charged out of the building, shooting every zombie he could see in the face while humming "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden. After going a little too trigger happy, he ran out of ammo, dropped the gun and ran as fast as he could to his truck. As he approached the blue wreck sticking out of the building, he noticed a bunch of suspicious looking black cars at the entrance into the town and without thinking he ran towards them hoping they would help him.

     There were a few men standing in front of the cars wearing all black and gasmasks holding machine guns, no doubt sent there to deal with the zombies. Sam approached the men yelling, "Hey, can you help me? My truck won't start." One of the men looked at him and lowered his gun to let Sam through, but as soon as he got within about ten yards another one of the men shot Sam square in the face and he dropped to the ground. "What the hell was that for?" shouted the man who lowered his gun. "We were ordered to cleanse the area of all threat, he could have been bitten, you should know better, rookie!" said the man who shot Sam as he walked over to his dead body. He searched Sam's pockets and pulled out the plane ticket, a smirk formed on his face as he said, "looks like I just got a free vacation."