Desire Unknown Ch. 03: Wet wall

He was thinking the whole time he was running how he could have been with Nathalie right now, lifting crates, letting her compliment him, maybe could have even gotten a nice warm hug from her after his job was done.

Once his ears stopped ringing, the fear of his companions running alongside him shockingly seemed to out way his own. Probably because he was always in a flustered state, a real emergency just couldn't get him to the same level as everyone else.

He knew he was in real mortal danger, he could feel it, but even as he followed the others into a narrow alleyway, avoiding slipping on the icy pavement he had no idea how to process his situation.

"Girls! In the garbage disposal, now!" Adam roared up ahead, pointing at the rusty blue container with his metal baseball bat. Alyce was the fastest and wasted no time, she was short but that didn't stop her from throwing her upper half over the rim, kicking wildly as she tried to scuttle her way inside. Following closely behind her flailing legs, Georgia nimbly swung her leg over the side letting Adam grab her other leg, lifting her so she could tip inside, landing with a metallic thump against the bottom. Adam then quickly tipped the lid on top, crashing it shut.

"Alright! keep fucking calm!" He shouted at the rest of the group, unsure which direction they should face to defend themselves.

"Huddle up you dumb fuck's!" He screamed at the seventeen guys, as they fought about who would end up in the middle.

David stood passively amongst them, hands by his sides not fighting at all, still confused on how to process the encroaching threat.

The bickering soon came to an abrupt end, along with David's trance, hearing a series of pain-ridden screams behind him howling with the cold air blowing down the alleyway.

Turning around, all he could see was Bert's massive backpack blocking his view.

Leaning to the side, between the gap of huddled guys he could see one lonesome infected staggering at the entrance, its piercing shinny white globes for eyes was all that held his attention. The bright color containing the only semblance of life left within its rotting corpse. The way it convulsed, twitching awkwardly, looked like the thing would fall over dead any second.

Staring at its open mouth gaze, others soon came from around the corner standing alongside it, stopping to shudder, as if bothered by the cold.

David knew why the girls had to be protected, though his concern was with himself and how this quiet huddle of scared guys would help. His knowledge of them was limited to what he had learned just yesterday, only adding to his dread at all the possibilities they could soon unleash upon him.

"A mere eight minutes outside the perimeter and I'm already dead?" He muttered in almost disbelief at the escalation of events.

He thought perhaps that maybe the crushing silence meant the infected were blind, unable to see what was right in front of them. Whatever the case was, they were equally as silent now, edging closer meticulously like curious animals. No facial muscles left. no expressions to read. Without their broken shrieks, they just seemed confused, looking like failed sculptures of sorts, purposeless and eerily calm.

Breaking line of sight from their opened mouthed glances, down to their legs, it was clear why outrunning them was next to impossible. Bloated but densely muscled, far too big to fit any shoe or to comfortably fit any pants without large ripped holes, making them look noticeably disproportionate in comparison to their skinner upper halves. Even if this was your first time seeing them you would realize running would not be favorable to you.

A gentle nudge from someone behind broke David out of his stare ahead. A man in a noisy puffy yellow coat and red wooly beany held a baseball bat, miming to pass it out from the center.

David gripped the cold bat with a firm but shaky squeeze, passing it ahead to a ready and waiting Bert, who eagerly wrenched it from his hand. He could see others around him doing the same with similar melee-based weapons, passing them forward in an orderly manner. None of this was filling David's optimism, they were ridiculously outnumbered and the idea that the plan seemed to revolve around striking them with blunt instruments was all but convincing him he was dead already.

"Can they see us?" He whispered, in a nervous state to no one in particular.

A short silence followed the end of David's barely audible question.

"Yes," replied a random frustrated voice through his teeth somewhere behind him. David was not trying to push his luck but he knew himself well enough to know when he was beginning to shut down.

He was fully realized now, all the senses had calmed themselves back to normal, the weight of his body, the smell of the air and the distinctive sound of dry infected bones clicking, echoing off the grimy alleyway walls, replacing the ringing of his ears.

All of this brought him back down to reality, starting to imagine the many ways he could reach imminent death. If he didn't try to at least understand what was happening around him, those thoughts would become crippling, preventing him from running or fighting.

His palms were sweaty now, shaking, understanding ahead of his own mind that this was it, do or die. He peeked his head out to the side once more, meeting the white glazed eyes staring back at the group, a cold shiver down David's spine was present, now knowing that those white marbles were working just fine.

'Weapon, I need a weapon', he thought, standing amongst armed men, each ready to fight.

While he struggled to control his breathing, the rest focused, waiting patiently for their opportunity to arise. David had not been noticing that the infecteds attention was split between them and the rusted garbage disposal, its hazed look swinging back and forth from the group in an dumb obvious fashion, giving clear indication that the moment was fast approaching.

Huddles of the two factions were now less than a few meters apart from each other, and had the finer details of their rotting bodies coming fully into view.

A large slit from their sternum to the low abdomen was the one unifying trait, other than their eyes, that they shared between all of them. A familiar amount of purple bruising traced the edges of the wound with a slight one inch gap harboring a dim green glow at its center, the light also shifted like they had murky green water suspended in their stomachs, clear movement underneath the rotting skin could be seen and David needed no guesses as to what it was that lurked in between.

Repulsed by the sight, David finally became aware that the first infected was heavily enticed towards the disposal unit, approaching it with careful diligence. There was one final slow haunting glance off to its side, aimed at the group before mechanically cranking its head back around. David could not see well due to his angle but he did hear a short hollow metallic thud, followed by similar residual noises against the metal.

Whatever was happening, it caused the other infected behind it to congregate closer to the disposal, giving similar glare's to the group as they hobbled in an almost formal manner over to their rotten associate.

David felt a shuffle from his group, slowly turning to face the garbage disposal as the infecteds numbers amassed significantly to one side, from this new angle he caught a neon green glimmer out ahead.

It was starting to make sense to him now, they were far more interested in the scent of the girls than them.

Tentacles were wet, clinging all around the unit with one infected even crouched on top, letting its glowing appendages run all over the lid. While the metal creaked, seemingly from all of the heavy pressing into its sides, the horde was showing less and less interest in the tightly huddled group, more so concerned about finding their own slot around the squeaky container. A couple of loud shrieks could be heard along with some violent shuffling as some were left unhappy on the outside, squabbling amongst themselves.

David watched as his view suddenly became much clearer. Members were slowly beginning to fan out at Adam's silent instruction, spreading relatively evenly, forming an almost semicircle behind the preoccupied infected, who buckled and slightly shunted the metal container frustratedly. David froze briefly for a time, unsure of where he should move to. Watching the freshly salivating infected begin to rattle the disposal more aggressively, almost covering the entirety of its rusted surface completely from view.

He knew now he felt most comfortable behind Berts large frame.

While cowering in fear, he could sense the moment fast approaching. Any second now it would be chaos, his hands were shaking with anticipation, eager to clutch anything at this point he could use to defend himself. He flashed his eyes over Berts giant backpack from top to bottom, holding his hands out ready to snatch at even the slightest resemblance of a handle poking out of its zipped or netted side pockets.

David, in his panic, missed another silent gesture from Adam. Only catching the end of his waving hand lowering around his own metal bat, as a surge from Bert ahead of him frightened the air back into David.

In just one powerful long stride, Bert planted his feet firmly under him and with a ferocious grunt the bat's windup, swing and aim had all been fully calculated to deliver one of the hardest executed strikes he had ever seen or heard. A strike with zero hesitation throughout, smashing through the back of its intended target's head like magic, utterly obliterating the bruised skull leaving a sustained ringing in his ears and a fine spray of neon green blood flicking out to the side.

Others, not as strong as Bert opted for vertical strikes having less power but still strong enough to cave heads in, cracking them open like rotten eggs, their neon green blood spurting out. For a short while it was a brutally messy one sided assault, death blow after death blow was generated, dropping infected bodies into puddles of their own matter, weapons increasingly becoming caked, flicking blood and brain matter high like paint, falling like rain atop of everyone's head.

It was all going so well, though, Heavily outnumbered, arm's began to ache.

The energy required to put them all down in one singular blow was a luxury that they had all but spent by now, the infecteds priority still lied with the surrounded disposal but aggravation from needing additional strikes obviously drew them out of their primal desire to face sweaty redden men chipping away at them from behind.

One such infected, who had already been struck in the head twice with a bent golf club, turned round with green blood running over its eyes.

As the man went to strike at his head once more it kicked him in the chest with a thunderous clap, Hurterling the man's torso back with his limbs following behind him smacking into the ground, stopping immediately against the gravel under his backpack.

He laid there twitching, unable to take in air looking up at the sky, the same look of shock plastered on his face as Davids. The golf club was still held tightly within his grasp as a gradual reversal began to take place, more infected turning to disrupt the momentum of the group's assault, but this time the group gave a wary step back to avoid the deadly counter.

David averted from making eye contact with the injured man sprawled out on the floor as he knelt beside him. He wheezed struggling for air whilst David tried to ease at first the golf club from his grip.

The shrieks from the infected returned in droves, twisting around like a nest of vipers, possessing David's gentle easing to more of a frantic struggle to rip away the club from his hand in time. There was no feeling of guilt at all about prying the weapon away, the sight in front of him terrified himself into action.

The line broke just as he freed the club and within moments a brawl erupted, taking a few members' lives immediately with strong lunging kicks to the face, dropping them in an ironically similar fashion to how the assault began, except with a red bloody splat to accompany the strike.

From that point onwards it wasn't clean from either side, tackling, jumping and swiping at them were just some of the almost drunken attempts the infected made against their attackers, horribly uncoordinated but shockingly effective, soon David found himself wrapped up in the middle of this awkward scuffle that sprayed a mix of neon green and dark red blood.

He squeezed his golf club with little intent to actually defend himself as there was hardly enough room to even swing it effectively. Instead David allowed himself to be shunted up against the alleyway wall, still relying on others around him to serve as his protection.

One did eventually notice him, the speed in which it generated lunging at him made David slide down the grimy wall with a girlish wimp, resulting in the infected slamming its face above, ejecting its white teeth down onto David's head.

As It peeled its rotted face away it stumbled backwards, stamping on the wounded man's face lying on the ground, with its lower jaw now hanging and crumpled to one side. Before it could look to reacquire David below, three infected tumbled into it from the right, all crashing down on top of the now dead man.

From the right David saw Bert backed up against the wall, holding his bat horizontally, pushing back those infected closing in, hardly able to get enough room to send off a good swing.

As David rose back to his feet he could see the piled up infected doing the same, golf club still in hand and knowing the infected were in a compromised position he had the confidence to swing desperately at their heads as they struggled to get up. At first he only struck the loudest and the quickest, once that was done he proceeded to hit all of them like a game of whac-a-mole, severely damaging them but not quite killing them.

His face turned to horror however, as his pile got even bigger due to Bert tipping more infected his way. At least four more had been piled on top and were now in the process of getting back to their feet.

'Harder', David thought to himself as he swung the golf club savagely at the closest, shattering its face but resulting in snapping off the club end of his weapon, making it just a thin bit of twisted metal with a handle.

A sudden numbness crept into his arms, feeling defenseless against the rising horde. With little options he scrapped his body along the grimy wall, towards the only man he saw fit right now to successfully defend him. But to his surprise, Bert tipped even more infected his way, knocking them directly into David as the scrum clashed with those still getting up.

The smell was horrendous, but more so than that he could feel their uncomfortably bony shoulders and rib cages through the damp smelly rags they had for clothes pressing into him like knives. A deep constant sound of never ending rustling kept him disoriented as the momentum of the push landed them in a heap on the ground, forcing the air out from his lungs. He was now sandwiched between two layers of unresting infected that wrestled for any leverage to get back up.

David flinched at every tight grab or hard press over his body, thinking any of them could be intent on ripping his flesh. He was starting to turtle up, unsure if the body had just gone into shock and he actually was being eaten alive. However inhaling their foul repulsive stench deep into his lungs instinctively prevented him from becoming passive to his fate, he kicked and wailed like an infected himself, his eyes burning due to its pungent heat until he broke his left arm and face out the top of the pile.

He flooded his lungs with fresh cold air while the layered sounds of a truly desperate fight rang in his ears, only now there were light gun shots sprinkled within the huddle, rivaling the sound of the infecteds shrieks.

"FUCK!!" David screamed, trying to hear himself above the chaos as he pushed down with his one free hand, unearthing the rest of his upper body. The leverage he pushed on however rolled itself over, revealing a rotten open mouthed face that locked its pearly white eyes to David, giving its needlessly frantic movements a new purpose.

After a short stillness it lunged for him, gripping his body warmer, David's pressed hand on its chest was the only thing stopping that wide gaping mouth meeting his face. Something about the way the infected yanked at him, shaking him back and forth, pulling him at uneven rates that felt like it was trying to be deliberately annoying, more so than threatening.

Enraged by having his vision reduced to just a frantic blur, David fused the twisted golf club in the center of his palm, surging it upwards before blindly in a fit of rage he rammed the metal into its shrieking face over and over whilst being shaken violently.

Seeing a blurred amount of green getting larger and more messy kept David striking, even after the infecteds grip slipped from his body warmer and his vision returned, his anger never faded from riding that wave of adrenaline. Even as another grabbed him from behind he ignored it, he was completely oblivious in his rage to the jaws about to stretch over the top of his head. If it had not been for a lucky baseball bat that struck it from above, splattering green blood down the back of David's head and neck, its warm sensation down his back was what got him to eventually pay his attention back to his surroundings.

Reaching for the back of his head confused, he turned to his side seeing his rescuer in yellow puffy coat, now a complete psycho who looked mid way between anger and crying, swinging at seemingly anything that invaded his space. Unfortunately, that included David's green-covered head, mistaking it for an infected one.

His already raised arm absorbed most of the impact, though it collided with the edge of his forearm bone, passing a freezer burn like pain through it as he rolled off the pile of groaning corpses, landing with a gross squelch. Only when he landed on his arm did it really start to hurt.

The scared psycho made no attempt at a follow up due to the sheer amount of opposition he was faced with, so David held his forearm to his chest on the bright bloody soaked ground in a prone position, stunned by the state of the ground around him.

Bodies were everywhere and smashed like grapes due the infecteds carelessly heavy footing over their fallen. The color of their neon blood was harder to look at being so close to the ground, such a high concentration made it glow brightly, illuminating the entire fight from below. From this angle he could see the garbage disposal at the opposite end as it was being lifted from one side before being dropped in another failed attempt to reach its contents. It occurred to David as he watched more bodies collapse in front of him that they had to be winning for sure by now, trying to justify that playing dead was his best option.

Although he couldn't go through with it, the smell so close to the floor made him gag almost non stop, not to mention his clothes were now soaked in the dead, making him unable to cover his mouth. He was mentally beaten, consumed with the need for air and nothing else.

Keeping low to the ground he took his chances by crawling on his knees and his one good arm over the swamp of dead bodies, there was next to no logical navigation from David as he reluctantly took every knock and bump from scrambling legs along the way, having to make drastic directional changes to avoid downed infected that were downed, but still dangerous.

Minutes went by, still not having found a notable exit, with his awkward crawl exhausting him more than anything else descending into an almost drag across a swamp of brain matter, beaten mercilessly by all the chin bones thumping at his sides.