Aral Balkan

You probably couldn’t pick a worse time for a zombie infestation than Halloween.

If it had been any other time, the very first of the pale-faced, putrid undead would have stuck out like sore thumbs in polite society and been hastily disposed of by the city’s overfunded and underutilized (and thus rather bored) police force. End of story, as they say. As it was, however, the first victims of the highly-infectious RNA virus that transmogrified otherwise mild-mannered accountants and supermarket checkout clerks into flesh-hungry zombies blended in perfectly with the less ravenous participants in the Fifth Annual Zombie Pub Crawl, providing entertainment for the onlooking crowd as they attacked each other and caused all manner of mischief. Some in the audience even remarked at how real the screams of the other zombies sounded before adding their own to the rising cacophony as the infection spread from flesh to flesh. And that is how it came to be that the zombie horde swelled its ranks as it made its way through the previously-uncannibalistic (and sometimes even sunny) sea-side town of Brighton.

It was October 31st, 2009 and the zombie virus had picked the gay capital of the United Kingdom to make its debut. Not that it mattered. The virus didn’t discriminate.

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Feel free to continue the story in the comments :)

Comments

• Pat loooked around him, confused, lost. Lost in a town he had lived in all his life. He had left home for the Zombie Pub Crawl at 8 o'clock. That he could remember. Now he found himself lying amongst piles of discarded fishing nets and floats. Somewhere near the beach? He thought out loud.... "Yes, but we're somewhere THEY won't find us" said a gravelly voice from the shadows. "Who are you, where am I, who's THEY?" blustered Pat. Then he saw the man, a rugged seafarer type, as he stepped into the flickering light from the single lightbulb. "THEY are like you and I, but they're infected. Nothing can stop them. Nobody can escape their rabid hunger. But they won't find us here. We're safe." Pat looked around him. Now he realised. They were in some sort of storage room. He could hear the sea. They were surely not far from the pier. The man's talk of "infected" struck him like a cold unforgiving blade through the heart. A lump caught his throat. It had really happened. There was a real outbreak of something terrible. Why on Earth would this happen on Halloween?! The man reached into a small fridge and offered him a beer. Sitting on a box in front of John he began to talk of how he had witnessed the carnage on the streets above. The blood-hungry hoards had streamed down from the quiet shopping lanes, screaming, trashing around them and killing everything in their path. Pat had been knocked aside by the crowds rushing to escape them. Acting swiftly, the man had snatched and taken him to the safety of his storage room. That was over two hours ago. The sound of screaming had since passed, replaced by silence and the occasional sound of one of THEM scurrying past, looking for food. "Oh my God", said Pat. "What are we going to do?" "We can hide here for a while, but we'll need to go and look for food ourselves when day breaks" muttered the man, sounding less convinced of their safety than before... It was then that Pat remembered: He was supposed to meet Sarah. He reached for his phone. Gone! Damn it - first a zombie outbreak on Halloween and now he's lost his new iPhone! He has to find Sarah, to tell her...

  by Robert on 2009-11-02 08:24:16

• Sarah was late for the pub crawl and hated her mother because of it. Since when it was her job to take care of all the house work anyway?. This is the first time she was old enough to be drinking on Halloween and she was planning on taking advantage of that. As she was leaving her house she received some images on her cellphone from her friend Pat. It sure seemed that it was the best zombie pub crawl ever, and she was missing it!. She hoped on her bike and started riding as fast as she could. As she was approaching the scene she noticed groups of people tearing apart someone and fighting over their flesh. Next year she was going to get one of those "fake victims" and be the soul of the party she thought. She propped her bike against a tree and took the chain to secure it. She took her cellphone and called Pat while checking out a group of zombies approaching her from the street - Sheesh, some of you guys take this a tad too seriously, don't you? - she said as she hanged up her phone. Pat wasn't picking up, where was that pub in which they were all going to get together to start the night? ...

  by Hector Padilla on 2009-11-01 00:18:19

• "Damn it," said Pat... "What?" said the man. "I lost my iPhone." "Shame," said the man, "real cryin' shame. I'm no expert on these things but, from what I read, killing zombies, defeating evil, making our way back to some safe place, there's an app for that." "I know!" Pat said. "What model?" queried the man. "3GS" Pat said "You pay for that £5 a month find me thing?" "Yes!" Pat exclaimed, that's it... "I can find my iphone" Well, lucky for you, my 'puter is hooked up to the net, and luckier than that, the zombies haven't destroyed any power lines. Pat quickly logged on to the apple site, typed in his details and located his phone. "Hey," Pat said, "Looks like the phone's not at all far from here, "Looks like it's pretty close." "Looks like it's just outside," said the man, "looks to me like that Zombie is using it. "Son of a...." said Pat. "Maybe he's just updated your Facebook status," said the man... Pat laughed. The man laughed. Pat stopped laughing. Pat logged onto facebook and yelled... "No.... NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" "Pat is single" read the man... "Sarah!!!" Pat yelled as the Zombie bit into her flesh.

  by greysqrl on 2009-11-05 13:35:33