Post by Evan De Parker on Nov 21, 2012 20:12:00 GMT -4
"Any likenesses portrayed in our feature film are... Haha... Purely non-coincidental."
”I don’t know how all of this happened... I don’t know where they all started coming from. I-- I remember there were a big group of us. A select few-- no more than thirteen or fourteen, right? And I knew there were other groups out there, but fuck, I never thought things were gonna come to this. Did you? I mean... Ugh... God, oh God what are we supposed to do?
“I...
“I think there are four of us now.
“There’s me, and there’s Delikado, and he’s cool. He’s gold. I know him from the group before, before we all got separated in all this chaos-- and I know the girl too. I know Aubrey. I was shocked to see her survive through it all, really.
“She and I... We used to be a thing, and yeah, I’ll admit I fucked that up. I fucked that all up, but--
“Oh God. Oh God, I can hear them.
“The last guy-- the last guy in our group is a mystery. I know of him, and he’s wandered around, and nobody was really surprised when he popped up again, unscathed, living in a world with these Walkers as if he were one of them... Aimless. Hungry. Angry. We call him Yarmouth. We--”[/i]
We’re thrown out of the world of darkness, and shown the face of death in its entirety.
A man, perhaps in his thirties, stands before us with his skin dried and pale, as if it hadn’t been even knicked by the sunlight in months. His left eye is missing, and his right eye hangs uselessly in its socket. His clothes are soiled, stained, ripped-- you name it. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that this man isn’t your average Joe. No sir. The man standing before us is a
”WALKER!”
Evan drops the old-fashioned tape recorder that had been in his hands, and it clatters violently down the fire escape.
As our cinematic view pans out, we see that our hero is standing face to face with the walking corpse stories above the ground, his back pressed to the thin rail of an apartment complex’s fire escape. Adjacent to the two is a large window, and Evan looks into it eagerly, but finds nothing of value.
”Hurry up you guys! For the love of all that is sacred, get me off of this!”
Evan kicks the “Walker” in the gut. It hisses angrily and lurches toward him, decayed arms and fingers outstretched.
Another kick sends it staggering backward, where it falls over the rusted rail of the fire escape and crashes dozens of yards to the asphalt below. Evan counts four more on the ground and mutters obscenities under his breath, but nearly yelps in joy as he hears the window beside him being slid open. He dives into the apartment and takes a deep breath on the ground.
Powerful hands lift him up-- the man mentioned in the recordings. Yarmouth. Beside him stands Aubrey J. Parker, the lovely young brunette whose wardrobe has seen better days; she is subjected to an all-black attire, and her sun-kissed tan skin and black hair are splattered with blood and grime.
However, it is the man dressed in a button-shirt and tie, the typically eccentric Cuban man named Delikado that steps forward and speaks first.
”They’re coming... If they haven’t come yet, Azrael and the bastards are coming.”
Evan looks up at him and sighs, pushing himself up to his feet and walking back to the window pushing it closed. He looks down at the ground toward where the four Walkers were roaming.
”Well, if the Walkers don’t kill them... We will, right?”
Delikado nods, but Parker steps forward and looks at the two as if they’re insane.
”Can somebody please explain why they’re after us, and who they are?”
”You’ll each take a handgun. If you see them, you fucking shoot. No excuses-- you shoot their faces off! I’ll take the rifle because I’m the BOSS!”
”Guys...”
”We’re not letting them in here. No matter what they try to do, there’s no way they get inside.”
”Guys...”
”And no matter what, we never ever forget--!”
”Guys!”
All three men turn, curiously toward Parker who looks to be on the verge of tears looking from Yarmouth, to Delikado, to Evan. She takes a step toward them and asks in a barely audible, shaky tone...
”...Who... Is after us...?”
Delikado laughs loudly at Parker’s question while Yarmouth remains silent. Evan smirks and strolls toward her, leaning down a bit to meet her eyes.
”Azrael Goeren and his band of misfits. You know all about him, don’t you?”
Evan grins when Parker’s gaze becomes distant. Of course she knows.
”He’s the guy that wants to cave your pretty little face in. And if he gets in here with his crew, he might actually do that. Do you understand?”
”But why...?”
”Oh, why, why, why? Does it matter why at this point? Why do people that are supposed to be dead spring back to life and start causing problems for everybody, hm? Nothing makes too much sense these days.
“If he wants something, he’s gonna try to take it. Nobody’s stopping him. Nobody’s stopping anybody in his group.
“There’s just us.”
The words have an air of finality to them that causes Parker’s heart to sink. She groans and takes a seat in a nearby chair in the abandoned apartment.
”I don’t understand. What does he want?”
They laugh. Delikado laughs. Evan laughs. Even Yarmouth laughs, and only part of it is because they find Parker’s obliviousness genuinely amusing. A large part of it is the nervous that accompanies the truth.
”He wants everything.”
”I’d say it’s been about seven months since the day it all happened.
"I’ve seen a lot of faces come and go at this point, and I’ve lived with the fact that some of those people aren’t around anymore partly because of me. I’ve never felt good about sending someone out of the group, or, if the time came for it, executing them entirely.
“It doesn’t feel good. But it feels right, like it’s the way things should be...
“It’s why I pride myself on being a leader. I’d even trust Delikado with power at the top of the food chain. I really would, because I know he’ll do what’s right for the group. I know that with one of us in charge, we can beat anything that gets thrown our way. Anything.
“I’m not sure how safe we are. I’ve heard the Walkers trying their best to get in these doors all day, but they’re bolt-locked. It should buy us time. All we need is time... And in the middle of rushing toward nothing definite, we’ve forgotten that all we have is ti--
“FUCK, what was that?!”[/i]
We blink into color with the four occupants still sitting in the same room. Parker had been asleep on the far corner of the room, while Delikado had passed out in a chair and Yarmouth was in the process of loading each of the handguns.
It’s then that the door is so abruptly busted down and we see why Envi is so alarmed.
The Walkers push over each other to get toward the fresh meat inside the complex. Their hissing, moaning, and grumbling is more than enough to wake up Delikado and Parker.
Delikado is quick to hop to his feet and fire four shots from the Kimber Custom. Two of them are for naught, but one of them smashes through the chest and remnants of a heart of one of the Walkers, before the other passes clean through his eye. With one final gasp, the Walker crashes to the floor, and Evan is given a clear view of the remaining ones...
Dozens.
Parker screams and without much hesitation, makes a beeline for the window. Envi considers fighting her for space to get to the outside, but the horrible realization that there’s no time for both of them to escape sets in as he feels the cold fingers of the dead first caress, and then grip the bare flesh of his neck.
”You tell me. What happened to not letting them in?! DIE, YOU ZOMBIE PIGS! PIG ZOMBIES, DIE!”
More shots are fired, this time by Yarmouth, and Evan hastily reaches for a PH-45. He turns, face-to-face with the deceased woman, whose once-pretty face is now twisted and frozen into a scowl. Evan cries out and pushes the nose of the barrell into her mouth.
He pulls the trigger.
”GOOD!”
Delikado fires another three shots, and then screams obscenities as he yells something about reloading. All of our sound is distorted, as per Evan Envi. He leers, shocked, at the remains of the skull of the Walker he just re-killed.
”SHIT!”
Evan looks up in horror as he sees Yarmouth falter, and stagger... And he realizes that the giant is being bitten by one of the Walkers.
Delikado puts the Walker down and Yarmouth continues to howl in agony. Evan glances toward the window for the one person in the group he knows he can remedy it, Aubrey-- but she’s gone. The window remains open, but she must’ve left the moment they were flanked.
”Hey... HEY!”
”Wha--!”
Evan spins toward Delikado as Delikado fires another single bullet into the skull of a Walker. At the same moment, Evan is driven to the ground by another. The gun clatters to the floor and slides several feet away.
”YOU SEE?! This is what you get when you stare at windows instead of staring at ZOMBIE PIGS! Delikado gets hurt! Yarmouth gets bit!
“And you have a zombie on you!”
BANG!
Evan squeezes his eyes shut as the blood and chunks of rotten, cold meat fly against and over him. He pushes the Walker carcass off of him, collects his gun and slides to his feet. Evan’s eyes drift toward the wounded Yarmouth, who is now using one of the Walkers he killed to shove into the doorway, blocking the entrance of at least a half-dozen more.
We cut to Delikado and Evan. Delikado hastily reloads the Kimber Custom, but Envi grips the .45 with knuckles that are completely white from pressure.
Delikado approaches the struggling Yarmouth, stepping out of frame, and we only focus on Evan as he looks away again, gripping his own gun. His index finger toys with the trigger for a few seconds, until the gunshots finally stop.
The hissing and moaning of the zombies stop.
Everything seems to stop.
”Say you... So now what do we do with him?”
”What do you mean, what do we do? We patch him up and we bring him with us until we figure out what to do.”
”Ssshhhh, will ya? Would you keep your voice down? He’s in the next room.”
”Well, what are we supposed to do?”
”...”
”...So we kill him. We kill our own guy in cold blood.”
”Haha! I laugh at you. That lard’s already as good as dead. We’d be doing favors. Undeserved favors for a zombie pig.”
”He’s not dead. He’s sick.”
”He’s weak. He was never good for us, says me! ALWAYS slowing us down, always. He’s big. Strong. What else is he, besides USELESS to our cause? This team doesn’t work with Yarmouth-Not-Blade in a zombie apocalypse, does it?”
”I get it. He’s weak. I didn’t want to take him in either, but he saved our asses in there.”
”He held off the herd, and he was able to because he’s so damn big. But what did we do just now? Who THINNED out the herd? Huh? Who took out all the heavy hitters while the ‘sick’ nobody in the next room was bleeding all over Delikado and Evan’s attire? He did what he needed to do. He dies a hero.”
Again. Color. Evan Envi and Delikado sit with their backs turned to each other, each covered in the blood of the reanimated dead, on a twin-bed that looked like it had been soaked with bed in a struggle many moons ago.
”Think he can hear us talking in here?”
”How much do you care?”
Evan opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again after a few moments.
”...I don’t.”
”Good. You can do it then. My trigger finger’s a little burnt out. It’s stressed... Nope. Won’t do the job.”
Evan gives the man he’s called a friend for the past few months a cold glare, but doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Evan walks out of the room and walks into the adjacent one, containing Yarmouth.
We focus on Delikado who sits with a blank expression, waiting, and perhaps eavesdropping as we hear a conversation between Evan and Yarmouth for upwards of a minutes. Steady, almost pleasant-sounding conversation.
Then silence.
Seconds.
Seconds.
BANG!
Delikado’s eyebrows shoot up but he doesn’t flinch. He smiles slightly and angles his head toward the doorway. Evan Envi steps into the door frame and tosses the gun down onto the bed. Delikado grins down at the gun and Evan walks away from the room without another word.
”They’re coming.
“Not the Walkers. At this point, it’s not them I’m afraid of, because they come a dime a dozen. It’s... It’s the people that we’re afraid of. They’re coming.
“Azrael Goeren and his gang. I know they’re in this building. And I know they’re gonna come and try to kill us... And we can’t be slowed down. We can’t. Because after we beat them, there are other groups out there. I know for a fact that there are other people just like us.
“Just like me. I know they want what I want... And I know that they’d kill me for it.
“That’s why I can’t hesitate to strike first. I have to pull the trigger first. It’s been that way all my life, y’know? People classify me as a bad guy because I do what they want to do, or say what they want to, but I do it first.
“I do it for myself.
“Having a group makes things tricky. You have to watch your back, everyone else’s back, and then your own back again because one of those motherfuckers might stab at it. Because... What happens when we all do find whatever it is that we want? What if the last meal on Earth is sitting between myself and another member of my group. Do I think back to everything that made us a unit in the first place? Or do I act selfishly, put them down, and take it for myself?
“...What happened back there was an act of self-preservation. Yarmouth was a hazard to this group. Against any old Joe Schmo down the street, he’d be a good defense, but what happens when Azrael charges in here, all guns a-blazing? Yarmouth becomes ineffective. He slows us down, and we all get killed. We’re already dying out here, alright?
“I’m hungry.
“I’m fucking starving and it’s been too long since I’ve had a real meal. And I’ll be damned if a guy that means absolute SHIT to this group-- this team-- hops ahead of me and gets my food first.
“Yarmouth is sick. Tainted. So we put him out of his misery. We put him down. And you know? Maybe things are better like this, because even if he did survive whatever Azrael has planned, would he survive the groups after that? Those survivors? Yarmouth never understood that they were out for our throats. He would’ve never been prepared for it.
“They’d have killed him.”
Sigh.
”Aubrey had the right idea.
“It’s what she’s praised for, and it’s what I’ll always remember her for. She’s always been the smartest and the toughest female I’ve ever known, but I could never ever bring myself to tell her that. I know she’ll survive this chaos. I know that after we’re gone, she’ll thrive, and she’ll pick her spot. She’s not like us. She’s not like the rest of these testosterone-filled groups.
“She’s different. She’s adapted to this world, which is better than most of us can say. I wish she was with us for this battle. I wish she trusted us... We could use her.
“She ran while she could.
“Who knows? Maybe that’s the best way to survive a situation like this. When you know they’re coming.
“When...”[/i]
We fade into color. Evan is sitting with his back pressed to a brick wall, and we can only see him through the teal glow of moonlight. He speaks softly into the old fashioned tape recorder.
”We know they’re coming to kill us.”
We realize we’re now outside of the same building our heroes worked so hard to get into. We now see Delikado, just a few feet down from Evan, with his gun drawn.
Both Evan and Delikado freeze and tighten as they hear a man’s loud, blood-curdling scream in the near distance. Delikado shoots Evan a glance and shakes his head.
”They won’t.”
”What th... What was that?”
”I saw them. I saw them through the bushes when we came out.”
”How many?”
”Four.”
”Who’s with him?”
”Shadow. Gooch. Krunk.”
Codenames. Evan nods, understanding who he’s talking about.
”Can we take them?”
”They might have more firepower, the bastards!”
”Do you remember if they're good shots?”
”Gooch is good. He’s good with his hillbilly boy gun...”
Hissing. Growling.
”NO!”
Evan turns to his left in time to see Delikado rushed by one of them-- one Evan quickly identifies as Krunk...
A Walker. A fresh Walker.
No time to debate how it happened. He springs to action and fires a bullet into Krunk’s head.
”Oh my God, they got Krunk. They got one, Deli. The Walkers are close. I hear ‘em.”
Delikado doesn’t respond. He rolls onto his knees and slowly pushes himself up.
”We have to go NOW!”
Evan forces Delikado to his feet, but nearly screams when he feels the warm blood. Evan’s eyes rise toward his face-- but stop at his throat. Delikado stares at Evan behind sad eyes, sporting human bite-marks on his throat. Evan moves a fist up to his mouth, stifling any vomit that may have wanted to make an appearance-- and backs into another warm body.
A hand reaches up past Evan’s cheek, wielding a Glock 17.
Two bullets, in rapid succession, into the Cuban’s head. And he buckles. Evan counts four seconds, mouthing them to himself, before Delikado takes his last breath.
”Hallo.”
Evan’s heart sinks and he drops down to his knees. He reaches for the tape recorder and lifts it back up to his lips.
”For anybody that’s been listening... For anybody that still has faith in me... If there’s anybody out there that ever picks up this tape...”
Evan closes his eyes as he feels the nose of the gun pressed against the back of his skull.
”Don’t stop looking for me. I’ll kill Azrael. He’s the man trying to take food off my plate every day. He’s trying to take, in days, what I’ve spent months trying to get to.
“I don’t die here.”
Evan throws the tape recorder down and jumps to his feet, twisting around to meet his potential assailant, the gun pointed directly into his heart, while the other man stands with his own gun held in front of Evan’s face.
Darkness.
BANG!
We fade into a scene that almost looks far too serene to follow what we just witnessed. Evan Envi is seated, dressed in similar wardrobe but sans bloodstains, in a plain, lush field. He leans back on his palms and smiles at the camera. Kneeling next to him is a beautiful, young blonde-haired girl dressed in attire that would suggest that it’s time for spring.
We get no explanation of her presence. She gives the camera a coy smile, and tilts her head as if to get a better look at it, before running off.
We come closer to Evan, who begins speaking before we’re even directly in front of him.
”Why are you looking at me like that?”
Evan laughs a bit at whoever is managing the camera, but like the girl before him, this goes unexplained.
”Let’s not pretend that what you just saw isn’t what this really is. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy-- Yarmouth is the weak link on our team. Aubrey J. Parker cannot be trusted. She hates all of us. She’ll walk out if it benefits her. And if our team wins, it truly does benefit her.
“And when the average television watcher sees our opposition, they might be fooled, because they’re not exactly the cream of the crop like Envikado. Hell, most of them aren’t even AJP.
“You have Shadow, a fantastic big-man that puts asses in the seats every Thursday night, just like he did on Mondays. But... Every Thurday night, just like Mondays, it’s me that KEEPS the asses in the seat and it’s Shadow that’s relegated to the B-side.
“Even in his Xtreme Championship bout, Shadow was more focused on what I did to him three months ago, sickened by the fact that he was never able to destroy me, and it cost him. Shadow was never able to hurt me like he always claimed he would, and last week, Delikado and I made him pay for all the shit he’s talked. For all of his disrespect.
“Shadow can’t look out for himself when gold’s on the line, so why should he excel in this match? Is it really beyond him to get caught up, and focused on my beautiful face, and then eat a pinifall? No. THAT would be classic Shadow. FAILING to prioritize, and ending up flat on his back.
“And is Krunk gonna be much different?
“Germaine Williams is a phenomenal athlete and he reminds me of myself. I commend him. I respect what Krunk has done on Meltdown.
“...But here on Overdrive, the name Krunk is stupid.
“Krunk hasn’t won a match in what has to be nearly two months. He couldn’t beat Aubrey. He won’t beat Envikado. Krunk is severely out of place in this match, and even if he has Bailey and Hopkins whispering encouragement into his ear, it won’t be enough. Against me, it’s not enough. And don’t... DON’T think I forgot about what Krunk said about me on Meltdown in September.
“It’ll be handled.”
Evan taps his head and grins.
”Buckson Gooch doesn’t seem to know his opponents half the time. Like Shadow, he’s another big guy, and like Shadow, he’s been entertaining these have-nots and ingrates lately because he’s GOOD at it... But like Shadow, and like Krunk, it won’t be enough.
“He’s out of place.”
Evan sighs.
”And finally. Azrael.
“The one that’s supposed to put a bullet in all of our heads. And it really wouldn’t surprise me if it was you, Goeren. You’ve been on a hot streak. I tried to get angry when you first came here... Because I worked from the bottom on Meltdown, just to become... Just to become whatever this is I’m doing on Overdrive.
“But YOU...
“You just waltzed in here, demanding everything under the sun. I saw what you did to Chris Hart and-- I even saw what you did to Delikado. I had no choice but to respect you. It wasn’t until last week that I realized how important it was for me to be the one to put you down...
“It was when you said that you should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“It put things into perspective.
“You’re trying to take hot food off my plate. I’m hungry for number one, and you’re trying to make me starve.
“The thing about zombies, Azrael? They only have one emotion. Hunger. One purpose. Eating. And one mode.
“Overkill.
“And when you think about it... They’re not too much different from ourselves. They don’t kill because they want to, but because they have to do it. They hurt people because they’re hungry. All of us are the walking dead. All of us live to eat, and kill to satisfy our hunger.”
Evan smiles faintly, and we fade to darkness.
”I can’t promise a victory. I can’t even really promise you survival. I’ve already fucked that up.
“But I am hungry.
“I do want to know what it’s like to feast on the other side of that thin line I tread so often.
“...If you want to take anything else away from me, you’ll have to put a bullet in my head.”
MEGAMEGASTAR VOLUME 4:
”I don’t know how all of this happened... I don’t know where they all started coming from. I-- I remember there were a big group of us. A select few-- no more than thirteen or fourteen, right? And I knew there were other groups out there, but fuck, I never thought things were gonna come to this. Did you? I mean... Ugh... God, oh God what are we supposed to do?
“I...
“I think there are four of us now.
“There’s me, and there’s Delikado, and he’s cool. He’s gold. I know him from the group before, before we all got separated in all this chaos-- and I know the girl too. I know Aubrey. I was shocked to see her survive through it all, really.
“She and I... We used to be a thing, and yeah, I’ll admit I fucked that up. I fucked that all up, but--
“Oh God. Oh God, I can hear them.
“The last guy-- the last guy in our group is a mystery. I know of him, and he’s wandered around, and nobody was really surprised when he popped up again, unscathed, living in a world with these Walkers as if he were one of them... Aimless. Hungry. Angry. We call him Yarmouth. We--”[/i]
We’re thrown out of the world of darkness, and shown the face of death in its entirety.
A man, perhaps in his thirties, stands before us with his skin dried and pale, as if it hadn’t been even knicked by the sunlight in months. His left eye is missing, and his right eye hangs uselessly in its socket. His clothes are soiled, stained, ripped-- you name it. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that this man isn’t your average Joe. No sir. The man standing before us is a
”WALKER!”
Evan drops the old-fashioned tape recorder that had been in his hands, and it clatters violently down the fire escape.
As our cinematic view pans out, we see that our hero is standing face to face with the walking corpse stories above the ground, his back pressed to the thin rail of an apartment complex’s fire escape. Adjacent to the two is a large window, and Evan looks into it eagerly, but finds nothing of value.
”Hurry up you guys! For the love of all that is sacred, get me off of this!”
Evan kicks the “Walker” in the gut. It hisses angrily and lurches toward him, decayed arms and fingers outstretched.
Another kick sends it staggering backward, where it falls over the rusted rail of the fire escape and crashes dozens of yards to the asphalt below. Evan counts four more on the ground and mutters obscenities under his breath, but nearly yelps in joy as he hears the window beside him being slid open. He dives into the apartment and takes a deep breath on the ground.
Powerful hands lift him up-- the man mentioned in the recordings. Yarmouth. Beside him stands Aubrey J. Parker, the lovely young brunette whose wardrobe has seen better days; she is subjected to an all-black attire, and her sun-kissed tan skin and black hair are splattered with blood and grime.
However, it is the man dressed in a button-shirt and tie, the typically eccentric Cuban man named Delikado that steps forward and speaks first.
”They’re coming... If they haven’t come yet, Azrael and the bastards are coming.”
Evan looks up at him and sighs, pushing himself up to his feet and walking back to the window pushing it closed. He looks down at the ground toward where the four Walkers were roaming.
”Well, if the Walkers don’t kill them... We will, right?”
Delikado nods, but Parker steps forward and looks at the two as if they’re insane.
”Can somebody please explain why they’re after us, and who they are?”
”You’ll each take a handgun. If you see them, you fucking shoot. No excuses-- you shoot their faces off! I’ll take the rifle because I’m the BOSS!”
”Guys...”
”We’re not letting them in here. No matter what they try to do, there’s no way they get inside.”
”Guys...”
”And no matter what, we never ever forget--!”
”Guys!”
All three men turn, curiously toward Parker who looks to be on the verge of tears looking from Yarmouth, to Delikado, to Evan. She takes a step toward them and asks in a barely audible, shaky tone...
”...Who... Is after us...?”
Delikado laughs loudly at Parker’s question while Yarmouth remains silent. Evan smirks and strolls toward her, leaning down a bit to meet her eyes.
”Azrael Goeren and his band of misfits. You know all about him, don’t you?”
Evan grins when Parker’s gaze becomes distant. Of course she knows.
”He’s the guy that wants to cave your pretty little face in. And if he gets in here with his crew, he might actually do that. Do you understand?”
”But why...?”
”Oh, why, why, why? Does it matter why at this point? Why do people that are supposed to be dead spring back to life and start causing problems for everybody, hm? Nothing makes too much sense these days.
“If he wants something, he’s gonna try to take it. Nobody’s stopping him. Nobody’s stopping anybody in his group.
“There’s just us.”
The words have an air of finality to them that causes Parker’s heart to sink. She groans and takes a seat in a nearby chair in the abandoned apartment.
”I don’t understand. What does he want?”
They laugh. Delikado laughs. Evan laughs. Even Yarmouth laughs, and only part of it is because they find Parker’s obliviousness genuinely amusing. A large part of it is the nervous that accompanies the truth.
”He wants everything.”
***
”I’d say it’s been about seven months since the day it all happened.
"I’ve seen a lot of faces come and go at this point, and I’ve lived with the fact that some of those people aren’t around anymore partly because of me. I’ve never felt good about sending someone out of the group, or, if the time came for it, executing them entirely.
“It doesn’t feel good. But it feels right, like it’s the way things should be...
“It’s why I pride myself on being a leader. I’d even trust Delikado with power at the top of the food chain. I really would, because I know he’ll do what’s right for the group. I know that with one of us in charge, we can beat anything that gets thrown our way. Anything.
“I’m not sure how safe we are. I’ve heard the Walkers trying their best to get in these doors all day, but they’re bolt-locked. It should buy us time. All we need is time... And in the middle of rushing toward nothing definite, we’ve forgotten that all we have is ti--
“FUCK, what was that?!”[/i]
We blink into color with the four occupants still sitting in the same room. Parker had been asleep on the far corner of the room, while Delikado had passed out in a chair and Yarmouth was in the process of loading each of the handguns.
It’s then that the door is so abruptly busted down and we see why Envi is so alarmed.
The Walkers push over each other to get toward the fresh meat inside the complex. Their hissing, moaning, and grumbling is more than enough to wake up Delikado and Parker.
Delikado is quick to hop to his feet and fire four shots from the Kimber Custom. Two of them are for naught, but one of them smashes through the chest and remnants of a heart of one of the Walkers, before the other passes clean through his eye. With one final gasp, the Walker crashes to the floor, and Evan is given a clear view of the remaining ones...
Dozens.
Parker screams and without much hesitation, makes a beeline for the window. Envi considers fighting her for space to get to the outside, but the horrible realization that there’s no time for both of them to escape sets in as he feels the cold fingers of the dead first caress, and then grip the bare flesh of his neck.
”You tell me. What happened to not letting them in?! DIE, YOU ZOMBIE PIGS! PIG ZOMBIES, DIE!”
More shots are fired, this time by Yarmouth, and Evan hastily reaches for a PH-45. He turns, face-to-face with the deceased woman, whose once-pretty face is now twisted and frozen into a scowl. Evan cries out and pushes the nose of the barrell into her mouth.
He pulls the trigger.
”GOOD!”
Delikado fires another three shots, and then screams obscenities as he yells something about reloading. All of our sound is distorted, as per Evan Envi. He leers, shocked, at the remains of the skull of the Walker he just re-killed.
”SHIT!”
Evan looks up in horror as he sees Yarmouth falter, and stagger... And he realizes that the giant is being bitten by one of the Walkers.
Delikado puts the Walker down and Yarmouth continues to howl in agony. Evan glances toward the window for the one person in the group he knows he can remedy it, Aubrey-- but she’s gone. The window remains open, but she must’ve left the moment they were flanked.
”Hey... HEY!”
”Wha--!”
Evan spins toward Delikado as Delikado fires another single bullet into the skull of a Walker. At the same moment, Evan is driven to the ground by another. The gun clatters to the floor and slides several feet away.
”YOU SEE?! This is what you get when you stare at windows instead of staring at ZOMBIE PIGS! Delikado gets hurt! Yarmouth gets bit!
“And you have a zombie on you!”
BANG!
Evan squeezes his eyes shut as the blood and chunks of rotten, cold meat fly against and over him. He pushes the Walker carcass off of him, collects his gun and slides to his feet. Evan’s eyes drift toward the wounded Yarmouth, who is now using one of the Walkers he killed to shove into the doorway, blocking the entrance of at least a half-dozen more.
We cut to Delikado and Evan. Delikado hastily reloads the Kimber Custom, but Envi grips the .45 with knuckles that are completely white from pressure.
Delikado approaches the struggling Yarmouth, stepping out of frame, and we only focus on Evan as he looks away again, gripping his own gun. His index finger toys with the trigger for a few seconds, until the gunshots finally stop.
The hissing and moaning of the zombies stop.
Everything seems to stop.
***
”Say you... So now what do we do with him?”
”What do you mean, what do we do? We patch him up and we bring him with us until we figure out what to do.”
”Ssshhhh, will ya? Would you keep your voice down? He’s in the next room.”
”Well, what are we supposed to do?”
”...”
”...So we kill him. We kill our own guy in cold blood.”
”Haha! I laugh at you. That lard’s already as good as dead. We’d be doing favors. Undeserved favors for a zombie pig.”
”He’s not dead. He’s sick.”
”He’s weak. He was never good for us, says me! ALWAYS slowing us down, always. He’s big. Strong. What else is he, besides USELESS to our cause? This team doesn’t work with Yarmouth-Not-Blade in a zombie apocalypse, does it?”
”I get it. He’s weak. I didn’t want to take him in either, but he saved our asses in there.”
”He held off the herd, and he was able to because he’s so damn big. But what did we do just now? Who THINNED out the herd? Huh? Who took out all the heavy hitters while the ‘sick’ nobody in the next room was bleeding all over Delikado and Evan’s attire? He did what he needed to do. He dies a hero.”
Again. Color. Evan Envi and Delikado sit with their backs turned to each other, each covered in the blood of the reanimated dead, on a twin-bed that looked like it had been soaked with bed in a struggle many moons ago.
”Think he can hear us talking in here?”
”How much do you care?”
Evan opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again after a few moments.
”...I don’t.”
”Good. You can do it then. My trigger finger’s a little burnt out. It’s stressed... Nope. Won’t do the job.”
Evan gives the man he’s called a friend for the past few months a cold glare, but doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Evan walks out of the room and walks into the adjacent one, containing Yarmouth.
We focus on Delikado who sits with a blank expression, waiting, and perhaps eavesdropping as we hear a conversation between Evan and Yarmouth for upwards of a minutes. Steady, almost pleasant-sounding conversation.
Then silence.
Seconds.
Seconds.
BANG!
Delikado’s eyebrows shoot up but he doesn’t flinch. He smiles slightly and angles his head toward the doorway. Evan Envi steps into the door frame and tosses the gun down onto the bed. Delikado grins down at the gun and Evan walks away from the room without another word.
***
”They’re coming.
“Not the Walkers. At this point, it’s not them I’m afraid of, because they come a dime a dozen. It’s... It’s the people that we’re afraid of. They’re coming.
“Azrael Goeren and his gang. I know they’re in this building. And I know they’re gonna come and try to kill us... And we can’t be slowed down. We can’t. Because after we beat them, there are other groups out there. I know for a fact that there are other people just like us.
“Just like me. I know they want what I want... And I know that they’d kill me for it.
“That’s why I can’t hesitate to strike first. I have to pull the trigger first. It’s been that way all my life, y’know? People classify me as a bad guy because I do what they want to do, or say what they want to, but I do it first.
“I do it for myself.
“Having a group makes things tricky. You have to watch your back, everyone else’s back, and then your own back again because one of those motherfuckers might stab at it. Because... What happens when we all do find whatever it is that we want? What if the last meal on Earth is sitting between myself and another member of my group. Do I think back to everything that made us a unit in the first place? Or do I act selfishly, put them down, and take it for myself?
“...What happened back there was an act of self-preservation. Yarmouth was a hazard to this group. Against any old Joe Schmo down the street, he’d be a good defense, but what happens when Azrael charges in here, all guns a-blazing? Yarmouth becomes ineffective. He slows us down, and we all get killed. We’re already dying out here, alright?
“I’m hungry.
“I’m fucking starving and it’s been too long since I’ve had a real meal. And I’ll be damned if a guy that means absolute SHIT to this group-- this team-- hops ahead of me and gets my food first.
“Yarmouth is sick. Tainted. So we put him out of his misery. We put him down. And you know? Maybe things are better like this, because even if he did survive whatever Azrael has planned, would he survive the groups after that? Those survivors? Yarmouth never understood that they were out for our throats. He would’ve never been prepared for it.
“They’d have killed him.”
Sigh.
”Aubrey had the right idea.
“It’s what she’s praised for, and it’s what I’ll always remember her for. She’s always been the smartest and the toughest female I’ve ever known, but I could never ever bring myself to tell her that. I know she’ll survive this chaos. I know that after we’re gone, she’ll thrive, and she’ll pick her spot. She’s not like us. She’s not like the rest of these testosterone-filled groups.
“She’s different. She’s adapted to this world, which is better than most of us can say. I wish she was with us for this battle. I wish she trusted us... We could use her.
“She ran while she could.
“Who knows? Maybe that’s the best way to survive a situation like this. When you know they’re coming.
“When...”[/i]
We fade into color. Evan is sitting with his back pressed to a brick wall, and we can only see him through the teal glow of moonlight. He speaks softly into the old fashioned tape recorder.
”We know they’re coming to kill us.”
We realize we’re now outside of the same building our heroes worked so hard to get into. We now see Delikado, just a few feet down from Evan, with his gun drawn.
Both Evan and Delikado freeze and tighten as they hear a man’s loud, blood-curdling scream in the near distance. Delikado shoots Evan a glance and shakes his head.
”They won’t.”
”What th... What was that?”
”I saw them. I saw them through the bushes when we came out.”
”How many?”
”Four.”
”Who’s with him?”
”Shadow. Gooch. Krunk.”
Codenames. Evan nods, understanding who he’s talking about.
”Can we take them?”
”They might have more firepower, the bastards!”
”Do you remember if they're good shots?”
”Gooch is good. He’s good with his hillbilly boy gun...”
Hissing. Growling.
”NO!”
Evan turns to his left in time to see Delikado rushed by one of them-- one Evan quickly identifies as Krunk...
A Walker. A fresh Walker.
No time to debate how it happened. He springs to action and fires a bullet into Krunk’s head.
”Oh my God, they got Krunk. They got one, Deli. The Walkers are close. I hear ‘em.”
Delikado doesn’t respond. He rolls onto his knees and slowly pushes himself up.
”We have to go NOW!”
Evan forces Delikado to his feet, but nearly screams when he feels the warm blood. Evan’s eyes rise toward his face-- but stop at his throat. Delikado stares at Evan behind sad eyes, sporting human bite-marks on his throat. Evan moves a fist up to his mouth, stifling any vomit that may have wanted to make an appearance-- and backs into another warm body.
A hand reaches up past Evan’s cheek, wielding a Glock 17.
Two bullets, in rapid succession, into the Cuban’s head. And he buckles. Evan counts four seconds, mouthing them to himself, before Delikado takes his last breath.
”Hallo.”
Evan’s heart sinks and he drops down to his knees. He reaches for the tape recorder and lifts it back up to his lips.
”For anybody that’s been listening... For anybody that still has faith in me... If there’s anybody out there that ever picks up this tape...”
Evan closes his eyes as he feels the nose of the gun pressed against the back of his skull.
”Don’t stop looking for me. I’ll kill Azrael. He’s the man trying to take food off my plate every day. He’s trying to take, in days, what I’ve spent months trying to get to.
“I don’t die here.”
Evan throws the tape recorder down and jumps to his feet, twisting around to meet his potential assailant, the gun pointed directly into his heart, while the other man stands with his own gun held in front of Evan’s face.
Darkness.
BANG!
***
[/center]We fade into a scene that almost looks far too serene to follow what we just witnessed. Evan Envi is seated, dressed in similar wardrobe but sans bloodstains, in a plain, lush field. He leans back on his palms and smiles at the camera. Kneeling next to him is a beautiful, young blonde-haired girl dressed in attire that would suggest that it’s time for spring.
We get no explanation of her presence. She gives the camera a coy smile, and tilts her head as if to get a better look at it, before running off.
We come closer to Evan, who begins speaking before we’re even directly in front of him.
”Why are you looking at me like that?”
Evan laughs a bit at whoever is managing the camera, but like the girl before him, this goes unexplained.
”Let’s not pretend that what you just saw isn’t what this really is. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy-- Yarmouth is the weak link on our team. Aubrey J. Parker cannot be trusted. She hates all of us. She’ll walk out if it benefits her. And if our team wins, it truly does benefit her.
“And when the average television watcher sees our opposition, they might be fooled, because they’re not exactly the cream of the crop like Envikado. Hell, most of them aren’t even AJP.
“You have Shadow, a fantastic big-man that puts asses in the seats every Thursday night, just like he did on Mondays. But... Every Thurday night, just like Mondays, it’s me that KEEPS the asses in the seat and it’s Shadow that’s relegated to the B-side.
“Even in his Xtreme Championship bout, Shadow was more focused on what I did to him three months ago, sickened by the fact that he was never able to destroy me, and it cost him. Shadow was never able to hurt me like he always claimed he would, and last week, Delikado and I made him pay for all the shit he’s talked. For all of his disrespect.
“Shadow can’t look out for himself when gold’s on the line, so why should he excel in this match? Is it really beyond him to get caught up, and focused on my beautiful face, and then eat a pinifall? No. THAT would be classic Shadow. FAILING to prioritize, and ending up flat on his back.
“And is Krunk gonna be much different?
“Germaine Williams is a phenomenal athlete and he reminds me of myself. I commend him. I respect what Krunk has done on Meltdown.
“...But here on Overdrive, the name Krunk is stupid.
“Krunk hasn’t won a match in what has to be nearly two months. He couldn’t beat Aubrey. He won’t beat Envikado. Krunk is severely out of place in this match, and even if he has Bailey and Hopkins whispering encouragement into his ear, it won’t be enough. Against me, it’s not enough. And don’t... DON’T think I forgot about what Krunk said about me on Meltdown in September.
“It’ll be handled.”
Evan taps his head and grins.
”Buckson Gooch doesn’t seem to know his opponents half the time. Like Shadow, he’s another big guy, and like Shadow, he’s been entertaining these have-nots and ingrates lately because he’s GOOD at it... But like Shadow, and like Krunk, it won’t be enough.
“He’s out of place.”
Evan sighs.
”And finally. Azrael.
“The one that’s supposed to put a bullet in all of our heads. And it really wouldn’t surprise me if it was you, Goeren. You’ve been on a hot streak. I tried to get angry when you first came here... Because I worked from the bottom on Meltdown, just to become... Just to become whatever this is I’m doing on Overdrive.
“But YOU...
“You just waltzed in here, demanding everything under the sun. I saw what you did to Chris Hart and-- I even saw what you did to Delikado. I had no choice but to respect you. It wasn’t until last week that I realized how important it was for me to be the one to put you down...
“It was when you said that you should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“It put things into perspective.
“You’re trying to take hot food off my plate. I’m hungry for number one, and you’re trying to make me starve.
“The thing about zombies, Azrael? They only have one emotion. Hunger. One purpose. Eating. And one mode.
“Overkill.
“And when you think about it... They’re not too much different from ourselves. They don’t kill because they want to, but because they have to do it. They hurt people because they’re hungry. All of us are the walking dead. All of us live to eat, and kill to satisfy our hunger.”
Evan smiles faintly, and we fade to darkness.
”I can’t promise a victory. I can’t even really promise you survival. I’ve already fucked that up.
“But I am hungry.
“I do want to know what it’s like to feast on the other side of that thin line I tread so often.
“...If you want to take anything else away from me, you’ll have to put a bullet in my head.”
THE WALKING DEAD
