Distrations

BrikWars fiction in long-prose form. Trigger warning: Walls of text

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RunsWithLegos
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Distrations

Post by RunsWithLegos » Wed Apr 03, 2013 2:21 am

Distractions



Goei watched his fingers twitch for a bit before gulping down the last of the vodka. He welcomed the numbness and fell back into his chair. For a while he just stared at the wallet sized photo of his brother and mother, casting his mind back into happier days, trying to ignore the constant clamor all across the base. Within minutes he was stripping his already spotless rifle down for the tenth time that day, the pieces and springs flashing out onto the table and disappearing under the stained cloth he'd found on Tim's corpse. Goei decided this would be his Om, his path of escape.
The concrete walls were broken every five feet by viewing slits and shooting slits facing outside and a single door leading to the hell inside. I was currently locked tight and buried under two tables and a crate full of meals-ready-to-eat. full of variations on the accursed lasagne Goei had been shoveling down for weeks. Two rooms was all Goei had, used to be three. But a day ago Tim keeled over, foaming at the mouth and Goei had to put a trio of rounds into the thing that used to be Tim's head before it stopped moving. He dumped the corpse in the empty storeroom and welded the door shut. The smell still escapes sometimes and on quiet, neurotic nights Goei swore he could hear scratching coming from the other side of the door, faint and testing.
The moans, groans and banging never ended. Outside the bunker, inside the halls. The dead walked, crawled and limped. Hunting. Thirsting. he sat behind his barricade cross legged, looser than he had been since even before the first pandemic. the hinges came loose and Goei was ready to face his reality.
He yelled at the top of his lungs to hear himself over the cacophony.
“No hope. No distractions. No needs, and only one want: 24 silenced roars.”
The door split and burst from the frame, the roar grew as the tangled mass of limbs flooded in.
BANG-ca-click-
“1”
rying out for those who still lived, those who were fast enough to barricade their doors shut. And smart enough... or maybe cold hearted enough to keep them shut despite the begging and crying from the other side.
Days turned to weeks. Every few days gunshots reverberated through the base, another pocket of survivors ripped open. Sometimes the shots petered out and Goei assumed whom ever was fighting won and got to another hiding place, but most of the time the shots were followed by shrill screams of pure terror and pain, and the feeding roar of the dead rumbled through the halls, drawing ever more zombies towards the poor, unlucky sods.
Goei took to making towns out of the cans, bullets and various tools of war to eat up the time... every so often he'd glance back up at his map. Taped to the wall and half ripped, marked and re-marked with plans, strategies and thoughts. To the left was the mess hall, certainly filled with the monsters; it was dinner when the freaks burst out of the maintenance halls. To the right was bunker block A with alternating machine gun and Artillery Bastions, straight ahead was the main corridor, straight to the main gate on the other side of this horrid hill, Goei did not know if the zombies had broken through it or not, the roars from within had drawn a hoard to the hill, that much Goei could see out of his viewing slits.
Above the cacophony of the dead was one of the few things that were keeping him sane. The continued thump thump thump of artillery paired with the distinct rat-tat-tat- of automatic fire miles off to the north and south; sure signs the other hills still held strong. He hoped beyond hope they'd send the reclamation corp soon. He hoped they would not write the base off as dead for good, he estimated there were at least a hundred survivors left, at least one of them had to have locked themselves up in a radio room.
“29 days and counting”
“30”
“31”
“1”
A month of hiding had passed, a month of dwindling hope and fraying sanity. Each day counted obsessively, each our tallied. anything to distract from the reality of what was in the hall, outside of the base... in the next room over. He had counted exactly 19 breakthroughs. He had been counting, and paying close attention. Only a fourth ended with what he could only guess was survival, every other one sent him back into his cot to hide as the screams and roars intermingled... he hoped the poor sods had it quick. The only peace of mind he got from these killings and battles was that each time there were less zombies in the base, no way did the monsters leave anything but bone fragments and stains... nothing to join their ranks.
BANG-ca-click-
“199”
BANG-ca-click-
“200”
BANG-ca-click-
“201”
The pile of headless corpses outside his viewports grew every day just as his stores of ammo dwindled, his gun gleamed from the obsessive cleaning and it's bolt snapped smartly as Goei cycled it mindlessly, keeping his mind off of the scratchings on the walls behind him... the Z’s had been getting closer and closer, each day he heard more and more corpses shuffling in the hallways. Killing the ones outside was the only thing he could distract himself, even the thunder of distant artillery drowned out by the rancid moans.
Two months later They were finally at the door. When the first door shuddering clang woke him up Goei calmly welded it shut, entombing him until they broke through. He sat on his bead and cleaned his rifle in the Dim light filtering through the corpse clogged view slits, the lights having burnt our a day or two ago. He listened to the growing feeding roar and knew that he was done with the escapism, done with the distractions.
-ca-click-
He slipped the bolt into place and tallied his last two magazines. 25, two dozen for the rotting mockeries of life, one he was saving...

he sat behind his barricade cross legged, looser than he had been since even before the first pandemic. the hinges came loose and Goei was ready to face his reality. He yelled at the top of his lungs to hear himself over the cacophony.
“No hope. No distractions. No needs, and only one want: 24 silenced roars.”
The door split and burst from the frame, the roar grew as the tangled mass of limbs flooded in.
BANG-ca-click- “1”

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Arkbrik
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Re: Distrations

Post by Arkbrik » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:39 am

This was a good one. Could be more interesting if it was just called "Distractions" but never explicitly mentioning in the text that he's distracting himself.

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RunsWithLegos
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Re: Distrations

Post by RunsWithLegos » Fri Apr 05, 2013 1:51 am

hmmm good idea, i'll look into a restructure of the work...

cleanupcrew
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Re: Distrations

Post by cleanupcrew » Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:09 pm

Is distration a form of titration?

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RunsWithLegos
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Re: Distrations

Post by RunsWithLegos » Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:21 pm

Are you sure that is the word you meant to use?

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