Among the Fallen: Resurrection

by Ross Shortall

  She stood to her feet and grasped the handle once again, but this time she pushed down on the handle and threw the door open. All of a sudden the air was filled with flies and Alex just froze as the familiar smell of decay hit her face like a ghastly brick wall, her eyes streaming and her throat gagging as the sight of a badly decomposed couple laid cuddling in bed, their bodies stuck to the sheets and their skin dried up and peeled away from their eye sockets and mouth. Alex turned away and grasped the banister, hunched over and heaving as the flies flew merrily over the unfortunate couple, crawling over their thin leather-like skin and eating at their hearts content.

  Turning away, she stumbled back down the stairs and ran out into the street, panting and puffing as she got back her breath and regained her posture. As the wind blew around her she stood looking at a bicycle as its wheel slowly turned, its frame covered in blood and a lone sneaker sat beside it, ownerless and stained; its laces sprawled out almost dead like. She glanced around the silent suburban nightmare almost grieving the people she had neither met or knew, the torment of strangers being almost as heart-breaking as the misery of friends, yet this ghostly and corrupt city was filled to the brim with every kind of pain imaginable and those she could not even come close to dreaming of.

  Alex walked away from the street and across the main road back into the main high street and into decay filled shopping area. Suddenly, she heard a creak and the clutter of rubble. She turned and her eyes were suddenly drawn to building across the road. Buried in the side of the office block on the second floor sat a car, rocking gently in the wind. She scanned the street thinking it was peculiar that all the other cars were grounded, even if they were smashed up beyond repair, but why one car? Was it thrown? The car suddenly keeled over and dropped into the street as the floor collapsed bringing down with it most of the building. It crashed to the ground in a symphony of twisted metal and concrete as a huge fog of dust and plaster was blown down the street towards her and she coughed violently as it swept past her. She looked around cautiously then approached the car, its upturned and smoking underside creaked as a wheel at the front turned slowly. As the dust settled, she looked up as files and paper fell into the street like leaves, smoke spilling into the air and the burning smell of rubber gave her a temporary break from the decaying flesh stench. She knelt down and peered inside the car. There was a body, rotten and strapped to her seat with barbed wire, she was holding something; a piece of paper?

  Letter found in the trashed car

  Dear Miss Ellis, As you are more than likely aware there is the threat of a swine flu Pandemic in Blackwater and the surrounding areas. We are pleased to inform you that your local General Practitioner has the new Swine Flu Vaccine supplied by Beaumont Pharmaceuticals and the Beaumont Corporation and we are giving it to residents of Blackwater free and without affecting your existing medical insurance policies. It is strongly recommended that take this vaccine as soon as possible as the swine flu can be extreme and in some cases fatal, and the vaccine will not work once you already have it. For further questions please contact your surgery or your nearest GP to claim your free Swine Flu Vaccine.

  Faithfully E.S Sollun

  Alex screwed up the letter and threw it to the ground and walked away from the car. Her bare feet clapped on the cold wet metal floor, echoing deep into the dark and dank street; the feeling of isolation filling her lonely heart with anxiety and distance. She wandered uselessly until she came to a supermarket, its steel shutters down all around the windows. One of the shutters appeared to be damaged with small hole ripped into it. The metal stuck out all jagged and coarse, razor sharp and yet, big enough for Alex to crawl into. Above the hole there was writing…

  Writing on the shutters – Confetti Mall on Leeth Street

  The Aeneid (III, 658)

  Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.

  It appeared that this little game of theirs was most undeniably on rails she thought to herself; being led from place to place like a lamb to the slaughter; but it was still unclear as to what exactly she had to do. So far she hadn’t seen a single living soul.

  She stood pondering for a moment and gazed around at the soundless and grisly streets. She kneeled down and looked through the hole. The shop itself looked pretty unsoiled and everything peculiarly looked in place. She sighed and crawled through the hole, instantly recognizing it as place she had been to thousands of times before; Confetti Mall.

  Chapter Thirteen: The First Judgement

  Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. - Matthew 15:14

  13.01: Confetti Mall

  Confetti Mall was one of those ridiculously big indoor shopping centre’s that was spread over three floors and smelt like new shoes and rubber. Confetti Mall is the second largest in Blackwater with 934.000sq ft (86.7714 m2) available as retail floor space. There are over two-hundred shops, of which there are seven anchor stores, seventeen cafes and restaurants; Confetti Mall has on average five hundred thousand visitors per week. Recently, it underwent a major refurbishment at a cost of fourteen-million dollars, paid for by the Beaumont Corporation. This included new Italian porcelain flooring, new lighting, a new ceiling and new glass roofs which allow much more natural light into the shopping Centre. There are now also new faster lifts and four more escalators which are still being installed, along with automatic entrance doors and customer service intercoms. The refurbishment has also encouraged refitting of many shops so that they complement the new surroundings. One of the more controversial editions to the Shopping Centre was the inclusion of BHB or Beaumont Hair and Beauty right at the main entrance. It is alleged that Beaumont Pharmaceuticals paid for the refurbishment in exchange for no other hair and beauty supplies or product focused shops were allowed within one-hundred feet of BHB. Obviously, this is something that the Blackwater Council Denies, which of course is chaired by none other than Grayston Beaumont.

  In 1983, before the mall’s construction, the area was covered by a series of themed shops; one of which was called the Candy Emporium. Owned at the time by Arthur S Bailey, it was a sweetshop of classical nature, its shelves filled with thousands of jars of all types of candy that was sold by the pound. Bailey was very popular with the children, so much so, that many thought his friendliness and enthusiasm towards the children was somewhat worrying. But in the December of that year, his penchant for the friendship of children was revealed to be an elaborate double-bluff; his true desires being that of young men. Bailey, also known by the media as the Candy-Butcher; was arrested and executed for a series of murders covering an eight month period. Bailey would canvas the local red light district in Challis Hill, picking up young men where he would then bury them on the outskirts of Blackwater in makeshift coffin while they were alive, quoting scriptures and poems of the impending apocalypse. With the help of a Police Psychic known only as Deen, police profilers found that the vile Bailey was guilt ridden with his own sexuality and a deeply confused individual, punishing and judging the gay community and accusing them of infecting him. In the dense woodland, Deen and the police found eighteen men dead and still buried on the outskirts of the city, finding just one survivor who later was institutionalised after spending six days buried with his mouth sewn shut and his palms stitched painfully to his chest like all the other victims. The Candy Emporium was later burned down by a group from the gay community, and surrounding businesses upped and moved as their failure to notice the murderer’s actions affected their trade. The whole area remained empty for seven years and Blackwater council found it impossible leasing out the properties. In 1991, the area was demolished and Confetti Mall was built, stripping the land of its cursed reputation and the patrons soon returned. The survivor of Bailey’s reign of terror, later committed suicide and his family left Blackwater soon after the execution of Bailey.

  13.02: Sapedon

  Alex and her friends spent a lot of time here when growing up, ha
nging around and messing about in the arcades and generally being a nuisance. She stood inside the entrance as her happy memories and flashbacks flooded back, watching ghostly memories of herself and her friends chatting, laughing and general mischief, showing off and the usual trendy shit as this was the place to be in her youth. Alex blinked and they were gone.

  She took a cautious scan around and then walked over to the newsagents and pulled open the door.

  Inside everything was as normal as it usually was, aside for the fact there were no shoppers. She walked up to the counter, smirking sneakily as she helped herself to a packet of cigarettes and a lighter; ripping the box open like a desperate animal. She sparked up her lighter and held it up to the cigarette and stared at her shaking hand. She could not help but to be terrified, who wouldn’t be? But the relatively unscathed shopping centre and its apparent surreal emptiness just made the fear worse. She gazed over the magazines with a passing glance as she left the shop and stood in the main hall, looking over the abandoned shopping centre with a feeling of paranoia and mistrust.

  As she puffed contently on her cigarette, she glared up past the levels and through the glass roof into the blood-red sky; her mind strangely eased temporarily by the smoke that poisoned her lungs.

  Suddenly, she dropped her hood and took a deeper gaze at the shops around her; not looking for anything particular, but just enjoying the clean and unpolluted surroundings while it lasted. She flicked her cigarette to the floor and sighed, looking for a pocket within the sweater that soon revealed itself as non-existent. She frowned and looked over the shops before her, lighting another cigarette and immediately heading for the clothes shop close to the entrance. The shop was a typical shop of its type, ridiculous size zeros as if the whole damn world had to conform to its preferred stock. Luckily, Alex was tiny, but she was always dead against organized consumerism. To her friends it was a pretty hypocritical view as she was one of the worse spenders in American history. But she always argued that there was a blatant difference between buying what you wanted and buying what you’re told you should.

  She approached a long mirror on the wall and stared at herself aghast in disbelief, her grubby, morbid and half naked appearance was totally drained of life, humanity and glow and was far from attractive. She leant forward; staring into her ghostly black eyes and lips, her skin streaked in grime and blackened blood. Her face appeared to be covered in scars, almost invisible to most, but Alex spotted them a mile away; one appeared almost endless, starting at her eyebrow and vanishing deep into her hairline. Her complexion was grey and colourless, blotchy and crawling with dark spider-veins around the eyes and cheeks, giving her an almost evil looking frown regardless of her chosen mood. She suddenly stepped back, staring at her suit and the hooks that painlessly held it in place, its leather oily looking texture glimmering under the shops synthetic light, almost purring as she ran her hand over it. She looked closer at the markings and symbols almost mesmerized, tugging on the seemingly pointless straps and buckles that hung from it and followed the aggressive stitching with her eyes as they vanished behind her. She clasped the collar at either side and tried to pull it apart and at first it seemed to separate, but the suit growled angrily and embedded its ghastly hooks further into her flesh and its stitching tightened in defiance. She stared at its shape almost thankful of its design, despite having no arms on it, at least its legs went down just above the knee and her chest was almost flattened, giving her some kind of privacy at the very least; the suit obviously wasn’t built for vanity that was for sure.

  She stood for a while, gazing upon her ghostly image and frantically digging deep into her memories, trying to pull out that attractive, vain twenty-one year old she once was. Somewhere in this dead, grubby and rotten corpse was the real her; except she wasn’t screaming to get out, she was long gone and Alex, despite her fears, loathing’s and rejections; already knew and accepted it without question.

  She frowned as the mannequins silently watched her, scowling bitterly as she walked away, cursing and vowing to stay away from mirrors from this moment on. She scanned the clothes and shoes as she would have done a thousand times before; looking at all the heels, boots, cocktail dresses, eventually realizing that she needed something a bit more appropriate and practical.

  She took off the oversized sweater and threw it to the floor, grabbing a black leather jacket and slung it on, stuffing the box of cigarettes into her pocket and looked over the rows and rows of clothes, squinting as the smoke stung her eyes. She put on a pair of combat quarter length trousers and put on a pair of black trainers. She bounced joyfully for a few moments and picked up a different size, swapping the trainers and bouncing again, coughing violently on her cigarette. She stood before the mirror once more, her appearance despite being completely unfashionable to say the least; it should at least provide some protection against the bitter cold outside. Her melancholic and macabre reflection merely gazed back at her as she stared into her own soul, wraithlike and just as vile as the rest of the city. Her skin was streaked with grime and tidemarks, her hair damp and filthy it hugged her back almost possessively. She threw the cigarette to the floor and lit another just as something caught her attention in the mirror.

  On the back wall was her name written in blood with a crude arrow pointing to a blood filled paddling pool, the area warped in chains, scaffolding and smeared with handprints. She turned and approached the area and stared up at the dead lights, it’s obvious cry to her now recognized. She looked at the pool sickened, suddenly looking away and startled by the new word Hurry!, strangely replacing her name. She looked around in horror, not expecting the promised signs to be as blatant and un-nerving. She hastily glared down at the pool pulling a dissatisfying face of disgust, frowning at the thought of having to even look at it, let alone touch it. Alex eventually dropped to her knees and rolled up her sleeve rebelliously, sickened to the stomach as she slowly reached into the warm blood, gagging as the surface skin broke, flesh and entrails floating to the surface as she blindly felt around in the revolting pool. She felt around sightlessly, pushing aside anything that wasn’t solid as she heaved ; suddenly, she found something. Instantly, she clasped the object and pulled from the pool, watching as the blood slipped from its metallic surface, hanging with skin and congealed flesh.

  “What the fuck?!” she mumbled quietly as she glared over what appeared to be a butchers cleaver.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” she shouted. Alex stood up and looked around assertively, awaiting for some advice or something to reveal itself on cue, but nothing happened. As the cleaver glimmered under the light, she held it in front of her glaring at her reflection in bewilderment, its blade sparkling and almost glowing with temptation. Suddenly, the suit rambled in her head, filling her mind undoubtedly with orders and expectations as Alex quickly lost her temper with frustration.

  “Oh my God, can you please speak fucking English, I have no fucking idea what you’re saying, and I aint doing shit I promise you tha…” Suddenly, Alex lunged forward with the cleaver beyond her control, severing her arm and cutting off her hand, interrupting her own words as she shouted angrily. She screamed in agony and fell to the floor clutching her bleeding stump as the suit suddenly released its control. Alex frantically pulled and tugged at the demon suit, hysterically trying to rip it off as her pain slowly subsided, screaming and cursing desperately as the suit tightened and fought back effortlessly.

  Eventually, she calmed and got her breath back as it rapidly sunk in that the suit was never coming off, panting uncontrollably as she held her haemorrhaging wrist completely beleaguered. As the suit rambled on, Alex fell back and gave in, submitting to it as her bleeding wrist started to bubble and move creepily. She sat up curiously, wiping away the tears and smearing her face unintentionally with her own blood, the stump strangely animated as if the blood itself lived. Suddenly, her blood lashed out and snatched her hand from in front of her, startling her as it was instantly return
ed to where it belonged. As the wound vanished and her fingers started to move, her traumatized face abruptly turned to a slight smile, almost as if insanity had suddenly throttled her fraying mind, her face switching randomly between emotions.

  She looked at the cleaver shaken and traumatized, gagging until abruptly vomiting into the paddling pool with extreme shock. As Alex regained posture and stood up, she rubbed her head as it became completely obvious that the suit could neither be controlled nor rebelled against, resistance evidently met with an extreme and painful penalty. Alex tapped the cleaver on her thigh as she shut her eyes tightly and glared blindly at the dark ceiling above. Her thoughts were almost gone in a way; comprehension of being pretty much invincible was proving a hard thing to get her head around, even if she wanted to throw the towel in, the wretched suit would just seize control.

  She shook her head violently as she throttled her thoughts from her mind and continued to walk around the Shopping Centre looking for the next sign, leaving the department store and back into the main hall. She wandered pointlessly through the different departments, lost and clueless; wondering just where she was supposed to be and when. The death that had befallen the outside world seemed to have no place here; if it did then it was very well hidden. There was no blood, no bodies; nothing. Everything was where it was supposed be, creepily tidy and unsullied.

  Glossy posters and bra wearing torsos simply watched from the windows as she passed from each area to the next, eventually entering a whole new area. She stood gazing from shop to shop; shoe shops; toy shops; cosmetics and clothes, it was all here, sleepless and silent, like a physical ghost from her past and a memory she could touch and smell. She did up her jacket and continued through the mall, noiseless and fleet, looking for the next sign of life; or death as it appeared to be, but there was nothing, not a single hint and Alex was growing impatient.