Post by Mister Buch on Oct 5, 2009 23:09:02 GMT 1
I'm very fond of Halloween and old horror movies. So in honour of the month of October, I've written a Mass Effect zombie fanfic
(I've never attempted to write horror before, so I've no idea how this will turn out.)
This fanfic is best enjoyed in the dark - outside in a tent, read to you by a mysterious stranger with piercing, white eyes and the voice of Vincent Price.
Rated T for Terrooooooor!
Smells Like Smoke and Death
1- Escape
This was never supposed to happen.
As I stare blankly, unblinking and tortured into the face of my worst fear, I have to cling to something. I have to draw strength, and I've always been tough when I'm indignant. Stubborn. So, this was never supposed to happen. It isn’t fair.
Soldiers, even marines, aren’t trained for this. Aren’t even warned. For an instant I admit that no-one could have seen this coming, but then I feel my fingers relax, which is not acceptable. I can't afford to slip off the spike. I wasn’t trained for this.
I've nearly finished my tour. I'm not career and I was coming home soon. I was done with the army. If I make it off Eden Prime alive, I swear I will never take to the skies again. AWOL, dishonourable discharge, whatever. I never signed on for this.
It takes all of my strength to hold on to the clean metal spike that lifts me into the cold breeze. There are hairline fractures concealing tiny panels beneath my gloved fingers. The panels cover machinery that does impossible, sickening things. Acrid smells I recognise but refuse to name have been lifted up here too. I keep telling myself I'm alone up here, and I wish it was true.
The rest of my unit are all around me, just as motionless but not hanging on with their hands. The spikes hit them all with better accuracy than this one hit me, piercing their bellies and chests at high speed, sending their spasming bodies instantly into shock. Either that, or the soldiers were forced onto them later by the robots.
The robots, though deadly accurate, were so much easier to deal with. Evans and Williams had theorised that they were geth, which was hard to believe. But wherever they came from, they were soldiers, of a sort. Back then it had been a battle, at least. When the two-twelve suffered enough losses that most of us fled, that’s when it went to hell. If only we had stayed together. We ran until we saw the odd collection of gleaming, metal platforms, like little raised tables. Little tripedal platforms. And like fools, we looked closer. One or two were even resting on them when the spikes shot out. I was only caught just beneath the shoulder, but I was one of the first to be lifted up. The feeling of the smooth spike punching through my body and then cramming itself in deeper sent me into shock for a moment, and when I was aware again, I was trapped in the sky.
It hurts to hold on, and I want to vomit. I can’t concentrate until I do. The screaming hole in my flesh where the spike hit me has stopped bleeding now, but the shattered armour plate above it jabs coldly and mercilessly into the exposed nerve-endings. I want to flex my fingers, just to assure myself that I still can, but I know that if I move I will die.
The robots are long gone now, but I'm watched instead by something worse. I am monitored by freshly-implanted sensors hidden behind blue lights. On the ground below, two figures stumble back and forth, confused and stripped of all but a shred of their intelligence and individuality. Their mouths are open and their lips are atrophied. Their skin is shrivelled and it is hard to discern where it ends and their sewed-in tubes and life support apparatus begins. Blue lights, generated by synthetic tissue that was once flesh, distract my attempts to study the creatures. They were my friends, and I watched them all die. Now they aren’t quite human, and they are not dead. If they see that I have managed to silently prise my speared body from their pike, they will kill me. And then they will do worse. They will impale me again, and I will join the rest. Over time my hair will dry and fall, my skin will shrink and my muscles will stiffen. The thought has paralysed me, which helps me to stay unnoticed.
About four inches from my face are the sockets that held Private Foree’s eyes. I knew him as Peter. The living dead below me were Roger and Fran. Since the moment I was caught by the robots’ trap, I have been completely still, watching Peter’s face being distorted, drained and mechanised by whatever it is that lies inside the great blades that hold her unit captive. About half an hour after we were caught, I watched his eyes drop out. I panicked at that moment and I haven’t been able to keep track of time since. His hair is mostly gone now, and his skin parts, blisters and greys in little increments. Peter’s face is like a soft piece of fruit, left forgotten in the sun. I have had to watch every development from four inches away.
I can’t blink, partly because I'm scared to move, and partly because I don’t want to feel any movement against my eyes. It makes no sense and it's hurting me, but I just don’t want to lose them like Peter lost his. They're so sensitive now, so dry despite the pathetic, welling sorrow inside me. I just want to be away from this planet. I just want to not have to look at Peter’s empty, blackened sockets anymore.
A too-familiar shriek of metal sounds close to me, and I hold myself rigid, pressing and bending my fingernails against the pike. As if taunting me, Peter’s face moves, dropping downward out of my field of vision. His transformation is complete, then. He’s been reanimated like the other two. Soon the rest of the team will join them, and the unit will be reunited with a new purpose. After a moment, I hear Peter’s footsteps and some guttural moaning from him and the other creatures. And then another shriek. My pike drops too.
I realise that all the time I was looking at his hollow face, he was looking right back. He knows I'm not being transformed. Or, not anymore. I fall and they watch.
Involuntarily, some part of my brain slams my eyelids shut, screwing them up so tight it hurts, just trying to protect the delicate organs. Not seeing my approaching death is worse than staring at it, so I make myself look.
Peter’s body stumbles a little, and the mistake triggers my adrenaline. Not making a sound but breathing too hard through my nose, I lift my body off the spike before it reaches the base, and feel myself fly for a moment. The grassy, packed dirt hits my exhausted back hard, and the pain pisses me off. I stand and clench my teeth.
What the hell are these things? I'm just stationed here to protect colonists and none of this makes sense.
Peter’s remains try to speak as they move to kill me but all I hear is pained, amplified rasping. The creature has dark grey tubing snaked into its mouth and reaching deep into its throat. With arms outstretched it moves from a trot to a run. The other two are behind it.
I desperately need to throw up now. I need to lie down, need to blink again, but these simple comforts are suicide now. There are three dead marines coming to impale me, forcing stunted, dry echoes of bloodlust through their mouths. Willing my legs to stop shaking and propel me, I pick a direction and run. It hurts.
In the silence I hear every haphazard, clumsy footstep behind me, then hear my own, a little slower. This is too hard, I yell silently, almost breathing the last word aloud as I runs, my bad arm dangling and paining me with every movement. My pace picks up again with my next hard breath. It’s empowering. Now the creatures are distressed, their shrill voices forming moans. I keep it up for seconds before it appears ahead of me; an Alliance hardsuit, coloured white and tan like my own. Its owner isn’t in it anymore, but its ripped parts still holster four guns. I grin, throw my legs out in front of me faster, farther-
And trip. My elbows and my left cheek take the brunt of the impact this time, but the agony collects at the big, red wound at my shoulder. With one hand I try to push my armoured torso off the ground, but I only flip myself sideways. I stare at the thick, red sky as I push myself again. My legs begin to scrabble.
I'm almost standing when I feel the hand grab my leg. The sudden sensation of panic is more than I can handle and I fall, once again slamming into the dirt.
Three more hands take me then; one at my neck, another scratching beneath my breast and the other finding purchase inside my wound, gripping the still-bloody flesh. The pain just makes me want to sleep. My eyes are half-closed now, and I focus on the need to keep them open.
For an instant I accept death, and I start to fondly remember the life I had enjoyed before my stint in the military began. As I do, though, a loving, kind face keeps appearing, and I don’t want to let it down. I force my lids fully open, revelling in the act of defiance. From here, it’s an easy thing to grip the cold, hard fingers of the worst attacker and pull the arm away. Temporarily free of the pain, I reach out and grab the hardsuit leg. The chill hand quickly returns to my wound but I don’t lose my energy. Now I'm holding a shiny new Storm I shotgun. It came in the last shipment, just before they found the Beacon. Just in time.
Blindly pointing the weapon behind me, I pull on the trigger with enough force to make my finger throb. The recoil hurts even more, but I take great pleasure in hearing its boom. I hurl another shot almost immediately, and this time I'm rewarded with a saftisying sound, like that of a knife slamming through meat and into a chopping board. There is a confused, animal cry behind me and one of the hands stops scrabbling at my body.
I give two more shots fast, and overheat the damn gun. I didn’t even think about that as I was clinging to the trigger. The gun was my saviour, and I had failed to consider that it might let me down. I kick behind me instead, still stabbing at the trigger with my complaining finger so that it will shoot as soon as is possible.
Finally it does, and I feel the last of the hands let me go. I pull my body around now, finally able to face the creatures. Two of them lie at awkward angles on the floor, twitching a little. The blue lights invading the body of the one farthest away have started to fade. With the lights out, they're less dangerous. I feel a wash of relief and exhale roughly.
Peter is still moving, though. His perpetually-open mouth looks more rigid now, and his colourless, dark brow is furrowed very slightly. As I stare back at him again, his hand plunges right back into his my wound.
This time I am aware of the pain. The fight is failing in me again and Peter’s fingers are pulling harder than they did before. Using my soft musculature as a grip, the creature yanks itself closer to me. Then it starts to rip at my flesh, aiming to subdue me before it drags me back to the pikes. If I could speak, I would give a scream as loud as the steel cry of that leviathan ship that had docked when this torment began. I haven't found my voice yet.
I aim the shotgun with a quivering arm, but suddenly I feel hot. My suit becomes sticky and burns my skin cruelly as a web of blue light and electrical charge is expelled from the creature’s body, pulsing directly into mine. My head rocks back and forth and to one side, but I manage not to close my eyes. Without aiming I jab at the shotgun trigger again, but it’s no good. Somehow it's overheated again. He's doing it. My hand drops the handle and reaches to Peter’s face. I find the skin of his neck and find it softer than the hands that had held me. I start to punch.
Slamming the bottom of my armoured fist into him over and over, I look straight into the illuminated holes where his eyes were, grimacing my indignity and revulsion. The electrical charge stops, and I slam my elbow instead, harder than I thought I could, deeper into his throat. There is a noise that should be of choking, but it sounds more like an engine failing. Peter releases his grip and his eye sockets are empty again.
My body gives and I fall by his side, staring helplessly into his broken, distorted face again. Turning my head a little, I feel myself vomit, and blink rapidly without planning to. The sensation of the skin against my eyes makes me sick again, and I lie still.
Peter didn’t deserve any of this. I need to go home.
I stand.
Beneath the darkening red clouds, in all directions, I hear moans. The robots have moved on, distracted by something, but I am surrounded.
(I've never attempted to write horror before, so I've no idea how this will turn out.)
This fanfic is best enjoyed in the dark - outside in a tent, read to you by a mysterious stranger with piercing, white eyes and the voice of Vincent Price.
Rated T for Terrooooooor!
Smells Like Smoke and Death
1- Escape
This was never supposed to happen.
As I stare blankly, unblinking and tortured into the face of my worst fear, I have to cling to something. I have to draw strength, and I've always been tough when I'm indignant. Stubborn. So, this was never supposed to happen. It isn’t fair.
Soldiers, even marines, aren’t trained for this. Aren’t even warned. For an instant I admit that no-one could have seen this coming, but then I feel my fingers relax, which is not acceptable. I can't afford to slip off the spike. I wasn’t trained for this.
I've nearly finished my tour. I'm not career and I was coming home soon. I was done with the army. If I make it off Eden Prime alive, I swear I will never take to the skies again. AWOL, dishonourable discharge, whatever. I never signed on for this.
It takes all of my strength to hold on to the clean metal spike that lifts me into the cold breeze. There are hairline fractures concealing tiny panels beneath my gloved fingers. The panels cover machinery that does impossible, sickening things. Acrid smells I recognise but refuse to name have been lifted up here too. I keep telling myself I'm alone up here, and I wish it was true.
The rest of my unit are all around me, just as motionless but not hanging on with their hands. The spikes hit them all with better accuracy than this one hit me, piercing their bellies and chests at high speed, sending their spasming bodies instantly into shock. Either that, or the soldiers were forced onto them later by the robots.
The robots, though deadly accurate, were so much easier to deal with. Evans and Williams had theorised that they were geth, which was hard to believe. But wherever they came from, they were soldiers, of a sort. Back then it had been a battle, at least. When the two-twelve suffered enough losses that most of us fled, that’s when it went to hell. If only we had stayed together. We ran until we saw the odd collection of gleaming, metal platforms, like little raised tables. Little tripedal platforms. And like fools, we looked closer. One or two were even resting on them when the spikes shot out. I was only caught just beneath the shoulder, but I was one of the first to be lifted up. The feeling of the smooth spike punching through my body and then cramming itself in deeper sent me into shock for a moment, and when I was aware again, I was trapped in the sky.
It hurts to hold on, and I want to vomit. I can’t concentrate until I do. The screaming hole in my flesh where the spike hit me has stopped bleeding now, but the shattered armour plate above it jabs coldly and mercilessly into the exposed nerve-endings. I want to flex my fingers, just to assure myself that I still can, but I know that if I move I will die.
The robots are long gone now, but I'm watched instead by something worse. I am monitored by freshly-implanted sensors hidden behind blue lights. On the ground below, two figures stumble back and forth, confused and stripped of all but a shred of their intelligence and individuality. Their mouths are open and their lips are atrophied. Their skin is shrivelled and it is hard to discern where it ends and their sewed-in tubes and life support apparatus begins. Blue lights, generated by synthetic tissue that was once flesh, distract my attempts to study the creatures. They were my friends, and I watched them all die. Now they aren’t quite human, and they are not dead. If they see that I have managed to silently prise my speared body from their pike, they will kill me. And then they will do worse. They will impale me again, and I will join the rest. Over time my hair will dry and fall, my skin will shrink and my muscles will stiffen. The thought has paralysed me, which helps me to stay unnoticed.
About four inches from my face are the sockets that held Private Foree’s eyes. I knew him as Peter. The living dead below me were Roger and Fran. Since the moment I was caught by the robots’ trap, I have been completely still, watching Peter’s face being distorted, drained and mechanised by whatever it is that lies inside the great blades that hold her unit captive. About half an hour after we were caught, I watched his eyes drop out. I panicked at that moment and I haven’t been able to keep track of time since. His hair is mostly gone now, and his skin parts, blisters and greys in little increments. Peter’s face is like a soft piece of fruit, left forgotten in the sun. I have had to watch every development from four inches away.
I can’t blink, partly because I'm scared to move, and partly because I don’t want to feel any movement against my eyes. It makes no sense and it's hurting me, but I just don’t want to lose them like Peter lost his. They're so sensitive now, so dry despite the pathetic, welling sorrow inside me. I just want to be away from this planet. I just want to not have to look at Peter’s empty, blackened sockets anymore.
A too-familiar shriek of metal sounds close to me, and I hold myself rigid, pressing and bending my fingernails against the pike. As if taunting me, Peter’s face moves, dropping downward out of my field of vision. His transformation is complete, then. He’s been reanimated like the other two. Soon the rest of the team will join them, and the unit will be reunited with a new purpose. After a moment, I hear Peter’s footsteps and some guttural moaning from him and the other creatures. And then another shriek. My pike drops too.
I realise that all the time I was looking at his hollow face, he was looking right back. He knows I'm not being transformed. Or, not anymore. I fall and they watch.
Involuntarily, some part of my brain slams my eyelids shut, screwing them up so tight it hurts, just trying to protect the delicate organs. Not seeing my approaching death is worse than staring at it, so I make myself look.
Peter’s body stumbles a little, and the mistake triggers my adrenaline. Not making a sound but breathing too hard through my nose, I lift my body off the spike before it reaches the base, and feel myself fly for a moment. The grassy, packed dirt hits my exhausted back hard, and the pain pisses me off. I stand and clench my teeth.
What the hell are these things? I'm just stationed here to protect colonists and none of this makes sense.
Peter’s remains try to speak as they move to kill me but all I hear is pained, amplified rasping. The creature has dark grey tubing snaked into its mouth and reaching deep into its throat. With arms outstretched it moves from a trot to a run. The other two are behind it.
I desperately need to throw up now. I need to lie down, need to blink again, but these simple comforts are suicide now. There are three dead marines coming to impale me, forcing stunted, dry echoes of bloodlust through their mouths. Willing my legs to stop shaking and propel me, I pick a direction and run. It hurts.
In the silence I hear every haphazard, clumsy footstep behind me, then hear my own, a little slower. This is too hard, I yell silently, almost breathing the last word aloud as I runs, my bad arm dangling and paining me with every movement. My pace picks up again with my next hard breath. It’s empowering. Now the creatures are distressed, their shrill voices forming moans. I keep it up for seconds before it appears ahead of me; an Alliance hardsuit, coloured white and tan like my own. Its owner isn’t in it anymore, but its ripped parts still holster four guns. I grin, throw my legs out in front of me faster, farther-
And trip. My elbows and my left cheek take the brunt of the impact this time, but the agony collects at the big, red wound at my shoulder. With one hand I try to push my armoured torso off the ground, but I only flip myself sideways. I stare at the thick, red sky as I push myself again. My legs begin to scrabble.
I'm almost standing when I feel the hand grab my leg. The sudden sensation of panic is more than I can handle and I fall, once again slamming into the dirt.
Three more hands take me then; one at my neck, another scratching beneath my breast and the other finding purchase inside my wound, gripping the still-bloody flesh. The pain just makes me want to sleep. My eyes are half-closed now, and I focus on the need to keep them open.
For an instant I accept death, and I start to fondly remember the life I had enjoyed before my stint in the military began. As I do, though, a loving, kind face keeps appearing, and I don’t want to let it down. I force my lids fully open, revelling in the act of defiance. From here, it’s an easy thing to grip the cold, hard fingers of the worst attacker and pull the arm away. Temporarily free of the pain, I reach out and grab the hardsuit leg. The chill hand quickly returns to my wound but I don’t lose my energy. Now I'm holding a shiny new Storm I shotgun. It came in the last shipment, just before they found the Beacon. Just in time.
Blindly pointing the weapon behind me, I pull on the trigger with enough force to make my finger throb. The recoil hurts even more, but I take great pleasure in hearing its boom. I hurl another shot almost immediately, and this time I'm rewarded with a saftisying sound, like that of a knife slamming through meat and into a chopping board. There is a confused, animal cry behind me and one of the hands stops scrabbling at my body.
I give two more shots fast, and overheat the damn gun. I didn’t even think about that as I was clinging to the trigger. The gun was my saviour, and I had failed to consider that it might let me down. I kick behind me instead, still stabbing at the trigger with my complaining finger so that it will shoot as soon as is possible.
Finally it does, and I feel the last of the hands let me go. I pull my body around now, finally able to face the creatures. Two of them lie at awkward angles on the floor, twitching a little. The blue lights invading the body of the one farthest away have started to fade. With the lights out, they're less dangerous. I feel a wash of relief and exhale roughly.
Peter is still moving, though. His perpetually-open mouth looks more rigid now, and his colourless, dark brow is furrowed very slightly. As I stare back at him again, his hand plunges right back into his my wound.
This time I am aware of the pain. The fight is failing in me again and Peter’s fingers are pulling harder than they did before. Using my soft musculature as a grip, the creature yanks itself closer to me. Then it starts to rip at my flesh, aiming to subdue me before it drags me back to the pikes. If I could speak, I would give a scream as loud as the steel cry of that leviathan ship that had docked when this torment began. I haven't found my voice yet.
I aim the shotgun with a quivering arm, but suddenly I feel hot. My suit becomes sticky and burns my skin cruelly as a web of blue light and electrical charge is expelled from the creature’s body, pulsing directly into mine. My head rocks back and forth and to one side, but I manage not to close my eyes. Without aiming I jab at the shotgun trigger again, but it’s no good. Somehow it's overheated again. He's doing it. My hand drops the handle and reaches to Peter’s face. I find the skin of his neck and find it softer than the hands that had held me. I start to punch.
Slamming the bottom of my armoured fist into him over and over, I look straight into the illuminated holes where his eyes were, grimacing my indignity and revulsion. The electrical charge stops, and I slam my elbow instead, harder than I thought I could, deeper into his throat. There is a noise that should be of choking, but it sounds more like an engine failing. Peter releases his grip and his eye sockets are empty again.
My body gives and I fall by his side, staring helplessly into his broken, distorted face again. Turning my head a little, I feel myself vomit, and blink rapidly without planning to. The sensation of the skin against my eyes makes me sick again, and I lie still.
Peter didn’t deserve any of this. I need to go home.
I stand.
Beneath the darkening red clouds, in all directions, I hear moans. The robots have moved on, distracted by something, but I am surrounded.