Falling Down

The tugging and tearing kept bringing him back into the blurry haze of consciousness. There was a couple of seconds pause before the pain shot up the back of his calf and into his groin. Grinding his face into the concrete floor, blackness began to creep into the edge of his vision, purple spots flashing behind his eyelids as the pulling at his leg began again.

It had been more than half an hour since Sean had pulled down the stack of shelving on top of himself. He knew that climbing up old planks was a risk but at this point the chances of finding food was dropping by the day. That can of tinned Spam had just been out of reach of his outstretched fingers when he heard the big open glass shop front window cave in. Spinning around while four feet off the floor and balancing on an old wall mounted shelving unit had not been the greatest reaction his body had performed. His left foot slipping, Sean grabbed out for anything to keep his grip and ended up tearing a shelf right off the wall. The whole wall unit gave a gut wrenching squeal as it splintered loose and crashed down in an explosion of dust to the floor, bringing Sean with it and pinning him facedown onto the floor.

Shaking the dust from his face, his eyes wide as he strained to clear his vision through the billowing dust cloud, a load rasping moan brought Sean back to reality and to the seconds before he had fallen.

The half rotted corpse was dragging itself through the shattered glass of the shop front towards Sean. His vision snapping clear he began trying to free himself. The sheer weight of the wall unit had him trapped fast. Ripping free a fingernail as he tried to pull himself out front under the twisted metal and splintered wood, a whimper turned into a dry scream as Sean realised he was going nowhere. The corpse was now at his legs, unable to even curl them up into his stomach he screamed and flinched as the cold greasy fingers dug into his leg. He lost control of his bladder, rich, stinking yellow piss flooding out onto the polished white concrete as blackened teeth tore free a chewed lump of Sean’s calf. The pain shooting up into his groin brought flashes of white shooting across his vision and again he tried to pull himself away from the corpse that was ripping raw flesh from his leg. Burning pain engulfed the whole of his lower body as his vision began to blur out. He heard the vibration of something incredibly loud against his teeth then realised it was his own screaming, his ears numbing down against the noise bouncing off the empty wall to his left. His eyes beginning to roll back into his head. Sean slapped helplessly at the cold floor as the tugging and tearing at his shredded leg jerked him into a sickly unconsciousness.

He lay there panting in an endless cycle of fading into a black dream and being jerked back to reality by ripping and shredding a few minutes later.

His voice now only giving out only a dry rasping, Sean smeared away a tear as a new cold hand curled it’s fingers around the scruff of his shirt and began to pull at him. More tears flowing but no noise coming from his mouth, hope faded. He was closing his eyes to finally give in to the inevitable searing pain when he was slapped across the face and a high pitched voice cursing began to fade into hearing.

“God FUCKING damn it! Help me out here you prick!”

A red pigtail swung into view and laid to rest across his cheek. Weakly pulling at the floor Sean began to feel his hips slide away from the rotting corpse that had been slowly taking his leg apart bite by bite. A growling moan echoed from the bloody cadaver as it’s food began slowly to move out of it’s reach.

Pain racked Sean’s body making his back arch in spasm as the shredded stump of his right leg was dragged along the concrete floor and through the wreckage of the wall unit. He didn’t even realise he had begun screaming again until a silver ringed hand slapped him across the face again.

“If you keep yelling in my ear hole I’m just going to leave you to get eaten by that fuck, ok?!”

Clamping his teeth together so hard he felt his molars cracking, Sean wearily tried to help himself and his unknown saviour by pulling himself along and then propping himself up against the cash register desk. The corpse started stumbling into the fallen shelving. Slowly dragging and pushing itself towards Sean and his helper it moaned louder and started knocking away wooden debris, getting ever closer to it’s target.

Gasping for breath and staring down at his mutilated leg, Sean heard his helper pull something long and black off her back then turn towards him.

“Amy,” She smiled “the name’s Amy.”

Sean leant against the cash register as Amy walked forward and jammed the sharpened end of her crowbar deep into the sunken eye socket of the staggering, grey corpse with a sickening crunch. Levering out splinters of bone, optical jelly and brains onto the floor with a dull splat, a wide grin spread across Amy’s face.

“Is this something you do regularly?” Sean breathed our in between pain-racked gasps.

Amy let out a giggle “Only when its appropriate”

She wiped the end of the crowbar on the end of a strained, old , yellow mop head behind the cash register and took Sean by the waist and pulled him towards the beckoning open doorway, a trail of Sean’s blood dripping steadily behind them.

A splintered tooth scraping down a nerve in his leg brought Sean out of unconsciousness and back to reality. He let out a scream and banged his forehead down into the concrete, tears falling into the pool of growing seat and blood. He didn’t have the strength to try and pull himself free anymore. He felt teeth rip into the back of his knee and bony fingers jam deep into the sinews behind his kneecap and tear at the tendons. Screaming, Sean beat his head down onto the bloody smudge in front of him, crying out for unconsciousness. It didn’t come. Eyes glazed over, Sean continued to beat his head into the floor with a wet smack. It didn’t come. Pleading for the ripping and tearing to stop so he could bleed out in peace. It didn’t come.