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Tales of Lazarus ((Working Title)) |
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Tales of Lazarus ((Working Title))
Fiction
 Created on 4-3-07
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 Story Rating G
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Please excuse any typo's and please realise that names are subject to change.
Anyways, enjoy
Lazarus walked into the dusty, badly lit bar. In the gloom he saw a number of tables, about seven of them, set out in the room. At most of them were 1 or 2 drinkers apparently unconscious with their heads down on the tables. Only two of them were empty.
It’s terrible, Lazarus thought, it’s only ten am and people are already drinking!
He walked up to the bar. It was made from dark mahogany and looked as old as time. It was populated by a map of nicks, scratches and dents which had accumulated over the years and the top of the bar was slightly stained from an uncountable amount of drinks spilled over the years. Lazarus barman, who stood there, rather stiffly, with a gaunt expression on his face and his eyes closed.
‘Hello bar-keep!’ Lazarus said in the friendliest voice he could manage at this time of the morning. ‘I was wondering if you could give me directions to Morantano as I seem to have lost my way’.
The barman continued to stand there, hadn't even seemed to move a muscle.
Humph, Lazarus thought, must want something in return…bloody peasants out to swindle the honest man, well, mostly honest anyway.
‘Is it the colour of my coin you seek?’ Lazarus said, still in his friendly tourist voice. ‘I have a shiny Copa here for you if you can give me directions to Morantano’.
Still the barman didn’t move.
‘OI!’ shouted Lazarus, getting annoyed and forgetting courtesy ‘you gonna answer me or stand there like a bloody zombie?!’
Lazarus reached out and pushed the barman, whose eyes abruptly snapped open and stared unseeingly at Lazarus. The barman’s own hand clamped around Lazarus' wrist in a lightning fluid movement.
Lazarus screamed. It wasn’t the scream you might expect from a young man, as it was high-pitched and quite pathetic.
The barman let out a long droning groan and all the other patrons who were apparently inebriated beyond consciousness slowly rose to their feet and approached Lazarus.
The barman attempted to pull Lazarus' hand towards his mouth. Lazarus tried to pull away but the thing’s grip was like concrete.
Gods, thought Lazarus, why does this crap always seem to happen to me? What is it that I’ve done that’s so bad?
Lazarus drew back a fist and punched the zombie-barman in the face as hard as he could. Its head flew back with a satisfying crack of its neck but failed to fall off. It slowly raised its head back to same position as before but now its face was distorted by the shallow hole left by Lazarus' fist. In it, Lazarus could see the dried remains of the barman and even a few maggots still squirming.
Lazarus thought he would vomit.
And he did.
As he was still retching, the other zombies had swarmed around him and were all trying their best to grab him for themselves. A zombie whose legs had disintegrated from dehydration pulled down Lazarus and the others crowded him as if to dog-pile on top of him. Lazarus was lost in sea of animate corpses.
In a last desperate attempt Lazarus clumsily drew his dagger from its ankle-strapped sheath and thrust it upward hoping to hit something.
He did.
Although the zombies had blocked out all of the meagre light in bar when they crowded him, Lazarus was able to see where he had stabbed the victim by the brilliant white radiance that burst forth from the it’s heart.
It let out a horrible scream from beyond the grave that made all of Lazarus' skin not only want to crawl off him, but off down the road as well. It was the sort of scream that curdles blood, shatters glass and which all married men know as their wife's scream when they have been out too late or have dragged mud onto the carpet from the soles of their boots.
Christ, Lazarus thought, if I have to hear that again I might just go insane.
The other zombies recoiled at this dead utterance from their injured comrade as if they were as repulsed by the sound as Lazarus was. Lazarus took advantage of this small wonder and kicked out viciously.
He heard a sound like the snapping of a dry stick and jumped up.
He was now using only the bestial instincts every man and woman have deep inside them; they’re the sort of instincts that help people survive that little bit longer in the cold or make them duck when an axe is hurled at their head. All coherent thought goes out the metaphorical window and they don’t even think about what they are doing.
He flung an elbow out wildly to his left and sent out a kick directly behind him. Both connected with something, because at this range, it was impossible for even Lazarus to miss a target. Lazarus spun around and thrust the dagger into a staggering zombie that had been reaching for his shoulder.
The ghostly scream let loose from its lips and more bright light burst forth from the monstrosity’s chest.
Lazarus dived and went straight into a roll.
It would have been spectacularly agile and amazing to watch if he hadn't miss-judged where he was diving as at the end of his roll his head connected with the dark mahogany bar and knocked him instantly unconscious.
* * *
It was sometime later.
As he came to, the first thing Lazarus was aware of the red-hot searing pain in his head. It felt like someone was trying to mine his head for gold with a rusty pickaxe.
The second thing he was aware of was the singing voices. They were sweet, soothing and almost angelic.
Great, he thought amid his migraine, I’m dead. I’ve gone to join the banquet in the restaurant in the sky. I’ve danced the dance of death except the band didn’t know the tune and my partner had two left feet.
His headache started to dissipate.
The singing started to quieten.
Lazarus opened his eyes. And immediately shut them.
He opened his eyes again just to make sure he had seen what he thought he’d seen.
He had.
Directly in front of Lazarus was a drop of about 300 feet. It wasn’t in front of him as if he was looking out to the horizon, oh no, it was slightly worse than that. It was in front of him as if he was looking straight down towards the ground, mainly because he was. It wasn’t the normal sort of ground that was always reassuring to be standing on and tended to be soft underfoot. This ground seemed to have been brought up in the wrong neighbourhood. You got the feeling that if you fell towards it then it wouldn’t just kill you, it’d steal your wallet and shoes and drop you into the sea with lead weights attached to your legs. This ground was hard. This ground was tough. But above all, this ground was deadly.
Yep, I'm dead alright, he mused, must be dead ‘cos I don’t seem to be falling.
It was about that time that Lazarus became aware of the pressure around his arms, legs and torso.
‘Hey! Number three’s awake!’
Lazarus tried to move his head to identify the speaker but, strangely, he couldn’t move his neck at all.
Ahhh, he thought, all of this is starting to make more sense. I haven’t gone to paradise; I've gone the other way. I'm in Hel and this is some sort of torture!
He swivelled his eyes as much as he could to explore his new surroundings.
Strange though, I didn’t think Hel had clear blue skies, twittering birds and picturesque oceans.
The mystery voice spoke again.
‘Right Larry, grab that rope and pull on my command. Pull!’
Lazarus started to move, jerkily at first but before long he was gliding along at a smooth and steady pace. The aggressive foreboding ground flew away, soon to be replaced with the loveable grassy earth you could really relate to. This in turn was changed for an amazing view of a distant horizon, which then gave way to a sky so blue it could’ve just been paint on a canvas. Fat clouds drifted lazily across the atmosphere with no real goal except to make an already beautiful view even prettier. And then two faces swam into focus.
One was decidedly average. It had average eyes, an average nose, and an average mouth. It looked about an average age and seemed to have led an average life. If Lazarus was asked to give a description of him there wouldn’t be much to comment on apart from the fact that he was, well, average. Whereas the other face was it’s polar opposite. It was completely bald except for a wild tuft of hair just above the left ear, which turned out to be its only ear. The space the right one should have occupied was just a gnarled mess. The face’s right eye looked out dreamily to one side in a world of it’s own while the left was normal except for a red pupil. The nose seemed to have been broken so many times that it was no as crooked as a builders elbow and the mouth was surrounded by a maze of scars as if the owner enjoyed chewing razors. In short, the face looked as if it had been fed into a meat grinder and enjoyed it so much it went back for a second ride.
Surely the cheery well-to-do voice belonged to Mr Average and not Mister Abnormal?
Mr Abnormal spoke.
‘C’mon Larry, let’s get him unbuckled’
Mr Average-cum-Larry nodded and both faces moved away.
Moments later the tightness around various places on Lazarus’ body loosened and then became nothing more than a soon forgotten memory. Mister Abnormal’s face swam back into focus.
‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘to the Azhan Sanctuary for the Injured’
Comments
Please Login to post comments| On May 26th 2007 dureall Said : | |
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I missed on how they became zombies in the first place. Maybe that's another chapter LOL. Love it, man. keep me posted when you post a post on this poster. |
| On May 4th 2007 darkscope Said : | |
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This is good, if a bit dark compared to your earlyer stuff. Can't wait for more. |
| On April 3rd 2007 Carcer Said : | |
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Damn, its done some with thing by missing lines. Just ignore them if you will =D
Enjoy
xxx |
