☣ Grey Window

[robertsmith]

Robert Smith

T H E G R E Y W I N D O W

This wasn't the first time Robert was in a apostatized city. He remembered this place earnestly. He grew up in California and New York was on the other side of the Country, but he somehow got the money to bring him and his family here once a month. He remembered the time when he was a kid, he had friends here who loved to get into mischievous trouble, and then when he was with his wife and kids. They were so perfect. His life was unmarred.

But now it was abolished. They were all dead and no one but him walked the Earth. He thought he would make it, he thought his family would survive but the brutal truth smacked him on the face when they all died. Then his mind went to his wife, her face the moment he pulled the trigger, it was ugly and disgusting. But when he remembered her with the children, she was as beautiful as an angel. The wind picked up and howled as it ran through the streets, lifting bags and leaves into the air.

The day was colder than it looked. The sun was disappearing behind some clouds and it gave off a red - orange tint to the sky. Around him dust flew everywhere as the chilling wind began to howl. His tattered tan suit was all he had, his tie was shreds and he was too lazy to take it off. A shotgun was slung over his shoulder and against his back and his right hand held a Budweiser beer. It was old and flat, but the buzz in his head felt good again.

As he staggered down the car littered street he thought of all the ways he could have beaten that douche-bag Cody Dickson in the 7th grade. That fight was so long ago he forgot who won, but what he did remember was the 13 spankings he recieved the second his mother found out he had faught. He missed his mother. She was so kind and sweet. She died way before this shit-hole mess came about. She died of cirouses of the liver.

It could have been the wind or a wore down building's strained steel wailing in complaint. But what he heard was very familiar. The sound of zombies. He intoxication made him feel better, and tougher but zombies were something else. He found a bright yellow cab and decided to take a break from his drunken walking. As he leaned against the car near the three way intersection he remembered where he was.

He recignized this spot. It was Central Park. He knew it wasn't safe to go in there, but the drunken side got the better of him. He staggered in and took account of all the details. The now golden sunlight breaking through the green and brown leaves. The dirt, scattered and bloody. And his shotgun, weathered and old. He would forget all this tomorrow, but he didn't care. He tried to picture his wife and kids playing around the small meadows but for some reason his brain could not.

Suddenly, without him knowing his shotgun shot a round into the air in front of him, leaving a small plume of smoke inching it's way out of his barrel. He slowly looked up into the darkness and saw a headless Zombie slump down on it's knees and fall to it's side. "What the?" He croaked, his voice sounding weird and unfamiliar. He then sobered up on the spot and ran the way he had come. The zombies were after him now and he could hear their moans approaching him.

Suddenly he reached the gate and hobbled over it just in time before one of the zombies flipped over it and landed on Robert's side. It's intrails were caught on one of the spikes and prevented it from getting any closer. "Fuck." He whispered as he scrambled off the dirt floor and ran faster down 57th Street. The zombies were on his tail and he felt his lungs going out. The beer wasn't helping his speed in any way either. Then he turned right and went past Staples.

As he did he turned, knelt on one knee and shot five of them as fast as his trigger could and brought down two. "Crap!" He yelled as one tripped over his leg, he recognized it as the one with the trailing intestines he had encountered seconds before. Robert then realized that these were fast. He booked it into the closest building he was near and found himself locking the doors of the Buckingham hotel. It was dark and eroded in some places. The stairs to the second story were partially destroyed and the floor was covered in dust.

The zombies were doing their best in entering, but all they managed to do was crack the class by accident. Robert knelt down on the ground and shot his hand gun at the floor boards. He managed to retrieve five and he placed them on the empty receptionist desk. Robert entered the Maintenance Room and found 13 nails and a hammer. Once he was finished boarding up the front door he scoped the place out with his flashlight attached to his shotgun. The more stories he climbed, the darker it got and the more he needed the lights on.

Robert decided to try the elevators, but they didn't work so he climbed down to the generator room and flipped a switch. He heard the growing hum of the lights and one right next to him flickered on. "Odd." He whispered. Who would turn off the power? Then he tried to put two and two together, but he was too intoxicated to think. He was tired and wanted to sleep.

Robert went back to the receptionist desk and looked for a map of the building, there was one and he located a small Utility Closet where they kept the Washing & Vending machines. He decided to take the elevator up and when he pressed the button he felt an eerie feeling. He made sure his shotgun was ready and he waited for the ding! elevators made when they arrived to their floor. A slight hum grew from the doors and then the ding rung threw the air. The silver doors opened and bodies were lying on the floor, blood everywhere.

Robert almost threw up in his mouth because the smell wafted into his face as the doors opened. He looked closer and saw that they were probably zombies, dead from either starvation or advanced decay. All three of their faces were unrecognizable. "Oh god!" He murmured as he saw two small children who looked like as if they were trying to claw at the doors. The mouth area of the mother was bloody and the children's weren't. Their mother ate them.

Robert finally decided to take a different elevator up after examining the it he ascended to the fourth floor. He checked the room and made a bed with the mattresses and pillows of the other nearby rooms. He then propped his gun up and looked around the small white room with the wooden trimmings. The one grey window near where he sat let off a grayish tint to the whole room and to that he fell heavily asleep. His dreams - like usual - were filled with Elizabeth. His two children running and playing made him smile, it was a good dream this time.

[Sakura Jin Lee]

A small car was approaching New York City, a young woman was driving the car, she seemed to be sad, lonely and kind of depressed, but also a slight paint of determination and hard heart could be seen in her eyes. “Another empty city...” well empty is just a way of speaking, because New York City was still full but the ones in it weren't alive, weren't living their lives, working, chatting, falling in love, arguing... NO! The ones there were walkers, useless eating-people-zombies! And that was something that Sakura knew very well, but she had to go there.

Since she lost track of her brother back in Atlanta, she had been traveling with a group of survivors, they were led by a brave man, Rick Grimmes. The group was ok and they all seemed to be good people, and she had already considered them her new and unique family. But a week ago, she found something that made her leave her new family... for just a couple of days or maybe weeks.

Since the first zombies appeared in Atlanta, her brother told her about a way of always keep in touch, even if they got apart, which happened months ago. He told her to write a message with their next destination and the date on a paper or something like that, then attached it to a place that any who went into the place, town or city where it was attached, could see it.

A week ago, she found a craving on a wooden gate in a town where Grimmes's group just spent the night, it was craved in Japanese, Sakura recognized the handwriting even on that place, it was her brother's! She knew then, he was alive! At least by the moment he wrote it. According to Andrea's calendar, he had been there just two weeks before they got there.

So she talked to Rick and told him she needed to go and find her brother, that she wasn't going to put in risk any of their lives asking any of them to go with her, Even when Glenn suggested her he could go with her, she refused his help. She just took one of the cars in town and drove to New York City, it was the place that was craved on the wooden gate.

When she got to New York, it was already twilight, and it was impossible to pass with the car any further, the classic yellow cabs were everywhere blocking the streets and avenues. So she had to leave the car there, she grabbed her small back bag and her katana, then sighed and walked more and more into the city.

It was insane to be there, alone, outside at night, in one of the cities where for sure was the major number of walkers in all US, but she had to check it, she had to know if her brother was in there. After just 10 feet away from the car, she faced a small group of walkers, slow and dumb like always. She used her katana and slashed their heads, her movements seemed like a dance, she was graceful and fast withing every move.

She smiled when she looked at the move-less bodies on the ground, it was a blessing that she knew how to use that sword, it was perfect, not even a slight sound while she killed them, the other walkers wouldn't be warned about her being there. She continued walking, she looked to an alley and noticed the fire ladder, then looked up and noticed the buildings were kind of close in that part of the city, she walked to the ladder and left the ground in seconds.

As soon as she got to the roof, she could see the shape of a body up there, she made no noise, or tried to, she wanted see if it was dead or alive. But her feet stepped on a small branch and it cracked, the body turned to face her, well... it didn't have a face to face to, someone had already eaten it. She gasped at the sight and by the time was giving its last beams to that day, she slashed the head of the walker.

She listened carefully and noticed nothing, however she took out her flash light, she turned it on and looked around with it, nothing... empty, but the emergency door was opened, so she knew other walkers would be there soon, so she walked to the board and calculated the jump, she walked some steps backwards and then ran to the edge, she jumped and landed cleanly.

She smiled and looked around, it was a safe roof. She looked up and the sky was already gray, no pink, no orange, just gray. “perfect... now I have to wait until tomorrow” she said and sighed when a gunshot, she looked around trying to find the place where it came from, “Kaede!!” she yelled thinking it could be her brother, even when she knew she would use his katana too, not a gun.

Then a round of shots, she ran to the other edge of the building, and there he was, it was a man, he was running from central park to one of the buildings nearby, and she noticed he ran into one that was located three buildings from where she was. “Bakana!” _*stupid she shook her head, he wasn't her problem, but he was in deep troubles, he was having all the walkers in New York going to that hotel!

She sighed and shook her head. “I'm going to regret this...” she jumped again, but now to the other building, it was a bit more difficult because of the lack of light, but she did it well. Then she jumped to the next building, but to get to the hotel it would be a bit more difficult, it would be a longer jump, she shook her head but she still did it, she jumped and had to get a good grip of the edge of the roof, she almost fell right to the hungry zombies down there.

She climbed up and sighed when she was on the roof, then she heard the next shots probably down in the hotel's reception hall. She opened the emergency door and used her flash light to check if there were zombies there, it wasn't... She had to decapitated three of them before she could get into the stairs cube. She went downstairs as fast as she could, then she heard other shots and then nothing.

”come on Sakura... he could be one of them by now...” but she didn't stop, she got to a floor where the lights were still working, that was unusual, but maybe the hotel had its own generator. She turned off her flash light and then walked down the hall, she then heard the elevator, it stopped in a floor downstairs, walkers didn't take the elevator.

So she went downstairs to the floor where the elevator had stopped, then she walked down that hall, she opened two or three rooms and found the past guests in there, she slashed them all, but then she heard some movements inside a room, walker or not she had to know.

She opened the door slowly with a hand and in the other she was holding her sword, and did the most stupidest thing she could have think of. “I am alive... are you?” she said the moment she saw a body on a bunch of matress looking at the gray window.