Hair Raiser Tales 2.5 : Carnival De Muerte by Robby Richardson - HTML preview

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Episode #1

How We Got Here

 

The tunnel was dark as the hustled footsteps reverberated off the decaying walls. A figure was running through the tunnel at the speed of the wind. The tunnel was crowded and the abandoned cars were such an inconvenience for him as he slid over the roof of a particularly rusting looking old El Dorado. The groaning and snarling from a wide arrangement of an oncoming heard was the only other sound in the abandoned tunnel. The monsters raggedy breathing was advancing as the frozen cars provided the obstacles he needed to get away. Clenching his silver D5k he gripped the handle and fired several rounds as the bullets scattered over the undead. The undead moved around the car, over the car, and did not cease there endless pursuit of their prey. They outstretched their dead hands as the echoes of the bullets seemed to be drawing in more and more of the hungry creatures. Continuing to back into the darkness as panic seemed to fill him. Taking a huge gulp he took his chances in the dark of the tunnel and scrambled over more cars. The undead continuing to keep pace with him as one he had not seen came out from around a large S.U.V. It grabbed wildly at him as he turned and laid several bullets into the creature’s chest before turning it up and empting more in the creature’s face.

The creature fell to the ground finally at rest but he did not have any time for mourning. The second that he had turned his attention from the thirty other undead walkers they were already feet from him. Squeezing the trigger hard he emptied the rest of the magazine into every oncoming undead walker that came into his vision. He backed over the car as the undead froze taking every bullet that hit. Rolling over the car, he threw down the D5K with a loud, “damn it”‘! Reaching into his jeans he withdrew his last weapon, a silver pistol that he had received from his brother, a sort of just in case policy.

Sliding back the chamber he watched the undead move around the car and saw dark shadows moving down the tunnel ramp. A literal army of the dead was making its way down the tunnel. He had done it and made to much noise drawing in every scavenger in audible distance. The fight would be too much for him to endure, he would have to continue his purpose and make a run for it. He turned to see a woman in a ratty pink jogging outfit. Her lower jaw was missing as her dead hands were inches from him. He raised the pistol and eased her pain with a bullet right to the head. She fell to her knees and was finally put to rest at his feet. He jumped over her and ran around a bus. Leaping over a small Beetle to discover the darkness growing thicker, a large pack of the undead was heading towards him. The walkers were closing in on him sandwiching him inside the dark tomb and he was the meat. “Shit,” he yelled as he saw them closing in on him. He scanned everywhere for something to rescue him but deciding to bang on the door of a bus. The door seemed welded shut and didn’t budge, “come on you got to help me”!

After the door continued to show its stubbornness, he retreated in defeated. The undead were moving closer towards him, “come on give me something”! His eyes scanned the walls and felt fireworks erupt in the pit of his stomach. A gray door leading to anywhere was nearly twenty yards away from him and to his utter surprise it was ajar. Not caring where it led he took his chance. A loud snarl from a creature that had moved faster then all the rest was slinking around an upside down charger. With a loud pop, his bullet connected with the creature’s forehead and his undead eyes never blinked as he fell to ground. Taking his chance he ran as hard as he could and burst through the door slamming it shut. The lock on the door was broken but luckily the door did closed. As far as he knew the undead had not figured out how to actually open doors.

He swore loudly as he entered a room no bigger then a closet. A large rusting pipe took up a quarter of the room as a large rusted gate sat beneath him. To his right was a door and seizing the door handle he began to tug at it. The door was locked and with the large black keypad he knew that he would be unable to open it. He tugged at is several more time but finally accepting defeat he released the handle and placed his back on the cement walls. The undead were banging on the door, but luckily the door was so thick. Hopefully he would be given some time to his thoughts before the undead came through the door. He fell to the ground as tears filled his eyes. The banging grew louder as he stared down at his pistol which seemed almost useless. He knew this was going to be a suicide mission when he decided to take off and save the others. As the tears began to run down his cheeks he gripped the pistol and thought hard about his brother and how he could now fulfill their dreams and live a happy life in the west. He sobbed harder as he gripped his knees and ran the pistol through his dyed blue neon hair. The end was here, “please god just let me treasure these last moments”.

My mother told me that the future could be a wonderful thing. She used to say, “Who knows what tomorrow will bring”? Well if my mother was still alive today I am sure she would think differently. My mother was a wonderful women, she believed her opinion, believed in individualism and always distrusted the government. My father used to talk about the past all the time, he called them the “better days”. My parents followed the rules even though they complained and struggled everyday. They still tried to raise my brother and me right although my brother and I always found our parents to be odder than other families. We lived a simple life in the second district, which my mother and father claimed to occupy the former states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. She tried to explain what states were but in truth they sounded like just another name for districts, the district they supposedly lived in before was Kansas. Education from the N.W.O was not something my parents wanted for my brother and me. I never had friends or a real social life all I had in this world were my parents and my older brother Abel. As I grew up, I realized that my parents hardly spoke outside of the apartment. It was amazing the type of people my parents became outside of the house. I knew it was odd when my family was one of the few families that didn’t own a car or a cell phone My parents always spoke about the dangers of owning something that was only given through the government, cars and cell phones being one of the many other countless items on the R.A.C. I. Nicknamed the list, it stood for the Regulated and Controlled Items list. My parents and the people that did come to my house always referred to these controlled items as Racies.

I bet you are wondering how it happened? I bet you are wondering how it came to this? Where the country would be divided in half, the Chinese in the west and the Federal Districts in the east fighting for the scrapes from a military dictatorship the world had never seen. Controlling the people in a way that would make even that famous dictator Adolf Hitler grip his shirt collar in displeasure. The land of the free was no longer free, and was certainly not for the brave. The brave were the foolish ones, the brave were the ones that ended up missing by the government snatched by the Military Police in the dead of night. Believing a better life lie crossing the border many people flocked to the west across miles of open wilderness filled with millions of the walking dead. I can only tell you what I know from what my parents taught my brother and me. I can’t tell you much about how it began because I was born after. However in the end I will show you how the N.W.O falls. My father told me about September 11th or what it would later be called 9/11. This was the day that my father told me changed our history. The United States was under the banner of freedom. Saying that freedom wasn’t free, oh how right they were. It was the first time in history that America was united, they believed in punishing the enemies of the state. As the years would go controversy began to swarm around the attacks. Were these attacks coordinated by the government? Did we just want an excuse to attack Afghanistan and invade Iraq? My father told my brother and me about the numerous reasons whether it was oil in Iraq or opium in Afghanistan “being the most logical” he used to say. My mother used to say that out of the rubble of the towers hope did not emerge, but our future was sealed. This was the day that it all changed and the New World Order was born.

In the year of 2012 there was a great economic crash causing great calamity and instability in the country and around the world. Things went even worse when China came out and announced to the world that it would no longer accept American money as repayment for its debt. In 2016, my father explained that a certain document had become public. A document entitled Emergency Proposal 547-J642, which basically said that the government had shot down United 97 to, as my father put it, “reduce the number of lives that could have been lost”. The government came out and denied these charges, but the country was split on the issue. When this policy came out more people began to dig deeper into the issue of 9/11. Even government officials began to get involved in these issues wanting to know the truth. A man only known as The Word started the first resistance group called The Truth. This was more than just a political group, it was a group motivated to find out the truth behind the government through any means necessary. Truth was the group that started it all, exposing the massive amount of corruption and the increasing debt we faced to keep the country afloat. They were the white unicorn in the vast forest exposing how the British and America were in a race to discover the secrets of Reanimating human tissue. Europe was already in possession of creating what they referred to as “the God Particle”. This group has hence forth gone into seclusion and is still considered the number one enemies of the state. They are nothing more then a rumor spoken, they only members to know of their existence are the leaders of the individual resistance groups who visit the Council of the Immortals or the oldest members of the “The Truth”.

“The Truth” had found out that the widely held belief of a missile crashing into the pentagon was true, and exposed a small press Conference were a man named Rumsfeld came out and claimed “that he could not account for billions of dollars the government took from the people in the name of taxes.” The government had forced people to lie about seeing a plane, and those who told the truth have since then mysteriously disappeared. The side of building hit contained all known files to that missing money. However “The Truth” spoke for those that were taken and fought to free their imprisoned brothers.

In 2018, the New World Order was hunting down every member and stormed their houses arresting them, although most of the time firefights did ensue. In a last daring effort “The Word” was seen only once when the few remaining Truth members broke into a small television station and revealed what was later called The Third Great Awakening.

My Fellow Patriots, I know the New World Order is watching this message and will be tracking on it so I will make this brief. I am simply ‘The Word’ and my group has been portrayed as a terrorist organization that must be eliminated for the good of the state. Let me be the first to ask you this, what good has the country done for you? And since when did we start to call America ‘the state’. Every time I sit down and watch the mass media it astonishes me to think how you can be deceived like this. The hidden policy under 9/11 was something they call a ‘false flag policy’. The billions of dollars that America has made off selling oil from Iraq and Opium from Afghanistan is something only the simplest minded person could discover. I implore you to think for yourself and conduct your research before further of our freedoms are taken away. I am not the enemy. I did not cause the Economic Collapse. I did not cause our country to be indebted to almost every country in the world. While Europe crumbles before our very eyes, we sit in isolation too poor to contain European society. My brothers and sisters talk to your family in the middle of the country. They will tell you the truth behind the riots in the Kansas and the testing facilities in Oklahoma. The FEMA camps for tornado victims is a lie, I have seen first hand the cause of this destruction. Man destroy, what man hath built and to save the world we must unite and save the . . . (STATIC).

It used to make my mother cry to think of how much better things were. However my father always hated the government believing that all of them were corrupt and wanted to control everybody with a totalitarian state. He always said that it was plain to see, and the future was going down that path since the beginning. J.F.K’s assassination, the Vietnam War, World War II, everything was controlled by the government and everything was a result of the government. It was a realistic version of chess. If the government wanted to destroy and control the world it could. The basic freedoms that were written by our founding fathers were not in place anymore. These freedoms were sacrificed in the name of security.

By 2020, the government tried to censor all the information that was coming out to the public. The basic freedoms that my parents used to have were being taking away, freedom of speech was the very first to be, as the government would put it “altered for the better”. However altering was not what the government had in mind. The altering of the 1st amendment was huge blow to the word freedom, and the first victim was the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently back in the day, the words “Under God” were extremely offensive to a certain portion of the population, and with the altering “Under God” was removed many more “alternations” were made. My father said that this was the handwriting on the wall. This is where the future my brother and I knew of started. When the world began to fall into chaos and revolts in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Madagascar, Georgia, and Armenia began to consume the news. To stop the sinking economy, the United States began to play these countries like chess pieces and soon America become the puppet master to the new governments that were established in these “unstable” countries, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Israel were all its puppeteers.

In the election of 2024, Obama ran again and was reelected, but it was widely believed by the remaining Truth members that he was put into office by a growing super power elite known as the Bliderberg Group. After several years it was later found out to be true, since he was not even born in the country. The American government began to collapse when 4 billion dollars of deficit was added per day. The national debt had reached 4.9 trillion dollar and it only continued to rise on a minutely basis. By 2025, the national debt had reached 5.2 Trillion dollars and Obama needed an additional 2 billion dollars for the government to even stay afloat. Taxes were raised over the years but its citizens had nothing left to give. People would work all day and come home with barely anything to survive. My mother said that the government would take half of your paycheck and no one knew where the money went. By the end of 2025, the depression caused by the “Great Economic Collapse” and China’s continued refusal of loans made the American dollar worth less than paper it was printed on.

“The Truth” exposed the massive debt that America owed China, who demanded their money repaid in the oil we were stealing from the Iraqi people and flexed their muscles by massing thousands of troops which patrolled Naval Carriers in Pacific International Waters to ensure payment was made. In 2026, under cloak and dagger, the Patriot Act was revised and approved once again. Now the government had the authority to listen in to your conversations, or know everything about you, and all of this was in the name of National Security of course. Traitors had all their assets seized and sold. The money went the building of the New World Order. When the American Government official collapsed the Federal Districts was born controlled by the New World order. The riots in the middle of America went uncontrolled for nearly a month but by then the N.W.O. could only save the Federal Districts into 13 separate zones. It’s funny how one minute the American money become worthless and suddenly district money was worth more than men. Thirteen colonies started off with a dream and created something revolutionary and with the rebirth from thirteen districts a nightmare was sure to follow.

In September of 2026, there was a protest outside of the White House now known as the Federal House. My father and mother were there after they fled Kansas from the riots. However military presence broke the protest up over a hundred people were shot by the newly introduced Security Troopers. This is the day that the people decided to fight back. Resistance groups began to sprout up, countless numbers of groups always claiming to be the biggest and baddest, and always trying to cause the most destruction. In the end, the Council of Immortals would decide who they would recognize as legitimate resistance groups. Any that they did not recognize were ordered for termination, this was the only time anyone every saw actual “Truth” members. My mother and father were one of the first to join our districts only “allowed” resistance group the Union Underground. I don’t know much about the politics or history of the resistance movement but they all respond and answer to the Council of Immortals, which enforces the Laws of Resistance and upholds the “New Constitution”.

My parents became active in the resistance printing leaflets, writing anti-governmental books, which at that time had become illegal and one of the items on the R.A.C.I. list. Basic necessitates had become confiscated which also meant banning. When the Federal Districts were created all political groups were disbanded after all a totalitarian state only needs one party. With the rumor of “the Truth” keeping other Resistance groups from forming desperate people began to form roving gangs to seize streets and the military had to reform itself. These soldiers were not suited for American urban combat. Thus the branches of the security teams became simplified. Military Police controlled the general welfare and any reanimation outbreaks . . . fancy way of saying zombie outbreak huh? The Security Troopers were the ones invading Resistance strongholds and continually doing battle with them. When the fighting grew too intense the Doom Troopers were called in. They were known as a death squad, a last ditch effort by the Federalists to purge the “resistance scum”. Looking like phantoms their long black robes were made entirely out of Kevlar and their masks of new light alloyed resistant to all major ammunition calibers. Equipped with a heavy machine gun, which was equipped with sixty rounds per magazine and a blow torch attached to their left hand. The Doom Troopers slaughtered everyone in their paths including their own soldiers and burn the area to smolders. The Federal Districts called it “a control burn for new life to grow”. In the year 2030 the border wall was constructed, a large wall stretching the entire district similar to that Great Wall that China. My parents and their fellow fighters called this day “the day of Apocalypse”. Districts were sealed shut with no way in or out except over the twenty foot wall or through security checkpoints. My parents said that we were like fish in a bowl. On the day of Apocalypse the position of president were taken by a man who planned to stay in power. A man stepped into the government that we would call “Father”.

My parents told me about the day that he took office, he had Security Troopers march down the street and my parent’s remembered one line from his speech, “only through obedience can society grow”. Travel was suspended unless proper verification was acquired and more of our basic freedoms were gone and by the end of 2031, the N.W.O ran the Federal Districts with “father” at the wheel. Every district, every governmental organization came under the Federal Districts flag.

The Federal Districts was made up like this on the east was the Atlantic Ocean and on the west a couple hundred miles of wall simply entitled “the border”. The border was patrolled heavily by Border Troopers and the undead grew ever closer even sometimes making there way through the electrical fence and large mine field. There are occasional outbreaks but Military Police always cleaned up the mess. People not only could get infected from the walkers, dangers also lie with direct content with birds, raccoons, dogs or cats infected with the sickness.

The year is 2049 and the newspapers call my brother and me terrorists. We are enemies of the Federal Districts. I on the other hand call us patriots. The newspaper say and I quote, “wishes to bring anarchy to cause instability.” I laughed at this because all my family ever wanted was to live in a place where we could say and live the way we want to live . . . is that anarchy? No, I would consider it freedom. That is what our country was founded and built on, to escape tyranny, to escape the oppressive power of the Federal Districts and bring to life a country that had once existed only in the history books. I want to bring my children into a world where they can live without fear, is that anarchy? We should stand up for our beliefs, beliefs mean nothing without heart. And my heart now consumes my life, and now I only feel what the Urban Guerillas stood for. The newspapers call us terrorists we call ourselves liberators.

However the liberation we believe needed to be caused by a catastrophe forest fire. We want it all gone just so we can rebuild it into something better. How can we do that with so many fellow brothers-in-arms believing their way is the right way to run the districts? Each group has its pros and cons and it even pains me to admit that our group has its flaws. The recognized group for our district, a group called the Union Underground was hunting down my family’s group the Urban Guerillas. As far as the undead were created by a virus and all we know was that it spread like a plague and soon the heart of the United States was consumed by them. Military police take “walker” incidents very seriously the killing of birds, squirrels, raccoons, dogs, and cats is considered public code. The virus apparently works like rabies and is easily transferable and scavenger creatures are the most susceptible. The brothers-in-arms recognize the benefits of this which is usually why we stay away from those particular aspects. We have bigger fish to fry. After all how can we build the country we are supposed to have when we are overrun with the undead?

(Three years later, 2049)

Abel sat on the ground under a ripped canvas, it was raining hard and he was soaked the front of his shirt was covered in blood. His brother Sean was sitting on the ground his face huddled into his arms. Abel heard him weeping, trying to be strong Abel took out a white envelope. He held it in his hands, as he twisted his head trying to remove his sopping brown wet hair from his eyes. His eyes narrowed on the part of the envelope with the bloody finger prints of their father. Abel felt a tear exit his eye, as he turned to look at Sean being the older brother he had to be strong. He had to carry Sean when he couldn’t bare the road that life threw at him. Abel turned his head quickly to the alley, “We have to get out of here Sean”. Sean just sat there continuing to cry as Abel tucked the envelope back into his pocket. Abel shook him hard, “Sean, you can’t cry now, we have to get out of here.” Sean was younger than Abel by a couple years, “Where are we going to go?” Abel took his arm, “dad told me a place where we could go.”

Abel pushed down his brother as he saw a Military Police cruiser beginning to crawl across the alleyway, shining a spotlight for movement. Abel heard the cruiser drive by, “we have to get out of here Sean, or they will kill us . . . rebels are killed either running or surrendering.” Sean’s face began to sink, I shouted louder as the rain began to fall harder, “they killed our parents, but we can’t sit here and cry about it.” Abel took his brother’s arm and ran down the alleyway, “what’s in the envelope Abel?” Abel put his back against the wall, and softly replied “I don’t know, and I can’t open it now.” Abel leaned around the corner, “there are police everywhere.” Two cops were traveling down the street, searching wherever there could be a hiding spot.

Abel could see a blinking red light that was shining through a wet bandanna tied around his left hand. “They are looking for us,” muttered Abel, “We are going to have to get across the street, and find a place to hide. One M.P. cruisers started traveling down one of the alleyway’s, “they are starting to check the alleys, we have got to go now”. Abel took Sean’s arm one more time as the other cruiser was traveling in the opposite direction in the distance Abel could hear sirens, “the area is getting sealed off ”.

It was now or never, “stay low,” Abel took Sean and ran to a car that was parked on the opposite side of the street. They moved around it trying to stay as low as possible. They looked down the street only one M.P. cruiser was patrolling now. Abel lead Sean across the street as fast as he could, he quickly sunk behind another car. Abel turned and saw the vehicle had now stopped. “I think he saw us,” the M.P. cruiser was now going in reverse. “Head for the alley,” whispered Abel letting Sean begin to crawl towards the alley. Abel turned and followed when he reached the alleyway. Abel could hear the car getting closer. There was a faded green door on his right. Abel began to run as hard as he could his muscular body crashed through the door allowing Sean to shut the door behind him.

Abel was breathing hard because the spotlight from the car was now shining down the alley. It focused down on the door a couple of times, “what’s he doing,” whispered Abel. Sean put his finger to his lips as Abel began to pull out a pistol from his pants. “He is coming,” whispered Sean, whose terror could only be seen by the small emergency light shining in the room. Abel threw the pistol at Sean, “I’ll distract him, and you shoot him.” Sean took the gun, and Abel could see his face turn white. “These people killed our parents, you have to kill him.”

“MILITARY POLICE open the door,” Abel pointed towards a darker corner in the room. “POLICE,” shouted the officer again, “I can’t my leg is broken,” shouted Abel. The officer kicked open the door and pointed the pistol at Abel. “Roll over put your hands on your head!” Abel was pretending to hold his leg, “please I need to go to the hospital.” The officer had his pistol pointing at him, “you’re a criminal, a traitor, a rebel, and you don’t get anything!” Abel tried to conjure up some tears, “PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!” The officer was coming closer, “I can’t you moron!”

The officer was coming closer into the room, “where’s your brother?” “He ran away,” the officer kept the pistol on him, “I don’t believe you”. Abel laid his head on the wall trying to sound more convincing. “I don’t care if you believe me you brainwashed pig.” The officer walked into the room lowering his pistol a little as he put his finger to his ear, “attention all units,” he said loudly. A hammer clicked back and Abel saw his brother Sean, pointing the pistol at the back of the officer’s head, “I wouldn’t do that.” The officer raised his hands, “listen, if you kill me you know what will happen to you?” “You killed my parents,” growled Sean. “Your parents were traitors and known members of the double U.U.” “They were good people,” muttered Sean the pistol still on the back of his head. “You’re not going to do anything, you know what would happen. The moment you kill me, my fellow officers will descend upon this place like locusts . . . just let me take you in, somebody has to fall for this. “Gripping the pistol tighter, “you’re just going to kill us in the end. After all you of all people know what happens with resistance fighters now you get your hands up”.

The officer held his hands up in the air, “the Urban Guerillas are dead, and your parents were traitors, traitors of the Federal Districts and deserve to . . .” Sean shoved the gun into the police officers head. “Be careful with what you say after all there are still Urban Guerillas and as long as my brother and I are alive the Urban Guerillas will always be around”. Abel came up to the officer and took the radio out of his ear. “You know what will happen if you kill me, you will not escape, and they will kill you on site. Clearly your parent’s intelligence died with them. Boom!!! Sean let off a round from the pistol as the officer fell forward. His forehead seemed to explode as the pieces flew all over the wall and the front of Abel’s shirt. There came a loud beeping from the man’s chip in his left hand, “there coming for him, now!” Sean took the pistol and hid it in his pants, as they ran out the door.

Sean stopped and eyed the officer’s car which sat at the end of the alleyway. There in the seat laid a shotgun, Sean wanted to grab it, he even stopped and eyed it almost hungrily. Abel grabbed his arm, “we have to run, NOW!” Sirens were now starting to get close as they took off at full speed down the alleyway. “For such an intellect that was the stupidest thing you could have done Sean,” yelled Abel as they reached the end of the alleyway. He could see more Military Police starting to block off the road. They were not going to get through the neighborhood without being seen. Abel looked around and saw scaffolding ladders. “Come on,” yelled Abel as he began to climb the ladder. They both made it to the roof, “we have to find a way across.” Sean and Abel began looking around at the other buildings as the sirens were closing in. Military Police were now closing into the spot where their fellow officer was killed.

“Security troopers,” pointed Sean watching large black vans that were the size of large military tanks beginning to block off traffic. “We killed only one officer” exclaimed Sean, “but you killed a Military Police Officer and they wiped out our entire group including our mother and father . . . why wouldn’t they come”!? Abel saw a way across the roof and it was a jump down, although it was not that high. They both ran over to it and flew on top of the roof. They began to run jumping over different rooftops. When they jumped over the first four buildings, Sean came to a stop and was breathing heavily. “Where exactly are we going,” Abel was breathing hard as well. “We have to keep going.” Sean waived his hand, “they will be searching that area. We have a minu