Of Beast And Man

• Kieran Lopes, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2011

The infected legion marched awkwardly, like a sea of festering wounds, and clammy, scored flesh. Each lumbering step depicted a broken doll, trying desperately to stay upright in a flailing of limbs.
At the end of the dim hospital corridor, four lone figures stood in silence, the only piece of sanity left in this forsaken asylum. All four figures were dressed in matching attire. Glistening black armour wrapped around them like lingering darkness. They each wielded weapons, each as devastating as the one before.
At the nod of the first figure, a man of oriental descent, the squad charged at the oncoming undead army, screaming harsh battle cries, like four Norse warriors, relentless, and ruthless in battle.
As they charged, the undead hobbled to meet the conflict. The almighty sound of brutal steel in flesh struck like thunder, as one of the humans, a bulky man with a livid scar slashed across his face, plunged a chainsaw into the nearest unit’s shoulder. The creature’s face twisted in pain, and it screeched in an animalistic fashion, as its insides shredded horridly under the saw’s crude blade.
From there, all hell broke loose. The rancid odour of the foul beasts dominated the air, overpowering even the chainsaw’s bubbling petrol. The oriental man swung an ornate katana with great skill, it’s once beautifully jeweled and patterned hilt, now stained with deep red blood, as it sliced effortlessly through undead limbs.
The damned army did not buckle under such force however, and it did not seem to affect the oncoming forces that came in rotting, defiled droves. The creatures swiped and tore at the armour, scratching its surface, but not destroying it. With this, the four began to retreat tactically, regrouping and desperately re-loading, before the next onslaught commenced.
As the team reversed down the corridor, the hospital lights flickered demonically, as if beckoning them into this strange land. It was ironic really, how a place of such cleanliness and sterility, came to be swarming with the very things of disease. And swarming it was indeed. The corridors were clogged like unhealthy arteries with the masses of undead growing by the second, like flies on a grotesque carcass. As the four ran desperately into the bowels of the building, they realised that escape was simply not an option, and they were at the mercy of its malevolent demise, forced to slug it out in one final ungodly struggle for the sweet victory.
Almost as if in déjà vu, the four heroes stood in silence, covered in the blood of comrades and foes. A gritty determination sparked in each one’s eyes, and, as if being pulled from the dream, the two factions met once again.
Blood splattered upon the ghostly walls, like the disturbing abstract art of a madman. And so the raging battle continued, a vivid painting of life on both sides, vastly different, yet both boiling with that same uncontrollable fury. That of beast and man.