by Doorstop » Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:36 am
He was alone in the aisle when the lights flickered and died, leaving him in almost complete darkness .. accompanied only by the soft glow of the emergency lights scattered few and far in the over head gantry.
The almost perfect silence marred only by the soft hum of the inverters of the emergency lights was quickly pierced by stifled screams followed by low, guttural moans interspersed with the shuffling of many fractured gaits slowly, almost imperceptibly, closing in around him.
Then he glimpsed them .. lumbering shambolic creatures which, although usually happier in the murky darkness, appeared confused by it's sudden and unannounced arrival. They bumbled into each other and their increasingly chaotic surroundings as they all, with some sort of mindless collective consciousness, closed in on him and although doubtlessly without rational thought and dead inside they moved with a definite air of menace that belied their stumbling and low, breathless gasps and grunts.
He desperately tried to moderate his increasingly laboured breaths, fearful they would hear him and latch on with the dreadful incumbent fate that came along with that eventuality.
The air was musty, with more than a faint odour of decay subtly masked with the sickly acrid fragrance of cheap perfume and rancid sweat. He knew his only option was to find a way out before the creatures got there, closing off his escape and his life expectancy simultaneously.
His pulse banged in his ears, making his neck tight with the increased blood pressure .. he was sure they could hear his very heartbeat as his mind raced through the possibilities of escape, one after one of which inevitably ended in his grisly fate at the hands of a mindless mob of the undead.
A scene from 28 Days Later?
Nope, it was my account of Somerfield in Drumchapel today half way through shopping when some incompetent 'ditch engineer' dug up a three phase cable plunging the holding pen for the Jeremy Kyle show that is the Arndale Centre into darkness.
I could only feel pity for the hordes of young mothers and their kids, confused and bewildered, standing outside Greggs not fully cognisant of the fact that they couldn't nourish their offspring with their usual "Steakbake Dummy".
Last edited by
Doorstop on Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I like him ... He says "Okie Dokie!"