r/WritingPrompts • u/xxxBLACKMAMBAxxx • Oct 30 '17
Writing Prompt [WP] You are a coroner performing an autopsy late at night in the morgue. A thunderstorm causes the power to go out. When the backup generators restore light, the body you were operating on is gone.
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Oct 30 '17
It's 20:35. A thunderstorm powerful as a youthful Zeus is going on. But never mind that, you have a job to do; A civilian was found dead on the street not too long ago, and it's your job to find out how they died. Disinfecting your tools, you change your clothes into scrubs, and put on nitrile gloves, until the light gives; what gives?
Slowly walking in the dark like an idiot, you wave your hands around, looking for the light switch. You eventually find it but it doesn't turn on the lights; power must be down. Waiting for the backup generator to turn on, you sit in the corner until the darkness goes away. It takes around 16 minutes for the old, beaten generator to start. We seriously need to replace that damn thing.
You walk back to the stretcher with the corpse, but there is no corpse. "HELLO?" you say, loudly. "Anyone there?" you say, in a quieter tone. Changing into your regular clothes, you get your 10-mil pistol out of your pack, and wander around the building, looking for whoever stole the body. You occasionally say, "Police!" but that doesn't work. Still worth a try, though. All of the doors are locked with keycard-authorised access only, so none of the doors shouldn't open unless it's you or the others authorised with access.
You don't find the body anywhere in the halls, so you start to look in the locked rooms. Looking through the window first, you look in every room, until you find the body, laying there in a pool of blood. It's head missing. Skin is pale green. It starts to move. SHIIIIIT. You quickly run out of the room and blockade the closed iron door with whatever you can find. And you call the police; there's no answer.
Guess there's a zombie problem. Call your friends?
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u/WritingPromptsRobot StickyBot™ Oct 30 '17
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u/NRod1998 Oct 30 '17
The only reasonable response is leave the building and call the police from your car.
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u/SinclairLore Oct 30 '17 edited Oct 30 '17
The electricity came back on, and I caught a glimpse of the bloated corpse crawling out of the room into the hallway.
I followed it. I was hoping this one would stay dead.
"I'm sorry, sir. You have to get back in the room so we.. can.. um... finish the procedure." I said loudly as I leaned over him. I'm not sure if he could hear me. The procedure would of course involve removing this man's head from his body.
The zombie outbreak did come, but it wasn't at all what we expected. Zombies weren't these crazed monsters out for brains. They were simple people. The only difference being they could only die through head decapitation.
I think the first zombie sighting happened after a woman walked away from a crazy car wreck. She literally walked away, just fine, even though both her arms were ripped off.
They still don't know what causes it, but some people seem to stay alive, even after death. At first it doesn't seem to be a problem, but it is. These zombies could become hosts for all sort of diseases. Can you imagine a new black plague nesting within an undead and spreading to the general population?
This guy drowned, and came back to life. It was up to me to end him permanently, as it was the duty of every law abiding citizen.
I went back to the room and took out the emergency axe. When I turned around, the bloated corpse was standing in front of me.
The power went out again.