Aberrant: Dead Rising - Bad Memories [Complete]

[Stargaizer]

Nov 14th, 2006 - 7:45am

*ring ring ring*

"Hello?"

"Mr. Davis, sir cough I'm feeling really sniffle sick today. I'm sneeze..."

"You're not telling me that you can't come in today, are you?"

"sniffle Uhhh..."

"You know that we're two weeks behind, right? We should've already had siding on that house, and I'm just now able to run the wires."

"cough"

"You know how much we'll have to pay in penalties if we don't get caught up? You want that coming out of your paycheck?"

"sniffle No sir... I hacking cough I think I can come in. hack and spit"

"Good. You have less than 45 minutes to get on-site. Don't be late or your pay's getting docked."

Click.

7:55am

ring. ring. ring.

"Hello?"

"Nathan, sir sneeze I'm feeling really sniffle sick today. I'm cough..."

"Oh no! You're not tellin' me that you can't come in today!?"

"sniffle Uhhh..."

...

"Good. You've got less than half an hour to get on-site. Don't be late or we're docking your check!"

Click!

To the giant picture of a red dragon that he had hanging on his wall, he vented his frustration. "What do they think we are, made of money? Do they think this house is gonna will build itself?" He sighed. More often than not being a foreman reminded him of this picture. He was all that stood between the company's horde of gold and the people wanting to take it away (who also just happened to be the people they're working for... but who ever said metaphors were perfect?). And, more often than not, Nathan had to breathe fire to get these lazy, good for nothing... Argh!

By 8:30 he'd gotten calls from exactly half of his crew, all 'claiming' to be too sick to come to work. The threat of docked pay deterred all but one worker... so, as Nathan saw it, he only had one sick crew member.

[Stargaizer]

Nov 14th, 2006 - 1:45pm

About a quarter of his crew had been late today, but they'd all shown up (except the one who was actually sick). They weren't moving fast or efficiently, but they were getting more work done here than they would if they were home. By 10:00 the soothing rhythm of hammers, drills, and saws had filled the air. They had already laid the foundation, the floor over the basement, and they had some of the walls done on the first floor... they still had a lot of framing to do.

Nathan had given everybody their marching orders, and so he was downstairs installing the fuse panel; the electrical heart of this home. Once he was done here, he'd drill the holes and run the wires for the downstairs circuits, and then he'd drill the holes that he'd feed the wires through from upstairs. He had a lot to do, but at the speed they were going, he could have everything they put up wired by the end of the day (of course he wouldn't, you needed some lag time between where they were framing and where you were wiring, point was he could).

And then the noise stopped.

It wasn't all at once, but some of the hammering, and all of the sawing had just stopped. It took about thirty seconds for the silence to become complete. Nathan had already had his lunch, and while most of his crew took their lunch in shifts (so that the work could continue seamlessly), it wasn't unheard of for them to all decide to take lunch at the same time. Just unusual.

Nathan gave no thought to the fact that it was almost two; he hadn't looked at his watch for a while. He also gave no thought to the sound of dragging feet above his head; those deadbeats drug their feet metaphorically, why not actually. He also gave no thought to the muffled voices that he heard overhead, even when he heard a couple of shouts; they guys talk when they're on break, and construction workers had a habit of getting rambunctious (they'd just better not damage anything on the site. If they did, the entire cost of replacement would come out of their check, twice. Once to cover the cost of replacing it, and a second time to cover the inconvenience and delay).

What Nathan did take note of was when a shout turned into a scream, as he heard one of their trucks start and peel out of the lot, accompanied by a thud. Oh great, one of the guys was showing off and ran over someone else... well, there goes our safety bonus. It was probably Miguel; I knew I should've fired his sorry hide. I wonder how quickly I can get a replacement for...

Nathan's internal tirade was cut short by the sickening sound of a body coming to rest, suddenly, on the concrete floor. Someone had fallen down the hole into the basement. Nathan quickly turned to see Daniel laying on the concrete floor... not breathing. He started to run over there when Jose fell on top of him. This gave Nathan a pause, and then what seemed like his entire crew fell, one after another, with increasing frequency, on top of those two. Nathan backed up slowly as each person fell through the ceiling, until his back hit the wall. Something was definitely not right.

They they started rolling off the pile, standing up, and shambling... shambling towards him. He had no idea what to do, nothing in his training or experience had prepared him for anything like this. Nathan smacked himself, hoping that this was all just a bad dream. It hurt, but he didn't wake up. "Guys... you... alright?" came a squeaky and shaky voice that Nathan's throat hadn't used since puberty.

None of his workers answered, though, they just all kept shambling towards him. It wasn't until he noticed Daniel stand up, head, leg and one of his arms bent at wrong angles that something clicked in his head. Now, this wasn't the first thought that had gone through Nathan's mind, and it was far from the most logical, but it was the only one that seemed to fit. He'd read the books, he'd seen the movies, he remembered the stories. Some of the darker dragons he'd heard about even used them as guards... but that was all fiction... this was the real world...

Twenty against one, they'd backed Nathan into a corner, knocked over the only ladder out of the basement (by accident or design is was still lying in the floor), and cut off all of his routes of escape. If Nathan had been doing some wood work, or welding, or anything other than putting up a fuse box, he might've had something to fight back with. But as it stood, Nathan only had some wire, wire strippers, hammer, drill and some nails and screws. Nothing that would give him even a fighting chance... they'd even picked up all the extra lumber lying around the basement.

Not seeing any way out, he slid down the corner to the floor. For the first time in years he shed a couple of tears. He didn't want to die, but it was inevitable... if only he had some way to fight back... His mind wandered to all the many flights of fancy that he'd stored in his memory. All the many tales of the noble and not so noble dragons. Soaring through the sky, battling knights, wizards, the elements and even the gods themselves. All of his life he'd idolized these magnificent creatures, longed to be or have one. Heck, he would've been happy to be eaten by one, because at least he would've gotten the chance to see one in person (inside and out).

As the shuffling footsteps grew closer, the thought that he was dishonoring everything that it meant to be a dragon by simply giving up ignited something deep inside him. As if a dragon itself had just breathed flame into his core being, something inside Nathan ignited. With a resolve deeper than anything that he'd ever known, he opened his eyes and stood up, determined that if he were going to die today, at least he would go out in a blaze of glory!

He jumped to his feet, now towering over the lifeless creatures in front of him, and with a roar that shook the building, and a swipe of his massive hand, he took out or knocked over every single one within arms reach. Then, he pulled up every once of fight in himself, let out a shout of defiance, and a ball of lightning bowled over everything in front of him, undead, wood and concrete alike.

Without knowing why or how, he flexed his legs and jumped straight up, through the ceiling, and took flight. His rational brain wasn't processing the fact that he was flapping his wings in order to FLY, but he did nonetheless.

Not knowing what else to do or where else to go, Draygo made his way back to his house.

[Stargaizer]

Nov 14th, 2006 - 3:30pm

It took Draygo less time to get home than it usually took Nathan; not so much because he was going faster, but because he was able to go in a straight line (plus there wasn't much traffic in the sky). With his keen eyesight and aerial vantage point, he was able to see for miles around, and the story was gut-churningly similar; it seemed as if these zombies, his mind could handle the term now, were all over the city. There weren't necessarily a lot of them all over the city, but a few here and there could be seen most places.

Draygo landed on the sidewalk outside of Nathan's house and shattered the pavement. And as he walked towards the door, he left foot prints in the concrete reminiscent of a T-Rex. He wasn't used to his much increased mass or strength yet. But, as he closed the distance to his front door, he figured out how to step lighter, so by the time he got to his front porch, he didn't actually step through it.

He started to reach for the door knob like he normally would, but stopped himself. He wrapped his taloned hand around the knob as gingerly as possible and lightly turned. The door opened, undamaged, and Draygo walked in. He shut and locked the door behind him, and then moved to stare at himself in the foyer mirror. What stared back at him was something unlike he'd ever seen before... except in his dreams. What stared back looked like this.

Scales, talons, several hundred extra pounds, wings, snout, sharp teeth, reptilian eyes... He still had two arms, two legs, torso, and a head with mouth, nose, ears and eyes. So, he was still humanoid... but he was a Dragon. He was actually a dragon!

He went into the living room and turned on the TV. All across the television were reports of clogged traffic arteries, walking dead, and apparently the entire nation, no, the entire world was in a state of martial law.

But what did Draygo care? Nathan might have, but now it was Draygo, the dragon man. Dragons were solitary, had no need for anyone else from which to derive their power. They were unique like that. It was said that the President of the United States was the most powerful man in the world, but why? He was powerful because he had people who would do what he said, who would follow him. A general in the military was powerful, why? Because he had people who followed him; and not only that, but because there were other people that they could cow or control. All worldly power was based on other people, how many you could control.

But the power of a dragon was different. Their power was based in themselves. They were the epitome of self-reliance. Draygo had strength, he could fly, he could survive. He didn't need people to follow him or people to cower at the sight of him. He could survive, and there wasn't anything that anyone, or even nature itself could do to change that.

[Stargaizer]

Dec 24th, 2006

The fact that today was the day before the United States largest commercial holiday was completely lost upon Draygo. Apparently no one had told the zombies either.

There were no lights, no trees, no carols, and most definitely no peace on earth or goodwill towards man.

It had been a little over a month since Draygo had seen a living human, but it didn't phase the half-dragon-half-man. He was perfectly content to be by himself. Of course, good luck telling that to the zombies.

Draygo had been able to stay in Nathan's house for about a week. Apparently after that, they'd exhausted all the easily available food sources (or whatever motivated zombies), and they had started trying to break into the house. Draygo left, not because he felt threatened, but because he couldn't get any good sleep with all that banging at the doors and walls.

So Draygo decided to lair somewhere else, somewhere with fewer uninvited guests. He also decided to lair this time, which meant a horde. Now, as a human, Nathan had never been extremely caught up with money, but his toys, as well as his dragons had taken up most of his paychecks. But since he was his own dragon now, usually, he didn't need those petty trinkets. However, electronics, components, and the practical things that would make the world go around now were plenty good enough for him to horde.

And so city raider Draygo was born. Every computer store, Radio Shack, building supply store, feed/ag store, or anything else that might hold what he looked for became his prey. And Draygo quickly realized that he needed some way to store and transport his horde; so he picked up (literally) a now abandoned semi-truck trailer and started packing it with all of his new found goodies.

Besides his new, portable lair, he also had plenty of chances to test out all of his new dragon abilities. Transporting his lair flexed his new, super-strong muscles as well as his ability to fly. Raiding for the goods to fill his lair gave him a chance to practice most of the rest of his abilities, his claws (and razor sharp teeth), the strength of his scales, and his ability to shoot balls of lightning out of his mouth.

But there was another ability that he most definitely didn't try around the undead, or very often at all for that matter. It was the ability to revert to his human form. Now, even when he changed back to Nathan, Draygo was always inside him, clawing to get out; but as Draygo found out, during his time alone, Nathan was always inside him, a bastion of calm and serenity.

Draygo didn't like to give up his dragonness, but at times it was necessary. The semi trailer was too flimsy to support his weight, as were certain structures that he raided. Plus, Nathan was a lot smaller, and didn't have to worry about any wings, so he could get into smaller places.

Nevertheless, it was plain to see which one of them had their true heart...

... and it wasn't Nathan.

[Stargaizer]

Feb 14th, 2007

St. Valentine's Day. Draygo had found an electronic watch on one of the zombies he'd dispatched that still had some juice left in it. It kept good time, and had a date function. He'd found it two or three weeks ago and it had blown his mind. It was amazing how much time passed when you weren't keeping track of it. When each day was the same, the days and weeks turned into months so quickly. Now he knew how dragons stayed sane over the millennia of their lives; they found something to do and did it without a regard to time.

But Draygo was only half dragon. He was also half human, and in the months since hell had broken loose, he'd finally realized just how much. While dragons were solitary creatures, able to go hundreds of years without ever seeing another soul, Nathan had gone months without seeing anybody but zombies, and it was really starting to grate on him. Even as Draygo, Nathan was never fully gone, and so, even in his dragon form, they needed someone else.

So, he changed his routine. He searched areas other than those that could specifically yield things he wanted to horde. He started checking houses in the suburbs and out in the country side. He flew higher and searched for heat sources. He practiced landing and switching as quickly as possible. He continued searching for things that could be used to rebuild this world...

...but he also began the search for other survivors.