Friday 16 September 2011

Twelfth Entry: Hangman

I briefly considered forcing the doors open with my spade, but dropped the idea almost immediately. I'd probably destroy the lock in the process, and a broken front door would hardly be the best start to my impregnable fortress. I needed to find the key.

I rested my head against the door and rubbed my tired eyes. Where the hell was I going to find this specific key? A spark of inspiration made it through the haze in my head and I gave the door 3 tentative knocks. 'Hello?' I called. 'Anyone home?' After a minute of solid silence, I had to conclude that there was not.

I sighed and looked around at nothing in particular. My eyes fell on the small house at the edge of the graveyard. The small house that looked just like the type of house a graveyard caretaker would live in. If I was lucky, he'd have a key to the church. If I wasn't, the house would be full of walkers and I'd get my face eaten. I hoped for the former.

As I made my way through the forest of grave markers, a thought struck me. This graveyard was the first walker-free place I had seen today. I was literally walking on corpses, but I was safer than I had been all day. I could see several walkers in the distance, milling about aimlessly, but none of them came near me. I climbed over the low stone wall that framed the graveyard and dropped into a small vegetable garden behind the house. I made a mental note to go back and check it later.

Careful not to make too much noise, I tried to peer through a window. I could make out a few vague shapes, but the room was so dark and the windows so dirty that I couldn't see anything else. I went around the house to the front door. The front door was locked, but I had no qualms about breaking this one open. I wedged the head of the spade between the door and its frame, and gave it a hard push. It groaned and twisted, and with a loud, splintering crack it flew open. I jumped back, brandishing the spade and ready to smash any lurking walkers to a bloody pulp. I was met by the sight of a middle-aged man in overalls swinging gently by a noose around his neck.

I'd seen plenty of gruesome deaths during the last couple of hours, but this shocked more so than anything else had. For a religious man to commit suicide (and - according to his beliefs - get sent to hell for all eternity) rather than live in our world... Suffice to say, it gave "hell on earth" a whole new meaning. What can I say, suicide just gets to me.

I tried to pretend that the dead caretaker wasn't there as I rummaged the house. But the house was small, and I kept bumping into him when I had to get past. It sent shivers through me, and they weren't the nice, tingly kind of shivers. I looked through every drawer, closet and cupboard in the house, but I didn't find a single key. I was about to leave, but something popped into my head. It was possible that he didn't have a key for the church. But not to have any keys at all? That wasn't right.

I turned to the groundskeeper and looked him over, half hoping that I didn't find what I suspected. He had plenty of pockets, but only the big one on his chest seemed to have anything in it. I tapped it with my spade, and it made a muffled clinking sound. I sighed. I would have to fish out the keys from a dead man's pocket. I got up on a chair next to him and stuck my hand down the pocket, praying that he wouldn't suddenly come alive and take a chunk out of my arm. My hand touched a cold metal ring, and I quickly pulled whatever it was out and jumped down. It was an iron key-chain with four different keys on it. I did a mental fist-pump and got the fuck out of there.

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful writing, I love the story and the drawings. You can consider me a regular reader dear sir.

    ReplyDelete