Week 2 Story: The Human Horde
It all started as a normal day at the local grocery store, right in the middle of Norman, Oklahoma.
A particularly anxious young man, Peter, looked around frightfully as he collected his bread, milk, and other necessities for the month. In fact, if he wasn't completely out of food, he wouldn't have taken the risk to come to the store at all. As he scurried down one last aisle, he heard a CRASH nearby.
With a nervous jolt of adrenaline, Peter scrambled down the aisle to see what had occurred. Turning the corner, he was met with a nightmare scene: a woman, covered head to toe in a bright red, dripping substance, struggled to rise from the ground. She let out a groan and began limping forward.
Without a second thought, Peter let out a piercing scream: "ZOMBIESSSS!!!"
Peter tore wildly through the store, repeating his frantic cry and bursting through the automatic doors at the front. He ran across the parking lot, and onlookers heard his fantastic claim. Some shrugged it off as nothing, but a few began to run after Peter, adding to the screams and panic. As Peter and his small crowd entered the street nearby, drivers had to swerve to avoid them. Car horns pierced the air and increased the cacophony. Eventually, the inevitable occurred: two cars collided, and smoke began to rise into the air. The crowd around Peter swelled, traffic piled up, and drivers began exiting their vehicles to follow Peter on foot.
Local law enforcement was inundated with calls, and police sirens were heard all around Norman. Ambulances rushed to the scene of the car accident, and Peter attributed the activity to widespread recognition of the zombie outbreak. "THEY'RE COMING," he yelled, and the crowd panicked further. Several people left their homes with firearms, and others began looting stores and nearby houses, desperate for supplies for the coming apocalypse. News helicopters circled above, reporting on a horde of humans overrunning Norman.
Hours later, Peter's crowd stormed onto I-35, and they faced a National Guard blockade. Peter screamed to his followers, "SEE! They're here to keep us contained! They are willing to let us die to stop the outbreak! But we are healthy! Let's get out of here!"
Peter and his followers charged the blockade...and all because a woman tripped and spilled some ketchup.
Author's Note: This story is adapted from "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" from the Jataka Tales Anthology. I kept the very general plot line (a nervous character takes a normal event way out of proportion) and applied it to a mob-mentality scenario in Norman, Oklahoma. I thought the original story did not show enough of a consequence for the Rabbit, so I showed what could really happen when people do not fact-check something before reacting.
Bibliography: "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" from Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt
Oh my gosh, this is great, Robert: I snorted my coffee when I got to "ZOMBIESSSS!!!" ... people have done lots of versions of this story over the years, but this is the first ever zombie version ha ha ha. And all the details are fantastic: the smoke from the car collision, people looting stores before the coming apocalypse (we all know what it's like in Norman when there's an icestorm prediction...). Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of lions in the world to set things straight. We can't get rid of ketchup, so we need more lions to deal with the resulting panic ha ha. Be your own lion: check the facts! The jataka message still holds true two thousand years later. Wonderful!!!
ReplyDeleteWow! I really liked that I had no idea what was going in the beginning and then BAM, zombies. I loved the detailed description in the beginning of the woman "zombie" in the beginning. I initially thought maybe she was shot or hurt somehow, but then zombie was a really good surprise. You really hyped up the zombie theme throughout the whole story which made the ending even more funny. I am pretty sure I giggled out loud. Although I wonder, how did spilling ketchup ended up on the woman from head to toe. The mob-mentality is definitely something I can see easily these days, especially with social media news can spread like wildfire. Rereading it, it's funny how peter is the one who started all this, and he's also the one that pushed it in the blockade. You really did a great job in applying the main plot of The Foolish, Timid Rabbit to your story. The message from the Jakata tale was loud and clear on its own. What if you could turn this into a 100 word microfiction? That might be amazing too! The story is really good already; I wouldn't change much about it!
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