From Vesper Eden's Journal:


The Beginning of the End:

I never thought it would end like this. Not for us, I always thought we were better. Immune to destruction, immune to the full scale horror of a nation-wide holocaust. But here we are, or more so, here I am.

My name is Vesper Eden. I used to be a pretty wicked volleyball player before the damned apocalypse came rolling in. I’m twenty-three and I was fairly wealthy compared to the rest of the city. I had a really cool downtown pad, but that changed when the government confiscated houses and began evacuating people to interment camps.


But I had an ace in the hole, a person who knew that chaos was coming, and he prepared us the best he could for it, even if we didn’t quite believe his vague warnings. My brother was hip to the game before it even began.

He was a well-armed Army Sergeant that had seen combat in Afghanistan long before the first wave of nasties started to crawl into the city. He was a crack-shot, too.

I was lucky enough to have been given a machine gun, which he insisted I learn to shoot. I never learned to be a great shot like him, but with a machine gun, you don't need much training or accuracy, leastwise not close up.

Edward left me to, as he said; “fight the Chinese at the Home-front.” The thing is the Chinese had nothing to do with this gory mess.

It’s weird, most people didn’t want to accept the truth about the so-called invasion, they thought the creeps came from elsewhere, from Russia, China, Cuba, Iran – hell, anywhere but here.

But they DID come from here. They came from our own nation, our own homes, and our own families. Put simply, they came from us.


Dreary, weary, the cold, the rot, they answer my query. The sky turned red, then dark and gray, the mist enveloped the fiery days. When flesh and death are born of blood, the graveyards split the pit that's dug.
-- Amanda Boyer.




Sunday:





Monday:

I was crying for a long while. I kept hoping my father was going to come back, but mostly, I thought about my sister. It had occurred to me that she wasn’t really dead, just undead, whatever the hell that meant. Was she thinking about me? Was she wondering what happened to her? Did she even feel anything?



The TV said to stay away from the reanimates, or whatever they call those monster-people. They say stay away from them at all costs, even if they are your family.

It’s harder to do that than you’d think. My first instinct is to go back to that dirty church to look for Sarah, my sister. But the logical part of me persuades me to do the opposite.

Well, maybe it’s more like the cowardly side of me. At any rate, the things are moving in bigger hordes now.

So, I think it best that I stay away from the city. I’m hungry though. I haven’t eaten for over two days, not to say I’d eat even if I did find food. I’ve been so upset about this nightmare invasion that I can’t seem to keep any food down anyway.

Tuesday:

I saw something really weird today. When I was leaving downtown, I saw this dude dressed up like a knight or something. He had obviously looted that big museum across the street. He traveled with his daughter, at least I think it was his daughter. The funny thing was that the kid seemed happy.


She just followed him around, blowing bubbles in the street. Kids are weird like that, as long as nothing is threatening them at that very moment, they seem to be oblivious of any future dangers. I wish I could be so bliss.

Still, downtown ain’t what it used to be, just behind the knight-dude, you could see a huge jet plane actually stuck in between two skyscrapers.

I wondered why it didn’t just blow up. I figured the thing must have stayed in the air as long as it could before finally running out of gas.

No gas, no boom-boom, at least nothing too explosive. I don’t blame them for wanting to stay in the air. Being on the ground with these ghoulie-boys isn’t the smartest thing a person can do.



Wednesday:

The city is really in shambles. It hasn’t been very long since the goons came to town, so I couldn’t figure out why the city looks so completely devastated. Then it occurred to me. It was the fires. When the establishment went belly up, most of the caretakers to the city just ran away.


They left power-plants to fend for themselves and also made no effort to douse the hundreds of car fires in the streets. I can still smell the burning scent of fumes and car fuel from miles away.

The fires made the buildings buckle, and they got weak. Most are real dangers. I almost got my head sliced off by a glass window pane falling out of the Prudential building this morning. I no longer huddle near the skyscrapers anymore. Live and learn, right?

Thursday:

I heard some freaky noises today. It was getting dark and the fires were still burning in the distance. I thought it was just more of that damnable moaning from the rot-waddlers, but it wasn’t.

I crossed past Resurrection Cemetery to get to the abandoned house I was holding up at. In the sky, I saw old World War 2 planes passing overhead. I was like, what the hell are old ass planes like that doing here?

Than the reality set in, they were using every possible fighter plane to bombard the most ghoul-ridden streets. It appeared the military was really desperate; they must be if they were using outdated air-fighters. I got scared after I figured that out. I was definitely scuttling about like some terrified rat in one of those heavily infested areas.



Just when I started getting one of my panic attacks, I saw a child in the misty graveyard. She was a real cutie, too, with a dirty summer dress and fluffy gold hair. I began to run to her. However, when I got near her, I saw that she was an un-girl, one of those poor children that turned over to the rot-side.

She just stood there, in front of a huge Jesus cross, wondering if I was something good to eat. I noticed that reanimate children did this a lot. Maybe their brains were a bit undeveloped by ghoulie standards and this made them give pause before actually trying to eat you. Still, she shined her iridescent eyes on me and started that goofy wobbling walk that all undead kiddies do when they get the urge to munch on us.

Man, I was really sad. It was one thing to see the nasty boys hobbling around in hunger, but it was something totally different when you saw a child stalking about. As I ran to my hideout, I kept thinking how screwed up that was. Little kids didn’t deserve this crap. Is their anything sacred left in this world?!

Friday:

Kaboom! That was the sound that woke me up in the middle of the night. I saw an eerie haze of white and yellow stretch across the horizon. A moment later, I felt a queer shock-wave knock me off of my feet. I got up and began to check the locks on my doors.

My attic apartment was still safe. In the morning, I got the courage to go downstairs and search for food again. But I was surprised to see white all over the place.

I was looking at snow that wasn’t snow. Still, it was everywhere. Near the street corner, I turned around to see a lone woman peering in my direction. She was decomposed pretty badly and the old gal started her slow, stalking trek toward me. I ran back with no problem.

I was surprised, because I thought I’d slip or something. But as I had realized before, the white that covered everything was not snow.

It looked like snow, but it was too dusty and it wasn’t cold at all. In that instant my heart sank. I quickly realized I was in radioactive fallout -- and lots of it.

While I locked the door behind me, watching the woman bark for more ghouls to join her, I feared the worst. I knew I had to leave my sanctuary.

Not because the dirt-nap fiends could actually get in, but because I would soon be poisoned by radiation if I dared to stay any longer.

Apparently a nuclear bomb was detonated quite far away. Yet the hazardous winds still blew in a blizzard of radioactive fallout throughout my old neighborhood. Damn, things just got worse.

...To Be Continued in Chapter 2 of Zombie Noir

--To go to Chapter 2 click here: Chapter 2

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Zombie Noir FAQs

What is Zombie Noir?
Zombie Noir is a Photo-Graphic-Novel. It was created to fill a niche in the on-line horror Sci-Fi genera. It fuses the primary make-up and special effects work of CJ Hutchinson, Das Ghoulfriends, and Dark Riddle to bring a “direct-to-the reader” world of horrific Zombie Infestation during the End Times of mankind.

Why isn’t this being published?
It was decided that this particular series should go ‘direct’ to the readers. Also, there are many photos from free stock venues that are used here to help gain exposure for photographers and since it’s ongoing, there will be edited and interactive aspects to this series that can’t be done in a printed book.

What are the interactive aspects of this?
Submitted poems and Gothic sonnets will also be featured in the Zombie Noir Universe from other artists and writers interested in the project. There is also a comments and chat space below each page that can be used to “Like”, discuss, and submit ideas about the Zombie Noir series.

Variant Version @ Zombie Noir on WORD-PRESS Zombie Noir WORDPRESS Edition


Credits Blog:____________________________

Art, Special Effects & Story by:
Dark Riddle/Jesus Morales

Principle Photography & Make up:
CJ Hutchinson & Das Zombie Productions

Additional Base Photography --
As listed via "User Names" at Morguefiles:
clarita, demondimum, UnicornRetreat, earl53, kconnors, raymortim, nioanto
beglib, wallyir, patriciaegreen, gmgartner, delboysafa,
ltshears, xpistwv, jeltovski, ardelfin, chelle, hamstersphere, Schick, lisasolonynko, mzacha, ali110, keyseeker, jppi, gumby, wallyir, ostephy, cohdra, rigi, taliesin, cochise, wellies, mzacha, tcatcarson, luisrock62, o0o0xmods0o0o, cbassweb,Irish_Eyes, kakisky, anitapatterson, phaewilk, monsterdimka, sweetpea, phototogo2, blondieb38, krystle, freitasthi, kahanaboy, dmscs, hotblack, tonymurphy, marykbaird, and Jusben.

"Many thanks to the photographers for the use of their great talents." --Dark Riddle