GuNNhead

From deep within the pit under the cemetery, demons and monsters continue to spill out from the caverns, climbing up and out, swarming over everything like insects. Demons push the shambling undead back and forth, teasing them as schoolyard bullies, mocking their lost humanity.

Vincenzo runs from the conglomerate of bodies rising from the graves, frantically dialling on his cell phone.
“Ah, christ, Joey, I need an airlift, now! Cemetary!”
“Slow down, Mr. Melatini.”
“No, helicopter, Cemetary, now!”
“Yes sir, right away sir!”

Within seconds, a small white helicopter appears through the swirling crowds surrounding the cemetery that emanate from the broken-in sepulchre.
“Mr. Melatini! Sir, get in!”
Vincenzo gets into the helicopter, and it begins to take off, but scores of the undead swarm the bright white personal craft, yet it still manages to get into the air. A thick smoke-like fog rolls by, causing the tail rotor to sputter and stop, aided by the clinging corpses, sacrificing body part after body part into the rotors and blades: anything to get at that fresh flesh. The helicopter spins and rotates, crashing into a large, nearby tomb, setting aflame.

The old van rushes down the street, looking for the easiest paths to avoid the creatures, and to get out of town.
“Dudes, these are fuckin’ zombies.”
“Yeah, I kinda realize! Just drive!”
“To where?”
“How the fuck should I know, just away from these fuckers!”
“They’re everywhere!”
Soon, the teens arrive in the cemetery. By random occurrence, or being horded their by the undead, it is unsure, and unimportant, because that is where they are now.
“Wonderful, great driving: you’re a pro; ‘how do we get away from dead people, why, let’s go to a cemetery’!”
“Shut the fuck up, I didn’t see you do any better!”
“Stop fighting! We just need to find someone with answers, somewhere safe! Look, there’s a fire up ahead.”
“Someone’s probably holed up there, and it isn’t like there’s any other way to go; shit, they’re everywhere!”
Driving fast, the van swerves down the paths of the graveyard, towards the helicopter.
“I can see someone there, he’s fighting them off!”
Demons pummel the van as it continues towards the flaming wreck, crawling all over it. The teens spot the helicopter up close now.
“There is someone up there, and he has a gun! He’s signalling us!”
“Slow down beside it, he can jump on the roof”
“I’m trying! I can’t! The steering wheel doesn’t work, neither do the breaks!”
“Oh my god, we’re going to smash into it!”
The van smashes head-on into the flaming helicopter, pushing it, and with metal screeching, the entire scene falls into the now open slanted sepulchre, falling down, down past the truck and the playing record.

A voice booms from the darkness.

“Your sacrifice is accepted! Their souls are now inhabitants of the Hellish dimension, and I, released from the Hellish dimension, I and my kind shall rule totality! Feel the evil energy spewing forth from the bowels of the Hellish dimension, and know that I am all powerful!”
The Hellbeast, surrounded by spiralling smoke shooting up towards the sky, blackening it further, crawls out of the hole, and proceeds to destroy the city, with the demons and zombies running rampant upon the world.
“I will rule in darkness for eternity! Once I soon conquer this world, I shall spread death without end multiversally!”

They walk to the site of Tolo’s dead relatives, and the record begins to play on its own in his arms. An ominous aura surrounds the two men, as mists form about their feet, and the sky darkens. Decaying hands tear up through the ground, driven by the sound of the recording. Vincenzo is quick to realize something amiss, while Tolo stands there, record player in hand.
“What the fuck, we gotta fuckin’ get the fuck outta here.”
Tolo has no response. Vincenzo grabs him by the shirt, and runs, almost dragging him back to the truck. Once inside, they drive fast down the winding path of the cemetery, the dead rising from the grave, superseding the ground behind it.
“Ya gotta shut off that fuckin’ record player, I knew that thing gave me da creeps. Ah fuck.”
“It can’t be shut off, Vinny.” With those final words, the truck swerves to a crossroads in front of a large stone embedding in the ground, and Tolo takes hold of the wheel, making it stay on course with the slanted sepulchre.
“What the fuck, Tolo?” Tolo offers no response.
Vincenzo jumps out of the truck, as it crashes through the stone floor, and falls three stories into a cave within a giant cavern, dug by demons. Surrounding this one larger hole are thousands of smaller caves, spiralling downwards into blackness. Smashed into the skull of the now dead Tolo, the record continues to play its black symphony in the van upon the edge of the precipice, facing the death dark of the central pit.

A few short miles away, in the second level of an underground parking lot, a group of teens are hanging around the back of a van. The original Misfits play loudly to the reverie of their young ears. Jamar, the youngest is the most enthusiastic in himself, from his hair to his denim vest to his expressions. Dinah, the beautiful and vivacious young blonde, hopelessly attached to the arm of Ryan, a confident young man, who shows his self-assurance in his buff physique, not that his strongly worded chin needed it.

A figure slowly shuffles towards them.
“Aw, not the fuckin’ security.”
“Relax, it’s probably just Beryl, I think he’s workin’ security tonight.”
“I don’t know, you two, the way he’s walking… it’s scaring me.”
“Hey! Beryl! You okay?” No answer.
“Pfft, fuck this guy, then,” Ryan says, shooting his can of beer at the shambling figure. It connects, bouncing off and rolling onto the ground, spilling the shaken contents. The figure shows no signs of reaction, and continues, stepping into light. The teens can now see the animated rotting corpse clearly, mindlessly heading towards its senses of their flesh. Behind it, they now see and crowd of similarly rotting bodies. Their moans stem perhaps from pain, perhaps from the movement of their decayed animation, acting as a sort of bagpipe. It’s hauntingly human, yet altogether monstrous.

Those who are bound to demons are bound to death in ways unfathomable.

It all began with an Overdose. Antonio Bartolo Linguicci never had an easy life, picked on as a child, ignored by his parents. Growing up in New York had its set of troubles for him. He didn’t have the worst life, or most certainly not the best, Tolo, as he came to be called, had a life that was always set somewhere right in the dark side of the middle. He eventually started running with a bad crowd, getting into drugs. Now, he was a middle-man in more ways than one. The only child and remaining member of his family, he inherited a lot of junk from the old world when they passed on. One such inheritance was a record made of human flesh and record player carved from human bone.

This overweight, greasy, balding, slovenly man with long, curly black hair did not value much in life, but these artefacts spoke to him. They are the only things he kept, he knew what they were made of, but he simply knew that he had to keep them. Drugs carry with them a danger, if you attempt to take more than the perfect middle ground for your body, you can risk death. Tolo, one day, was possessed to do such a thing, but was not allowed the sweet release of death: for he listened to the record while overdosing. He became half-dead: a slave to the forces of darkness; their pawn.

They next day, his boss walks into his apartment, the record still playing. Tolo’s filthy grey wife beater is covered in odd text, neatly written in half-inch tall letters. Always a paranoid man, Vincenzo Melatini immediately sensed something amiss, but could not act on it, the distorted voices from the record soothing his mind in ways he never felt. He was a handsome and tall shrewd businessman, dealing mainly in drugs and arms. His white suit was always spotless, with a healthy dose of chest-hair popping out from his unbuttoned silk shirt on his tanned, muscled chest. “Jesus, Tolo, it smells like hell in here, what’d I tell you about showering?”
“I’m sorry, Vinny, we’ve been preoccupied.”
“We?”
“Sorry again, my Ma just died.”
“Aw, Tolo, you know I’ve always been like a brother to you, your Ma was a great woman. I always respect family.”
“Can you give me a ride to the cemetery?”
“Sure, of course, Tolo, let’s get to my truck.”

The grey, armored bank truck cruises down the road with the two inside, along with the record player in the back. Soon, they make it to the graveyard, and Tolo brings out the record player. “My Ma made me promise to play this at her grave.”