his muscles tense.
he hears unsteady steps,
the clapping
of bare feet
against concrete,
the unnatural moaning.
he clenches his fist
the leather of his glove
whines at his movement.
"Don't worry Benvolio, you will sup deeply soon enough."
he looks at his left hand
and realizes that his fingers
are dancing with one another.
"And you as well Mercutio."
the macabre applause of feet and concrete
is getting steadily louder.
the boy is barely a man
and yet his face is steady and sure
as one many times his age.
he stretches his back
and cracks his neck.
he takes a couple quick breaths
and one last deep one.
"Hunger no more my sweet destoyers!"
he exclaims as he leaps from the momentary safety of his dark corner
and is met face to face
with a fell creature of nightmare.
the first thing to hit him is the smell.
its' putrid stench,
strong enough
to make him lose some of his momentum.
he toddles back on the heels of his feet
and stops
looking at this thing of evil in disgust.
its blank eyes leak some manner of dark liquid.
its lips are cracked
and caked black with the old blood
of past victims.
these lips split to reveal
a tongueless maw
with six rotting teeth
three on top
and three on the bottom.
it let's out a bone chilling gasp
that sounds like a breeze
blowing through the grass
of a graveyard.

a zombie.

for longer than he should have
he simply stood there
his eyes locked on
the nauseating visage
of the monster.
and then his hands began to twitch.
with a start he was brought back to reality.
he looked down at his hands
made perfect by the smooth black leather of his gloves.
he looked back up only to realize that he had
allowed himself
to be surrounded by these slow
ponderous
beasts.
he smiled
"It's time to eat."
the zombie closest to him
groaned as if in agreement.
he flexed his shoulders
and cracked his neck
and went to work,
furiously flashing
his two companions
back forth at an unnatural speed
three hits send it's head flying
as if blown off by a shotgun.
he feels the cold tight grasp of something
on his shoulder
one quick breath
and then one swift and perfect motion
he spins
to faces his adversary.
one quick breath
and he releases Benvolio.
he feels the power rise
from the bottom of his foot
up through his twisted hips
and into his massive back and shoulders
to pool inside the knuckles of his fist
for less then a second
and explode
into the side of the head of the soulless corpse,
his vicious right hook leaving
an eruption of ichor
where the creature's head once was.
his eyes light up
with the joy of a madman
as he charges through the scattered crowd
of undead
dozens of grasping, gripping hands
try to stop his momentum.
he just keeps plowing
and keeps laughing,
cutting through the swath
like a scythe to barley,
leaving headless corpses in his path.
he finally breaks free of them
and runs harder than before,
still laughing to himself.
he rushes down the mountain of asphalt
with the speed of an olympiad.
it isn't until he finds another
dark hiding spot
that he realizes how hard he is breathing.
gasping,
wheezing,
fighting for air.
his chest heaves
as he looks down
at the blood drenched leather of his once
pristine black gloves.
the noisy rattling of his heavy breathing
makes him shake
"No more gasp today. I need to wheeze I need to rest."
his hands quiver in protest
"No more. Not today. I need...sleeeeep."
and he collapses in exhaustion.
the noise is loud and clamorous
and the white eyes
of reanimated bodies
look up in the direction of the disturbance.
but he doesn't know,
he's sleeping deeply.