This is an attempt to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month 2018.
Zombies are a repetitive science fiction topic. I wanted to write a story that made them more interesting.
Inspiration taken from William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land and M. John Harrison's Viriconium, both stories told in poetic writing styles.
1. Come look into the Nightfall Land: a place where human life has passed its afternoon and shadows lengthen. Here the past decays and nothing new is born to take its place, for few have strength to do more than survive. Here dwell those dead already, bodies still in motion while they crumble, like machines long broken but unstopping. These undead roam through the desolation, searching for those still alive, with hunger in their eyes. The living stay in secret, clustering in hiding places, often underground. Here, in a kind of safety, they can try to keep alive the knowledge from the past, before their land's last sunset fades away. 2. When living people need to travel through this land, they do so in disguise. They wear old tattered clothing, smear themselves with scents of rotting flesh, and walk with lurching steps on aimless paths, while making grunting sounds. The undead do not have keen senses, nor do they gain insight quickly. Rarely will they see through these disguises. Anyone who seems undead enough can pass unharmed, though not, perhaps, without a little fear. With stealth like this the living venture out to gather food or carry messages to other shelters. Sometimes they run risks on longer journeys through that dying land, because a greater purpose calls them forth. 3. On such a quest, five left their home to find a scientist called Moray, who had first discovered that the undead state is caused by an infection. He wrote several books about the zombie plague and how it spreads. New findings had been made. Researchers hoped they could develop an immunity. They wanted Moray to review their work and, with his expertise, to guide the next trials of their resistance to the plague. Now Moray's station, on its mountain top, no longer had a working radio. These five would have to walk there, carrying the new results, surviving two whole weeks among the perils of the Nightfall Land. 4. Mallen the researcher went with the group to answer any questions Moray had about the new results, which she had helped discover. She had gone on errands from the shelter half a dozen times before. Alkis and Trea were the couriers, well used to lengthy travel. They each took a separate copy of the messages, in case of accident. Delivering such packages was their peculiar skill. Protecting all the others, Fescal and his comrade Tallid, soldiers of the watch, would guide the group. Familiar with the paths that led up toward the mountains, they both came equipped for all the dangers they might meet. 5. A rusty train stopped at a platform where a crowd of zombies waited. They shoved on to find their victims, but the passengers were zombies too. This scene repeats itself whenever the robotic railway works. This time, five passengers lurched on, with packs covered with tattered cloth like zombies wear. Few riders looked at them as they took seats while idly muttering, though one up front tapped an odd rhythm on the windowpane. Cracked streets and sidewalks rolled along, and vines grew over walls and railings. Three undead were dropping pebbles off an overpass. The travelers watched leaning buildings cast their wavering, blurred shadows on the tracks. 6. Alkis waved toward a wooded patch of land. A badly hidden row of zombies lurked inside its edge. If other zombies came too close, they crowded the intruders, till they shambled off and left the woods untouched. "How long have they been watching?" Mallen kept her question soft. As Alkis answered her, Fescal, by harshly grunting, warned them not to give themselves away by speaking like the living - a new traveler's mistake. Trea sat on the other side. She watched another passenger, who kept its face hidden behind a blue and yellow veil. His ear against a panel, Tallid checked the engine's sounds to guess how well it ran. 7. The tracks ran up a hill, along a creek choked with the fallen blocks of crumbling walls. When gaps passed, Trea peeked inside and glimpsed machinery in jumbles. Empty crates and furniture were scattered in between. At the next station, other riders climbed on board, and Tallid watched their movements. Two had torn red bags that gave a moldy smell. He kept an eye on these two as they switched from seat to seat. How hungry did they look? As they got closer, Tallid reached across to Fescal, warning him to stay alert. But then the rider at the front resumed its window-tapping. Six rows off, the pair of zombies turned and stopped their wandering. 8. The next stop came where houses, overgrown and leaning, stood in rows. The platform slabs, half-sunken, poked their edges up to trip. The two with torn red bags got to their feet and made their way right toward the travelers. As they came closer, Tallid reached his hand beneath a flap inside his pack. He kept a weapon there. His face and body tensed as they came down the aisle, right between the five, and kept on walking toward the doors. Once they were on the platform, slipping past, he could relax again. He noticed then that Mallen had ignored the scene, and both the couriers had merely raised their eyes, while Fescal, though concerned, had made no move. 9. The train did not run far. Its final stop came at midafternoon. The travelers let all the other riders get off first. They felt no need to hurry to approach the crowd that milled around the terminal. A noisy ring of undead carried signs of jumbled letters spelling nonsense words. They protested in imitation of each other, to relive some memory of living people whom they once had been. With no concern for secondhand crusades, the travelers broke through a gap and found the empty streets that edged a town, below a hillside that a weedy highway climbed. Here they began their journeying on foot. 10. Once on the hilltop, they could see ahead another ridge across their path. Between the hills stood forest, flecked with open ground. The highway, in uneven ribbons, pulled them downward as the sun began to sink. The road passed houses, widely spaced and set some distance back. As shadows grew, the band of travelers stepped through a tangled yard. A door leaned open; flooring seemed secure. A cellar offered them a camping ground. A canned-fuel stove, a precious relic, warmed their meal. Alkis took the first watch. He sat by the stairs, while Mallen whispered to the others, giving them the next day's plans. The house above them creaked all through the night. 11. Next day, beyond the ridge, they reached a place where cleared and furrowed plots of land spread out like shattered pottery. The nearest one held rows of squash and thistles. Stalks of corn grew scattered over ditches in the next. The zombie farmers pushed their carts around the fields, sowing sand and seed. A few filled leaning barns with live potatoes and dead stones: to undead, all the same. One cart stood waiting till the travelers arrived. No one took notice as they rolled it toward the woods, discarding all the rocks. They gained some cover and divided up the food. Though zombies passed, their task went undisturbed. Soon they were walking toward their goal again. 12. The rocky path that Tallid found ran up another, longer hill. The forest here was older, with huge trees already tall before the zombies came. Up in the leaves, a shell dropped by a squirrel rattled down. The walkers found a glade and stopped to eat potatoes boiled yesterday. Below them came the sound of something crashing through the bushes. Fescal rose to leave. The sound got closer. "Uphill, hurry!" Mallen said. The climb was tiring, but they left the noise behind them. Then the hilltop opened out, a table spread with stone heaps. Flowers grew in hollows. Walking on the edge, they saw an arching bridge far off across the plain. 13. "Another day, another longer hill," groaned Fescal as they struggled over stones. "This path," said Alkis, "twists and turns to make the zombies lose their way and turn back far from Moray's research station at the top." "This boulder maze would baffle anyone, undead or living." Mallen backed away from a wrong turn. "Does Moray ever climb this slope?" She stopped complaining, and instead thought through her explanations of her work. "We won't get to the top today. We ought to camp at, say, this saddle." Tallid showed them all his map. They took a rest and drank some water. Trea watched a soaring bird and wished that she could rise so easily. 14. Soon after sunrise, Mallen led the band up to the station wall. A guard called out, "Hoi, messengers! What brings you to our gate?" "Our message is for Moray," Mallen called. "We bring him urgent news, and need advice." Some station leaders walked up, looking grim. "Last fall, researcher Moray left this place. He joined a shelter six days off, one named Mysterium, where people meditate upon the ladder of the mighty ones." They gave the travelers directions and a few supplies. They offered nothing else. What else could they have given? Nothing that would make the road ahead an easy one. Again the travelers took up their packs. 15. A lengthened journey meant more rocky hills to climb. As Alkis trudged along, he spoke about his fears. "Is Moray really at Mysterium? Or if we find him there, will he still care about discoveries?" "Don't worry," Mallen told them. "We can hope to overcome the plague that shades this land. We can endure uncertainty as long as that hope lasts." She stopped, as clacking sounds came from an open space not far ahead. The path ran by a cliff. Three zombies brought armfuls of stones and threw them off the edge. The travelers crept through the woods and made a wide detour. They needed time to find the path, but finally it went downhill. 16. The wind blew down a mountain, shaking trees and scattering raindrops. Fescal checked a map to guess which fork ahead would best avoid the undead lurkers. Tallid thought the one that turned off leftward looked more promising. That trail, said Fescal, passed a riverbed where zombies, he believed, might gather, so he spoke out for the right-hand fork. It went through rocky ground that Tallid said would put them into danger of an ambush trap. While they compared the hazards, Trea took a jacket, badly torn, intended to resemble zombie rags. She stitched it back together, making it a poor disguise, but better as protection from the cold. 17. At daybreak, Mallen crawled out from the shrubs where they had camped. "It's time to move again! Today we leave the mountains." Fescal cut himself a walking stick, while Trea checked the safety of her pouch of documents. The land beyond the mountains soon appeared. It was no valley with a further side. The landscape dropped away in gravel slopes which none of them had ever skidded down. The flats below stretched out in endless haze. The travelers all stared at the expanse of earth and sky. No moving beings showed themselves on all that open ground. Alone the five explorers stood, suspended on the brink of unforeseen discovery. 18. The lowlands were an arid place, where plants grew tucked in crevices, where they could find some soil. All around stretched tans and grays, with streaks of redder tints. The sky above was turning gray and red to imitate. Sometimes the travelers were forced to cross deep gullies cutting through their path. These ran into a canyon on one side, which dropped so steeply no one saw a safe way down to where a river chattered over stones. Mysterium, according to their map, was in another canyon. "One or two more days will bring us there, if we escape delays from crossing ditches," Alkis said. "Conveniently, our packs are getting light." 19. At early morning on the second day, they reached the canyon rim. A platform lift was waiting for them, with a sign that gave instructions for its use - a simple scheme to keep undead from finding their way down. It took them to a shelf set high above the canyon floor. Stone buildings, square and short, made up three lines. Against the wall there stood some larger structures. People worked to shape the stones and set them neatly into place. Some called out greetings to the travelers. An older woman soon appeared and asked about their need, then pointed out the lodge where Moray studied. Large and round, it clung beside the wall, beneath an overhang. 20. At last the travelers appeared before the scientist they sought. The lodge was full of strangely patterned sculptures. Moray sat among them. Now he rose to greet the five explorers who came asking for his help. While Mallen told him what her research team had learned, the couriers brought papers out to give the details. Moray listened while they showed the plan to cause immunity and questions that they needed to resolve. Effects of zombie plagues on brain cells made a topic far too deep for four. They turned their minds to symbols painted on the walls or sketched on hanging screens. The meaning proved to be no easier to comprehend. 21. Now Moray looked more closely at the sheaf of papers. As he read, he commented on points he had expected, or admired a clever strategy. He did not need to finish, but began to speak his mind. "Your agent of immunity will work by altering the brain in much the way the undead plague does, but not fatally. This kind of transformation happens once, and then the cells cannot be changed again. "This means your scheme will be effective at protecting you from zombie pathogens. But be forewarned: what safety you may find will come at heavy cost." He put aside the papers and stepped toward the travelers. 22. The travelers turned puzzled glances toward each other, then looked back to Moray. "If we overcome the menace of these hordes of zombies, that is worth a heavy cost," said Mallen, and the other four agreed. "I told you," Moray said, "immunity works like undeath. The zombies' brains have lost abilities. Those made immune will lose some of their mental powers too, though not so many vital ones as zombies do. "Here at Mysterium, we deeply think about the mighty entities who form the ladder of construction. Altered minds will fail to understand these principles. Our learning will remain beyond their reach." 23. The travelers looked frustrated, except for Alkis, who had questions. Fescal spoke for all of them: "We do not care about your entities, but only zombies. What is learning good for while they prowl the land?" But Moray had not finished. "These changed minds will fail to see beyond themselves. They feel no wonder at the world, or fear of things to come. They fight with boldness but without a strategy. They build but not to last. "They care about their hunger, focused on survival, lacking wisdom to enjoy or keep the benefits of living. They may be less rotten than the zombies are, but they are just as much the living dead." 24. Now Mallen had more questions, and she spent some minutes asking Moray how he knew these drawbacks. When the scientific points had been explained, she told her comrades, "Yes, it is as gloomy as he promises." As Fescal frowned at sculpted prisms set in niches, Alkis spoke the obvious. "Things took an unexpected turn. We need to think about this. Do we really want immunity that makes us less alive?" "We walked two weeks," said Tallid, "on a quest for freedom from the fear of being one of those corrupted monsters. Now we find that what we seek requires sacrifice. But still, the freedom could be worth the cost." 25. While others argued, Trea quietly had thought about the options. Now she spoke. "We came in search of safety. We may yet escape the plague, but zombies still remain a danger to the uninfectable. "That danger will grow greater if we lose our sight into the future. Living through these fading days requires patient plans. Survivors who neglect these vital tasks soon cease surviving, as we all know well. "Another danger looms. We labor hard recovering the treasures of the past. Minds narrowed to the present cannot keep intact the few they have. I will not make the shadows lengthen on the Nightfall Land." 26. Regretful tones filled Mallen's voice. "I spent my life researching this approach. Can I abandon all our work and let it fade and be forgotten? Have we wasted all our time and effort chasing uselessness?" "Our real work," Fescal said, "is to survive and build safe places where we can restore what we have lost. Immunity, we learned, is little use for work like that. But all we have accomplished does not go to waste." A hanging screen held diagrams of flights of stairs, arranged in sequence. Alkis traced his finger down them, taking different paths but always reaching ground. "I, too, agree that we have found a danger, not a help." 27. The travelers kept still while Mallen weighed the choices. Slow but sure her words: "We found the opposite of what we need. I dare not spread a new undeath to fight the old for larger shares of living human food." "I hoped," said Tallid, "we could benefit somehow from this discovery, and give immunity to just a few. But since the risks you all have mentioned are so great, we ought to lay aside this clumsy tool." "We all agree then." Alkis looked above, where mirrors showed him other mirrors stacked to endless heights, unreal and out of reach. "An easy answer to the zombie plague has slipped between our fingers like the wind." 28. Then Moray made an offer: "I can write a message to your shelter's leaders with a warning of the flaws that mar their plans for safety through this course of research work. Be ready to explain the truth to them. "The process of immunity could be discovered by another research group. They might produce a different strain that has a different set of drawbacks. Be prepared for other schemes with similar high costs." "The warning shall be spread," said Mallen, and the other travelers agreed. They all thanked Moray for his insight, and made plans for resting at Mysterium a day or two. Then would begin the journey home. 29. The time had come to take the trail again. As soon as they stepped off the lift and left Mysterium behind, the travelers saw rocky hills rise up. A mix of clouds shadowed the plain, as when they saw it first. "What could we do," asked Alkis, "if there is another shelter that already made a flawed immunity attempt? There might be zombie-like conditions spreading now, before our warning makes it to their ears." "The spread will need to be contained before it gets too far," said Tallid, though he gave no further plans. The rest kept silent, while the weight of what had happened settled down upon their shoulders like their refilled packs. 30. Five travelers began the journey home to bring a warning to the unprepared. Their future held more harder journeys, for their land held others needing warning. Life is rarely eased by unexpected truths. They brought a message sure to disappoint, for hopes were set upon a simple way to stop the menace of the zombie plague. There are no easy answers to be found among the shadows of the Nightfall Land. Instead of safety, they proclaimed the threat of other kinds of undead, calling for a wiser struggle. Once they went to find a power strong enough to make the peace. They brought another more exhausting war.
I did successfully complete the challenge by writing one segment every day for the whole month of April. It was a helpful exercise in learning to write quickly, and in avoiding perfectionism. I'd recommend it to any poet looking for practice.
I hope to return to the world of the Nightfall Land with a longer story.