Part I — Pulp Fiction Stories
Jim looked panicked. He wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden change he had in front of him. His reality was bending, bending, bending beyond anything he thought possible. Really, it was sheer disbelief, and his vision and mind went white in total terror of watching the action unfold before him. Frozen, he never blinked.
The sound of the pump chugging was met with the tin snap of the spring releasing the handle on the gas pump hose, indicating that the tank was full. Jim continued to look in front of him with one leg in the car and one leg standing up while he was leaning on the ajar door. He had been getting into his car when he has seen something that didn’t register as even possible.
He stood there frozen half in and half out, gazing at the park across the roadway from the gas station. He could hear screaming, and he just kept wincing trying to make out the details of what was happening by the play structure. The sound of multiple kids screaming and it the parents running towards the kids from their perches on the park benches 30 yards away.
From the other side of the structure, there seemed to be a steady stream of onlookers running in to assist with whatever was causing the commotion. These onlookers came from the opposite direction, down by the gully which ran adjacent to the Walmart. The gully is nothing more than a rainwater drainage system, and it runs right in between a residential area and a commercial area.
Jim wondered how so many mall patrons had heard the screams and was amazed so many of them were rushing to the playground to help. One by one they arrived. The parents had already made it to the scene of the commotion, and there didn’t seem to be an end to the screaming. In fact, it got worse.
Jim could see from the playground structure there was some commotion of some type on the opposite side. He could see that there was a lot of movement, but the commotion was so blurred by the structure and the small gaps between the wooden slats that it was too hard to tell what was going on.
The steady stream of good Samaritans coming across the gully from the Walmart started adjusting their trajectory. By now there must have been 50 people around that structure and the sounds of the screaming were starting to die down.
They must be needing a cell phone to call an ambulance or something, Jim thought as he saw the runners redirect themselves towards the gas station.
By now there were a few people who were frozen in their actions, staring over towards the park trying to figure out what it was that they were seeing. The gas station attendant that was washing the windows of the car on the other side of the pump sat frozen with his squeegee in midair. The driver of the pickup truck had his card in the machine ready to input his numbers, and the machine beeped angrily at him for stopping halfway through.
As the runners from the Walmart approached the street, there was a young man waiting for the light to turn, so he could cross. He was on the street with his pedal bike, but his back was turned towards the park. He had a big bulky alien like helmet on with ear buds embedded into the frame of the helmet. He couldn’t hear the screaming and was completely oblivious to what was happening behind him.
He started to wonder why the people across the street were frozen looking at him. He quickly ran a visual check to make sure he was on the right side of the road, yep — he had his pants on? Yep. He had his helmet on? Yep. His tires were full? Yep. His little headlight was on? Nope — ahh that must be why they are all staring he thought.
As he reached down to adjust the wire that powered the little flashlight, he heard a quick couple of thumps like someone stomping up beside him. When he started to turn his head, he was launched into the air from the impact of this six-foot man running full force into him. He separated from the bike and as he came down to the street a car that was approaching from the other way hit the brakes creating a giant squealing sound.
The momentum was too great, and the driver of the car felt a thump as the car rolled over the bikers' legs, who started screaming. The driver immediately started to get out of the car to see if the biker was alright when the lady was hit from behind, and she landed face down, not knowing what had hit her. Then there was a huge weight on her back, and she started screaming.
It was the large runner from the mall that hit the guy on the bike. After he hit the biker, he had stumbled to his left and was narrowly missed by the car. He found himself on the rear side of the car as the woman started to get out. He rushed towards her and body checked her. He fell with her as she went face first, and he landed on top of her legs. He pulled himself on top of her face down body and as she howled in shock from the impact, she followed the howl up with a gut-wrenching scream as the large running man bent over her neck and bit her hard where the neck and shoulder meet.
He ripped away from her neck in a shaking and violent way, pulling off a huge chunk of flesh and muscle. In a quick gulped, the piece of meat slid down his throat as he went down for another bite. The woman, unable to move from his weight, was stuck there as he took bite after bite out of her.
Shocked, the driver in the car behind them got out and started making his way overcautiously. Once he has seen what was happening, he ran back to his car and popped the trunk. He grabbed a tire iron and started running towards the man.
Jim noticed that the crowd from the play set had followed the running man’s lead and were just approaching the street where the biker was still stuck with his legs trapped under the car, screaming. The fastest runners from the mob went for him first. The man tried to fight them off, but with no mobility, he lasted a mere seconds before he had three people taking chunks of his face and arms off bite after bite.
The man with the tire iron closed in on the running man only to be tackled from the side from more of the park bystanders. The screaming erupted as the park bystanders began attacking cars that were at the light and pulling people out of their seats through the windows and onto the street.
The running man stood up and looked towards the gas station. The woman he had been feasting on stood up shakily behind him, with blood pouring out of every severed flesh and bite mark. The running man took off at a full run towards the gas station, and the woman followed.
Jim was the first to clue into the imminent danger — got the rest of the way into the car and closed the door. He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and inserted them into the ignition. The gas station attendant, still frozen and uncertain as to what he should do as it was his job to keep unruly people out — he tried to step towards the running man to reason with him.
Jim’s car fired up with a chug, waking up the rest of the witnesses that were frozen watching the scene unfold. The running man bolted for the gas station attendant, who began walking backwards and then full out turned and ran in the opposite direction. He didn’t make it more than 10 feet when the running man lunged at him and got his foot, sending him stumbling into the ice cooler they had sitting outside on the sidewalk.
Jim put the car into gear and slammed the gas down. The crowd of now 75 people were about to swarm the gas station, and he was getting the hell out of there. The wheels squealed, and the backend swung out sideways as the old 1970 Dodge Charger sprang to life. Jim heard a bang and looked into his rearview mirror when he realized he forgot to pull the gas pump hose out of his gas tank.
His exit from the gas station caused a massive geyser of gas to shoot out from the severed pump hose, quickly making a sea of gasoline around all the pumps. Jim cut over to the side entrance to the parking lot and jumped the curb to get onto the street. As he sped away from the gas station, he took another look in the rearview mirror, and he could see that the entire gas station was swarmed by the park and Walmart people who were already making their way away from the gas station towards the retirement home on the opposite corner.
Something sparked the gas at the station and suddenly the sky glowed, and a huge explosion disintegrated that little gas station. Jim seen in his mirror a giant mushroom like cloud emanates from the burning fuel and corpses.
What the hell just happened? Jim asked himself as he shook his attention back to the road speeding away and leaving the smoldering scene behind him — the beginning of the end of the world.
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