Advertisement
Please wait...

The Gun Game



Estimated reading time — 6 minutes

The loud bang on her front door jolted Clara from her daydream. This was it. After all the careful planning and struggling to survive, the end would come now; 9 blocks up in room 934 of the now abandoned Marriott. She started to cry, not for herself, but for her little 3 year old son, Jeremy. He was the world to her, and she couldn’t bare to think of his short life ended, not like this.

“Open the door,” she recognized the voice of her live in boyfriend of 4 years, Jerome. Quickly slipping off the guard chain, she opened the door and let him in.

“I don’t have much time. The boys are going to pick out what’s left of the Pathmark and I want to be first in line,” he suddenly stopped. “Damn baby, you smell good. What is that?”

“It’s called LOVELY, by Sarah Jessica Parker,” she said simply. “I found it next to the mini bar. Only the best, right?”

“Yeah,” he said as he left two backpacks next to the door and turned to leave. “I’ll be back soon. Keep the door locked, okay?”

Jerome was a survivor. While everyone else was scrounging for supplies downtown, he had had the bright idea to take his little family to the local Marriot to wait it all out. ‘No one is coming for us, they’ve given up on the major cities,’ he had said simply. The plan was to just let everyone kill each other while they lived the high life, stories up in the now abandoned hotel. It had worked. Most of what was left of humanity and the creatures they became had pretty much wiped each other out. Not that it hadn’t been a tough few months. The power was now out and they were down to canned goods.

But they were still alive. Clara dragged the two bags to the kitchen area and pulled out the dented cans. From the bedroom, she heard Jeremy waking up. A few minutes later, he came into the main living area.

“Mommy, mommy, look. I’ve got a gun shooter,” his excited eyes locked onto hers and she sighed. He was holding some kind of plastic handle he had obviously broken off one of the cabinets. He pointed it at her. “Bang. Bang. Bang.”

It reminded her of the awful gang violence just a week prior. Both Jerome’s crew and some Asian gang had had a disagreement over who owned what’s left of a number of grocery stores. That had ended with a few of their good friends dead. She didn’t show it.

Advertisements

“Let me see, honey,” she said, holding her hand out. He turned and ran into the bedroom. That was the annoying thing about the age, they never did what you asked. She quickly ran after him and pulled it out of his hand. She was now extremely careful not to let him have anything he could hurt himself with. It was safe enough. Other than the next two hours of constant noise, there was no harm in letting him run around with it.

“Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy …”

“Yes, yes. We can play that game again,” she hated that game. Every time she played it, it reminded her of the last couple of months. In the last hours of the city’s death, both sides had come out of hiding and shot it out. It was unsettling enough to be on the outskirts of a war zone. What made it absolutely unbearable was knowing that one side of the conflict was composed of the walking dead.

They had made it as far as the hotel. Jerome and his gang, as well as some of the other groups had held them off just over by 5th street, well within view of the 9th floor Marriott. They had been content to put bullets into their enemies and move on. Conversely, when one of those ‘things’ shot a human, they usually ended up carrying them off and eating them. Humans were fighting for survival. They were hunting for food. She had seen it first hand. A couple of asian thugs had been cautiously scouting between 5th and Broadway, and the enemy descended upon them with a plan that was both aggressive and cunning. These were not the meandering, shuffling corpses you saw in the movies. The enemy was very much intelligent.

And they were still out there.

She had only run into one of them once. Jerome had given her a handgun off of a dead police officer and told her, ‘just point and squeeze’. To be honest, he had taken care of things so well she didn’t think she’d actually have to do any shooting herself. But a day ago, in the hotel, one of them had slipped by the patrols and gotten in the building. She and Jeremy had gone to get ice – the power had still been working then – when she heard the slightest shuffle of feet around the corner.

Advertisements

She knew where it was and what it wanted. She could smell the rotting flesh. Something inside her, some force of survival, helped her know exactly what to do. The primal, maternal instinct within her guided her against this awful predator. Heart racing, she moved with her son past the corridor where she knew it lurked. She even continued the casual small talk with her little boy, slowly slipping her hand into her pocket where the .45 was located. She knew that once she and Jeremy were past the corridor, the thing would slip out of its hiding place and follow them, hoping for a clear shot. Once past the corner, she turned on her heal, pulled out the gun, rounded the corner and just started firing.

She was right. Not only had the thing come out of hiding, but it had moved at a quick pace too. In the two seconds it took her to spin on her heel and draw her weapon, the thing was already within reaching distance. Four shots to the body and two to the head that was still advancing upon her. She could still remember the expression of surprise and fear on its face just before its entire head popped, the grey matter spilling everywhere behind it. She had expected to see some expression of an undead creature, twisted in hatred and loathing. The terrifying thing, was that aside from the rotten smell and blackened appendages, its face still looked human.

Not waiting to see if there were more of them, she grabbed her son and bolted for room 934. She frantically reached into her pocket for the hotel room key card, cutting her hand on the various survival items in her pocket. She swiped it over and over on the door key, desperate for the green signal that would indicate the lock would give. Finally, it did, and she grabbed her son again and shoved him inside.

Rather than be traumatized by the whole event, Jeremy’s little mind instead translated it into a game. The ‘gun-shooter’ game. His three year old psyche interpreted the event as some elaborate fantasy, one that he wanted to repeat. It was odd the way that a child’s mind translated near death. Now, Clara had to relive the entire incident over and over again in order to maintain the facade that the two of them had not escaped certain death just yesterday.

“Bang. Bang. I got you mommy. In the head. I shot you, you’re dead. You’re dead mommy, fall down. Fall down!” She had humored him enough, and she couldn’t take the reality of the previous day’s horror any more.

“I don’t want to play anymore sweetie. Go eat your dinner.” She was surprised when he obeyed.

Sitting at the kitchen table, she watched as Jeremy ate the food she had made for him. Since yesterday, she had had trouble eating. She would put food in her mouth, think about the grey pieces of brain splattered all over the adjacent corridor, and vomit. But whatever it was about watching her son gobble up the last pieces of canned squash and mashed carrots seemed to finally convince her appetite to surface. In fact, she was really hungry.

She leaned in towards him to kiss him on the cheek, her maternal instincts kicking in again despite the nausea. Sometimes, a mother just has to reach over, grab her child close and kiss him over and over, especially considering recent events. She nuzzled her lips against his cute baby fat cheeks and rubbed her nose into him.

Advertisements

Something was wrong. She felt an unusual, insatiable desire to bite. His flesh, his soft supple baby fat called out to her aching stomach and demanded union. She stood up quickly.

“No.” she whispered. “Please god, no.” She ripped off the bandages and looked down at her wounded hand. The blood vessels next to the blackened incision had ever so slightly blackened up her vein like a mild case of tetanus. What had she cut her hand on again?

Jeremy sat next to the kitchen table, mindlessly muttering the gibberish of a 3 year old and coloring outside the lines of his favorite dinosaur book. She watched him for a moment, knowing that if she did not act quickly, her maternal instincts would be overcome by her insatiable hunger. Of course, she could just give in – if whatever was inside her hand did to Jeremy what it had done to her….

Her indecision was broken by her son’s innocent inquiry.

“Mommy, let’s play the gun game again.”

“Okay, sweetie.”


Credited to morebrainsplx.

Please wait...

Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

102 thoughts on “The Gun Game”

  1. Nice story. Didn’t introduce the setting too much, so it seemed casual. Characters were okay. More conflict would be nice, or description of the outside, but it was good anyways. Little apocalyapse snippet, very cute. You could do more with this, make a small set of stories in the same world as these characters. 9/10.

  2. Once I got a little further into it I was kid of predicting the son would shoot his mom but I thought it would be like they went I sleep and when they woke up the mom saw her son with the gun and was like I want to play the fun game ad shot her but this ending was good too haha

  3. Nickolaus Wolfgang

    I have to admit, this was surprisingly good. I expected many cliches in this pasta, whihc, to my surprize, I was wrong about. My heart sank when I got to the end, something a creepypasta has never made me do before. Pretty well written, a few spelling mistakes, but I thought this was a pretty great pasta.

  4. I think it’s a good story, though the ending is a bit vague…

    would be clearer if she said something like "Sure honey, but this time, use THIS ‘toy’" or "Of course, but this time I shoot you" or even "OK, but this time I get back up"…

    SOMETHING to let us know whether she’s fallen for the zombie mentality or whether she’s still herself.

  5. The perfume indicates that she’s striving to maintain a sense of normalcy. Perfume and coloring books and other things like them are mundane and common. By incorporating it into the story, the author shows that the main character is trying to acheive whatever kind of “normal” life that she could for her family.

    And creepy isn’t supposed to be finite at the end. It’s more creepy and better written if it leaves you thinking about it. Something that stimulates the mind is better than a completed story.

    Also, I’d rather leave an ominous hint at an ending than let you jackals tear apart the one I wrote. Just saying.

    Pasta was al dente, the sauce was lovely, just wish there had been some parmesan.

  6. HASHEDPATATOES

    To all that want to know what gave her the infection i am guessing since it says in her hurry to get in the room she cut her hand on various survival objects maybe the one she cut herself on had some blood of them on it and it got into her bloodstream?

  7. the hash slinging slasher

    haha what do you think went through her boyfriends mind when he came home to see that his son had shot her XD

  8. She didn’t eat her son or shoot her son… she let her son shoot her! e_e how could people not get that lol

  9. Moral of the story, always clean off your things and keep sharp items in another pocket. Order will also very much help in the case of a zombie apocalypse.

  10. for a parent/child zombie pasta…this was excellent. no child POV, no cliches, no stupid interludes-the straightforwardness of this really suited it. 9/10, would eat again.

  11. And this is why, if there is a zombie outbreak, everybody would be checked as soon as they came back to the base. Even my girlfriend would be subject to elimination if she was infected

    Me? If I got infected, I would become an hero and lure zombies away while I was still human, then blast myself in the head before the change was complete

  12. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy!

  13. It was alright, but a little predictable. I have read better zombiepasta. Is there a rule in zombie stories that one of the main characters has to become a zombie? If so, here’s an idea for anyone willing to write: why not try documenting the descent into madness for a “quasi” from World War Z? They are humans who, for whatever pschological reason, think they are zombies and act exactly like them. This gave rise to rumors that zombies would fight each other since real zombies would obviously attack quasi’s. I think it could make for an interesting premise.

  14. How do you not understand how s zombie? Seriously? “She frantically reached into her pocket for the hotel room key card, cutting her hand on the various survival items in her pocket.” Those tools have no doubt been exposed to countless things, and apparently one of those things carried the infection, so when she cut herself she was infected. It even says later in the story that when she looked at the wound she could see the infection spreading out from it. Grow a brain.

  15. Everyone leaving comments on this story, you are reading it wrong, the little kid doesn’t need to shoot himself, he needs to shoot his mom…

  16. Needs a better ending, too many scenarios ran through my head without much inclination as to what happened after the story ended.

  17. Gotta say I really enjoyed this pasta. It was a new take on the zombie genre and it flowed well. I especially like how the perfume in the beginning actually covered the smell of her rotting wound.
    One problem is that she said she had been unable to eat for a few days, however she had just cut her hand not the day before this event takes place and that apparently infected her.
    Going on that, I would really like to know what the fuck infected her, kinda left an unnecessary cliff hanger. Was interesting to have the son shoot his mother, and deliciously evil/twisted.
    5/5, 10/10 whatever, point is, great pasta was great.

  18. Good lord that needs improvement. A word of advice, don’t ever include a sentence that includes “had had”. “Had” is already past tense, adding another does absolutely nothing but create piss-poor grammar.

    Also don’t add the word “simply” whenever something is said. Thats another bad grammar lesson lifted right out of fanfic forums.

  19. BUT THEN WHO WAS CANNED SQUASH?

    But seriously, not a bad pasta. However, I feel that some details actually distracted from the story and could be left out.

  20. I liked it. I get some kind of sick satisfaction reading the last deliberating moments of a mother succumbing to the sickness of zombification before murdering her 3 year old child and devouring the body.

    I liked the ending, a lot. You didn’t do that thing that everyone seems to be doing recently. Several other submitters would’ve tagged something along on the end like “Then she shot him in the face and ated his corpse. OMNOM” The end. Ffssh. I’m glad you didn’t do that.

    9/10. I have to knock a point of for naming your protagonist’s boyfriend Jerome.

  21. Zombie brain scattered all over corridor + cut on hand = zombie brain in cut

    Can’t be good for you. I liked this. The writing is nice, but the ending could need some more work. Just play around with a few more words, since right now she could be in the process of chewing on her sons face or dead on the floor from the gunshot. And then what?

    But it’s nice to read something that isn’t IN YOUR FACE creepy.

  22. I liked this one…up until the end. It feels like there just isn’t enough of an ending for me; leaving me just a bit unsatisfied.

  23. It was all right. The twist was expected but awesome in ab omgeatinyourson type of way. Really, I would have liked to see some other vocabulary used to describe the wound and her “maternal instincts.” The repetitive use of that phrase in particular made it kind of boring.

  24. Decent story but not creepy at all. Seemed blase and cookie-cutter to me.

    Try harder, please. Actual creepy next time. -.-

  25. very intresting and compelling like the others i will have to agree not really all that spooky but, dark, dramatic ending and the zombie mom was a nice touch. keep it up! XD

  26. I like the story. Simple wording, good pace, some errors here and there but enjoyable. Unexpected twist.
    @Mreeeee
    I think she was wearing the perfume to cover her… Odd smell since she was becoming a zombie.

  27. While not a terrible story outright, it just doesn’t deliver the “creepy” promised by the titular station of the site. What’s more is that the ending doesn’t really allude to what I think the author intended. All in all, not a complete waste of time, but not great.

  28. Ok, shame on me, I did end up skipping in the middle, well, skimming at least, but I really like the end. Yes, you could have your child shoot you, but hell if I wouldn’t wanna shoot myself anyways (as a little kid) if I did that to someone loved. I’d definitely be a bit messed up

  29. I assumed the perfume was to cover the rotting smell she would start to have from the infection, explaining why she didn’t notice sooner. I agree that cutting herself on something in her pocket doesn’t explain how she got infected. I don’t think a thesaurus is needed, but maybe some rewording so things like the double “blackened” in “The blood vessels next to the blackened incision had ever so slightly blackened up her vein like a mild case of tetanus.” don’t happen. Overall good, though.

  30. Thank you, feaster. Who still wants a thesaurus?? I can shine it up for you, turn that book sideways, and stick it up your psuedo-intelligent candy asses. :D

  31. Yay i didnt throw up after eating this pasta! i have been throwing up a lot of these pastas lately. they just arent worth digesting. wait…

    OH NO SWINE FLU

  32. The theme is good, the way it is delivered and what the author chose to focus on… not so much. I would have written it through the kid’s eyes. Then you have an awesome pasta.

  33. I did call the ending of this as I was reading it, but it was kinda nice. Not creepy, but a good read, and a nice twist. Well written for the purpose of the story.

    Would eat again.

  34. @ A:
    um…….well I was thinking that since these damned zombies are INTELLIGENT, that maybe they’d sneak up while they’re ASLEEP. If you don’t think someone could take a nibble out of you while you’re asleep, then don’t bother checking your closet for ME tonight, hehe.

    @ Anonymous (#1 and 2, friggin double poster….):
    no, no thesaurus for you. Look, not every story needs to have the elegant prose and flowery vocabulary of some kind of Victorian or Edwardian poetry. Obviously, you’re the type of person that thinks ONLY Joseph K.’s stories are worth reading (not that there’s anything wrong with them; I like them, in fact), so have fun waiting months to get one story. The rest of us will GLADLY put up with a bit of normal english from time to time.

  35. Hmmm… kinda reminded me of the Ganados from RE4, except these are still zombies. Kind of like what they SHOULD’VE gone with.

    Anyways, quite excellent. Definitely a refreshing change of pace from the wave of relatively bad pasta we’ve been getting of late.

  36. @Fearster of Fear: how does something as big as a human “discreetly bite” you? I’m pretty sure you’d notice being bitten on the hand by another person. Even if the zombies look somewhat human, another person trying to bite your hand would be unusual.

  37. The one who wants the author to use a thesaurus are fans of purple prose and archaic spelling. I would wager a bet he spells his words with as manye extra letters as poussible.

  38. Maternal Instincts Maternal Instincts Maternal Instincts someone shot someone Maternal Instincts kid gets nommed.
    -Essentially the summary of the above piece.

  39. Soul Hunter; i was under the impression she was going to give the gun to the infant and have him shoot her.

    But damn, for a moment there i thought she was going to eat her own son, that would have been… interesting.

  40. What the fuck does the perfume have to do with anything? That part ruined it for me a little. It had no purpose whatsoever, and wasn’t even relevant as descriptive information. I hate when people do that shit. Cut that out, and I liked the story. Kind of. The ending was a bit too vague.

  41. I liked it! Not creepy, but it had a very touching ending, and ambiguous too: It may refer that she shot her son to save him from becoming ‘one of them’, or that she let her son shoot her so she won’t do something terrible to him. Nice pasta. Hope the next one’s better!

  42. And then mom was a zombie.

    Seriously, though, I agree with ‘Yep’. Author of pasta kept it nice and simple, which is much better to read when the story is one of these- I’d have a hard time imagining her language being colourful and varied in a situation like that, for instance.

    (Besides, some people are dangerous with a thesaurus. Look at SMeyer.)

    I really liked this one. Original zombie-pasta, which is nice, and it toys with emotions that many people can relate to.

    Author should keep writing more pastas.

  43. This one was really disappointing. Repetitive wording, weird flow, bad grammar. And the ending was visible from the first paragraph.

  44. I like it, author DOES NOT need a thesaurus. Keep it simple, it’s a scary story not a lab report damn it. And btw, the mother got infected when she got cut by the survival items she was carrying.

  45. I liked this one. Considering the recent pastas have left a bad taste in my mouth, it’s nice to finally chew on something good. Bravo.

  46. OP needs a thesaurus. The wording just feels stale and repetitive. It could also do with a lot of grammatical fixes in general to make it look/flow nicer.

    Not really sure what the point of this was, if there was any. I didn’t feel creeped out or hate it or… well, anything. There was just a general “meh” impression I got from it all.

  47. OP needs a thesaurus. The wording just feels stale and repetitive. It could also do with a lot of grammatical fixes in general to make it look/flow nicer.

    Not really sure what the point of this was, if there was any. I didn’t feel creepy or hate it or anything, just a general “meh” impression.

  48. Hey! A pasta that’s worth chewing on!

    Many thanks to the author of this one. What with recent pastas, I thought I was gonna starve, but suddenly I have a hankering for a nice slab of babyface. Seriously, though, I liked this one.

    Mom’s Love + Zombie Infection + Gun Game = WINNER
    (oh yeah, and a dead mom, lol)

    The only thing I’d like for the author to consider is perhaps going into more detail about how the mother turned zombie. I assume that the “Cut” on her hand is actually a bite mark, but since the author seems to have opted for modernized, intelligent, and even gun-totting zombies, I can’t be sure.
    Is this one of the zombie “virus” ones, where a bite is not necessary, but maybe some spore? Did one of these smart zombies sneak in and discreetly bite her, knowing the chaos that would ensue? So many delicious possibilities. Would definitely eat again.

    1. I think whatever she cut herself on, ( “cutting her hand on the various survival items in her pocket.”)
      was previously tainted and simply transferred the disease.

Leave a Reply to Shadow2by4 Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top