THE INFECTED by...uhhh ,me!

[Danny]

looking throughfiles on my pc i found the start of a novel i was writing i gave up when all but this version was destroyed here goes: PROLOGUE BOOM!, a huge explosion went off two blocks away. Bravo squad must have ran into the infected hosts. ‘’Jesus sarge, that was close how far has the hot zone spread?’’ said private groker. ‘’I don’t know son, just shoot anything rotten ….that’s moving’’ replied sergeant Keyes. The marines of the delta bio hazard squad didn’t have to wait long as those disturbing ,familiar moans echoed from the shadows and alleys around the high street . ‘’uggh, the smell ,I’ll never get used to this ,never’’ stated one of the new recruits with disgust. ‘’god damn it soldier you aint’ supposed to be smellin’ em’ you have to shoot em’, aim for the head.’’. the creatures moved through the rubble and wreckage ,not noticing anything in there way just heading for the humans, they didn’t know why but they had to get to them. ‘’yaaaahhh!!!’’ the men screamed as they mowed the creatures down in a hail of machine gun fire, all the while being assisted by the snipers positioned on the rooftops. Pow! The noise of the sniper fire echoed for miles ‘’woo-ee!, hey Simmons I just bagged two at once that’s fourteen in as many minutes ,no more movement on the west side are all your targets dead, err I mean ‘’neutralised’’?’’ ‘’meh. Dead-ish’’ said Simmons over the sound of his sniper rifle firing. Pow! ‘’hey I’m at twenty one!, but that’s it I don’t think there are any more’’. The sergeant interrupted ’’if there’s one thing, one thing only that you rookies must learn its that there’s always more‘’. At that moment over the radio Simmons was heard choking ,one of ’them’ had found its way up the stair well and Simmons had left the door to the roof open ’’Simmons!’’. it was already to late he was gone and that meant one more had joined there ranks. The squad stood in stunned silence for a moment when one of the recruits said ’’uh ,sarge? shouldn’t someone go up and…y’know…’’ they all knew what he was going to say but no-one dared say it. The sergeant sighed and drew out his pistol’’ its all right soldier I’ll take care of it‘’. Just then bravo squads hummer swerved around the corner it was out of control ,this meant they were falling back. containment had failed. They were followed by hundreds of the creatures ,a wave of wailing, moaning creatures from any Romero film and the squad was its prey. ‘’fall back !, fall back!’’ it was impossible to tell who yelled this as the disturbing cries of that horde of creatures was drowning out any noise even when the hummer swerved into a building and burst into flame. ‘’****! There pouring out of the building too!?!’’ The creatures that were trapped in the building joined the horde in there wailing and now echoes were replying from all the dark alleys around the group who were ,quite obviously, completely surrounded. ‘’what do we do now sir?’’ said one of the new recruits behind him. The sergeant loaded his machine gun and put a grenade in his mouth and pulled out its pin ’’we go out fighting and take as many of them with us as we can!’’ ‘’that’s were the transmissions ended sir’’ said the captain working the radio. ‘’sigh- very well I’ll print out some fresh certificates it seems we have ran out again’’ said the colonel. 1 A lone man stands on a roof top, on an unknown building, in a deserted town some movement is seen in the shadows on ground level, but aside from that he is alone, he paces for a short while apparently waiting for something to happen. He notices a pile of newspapers on the rooftop next to the stair access in a pile ,the title of the top papers front page story catches his eye. He walks over picks them up on sits down on the roofs edge and begins to read. Sutherland times, June 27, 2005 DISSAPPEARANCES IN LOCAL AREAS The residents of the rural areas of Sutherland have been suffering a rash of disappearances in the last three weeks ,the chief of police, mark bravura gave a press conference today on the situation stating that ‘’this was already out of hand’’ and after the mutilated body of farmer Sarah Rosenberg was discovered in the ditch at the bottom of the local playing field. Bravura believes the residents of the rural areas are being target by a group of mentally disturbed people and he is advising everyone to lock there doors and stay inside after dark, and under no circumstances should you open the door to anyone you don’t know. This statement has left the rural areas of ’old’ Sutherlands farming community’s in shock, but the police chief explained that ‘’they need to be scared that way they will stay were its safe ,indoors’’ he finished the press conference by stating that they had called in more officers from neighbouring towns in the other valleys in the area and there would be armed patrols around the rural areas to protect the people from these unknown assailants. The Sutherland Editorial, June 28, 2005 PHONES OUT AFTER FREAK STORM Today a representative of B,M & L phones reported the phone line situation in Sutherland after the freak lightening storm that occurred in the early hours of the morning. It appears that all of Sutherland is completely dead to the outside world and no communication will be available for at least three days even Minton our closest neighbouring town is silent ,so if you need to contact someone there you will have to travel there. This means police chief mark bravura has reassigned ten more police officers into the rural areas known as ’old’ Sutherland to protect the farming community after the series of recent disappearances, since the phones are out this means they are even more likely to get attacked as they cannot call the P.D for help. City Watch, June 28, 2005 LOCAL TOWN ABANDONED There are now confirmed reports that the neighbouring town of Minton has been completely abandoned by the towns people. Local police haven’t ventured close to the town but reports state that many cars ,complete with the bodies of there drivers, our on the road leading out of Minton. Yet some people have been reported to be staggering around near the city limits ,the police are suspecting some sort of gas explosion ,all though some residents of Sutherland stated, when interviewed that they thought this was possibly some sort of outbreak or plague, either way the chief (bravura) is leading almost all of the officers from the P.D to investigate this strange occurrence. One question remains ’’what killed the drivers and where are the rest of the towns people ?’’ The Sutherland editorial, June 29, 2005 THE DEAD WALK!!! Please readers believe what you are about to hear ,as impossible as it may seem. Only one officer (officer James lahey) has returned from Minton, extremely weak though as it seems the entire team was attacked by the living dead. Zombies. Here is a quote of what the officer said after he regained consciousness .’’allright, first off we had no problems entering the town, even though the road from Sutherland was littered with bodies, we just went on foot instead of by vehicle ,so we could cross any terrain should we need to y’know?. then when we made it into the highly populated areas the atmosphere changed.’’ to which I replied ’’changed how?’’. he looked out of the window ,into the distance for a moment then replied ’’the bodies were different ,some were shot to hell ,others seemed to have been eaten we assumed this would have been done by bears but this many bodies in that short a time required more bears than are known to live in this area. This was highly suspicious so bravura told us to draw our weapons as we neared the town hall we began to notice an awful smell ,well worse than what it already was and we saw a man ,a bloodied up guy who looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a heavy weight boxer ,anyway he was in a bad way and as we got closer to him we noticed half of his face was gone, it just wasn’t there. So we ran up to him and the chief asked him how he was still standin’ and what had happened to the town. Well he leant forward and bit the chiefs throat clear off-a him. Of course we shot that s-o-b right there and watched as the chief died before us. we stood there all stunned like then, about fifteen minutes later, he got up but his eyes, there was something different about him and he wasn’t breathing we stood just starin’ at him ,that’s when he killed groper (another senior officer) he then stood up and moaned and then something’ replied from the town hall and then more from the surrounding alleys and tons of the people we saw dead were alive, sort of, and chasing after us as we ran ,one thing that struck me as odd, well more odd than the zombies was the fact that the eaten ones were walkin’ but the shot ones still lay there dead , properly dead. The team was dragged under them but I only got away with one bite on my shoulder.’’ The bite in question had gone a deep grey/purple over the course of the interview, then as I thanked him and turned to leave he started to have a fit he was convulsing badly for about a minute when he went still I called for the nurses and they said he was dead, then he lurched forwards and tore the lower jaw off a nurse I turned to run but he lurched forward and bit me on the wrist. That was two hours ago and my vision is now getting blurry and its hard to think straight , the bite keeps itching. People of Sutherland please run ,run before they come for you to. (below there is a picture of the reporter tied up and partially decomposed, he appears to be trying to get to the person taking the picture) The lone man dropped the papers and sat there silent the only noise for miles was the moans of the dead residents of Sutherland roaming the streets in search of the living.

[Danny]

2 JULY 29TH 2005 WEDNESDAY,7:30pm, THE MOTORWAY ON THE EDGE OF THE TOWN I pushed my foot down on the accelerator. I couldn’t wait to get home after another hard days work and just collapse in my bed. little did I know that I would never reach home again. It was around seven thirty when it began. I was on my way home after a particularly hard day of directing, I didn’t like making soap operas but at least it would be some experience under my belt ,to help me make it to the big time. I was in a good mood .the sun was setting and everything had an orange glow about it and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was hungry so I decided to make the next turning off the motorway into a town called Sutherland ,according to the sign I just passed, I would pull in at a café’ and get a sandwich and something to drink. It wasn’t like I had anyone at home waiting for me. I hit the indicator and made the turning onto the country road. One minute everything was fine. The next it would never be fine again. I drove past fields of cows and sheep and not much else ,my mind occupied about my meal, when directing I had a tendency to forget to eat but now that it crept up on me I was starving. I was busy daydreaming about my meal when I noticed one of the cars leaving town on the other side of the road was wavering left and right a bit ,it had started to lose control and drift into oncoming traffic ,unfortunately I was the oncoming traffic. I braked hard and swerved to my right to avoid it ,spinning into the skid ,I think that’s what your meant to do .I was scared ****less as I’d never been in an accident before in my life. The car jerked to a stop across both lanes .I nearly broke my collar bone as that car collided with my rear passenger side. More cars crashed into my other side, I assumed they were coming from behind me but I think others were leaving town as well. It was resulting in a small pileup. I blacked out. When I woke up it was getting dark ,my head was pounding. I hadn’t been out for long it must have been around eight ‘o’ clock or something like that I was at least two miles out of Sunderland. I needed to get to the police station to report the accident. I tried the orange emergency phone on the other side of the road. nothing just a dead tone, I tried a couple of other numbers but couldn’t get anything. my thoughts went straight to the drivers of the other cars caught up in the crash. I turned back to the pileup to check for injured, but before I got close I saw blood and glass littering the road. I ran closer but stopped dead after getting a good look at the overall scene. What I was seeing just didn’t look right there were no people or bodies in any of the cars. Not one. There was no one else around in fact, even the cattle seemed to have dispersed .what was going on?. Some cars weren’t even smashed up yet blood stained the seats and road. some bloody footprints led away towards the town. I decided to head that way as well. Walking down the road I enjoyed the peaceful quiet ,especially since at least seven people may be issuing lawsuits against me real soon, although it was kind of creepy that it was so quiet ,but it was the country so I thought nothing of it at the time and continued to follow the footprints. after twenty minutes of following the blood was fading and I was losing the footprints ,they lead into the woodland along the right hand side of the road , (the left was a dry wasteland possibly a new building site surrounded by a chain link fence. I headed into the woods careful not to stray to far from the road and lose my way. This wood was dense though and the sun was setting fast, I had to find this person as the only major reason I can think someone out of a car crash would wander into thick foliage was because they would have to have a concussion ,or be like me looking for them. I didn’t have a ****ing clue what to do all I knew was that this person was hurt and I had to help them. But I had lost his or hers path a short while ago. I didn’t know if I was getting any closer or not. Then I found someone. A male ,about forty years old, slumped down against an oak tree. He wasn’t moving. I moved closer only thinking about how he was going to blame me for his predicament whether I helped him or not. then I reminded myself not to be so god-dammed selfish. Especially since he was sitting in a pool of blood. My feet grew heavy as I approached ,I hadn’t checked yet but I knew he was dead, I didn’t want to look but I had to. He had taken a beating that was for sure, he was a mess. I got closer and could see the full extent of his injuries. I couldn’t look away even though I knew he was dead, it was because of how he was dead. This wasn’t the person from the car crash as he was bare foot and the bloody footprints were clearly made by someone wearing boots. This meant someone else had killed this man, and not that recently either. I couldn’t look away as this man seemed to have been partially eaten and the bite marks were human. Only half of his head was there and it was dripping a thick dark blackish liquid. one arm was completely gone .only a gnawed finger remained. I stood there for at least fifteen minutes breathing heavily. I was terrified. A branch broke behind me So I ran. ,I felt like something was watching me as I tore through the undergrowth. I was relieved to find the town. that woodland was part of a park and now I have regained control of myself I can get help ,and warn the police about the murder in the woods. But my stomach dropped. more bodies littered the ground and a shop was on fire billowing out smoke, partially blocking out the sky. Many walls had bullet holes in them and many bodies appeared to have been almost completely eaten. I vomited as the smell was putrid to say the least. I didn’t have a car, nor a ****ing clue what to do, I was alone with something on the loose. I stopped for a second to let it all settle in. My name is gene Dorian.

[Danny]

3 JULY 29th2005 WEDNESDAY,3:15pm, PAYNE MOTORS,MAIN STREET I stretched and yawned. It was a slow day. I had fixed three cars in the last five hours and they were only small problems like flat tires and a broken mirror. Hardly breaking the bank. The street outside sounded unusually busy though especially around seven forty-five in the evening. I wondered if it was some sort of special event or people had to get home early for some thing special on TV. Probably some lame reality TV thing again. I have always hated those kind of shows ,that and anything with ‘celebrity’ in the title as well as being called a grease monkey by people who have the nerve to come in and say ‘’I think it’s the -add anything here-’’ unsurprisingly they were always wrong. I was a well known ex child delinquent around most of old Sutherland most other kids were told ‘’you stay away from Ricky ,he’s untrustworthy’’ I had gone straight from school into this job ,mister Payne took me on since no-one else would and -god damn what is that noise outside?. I went up to the big sliding door that let cars into the garage and looked out of the window. It was chaos out there. People were going wild in the streets. Some were on the ground dead, others were staggering around. They were probably in shock ,cars were crashed all down the street some into buildings, others gardens. It seemed to be emanating from the hearts bonds hospital down the road. I was in shock there were bodies everywhere. How did I sleep through this?. Obviously some sort of accident had happened. BANG- I yelled it was mister Payne on the other side of the window screaming ‘she’s dead! She’s dead!’ he was sobbing as the ‘she’ in question was his daughter in his arms she was pale and covered in bite marks. Her name was Emma Payne. Mister Payne thought the world of her and now his only family was dead. My hand dropped from the window to my side. She had been eaten ,granted only partially but still I knew human bites when I saw them, bastards! Who would do that to a ten year old girl. As well as the rest of main street of course. Then I saw a new expression appear on Payne’s face .terror. I yelled hey ‘’over here!’’ to some people who just came around the corner. They were staggering but as soon as they heard my voice they turned towards us. ’’fool!’’ said Payne ’’now they’ll get us too’’. That was the last thing he would ever say as Emma lurched up and tore a hole out of his throat. Blood sprayed over the window as he dropped her and she clawed at his leg. I stood there not believing what I had seen she was dead, I knew she was but she was taking bites out of her father. Her corpse is eating her father!. **** me! I have to get out of here as those other….things, no ,zombies! Were heading this way and more had joined them. I knew how to get out but I had to be quick. I got all my tools and food and a torch and knife and went to the back door . I stopped and took one last look at the room I spent my time in and then kicked the rear door open. They were every were, down alleys, in bushes and eating the dead. The smell was putrid and I could barely resist puking there and then. I ran down the alley that led from the back of the garage and kicked one of these things into a skip and didn’t look back I jumped on top of a dumpster the jumped and grabbed a ladder. One of those things had grabbed my leg but I kicked it in the face with a sickening crunch and climbed as fast as I could as my life depended on it. I climbed onto the roof and collapsed to my knees as far as I could tell most of the town was being attacked by the living dead .I couldn’t help it I broke into tears. Everyone was dead ,and after the living. A short while later an idea hit me. Ed’s autos. I can jump the rooftops ,I thought to get there and get a car and then I could get the hell out of here. He walked to the edge of the building and looked down. The alley below him was filled with those… things that used to be his neighbours, his thoughts went to his family were they safe, were they eating each other. He had to jump a two metre gap to the next building and if he fell he would either break his neck or get torn apart by those rotten freaks. There was no contest he walked to the other side of the roof took a deep breath and sighed ’’..god damn…’’. He ran. Time seemed to slow down as he hurled himself across the gap, over those things, towards the top of ’als tool yard’. as he neared the other side his face paled ,he wasn’t going to make it he was halfway and all ready starting to fall. luckily his hand grabbed on and he hung on the ledge staring in disbelief at the things below reaching up at him, moaning but there faces, something was different these things weren’t people or mad men they weren’t even human. There was nothing left. He pulled himself up rolling onto his back on the gravel roof struggling for breath. He was pretty out of shape. He lay there for several minutes before getting up and looking across the street to a large car dealership called Ed’s auto’s there he could get a car and get help, that or the army either way he saw it as the best idea he cold think of right now. He broke a rusty pipe of the wall of the smaller third floor complex and made sure one part was sharp. He wasn’t getting pieces of him torn of by those freaks. After a few minutes of thinking about how he was going to do this he spied his target. A large motor home ,pale cream coloured and with a second floor and luckily the door was open. Now he had a target how was he going to reach it. A door suddenly banged open behind him. It was al of the hardware store below. And he was one of them. It ,(was it okay to call him that? Thought Ricky), staggered for a while in the light. Then it stopped as he saw Ricky for a few minutes everything was silent. But then just when it seemed there was something human left it moaned and reached towards Ricky with one arm, which had a pretty large chunk taken out of it, the body started to follow the arm towards him. It was slow and not very good on its feet. How it made it up the stairs was a mystery to him. As it got closer it opened its mouth covering its front with drool and some black substance like old blood. This was to much for Ricky he screamed like some kind of wild animal and charged at this cheap copy of humanity. The body stumbled for a few steps then fell backwards off the roof. It hit the floor with a sickeningly wet crunch. He had to check if it was dead, if it could die in the original sense. Ricky leant over the side of the building and saw the body ,its middle bent at an almost impossible angle it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so disgusting, it was lying on the floor trying to get up but it would never make it. Again for the second time in an hour Ricky, the local tough guy, started to cry, would this happen to him?, what caused it?, how far has it spread? And ,of course, is there anyone else left?. After half an hour of that Ricky collected himself again, shook his head and opened the door to the ground floor again. Downstairs was a mess shelves were everywhere and there were two bodies on the floor. At first this didn’t register as he searched for a better weapon but these were bodies, not those things, what differed between these and the others?. He got closer and just as he reached for a body to turn it over onto its front the other one started to move, it was one of ’them’. at first his instinct was to run like hell yet there had to be a difference. There had to be. One body was moving ,and had many chunks taken out of it ,whereas the other was still and the only obvious injury was a crack along the back of its head, perhaps that was it?, maybe on some level the brain is still working. There was only one way to know. He reached across the dead body for a bloodied axe and with a hefty swing he severed the head from the body and instantly it stopped and fell limp. So it was the brain!. Ricky felt proud to have discovered such an obvious weakness in such an aggressive creature. He decided to leave he walked across the shop, broken glass from the windows crunching beneath his feet. It was almost four thirty now and it looked like rain. He exited the shop and looked at the body that fell off the roof. It was in no pain but he had to kill it as it didn’t seem right to leave what had once been a human being with a life and friends to rot there for as long as it would function so he approached it , said a little prayer for ’al’ and then cut off his head with one good blow from the axe. As he crossed the road he started to hear moaning coming from the shadows the were dozens of them all heading towards him. He ran to the motor home and inside he slammed the door behind him. And spun around just to stop a body biting his wrist. He grabbed the corpse, which was surprisingly light, and he threw it out a window and shut every opening to make it secure. He had to move as the horde outside was closing around the motor home. He jumped in the front seat and got ready to hot-wire his ticket to freedom. But it was out of gas. As the bodies banged against the walls of the vehicle he banged his head against the steering wheel in anger while over at the garage mister. Payne’s body got up and headed towards the noise to join the others. the names Ricky Acuna

[AcesandEights]

Just got through the first two posts so far. I liked the use of news articles, very good inclusion. Where is this supposed to take place? It sounds like 'American' dialogue and, if that's the case, you do a pretty good job with it. Some spelling and grammatical errors, and I would have used some different word choices and paragraph structures in certain spots, but I like it so far

[Danny]

yeah part 3 were i introduced ricky was really rough, but like i said ,well tried to but didnt have room in my first post, this was a rough i put on a disc by accident, i refined it but lost it, but i still had this on a disk, i might continue it on if enough people like it, but yeh the ricky chapter was really rough, just read the first passage and look at the time and the time ricky says it is, prime example of how rough it is as for were its set i never say, at least never planned to, it was for the reader to decide, cus the thing is culturally all the english speaking countrys are still different but socially we all act the same, lazy,couch potatoes with a love of pizza and video games, or is that just me?

[zombiesman]

Cool. Thanks for sharing this!!