I was 17 when the infection broke out. It started slowly, creeping across the world. Silently invading our lives. For months nothing happened, and anything that did was kept very quite. Only the occasional whisper or mysterious sighting. A lot of people didn't believe in it. They said it was just stories, a fake. Just another disease that was never going to harm anyone and had been made to seem worse than it was. Until the day the world began to end the whole of humanity watched as it began to break away. July 25th, an attack happened. It was a mass attack, larger than anyone had ever seen. It was no longer a singular backstreet attack which was cleaned up before the media could stick their nose in.
24 people were turned, out in the open, full media coverage. People watched through their TV screens at peoples life being sucked away from them and replaced with a disease, a virus, The Infection. There was wide spread panic, it changed the way people moved, thought and felt. It changed the way people lived. The infection spread wider and wider tearing its way though peoples lives ripping family's apart. The number of infected grew every day; until some days the missing, presumed infected, almost doubled in size every single day. Public areas attempted to stay open, people went crazy building basements or secure houses. Shops emptied their shelves, prices rising more and more by the day. The world began to fall in to havoc, the streets emptied and the cities became danger zones.
I was 18 when I heard my first gunfire. In school, 'ironic really' I had thought as the fast ra-ta-tat-tat echoed through the corridors, the very place I had learnt about the infection, was going to be the place I died from it. I thought I knew for sure that it would take me, along with so many others. 'They were becoming smart' they had taught us. They knew who was weak; thats why they had tried the school. Searching for new bodies, life forms to strip away and mould into something new and horrifying.
Around me people screamed. Crying and hugging each other. Some of us armed up, including me. Knives from the kitchen, deodorant cans, bulky objects, anything we could lay our hand on. The gates were locked sealing us in with our fate, we had to protect ourselves from the on coming infection. Everyone stood together, shaking with fear as we said our final goodbyes, wishing each other the best of luck. Promising to see each other on the other side. My friends, the people I had grown up with in this small little village, stood beside me as we prepared to die.
'Aim for the head' they said.
'Don't let them touch you' they said.
'Protect yourself' they said.
But I didn't die that day, some how I survived. Just.
I saw my first infected that day. They said you always remember your first and I know I do. A woman, no older than 30, white with dark brown hair. Around 5"7 average size. She wore black jeans and a blue checkered shirt. At first I didn't realize she was infected. She just stood there, motionless, her head drooped and her eyes fixated on the floor. I was about to call out to her when I noticed the trickle of blood that was escaping from the back of her neck. I nearly threw up when I saw the enormous gash at the base of her slender neck, I could see right down the to bone which stuck out white and gleaming in the sunlight. I looked at her face, her eyes were glazed over with white but behind the glaze I could see two green specks that were once filled with life and happiness. She looked sad, as if she was quite ready to break down into tears before me. But she didn't, she just stood there.
Suddenly she looked up, focusing on a singular point in front of her.
"There's one" Someone shouted
"Kill it" Another one shouted back. The revving of a machine gun started before a spray of bullets ran through the air, knocking the infected woman on to the floor. She snarled, or it sounded like a snarl, getting back up and walking towards the gunfire.
"Aim for the head" another voice screamed over the gunfire. The bullets hit the woman with an incredible force sending pieces of her scattering around the open space but she made no sign of pain. The woman just continued to stagger forwards. Until a bullet struck her skull, making a crack that exploded across the room. I'll remember that sound for the rest of my life. I watched as the woman fell to the ground, everything seemed to slow down as I watched body hit the blooded floor where she lay still, bleeding all over, the open wounds covered her skin soaking her torn clothes with blood. I turned away from the horrific sight. Knowing that I had to get away, that I'd fight till the end of my days because I could never become that.