One

In the year 2009 Dr. Alice Krippen developed a vaccine. Its purpose was to cure cancer; however it turned out to be humanity's very undoing. The drug cured 10,009 people of various types of cancer; however it also transformed them into nocturnal bloodthirsty monstrosities. The Krippen Virus or KV as it was called spread throughout the world via bacteria strains and airborne toxicity; it devastated the Earth and its global populace. The world has been depleted of life; all that remains is the ruins of once proud but now fallen civilizations. What once was called humanity roams the night devouring any source of life in its path.

There are a handful of lone survivors scattered around the globe, people who were somehow immune to the hellish plague. These individuals have inherited a curse, the curse of having to survive and face the darkness alone. There are some who find comfort in believing that God is the master of their fate and believe faith in Him will get them through their plight. Others find themselves alone and without hope. Nevertheless I am one of those survivors; my name is Robert Lockwood I am a former Navy SEAL amongst the ruins of Virginia. This is my story.

October 13th 2012 3:45 p.m.

I ran up the stairs of the Greendale Apartment Complex. I reached the second floor. Light from the windows in the hallway flooded the stairwell almost instantly. I shut off the flashlight was secured to my FN P90 sub machine gun. I then aimed the gun to the left then to the right none of those creatures in sight. I had to watch out infected hostiles hid themselves in the shadows they had better sight in the dark as well. A few times they had sprung out at me like a jack in a box. I walked into the second floor hallway.

"No surprise greeters waiting for me? There's a surprise," I thought.

I walked up to the first apartment. The number on the door read "201". I busted the door open with the butt of my P90. I took two steps in rapidly aiming my gun in all directions ready for anything. No infected hostiles in the immediate vicinity. Normally one of my squad mates would be reporting this to me and then give the green light for me and the rest of the squad to enter. Then I'd tell them to spread out and do some recon, secure the area or some other order. But since the Navy SEALs do not exist anymore and my SEAL team was killed in a skirmish with infected hostiles, I guess I'm not really the captain of anything or anyone anymore. I looked around at an empty, sunlit apartment.

"Guess I'd better get started," I thought.

I walked into the living room. The room seemed like an ordinary living room: large blue velvet sofa in the center of the room, big screen TV with a DVD player sitting on top next to an X-box. A stereo with two large speakers in the corner a Christmas tree in the other corner needless to say the world has ended during December of 2009. Once upon a time I would take these electronics gladly, now they are unimportant to me. The sound of my military issue boots thudding on the tile floor could be heard as I walked into the kitchen, I began a search of the cupboards.

One cupboard held cups and mugs while another held plates and bowls. Another held canned and boxed foods; I ransacked the cup bored scoring cans of chicken noodle soup and two boxes of macaroni and cheese. I then realized I'd need something more to carry the rest of the stuff. I went out of the apartment and back to the stairwell and pulled out a shopping cart I had parked there and pulled it back to the apartment. I put the soup and macaroni in the cart I also got a few boxes of Hamburger Helper and Top Ramen. I took any other dry foods I could find. I opened the fridge and took out the unopened bottles of water there was not much else I could take.

I looked at my watch. 3:55 p.m. It would be dark soon. "I had better get back to the bunker," I thought.

I pushed the shopping cart out of the apartment. I closed the door and tied a red ribbon to the door marking that I left off at this apartment, after that I made my way back down the stairs. I walked out of the lobby to the parking lot and my waiting F-150 pickup truck. There was already another shopping cart next to the truck; I started to move the stuff out of the shopping cart and into the back of the truck. Once done with that I lifted the two shopping carts into the truck bed. I climbed into the truck, started it and drove out of the parking lot of the Greendale Apartment complex parking lot. I drove down Seventh Street, turned on Sixth and drove onto Campus. It was a straight street from here, I continued driving at full speed ignoring the speed limit signs on the side of the road. The speed limit signs soon turned to signs that said "Restricted Area and Authorized Military Personal Only" the city turned to forest. Secluded in the forest was the military bunker known as Last Resort.

The Last Resort was situated at the center of the forest just off a dirt road; it was lined with thirty foot brick walls lined with electrified fence; the bunker itself went eight levels down into the ground. Three levels above the ground and five underground. The only entrance into the courtyard was an automated gate that was accessible by remote, inside the courtyard was a vast parking lot filled with military and civilian vehicles, mostly hum vees and jeeps; there were five tanks as well. Behind the bunker was a vast field where crops, fruits and vegetables were growing. There was a single flag pole and waving at the top was the Stars and Stripes.

I drove through the entry gate and into the parking lot; the entry gate closed automatically after two minutes. After parking I exited the truck, I pulled out both grocery carts from the truck bed one by one. I opened the back door and started to load the spoils from the apartments that I had raided today into both carts. Once everything was unloaded I closed the truck door. I pulled both carts to the bunker entrance. I pressed my thumb to the biometric security pad and the door opened. I pushed one cart inside using it as a doorstop. Still outside I could see the sun begin to set behind me. There was still a lot of light and I could still feel warmth on my back through my camouflage fatigues. I pushed the other cart towards the flag pole, once there I undid the knot on the ropes holding the flag up. I started to pull the ropes down until the flag was lowered where I was standing.

I unhooked the American flag and began to fold it. Although the time honored tradition of raising the flag in the morning, lowering it in the evening, and folding it up right seemed to be gone and almost without meaning anymore; to me it was not gone and it would never be meaningless. It was an honorable tradition and I respected it so much that I continued to do it every day. Traditions like this also reminded me that I was once a part of something honorable I was once a U.S. Navy SEAL. Honor, courage, and commitment were my principles. Once I had finished folding the flag I put it in the cart and made my way back to the bunker entrance.

Once inside I locked the door behind me. I put the flag on a nearby table. I walked to the bunker security console. I pressed one button and brought up a schematic of the Last Resort. From there I could control the bunker's security systems. I closed and locked the parking lot gate. To the side of on the security console there was a list of security measures called the Omega Protocol that I could arm if needed. The list looked like this:

MeasureStatus

Electric Fence Disarmed

UV Lamps Disarmed

Automatic Turrets Disarmed

Flame Thrower Disarmed

C4 and Claymores Disarmed

Security Cameras On

I decided against arming any of the security systems. None of the infected had discovered I was there and they never really came towards the bunker's fence. Besides that arming any of these measures, and leaving them on all night, would seriously drain the bunker's power supply. I turned and started to push the shopping cart full of supplies to the pantry, I went down the West corridor leading into the Mess Hall. The Mess was a wide room; the walls and ceiling were made of chrome steel. I remember when I would walk in and find my fellow SEALs sitting in here eating a meal. They would be talking and laughing with one another; now the room was dead silent, plastic coverings on top of the tables and chairs. I pushed the cart into the food storage area, there a massive pantry was located, and it was a vast storage chamber where I put all the dry goods and foods. I unloaded the cart putting everything in its appropriate place, once finished I grabbed a package of beef jerky, and pushed the cart out. With the fresh lettuce I had picked from my garden in the back of the bunker. I made myself a Caesar salad for dinner, and had a can of soup as well.

Two hours after I had finished my dinner, I sat in my private quarters on the third level which consisted of a king size bed, a restroom and shower along with a closet. I had been an officer and rank had come with privileges; they had been my quarters when I was stationed at the Last Resort they had been a second home to me and Helen, my late wife. Helen did not like living in the bunker, but after our house was deemed an infected area, we really had no choice.

My wife had been a virologist for the Department of Defense; in the months during the outbreak she was asked by the President to help create an antidote to combat the KV infection; her and her team tried several vaccines and failed miserably. When my wife was here she spent most of her time in the chapel, our Chaplain Capt. Nathan Carter was her cousin, and the two would sit in the chapel and pray for long hours. My wife and son had been Christians, Helen tried to talk to me about God and Jesus, but I did not understand. I believed in the existence of God, his existence seemed much more logical than Evolution or the Big Bang theory or any of the other theories my high school science teachers tried to indoctrinate on me; but I did not have much faith in him. I simply just believed the idea that some sort of cosmic or supernatural being was responsible for everything, however with the current situation; my beliefs were the last thing on my mind.

Helen is gone now so is my son Jake, yet I stared at the picture of them on my desk, sometimes I imagine what things would be like if I still had them with me. Helen was a very beautiful woman who had stood about five foot nine, very slender, she had been a brunette, with green eyes, she had been born in Texas but she had been sent to live in Virginia, with her aunt and uncle after her parents died in a fire; she was only five years old. Jake had only been five feet tall, he had long brown hair and blue eyes. Having the military father and intellectual mother Jake was trained early on, at five years old Jake had a yellow belt in karate was an adept sharpshooter, spelling bee champion and he could solve long division problems in his head and was already reading adult novels like "Sherlock Holmes" and "To Kill a Mocking Bird."

Jake was only twelve when he died during the outbreak, he had been infected but not fully. He became sick with something the CDC had dubbed the "Krippen Flu" or "KF" it was an advanced case of the KF which was a by-product of the outbreak, besides strep throat and very high fever, KF symptoms included blindness, extreme redness of the eyes and complete loss of hearing.

Depending upon how advanced the case or how a person's body could tackle the symptoms decided their survival rate. Some doctors with the CDC theorized that some patients infected with the KF could possibly live for almost four years while suffering KF symptoms, but not one person infected lived that long. Unfortunately in Jake's case he only lasted for two weeks, the symptoms came at him fast and furious. He died within beginning of the outbreak, when the hospitals were swamped with patients, Helen had taken it upon herself to treat him in our home, and she being the professional doctor sterilized his bedroom and turned it into a patient's room. She tried everything for three days she went without sleep, in the end however she failed to save him, she went into a deep depression; she nearly tore the house down, having been infuriated when she heard the CDC announce over the morning news that they had developed a cure for KF.

Helen died on October 4th 2010 she hung herself, when she found out she was infected with KV. She left me a note explaining her reasons for suicide. In the note she explained that she was infected and feared she would turn into one of those creatures, and she would hurt me, "the last thing I would ever want to do my love," she had written in the letter.

However it was strange to me that she would take her own life in such a manner. Near the end she had been very hopeful that she and her fellow colleagues were close to discovering a cure, she was even talking to me about having another kid. The factors surrounding her suicide confused me greatly. Other factors included the assassination of Dr. Arvin White, a brilliant chemist who was a member of Helen's team. White had been a snake of a man, he had lusted after Helen, but I had considered him a friend. My SEAL team and I were ordered to escort him to a different testing facility, when the hummer he was in was blown up; his death was a mystery.

I had met Helen in high school, I was the jock, and NJROTC student commanding officer, Helen was the science nerd who had no social life, just the other nerds who followed her every word; plus nobody really gave her a chance. Rumor had it that she had a crush on me; I acted on this rumor and finally asked her out to the Homecoming dance. She and I ended up dating all through high school, when we graduated I had just secured myself a scholarship to the Naval Academy, she had gotten a scholarship for John Hopkins University. Four years later after my time at the Naval Academy was done I proposed to her, we were engaged shortly before I left for my SEAL training. After my SEAL training we tied the knot and had an eight week honeymoon, the honeymoon ended just on the eve of my first deployment. I left for Iraq and served two tours there and one tour in Afghanistan, our son Jake was born after my first tour. Helen graduated from John Hopkins and accepted a job from the Defense Department and CDC. The rest was history.

An explosion outside far away in the city interrupted my thoughts. I sat up in my chair. Probably one of the booby traps I had set all over the city, two more explosions were heard. I got up from my chair and walked down the hall past empty rooms and took a right towards the service elevator. I pushed the button and the double doors slid open. The bunker had a stairway system but I preferred to take the elevator to the Observation Deck, I pushed the up button and doors slid closed. I stood at the center of the lift, as the elevator started ascending. The walls of the elevator were made of steel just like the rest of the bunker; there was no elevator music just the dinging sound whenever the elevator was passing a floor; the elevator was also dimly lit. Helen did not like that, standing in the elevator without music and pleasant lighting she said it made her feel claustrophobic; she was never without her I-Pod.

The Bunker had eight levels in all I started off from the third; the doors slid open on the first floor. I walked out, and turned left to the Observation deck. I opened the hatch and stepped in there was a leather couch I had put there, three telescopes and a main Para scope was at the center of the deck. Clear windows surrounded the deck; there was a function to tint them so no one could see through them. I went to the security console and untinted the windows. I looked in the distance toward the city, night had fallen a long time ago, and it was about seven thirty. I could see flames in the distance two small fires in the middle of the city.

"That's around the abandoned police station and the Gypsy Tea Room," I thought.

I took the Para scope and looked through it, I could see the flames and I could see… them. The remnants of humanity, they were jumping around, others who had gotten caught in the flames were running, inflamed and screaming. I could barely hear their screams, the walls and glass of the bunker were sound proofed. I took my eyes off out of the Para scope and looked at the flames from a distance. The two inflamed buildings would not be burning for long. I had rigged automatic sensors on nearby building that would activate at two hundred different hoses that would shoot water at the building and put out the fire. Once the outbreak started, the Navy taught us SEALs how to set up these strange contraptions; the President had called on because we were the "last hope."

Within three weeks into the outbreak, infected hostels began settling in abandoned buildings which the DOD had dubbed "hives." While the National Guard supervised evacuations my team, SEAL team seven was instructed on demolition on the hives. I had conducted this operation several times. I sat down on the leather sofa on the deck, for three years I had rigged buildings to blow in an attempt to kill the infected beasts. I hated the remnants of humanity with a passion. Over the years I had strangely enjoyed killing them. I heard crashes in the distance; they probably triggered my car snares. All over the city I had rigged abandoned cars on suspension cables that would crash down on the infected when they hit the trip wire. It worked perfectly because the bastards ran around the city like rats in the sewers with no sense of direction.

I shook my head. "Three years I've been killing them. The freaks," I looked down at the floor, I started laughing out loud for no reason. "What's the use?" I asked myself in between my laughter. "They're like cockroaches Robert, why do you even try?" I looked up. "NO!" I yelled. "I can't let this happen; I can't let them invade my territory… I can still fix this," I said.

The time on my watch turned to 8:00 p.m. I still sat on the sofa watching the burning buildings, I could see the automatic sprinkler system go off and spray the buildings. I slowly began to drift off to sleep. "I can still fix this," I said to myself as I finally succumbed to sleep.

Author's Note: Well there's the first chapter, please read and review. This story takes place in the same universe as the 2007 "I Am Legend" did, however it is also a loosely based on Richard Matheson's original novel; sort of like a modern take. I Will upload the second chapter ASAP.