The Halfway Point

Chapter 1: Half-Infected

If Chase had been on top of a building four days ago, he'd be hyperventilating and asking to be brought down.

Now?

He was just hoping that nothing down there could get up here, and he had the sniper rifle to keep that from happening.

Of course, he could always jump to another building, that was also an option, but he was saving that option for when he was out of ammo and actually willing to use his new-found ability to jump like a flea between two one hundred story buildings.

And just as he came to that conclusion, his ammo ran out.

"Perfect," Chase growled and threw the rifle down at the mass of writhing bodies scaling the building, "can I call off getting eaten on defense that I've already been infected?" The bodies kept climbing. "No? Okay that's cool, I always wanted to jump across a city street swarming with zombies, from a hundred stories off the ground." Chase turned to the other end of the building and sunk low to the ground. He didn't like heights, but four days on the street with something trying to kill him at every turn didn't give him much of a choice. Chase sighed and pushed off the ground, sprinting to the edge of the building and leaping off.

And nearly getting shot in the leg by what he assumed was a survivor.

"Shit. Hunter!"

Chase yelped and scrambled away from the ledge and right into an infected that was camping out on the roof, it merely growled at him and returned to watching the survivors below. Chase breathed a sigh of relief, there was some perks to his new life. There were infected that wouldn't hurt him, and to make things a little easier, he could somehow understand them, and they were generally the only ones up on the roof. Chase reached out and tapped the infected on the shoulder cautiously. Before Chase could speak though, some variation of an all too familiar hyperventilated breathing that no infected really liked to hear. The infected grabbed Chase and hid him behind a few stacked crates and blocked Chase from the oncoming infected. Chase peeked out from behind the infected and watched the hysterical creature slink across the roof and disappear into the streets below. When the thing's breathing faded, the infected moved away and scanned the street, finding that his prey had disappeared.

"Sorry," Chase spoke up, unsure if the infected could understand him. The infected let out a low growl, not one of anger though, as if acknowledging that it did understand Chase, and was completely fine with exchanging prey for Chase. That was something Chase didn't quite understand. He'd seen semi-intelligent infected besides the ones on the roofs, but they weren't like these ones. The survivors called them Hunters to Chase's knowledge, and to them, Chase was just one of the pack as it were, just, twice as vulnerable and the rest of the infected wanted to tear him to shreds like a survivor. Hunters were the only ones who did this though, the other intelligent infected didn't, or if they did, Chase wasn't on their list of infected.

Whatever it was that made Hunters consider Chase one of them, Chase didn't want to stick around too long most of the time after encountering one. Chase turned to move for another rooftop. The Hunter turned and growled loudly, stopping Chase in his tracks. It didn't want him to leave the rooftop. Chase turned back to the Hunter and it growled again, this time higher and more frantic. Chase returned to his hiding spot among the crates and the Hunter snorted. Stay.

Chase sighed, perfect, it was ordering him about now.

To be fair, it was probably just trying to protect what it considered part of the pack. Hunters were like hyper-intelligent dogs or wolves, in a way. They protected the pack, but that was it. Anything else was prey, another predator, or in the way. Chase was lucky to be considered "part of the pack."

The door to the roof opened and immediately shut, followed by what sounded like survivors (loudly) debating on whether they wanted to bother with the Hunter on the roof or face the mass of zombies below them. Whether they had chosen or not, the Hunter next to Chase was ready for them to walk out. To be very honest, Chase didn't mind the idea of mauling a few survivors either. After all, they were also shooting at him. Chase shifted onto all fours, the Hunter didn't stop him this time; it was probably just more interested in the survivors.

The door opened slowly and two uninfected stepped out, both holding guns. The Hunter didn't waste time knocking one onto the ground and clawing out the uninfected's innards while the other stared in horror and backed towards the crates Chase was hiding behind. Chase stood and grabbed the second survivor, tossing him onto the ground and landing a claw straight through the survivor. One more change from four days ago: Chase didn't mind killing survivors. They were usually carrying food, and that was one thing Chase needed. He knew other infected needed food, Hunters would scavenge food from kitchens in buildings and he'd been given food before by other Hunters. For the most part, Chase just wanted food and survivors happened to have it, if a survivor died because Chase needed food, oh well at this point, Chase needed it more than a survivor that would be able to find a nice, healthy, safe evacuation area where Chase would be shot on sight.

And as Chase remembered that there was an open door, the Hunter on the roof slammed the door shut and carried over a pack of some kind of dried food, lobbing it at Chase's head and snorting again, it had it's own, this was for Chase. Chase tore open the package and greedily devoured the package, he hadn't eaten that day at all, and it had been a long four days with only occasional meals given by Hunters in passing and stolen from inattentive Smokers and survivors alike. The Hunter waited for Chase to finish eating before taking a package off the one Chase had killed and shoving it into Chase's chest with a rough snarl. Save it.

As much as Chase didn't like being ordered about, he knew it probably had been infected for longer than Chase had. Chase put the package in his hoodie pocket and nodded to the Hunter, which snorted and disappeared over to another roof. Chase decided to part ways with the Hunter here, it had said the equivalent of a goodbye, so it didn't want Chase to follow. At this point, it would be best for Chase to find another roof, which he did.

Unfortunately, the roof was home to what looked like and probably was the bane of everything that was breathing.

A Witch.

Chase backed slowly away from the Witch, it wasn't making a sound, but he could tell he was pissing her off. He'd seen angry Witches before, they glared at whoever was pissing them off and they did not like anyone being close to them. Chase had learned that if there were two red dots staring at you from the shadows, a Witch was pissed at you and you needed to move.

But the Witch didn't attack Chase, it just glared at him. Chase moved closer, lowering the hood over his head, he'd forgotten that it was even on his head in the first place. The Witch didn't look right, the claws were a bit too small, the hair was a bit too dark and the figure wasn't as emaciated as it usually was. Chase's hair stood on end, something was very wrong.

"Okay, great, you figured out I'm not a hundred percent Witch, congrats," the Witch spoke with a sharp tone, "are you going to try to rip my guts out now or do I have to scream for the ladies?"

"You're clear," Chase stepped closer, "I'm not full-on Hunter. So I'm not the only one the infection only sort of affected. Good."

"Wait," the Witch moved from the shadows, "you're not completely infected? Why the hell were you following that Hunter then?" Chase over at the direction the Hunter had disappeared into.

"You haven't seen anyone else like you yet," Chase guessed, "have you?"

"Look, the only infected who haven't decided I was a meal so far are Witches," the Witch stood, "and they don't like other infected, they're solitary. I have no idea what a Hunter would do if I were part Hunter."

"It's hard to explain," Chase shrugged, "but if there's us two, there have to be more, possibly in the city, maybe not."

"Your point?" the Witch raised her eyebrows, "Infected are keen on killing us and so are survivors, it's not like we can go looking for them."

"Have you seen a Witch take on a survivor?" Chase asked, "You're twice as durable as me, can kill a Hunter in one hit and take on a Tank no problem. My only strengths are that Hunters live up to their name."

"Yeah, fast, agile, and too smart for an infected," the Witch spat, "those growls and screams are a language."

"I know."

"So you think finding more partial infected is a good idea?"

"You're in Hunter territory and asking me that?"

"Yes."

"Okay then, yes, I do. Now can I have your name?"

"Viviane."

"I'm calling you Vivi."

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am."

"What's your name then?"

"Chase."

"Really?"

"See why I'm calling you Vivi now?"

"No. Stop calling me Vivi."

"No."

A howl-like scream interrupted the argument and Chase shoved Vivi into and alcove.

"Survivors nearby," he muttered.

"How do you know?" Vivi asked.

"Hunters have a language," Chase turned to her, "like you said." Chase perked his ears to the growls and snarls that echoed across the rooftops. "We need to move," he said, "they're close to us and they're leading a horde straight to this building." He held out a hand to Vivi, "Are you with me or not?"

Vivi stared at Chase briefly before taking his hand.

"If we end up dead I'll kill you first."

"I'll keep that in mind."

This was a brainwave I got when I remembered that special infected are smarter than common infected and decided that if being immune was possible, then this was like a normal virus and all the same rules applied. Normal viruses also can affect different people in different ways, so this idea surfaced. For the record, Chase and Vivi are still infected, but the virus doesn't show certain symptoms, just like if you have a certain illness, sometimes certain symptoms won't show up. The special infected recognizing half-infected of their mutation as their own is something I just randomly came up with, possibly because I liked the idea of a pack of Momma Hunters taking care of this weird Hunter that speaks like a non-infected.

The Momma Hunter thing will show up more too, so if you don't like it, oh well.

I'm out til next chapter.

-The Jashinist