2 FORTNIGHTS
LATER
THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
Mordecai Stone
Chapter One
Rage.
A terrible infection, one that could spread like wild-fire and devastate a small country in less than a month. It marked the beginning of something new, and the end of something big.
It marked the end of the world.
A disease that was characterized by what it did to people, what it made them do. Absolute madness is what the Infected were thrown into, a blind. . . well, a blind rage, fueled with absolute hatred of the Uninfected. The Infected stopped at nothing to infect the rest of the world, or kill them at best.
In the initial, Original Outbreak, a group of animal rights activists had broken into a lab in the English countryside, and made attempts at releasing the chimpanzees that which they believed were being tortured and experimented on. The latter was true, but the reason being was of because of what was in the chimps' blood. It was the blood. There was something in the blood.
The lab worker who had taken a double shift tried to stop them, tried to warn them. "The chimps are infected!" he warned, but to no avail.
One man demanded, "Infected with what?"
"Rage."
Another, much more radical activist sneered. He pointed to a cage and looked at the group's photographer. "Open the cage."
"No! You mustn't!"
"Shut him up," he ordered.
The photographer opened a cage containing a chimp. She held out her arms, but instead of a hug, she got a bite on the neck. She fell to the ground screaming and choking on blood. She began convulsing and coughing blood. She turned onto her hands and knees and vomited blood onto the tile floor. She then stood up and looked at her boyfriend, the man who had ordered her to open the cage. Her irises had gone from blue to a blood red, her sclera bloodshot, tears of red running down her cheeks. The three men stared at her in horror as her mouth foamed and she jumped at her boyfriend. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, and he too showed the same effects as the previous.
"I told you!" the scientist screamed. He tried to run, tried to get away. Now, all three of the activists were red eyed. He ran, the scientist, sprinted at his fastest. They came from the door he exited, came screaming, shouting, blood oozing from their eyes and noses. They were faster, stronger. Behind the scientist, the lab's alarm sounded. He ignored and kept running. "Have to keep going," he said. "Before it's too late!"
It took almost three minutes before the local security agents were there. Three Armed Patrol cars, moving about the building. Then, they saw four figures in the distance, coming towards them, as one officer noted. Six men in all stepped from the vehicles. They saw the figures better, they were running, screaming. "Halt!" the sergeant ordered. "Halt! We'll shoot!"
They did not stop. Not for anything.
"Fire!" Six shots rang through the air, six, then twelve, striking the infected in the breasts and stomachs. They kept moving, fueled by adrenaline. "Fuck it!" the sergeant shouted. He reached into his vehicle and grabbed the rifle from above his seat. By the time he turned around, it was too late. There was something on him. He turned to look it in the eye. They stared each other down, the now infected photographer and the officer. "What are you?"
The woman sank her teeth into his neck, encouraging a terrified scream of agony from the sergeant. The men concentrated their fire on the woman, and soon, the sergeant leaped up at one of his men, biting his arm, tearing some flesh. This man, too, screamed in pain. The other agents were overwhelmed as the rest of the infected pounced up on them.
One agent stripped off his vest to take off weight, then made a mad dash for his car. He turned the ignition as the now turned sergeant slammed against the window. The agent slammed the gas and tore off. He reached for his CB transmitter. "Dispatch, this is Armed Patrol Alpha-Alpha-Foxtrot, do you copy?"
"Alpha-Alpha-Foxtrot, we read you, over," spoke a dispatch officer with a pronounced Cockney accent.
"Dispatch… Oh, God, I don't even know how to explain this… We have four suspects, unarmed but highly dangerous, all wounded. Their eye… Oh God, their eyes were red! They were crying blood, for God's sake! They attacked my unit, killed all five of the others, including Sergeant Holt. They fucking tore out his throat!"
"Agent, I need you calm down, please."
"How the fuck am I supposed to calm down!? One of the fuckers bit his neck, and his eyes turned red and he came after Doyle! Then Doyle went for Williams! Then three more of those bastards came and fucking killed the rest! Then they all turned! Their eyes are all fucking red!"
"Agent, please calm down!"
"How the fuck am I supposed to calm down!? I have been attacked by my best friends! They tried to kill me! How the fuck do I calm down!?"
It was then that he looked up to see something in front of him. "Oh shit!" he screamed. A body slammed against his windshield and flew over the top as he swerved and crashed into a telephone pole. It cracked at the impact area and fell onto the roof of the car. The officer was knocked unconscious, fresh blood dripping from a new wound in his head as the pole had struck his skull in the crash.
A good amount of time had gone by. The agent suddenly snapped awake, realizing where he was. He felt a stinging sensation on the top of his head as hair irritated the new gash on his skull. He looked down at his name tag, labeled Murray .He slowly shifted his body and noticed that he had been lucky enough to avoid serious injury. He turned to the right and opened his door. Murray fell out of the car and sprawled out onto the street. He looked at a cut on his arm. It was brown-ish, scabby. "That's odd." He noticed. The cut hadn't been there before. It must have been from the crash. But the platelets begged to differ, showing it had healed. That could only lead to one thing.
"How long was I out?" he said to no-one in particular. There was another car, one that was abandoned completely out in the middle of this desolate farm road. He made sure to take down the plate number in his note book to report back at Headquarters. He turned back to his car and reached into the door to grab his pistol, a Smith & Wesson 5.7 millimetre Five seven. He holstered it and reached for his Ithaca and the box of shells. He loved being on Armed Patrol, as it gave him these firearms. He never felt safe without a firearm. He wasn't like the rest of the rest of those pussies on Regular Patrol. He much preferred Armed Patrol. Granted, had he tried to go for the London job he had been offered, it would have meant losing his firearms. He couldn't have that. Instead, he stuck with this town, Cambridge, where he could keep his guns and not have to worry about being a police officer. They say those jobs are so stressful.
He turned back to the road he was going to try going down, when a man was easily seen in his vision. "Hello?" he called out. The man suddenly snapped around, his red eyes glowing with hatred and anger.
"Oh fuck, not another one."
