The End Is Nigh

28 Hours Later…

The Metro.

Paris, France was peaceful. A day just like any other day where the general populace was unaware of just how well they had it. People went to and from work, they went to lunch, children went to school. The people were healthy. There was no virus infecting everyone, neighbors wouldn't have to kill one another just to stay alive, family wouldn't have to unwillingly attack the ones they loved most and people didn't have to hide or run.

It had been nearly 8 months since the outbreak in Britain, and because of the strict quarantine, the rest of the world was safe. Only a handful of people made it out. The ones that did were confined to strict, military controlled, refugee camps. The rest of the world didn't want to support the British for fear of the infection spreading, even though all refugees were uninfected. The British weren't allowed to start their lives over in a new country.

After Mainland Britain was declared free of infection, those who chose to return were flown in to start over and attempt to rebuild their once great country. Hardly any of the survivors that were caught in the turmoil, and were fortunate enough to make it out alive, chose to return. Britain was a nightmarish land for them that they were only too eager to escape from it. When the rest of the world was assured that there would be no second outbreak, countries were only too happy to accept English Immigration. The survivors were able to start over, their country would be rebuilt and in time all that happened only 8 months before would be nothing more than a tragic memory. The country and the world would look back on it as if it were the Black Plague. It was horrible, but in the past.

So Paris went along as the rest of the "civilized" world did, and people would mind their own business. The nights were quiet and the days were productive. Paris was a growing city, full of determination and opportunity, just as all of Britain had once been.

Where did it come from?

The news said it was only a small incident. They said a small problem arose from the Isle of Dogs, where the survivors were based, but nothing more was released. The citizens of Paris listened to the news thinking that it was nothing more than a trivial thing, just as a car bombing in the Middle East was a trivial thing. It wouldn't affect their lives. Suddenly the news reported troops making their way to Coquelles, and the American Military assisting in any way they possibly can. There were reports of military action at le tunnel sous la Manche, the Channel Tunnel that they recently reopened to send English refugees back to their homeland.

Alarm soon began to spread, and it hit like a great wave, catching everyone off guard. No one saw it coming, the news couldn't warn people fast enough. Soon it started all over again.

Will McKellen was a tall Scottsman in his late 20's who had seen the effects of the virus before. He never expected a second outbreak. Will's day began as it usually did. He would go to work and come home to his Aunt's flat every day, as he had for the past 5 months. His mother, being of French descent, had a sister who lived in Paris and took Will in. After going through an excruciating process, Will was one of the first of the British to succesfully be admitted into citizenship of a foriegn country. He walked to the Metro and waited for his train to come in. He only waited for a few minutes before people began chatting and murmuring to one another.

"La contamination n'a pas pu arriver jusqu'ici, quand même ?"

"Je croyais qu'il y avait une quarantaine !"

Will couldn't understand a word they were saying. In the 7 months he had been living in Paris, he had only learned a few words and phrases of French. Everyone around him began paying close attention to the television monitors above, and soon aerial footage of French and U.S. troops were gunning down people charging in at them. All the troops were overrun with the amount of people that swarmed in on them.

"What the hell is this?" Will whispered to himself.

Soon he, and everyone else heard their train coming down the tracks, and they were all eager to get home. Will couldn't understand what was going on, but he knew there was some sort of national emergency, and he wanted to get home to his aunt. He looked back up to the screen.

"... N'essayez pas de contacter votre famille ou vos amis. La procedure d'évacuation concerne tout le pays. Veuillez écouter attentivement et suivre les instructions calmement. Tous les vols ont été annulés et les aéroports suivants sont sous contrôle de l'Armée : Orly, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle... "

The low roar of the train began to grow louder as it approached. The lights up ahead showed it nearing, but the rumble on the tracks would not disperse. The train wasn't slowing down. Soon Will could see the train zoom through the station at a blinding speed. The words and advertisements along the side could not be made out, but everyone could see the long red blur where the windows had once been. The train passed, and fear began to grow in everyone.

Screaming.

Will turned his head to the opposite end of the tunnel and heard people screaming. Soon everyone in the station was running in his direction. The people around him ran the same way, and Will followed along. He couldn't understand it. This couldn't be another outbreak, not here, not again, not so soon. Will barely managed to escape when the virus hit England, he was in Cambridge, at the time, riding on a scholarship for archaeology and paleontology. He was once an apprentice curator at the Sedgwick Museum, and had a future in his line of work…but all of that was now useless. With Cambridge destroyed, none of his records could be retrieved and his future as a paleontologist was out of his reach. But it was even more useless now that Will was stuck in the middle of a mob.

He saw an opening to the main station and made his way towards it, trying hard not to get run over by everyone around him.

Artu Fouchier was a balding man in his mid-forties. He had eaten a big meal earlier in the day that was loaded with cheese, and had been on the toilet ever since. Being lactose intolerant, the meal didn't agree with him, but he was having lunch with his manager and Artu wanted to make a good impression. His manager suggested the meal and paid for it, so Artu couldn't really decline. They were discussing his new promotion and how it would help further his career.

To Artu, his promotion was worth the time he'd have to spend on the toilet. He had made it to the Metro in a rush to use the restroom, before he had to go home, and had spent the better part of half an hour relieving himself. He didn't hear the broadcast over the television monitors, and had no clue about the massive evacuation. He didn't know there was a national emergency.

Artu heard commotion from outside, but tried to think nothing of it. He was indisposed for the moment. The man in the stall beside him flushed his toilet, washed his hands and opened the door to leave. Artu folded his magazine back by the spine and continued reading. He noticed how loud the commotion was when the man opened the door, but it was none of his concern.

Bang!

The restroom door was thrown open and the man that just left came running back in, screaming. Artu was so startled by this that he had dropped his magazine. Soon snarling and hissing followed the man's panicked screaming and panting as he ran into the corner of the restroom, closest to Artu, and was attacked. The man was breaking into sobs and pleas, and the restroom door was thrown open again to the sound of more snarls.

Artu was petrified. He tried to see what was outside of his stall by leaning over to observe the view within the crack of his door, but could barely see one of the attacker's backs. Soon Artu could hear the sound of gagging and retching, and he was terrified at what they might have been doing to the man. Then all was quiet for only a second. Artu held his breath and could hear the men outside of his stall sniffing.

The snarling and determined screaming started up again and soon Artu found that the attackers were now trying to get into his stall. He tried to hold them back by placing his feet on the door to keep them from opening it. Soon he saw hands reaching from underneath, and then a head from someone who was crawling under from his left side. He dropped his left leg and started kicking at the man coming for him, and then another man coming from underneath the right stall.

"Ne me faites pas mal ! Arrêtez ! Laissez-moi !" Artu screamed at his attackers. Soon three more attackers came crawling over the stall to get to him, and he was defenseless. There was nowhere to go and no way to fight them off. Then Artu looked into the eyes of one of his attackers. It was blood red. He looked and saw that they all had similar eyes. Blood was drenched all over their shirts, running from their mouths and down their neck.

"Au secours ! Pitié !"

Will made his way to the main area of the Metro and was shocked to see how many people were in a mass panic. He remembered back more than half a year before, when it was the same for him to get a plane out of England, and now it's happening all over again.

But this couldn't be the same thing, could it? The virus couldn't have made it this far. England was clear of infection. This isn't possible.

Almost to answer Will's thoughts, a woman ahead of him, by ten meters or so began vomiting blood. Will looked around and saw the same thing being repeated amongst the mass hysteria. People began fighting and beating each other down. Rage seemed to take a hold over half the people in the station, while the other half was running and trying to get away.

The woman looked directly at Will, and he saw the red in her eyes.

The virus had made it here.

She snarled and began running after Will and he turned around and ran as hard as he could to get away. He knew how fast it would spread, and he knew he'd have no chance of surviving a second time if he didn't move as fast as he could. As Will ran he bumped into people running in his way. He didn't hesitate to push them aside as he tried to make his way out. People fell down as he plunged through the crowd. He looked back and saw that the most recent people he knocked over were being pounced on by the Infected.

Will tried not to knock anyone else down as he made his way through the mob. The direction the mob led him towards was into another tunnel. People were running as fast as they could, desperately trying to get out of the station. Will ran along with the rest of them and soon another out-of-control train blew through.

Somewhere as he ran, Will lost his footing and fell on top of a woman who was in front of him. She pulled down another man that she was running beside, and soon Will found himself amongst dozens of dead or unconscious people who were being trampled by the rushing mob. Will tried to crawl, but every footstep on his back pressed him deeper into the dead. He struggled to get up, but soon found that to be useless. He knew that getting up wasn't an option, at that moment, so he tried to make his way towards the sidewall of the tunnel. Will reached out and pulled on a body to get further ahead. He reached out again, and constantly getting stomped and trampled upon was making it really hard to breath.

Soon the sharp sting of his fingers getting stepped on made him pull his hand back. Will cried out with the pain and soon a boot stomped on the back of his head. He knew he wasn't going to last long under the torrent of people plowing over him. He reached out again and pulled himself further, then further, trying to get past the pain of being trampled, trying to get to a spot where he could get up and keep running.

Will made it about 2 meters when it became too much and too hard. Another boot hit him in the back of the head, and Will saw bright spots in his vision. He laid face down in the bodies and covered the back of his head. Soon a foot clocked him on the right side of his temple, and that flipped him onto his side. Will tried to cradle his head, but more feet began stomping over him. A foot pressed into his side, then one into his arm. A lady with heels ran over his calf, and soon another foot kicked him right in the center of the forehead.

Will got dizzy and his body slowly began to not hurt anymore. After a few more steps on the face and kicks in the head, Will successfully lost consciousness. The crowds eventually moved up to the surface. Most of the people that were in the train station became infected and they chased the people that weren't infected out into the streets. Soon the Metro became empty. The only people left were a few remaining Infected, and the hundreds of dead bodies that littered the floor of the station; People that were beaten to death by the Infected, the Infected that were beaten down by Uninfected people, and those unfortunate enough to fall and get crushed to death by the multitude of those trying to escape.

Artu came out of the restroom in shambles. An ear was ripped off, what little hair he had was pulled out, three of his fingers were bitten off. He emerged from the restroom a bloody mess and he was full of hate. His eyes were blood red, and blood was frothing out of his mouth. He stumbled into the tunnel with fierce determination. He couldn't understand why, but he wanted to kill someone, for any reason at all. He was so full of anger and rage that he couldn't seem to align his thoughts in any particular order.

Artu growled and snarled as he stumbled down the tunnel. His shirt being the only thing on, his legs showed trails of blood where his attackers had clawed and bit him. His buttocks still had feces pasted to it from being interrupted, and all that mattered to him now was to get out. His attackers pulled off his shoes and tore away at his pants, so now he was a bloody mess walking around the dead Metro with only one sock and a torn, button up shirt.

As he walked over the dead bodies lying out in front of him like a carpet, Artu sniffed the air. There was something in it that offended him. It didn't smell like him, and it didn't smell like the dead… Artu couldn't place it.

And then he heard something.

Artu turned his head quickly and hissed at the noise. He ran as fast as he could over the dead bodies to get to the source of the noise. He stopped and looked down to a man who was bloody and beaten. At first glance he appeared to be dead, just as everyone else around him. Artu leaned in close to the man's face and hit the man's forehead with the palm of his hand. The man's eyes creased slightly and he quietly groaned.

Artu hissed at the man once again and punched him in the face, then again, and again. Then Artu began to beat the man repeatedly, snarling, hissing and screeching the whole time. Artu screamed out his fury, and began to wale into the man who was lying unconscious on the ground. A fist hit the man's cheekbone, a fist flew into his forehead, into his ribs, into his sternum, into his gut. The young man lying on the ground was helpless against Artu's fury.

Then another noise.

Artu looked over to his right and saw a little girl crawling out from underneath her dead mother. She must have been no older than 9. She was crying and panting at the struggle of getting out, and finally stood up. She looked up at Artu and didn't hesitate in screaming at the top of her lungs in horror. Artu screamed out in anger in response and ran after her. The little girl ran away as fast as she could, with Artu right on her tail. She led him out to the streets and soon the Metro was quiet all over again.

Will wasn't able to keep conscious for more than a moment. He laid on the floor, freshly beaten by…whoever it was. It hurt for a moment for him, but he soon slipped back into the dark void and was out once again.