The Infection
Mary flung herself down onto her bed, pulling her way-too-heavy backpack up behind her. She had a physics test tomorrow, and she was most definitely not ready.
Cram night, she thought, oh joy.
With an exaggerated groan, she pulled out her lucky red pen and started to write.
And that's when she noticed it: small strings of blue weaving themselves around her arm and, upon further inspection, the rest of her body. What the…
Her mother, Anne, was sitting on the couch with her hands covering her mouth, eyes wide. Mary stumbled into the small living room at that moment, her eyes still staring curiously at the small patterns which now covered half her body. "Uhh…Mom…" she stuttered.
"Mary, come here," she commanded in a frightened voice, not once taking her attention off of their old TV set.
Mary folded her arms behind her back and slowly moved to look at the screen.
They were everywhere. They looked just like anyone else, except for the grey-blue skin and bloodshot red eyes. Screaming. Pleading. Chaos.
"Help us, please…!"
"My baby! No!"
"Cure us,"
"Save us,"
They were each answered by men and women in camouflage, shouting orders and brandishing weapons.
The picture was suddenly replaced with a bird's eye view of the center of New York City. The blue people were being herded into one massive group, each one fighting and protesting against the soldiers.
"Where are you going?" Anne called. Mary was already down the hallway.
"Nothing. Just going to the bathroom," she said quietly as she stared at the blue monster in her bathroom mirror. This can't be happening… a zombie apocalypse. She gulped. And I'm the zombie…
SLAP!
Wake up! Wake up! she commanded herself, violently beating her face with her fists.
"Mary!" Anne had come running when she heard the horrible noises coming from the bathroom. She stopped dead at the doorway.
"National Guard! Open up!" a voice commanded just as their front door was shot down. The man was down the hall in a second.
"….INFECTION!" Anne screamed at the top of her lungs, collapsing against the wall, eyes wide.
The two men gripped Mary by the arms, forcing her out the door at gunpoint.
"Mom!" she yelled, beating at the soldiers even though the attempt was pointless.
"Mom!"
She opened her blood-red eyes for the billionth time with invisible tears that refused to flow. The new sun was shining through the dirty window of the abandoned Barnes & Nobel where she now lived among about fifty others around her own age.
She sighed, beating the emotion off of her face and rising to meet the new day.
"G'morning," said a groggy voice from behind her.
"Oh! Sorry, Andrew, didn't mean to wake you up," she said apologetically. Andrew was about sixteen years old and had absolutely no problem with their present "condition." He had been homeless before the outbreak, so the fact that everyone else was finally on the same level with him suited him just fine. He and Mary had met during the first hours of the so-called "zombie-apocalypse," and had stuck by each other ever since, which would be about two years.
"Let me go!" Mary yelled futilely, grabbing the nearest soldier by the shoulders.
"Step back, ma'm!" he yelled, slapping her across the face with the butt of his gun. Mary flew backwards, and suddenly the pavement was far to close.