She couldn't remember exactly how long ago it had happened. Days ago? Weeks ago? Maybe even months ago. But whatever... It didn't matter much anymore. She was too far along for any solider, any medication, vaccination or antibiotics to help her now. The women had been bitten, gotten the infection, or the virus... whatever the CDC had called it back then.

She was infected.

The military called her kind a runner. Runners were the first of the four stages of the infection. After came the stalkers, then clickers, and finally bloaters. But in all honesty, the runner stage was probably the worst stage. You could still remember old memories, but you couldn't control yourself. One moment your head was aching with the dulled pain of fungus growing in your brain, then the next you were tearing an innocent person to shreds. She hated it. But above every other shitty thing, she couldn't for the life of her remember who she was.

V... that's what her name had started with. Or maybe it was a Y... no, she was pretty sure it was a V. But she supposed it didn't matter much anymore, anyway. Not a single person thought of who the infected must have been before, or what their personality was like. Just like their sanity, the infected's past was diminished slowly and painfully. The only thoughts left were intense desires to spread the disease... spread... the disease.

A muffled whine echoed through the air, and hit the runners ears. Instantly, she began craning her neck all over, searching for a hint as to where the sound had come from. If there was whining, there was a host fit enough for the infection. And, unwanted by the small fraction of human left within her, the runner started toward the source of the sound. There was a strong hunger in her mind, but she didn't want to fulfill it. Not like this.

As she turned into the shaky building, the runner wondered briefly if the people inside would be able to put her down. She didn't want to be a runner anymore.

Another cry echoed through the decaying building, and moments later the runner was walking toward a small desk in the corner of the room. A creak of the floorboards. A distinct SHUSH! sound. There were people behind that desk, and all at once the runner realized they were young. Too young to deal with so many infected. The human inside of her wanted to stop her body from walking over to that desk, but couldn't.

There was more noise from behind the desk. Feet shuffling against broken wood. It was faint, but runners had insanely acute hearing. Nothing could slip passed her.

She let out some sort of wale. Possibly a battle cry, when she saw the family of four cowering behind the desk. Hiding. As if that ever worked.

The father stood from the ground and aimed some sort of small handgun at the runner. It looked pathetic, but it did hurt. Runners still felt pain, and as the bullet shot through her shoulder, she let out a scream. Then suddenly, whatever her name was ran toward the family, arms failing violently. Moments later, she felt her fist make contact with the bridge of the father's nose, and he stumbled back, whimpering.

The woman inside the infected body cringed.

Her hands grabbed the man's shoulders, and she pulled him toward herself. Her mouth gaping, the runner tried against all his strength to pull him toward her. After a few struggles, the blackened teeth of a runner made contact with the man's neck. The mother, presumably his wife, let out a bloodcurdling scream. And both children, two brothers around the same age, probably sixteen or seventeen, screamed and cried as their mother tried to cover their eyes and pull them away from the brutal scene.

For a few moments, the runner watched as the father's body writhed and his throat became raw from screaming. Blood trails from the bite wounds were running slowly toward his family, and all at once the runner realized what her brain was telling her to do. Moments later, she was off toward the mother.

The runner could admit that that woman screamed louder than anybody she had ripped to shreds before. She felt like her eardrums were rupturing, and that only stirred all the other infected in the area. People didn't understand the more they screamed the more infected came, and the runner wished people would just shut their mouths. The infected were jumping in through windows and rushing in through doors, but the woman still didn't stop screaming.

So, in annoyance, the runner tore the woman's lips off, and threw them aside.

The one kid was crying, but the other was just staring black faced. She couldn't ever imagine what that must've been like... seeing your whole family die, that is.

"RUN!" the black faced kid yelled, grabbing his brother by the scruff of his neck. "WE GOTTA GO!"

"We can't leave them!" the other said, tears falling down his cheeks.

But moments later a clicker had its hands clasped firmly on the kid's head, and the runner didn't want to look anymore.

His brother, now alone and having witnessed his entire family get slaughtered, ran out the back door. And the infected woman was the first to stand from her prey, and begin chasing after him through the dark back rooms of the store.

At the end of the hallway, there was a door, and the kid kicked it open without hesitation. He regretted it, and the bloater in front of him screamed, sensing the sounds of a live body. One not yet tainted by infection, but had to be soon.

He looked back into the store, seeing the group of infected, lead by the runner whose name started with a V, and cringed.

"Too many..." he murmured to himself, tears dotting his eyes.

The teenager started sprinting into the back, eyes set on a small opening in between a couple of infected. He figured if he could get through that, he could hop the fence and be home free. However, he felt a blistering cold hand on the back of his shirt. Without any hesitation, the hand pulled his limp body up towards itself, put both hands into either side of his mouth, and... tore his head into two pieces.

His body hit the ground with a loud thud. The runner ran over instinctively, and began to bite every inch of his body that she could, as if he might come back as an infected. There were bodies all over the ground, covered in bite marks, and all drenched in a thick, red blanket. The runner took a moment to look over all of the recent kills.

What have you done? the woman thought. What the fuck have you done?