CHAPTER ONE: ON THE RUN

It had been one full day since I abandoned Paul and the others to avoid getting the flesh eating virus that Karen had somehow caught from that weird hermit dude. As I sat there in that tunnel, a massive migraine thanks to a killer hangover from all the beers I drank to keep myself occupied that night, I wondered if Karen touched that hermit before Paul accidentally set him on fire. That would be the only logical explanation for how Karen caught it. I growled a little to myself as I sat up, clenching my head in agony, wondering how the others were doing, and if Burt returned with my car along with some great help. I mean, I didn't need to worry. I hadn't caught the virus, but I'm sure Karen gave it to Burt since I remembered that he was sweating like some piggy boy who drank too much wine and then barfed all over his computer because of it. Not to mention he was also coughing up a bit of blood. Did Marcy catch it, too? I felt bad that I abandoned her the most since she was still my girlfriend despite me just abandoning her when she needed my comfort the most. But of course, me being the tough macho Jeff, had to be the alpha male of the group and show no weakness, but I showed the most weakness by abandoning them. They had to have been dead by now, especially since Grim's rabid dog, Dr. Mambo was lurking along our cabin from time to time. I couldn't keep wondering to myself any longer, I had to go back to the cabin. I had to save my friends.

I managed to pull myself up from where I lay, and stretched my arms and back a little bit to waken my muscles and crack my bones a little bit. I rubbed at my eyes and looked over at the entrance to the tunnel I was in. I remembered that I was actually hiding out in an abandoned shed in the basement, so I would have to crawl out if I wanted to see the daylight. This was something I thought about doing last. But nonetheless, I started crawling up to the entrance way, ignoring the empty beer bottles that caused the tunnel to wreak of alcohol, which was something I did not want to drink for a while. I made my way out of shed and managed to stand up, shaking a little bit because I felt a cool breeze brush by me. It was our spring break after all, but that didn't matter what week it was supposed to be. What mattered was getting back home and acting as if none of this shit ever happened. I started walking, holding some kind of cloth in my hand just in case I would need to block out the smell of rotting corpses.

I began to stumble down a little hill the house was on, I was watched the sun gleam brightly over the lake I was near. I thought about getting a drink from the lake to rehydrate my body, but I thought to myself what if that hermit took a dip into the lake to put himself out? I decided I wasn't going to take the chance and continued to our cabin.

As I walked across the shore of the lake, I rubbed at my temples as a way to cope with my hangover, not that this hangover was anything bad. I've definitely had worse hangovers than this one. The worst hangover I could possibly remember was when Marcy and I went to this party last year. My old pal, Sean was celebrating his twenty first birthday with his boys, and I was invited as long as I brought Marcy with me. What I didn't realize was that the stupid chink only invited him as an attempt to steal her away from me. Now, for those of you who didn't know, there are times when I can have thirty bottles of beer and still hold my liquor. It wasn't like what happened that day. I remember walking out of the bathroom after vomiting like fucking crazy, with the intent of having a bit more to drink. I was sure Marcy wouldn't mind since we walked to where Sean was renting a house for the summer. As I walked over to the fridge to get another beer, I looked to my right and like six feet away from me, I could see that stupid Asian cunt brushing his fingers across Marcy's cheek, and Marcy giggling and taking the affection well. I could feel my blood boiling, my anger rising. Maybe if I was sober I would've just told Sean to back off with a warning, but the alcohol was taking over me, man. Alcohol made my temper shorter than it normally is. The next thing I know, I ran across the room and tackled Sean. I then proceeded to beat his face in with a couple of hard hitting punches to his face. I remember Marcy trying to pry me off, begging me to stop, but I couldn't bring myself to come to a hault and instead, I pushed her off of me like she was nothing and could hear her body hit the floor with a light thud. I ended up fracturing Sean's facial features, breaking an orbital bone and cracking his skull. I was arrested and charged with attempted manslaughter and I was only let out because my dad was a successful businessman with a lot of money who could buy his family out of any tight situation. I remember trying to call Marcy for the next three months, but she rejected all my calls. Only when I ended up saving her from attempted rape from Sean, did she end up forgiving me. I then promised her that I would drink responsibly and never lose my temper again as long as we were together.

Anyway, I continued along the passage back to the cabin. I could tell that I was getting closer, since the smell of rotting flesh was beginning to circle the area around me. I could feel myself about to vomit so to avoid that, I pressed the white cloth against my nose. I made my way through a bit of branches and as soon as our cabin was in clear sight, my eyes widened at the horrible disgusting sight. I took the cloth off of my nose for about two seconds and continued to walk through the aftermath of what went down.

I could see bits of flesh and clothing covered in blood scattered all over the area. I also saw Marcy's sandals laying around. One of them however, had her foot in one of them. It was clear that my baby was a goner. I walked over to the cabin to see if there were any more dead bodies, and boy did I guess right. I pressed the cloth tighter to my nose as I looked at the bodies of the people from the gas station we stopped at a couple days earlier. My guess was that they had chased us down to kill us since we were catching the virus, but either Paul or Burt had managed to kill them. I stepped over the first step to the front porch of the cabin since it was drenched in blood and I was not risking to step in the blood as I did not want to catch the virus. I slowly crept into the door way and what I saw almost made me spill my guts.

"Holy shit..." I managed to mumble through the cloth pressed against my nose as I looked down at the floor and beside the fire place was Burt's dead virus infected body. A chair was leaning against his stomach, but I noticed a bullet hole in his chest. Maybe one of those gas people got to Burt but ended up being killed by Paul, but where was Paul?

I took one last look at Burt and noticed that there was a rifle in his hand. Poor guy, he lost a gun war with those rednecks. I then walked over him also to take a look around the place. The kitchen seemed to be the same as it was the day I left, but I wasn't going to touch anything in there in fear of, you guessed it! Catching that fucking flesh eating virus. Fuck! Why was this happening to us?! What did we do that made god punish us?!

I continued to walk slowly past the kitchen and slowly moved my body to look into a bedroom, but didn't really see anything that was gory or serious, so then I turned to the bathroom door across from the bedroom and slowly opened it. As the door slowly moved out of the way so I could get a clear look of the bathroom, I felt myself geting nauseous when I saw that the sink, the bathtub and the shower curtins were drenched in blood. Why would somebody try to take a bath when you know you're bleeding to death because you caught the virus that that bitch Karen gave to you is beyond me.

I could feel myself shaking, I felt scared for myself. Imagine how things would've turned out if I had stuck around? Maybe that crazy dog would've ripped me apart like he did to Marcy, or maybe those rednecks from the gas station would've gunned me down like they did to Burt, or I would die slowly like Karen once she gave me the virus.

I walked back over to Burt's body and removed the cloth from my nose. I could feel myself choking up. This was real shit right here.

"They're...dead..." I managed to say to myself through sobs that weren't trying to come out. "My god..." I could feel the sobs escaping the more I spoke. I still could not believe that any of this happened. Here I was with my pals a couple days ago, looking forward to spending a whole week in a cabin in the woods by a nice meadow, and then suddenly this hermit freak comes along and infects all my friends, and now they were all dead. It was really hard for me to take in.

Suddenly, I began to realize something else, something that I had done that Neither Marcy, Burt, Karen, and maybe Paul did. "I made it..." I mumbled through sobs. That's right, fuckers. I didn't catch the virus and I survived all the shit that went down last night. "I made it...I really fucking made it..."

I kept repeating that to myself as I slowly walked towards the door. The more I walked towards the door, the more excited and enthusiastic I began to get. "I did it...I fucking made it!...I KNEW IT!...I KNEW IT! I FUCKING MADE IT!" I threw my arms up in victory.

I was really really happy for myself. I was going to miss my friends no doubt about that. But what mattered to me most was that I got through something that was extremely deadly. I never really did believe in luck, but some how, some way, I survived it all.

The more I told myself that I made it, the more happy and proud that I got. The tears that were streaming down my face went from fear, to sadness, to happiness. "YES! I MADE IT!" I kept saying to myself as I walked out the door.

"HAHA! I FUCKING MADE IT!" I shouted one more time. Before I could think about what to do next, a loud noise that hit the wooden floor I was on made me jump. I looked over to see what it was, and I could see three police officers with guns pointing at me. One of them was hiding behind a tree, and the other two were behind some wooden fence.

"What the fuck?!" I shouted, scared that I almost got shot. They didn't stop though, they kept shooting. Their bullets missing me by an inch. I could hear the sound of those metal dots piercing the wood on the cabin. I couldn't ask any questions, they thought that I had the virus and judging by what happened, they thought I was a killer, too. I had to escape before I was gunned down like Burt. I ran back into the door and quickly began to search for another way out. I could hear one of the cops walking towards the cabin.

"Dammit! Now we gotta go inside that infested bloodhouse!" he shouted in a snarky tone.

I ran over to where the bedroom across from the bathroom was and looked to see if there was a window that I could fit through. I sighed in relief, seeing that there was a window from my right that looked big enough for me to squeeze through. Before I could think, I could hear the cops' footsteps becoming louder.

"We're gonna take you down, you infected motherfucker!" one of them shouted.

I quickly jumped through the window, but felt myself getting stuck as I only managed to get my body half way through.

"Fuck..." I hissed to myself as I quickly began to move my body left and right in an attempt to squeeze through. After a couple seconds I managed to get through completely before I fell out and landed on the ground lightly back first.

I could feel my heart beat heavily. Nobody told me that the cops were looking for us! Maybe I should't have came back to check out the condition of my friends. Maybe I should've just stayed in that shed/tunnel thing forever if it meant that I wouldn't have to deal with cops that are hunting me down.

The gunshots were going off again. I had to get away from this place fast. I quickly scurried off and began running like a fat boy wanting the last donut. I didn't care if the cops were chasing me or not, the only thing I cared about was getting away from everything involving that cabin.

I took off into another side of the woods, making sure to go into an area where the cops were least likely to find me. There were a lot of dead branches and dead leaves scattered all around, and I'm pretty sure I encountered a lot of tics, but I didn't care, I just wanted to get as far away as possible.

When I heard that the gunshots had died out and felt that I had lost the cops, I decided to stop to catch a breather. I leaned against a big tree and ran a hand through my long blonde hair. I couldn't return to my mom and dad anytime soon, not when this shit was going down.

"The fuck is going on?" I mumbled to myself and felt myself about to cry again. I wiped away a few tears before looking around the area. I was lost in a woods presumably far away from that cabin, but I couldn't stop now. I knew that I had to be on the run because the cops were looking for me and probably weren't going to stop until I was dead. There was no turning back for me now. It's time for this Jeff guy to live a new life.