A Tale from the Rot and Ruin
Chapter One
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
It had only been a few hours since the first contact in New York with the Reaper Plague, when the dead began to rise and mothers killed sons, and fire seemed to consume the world, leaving a pool of madness in its wake. Eddie Malone had luckily been on the road to return home to his quaint little apartment in Manhattan, so by luck alone he was spared from the hungry mouths that were eating away civilization like termites to wood.
He had just left Albany and was on the semi-long stretch to the Big Apple, as the his people called it. "What a Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers was playing on the radio, and he boredly leaned against the window of his middle-class Explorer. He glanced over and saw a plume of smoke on the horizon, and instantly his stomach shrunk and adrenaline filled his veins, putting his teeth on edge.
Eddie Malone wasn't a hero, a soldier, or even a sports player. No, he was a reporter, and the sight of madness made him feel like leaping up and down with the same feeling a nerd would have in a GameGo store, as he put it. Madness was good for business, afterall. The 9/11 terrorist attacks back in 2001 saw his news firm's rating shoot through the roof. The staff at the firm had a term for stories like this, they called it "Dirty Laundry".
Yes, Eddie loved his job with unheard of devotion. He loved it more than anything, even his wife.
"Ex-wife.." he muttered to himself. He kept looking over to the plume of smoke. Malone had to get to New York; apparently chaotic riots of thousands of people have broken out, the death count was rising by the hundreds with every inch he drove.
After a moment, he sighed; so much was happening but he could only have one slice of the cake. This made him wish there were two of him. This made him anxious, there was so much for him to dig into today, but he could only pick one thing to report, and that was the New York riots.
He returned his attention back to the road, but it seems looking off of the road while chaos was ensuing all around you was a bad idea.
He didn't know how the collision happened, but in half of a second, his ears were filled with the screams of metal exploding; his forehead slammed against the steering wheel, nearly knocking him unconscious. His forehead was lively with the 'screeee' sound his head was emitting, and he was numb for a good while.
After a minute, he raised his face up from the wheel. An oncoming car had kissed his, the fronts of both cars completely merged together, like clay. The radiator of the other car had busted, causing steam to block out the other driver's face. He groaned, laying back against the seat, trying to remember who he was and why his head hurt. His thoughts were interrupted by a delayed air-bag deploying, punching him directly in the nose.
"Fuck!" he exclaimed, all of his memories rushing back to him. He unbuckled his seatbelt and stumbled out of the car, holding his nose and turning to the wreckage.
"Oh, this is exactly what I needed!" he threw his arms out with rage.
"Hey, buddy, watch where you're going, hey?!" he kept yelling sarcastic remarks at the driver, but he didn't receive a response.