Inside the small house, I had expected a normal family dwelling: a bed, a living room, maybe a small kitchen just to top it all off. I was even suspecting that a family would be asleep inside, huddled up in their own little beds. What a saw was far from a "normal family dwelling".
Instead of separated rooms throughout the house, the entire area was one big room. The walls were painted a bleak white, and numerous machines lined the walls, their lights blinking and beeping. The floor was tiled and extremely dirty, smudged with dirt and spilled liquids. Florescent lights covered the ceiling, but they had been shut off for the night. Despite this, I could still see perfectly into the room, and it wasn't the machines along the wall, or the dirty floor, or the strange, eerie feel the place gave off that made me choke back a scream.
It was the bodies.
At least twenty beds were arranged inside the room, and a sickly person was lying on each one. Tubes and wires were pierced into numerous parts of their bodies, and some even had strange oxygen masks strapped to their faces. They were covered in nothing but a simple, white bed-sheet, and some of the bodies looked as if they were shivering from the cold. Others lay perfectly still, hands at their sides as if they were practicing a pose for their funeral. They all wore an expression of deep pain on their faces, despite the fact that it appeared that most of them were sleeping. My eyes scanned the numerous bodies, then froze on a bed where a small girl lay, black hair swept out on her pillow and skin a frightening shade of pale white.
It was Diana, my younger sister. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was twisted up into a frown, as if she had tasted something horribly bad. Tubes ran from her arms and connected her frail body to buzzing machines. I felt my throat close up as I looked into her face, and I clenched my fist, claws digging into my palms. I felt like crying- really, truly sobbing. I had to dig my nails deeper into my palms to keep myself from bursting into wails of sorrow. What were they doing to my little sister? Why were they running monstrous tests on her, keeping her trapped in this... this... facility! I felt myself clench my teeth, then let out a short, huffed sigh. I wanted to break into the house and take her away, away from the pain and the Infection and everything- But I knew that I couldn't. She probably wouldn't recognize me anyway, or the monster that I had become. I took a slow step away from the window. I had to do something. I couldn't just see myself walk away. I wasn't going to walk away. I was going to make a plan. I was just about to turn around when I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. Snapping my head to my left side, I bared my teeth out of pure animal instinct. A masked stranger was holding a syringe to my shoulder, pumping an unknown green liquid into my body. I let out a fierce growl and ripped my body away, breaking the needle of the syringe in half, leaving a piece of it embedded in my skin. I bared my claws and sent a blow across his face, but he ducked down just in time to avoid the attack. Who is he? I voice in my head screamed. Trying to hurt me? No! I threw myself at him, bent on destroying this creature. Before I could bite, claw, or do any damage to the man, my vision started to blur and I collapsed into a heap. What was happening? Drugs? The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the man bending over me, plucking the piece of metal out of my skin.
I woke up lying on a messy cot, and my head throbbed with an intense pain. I shot up and looked around. Where was I? It seemed as if I was in a small basement. A desk stacked with numerous papers, bottles, and books sat across the room, and dripping pipes twisted around each other above my head. Tables and bookcases were scattered across the room, stuffed with random objects of seemingly no relation: toilet paper, bags of paper clips, pieces of carved wood, and bottles of Pepsi, among others. Some of the bookcase had fallen down, and other tables had broken legs, aided with the help of a dictionary to help prop it up. A man sat hunched over at the desk, his back towards me. When I sat up, he jerked his head around and trotted over, eyeballing me curiously. A vicious snarl escaped my lips, and I lifted up one of my hands... Only to reveal that my claws had been bandaged together with an industrial form of tape. I brought my hand to my lips and used my teeth to rip the tape off, but stopped when the man started to stutter.
"Oh, oh-oh-oh, I wouldn't do that, no! Please, keep the tape on." His brows furrowed in a look of fear, and I glanced up, studying him. He had shaggy brown hair that stopped just above his ears, and his skin was slightly tanned, complimenting a set of light-brown eyes. He wasn't very attractive, but he wasn't a perfect example of a nerd, either. I snorted as I thought of the perfect thought to describe him: Average. He was just a boring, average dude, probably around his mid-twenties.
"And why not?" I snarled back. A part of me smiled when my voice came out threatening and husky. Very evil-y.
"Um, well, see... You could, well, get mad and, er, attack me." His eyed widened slightly in fear.
"I'm already mad."
"Oh. Well, just hear me out. Okay?" He shifted nervously.
I waited, glaring at him. Who was he to order me around?
"Okay, okay. You-you, well, you're an Infected, and... I've been, uh, somewhat studying the zom-er, Infected, and..." He coughed, then wiped a bead of sweat from his temple. Nervous, eh? "Okay, let me start over. My name-uh, I'm Mark. Mark Davidson. I'm Immune, so-to-speak, and, well..." He sighed. "I've been attempting to study the Infection every since it hit a while back. This..." He gestured to the entire room, cluttered with junk. "...it's my 'lab'. I guess you can say I've been trying to find a cure, but..." His mouth twisted up into a little frown. "Not working." He grabbed a pen from his table and jabbed at the air between us, pointing at me. "But you're probably wondering why your here, eh?" He grinned. I narrowed my eyes. "You're one of the very few- and I mean, hah, very few Infected I've seen that still displays human-like characteristics." He picked up a thick, leather volume and flipped to a bookmarked page, holding it up to display two pages full of minuscule writing. "It's very interesting. Very interesting." His voice trailed off, and I scowled.
"So, you decided to capture me to study me, huh?" I sprinted across the room and grabbed at his shirt. "You got anything to do with my sister? Huh?" I nearly lifted him off the ground. If this- this bozo had captured my sister to run tests and studies on her, I wasn't going to let him off easy.
"No! That room you saw? That's the military's doing." He sighed as I shoved him back into his swivel chair. "I'm non-profit. Hah." He mumbled, then turned around to study me once more. "But you, you're an interesting one indeed." He shook his head, grinning.
"And what do you mean by that?" I narrowed my eyes once more. This guy was fishy.
"Look at you! You're an interesting, a... a- hybrid! You run with the speed of a Witch, but have the senses of a Hunter! Your claws are those of a Witch! You lack the mutations of numerous Infected, and... your human! You think human and talk human, no?" He laughed, his tone tinged with a hint of astonishment. "It's great, just great! Finally, a breakthrough in my study of the Infection! I could have a cure in no time!" He turned back to his desk and shuffled through his papers, pulling bits and pieces of notes as he dug through the mess.
"Now, you listen here!" I knocked over his chair, sending him sprawling onto the ground. "I'm not some stupid lab test! I want answers, and you're gonna give them to me! You're gonna help me! I'm not your lab rat!" I screamed at him, my voice reaching a crazed level. "I don't know what a Witch, or a Warlock, or whatever you're calling me, but there are zombies out there, and I'm one of them. So for Christ's sake, what is going on?"
He stared at me, dumbstruck. Shifting into a sitting position, he sighed. Again.
"Look, I'm sorry. I was just caught up in it all, okay? I've been wandering around, trying to survive against these crazed monsters... and... I..." He rested his head in his hands. "My family, my fiance, they all caught the disease. They're out there, now, wandering the streets. I lost them, and I'm not going to lose myself, too. Hell, I want answers just like you do." I suddenly felt bad for yelling at the guy. I crouched down, and tried to meet his eyes.
"Geez, look... Ah, I'm sorry about your family. I'll tell you what I know, but you need to give me something in return. M'kay?" I tilted my head towards a door. "My little sister, she's sick, and I need to help her. So... We got a deal?" I stuck out my hand, then pulled it back, remembering my deadly claws. I'll help this guy, sure, but I wasn't going to go too soft on him just because he changed mental channels from The Discovery Channel to Soap Opera Central.
He lifted his face from his hands and smiled.
"Deal."