6:15 A.M.
Emily Perry was hurrying up the half-mile long road that led to the back entrance of her school. She had never been late to school, and would be damned if she was going to be late for the field trip. It was probably the only reason why she had chose to go with the regular Physics class instead of the AP class. She was smart enough to get in, but the child in her said that a cheap trip to the amusement park to study the physics involved with roller coasters would be more fun than the aeronautics museum.
She would have to slow her gait every once in a while and turn her head to make sure that Steve Bannister was still close. Steve was the heaviest kid in the class, perhaps the entire graduating class. They've been friends since the beginning of junior high school, and to say that they weren't a part of the in crowd would be accurate. Neither of them possessed any of the three things that were required to be considered 'cool'. They weren't too athletic, they didn't have a car and neither of them were considered desirable by the opposite sex it seemed. The fact that Steve was often referred to as "Bowling Ball" Bannister didn't really help matters, a clever name devised by David Torrance, who was considered the class asshole by many of those on the outside fringe of popularity. The name stuck mainly because Steve was kind of short.
"Jesus Christ Steve, we're going to be late. Hurry your fat ass up." Emily replied with a smirk, to show that she was joking.
"You know, I take offense to that. I actually lost four pounds in the past two weeks." Steve said in between breaths, sucking in his chest and chuckling a bit. Losing four pounds might bring him down to the two hundred and fifty mark, so he still had a ways to go.
Emily would smile, shaking her head as she turned back around, with Steve walking beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a guy running on the other side of the street, behind the chain link fence and in the park. He was running towards the north entrance away from them, but she did notice that there was a rather large, dark stain on the back of his shirt. She didn't think anything of it really, people can wear whatever they want.
"So what rides are we going to hit first?" Emily asked, averting her attention back to her sidekick.
"Hmm...I think I'm going to have to go for the hot dog stand." Steve nodded as if he actually thought about the question. It would just bring Emily to shake her head slowly again, her fingertips dragging along the fence to her left.
"Didn't you eat breakfast?" Emily asked.
"Yes, but I woke up late so I forgot to pack a snack." Steve replied, shifting his backpack to his right shoulder. It dragged his t-shirt up his stomach a little bit, exposing the skin that overlapped the top of his blue jeans. "Besides, their hot dogs aren't too bad. And with all that walking around, I'm going to need some food in my system to keep me going."
"The only thing that those hot dogs are going to make you do are take extra trips to the bathroom, which means I wind up sitting around and waiting for you while those bastards go on the rides first." Emily nodded slowly as she came to a halt. Her hand shot out and lightly grasped Steve on the shoulder, causing him to jump somewhat in surprise. Straight ahead of them, it looked like there were four people running towards them. To be more accurate, it seemed as if one of them were being chased by the other three. Emily squinted her eyes a bit, but Steve's better vision allowed him to see more clearly.
"Hey, isn't that Alex?" Steve asked, raising his hand and pointing in the direction of the oncoming pedestrians. They were still about seventy yards away, but Emily's nod would confirm his question. She didn't really know, so she just went with it.
"Yeah...yeah I think that is Alex."
"Man, he must have done something to piss those people off." Steve smiled as they just continued to look straight ahead. Alex was probably one of the wealthier kids in their grade, and if you didn't know it, he'd be sure to tell you. Alex was also one of the most obnoxious, often saying things that would get anyone else beaten down. But, because of his money and the fact that both his parents were lawyers, no one dared to touch him. He also had the protection of a few of the more popular football players.
Before Emily could answer, the scene from about fifty feet away would start to unfold. In a matter of five seconds that seemed to last an eternity, one of the people chasing Alex managed to bring him down to the concrete sidewalk, jumping on his back and tearing into his left shoulder blade with his teeth. The two others huddled around the now screaming Alex, using their hands and their teeth as well to take a chunk out of his neck, spraying blood across the gray cement. The two seventeen year olds just continued to watch on in horror, as the screams eventually died down into inaudible sobs. In a matter of moments, Alex was dead, with chunks of flesh being taken from his neck and most of his right arm and sternum. The stunned silence was finally broken when the people who had killed poor Alex had snapped their attention towards the pair of teenagers down the road.
"Holy shit! What the fuck?!" Steve exclaimed, finally snapping Emily out of her state of shock. The tears would soon flow from her eyes and down her cheeks, as Steve's meaty hand would slap her shoulder hard. "Let's go !"
Steve practically had to turn Emily around as the people would start to make a dash for them. They both started running back down the long street towards the main road, but the group was steadily gaining on them. Emily shot out ahead of Steve, and was slowly pulling away as they continued to run, now maybe no less than fifteen seconds away from reaching the main road. Emily turned her head and extended her hand towards Steve, who was starting to breath heavily once again. As she turned, she saw that the three were right on Steve's heels. She had no choice but to make a desperate attempt to cry out.
"Steve, no!" Emily shouted through the steady stream of tears, but it was too late. She stopped about twenty feet away, as one of them jumped on Steve's back, but came down with his backpack. The strap got stuck under his arm, which caused him to get pulled backwards and hit the ground with a thud. One of them jumped on him, but Steve managed to fight him off and push him to the ground. Steve sat up, but was grabbed around the neck and pulled back down. He let out a blood curdling scream now, as Emily shrunk down to the floor, crouching and holding her head in her hands, sobbing as she heard her best friend's ultimate demise. She would eventually look through the cracks of her fingers, seeing the three tear into his stomach greedily. With her knees and legs shaking, Emily got back up to her feet and turned around, taking off in a sprint before she was next on the menu. Her instincts took over and she ran, faster than she had ever run before. She didn't know if they were running after her or not, and she didn't care. Emily just wanted to get home, get her family and get to the police. They'd know what to do, she thought.
Emily got to the corner of the street, and not hearing any footsteps behind her, she finally decided to turn around and see if she was being chased. They were still chomping away on the carcass of her deceased friend. One of them would finally get up and turn his attention to her, a snarl on his unusually pale face and a crazed look in his blood shot eyes. Emily's brain quickly assessed the situation, scanning through the list of rational explanations for a reasonable explanation. With the guy slowly advancing at first, she quickly settled on the first thing she could think of. An epidemic!
"You're not going to eat me!" She cried in a sort of maniacal defiance, perhaps due to the traumatic situation she had just encountered. Quickly turning on her heels, she took off in another run across the street. There was no time to think about the next course of action though, as all that could be heard from her left was a loud screeching, then everything went black. Her body was thrust up into the air in an instant, then came crashing down on the windshield of the light blue Mustang that had viciously taken her life away. The car swerved once more as Emily's body fell off to the left, her arm being plowed over by the back wheel of the vehicle that had suddenly jumped the sidewalk. The glass from the pet shop window had absolutely shattered as the car crashed into the empty display cage where the dogs were usually kept. Both of the passengers were knocked unconscious, the woman smacking her head violently against the dashboard. The car was covered in pieces of the black metallic cage, as a few of the animals who had gotten loose were now running over the car's smoking hood and out of the store. The streets of Hyde Park were quiet now once again, at least for the next five minutes.