Frank's Last Thoughts

They had to be here. They said they would. They had promised they would. The recording had said the forty-second blockade. They were at the forty-second blockade and, guess what, NO SOLDIERS!

Frank trudged through the blockade past the tanks and trucks and tents and all that other shit that suggested that someone should be there. If not soldiers like the recording promised, then a civilian or a foreigner or someone. Someone.

Just south of Manchester at the forty-second blockade. They were there. But no soldiers were with them. Looks like Selena was right in suggesting that the soldiers were all dead. God, why had he been so stubborn about coming here? Why?

It was all a huge injustice. The loss of his wife. The loss of civilization. The unseasonable drought. The Infected. Now this, their last hope of salvation completely demolished. The thread that had kept him going--kept them going actually--was gone.

His last words were still ringing in his ears. "GO FUCKING WHERE?"

That hadn't been right of him. He was sorry. He'd need to apologize for that later.

Frank sat down on a block of cement and stared at the ground with his branch dangling between his fingers. It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. They had been waiting for so long for a chance to get out and find those soldiers that the recording had lied about. Then they had gone through so much shit to get to the blockade. And what was it all for? NOT A GODDAMN THING!

Frank started breathing a little more deeply and began to get himself under control.

Then a sound reached his ears that made him snap his head upwards.

A crow was cawing. He could see it all black and cawing to the air. It was eating a dead body. Possibly a dead Infected. Not unlikely, the body might have come from the soldiers' last stand. That is, if the soldiers had had a last stand. Maybe the Infected had just come in and… killed them in their sleep.

That concept had always bothered the hell out of Frank. Going to sleep was a problem for him, so he had become adapted to staying up all night sometimes. Especially now that he did have something to worry about that might sneak up on his helpless unconscious self and puke blood all over him, make him something he didn't want to be, make him an Infected. He was so tired now, though. His eyes were bloodshot and felt exceptionally dry.

"Get out of it," he ordered the crow. It also bothered him to see a crow scavenging the remains of a human body like the human meant absolutely nothing. The equivalent of dirt. Even if the body was that of an Infected, the Infected had still been human once.

The crow went on cawing, however, oblivious to his command. "Get out of it," he repeated a little more huskily, his anger showing in his voice. He walked over to a sheet metal gate below the crow and the body and kicked it. That was the biggest mistake he ever made in his entire life.

The crow fluttered away from the body of the Infected in a hurry, startled by the loud bang. The body was disturbed as well, and a single, tiny drop of blood fell from its ravaged neck.

There was a strange sensation as it splashed into his eye. He gasped as he blinked the red vision out of it and gazed at the ground. He knew as soon as it hit his eye that he was done, that he was Infected.

He started rubbing frantically at his eye, trying to bring the blood back out, to take back his kick and the crow and everything. He worried if he'd ever see Hannah or Jim or Selena again before he was fully gone. He worried if he'd ever get to apologize for his outburst. He had seen demonstrations of the extraordinarily short time it took for a person to decompose to nothing and begin to kill others.

He barely realized he had dropped his stick as he raised his other hand to his eye.

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FUCKING FAIR!

"Dad, are you all right?" Hannah asked, and a chill went through Frank's body. He was about to leave her all alone. It wasn't fair. He looked at her, keeping the worry out of his right eye--the one that hadn't been dosed in death--because she didn't need to know just yet.

"Yeah, I'm fine, sweetheart," he replied and then started breathing a little rapidly. "Sorry I lost my temper."

Hannah nodded and began to walk away, back to Jim and Selena.

"Hannah," he called to her, feeling the infection spreading way, way too fast for comfort. She turned around and looked at him with her arms crossed around her chest. "I love you very much."

Hannah smiled and chuckled a little bit, not noticing the seriousness in his voice. He was about to leave his daughter alone in this world. It wasn't fair. "What?" she asked as she began to walk forward.

"Keep away from me," Frank ordered. Now worry was spreading over Hannah's face much like the infection spreading through Frank's body. His last swell moment with Hannah had come and gone, now was just the horror of his becoming Infected. "Stay where you are."

Hannah kept coming though, her arms now uncrossed. Frank turned his head slightly away from her. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR! THERE WERE NO SOLDIERS THERE! HE WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE HIS BITCH OF A DAUGHTER ALONE IN THE WORLD!

He suddenly felt like killing everything. It was the infection. Hannah wasn't a bitch. He tried to calm himself down and failed miserably.

"Dad?" Hannah was now close. Too close. Too fucking close.

SHE WAS STILL DISOBEYING HIM!

"Keep away from me!"

"Dad?"

"KEEP AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed and grabbed her, pushing her away.

"DAD!"

Then Hannah fell on her ass as Jim and Selena came rushing over to the sound of Frank screaming. He started repeating himself like a broken record as he turned around and started leaving them behind. Then he started twitching. Hannah was screaming again. He wanted to shut her up for good, but no. No. It wasn't fair it wasn't fair it wasn't fair IT WASN'T FAIR!

"What's wrong?" Hannah exclaimed. "DAD!"

He knew that Selena and Jim knew what Hannah was trying not to think about.

"Jim!" he heard Selena shout. "Jim he's infected!"

"No!" Hannah screamed. "No!"

Then Selena started telling Jim to kill him. "Kill him!"

Hannah was screaming protests that went unnoticed.

This all wasn't fair. It was a huge injustice. Now Frank was so angry that everything seemed calm. Frank turned to Jim, gleeful that he was about to kill Jim. About to kill that little fuck.

Jim was raising his bat to bash Frank's skull in. The camouflaged soldiers behind Frank got to killing him first. He didn't feel the bullets entering his body, but he knew what was happening. He was dying.

Frank fell to the ground and died as the soldiers that he had been waiting for so long to meet finished him off.

!!!$%$%$%

"Stay away from him!" a soldier screamed as he closed in with his weapon raised. "Stay away from that body!"

Jim took two steps away, not believing what he had just seen.

The soldiers moved in quickly, making certain that Frank, loving father and husband was dead.

In the background, being hugged by Selena, Hannah looked onward at her dead father. In a very small and childish voice she spoke.

"Dad?"

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Hey, MorbidMan here. This is my first update. I had wanted to save this for one of the last ones, but I realized I should probably do all the deaths in order. Next comes one of the soldiers. I don't remember his name, but since I continuously pause and rewind the particular scene I'm writing about, I'll have his name learned for the next chapter. Thanks to my… two reviewers. I'm a little disappointed that I only got two reviews for my first chapter, but I hope more people will come and read this. See you all next chapter.

"That's all folks!" - Porky the Pig "Looney Tunes"