Note: Without further ado...
Virulent
Chapter 4
Bella screamed. Loud, shrill and blood-curdling.
Even the woman next to Bella, who was bleeding to death, stared at her in horror. She would've screamed too. If she could. But her throat could hardly make anymore noises as it was.
The creature staggered backwards as it stared at the human being in front of it. To Bella, staring at such a thing was like a nightmare coming true. She pinched herself, willing herself to wake up.
I'm not in a supermarket, I'm at home, she demanded internally.
The creature was nothing she had seen before. It looked like a skeleton. One that could walk and apparently injure people. Was this what Alice had been talking about? Was this what the whole world was interested in? For the first time, Bella wished she'd paid more attention to the news and what was going on around her.
Damn, if I had researched more on this, maybe I would know how to defend myself, Bella thought.
The skeleton still resembled that of a human being. She could see the scarce pieces of hair that hung around the top of its skull and the shadows of gruesome decay that lined its face. If she wasn't feeling so threatened like she was about to die, Bella would've found such a creature to be intriguing and even kind of cool.
She did visual arts in high school. Having gone through a phase where she only wore black clothing and black eyeliner, Bella could definitely find inspiration out of this sickeningly interesting creature. But sadly, she was no longer in a phase where she liked heavy metal and all things gothic and maybe a dash of some Edgar Allan Poe. Now, she was a young adult who was forced to be Alice's mannequin.
Alice Brandon was Bella's good friend, and next door neighbor. Establishing her own clothing line, Alice would always remark on how stylish her clothes would look on Bella. Bella couldn't find it in herself to complain about the amount of clothes Alice would make her try on. Of course, she'd give Bella those clothes as a gift for being such a reliable friend. But that didn't stop Bella from whimpering every time Alice would gasp with a new idea. A new idea meant that Bella would be the first one to know about it by dealing with it first-hand.
Alice's imagination and ideas were impeccable. But Bella knew nothing of fashion, usually offering lame suggestions and opinions. Even though Alice was someone who was easily enamored by all things dainty and beautiful, the girl could definitely hike. Bella wasn't much of a hiker which meant that she had to turn down every single one of Alice's invitations to go hiking on the weekends, contritely of course. If there was one thing Alice Brandon didn't like, it would be camping. But the occasional six mile hike kept Alice in shape. She liked it for that reason alone.
The demonic skeleton was now making an attempt to cover its ears, if it even had any. She could see the ribs of the creature and the blood marks that covered its body, if one could even call it a body. It was more like a pile of standing bones, but nonetheless, it looked like something that had risen straight out of a graphic, horror novel.
Bella continued to scream. The woman on the ground even started to cover her ears, wondering when this would all end. When the woman had been attacked, she was paralyzed on the spot. She made no noise. Instead, she tried to push away the bloody creature. Now she stupidly realized she should've screamed. After all, the creature seemed to double forward in pain at the sound of Bella's high-pitched voice.
The red-haired woman always believed that strange, zombie-like creatures, such as the one standing in front of her, would be attracted to loud noises. So that was why she hadn't dared to make any. Now she concluded that, perhaps all those television shows and survival novels she had read were all wrong. They couldn't have been accurate, surely. It was all fiction. She wanted to hit her forehead. She wanted this to be another story, novel, or movie. She wasn't prepared for the realness of it all.
I mean, some people even say that vampires sparkle, the woman thought to herself, not that I've seen a vampire before.
The creature's slightly golden eyes flickered between the two human beings in front of it. Its eyes seem to express pain at the amount of noise Bella was making. It felt like Bella had screamed for a full minute before the rest of the customers at the local supermarket decided to drop their baskets and run to the source of the panicked scream.
"What the fuck," a gruff voice said. "I thought the news was bullshitting."
"Oh my-" an elderly woman said. Many around her did a double take, wondering how she traveled so fast with the rest of the able-bodied crowd.
"How did you walk here..." a man said, his forefinger on his chin. The elderly woman gave him a deadly glare.
Bella vaguely heard the manager come out and shriek in horror before dialing the police.
"Do something!" a young girl said, tugging on the sleeve of her father's shirt.
At this point the creature was walking backwards, accidentally hitting the shelf behind it and making numerous items drop onto the ground. But the creature was far from dead. The scream had merely scared it. Such a creature could not be killed by noises. It probably just didn't like loud noises. But Bella couldn't scream forever. Her vocal chords were strumming their hardest, the vibrations would cease soon. This creature, however, could definitely live forever, unless someone decided to kill it.
The gruff man who had arrived and spoken first, tackled the creature and hit its skull. Blood splattered onto the floor but the creature was fighting back with all its might. Bella's screaming stopped and it seemed to get stronger.
"As annoying as your scream is, keep screaming, woman!" the man yelled as he fought with the creature. Bella opened her mouth again.
"Someone, go get a knife," the man yelled. People seemed to be confused with his command. A knife, a woman thought, where on earth do you get a knife?
"For heaven's sake, it's the supermarket. They sell pans and pots. Even bad make-up. Go grab a knife or something," the elderly woman said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"I have a Swiss Army Knife," another man offered, digging into his pocket. It was the man with the horrified daughter by his side.
"I don't think you can stab that skeleton to death with such a small, pathetic knife," someone, from the back of the gathering group of people, said.
Suddenly, the growling noise from the creature ceased as the man who was fighting it seemed to have strangled it. It gurgled a strange liquid from its mouth as it stopped moving. The burly man jumped back and instinctively wiped his hands on his trousers.
"Show's over, folks," the man said. He looked unfazed by what would be an utterly traumatizing experience for many. But Bella could see a slight tint of uncertainty behind the man's eyes. No one had ever seen such a creature. At least in real life.
Silence settled over the group, as people started to participate in their own private conversations. Murmurs filled the vast supermarket before the sounds of sirens were heard. The police was here, offering some relief to many of the customers.
The burly man stood up and Bella could see him clearly now. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes. His frame stood at six and a quarter feet. He was a large guy.
"Thanks," Bella breathed out, feeling her voice becoming very dry from all that screaming.
"We've got to get her to a hospital," the man, who had just defeated a terrifying creature with his bare hands, stated. He was staring at the woman who was still gurgling on the ground with blood.
"Will she turn... into one of them?" someone asked, worriedly.
Nobody had an answer to that. As far as half the customers were concerned, the last thing that the news anchors had stated was that officials were still trying to find out the details of those creatures. But it seemed like those creatures were advancing faster than anticipated. They were getting closer and closer...
"Bella Swan. What's your name?" Bella said to the man who was now checking the bleeding woman's wounds.
"Emmett McCarty," he said. "And I'm sorry about what I said earlier. Your screaming was superb."
Bella smiled weakly. The world had just become a little bit weirder. She assessed the creature that was sprawled on the ground, in front of her.
She couldn't stop staring at the dead, undead thing.
Love, perpetually.