The Human Race (Book 1)

by Tahnee Fritz

  The Human

  Race

  By: Tahnee Fritz

  Copyright © 2013 Tahnee Fritz

  All rights reserved

  For Dad

  Part One

  I hate what’s become of the world. Most of us humans do. There’s so much violence and blood and meaningless death. Not even the normal kind of death where your heart stops beating and your loved ones put you in a hole in the ground for you to spend eternity. If you’re one of the lucky ones, that’s what you’ll get.

  But it’s not like that anymore.

  The world has changed.

  Depending on what happens to you, causing your heart to stop beating, there’s a pretty decent chance that you’ll come back as one of two different horrible things. They’re both somewhat similar. They’re disgusting, covered in filth and blood, and they always stink of death. They both have the power to destroy your entire life in only a few seconds. All it takes is just one bite or a single scratch from either beast and you might as well kiss your human life goodbye.

  It’s as simple as that.

  I guess I should shed some light on how the world got this way. Five years ago, these brilliant scientists decided they needed to create the ultimate cure. For the life of me I can’t remember what the cure was actually called. It was supposed to be the one thing to allow us humans the ability to live for years longer than a normal lifespan without the constant worry of what deadly diseases we could catch. It was the cure for cancer, diabetes, chronic asthma, hell even the common cold was on the list of what this thing was going to take care of. But, just like all of the other wonder drugs ever to hit the market, this one had a side effect. A really, really bad side effect.

  Now, this cure did work at first. People were getting healthier and their lives seemed to be getting better. No one needed to pay for medicine anymore and some pharmacies across the globe started to close their doors for good. Everything appeared to be perfect. Then there came this little boy who suddenly burst into flames while at the park with his mother on a bright, sunshiny day. If I remember right, he had some form of leukemia and his mother took him to one the magical scientists with the cure. The little boy died of severe sunlight exposure with boils and burn marks all over his body and not much of an explanation as to why it happened.

  Soon after, numerous cases of this really bad sunburn were reported all across the world and people started to link this problem to the cure. Mainly because those who experienced this problem were injected with it and those who weren’t, were fine in the sunlight.

  Then, there came something else. Another added side effect of this cure. An older woman out in California decided one night, she wanted to go a little crazy, bite her husband while he slept, and drink every ounce of his blood. There was a picture of that woman in the paper a few days after the incident. She had this eerie appearance. Her skin was deathly pale, kind of translucent, and her eyes were hazed over a lot. If her hair hadn’t already been grey, it would have turned grey.

  This was happening all over the country. Reports of people going crazy and they stopped being themselves. They never went out in the sunlight anymore and craved the taste of blood over anything else. Offer them a donut, they’d reach for your wrist instead and if they didn’t suck you dry, you were doomed to become one of them. A vicious new lifecycle.

  It wasn’t long before the name “Vampire” hit the streets. They aren’t like those cozy vamps you see in the movies, the ones that glitter in the sunlight or fall hopelessly in love and change their ways. The ones in the real world, the world that I live in, can’t come out in the sun. Their pale skin starts to boil and blister and this nasty, yellow puss starts to come out. It’s really gross when you see it happen up close and personal, but that is the fastest way to kill one of them. Unless your aim with a gun or crossbow is dead on and you hit them in the heart first try. Even then you have to get really close in order to hit the target and that is definitely not one of my favorite things.

  These vamps can be tricky sometimes. They can fool with your mind and still look and act human, only if you catch them in the right time of day. They speak, not loud or in complete sentences, but enough to get you think they’re still human. That’s how people get killed, when they don’t pay attention to the details. I’ve learned how to tell the difference between the vamps and the living. First of all, their eyes can give it away almost instantly. As long as you pay attention, the eyes are grey and hazed over, making it look like they’re blind or have really bad cataracts. But they can see just fine and they know exactly what they’re looking for. I tend to stay away from those guys, especially at night.

  So, with this unpleasant side effect of the cure, those very same scientists came up with a way to cure vampirism. I find it quite humorous that the government and the rest of the world allowed the same group of people to attempt to cure what they started in the first place. One would think they would have found someone else to do the job, but that’s what happens when no one thinks of the obvious. Those guys got it wrong the first, they’re definitely bound to screw up again.

  It wasn’t long after this new cure for the vampires before the next batch of monsters came along. In fact, it happened right on the operating table. They injected some young man, a victim of the original cure, with this new magic liquid and waited and waited. Eventually his hand started to twitch and a very slight amount of color returned to his skin. Not much, but enough for them to believe the new cure worked. They did tests with some UV light and his skin no longer boiled. Everyone thought it worked and they got super excited.

  But, that boy’s heart never started to beat again and his eyes changed from grey to the darkest shade of black.

  The scientists thought wrong.

  They saw the problem and wanted to get started on fixing it right away. They just weren’t given the chance. That boy snapped his eyes open and ripped through the straps holding him to the table. He wasn’t a vampire anymore and he was still far from being human ever again. He leapt off the table and landed on a young woman who couldn’t even scream for help before he sunk his teeth into her skin and started ripping her to shreds. She didn’t come back as one of them. She was one of the lucky ones.

  From what I’ve heard about this story, the other doctors in the room tried fighting back. None of them had guns and the security only had a Taser and that only pissed the boy off even more. He attacked, he bit, game over. All it takes is one bite and you can find yourself writhing on the floor in pain as your body dies yet you somehow stay alive at the same time. Thus beginning another horrible lifecycle taken over the world.

  This new disease seemed to spread a lot faster than the vampire outbreak. It took much less time to die and come back as a zombie than it did to slowly die and change into a vampire. I guess the transition into zombiehood is easier than changing to a vampire.

  Now, the zombies are definitely different than the vamps. They are so far gone they don’t have the ability to speak or move very fast at all. They can’t comprehend what you tell them and I highly doubt they care. Even if they tried, they could never pass as a living human. Most of them begin to rot really soon and their skin starts to peel away. Much more disgusting than the vamps. Not a single part of them is at all what their human self used to be. They don’t care who you are when they attack and they don’t care if you try to fight back. They’ll come at you with everything they’ve got and if you’re not prepared to kill them, you might as well face the facts that you’re going to be one of them soon. Very soon.

  Now, as you may not think, these two creatures tend to stay away from each other. I haven’t heard of either one infecting the other and I would absolutely hate to see the product of that. It would probabl
y be some super zombie-vampire thing that still looks and has the ability to act human long enough to trick you so they can eat you and drink your blood before you have time to react.

  Horrible thought, probably give me nightmares for the next few nights. Way to go brain.

  My theory on why they don’t bother each other, I think it’s because they both smell dead. From what I remember seeing in the movies, vamps get weak when they drink dead blood and zombies can tell when you’re already one of them. It makes sense they would leave each other alone.

  After the outbreak of both monsters, the world went so far downhill not much could bring it back up. If people didn’t die from being bit or sucked dry, they died the stupid way. Trying to get away in a hurry and not looking where they’re going. Getting into car accidents or fights over food happened constantly. Then the obvious suicide of millions who didn’t want to become a monster. Glad that thought never popped into my head.

  Technology started to dwindle, another obvious, and it only took a couple years for the power to go off completely. You were considered very lucky if you had a working generator and really had to guard yourself. Like get yourself a tank or build a moat or something to keep thieves at bay. Cars and trucks died right along with everything else. Some still work, but most people just walk or ride a bike if they need to get somewhere.

  It’s not a fun place to live at all.

  So, like I said, the world has been like this for five years. I don’t see it getting better any time soon. Or ever. I’m nineteen now and have seen way too many disgusting things for more than one lifetime. Makes every horror movie I’ve ever seen in my life, seem like a kiddie flick. Things just don’t gross me out too much anymore, which is pretty bad considering how I’m a girl and all. It’s also a good thing that I can handle seeing things this planet never should have gotten introduced to in the first place. It’s a key to survival.

  Humans have also broken up into two different categories. Those that choose to stay in groups and rebuild cities and towns. They have their own means of protection and would do just about anything to keep their homes safe. They have guns and resources to last a while and they actually want to keep the human populate higher than the monsters.

  Then there are the travelers. The ones who stay on the road at all times of the day and night looking for a safe place away from the bad guys. We have our own means of security, whatever weapon is nearest at the time we need one. We need to stay fit in order to get away in a hurry and need to know how to protect our lives as well as the ones we’re traveling with. We are often looked down upon for reasons I can’t quite understand. I guess people just think we’re too undomesticated and only know how to scavenge for things.

  It doesn’t matter which group you’re a part of, though. Either one is subject to an attack by the vampires or the zombies and doomed to look over their shoulders for the rest of their short lives.

  Not an ideal life, but it’s the life the humans have to deal with now.

  As for me, I stick with my dad. He’s the only family I have left and I’d like to keep him around. He’s a funny guy sometimes. Always tries to make the best out of the worst possible situations. We’ve been traveling north for a few months, trying to get to Canada. He’s got it in his head that the monsters aren’t up there, but I can almost guarantee they are. The zombies might not like the cold, but the vamps don’t care. I don’t even think they can feel the cold.

  So this is my life, in a nutshell. We went south at first to find my grandparents and found them dead. We lost a lot of very close things along the way, but it hasn’t destroyed us. Now we’re heading north. A long walk from Florida to Canada and we aren’t even halfway there. Let’s hope we can make it.

  It’s morning. The only way I can tell that is through a small hole in the shack we stayed in overnight. It’s cloudy outside, blocking most of the sunlight. I can hear the pitter patter of rain drops on the tin roof. I’m not a big fan of walking in the rain. I don’t have an umbrella, it takes up too much space and is a pain in the ass to carry. That and I wouldn’t want to run into a vamp or zombie while carrying one. We could always try to find a car for us to “borrow” for a little while, but most of those are either destroyed, empty on gas or the battery is dead. Good things like that are hard to come by anymore. Which is why we stick to the old fashioned form of getting places. By walking and staying in random buildings at night.

  My dad and I always take turns at night to keep watch. A way for us to stay safe and alive when the sun goes down. We’ve been doing this for a while now so it’s gotten to be a habit. I take the first watch and at one in the morning I wake him up so he can finish out the night. We’ve only had a problem with vampires a few times. Nothing dad’s gun couldn’t handle. He’s a pretty good shot when it comes to killing them. Hits them right in the heart almost every time, whereas I miss quite a bit. Unless I’m really close to them, like a foot away, there’s no sense in me wasting my bullets when I know I’ll miss. And I prefer not to get that close.

  The shack we chose to stay in for the night is behind an old gas station. I think they used it to store pop cans and bottles for recycling. It still has that sugary smell and stickiness all over the floor. We only have one sleeping bag to take turns sleeping in. Never bothered finding a pillow, that’s just another thing that will take up too much space. We travel light. Like we only have one change of clothes, each of us have a jacket, and there’s a few other odds and ends in each of our packs. Dad carries the food while I have some old keepsakes in my bag.

  I would love to spend time looking for different things. Like some different clothes for instance. The malls and stores are just so empty nowadays, it’s really hard to find anything that suits us or anything that we like. I got lucky and found my amazingly comfortable black boots when we were in Florida. They were just sitting on the shelf of an old shoe store ripe for the picking. So I picked them, tossed my old raggedy tennis shoes over a telephone wire, and enjoy my new, knee-high suede boots.

  It’s the little things in life you have to enjoy when there isn’t much life left.

  I roll over in the sleeping bag and look up at my dad. He’s staring out through the small peephole in the door. I can’t tell if what he sees outside is good or bad. His facial expression never really changes. He always looks calm and peaceful, like nothing bad has happened to the world or our family. A little bit of that has rubbed off on me and I only take things too seriously when the monsters are around. Thinking like that has managed to keep us two alive for five years now and hopefully it doesn’t fail any time soon.

  I sit up and push the sleeping bag off me. I stretch my arms over my head and let out a small yawn. The watch I’ve always had on says it’s only seven in the morning. Can’t tell what day, but I know summer is almost here. The rain is always a good indicator to tell us when summer is approaching. Dad’s hoping we make it as far north as possible before winter hits. He really thinks we’ll be safe up there.

  That is the only thing I have my doubts on. Even if there are no zombies or vampires up north, the winter will kill us. We wouldn’t have any warm shelter besides a tent or shack somewhere. We don’t have any coats or heavy clothing to keep us from freezing. I’m sure food is pretty scarce up there as well and neither of us are the best when it comes to hunting. But, I stick by his side and hope for the best. If he’s wrong, we’ll find somewhere else to survive or die trying.

  He finally looks away from the peephole and turns to me. A small smile crossing his aging face. Wrinkles took over the corners of his mouth and on his forehead soon after the outbreak of the undead. His once brown hair faded to shades of grey and is wearing thin at the top of his head. He hides his bald spots with a red Cardinals hat he found in an old sports bar. I’ve seen them play once and destroyed their opponent. A good past time of me with my family, when I had a family anyway.

  “Good morning, Bridget.” He says with a smile.

  “Morning, dad.” I say right back.
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  I get to my feet and go to my backpack on a table in the corner of the shack. Inside, I have our old family photo album. I can’t bring myself to look in it, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away either. It would be too much like forgetting I even had anyone other than my dad. I never want to forget what I once had before the world turned to hell. I also have a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, nothing nice, just something to change into when these clothes get too nasty to keep wearing. I also have a black hoodie with fur lining the hood, my favorite one to wear mainly because it has no holes and looks new. There are a few other odds and ends I keep in my bag, like my old IPod and a couple books to read when I get bored. Things my dad says is a waste to keep, but like the photos, I can’t throw them away. To go along with my girly side, I have a hair brush and even some old makeup which I only use when I am able to take an actual shower. The kind with soap and I get to change into clean clothes afterwards. A rare occurrence when you’re on the road.

  I take my hairbrush out and run it through my hair. It’s boring and brown and kind of long, to the middle of my back. I trim it every once in a while, when it gets too out of hand. It’s always wavy, just like how my mom’s was. I wince at the few snags the brush catches in my hair and I can hear my dad snickering. On the handle of the brush is a pink hair tie. I take it off and pull my hair back into a pony tail. My bangs are parted off to the side and I don’t keep them as long as the rest of my hair so they don’t get pulled back with the rest of it. When I’m done, I shove the brush back in my pack and zip it closed.

  I turn back to my father and ask, “So, anything for breakfast?”

  He shrugs, “Same thing as usual, Bridge.”

  I force a smile, “Yay,” then think of the apples we found a few days ago. They’ve served as our breakfast, lunch, and dinner ever since we came across the orchard and stuffed a bag full of them. At least it’s something to eat so we don’t starve.