Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days

by Thomas, Jack

  “I didn’t realize God was still around these days!” I figured I’d join in on the all too familiar fun.

  “Touché! So how many of you are there?” He became serious.

  I couldn’t believe he thought I wasn’t alone.

  Was my performance that good? I’d like to thank the academy, my family, my friends, the director and my costars for allowing this performance to come to life.

  “Information best left alone.” If I didn’t answer then I wouldn’t have to lie which meant he couldn’t see through the lie. A paranoid way to think indeed, but paranoid was a great way to think, indeed.

  “Fair enough, just don’t suddenly decide to go mad and kill me anyway.” This guy was just as paranoid as I was. “I’ve seen too much of that these last few days.”

  I completely agreed with his way of thought. He was me, but not. I couldn’t sit here and chat. For all I knew, he was trying to stall until the other two guys came back and put two rounds between my eyes.

  Trust no one.

  I reminded myself.

  “Don’t worry about it. You don’t mess up and we’re not forced to do anything you won’t like.” By We I meant me, and by Me I meant I was going to try to avoid anything even remotely similar to killing someone, anyone else who wasn’t infected. “Now excuse me for leaving this entertaining conversation, but I should leave before the other two stooges come back and ruin the memory of this conversation.” I backed up slowly to make sure no sudden moves were made by Smarty who still stood there with his hands in the air like he just didn’t care. I held the gun in my left hand, still aimed at him and I touched around the door behind me until I caught hold the door handle and made my exit. Dummy and Bossy still walked around the warehouse which I could see because the beam of light that came from the lantern. They headed over to the stairs which led to the catwalk on the second floor.They were heading back. I closed the door behind me and went over to the nearly invisible ladder I came up through in the first place. Back into the shadows I went to wait for my chance to follow the three guys back to Richard. I was so close to finding Jason I didn’t even consider the possibility that Smarty would tell them what happened and hunt me down right in the warehouse. I only had one gun and only one round left inside it. I rolled the dice; all that was left was to see how lucky the roll was.

  Bossy and Dummy took their time while they headed back to the office. They conversed on the catwalk, probably something dumb and meaningless to pass the time.

  They were relaxed, too relaxed. I wanted to reach this level of Zen, this level of ignorance, to be a little happier with everything. I didn’t think I’d ever experience relaxation the right way again.

  After they went inside the office, I rushed out of the shadows and back up the ladder to listen in on the conversation inside. They jumped straight to the point.

  “You were right, we found rope. Look!” Dummy said.

  Footsteps followed.

  “Nice. Now we just need to tie this end to something that could support our weight, and we could be on our way,” Smarty replied.

  “Then let’s get moving,” Bossy finished the conversation off and they went to work.

  For a few minutes all I could hear was movement coming from the inside. The shuffling and stomping of their feet resembled the sound of heavy lifting. They took something to the window to support their weight on the way down. This turned out to be easier than I figured it would be. Smarty didn’t tell them a thing. By the sound of it, he didn’t even consider to let them in on their impending doom. Maybe he really believed there were more with me than with him and weighed out the odds.

  Good job, man!

  Everyone can use a good pat on the back once in a while, I provided my own.

  While I gloated about the success of my bull crap bluff, the room emptied out. When I finally realized it, they were already outside. Lucky for me, the snow would leave tracks so I could take my time going after them and still catch up.

  I went back inside the room and saw the office desk moved over to the window, the rope was triple knotted around it. They made sure it wouldn’t come undone while they went down. I made sure it was safe outside before going out the window. I slowly lowered to the ground outside, used the backpack as a mediator between my hands and the rope so my gloves wouldn’t rip on the way down.

  Three sets of footprints would allow me to follow the hunters and their… kid? All I needed to do was remain unseen by both the infected and Richard’s men, and soon enough I’d be where my brother was.

  I hoped.

  Day 9

  Marcus

  Two handguns and a military edition sniper rifle, “I’m surprised no one got to these before I did,” I said while I analyzed the sniper rifle I held. Bolt action, suppressor, variable zoom scope; this gun was crafter for an expert marksman. The only question on this stash of military grade weaponry was how it ended up in a police station?

  I never arrived back at Creed City to inform the group on what occurred with Edwin. While I headed back to the city I came across a thought which explained a lot of Richard’s actions. Based purely on his personality I believe he looked for a location with a hefty number of supplies to sustain a large group of people. But instead of actually supporting a large group, he’d make the supplies last a long time with his handpicked miniscule group.

  I remembered our days in captivity. As of then he believed no one who couldn’t survive should. Anyone who needed to be saved and hidden by a stronger force was already dead.

  The Hills High School!

  This would be an ideal target for Richard. He could gathered supplies meant for thousands and spare it for however many men he decided to keep alive. They would survive several years longer than however many people the supplies were meant for would.

  I brought this monster back from the dead and I brought him around the lives he took. It was my job to get him to stop whether it meant that I had to talk him out of it or kill him when he refused. This was going to end one way or another.

  I made a mental list of all the places I knew Richard was familiar with. All the places I knew he would look for supplies, weaponry, and ammunition on the way to The Hills. New Ark, Richard’s hometown, it was only a couple of hours walk to The Hills from there. That’s where he had to be going and the next town down the list, the one I mapped out for the kid. I had to get there and stop him from getting himself killed while he tried to locate his family. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t believe he was being naïve or anything similar. I thought he was being brave, maybe a bit selfish in the greater scheme of things, but brave nevertheless. His approach was what I found naïve. Instead of waiting till things became easier to manage before going out to find his family he wanted to do it all in the moment, and as heroic as he might have thought it was, it was still incredibly reckless. His impatience might have led him directly to Richard. Not only that, but it was my fault, I allowed it.

  Even Richard showed more caution than this impulsive kid, and that’s why my priorities were going to be rearranged. Going back to inform Trevor and the others was going to have to wait, it simply wasn’t as important. The kid had to know what mess he was about to get himself into. His one track mind was going to delude him to believe he could take Richard and his men by himself and save his brother as a result.

  Route 23 led me straight to New Ark and the search was on.

  The Town of New Ark

  I took note of the places Richard would most likely be cooped up; the police station was the first in mind. I remembered where it was located from my past visits to him and his family.

  I wonder if Richard’s family made it.

  The police station wasn’t a fruitful search for the kid or Richard, but I did find weapons which would help keep me alive and allow me to move around the town with more ease, therefore, faster. Safety inspires confidence after all.

  Now to find another place to search for Richard, another place he would find safe and easy to manage. Th
at’s what we all strived for; a day with some ease attached to it so we could take a deep breath and relax. The walk through New Ark was eerie at best. I couldn’t understand the lack of infected. There was too much chaos and destruction left behind for there to be none. I considered the small size of the town. It was possible a sound loud enough could be heard from any part of it. Gunshots and explosions would attract the entire infected population to the source.

  If I find the infected I will find Richard, the kid or other survivors.

  Someone was still alive in the town, the lack of infected made it a certainty. To find a point of elevation would provide a large enough visual range to help me locate the infected of the town. This became my first priority.

  I traveled further through the streets of New Ark and headed towards the largest building I could see from a distance. It was only a couple of minutes away from the police station.

  On the way to the building I decided to modify the sniper rifle and remove its variable scope, putting it in the backpack. The plan was to leave only the iron sight on the sniper and use it as a rifle for both close and long range as needed. One full sixteen round clip in each handgun and six rifle rounds, the round in the chamber included, made up the entirety of my ammunition. This was more than enough to handle any of Richard’s men I might have encountered. Regardless of how powerful those three weapons turned out to be against an average person, against a horde of infected they’d be rendered virtually useless.

  I didn’t have to make it all the way to the building before I began to see infected. If they were really all gathered in one spot, I was close to them. I snuck by a couple of walkers and followed the tracks left by others in the snow. The longer I followed the tracks the bigger the mess in the snow became. More mess meant more infected and more infected meant the source of whatever attracted them together was close by.

  Why a warehouse?

  I came close enough to see thousands of infected gathered around what looked to be a warehouse. Anyone inside stayed inside or sprouted wings and took off into the sky, there was no visible or safe exit through the thick cluster of infected. If enough of them were runners it would assure no one could escape, at least not through the giant steel doors in the front. They were left open but clogged by the clustered horde.

  The cluster was reason enough to believe there was someone inside. If I was lucky enough it would be between the kid and Richard. Unlucky meant I would find other survivors who required help and I would have a harder time maneuvering the streets in my attempt to find Richard or the kid while I protect those survivors.

  I circled the warehouse and sized up the danger while I looked for another way in or out of the place. The steel doors were the official entrance and exit but the windows told a stranger story. Towards the back of the warehouse there was an open window and rope coming down to a significantly shorter number of infected.

  Someone could definitely use that rope to escape through the window unnoticed by the larger number of the infected on the opposing side.

  I wanted a closer view to investigate further and it had to be done unseen by any infected. That’s when I remembered the scope for the sniper was still in the backpack.

  I could use it as a telescope.

  Efficiency was always important, that’s the one thing Richard and I could always agree on.

  I briefly scouted the area which surround the warehouse till I found a building with an easy to reach fire escape, this way I wouldn’t have to travel through any buildings and become trapped inside. Once on the roof I walked over to the edge and fetched the variable scope from the backpack.

  I started to check the window and what the rope was tied up to; it was impossible to tell, the ropes went out of range into the warehouse. At the bottom end of the rope was the least amount of infected around the warehouse and they didn’t work towards any major goal, they stood around without stimulation. This combined with the only set of organized footprints in the snow directed away from the warehouse told me the rope was last used as a way out, not in. The infected which roamed around the bottom end of the rope were simply strays from the other sides of the warehouse. This was why they didn’t attempt to get inside.

  I did not need to get inside of the warehouse. Follow the tracks in the snow and it would lead me to their source.

  Back into the backpack went the scope and down the fire escape I went. I caught up to the tracks that led away from the warehouse and followed after them. How many people there were in the group was a mystery. The drag of the infected which chased behind them ruined the tracks and made the shoeprints nearly indistinguishable. It was doubtful a large group could successfully use the window of the warehouse as an escape route without the vast majority of them getting killed by the infected once they reached the bottom, so it was understandably a greater possibility they were a small group.

  I came across walkers but not a single runner while following the tracks. This was useful information. It meant I headed the right direction. I interpreted the lack of runners as a sign that the group which escaped the warehouse was not only close, but they were busy, forced to keep up movement to stay alive if the runners were after them. I could hear no gunshots, they were either a poorly armed group or they tried to save their ammunition in order to maintain invisibility from the infected not already after them. Whichever was true, the fact that they were being chased at all meant I needed to increase my speed in order to catch up to them. It was possible they ran through the town to the fullest of their ability and if so, I would need to do the same to keep up.

  The tracks didn’t lead me out of the town; they led me around it. The survivors I tracked still roamed the town in search of supplies if I turned out to be correct. I hoped they would find a place to stop and search so they could slow down long enough for me to catch up. If the sun came up before I managed to find them getting in close would be more difficult. Even if they turned out to be docile survivors, timing was everything. I didn’t want to get there so late their survival rate dropped to zero; there would be no one to save. If they did turn out to be dangerous, at least I would see it with my own two eyes.

  Time went by and I arrived nowhere, I was led in circles. This small town looked the same from all angles, from every direction, from any height. I wondered if the survivors were lost themselves. Maybe I was doomed to endlessly follow the tracks till either they or I died.

  I wasn’t worried about the walkers anymore. They were easy to move around. The first days conditioned everyone, teaching anyone left how the infected moved, how capable they were and how we should behave around them. These lessons weren’t going to be soon forgotten. The things I made sure to keep the most fresh in my mind were the pace of the two types of infected, how collected they could become and how they behaved when stimulated and when not. This would all be of use in the future. I convinced myself if I learned enough about the infected, I could use it against them and somehow pass on what I learned to improve the quality of life for any survivors I managed to save or come across. This world asked for a solution, a cure. I couldn’t offer this, but I could offer a remedy, a treatment for the plague that ate up anything and everything with life.

  STOP!

  Something was wrong. The subtle change of the track almost went unnoticed. They spread out in every direction.

  Do they know I’m tracking them?

  The tracks displayed signs of evasive actions taken in a moment’s notice. They tried to get away from something new behind them, or they became exhausted and needed to decrease the threat. If they split up the infected which chased them would also, and every individual survivor would have a better chance with less to worry about.

  I slowed down and paid closer attention to the tracks to try to understand what happened. By the looks of things another group of runners must have been passed during their travel and collected with the infected already behind them. There was no telling how many there were all together. The only thing known for sure was that th
e survivors split up and so did the infected. There was one set of tracks split off on its own without any other tracks around it. These specific tracks ran straight behind some buildings and ran the alleyways behind them.

  I told the kid to use alleyways and fire escapes to stay out of the sight. Could this be him?

  There it was. The incentive to follow the safer singled out tracks. They continued through the alleyway parallel to the street but stayed in view of it at all times. One alleyway would end, and the tracks would run across the street and right into the next one. The person who took this path definitely thought through every move they made. This worried me because the most analytical person I ever knew was Richard. Even if he forced himself to rationalize horrible crimes, they were all in his interest and these tracks told the same story. It was possible that I was following Richard and the rest of the group split off under orders from him. It was also possible that I over thought the meaning behind the tracks under an obsessive need to stop Richard as soon as I could catch up to him.

  Screams broke my concentration. I caught up to something, to someone. The screams were faint but as I came closer they became louder. A wall made up of runners stood ahead of me, on the street where the alley ended. I took cover on the side of a building and peeked around the corner to assess the situation. The runners couldn’t have gone through the alley because there was only one set of tracks in it. I gathered they came from the street in which the other tracks were on. It was obvious what happened. They split into smaller groups to also split the infected and they met back up at the building in front of me. I doubted they would stay in the building for too long. It was more possible they only ran through it to keep the infected on one side while they made their escape through the other. All I had to do was go around the cluster of infected and I would catch up to the group I tracked.