Damned Are We

by Durman, Jason

  doc. My first encounter with the Infected..."

  Chapter 4

  PHILADELPHIA

  TWO DAYS AFTER FIRST INFECTION...

  The late afternoon sun shone brightly over the city, streaming in through the wide windows of an

  office building. Markus stood in front of the window, talking on his mobile phone in an agitated voice.

  "Ray, how many times I gotta tell you? Everything is gonna be just fine, man. So please do not tell me you are cal ing in sick again."

  "No, I'm cal ing in wel , Lou. And I plan to keep it that way," the voice on the other side of the line said firmly.

  "For God's sake, Ray..." Markus started, but Ray cut him off.

  "Lou, look, no offence. Normal y, I love your 'glass half-ful ' attitude. It's got us through some tough times, alright? But this time, I swear to God, the glass is definitely one-hundred percent half-empty. And the other half is... I dunno, ful of piss."

  "Come into work, Ray," Markus persisted.

  "No, Markus! People are dying ! I'm not gonna get infected just to keep Franklin Brothers' bullshit database running!"

  "Ray, you're not gonna get infected. There's barely anyone here! There are more infected people in

  your condo."

  "Whatever," the cel -phone blared. "I don't know if you looked out the window, but it's like the end of the world out there."

  "Okay, okay. But, thought-exercise, alright? What if it's not?" Markus said, putting on his best thought-provoking tone as he headed toward the male restroom. "What if this 'Green Flu' burns itself

  out in a week? What if everybody got al excited for nothing, and the only two guys who stayed calm

  and kept this place running was you and me? You know what we're gonna get for that?" He paused to let his fool-proof argument sink in.

  The phone was silent for a moment, before the response came. "Infected."

  Markus sighed irritably. "Come into work, Ray," he persisted, reaching the bathroom and pushing the door open. "Trust me. I got a good feeling about this."

  However, it was too late; Ray had already disconnected the cal .

  "Lazy son of a..." Markus grumbled to himself. He entered the dim bathroom and walked over to the

  stalls. "S'up, man," he said, acknowledging a man standing hunched over in the middle of the room.

  Markus sat down on the toilet and looked at his phone, which started beeping erratical y.

  "Oh, god damn it," he cursed to himself. "How can that server be down again? I just fixed that mother

  – "

  His thoughts were interrupted by a loud THUMP on the door of his stal .

  "Occupied, man," he said, without looking up.

  THUMP. The man outside the stal banged on the door again.

  "Hey, occupado. This stal is occupied," Markus snapped. "There is someone in this stall already."

  There was a moment of silence, then – THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

  THUMP. TH –

  "Okay, what the hel ?" the already-annoyed systems analyst exclaimed in disbelief. "Could you let a man take a shit in peace?"

  There was no reply, just heavy breathing on the other side of the door. Markus could see the other man's shoes through the gap between the tiled floor and stal door. His breathing sounded laboured.

  "Hey..." Markus said, suddenly concerned. "Uh, you okay man?"

  The other man's shoes disappeared from view, and then Markus heard the sound of throwing up. A

  dark red puddle of blood appeared on the floor. He was shocked, disgusted, appal ed and scared at

  the same time. He slowly got to his feet, pulling up his pants. He climbed on top of the toilet and

  careful y peered over the stall door. Where the man had been, there was now a big red puddle and

  bloody handprints al over the floor.

  "Oh, shit... " Markus breathed.

  " RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"

  Markus whipped his head back to see a raving, slobbering, blood-covered face right behind him. He

  nearly had a heart-attack right there and then. The man wrapped his arms around Markus' face and

  chest.

  "Oh, shit! Shit! " the young business man yel ed.

  He struggled with his crazed attacker, who brought his head in toward Markus' forearm, bearing his

  teeth.

  "Don't!" Markus pleaded in vain.

  He screamed in pain as the man bit into his arm, drawing blood.

  "Get your goddamn hands off me!" he yel ed, bringing one of his feet up and kicking the other man in the mouth.

  He felt several teeth break under the impact of his shoe, and the offender was thrown off onto the

  floor. Markus immediately dropped down from the door, heaving. To his horror, the man got back up,

  his mouth covered in both Markus' blood and his own. He threw himself at Markus again, and the

  two violently struggled for a few more moments, throwing each other against the wal s of the

  bathroom stal .

  The lunatic wrapped his arms around Markus once again, and opened his mouth to sink his

  remaining teeth into his prey's neck. Markus desperately grabbed for anything to save himself and

  found the metal toilet-rol dispenser. It hung off the cubicle wal , loosened by the violent tussle in the

  smal space. With his remaining strength, he ripped the metal dispenser free, and then slammed it

  into his attacker's head. A burst of blood and brain matter sprayed into Markus' face, and the other

  man crumpled to the floor of the bathroom, dead.

  Markus stood hunched over his first kil , heaving, and stil grasping the bloody toilet-rol dispenser.

  His mind was a whirlwind of mayhem. He did not know what to think anymore. Markus dropped the

  dispenser and walked out of the bathroom, leaving the mutilated body on the floor. He breezed

  through his office, al of his surroundings little more than a blur. As he sat down at his desk, he

  looked at the bloody bite-mark on his arm. What was going to happen to him? Markus put his head

  in his hands and let the grief wash over him.

  FAIRFIELD

  PRESENT DAY...

  Despite sitting tied up in a chair with a throbbing headache, Jacob could not help but smirk. "You

  kil ed an Infected with your bare hands? You? Now I know this story is bullshit!"

  "Quiet!" Corvo snapped.

  Markus ignored Jacob' snide remark and continued with his story. "After what happened, I was trying

  to get out of the city when I ran into these folk in a safe-house. I told the doctor what had happened

  to me, but he said that there was stil hope. I could be immune. So, what we're doing to you right

  now, they did the exact same thing to me. Except to see if I was going to turn or not."

  Jacob sat in silence as he contemplated this information.

  "Why would he lie to us, son?" Corvo said.

  Finally, the big biker looked up, his expression hard and cold. "Fine. If you untie me, I promise not to shoot Markus."

  Corvo hesitated for a moment, and then he cut the ropes binding Jacob' hands and feet. As he

  climbed to his feet, Markus extended his hand.

  "Hey, no hard feelings, man."

  Jacob just stared at the ex-business man in silence for a moment. "Everyone's different. It might just

  be that you take longer to turn than other people." He knocked Markus' hand aside and stalked

  forward, getting right in his face. "Just know that I don't trust you. If you make one slip-up, one wrong turn, give me one good reason to shoot you..."

  Jacob let the threat hang in the air for a moment, and then he stormed out of the apartment.

  Chapter 5

  The four survivors careful y made their way through the wrecked streets amid the rubble, wrecked

  and/or abandoned cars. The distant c
latter of gunfire could be heard, which gave Samantha some

  smal hope that there were other survivors out there. Maybe some of her friends were still alive...

  "Just another night in Fairfield, huh?" Markus remarked lightly.

  She and Corvo kept silent, keeping a wary eye out for the Infected. Jacob, however, turned and

  rounded on the former business man.

  "Alright, just shut up."

  "What the hel is your problem, man?"

  The burly biker threw up his tattooed arms in frustration. " You! How can you be so... positive? You're injured, slowing the rest of us down – "

  "Jacob!" Samantha snapped shortly.

  Markus pointed his Uzi ahead as he walked, ignoring the burning pain in his chest. Luckily, it was not

  a crippling sensation. "Guess where we're headed? Jameson Hospital. It's only a few blocks away,

  and I can get treatment once we're there."

  "D'you real y think there are stil doctors around?" Jacob scoffed.

  "Alright, that's enough, you two!" Corvo snapped, his eyes on the road ahead. "There's a subway station around the corner. If we fol ow the tunnels, we'll come out right near the hospital.

  Now cutthechatter. No more unnecessary noise."

  His tone brooked no argument, and no more words were exchanged as his party followed the road

  for a couple more blocks. Everyone knew they had to play their part if they wanted to get through the

  streets safely, and they covered each other as they moved past dark alleyways, smashed windows

  and other possible points of ambush. An observer would have seen little more than dark shadows

  flitting silently through the street. After a short walk, they came to the crumbled subway entrance.

  The darkness at the bottom of the stairs made everyone feel uneasy.

  "I'm not sure about this," Samantha said hesitantly. "Dark tunnels? That's always the place where the first guy dies."

  Corvo patted her shoulder. "I think you've been watching too many horror films, kid."

  She chuckled. "For the past six months, that's al I did. I was studying how to make movies at

  col ege, but I hardly left my dorm room."

  "Creative research?" the older man asked jokingly.

  "Maybe," she murmured. "I never thought I'd be living a horror movie."

  "Hey, Samantha," Jacob butted in. "Enlighten us, who's always the first one to die in those movies?"

  The pretty former col ege student glanced as Markus for a moment, drawing his attention.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she said quickly, looking away.

  The subway station looked as though a bomb had hit it. In actual fact, several trains had derailed in

  the events following the outbreak of the Green Flu. Corvo led the group through the station, making

  his way around furiously-burning fires, climbing over several ticket gates and tip-toeing down a

  couple of flights of stairs.

  "How are you feeling?" Samantha whispered carefully to Markus.

  "Not too bad, surprisingly. I mean, don't get me wrong, it stil bloody hurts. But since Corvo wrapped up the wounds, they don't seem to hurt quite as much."

  "And I suppose those pain pil s had nothing to do with it," she said sarcastical y.

  Markus laughed. "I must've swal owed half the bottle."

  "Just try not to OD on us."

  "Through here," came Corvo's voice from ahead.

  The four survivors came onto the subway platform and surveyed the destruction. Several trains had

  crashed through the wal s, leaving gaping holes, and certain parts of the roof had collapsed.

  "I hate subways," Jacob said suddenly.

  Samantha and Markus shared a look.

  "Come on," Corvo said, motioning them toward a tunnel that appeared to head north. "We go north, we come to Mercy – OH SHIT!"

  He swung his rifle around and gunned down an infected man that ran at him out of the shadows,

  peppering his body with countless holes of spurting blood. The others looked around in alarm to see

  several more Common Infected rushing at them from the edges of the room, screeching like

  banshees. They opened fire and took down several more, muzzle-flashes lighting up the dark place.

  "Reloading!" Samantha cried, ejecting her spent clip and slamming a new one into the breech. She

  realigned her aim and shot an infected man in the face, sending greyish-pink brain matter arcing

  through the air.

  "I'M OUT!" Markus yel ed over the roaring gunfire.

  The young woman quickly drew a second pistol from the holster at her hip and handed it to him.

  "Here!"

  Jacob blew away two Infected at once with a close-range blast from his shotgun, spraying a

  gratuitous amount of gore over the ground, while Corvo fired off a long burst from his assault rifle,

  kil ing the last three. He grunted with dissatisfaction when he realised he was down to three clips.

  "Ammo check!" he cal ed.

  "I've got plenty," came Jacob' reply.

  "We're down to pistols," Samantha said.

  "You've always been using a pistol," the biker grunted.

  "Okay, well I'm down to three M-16 clips, so we're going to have try and conserve ammunition,"

  Corvo cut in.

  Jacob snorted derisively. "Yeah. Tell that to the guys who keep trying to kil us. What should we say?

  'Please don't attack us, we can't fight back!'"

  "You've got plenty of ammo, right?" Corvo asked, his brow furrowed in a perpetual frown.

  "Yeah?"

  "Thanks for volunteering to take point."

  Jacob swept through the dark subway tunnels ahead of the group, his gun sweeping from side-to-

  side as he searched for targets. Since the shootout back at the platform, they had encountered no

  more Infected.

  "What the hel is this?" he grumbled. "It's the freaking Zombie Apocalypse and there ain't no zombies to shoot!"

  "Don't say that!" Markus hissed at him.

  "What?"

  "That! 'Zombies'."

  "Why not?" the large biker said over his shoulder.

  "Because, it's ridiculous."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to offend you," Jacob said sarcastically. "Would you prefer it if I cal ed them vampires?"

  "RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

  The tunnel echoed with a loud, unnatural scream, causing Markus to jump with fright.

  "What the hel was that?"

  Samantha's mind turned. "It sounded familiar..."

  "Let's keep moving people," Corvo said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Whatever that thing was, I'd rather not run into it."

  Chapter 6

  The four survivors made their way through the northbound subway tunnel. Samantha had been very

  spooked by the unearthly scream that had echoed throughout the tunnel before, and she

  inadvertently found herself looking over her shoulder more than once. Her group advanced in

  silence. However, they were forced to stop when they found the entire tunnel blocked by the

  smouldering wreckage of a train.

  Jacob spat on it in frustration. " Now what the hel do we do?"

  "We have to find a way around," Corvo replied.

  "There could be some maintenance tunnels around here," Samantha said thoughtfully.

  The group back-tracked a couple of hundred metres and found a door built into the tunnel wal ,

  marked SUBWAY PERSONNEL ONLY.

  "My ass," Jacob said, blowing the lock away with his shotgun.

  "Which part of 'conserve your ammo' escapes your understanding?" Corvo snapped.

  While the two men were bickering, Samantha moved through the doorway, flashlight and gun out in

  front.

  "Guys, through here!" she cal ed. "There's a set of rooms, and they seem to
continue next to the tunnel."

  "I hate tunnels," Jacob said after walking through one dull room after another.

  The light from their flashlights revealed stacks of empty shelves, destroyed tables and electronic

  equipment. Samantha rolled her eyes while Corvo lit up another cigarette.

  "Damn," the old veteran grunted. "Runnin' low on ammo, and now on smokes."

  "You know those things wil kil you," she replied.

  "Kid, with the world in ruins, I ain't sweatin' lung cancer."

  The former col ege student suddenly stopped walking, her eyes staring blankly ahead. Jacob and

  Markus were further ahead and did not notice. Corvo, however, stopped walking and looked over at

  her in concern.

  "You okay?"

  "How far do you think the virus has spread?" she murmured, fighting back tears.

  "I have no idea," Corvo said with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He chose not to mention that, several days earlier in a safe-house, he had seen a map of America showing active military outposts.

  A number of them, some as far north as Maine, and as far west as California, had large black

  crosses through them. Overrun.

  "Do you think we'l ever be able to stop running?" Samantha asked.

  He patted her shoulder and coaxed her into moving again. "One thing at a time."

  Just as they resumed walking, they both whirled at the sound of a loud growl behind them. Their

  lights located a dark, hooded figure, a few rooms back, crawling on all fours toward them.

  "Look out!" Samantha cried, panicked. "It's the thing that got Markus – "

  With a shocking, ear-splitting scream, the infected figure pounced, flying through the air at incredible speed. It closed the distance between itself and the two survivors within seconds. It was just about to

  tackle Samantha when –

  SLAM! Corvo dashed to the nearest door and swung it around with his arm. It slammed shut with a

  loud BANG, separating them from their attacker. A loud crash came from the other side of the door

  as the creature slammed into it. Then it started pounding on the door.

  Corvo ran over to Samantha and grabbed her arm, pul ing her along. "Come on, we gotta move!"

  The pounding continued, and she looked back over her shoulder to see splinters and cracks

  appearing in the door. The creature was breaking through. They quickly caught up with Jacob and