Infected

Chapter 1

When I woke up, everything was quiet. I was staring into the eyes of a man, and every couple of seconds the room would go black then light back up from the emergency lights. I screamed and scrambled up from the ground and away from the man as I realized he was dead.

I backed up into something hard and when I turned, it was an infected man. He turned and growled at me, and I screamed louder. I felt true terror as I looked into his cold grey eyes. I leapt to my feet and bolted out of the room, jumping over bodies littering the floor.

The flowing paper gown I was wearing only seemed to get in my way as I ran, but I still took off down the hall. When I looked back, I saw the infected man come out of the door, turn both ways, spot me, then charge.

I cried out as I knew I was going to die. There was no way I could outrun him on my shaky legs. I didn't want to accept my death, but that's what I did. I stopped running, slid to the ground, and watched the infected man catch up to me in seconds.

He crouched in front of me, and I could smell his putrid breath in my face. I turned my head away and he brought his face close to mine, his nose brushing my cheek. I whimpered as I felt his cold, dead skin.

He inhaled deeply, then roared and recoiled. I stared in shock and numbness as he leapt to his feet and took off back the way he came. What had stopped him from eating me?! He was mere inches away and I was an easy target. I didn't understand.

Instead of dwelling on why the infected man hadn't killed me, I decided to instead get the hell out of the bunker. But, not in the flimsy paper gown. I was sitting right next to a bunk room it seemed, so I stood up and pushed the heavy metal door open quickly.

The stench was what hit me first, making me gag and my eyes water. It was indescribable. I saw all the rotting corpses and I knew that they were the cause. About ten people in various states of decay were spread across the room. I noticed that some of the mutilated bodies were fresh, others looked days old.

The room was long, with about five beds pushed against the wall. Each metal frame had a flimsy mattress on it, and a small nightstand next to the bed. Across the room, closest to me, were the dressers.

I stared at my feet instead of the faces of the bodies. I already had the dead man's glassy stare imprinted into my memory, I didn't need these peoples as well. I didn't need any more fuel for nightmares.

I walked over to the dresser that was closest and I opened it up. The top drawer was full of men's socks and underwear and as I dug through the drawer, I found a Bowie knife with a sheath that clipped on a belt hidden in a sock. I kept it, knowing damn well I might just have to use it.

I moved to the next dresser, which was thankfully a woman's dresser. I opened the top drawer, finding bras, underwear and socks. Whoever owned this drawer was thankfully the same bra size as me, and I slipped the bra, underwear, and socks on. In the middle drawer, there were shirts.

Most of the shirts were utilitarian white tees, but it would work. In the bottom drawer there were regular jeans, and then military style cargo pants. I was more drawn to the cargo pants, given all the pockets and the tougher material, so I grabbed a camouflage pair.

I shed the paper gown and slid the new clothes on. I strapped the knife to my belt, on my hip. I didn't have any shoes, but I figured there was an extra pair laying around somewhere, and I could always take a pair from a dead body. I shuddered at the thought.

Thankfully, there was a shoe rack next to the door, full of military grade boots. This bunker must have been a military bunker with soldiers in it. What was I doing in a military bunker? Was I a soldier? No, that wasn't plausible. I wouldn't have been strapped to a table of I was a soldier. I wouldn't have almost been in surgery.