Okay, here goes my first attempt at posting original fiction anywhere. This is basically my little "testing the waters" project; I know my friends like my writing, but they're kind of obligated to like it, or at least say they do. I want to see what other people think of it. I may or may not post more of this, depending on the feedback I get. I don't like posting stuff that people don't like. This is last year's NaNoWriMo project, which is probably why it sounds so frenzied and rushed. Also, I cannot claim ownership to the basic idea of the story--that goes to my two best buds as well as myself.
Warning: Excessive swearing throughout, as well as violence.
"Son of a bitch!" I hiss when I slice my ankle with the dull edge of my razor. I drop the traitorous item onto the wet tile of the shower and watch as a thin stream of blood seeps down the drain. The rich, pungent odor wafts to my nostrils, making me gag slightly. My heart skips a beatwhen I realize I have left the window open. They might smell me.
I hastily finish with my cleansing ritual and carefully hop out of the shower to avoid slipping and giving myself yet another targeting injury. I cross the measly three steps to the tiny section of window that Andy allows for ventilation purposes in the three and a half bathrooms. With slippery fingers, I slam the pane down as quickly and quietly as physically possible. Breath shuddering out of my chest, I search the landscape beyond the reinforced glass. All I see is fog hanging in low, clingy wisps to the thick forest of pines, glittering with frost in the light of the waxing moon. No movements from the shadows. No creaky, desperate cries of hunger. I sigh, relieved with the knowledge that, for now, I'm safe. I don't know why I've been so jumpy lately; everyone knows that they can only come out on a new moon, but...well, paranoia has always been an issue of mine. That, and what's currently being held in the basement has made all of us twitchy.
After toweling myself off, I take another glance at my ankle. The little slice isn't all that deep, and the blood has already stopped leaking. I'd give it an hour or so before I couldn't even tell it had been there. Such is the beauty of Mella's work. Or unpleasantness. Whichever way one wants to look at it.
I return to the tiny shower cubicle, retrieve my razor, and rinse off as much of the gore as I can. Andy says that those things can pick up the slightest scent of blood from miles away, like sharks. I never argue with his precautions. I've seen what those creatures can do first-hand. I can still feel the old wounds if I focus hard enough. Now that I'm "working" for Andy and his crew, I don't see the carnage as much, but I know the threat hasn't left.
I decide that my legs will remain a forest from now on.
I dress in my standard after-hour ensemble of black sweatpants and like-colored long sleeved t-shirt, tie my hair into a loose ponytail, and cross the bland, thinly populated mess hall towards the few holding cells we've been able to maintain for the past few years.
A bizarre concoction of giddy anticipation and apprehension bubbles up in my stomach. I force it away, blaming it on my recent insatiable hunger for all things fleshy and protein-based. At the thought, my mouth begins to water, and my stomach clenches furiously in anticipation for a meal. Maybe I shouldn't have skipped lunch...
Ugh, anyway, back to why I'm feeling the way I am (even if it is just hunger...). Andy and Ríjez managed to pull in one of those things earlier this afternoon, and it hasn't outwardly attacked any of us yet (the key word in this operation), so they're all fixed up to send the brains down to check the thing out and maybe do some much-needed studying.
The whole thing has me confused, since we had always thought that they only turned rotted and crusty looking on the new moon. Apparently, either this has never been the case, or dead things have learned to evolve.
Personally, I think the thing must be sick or demented, more so than it already would be as an infected. There's no other reason it would be waltzing out in the daylight of its own volition. Those things are extremely sensitive to any form of UV radiation. So sensitive that they can only come out on the new moon, when there's nothing to reflect the sun's deadly light.
One might think that, with their limited window of opportunity to spread their plight, we'd have successfully eradicated the freaks by now. Sadly, that is far from the case. These things are good at hiding, and the only successful hunts we've had were all on new moons. Which are hard to deem as "successful" because twice as many of our people are killed than the infected, simply because there are just so many of them, and we can't fight very well in hazmat garb, leaving our people totally exposed to the virus. I think it's just Andy's method of the complex's population control. With a little over 30 people, resources are extremely limited. I suppose getting rid of some is necessary, if cruel. Kinda makes me wonder why I'm still around.
With a more purposeful stride, I head down to the holding cells on the bottom level. What we at the complex jokingly refer to as Hell. Or maybe it's just me. It's always so hot down there because of the boiler room that I can only ever manage a five minute stay, maximum.
The instant I step foot on the wide threshold, a strong gust of hot, arid air blasts into me, stinging my eyes and drying my skin. I suppose I might have sweat, but the air is so dry that I fear it's turning my skin to parchment, sucking it dry. And it smells like rats. Dead rats. I make a mental note to tell Mella to set some traps.
Yes, of all the animals that have perished during this epidemic, rats have not been among them. Nor have cockroaches, spiders, and all other forms of creepy crawlies that live to make me miserable. Of course. Why would any useful creature survive?
Abruptly, a derisive snort escapes me. So this is how the people here think of me! I've never had an accurate comparison before...
My anticipation suddenly dries up as I wander downstairs. It's hard for me to feel pumped for a sorta-kinda interrogation when I'm uncomfortable. Andy tells me that I'll have to get over it if I want to be of any use to the group, but it's hard to break away from my comfort zone, even in today's horrid conditions. He actually has the audacity to tell me that this is because I haven't suffered enough. I beg to differ.
The rickety stairs groan beneath my weight. I feel like telling them to shut up, since I've lost a good deal of weight because of this whole ordeal. But, since I've already had a word or two with the old slabs of wood and they haven't stopped complaining yet, I give up and continue my descent without a word.
The basement is dark, hot, and boring as can be: cement walls and floor, thick, wooden support beams that are in serious need of sanding-down, and the various metal tubes and vents used for heating and cooling the old building. Seriously, the only form of decoration we have down here is spider webs, and from the numerous bites I get on a nightly basis, I can tell you with complete confidence that they are not there for show.
Damn it, when did my thought process become so scattered?
Shaking myself, I walk down the long hall, wishing I had had the sense to bring a flashlight or candle or something because my night vision is nil and I keep crashing into the walls. One would think that after all the time I have spent hunting down and tracking undead beings I would be able to walk in a straight line and at least avoid a damn wall. Sadly, my orientation, or lack of, has been terrible since I lost my glasses in our last encounter with said undead beings. Andy has shown little sympathy, but sooner or later he's going to realize that I'm as useless as a rubber chicken without them. Of course, I wasn't much use with them, but I digress.
I finally stop at the third door on the left, since it's the only room I can hear voices and snippets of snarling emanating from. I square my shoulders.
"Yo!" I call out, knocking the door with a crooked knuckle. "Is it safe to come in?"
There is a pause, a shuffle, and what sounds to be the covering of a mouth. This is confirmed when a muffled, animalistic shriek threatens to split my eardrums.
"As safe as it's ever gonna be!" the irritated voice of my ex parole officer, Ríjez, shouts over the ruckus.
I take this as an invitation and stroll in, only at the last second of my entrance realizing that my ankle isn't fully healed and the creature can probably smell my blood. The sight that greets me isn't really unexpected, but it still makes me pause. Ríjez is standing over the thrashing, decaying body of a young girl, probably around twelve years old, while Andy and two technician guys try to hold her down. Lurk is...well, lurking in the corner, his limp, lanky hair curtaining him, as he mutters something in German and frantically scribbles down notes on a digital clipboard. They're all dressed in hazmat-type getup; unlike me, they can't risk direct exposure. Even though the virus isn't passed through the air, direct contact with any form of DNA can pass it along. And these things were notorious for spitting, bleeding, and losing various chunks of flesh that somehow always end up hitting one of us.
The girl turns her wild gaze towards me, hunger flaring in her crimson-rimmed eyes, and I try not to cringe at the sight. Her pale blonde hair is so dirty and mangled that at first I mistake her for a brunette; it's long and looks like a rat's nest, but it doesn't cover the damage done to the left side of her face. Her left eye is oozing some viscous fluid. Along with her eye, it looks like the whole left side of her face looks to have been melted off, and the sickly gray skin, pitted with bloody sores, sags slightly. Her left ear is gone, leaving a ragged hole on the side of her head that's leaking some fluid that I would rather not describe. She's pretty short, and her limbs are skeletal, but her stomach is distended and rounded, like a dog with worms, and a thick fluid is soaking into the tattered dress she wears over it. But, compared to others of her kind that I've seen, she doesn't look too bad. She's whole, more or less.
The air in here is putrid, thick with the scent of rotting flesh, sickness. Even though I'm immune to the contagions carried by these living-dead beasts, that doesn't mean I'm immune to the stench. Breathing from my mouth would only make it worse. Casually, I pluck a paper face mask from the lone bench and slap it to my face before my stomach has a chance to rebel.
I don't realize how long I've been in the room doing nothing until Andy snaps at me. "Are you here to do something useful, or did you just come here for the air quality?"
Again with the "useful" jab. My first reaction is to flip him off, but I've been trying to control those particular impulses since becoming a permanent resident here. Instead, I do the mature thing and ignore him while focusing my attention on the little hellion in his arms.
I crouch down and reach out my hand toward the girl. Panic and desperate hunger flare in her wild eyes--well, the healthy one, at least--and she flails even harder, lashing out with her feet at the techies who look absolutely clueless as to what they're doing.
"Not helping, Vess. Just back off," Ríjez says sternly.
I roll my eyes and stand back up. "I've never been good with kids, anyway," I grumble, backing away.
He snorts without humor and turns his attention back to the once-was girl still flailing on the floor. I worry that other pieces of her are going to break off and come flying at me. It's happened before, trust me.
"What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?" the blond tech man with an unsightly unibrow latching onto the girl's right leg grunts in aggravation. I see sweat bead his brow behind the head gear he's forced to don.
"We have yet to collect any sort of data that could prove useful in destroying--or curing--this virus. For now, we're here to study the creature's behavior," the other tech dude, whose name I think is Lyle, says peevishly over the girl's rabid shrieks. I get the feeling that he's already explained this a few times.
The door suddenly bursts open, and in marches Mella in all her six-foot-one, mega-muscled, hazmat-clad glory, carrying a syringe the length of my forearm that has a thick, yellow liquid sloshing in it.
My stomach clenches again, and I fold my arms to protect my sensitive inner arms as they start to tingle uncomfortably. I hate needles. And Mella knows this. She cocks me an apologetic grin, but the taunting mirth in her gray eyes tells me that she's enjoying my squeamish reaction. Sadistic wench.
Andy follows her gaze towards me. He sneers, sickened by my weakness.
I'm about to tell him to fuck off when the girl suddenly kicks out more violently than before and manages to land a bone-cracking punch right to the distracted man's ribs. He cries out harshly, growling. At this point, I would have been clenching my injured side and howling in pain. Andy, however, is like a freaking android; I swear the guy has no pain receptors. He launches toward the snarling little girl, murderous intent shining in his old hazel eyes.
I sit back, knowing that there's nothing I can do to deter him. Before he can land a hit, however, Ríjez intercepts, locking his suit-encased arms around the injured man's middle and throwing him back to hit the wall. The girl shrieks, opening a mouth that has very little teeth still attached to the gums, and lunges toward Lyle and his companion.
This time, my instincts are quicker than my conscious thought process. I fly up and launch myself between the raging creature and our only remaining tech savvy companions, but before I can take two steps, Mella blocks my path, swinging the syringe down in a wide arc, and jabs it into the side of the girl's neck. Almost instantly, the girl sags to the floor with a wet smack as her dead flesh collides with the hard cement. I have to wonder what Mella's special cocktail consists of. Meanwhile, Lurk just stands there with wide eyes, drinking in the scene with such intensity and awe that it makes me squirm.
Ríjez hauls a livid, panting Andy off the floor as I move away from the center of the scene. I'd just be pushed out of the way, in any case, so it's not like I stay out of these things because I'm lazy. For the most part.
As the two men approach the creature, the techies look to me with wide, questioning eyes. I give them a sardonic half-grin, shrugging. The hazmat suits only help so much, and it only takes one wrong move for one of them to become infected.
Because of unknown biological factors that I have no explanation for, I'm immune to whatever these creatures--I hesitate to call them zombies, but that's pretty much what it boils down to--carry in their bodies that can infect other people and turn them. And I guess that's why I have a tendency to jump to the aid of these people. It's not like I have a hero complex or anything. I just know that it's better for me to take a hit--or scratch or bite or what have you--from one of these things than it would be for any of my comrades.
It's also why Andy gets so pissed off when I try to weasel my way out of conflict with the nasty beings. Since I actually can kill some without much consequence, he thinks I should be out slaughtering as many of the beasts as I can, not staying in the stronghold all the time, waiting around for an attack like the rest of them do. None of us can do anything useful until the new moon, so pardon me for not seeing what the big deal was.
I'm nobody's weapon. I hate pain--and I'm horrible at hiding it. I used to tear up when I used mouthwash, for God's sake. I hate fighting even more. Always have, always will. And it's not even because I feel guilty about killing used-to-be humans (this coming from the girl who feels remorse after squashing a ladybug). Quite simply, I suck at it, and even though I'm a total gore whore, that's only when it comes to horror movies. Put me in a real life-or-death situation and order me to shoot someone or gut them, and I freeze up. For the most part. There have been a rare couple of instances, like during our last new moon search-and-destroy "mission" (Andy's term, not mine), where I've gotten so furious that I didn't care about morals or fighting clean or even surviving. One of those slimy bastards had gotten a hold of my glasses and had shattered them. The bastard had about 27 bullets in him before the glass fragments hit the ground, which got me a smack upside the head for wasting precious ammo. Oh, well.
My point is, typically, if you piss me off past my point of tolerance, you're dead. Or maimed, depending on how fast Andy or Ríjez is on that particular day.
The group's unofficial second-in-command, who rests on the flip side of Andy on the moral spectrum, is Mella. As the lone biologist in our little group, she's all about figuring out how to possibly reverse the effects of the virus that's overtaken much of the world's population, not killing those who have been afflicted. And she's just a little obsessed with it. Scarily so. I've heard that she snatches random people from the compound and does all kinds of experiments on them. Which I can't even write off as a horrible rumor.
When I first got here, this one girl, Olivia, mysteriously went missing. Like, one night she's there and the next, poof. No more Olivia. And it doesn't even make sense how she would have disappeared; she hadn't been scheduled for raids or anything, and she certainly wasn't the type that would just randomly leave the safety of a place like this. I fear that she just had nothing to offer the group, so Mella had been ordered to kill her in a low-key fashion.
This is why I have to at least keep on Mella's neutral side. My odd immunity towards the virus intrigues her, so she's pretty much the only reason why this group allows me to stay with them. I have no other use in this posse besides providing genetic material--which comes from lots and lots of blood taking, unfortunately. And she blows up like freaking Mt. St. Helens whenever I enter a life-threatening situation. She's even gone out of her way to mess around with cell-regenerating stimulants so that I'll heal faster in the event that I'm mortally wounded. I should probably be at least a tiny bit appreciative of this, but since this also requires being injected into my system via wretched needles, it's a little hard for me to feel anything besides loathing towards her.
Basically, this is what it boils down to: as useless as I am, I'm also the most invaluable. That particular combination always manages to irritate people. It also makes me feel like a charity case, but, hey, where else can I go? Dad's dead--has been for over five years. Jake's dead...and Mom...
My throat tightens. My heart feels like it's being squeezed with iron clamps. My eyes sting and ache with unshed tears. But Andy's in the room, so crying is not an option.
Though still glaring at no one in particular (probably me by default), Andy nods approvingly at Mella. She quickly schools her face into a neutral expression, removes the needle with a gut-churning squelching noise, and backs away into the corner now that her purpose has been completed. Ríjez looks my way to see if I'm okay, searching my eyes with his own dark brown ones. I avoid him by focusing on the girl. She actually--almost--looks like a regular kid while unconscious.
"So," I say, breaking the placid silence. "What are we going to do with her?"
So, there you have it. Feel free to leave a comment, a critique, or an insult. I take all in stride. : )