Chapter 1
I feel the sweat running down my forehead. The adrenaline in my veins, my shoes pounding on the road. It's like 86 degrees out, typical weather in August. The sun is falling on my shoulders making them burn. I don't want to stop running but I have to, my feet and legs are becoming numb. I search around the deserted roadway and I see an alley coming up ahead. A good place to rest.
I turn a corner and stop running to catch my breath. I drop the blood-covered hockey stick that I was holding in my hand, and put my hands on my knees and breathe heavily. I'm carrying a duffel bag that I used for my dance class, it's full of can foods that I took from an abandoned food market. I take the bag off from around my torso and set it on the ground.
"Well, only two more blocks until the car." I think to myself still winded from running.
I parked my car about two blocks away just in case someone saw it and decided to steal it, people nowadays can be unpredictable. The house that my sister and I stay in, is about an hour away. I came out here to the city to get some supplies since we were running low. We were mostly running low on food but it's good to get the essentials too.
I look around, the alley is surrounded by three buildings. There's a faint smell of garbage that's still in the dumpster located in the back of the alleyway. The dumpster is right next to a fire escape that leads to the roof of a twelve-story building. There's a small garbage can leaning up against the wall, right underneath the ladder to the fire escape.
"I can't stay here for long." I sigh while brushing my hair off my face.
Just as I'm about to pick up my duffel bag I hear it. What I was running from. Every time I hear one of their moans it sends a shiver up my spine. There's more than before, I can hear it. I quickly grab my duffel bag filled with the canned food and throw it over my shoulder, I snatch the hockey stick and start sprinting toward the fire escape.
I almost reach the fire escape when I feel a forceful yank on the duffel bag. I spin around and I'm face to face with one of the vile creatures. It came out of nowhere, it must have been behind the far end of the dumpster.
Its skin was a pale color and it was rotting away like a decomposing peel of a banana. It had blood and yellow goo dripping from its mouth and nose. Some of its teeth are missing, its hair is falling out and it smelled like rotting flesh.
The eyes scare me the most. All of them are the same. Every single person that gets infected gets those horrifying eyes. The sclera and the iris are a mucus yellow with dots of brown in them, and the pupil is pitch black. The eyes sort of look like animal eyes but with a sickly twist to them. Whenever I look into them It feels like they're staring into my soul, wanting and trying its hardest to grab a mouthful of my flesh.
I swing the hockey stick and hit it right in the middle of its stomach, but that doesn't do anything. It lunges at me with its biting teeth making me fall to the ground, dropping the hockey stick. It's now on top of me. I force my hand to its throat to stop it from biting me. Blood and goo start dripping down my hand and onto my face.
"Ugh, gross!" I scream desperately, making sure it doesn't get into my eyes or mouth.
I can see the others gaining up on me, they're slowly getting closer. There are so many of them that I can't even count. If I don't get away now, I'm going to become dinner.
I push with all my strength and finally the infected rolls over to my side, and its head smacks against the hard concrete floor. The sound makes me shiver. I flip onto my stomach and reach for the hockey stick. I grab it and shove the end of it right through its softened skull, making a squishing sound. It goes into the left eye and I can hear its brain burst into a million pieces, spraying blood all over my face, my necklace, black tank top, and chest.
I jump up, grab the duffel bag, twirl around and sprint to the ladder. I jump up on the garbage can and pull myself up to the fire escape, almost slipping because of the weight of the bag. When my foot leaves the garbage can it falls to the ground, leaving me with no way back up from the grasping hands of the infected.
I try to get up the fire escape as fast as I can. It's really tiring to climb a ladder with one hand. Also a bag full of canned food and a three-foot hockey stick. I pause for a second to catch my breath.
I look up, there's a long way to go. I don't think I can climb with a hockey stick in my hand, but I have to at least try.
Once I start to make my way up the ladder again my foot slips and I fall back down, dropping the hockey stick and holding onto the third to last step of the ladder.
I tightly grab the metal step, making sure I don't let go. The infected all crowd up under me. They're grabbing and bitting at my feet, and almost touching my black, blood-stained sneakers. All of them are snarling at me and they're ready to eat.
I try to pull myself up to the ladder, but I can't. The duffel bag is too heavy. I decided to drop it and leave everything I came here for.
As my hand starts to slip, I reach for the strap of the duffle bag. A hand clings to my shoe, one of them has reached me. I scream and shake my foot violently. The infected 's hand falls taking my shoe with it.
I grab the strap of the duffel bag and pull it over my head. I let all the canned food that would have fed my sister and me for a week, fall to the ground. When it hits the floor it brings two infected with it.
I pull up my other arm and continue to climb. Once I get halfway up, I look back down to see how many there were, I guess there's about a dozen. I turn back and continue to climb to the top.
Once I get there, I jump onto the roof of the enormous office building and wipe the dried blood off my face. I look out at the vast city of what was Washington, D.C. It looks so different. I've lived here my whole life and now I've seen it burn to the ground.
The monuments are almost gone from the military trying to contain the infection. Even if only one person had turned, they would blow the whole building up, not caring who they were killing inside. They just wanted everyone that had the infection dead.
I can see the Abraham Lincoln Monument from the top of the building. The heads missing. It looks like it was blasted off from the RPGs.
Most of the buildings are burnt to a crisp or are half gone since this is where it all started. The roads and parking lots are littered with abandoned cars, and there's nobody in sight, except for the infected. I see dozens of them, aimlessly walking around waiting for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I take off my other shoe, leaving me barefoot. There's no use in having only one shoe. I throw it back down the building, it hits one of the infected in the head and knocks him over. I chuckle and walk across the roof towards the door that leads to the stairs that go to the inside of the building.
Going inside the building is the only way to get out of here. The building is much taller than most of the buildings surrounding it, so I can't hop across the rooftops to the other buildings.
On my way towards the door, I realize I don't have a weapon. I scan the rooftop for anything to use. On the far side of the building, I see the faint outline of a crowbar. I walk over and pick up the warm rusty tool.
While walking back to the door I trip over a broken air condition unit and drop the crowbar on my toe of my left foot. I scream from the top of my lungs.
"Shit! Ow, ow, ow!" I clench my throbbing toe and jumping up and down on one foot, while my eyes start to water.
My toe feels crushed, I can barely move it. Every time touch it, it hurts. I sit on top of the air condition unit and check out my toe. With tears running down my face, I stand up and try to walk. Once my toe hits the ground a shooting pain runs up my leg.
"Ouch!" I scream again.
I jump back up onto the air conditioning unit and wait until it stops stinging. "Oh no, I hope my toe's not broken."
How am I going to get back to the house with a broken toe! I can barely walk! I have to get back, I just have to. I'm so stupid for taking off my other shoe. It wouldn't have hurt that bad.
Once the pain in my toe starts to fade a little, I pick up the crowbar and head towards the small metal door, walking on the heel of my foot.
Right before I open it, I brace myself for the worst. I pull the door slowly and quietly. It's completely dark, and heat radiates from the bottom of the stairs. Good thing I picked up a flashlight and batteries at that food market and didn't leave it in the duffel bag that was now laying in the middle of the alley.
I take the pack of batteries that was in my jean's pocket and put them into the flashlight that was hanging on my belt loop. I click it on and continue down the stairs.
It seems like it leads on forever. Every step made my toe hurt worse, the pain firing up my leg. The humid stuffy air was very hard to breathe in, plus it smelling like the usual rotting flesh didn't help.
Towards the bottom of the stairs, the steps began to be coated with dried deep blood. I try to step around it, but it's pretty much impossible. When I get to the bottom of the stairway my feet are coated with blood.
I look out at the empty office building. There are about twenty cubicles throughout the room. Papers, folders, and pencils are scattered on the floor and desks. The only light coming in the room was from the huge windows, which are smeared with blood.
I look around to see if I can find anything that could be useful. I put down the crowbar, click off the flashlight, and set it on one of the desks.
I start going through the drawers. "Nothing," I say disappointed.
I limp to a desk on the far side of the room. There's a lamp, computer, and a picture frame still on it. The picture is of a man, a woman, and a boy. The man looks older, maybe in his late forties or early fifties. He has light skin and black hair. The woman looks about the same age and has the same features. The boy looks about my age, seventeen.
"They look so happy," I whisper holding up the picture closer to my face so I can see it better.
I put the picture frame down and grab a rubber band that was shoved in the corner of the desk. I tie up my long blonde hair to keep it off my back.
I open a drawer and start rummaging through the stuff. There's barely anything in it, but there's stuff I could definitely use. There are batteries, band-aids, and even a small kitchen knife.
Why in the hell would someone put a knife in their office desk?
I put the knife into my right pocket as a moan makes me freeze in fear. The scraggly growl is coming from the stairs where I came in. My heart stops, I panic. I left the crowbar on that desk by the stairs. Maybe I can make a run for it without getting attacked. I jump up and stagger toward the crowbar.
Right before I reach it, I fall to the ground. I looked towards my feet and see one of the infected grabbing my ankle and about to sink its yellowing teeth into my calf.
I scream, start squirming, and try to kick the creature off my ankle.
It looks like the man in the picture, he looked much better in the picture though. He has the sickly eyes that I hate, and rotting light green flesh that is melting off. I'm guessing it's from being stuck in this warm building for the last five months. His hair is black, greying, and falling out. He's wearing a business suit and the tie is covered in blood.
You can see the lifeless veins under his skin. One of his fingers is missing from the hand that's not holding onto my ankle. It looks like there's a bite mark on the right side of his neck. He doesn't have a left ear or a nose, and you can see straight into the back of his nasal cavity. Bone and all.
I try to squirm and wiggle my way out of his grip, but it doesn't work. Maybe I can roll around like an alligator does to rip a limb off their pray, and maybe it will lose its grip.
I roll and shake but nothing works. My ankle begins to throb. I probably just sprained it. Which doesn't help my situation. The infected have me pinned down and he's inching closer to my throat. I kick the desk that has the crowbar on it. The crowbar and my flashlight fall to the ground making a loud echoing bang. I try to reach it but it's too far away. I scream at the top of my lungs until my throat feels scratchy.
Do you know when you're about to die they say your life flashes before your eyes? Well, that doesn't happen. All I can think about is how shitty this world is, and the day these vile creatures ended it.
Hello everyone! I appreciate you giving my book a read! Just to let you know, the first few chapters or so of this book are not up to my own standards of writing. I wrote them 6 years ago, and let's say I've improved my skills tremendously. I plan on rewriting and editing the chapters after I finish the book. Thank you so much for reading! It means so much to me! Don't forget to vote! :)