We Survived - (Visit the OOC before joining)

Flanked almost entirely by fields and taking on several sharp turns toward the town’s limits, Route 24 was the most (if not the only) truly dangerous bit of pavement throughout the entire township, and it culminated at what the kids referred to as “Pinball Alley”. Deputy Chris Haley had seen his share of accidents along Route 24’s twisting curves. The road had become a kind of infamous attraction to the teens of Royal Oaks, Michigan and the towns that neighbored it.


One of the rare portions of County Route 54 that didn’t cut through flat farmlands, “Pinball Alley” twisted an alternating set of sharp curves through a grove of trees that marked the end of Royal Oaks’s territory. On the far side, on the Otisko County side, the road straightened out once again through long flat farms and properties. The last turn, which was where Deputy Haley had strategically backed his cruiser that morning, was bordered on one side by a thick grove of elms that perfectly concealed the Ford’s black and tan lines. The opposite side of the road was bordered by a four-foot deep drainage ditch that cut back toward a small creek running along the cornfield.

The niche that Chris sat in had become his choice spot for the month, allowing him to sit almost entirely concealed from the southbound lane of the road. He’d pulled over more than a few heavy-footed out-of-townies on their way into Royal Oaks for the local wineries. Sadly, today had followed in the wake of the previous one, and Chris hadn’t a single incident in the course of his shift. It was 12:11pm, and he’d nearly five more hours that promised to be as long and as tediously boring as the previous four. And it was fourth of July. Motherfucker.

Of course, that was before the burgundy Oldsmobile ripped past him and set his radar gun to twitter excitedly. Chris looked down and watched as the digital display printed “93 mph” in big, angry red letters. He’d barely been able to register “BgDaddy” on the vanity plate before the car was too far along for his eyes to make out the letters.

Chris wanted to reach down and key on his lights and siren. He wanted to pull out and chase down “BgDaddy”, maybe fuck with him a bit out of sheer boredom before pulling him over. There were more than a few things Chris wanted to do but what he –did- do was watch as the Burgundy Oldsmobile drifted recklessly into the northbound lane and then onto the shoulder beyond until its back tires skidded dangerously close to the ditch. It drifted there for a moment, great clouts of dust kicking up as the rear wheels fought for traction, threatening to continue its skid off the road.

And then abruptly the wheels found enough pavement to grip and launched the car directly across the road like an arrow, over the southbound shoulder, and into a thick-trunked elm tree with enough force to shatter the wood and send the tree tumbling backward into the grove of its brethren.

The impact was explosive, glass and fragments of steel and fiberglass were thrown into the air in a massive cloud of debris. A tiny, blonde-haired figure was launched from the back seat and through the vehicle’s windshield as the glass seemed to vaporize. It caught the elm’s splintered stump head-first. The sound of the impact was lost amidst the clamor of the wreck, but in a sickening tangle of tiny arms and legs it went cart-wheeling into the underbrush amidst a cloud of blood.

Holy Shit. That was a little girl.

He barely registered the though as the vehicle’s back end lifted almost six feet off the ground, hung for a moment as if to register the trauma that it had sustained, and then heavily fell back to the grass with an audible thud. There was almost nothing left of the Oldsmobile’s front end. Oil and gasoline sprayed everywhere, soaking the ground and putting the stench of petrol on the air.

Chris stepped out of the cruiser almost immediately, barely able to fight off the urge to empty his stomach on the shoulder of the road. In twelve years of service he had seen many fatal accidents along this stretch of road, mostly teenagers who drove like daredevils in an attempt to show off or prove something to themselves before skidding off the road and into the trees. Twelve years of watching the coroner pull mangled bodies from the road and still Officer Haley could not recall a single scene more horrifying than the one infront of him. The car hadn’t behaved like the driver lost control. It had behaved like the driver had made a sharp turn toward the trees, as if intent to kill himself and anyone inside. He’d never seen anything like it before.

The passengers in the Oldsmobile’s front seats weren’t moving, at least not from what he could see as he approached. A man was behind the wheel, half hidden by the off-white airbag that crushed him against the seat. Brown-haired and pot-bellied, he wore a white golf polo that’s collar was soaked entirely through in blood. His shorts had been blown upward toward his crotch.

The world’s worst wedgie, front –and- back. Crotch –and- Ass. Yeouch.

He had buckled his seat belt, but the air bag’s off-white was stained by a thick and heavy sheet of blood. As Chris neared he could see the man was clearly unconscious or dead, his head hanging crookedly out the shattered window of his car door.

The passenger was a woman, his wife, and had a thick mane of blond hair. Or she had once a thick mane of blonde hair, back before the car had slammed into a tree at ninety miles an hour. Half of her scalp was peeled back to reveal her skull, her shirt soaked heavily in blood. There was more gore in the wreck than he could register, and with each second it got far worse.

She lost her arm…

Chris blinked hard, clearing his eyes, but he wasn’t mistaken. The woman’s right arm had been shorn off at the shoulder by the force of the impact, a heavy streak of blood ran down the crumpled remnants of the car’s front end and arterial spray had splattered on the brush and grass beside the vehicle. He could only guess her arm was sixty, maybe seventy yards further into the brush. Once, in a convention for police in Detroit, he’d heard of collisions so violent that the forces involved actually ripped people apart.

I thought it was bullshit…

Chris had already recognized that nobody could be alive, and certainly didn’t believe it until his eyes betrayed him once more. He could have sworn, sworn to God Almighty, he had seen the driver’s head twitch. It wasn’t a healthy movement, but it was movement.

No way, Jose’. His neck is broke clean through. Even if he was alive he couldn’t move, and I’d bet the boat he’d never twitch his finger again let alone roll his head. The airbag nearly ripped it clean off.

But the driver twitched again, and this time he continued to move. At first his blank staring eyes rolled, and then they blinked rapidly. His entire body gave a hard, convulsive shutter that nearly had Chris convinced that his brain was firing some last message to the muscles in the driver’s body. Death throws, he’d heard them be called that before. But the body continued to shake, a minute, maybe two… before finally it stopped.

And them the driver’s eyes shot wide open, the pupils swiveled onto Chris, and the man in the car screamed.

Or rather, he made –some- ungodly sound. It was hard to accept the cry as human and certainly hard to accept it as a cry. It was high-pitched, feverishly hoarse, and utterly threatening.

“Calm down, sir. I’ll get help here soon.” Chris took a step forward, intent on calming the man before he shook himself so bad something broke.

But the man didn’t calm down. Infact, he seemed to lose his mind at the sound of Chris’ voice. His entire body began to jerk savagely at the seat belt, straining it. Flabby arms lifted and fell, pounding on the airbag as it deflated away, revealing more of the man’s potmarked face. What swelling Chris expected simply didn’t exist, leaving the man’s features harshed only by the sheen of his wife’s blood that soaked them and the speckled burn of the airbag’s powder. His cry became absolutely maddened, turning more and more shrill until it was a feral shriek.

Chris was suddenly terrified. The urge to run struck him so hard that he nearly obeyed it. Everything was telling him to flee, to run. The irrational power of fear sinking deep inside him and taking hold in his balls, especially as the man began to rip at his seat belt. The driver was acting in a way that Chris couldn’t register, slamming himself against the car’s restraints like he was either hopped up on drugs or pumped full of so much adrenaline his injuries didn’t matter.

What the hell is wrong with this guy? His neck looks broken!

And Chris’ eyes weren’t lying to him. The driver’s neck was not only broken, it was ripped out. He saw it as in the driver’s thrashing his head rolled unnaturally far to the left, swiveled back almost 180 degrees, and then was swung back around to face him as if it had been fastened to a rusted hinge. But beyond the fact there should have been no way the man could have twitched his finger, let alone pound his airbag down and yank at his seat belt was the fact his throat was –torn- open. Something had ripped it clean out, revealing the rubbery tube of the man’s Carotid artery.

And not anything in the crash, certainly not glass. Something had done that while he was driving, and that’s why he drove right into the tree. Where’s the dog now?

Chris entertained the thought that he had seen the dog ejected from the car, but he knew with sinking dread that it was otherwise. The thought of that tiny girl careening through the woods was enough to nearly break his heart and could have stolen his thoughts for minutes more had the driver not defied all logic and stepped from the car.

It took a moment for Chris to comprehend what he had just watched. In the back of his mind it played like a movie, over and over, as the driver ripped his seatbelt and slammed the door open with the palm of his hands. He didn’t unbuckle, he didn’t use the car door’s handle. He simply –ripped- the seatbelt apart, and then pounded on the door so hard it jerked open with a harsh whine of twisted metal.

And then the man turned toward Chris and charged him, making that same gut wrenching cry. His face a twisted mask of some kind of intense, mad, desperate rage.

He saved his life out of instinct, some great flash that ripped through his body in a most primal moment of self preservation. Chris had never struck another human being in his life but he struck the driver with enough force to shatter his left hand. The punch was awkward but powerful, a drive from his shoulder that pistoned out and caught the pot-bellied driver square in the chin, popping his head straight back and knocking the four front teeth in his bottom jaw loose.

He expected the man to fall over, to stagger and collapse and cough up blood. He expected the driver to roll onto his back and moan in agony, and to beg for help and snap suddenly from this madness. He desperately wanted for this man to act like he recognized he had just driven his car into a tree at ninety miles an hour and broke his neck, and that he’d been ripped open by a dog or –something- and was probably moments from bleeding to death.

Chris wanted so badly for all of those things to happen, but instead, the man simply stopped in his tracks and took a single, shaky step backward. And then, with an audible crack of broken bones as the head swung freely (like some kind of carnival imitation of a man with a broken neck), the man drove himself into Chris with an incredible amount of force and tackled him to the ground.

All at once Chris was being clawed and pounded on by the driver, his voice now a dangerous, almost hungry snarl. MORE FRIGHTENING however, was the driver’s head as it rolled on the broken stump of his neck, the jaws slamming again and again in an attempt to bite him. It was like he was rabid, clawing and biting furiously in an attempt to sate some kind of madness. The man’s hand pawed down the side of his face and his nails bit in, ripping a thin line down Chris’ cheek and filling his mouth with the coppered taste of his own blood. They were suddenly tangled together now, Chris jamming his hands up into the man’s face in an attempt to push him away only to find it hinged loosely

–because that neck is FUCKING BROKEN-

and fell back. The air smelled of blood, and death, and piss. Chris had a single moment where he realized he’d wet himself, where suddenly his crotch was hot and soaked through. It was that moment that had Chris leaving his hand in reach, and it was all it took for the driver to slam his teeth down on Chris’ ring finger and bite through it.

The pain was sharp and extraordinary, and it was followed by the audible crunch of the man’s teeth biting through his second knuckle. Chris watched as the man’s teeth locked like some kind of animal’s, and in his fear he jerked his hand back. The driver didn’t release him, and instead bit down harder, and Chris jerked against the pain. The movement and the pressure was too much and Chris watched, and felt, as his finger gave and tore from his hand. The bloody stump was pinched between the bloodied, broken teeth of the driver. His face was a horrible mask of insanity and feral hatred, eyes unnaturally pale, and splattered in blood.

Chris thrashed madly, suddenly mimicking the driver as he had convulsed against the car’s seatbelt. Adrenaline coursed through him, and with all of his focus poured into one task, he slammed his hands up into the driver’s shoulders. The impact of his hands into the man’s body sent fresh bolt of pain from Chris’ missing finger… and also managed to throw the driver from him. Chris only now realized he was screaming.

He scrambled madly to his feet, the incessant bolts of pain that leapt from his severed finger had mercifully dulled into a nagging throb. The driver popped to his feet. He didn’t rise, he didn’t roll and sit up. Instead, he simply slapped his palms into the ground beneath him and launched himself into a feral crouch. Chris managed to free the pistol, a heavy .45 automatic that suddenly felt every bit as intimidating as he had been told it was. Despite the shake of his hand, he lifted it, centering the iron sight on the driver.

What if I can’t pull the trigger, what if it sticks?

But the gun –did- fire, a great blast that jerked Chris’ tired arms far too much. The slug whistled wide of the driver and seemed to remind him of where Chris was. He turned his head, that potmarked face soaked in blood and sprayed now with bits of gravel. The driver’s thin, stringy brown hair had lost the neatly-combed part that concealed his receding hairline and now hung in straggled, hap-hazard lines. His lips curled back to reveal blood-stained teeth and he gave an awful shriek.

Chris emptied his magazine, wildly pulling the trigger on the .45 to send six more of the heavy jacketed rounds toward him.

The driver’s chest exploded as four rounds clustered high on his torso, ripping his shirt out in giant, bloodied stars. Raw force lifted him from his feet and knocked him to his back, blood seeping quickly beneath him to form a thick pool. He shook, hard, struggling as bones that once supported his paunchy frame failed to answer the call that was put to them. A visible effort to sit up was mustered, but the man managed only to half-roll himself onto his side. The arms that had so furiously beat down at Chris now pawed at the concrete, nails ripping away as they caught on the cracks.

Chris reloaded, nearly dropping the old magazine as he pushed a new one into place. The driver wasn’t dead and Chris felt it as wet himself for the second time.

He has to be dead. –Has- to be.

Infront of him, soaked in blood and torn by four slugs from Chris’ automatic at point blank range, the Driver finally managed to sit up. He began an unnaturally, disjointed rocking in an effort to get up. His body swayed forward and back, gouts of blood rolling from the great holes in his chest and back.

Chris shot him twice more, both rounds hitting the driver high in the chest and knocking him flat on his back. The teeth kept mashing, that awful shriek grew huskier in its distress but persisted… and the man attempted to rise still. Turning his head, Chris leveled the barrel of his automatic at the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The pot-marked face disappeared, and a great pink-red smear splattered out across the concrete. Chunks of skull and flesh and matter formed a debris trail that followed the smear away from what little was left of the driver’s head. His body gave one last hard jerk and went entirely still.

Chris vomited down the front of his uniform, tattered and bloodstained and soaked in piss.

It was only now that his mind began to work again, slowly coming to life as relief swept through him. He forced himself to ignore his missing finger and look to the shattered remnants of the Oldsmobile. The driver’s wife was now thrashing in her seat, struggling with her remaining arm to rip off her seat belt. He had a minute, at least, before she got free in his mind and bent to take the driver’s wallet from his back pocket.

Timothy Arganna, and his wife Mrs. Arganna, and little Suzy-Q Arganna were tragically killed when Mr. Arganna went absolutely insane and drove their car off the road.

Chris laughed but he hated how it sounded. The fear was too palpable, too real. He forced himself to drop the wallet and walk to the Oldsmobile, thinking suddenly of his own wife and daughter. In his mind he could imagine some stranger putting a bullet in Ally’s head, he could see her beautiful face erased by the force of a .45 caliber pistol.

She was weaker than her husband, but whatever had taken his mind away had claimed her own. Standing beside the door, Chris watched as she suddenly turned her attention from the seatbelt and to him. One of her eyes was missing, or rather it had been popped like a bloody little balloon in the socket. She looked far worse than her husband, her face shattered and hanging in places where fine bones once maintained a feminine structure. She’d been pretty but it was hard to imagine it now.

She was snarling and snapping like an animal out the shattered window, lurching her body against the seatbelt. There was a mindless desperation in her, a compulsion to attack that Chris recognized in the husband. He put a bullet though her forehead, emptying her head on the seat and airbag and leaving her to slump lifelessly in the seat. The pale eyes, so furious a moment before, had the vacant look of the dead about them now. Chris leaned against the car and vomited for a second time, holding his knees and bowing his head forward while wretching forcefully onto the asphalt.

Between the summer heat and sheer terror Chris had sweat himself through. It was hard to look down and see himself in such a state and he could only imagine what he looked like to the outside eye. The seat of his cruiser felt infinitely more comfortable than it ever had, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy to pick up the radio. Pressing the button down, Chris turned his mouth into it, speaking through a gag as the transceiver began to slowly stink of vomit from his breath.

“844 to Base, come in Base. Marcy, I’ve a fucking mess out here.”

The radio crackled once before a woman’s voice came, and Chris suddenly felt the urge to cry build up in him. A touch of normality at this moment seemed so out of place. “Chris, what happened? You alright?” The concern in her words was real.

“I’m alright,” he said. “I’ve got a collision at Pinball Alley…” he trailed off. Chris was unsure what to say.

“I’ll send EMS.” The radio answered. “How bad is it?”

His words failed him, and Chris answered after a long hesitation. “Two fatalities, possibly a third. There was a passenger in the back who was ejected, I’m about to go see if I can help. And Marcy?”

“Yeah?”

“Call Alan, will you? Get him out here? I think he has to see this.”
Marcy’s patient voice immediately dissolved into concern as it came over the radio. “What’s wrong, Chris? You alright?”

He was crying now. The tears were thick and hot as they ran down his face, and it took every once of strength for Chris to keep it out of his voice. “I’m alright, Marcy. Just get the chief down here, alright? I’ll be in soon to tell you about it.”

“Roger. I’ll call him, Chris. EMS is on their way. Base clear.”

“Clear.” He echoed, and dropped the transceiver. All at once Chris was sobbing. his pistol laid across his lap as he buckled forward in his cruiser and laid his head on the steering wheel.

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Rebecca Arganna had been suffering for hours by the time her panicked father had crossed to Otisco County, laid out in the back seat of her father’s Oldsmobile as it rocketed down Route 54. She had her mother’s blonde hair, and her mother’s build. Her entire life she’d been called beautiful, and at the tender age of eight she had just begun to believe it. Nick Page had bit her on the way home that afternoon, enough to break the skin, and she had only gotten away because she hadn’t drank her milk at lunch and her thermos was full. When she swung her backpack at Nick’s head it’d hit with a dull thud, not a hollow thunk, and she’d managed to get up and run into her yard and close the gate behind her.

Nick had pounded on it for a bit, howling terribly, before taking off down the street to terrorize someone next door. She remembered all this clearly, but it began to get fuzzy after that. One moment she was sitting in the kitchen while her mother washed the bite on her wrist out and covered it so she wouldn’t get blood on her new T-shirt, and then the next she was laying in the back of her daddy’s car while he and mommy argued over where they were going.

It was all fast, and confusing. She felt worse and worse until finally it was easier to keep her eyes closed.

When Rebecca woke up she attacked her mother first, ripping a mouthful from the side of her throat and severing the carotid in a great geyser of blood. The taste wasn’t satisfying and she didn’t contemplate why. She simply obeyed the hunger that drove her on and turned on her father. It was her bite to his wrist that broke his grip on the wheel and sent them out of control.

Now, Rebecca Arganna woke for the second time to the insufferable hunger pawing at her. It was all she knew. One of her eyes couldn’t see but she couldn’t feel why. She didn’t know her name or knew what a name was. It was swinging from her ocular nerve against her cheek, popped out of her little head when it slammed into the tree. There was no memory of Nick or school, of mom or dad… There was nothing but the hunger. She smelled him and heard him first, and then she saw him finally. He was crying on the steering wheel of his cruiser, but Rebecca no longer understood what crying or a steering wheel was. She knew only that the hunger demanded him and that she had to answer.

At fifty-three pounds Rebecca was not a particularly strong girl but at a full run she managed to not only strike Chris with enough force to send his pistol onto the passenger seat’s floor but send him sprawling over the center console.

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He was screaming now and had he anything in his bladder he’d have lost it in that instant. It was the daughter, the realization was all the more terrifying and she’d caught him unaware. Her teeth sunk into his cheek and her head jerked back, and suddenly Chris felt pain lacing through his face. The tiny girl swallowed, only to bite him again, her little fingers driving into his face pushing his chin up with strength he’d not have expected. He felt her fingers close on his tongue and gagged, and then without explanation bit down. Bones ground beneath his teeth and Chris bit harder and the little girl didn’t scream or relent in her attack. She only snarled that animal sound that her father and mother snarled and slammed her other hand into his eye.

He bit her little hand clean off, the taste of her blood unnatural and wrong. It wasn’t the coppery taste of blood, but something fouler. He opened his mouth to scream, but Rebecca’s teeth found his throat and sunk deep. All at once Chris felt his air cut off and his hands fell down to knot in the girl’s blond hair. She was shaking her head like a little pitbull, and Chris felt his throat stretch to its limits and then the skin tear free.

Hot blood fountained in the air, a thick arterial spray that soaked the ceiling and windshield of his cruiser and bathed Rebecca as she sat up on his hips. Eyes wide, Chris lifted his hand and pressed it to the gaping hole in his neck only to feel the rush as blood spilled against his palm, over the stump of his missing finger and between the others. All at once the strength drained from him, and his other hand dragged a futile protest against the front of Rebecca’s shirt.

She tilted her head back and swallowed, a thick chunk of Chris’ throat sliding into her stomach. If her eyes had been beautiful once they weren’t any longer, the deep green color now so pale they hardly registered anything but the most iced of grey. Chris watched as she bent and abruptly took his wrist into her mouth but he couldn’t feel her bite down and take a chunk from him.

She looks just like her mother.

He thought, but there was no serenity now. Chris wanted to scream and thrash but his body would not answer him, he felt trapped and terrified as he watched this little girl take chunk out of chunk from his arm. Every moment slipped by with a prayer for death, and when it finally came he could find no solace in it. The last thing that Deputy Chris Haley saw before he died was the girl (about his daughter’s age) bend down to his face for a moment and sit up amidst a spray of his blood, the stump of his tongue protruded from her split lips as she chewed on it and the tiny ball of her eye watched him as it swung against her cheek from the bloodied nerve.

It would be nearly three hours before little Rebecca Arganna reached Royal Oaks.

( This thread is not open. Please visit the Casting Call/OOC located at this link before posting here. http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=721304 )

Asha Rai

Asha hummed to herself, the sound lost beneath the blaring music. The silliness of blasting acoustic rock was lost on her. She wanted to be immersed in the music. A dashed yellow line, seemingly endless, rushed passed the U-Haul she drove. Her new apartment awaited her, in the quaint rural town of Royal Oaks. It was always surreal to her, moving to a new place. Even within the midwest the little cultural differences fascinated her. She broke into a genuine smile, excited for the new life that seemed laid out on the road before her. She could even accept the expected horrors of teaching high school kids.

She past the buildings of the town in turn, noting the difference of the comparative metropolises she had lived in previously. Friendly faces looked curiously up at the approaching truck. Turning off the main road, she parked in front of her apartment complex. Nothing fancy. But that was OK by her. She had never been one to be dazzled by unnecessary luxuries. Asha was a simple girl.

The music stopped abruptly a she turned the keys, shutting the mechanical behemoth off. The door opened with a click, and the new arrival hopped out, her warn tennis shoes slapping the cracked asphalt audibly. Hardly the image of a schoolteacher, she was had clothed herself in a white tank top and faded jeans. Well, I am not exactly going to the ball here! She would dress more appropriately for her meeting with the principal the very next day.

For some reason, she could not help but say it aloud. The sun's warmth made her feel like a child back in India, getting a hug from her father. "It is a beautiful day!" The world was content to be beautiful. It didn't seem to deem her words worthy of a response. She walked to the back of the truck, glancing at her watch along the way. It was ten o'clock in the morning. With a loud rattle and slam, the door was up, and several hours worth of work awaited her.

* * * * * *

Enlisting the help of her neighbors husband, Jake, she had filled her small dwelling with her belongings. Now she just had to unpack it all. But, I think that that can wait. What she wanted to do right now, more than anything, on a hot day like this, was to get an ice cold six pack. College was not that long ago. She grinned. Never forget. There was a corner store not too far from here. "Jake?" He turned, looking over his shoulder at her. "Would you like a beer?"

He grinned. "Sure thing. Asha, was it?" She nodded. "There's a block party later, so don't drink too much. You should come and meet everybody."

Her heart warmed at his offer. Things were starting off just great here! Just her luck, that it was a holiday and everyone was in a good mood. "I'll be sure to do that." There was an unmistakable bounce in her step as she walked off, and it remained on the return trip, with a six-pack of Sam Adams, Coastal Wheat clutched in her feminine hand. She handed one of them to her new friend, and they spent the remaining moments of the morning making small talk and getting to know one another. "Drinking beer in the morning," He quipped. "We're classy. Don't tell my wife."

She laughed good naturedly. "Well, it's the fourth of July. It is our civic duty."

"Hmm. You're plenty American in my book."

The clink of bottles interrupted the birds song. Dragonflies buzzed, cars whooshed by, and the house across the street set up their yard for the party and fireworks to come. Nothing could have been more normal, or more comforting. Jakes wife, Kelly, came down to chat with them, and the three of them made the six pack disappear. Before any of them expected, the sizzle of barbecue could be heard, and the playful splashes of children in a pool. The three of them headed over to the party in good spirits.

Nursing a buzz, Asha sat down with a cheeseburger and began to talk with her new neighbors. Everyone was laughing, and having a wonderful time. Thats when things began to get strange.

Her cell phone chirped. "Hello, dad!" But, her face did not keep its smile for long. "S-slow down, I do not understand." She stood, looking a little afraid. "Daddy?" Even above the chatter, above the clank of silverware, a terrified scream could be heard through the phone. "Dad! What is happening!" The line had gone dead. Asha stumbled back a little, the fear evident on her face as she braced herself on a tree. She muttered to herself as she frantically dialed the number. "Please, please..." Nothing.

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon.

In a mild panic, Asha left the party briskly, pacing her disorganized apartment. The time ticked by, and she awaited word from her father. Music drifted through the open windows. She hadn't even set up her television yet, but right now, she didn't want to. What is happening? She chewed her lip nervously, feeling as if she was about to cry. The minutes turned to hours.

Near the back end of the Guns and Roses song, 'Welcome to the Jungle,' the scream of a small child reached her ears. She rushed to the window to gaze out at the party. Their was some chaos at the far end, she could not quite make it out. But, she noted with some fright, the screams only mounted and grew in number. Soon they had scattered, and the only people left at the party were these... things.

Asha clasped her hand to her mouth, her soft brown eyes widening. The creatures before her shrieked inhumanly, one of them, an older man, missing an arm. The other wore the tattered remains of a police officers uniform. Another, different shriek was heard. Looking down the street, another hideous being shuffled inexorably towards the scattering mass of people. Oh my god... With each step, the things broken femur allowed his entire leg to swing unnaturally outward. It was disconcerting to say the least.

Shrinking back from the window, she curled up on the floor, clutching her knees to her chest. "God, what is happening?" She didn't know what those things were. Perhaps no one did. They didn't look human.

Lara Wilson.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/mothermagic/lara-dutta1.jpg


''I'm almost home....Uh huh...Uh huh..Ok...Ok that sounds good.''

The rear view mirror was vacant of anything only miles and miles of coiling road, and the three head rests of the Mercedes back seat. Indicating to the right, Lara guided her car through the high stone pillars , and took the left fork down to the winery. Her ear piece went silent, and she queried with a

''hey..you still there''

only to have Jason Baxter swear in ear.

Jesus....did you see the news?

''No..why.''

There's people dead everywhere.....or something...No one knows for sure what's happening...but the Mayor is looking for the National Guard to be called in..

''What do you mean there's people.................''

The line went dead, and Lara hit the redial on her steering wheel, listing to the phone clicking but no dial tone in her ear..The powerful car ground to a silent halt out side the barn styled offices , with the shadows of rooftops from the A1 vat and C5's looming lovingly over it. Rows of solid Oak vats ran in military fashion under each roof, for Cabernet's and in the Cblock, a new venture into Champagne. Large German made wooden vats, her father had installed..Lara as a child being told ''The wood is what gives a good wine its flavor. Any decent wine merchant knows that''.

''Hello?...Manuel''?

There were no birds..That was the first thing Lara noticed on getting out of the car..Not a sound..There was a motor running somewhere but that was the only sound. There should have been at least 6 workers in the yard, with the over 40 in the fields.. but there wasn't a sound..No tracters..no hum from the refrigerator units..That worried her instantly, and Lara ran into the office, coming to a startled stop. Maggy wasn't there..Her desk was pristine, tidy as always, but the computer screens were black, and the always lazily spinning fan was off..The power, and back up supply obviously down.

''Maggy..you here?''

She looked behind her back into the yard, before passing Maggy's desk into her own office , where Lara reached for her land line ...It was as she expected dead..She tried her cell, this time not Tom's number, and she was relieved to hear the line chime as it dialed and she waited for a reply..None came only Manuel's voice mail, to which Lara asked him to call in as soon as he got the message. Manuel had worked on the farm for over 45 years..He knew every bolt, every vine, every pillar and post..He was her unofficial Manager, adviser, and most definitely a friend. That he wasn't in the yard to meet her after her meeting with the bank in the city was worrying..That there was no one else around could be perhaps explained, but not Manuel , nor for that matter, Maggy.

Behind the C block, Lara found the motor that was her footsteps only accompaniment. One of the yards flat bed trucks was just sitting there ticking over idly, and she pulled open the passenger door to reach across and pull out the key..It was only when she got out, she saw the blood stain on the cuff of her off white jacket. And even then Lara didn't quiet comprehend what she saw..She stared at it, checked the knees of her matching business pants, and as she walked around the front, she tutted at the red, almost burgundy stain on her cuff..

The roar was inhuman.

He was caught beneath the back wheel of the truck, his body completely compressed, the twin tires having obviously shattered his pelvis, squashing his abdomen flat. His face was almost black..As if blood had rushed from his broken body to his face, and got trapped there with no where to go. Manuel.

His dark eyes bulged in their sockets, his mouth opening at an unnatural angle , his tongue almost bitten off. The sounds he made were god horrendious..Using his hands behind him, he leaned on them, and just pulled..pulled and pulled, and roared and roared..There was a clicking in his throat when he would pause and reposition himself..Actually turning ....esentially twisting his body around, so he leaned on his hands, chest facing the ground. He was, as he stared at Lara, untwisting his upper torso from his shattered pelvis, and all she could think of for a split second was the movie The Ring..and that sound the creature in the TV made climbing out of the screen..

''Jesus Christ!''

He crawled toward her..Completely unaware of the strings of entrails dragging behind him..Manuel howled, his head flung back, his calloused large hands becoming his means of moving. She backed away...then ran..back around the far side of the truck, but Manuel was there...Prempting her, scuttling beneath the truck, his mouth snapping, his teeth grinding, his eyes dead, lifelessly cold, but seeing every move she made ..
Blood was everywhere...It just seemed to sweat from the dripping fabric of his cloths and the bits that dangled from beneath him..One string of intestine got left behind as he lunged forward suddenly on both hands, with only pure surprise allowing Lara to move back as fast.

Then she ran..She tore past him, heading back toward the yard..While running, Lara was acutely aware that the shock of seeing what she'd seen was preserving her fear..She was logically motivated to contact someone..anyone, and to find out what the hell had happened to her people..to Maggy..and to Manuel. She raced inside..back into the office, and unlocked the gun chest. The guns were licensed and used to keep the fields free of rodents that would spoil a crop. She loaded a rifle she'd used a thousand times before, and kicked off her overly high heals, heading out into the yard barefoot..

He was there..Dragging himself along, his shoulders heaving what was left of his body, as Manuel growled and snapped his teeth together, biting air.

''Dear God, forgive me.''

Lara aimed..cocked the gun, and shot him..At close range, the bullet didn't' so much as rip his shoulder apart, rather than explode in it, with Manuel dropping onto the stump and its mangled flesh. It should have stopped him..But no..he clawed away at the ground, doing his best to pull himself along on one hand, with the meat from his shoulder dragging along on the tared surface.

This time Lara was afraid. Her mind over loaded with not understanding what was happening...She backed away, her back pressed against the office wall...Both hands held the rifle tightly, and she lifted it one more time..This time she took aim...she didn't just fire at Manuel..she sighted him..He was her fathers friend...He had been like a surrogate father to her when her Dad was killed..There was a tremor of revulsion as Manuel spit up a clot of blood, his fingers bitting into the solid ground trying to move him along..And she squeezed the trigger, and watched, her face passive as Lara watched how his forehead split open, and the bullet contacted the tissue inside, spewing brain matter like little beads of crimson and white all over the place, right out of his skull.
He stopped then.

Idiotically Lara lowered the rifle, shaking from tip to toe. There was no blind terror, just a fear that was confusing and weighed heavy with not knowing what was happening. Fear of the unknown. She was thinking, functioning, even if it was stupidly to call Manuel's name, her voice fading as it cracked realizing what she'd done and..more to the point..why.

''Manny....Manny?......Oh Jesus ...Oh Jesus.''

~

Changed quickly into working jeans and a white vest, with the western style straw hat on her head against the sun, Lara came out of her house carrying her fathers handgun and the rifle from the office. Her car was parked outside the front door...and she was just about to toss her hat on the passenger seat with the hand gun, when she saw Maggy racing out of the vine rows , her face open in terror, screaming and screaming..Her words were garbles of shrill fear, meaning nothing to Lara..
Lara raced across the lawn toward her, watching her struggling with the electric gate that just refused to open back manually for her..Lara skidded to a halt, seeing two males follow Maggy..But they weren't running and screaming like her..They were stiff..with flesh torn, their bodies ravaged by some horror..One male looked to have only half a face..the other had his throat ripped open, ...but it was the sounds that warned her..Their sounds. They roared..shrieked and clicked like Manuel..And God bless her Maggy turned facing them, knowing what Lara didn't know yet..What was to happen to her! And Maggy and began begging Lara to let her in..

Open the gate...You can't leave me here..Please..Please Lara.. Oh Jesus Christ open the gate!!..

It was done in a second..One minute Lara was aiming, rushing toward the manual release for the gate, and next she buckled when she saw them latching on to Maggy..One on her face, chewing into her horrific scream, the other her belly. They ripped into her with such ease and efficiency it was stunning , and almost riveting to watch..The horror was magnificent in its magnitude as Maggy's screams continued from a face that was no longer a face, gurgling from the fleshy ooze that had been her features, until the chewing from her attackers on her quietened her.

All Lara could do was shoot..and keep shooting...She reloaded, shot again..reloaded maniacally, and shot over and over..One head shot saved Maggy from more of the horror she died experiencing..Her body useless, dropping sideways into the ditch, that supplied the trimmed hedge with water...The two males howled, clawed at the gates, but the smooth bars gave them no grip..She was 6 feet away from them, shooting, her hands shaking so badly she couldn't aim..bullets waisted, she reloading and just firing over and over. They turned to the right, heading toward the hedging, that would only offer temporary protection to Lara..Just then a scream from the midst of the vines distracted them...calling them onto some other poor bastard trying to escape what horrors he'd found in the greenery..So Lara backed back up to her car, and looked at her home..Its prettiness destroyed by the gory enterprise at its gates.. She started the engine, and drove to the gates, realizing too late she'd not opened them..There was no way in hell she was getting out...so she just floored it, the car crippling the metal, the gates curved and useless dangling from their pillars.

Her cell rang once..Then stopped..It was a private number, and she reached for the cell, her ear piece back in the office..The car sped up the long drive, the vines whipping past her until she skidded past the main gates, up onto the road, and headed the car toward town. She thought then of 'him'..Was he ok?....Was he in town..Had he gone to the city? He'd told her...Lara couldn't remember..He'd told her where he was going to be today...Her mind was addled with fright and confusion.
Dialing his number, the powerful car eating up the road way, with other properties whipping by in the scenery she didn't see, as his phone rang...and rang..and rang..

''Answer-Answer-Answer-...Oh dammit answer!''

Voice mail...Fuck!...A car pulled out in front of her, and Lara dropped the phone just as his recorded voice finished his greeting, and the service began recording..
Lara braked, the car skidded, turning in an elegant elongated skid to face the other direction..Her breathing was harsh..her fingers biting into the steering wheel...and Lara had to physically force her fingers to open, and reach for the phone down between her feet.

''It's me.........I'm ok.....but.....I.....everyone's dead...

I don't know what's happening..Everyone's dead.......Everyone's dead...Where are you!?

Are you ok..Please be ok...Call me..Please..Please!''

It took her a minute to remember to hang up...and put the phone down...Where she'd not been afraid earlier, being mercifully under the control of the absolute shock and surprise of what was happening.., Lara was now petrified.
She restarted her car, and turned it back toward town, the car that had pulled out in front of her long gone on its own panicked journey. The town looked normal in some weird way..Windows were dressed for the shops..the signs hung , the traffic signal was on green, ...even the Hall clock chimed the hour..Banners were up, it was a festive occasion..A holiday.
Yes, the town looked normal.....If there were people , and cars hadn't been abandoned with their doors open, and blood stains weren't dried on walls and sidewalks.

"Guys, leave the poor thing alone." Jessa rolled her eyes as Kevin and Joe picked up a couple of sticks, chuckling like a couple of 8 years olds as they stalked toward the field alongside the road. Her board kicked up, she clutched the deck in her fingertips, staring at them with a frown. "It probably got hit or somethin'. Come onnn. Just let it die in peace. Don't start pokin' it with shit... You two promised we'd be back in time for the parade."

"We just want to see. Relax." Joe gave her a smirk, hopping over the large ditch and into the corn. Jessa rolled her eyes, sighing as she glanced back down the road. Funny; being a holiday weekend, she would have figured the main highways to be busy. She'd seen maybe three cars on this little jaunt of theirs.

A sudden shriek from Kevin, followed by a strange snarling noise.
Whatever it was, it wasn't dead.

"Leave it alone, guys!," she yelled, suddenly very concerned for both the boys and the creature. "Seriously, get the hell away from it and get your asses up here!" She dropped the board, moving closer to the ditch to peer into the field.

Another snarl, shriek.
A strange cracking noise that sent chills through her spine. Joe screamed, a scream she'd only heard in nightmares.
"JESSA!" There was pure terror in his bellow of her name, the 20 year old finally pushing through the stalks, his eyes beyond wide and face white as death. "Farmer. Farmer just- Kevin-"

"What's the matter with you?! It's not funny, you dick! Get up here and let's GO! Kevin, move your-" Her words were overpowered by a sudden gargled roar, the stalks beside Joe levelled down by the lurching pounce of the farmer. His face was coated in red, the stubble of his unshaven face holding bits of what looked to be.... flesh. His overalls were splattered in blood, a giant hole in his stomach letting his intestines spill into the field. His gaze was locked on Joe, his mouth half-opened as he plowed into him, arms wrapping about the young man's neck.

Joe screamed again, Jessa joining him this time. "Get the hell out of here!," Joe bellowed, howling as the man's lopsided smile sunk into his neck.

She was frozen, staring at him for a moment, her eyes widening as the farmer glared up at her. She choked, kicking the board back over, letting the trucks hit the ground and immediately getting back on. She had never moved so fast in her life, though her vision was blinded by tears. Get out of here, get away. Get help. Get someone. Tell someone.

Holy shit, the guys.
They were-
This had to be som kind of fucked up joke. It had to be. Too many horror movies, some guy they teamed up with... But those screams. They were far too real. Far too frightened, fearing for their lives...

She was back in town. She didn't remember taking any of those turns, any of the time that had passed. Shaking, she stepped off the board, taking it up and tucking it behind her bookbag. Everything looked- right. Nothing strange, or wrong, or bad at all. This was...
...What the hell...?

She glanced up at the sound of a car crashing, gasping as another drove around it. The woman inside-
Jessa screamed, waving her arms franticly. "Please! Please, help!"

-July 3rd, 10pm-

Rhythmic tapping of keys and muffled sounds of music emanating from a set of headphones were the two most common noises in Miles McNamera's room, and sure enough they existed tonight. For someone nineteen years old, holiday weekends would normally be a big deal, but seeing that Miles, or Mac as he prefers, decided to postpone college, it felt like pretty much any other evening. The video store he was employed at was indeed open on the 4th of July, but he had managed to get the day off by volunteering to help get things ready in the Town Square for the parade. He'd trade an 8 hour day for a 3 hour day anytime. Granted, he didn't get paid for the volunteer work, but it was at least nice to do something else once in a while...

Mac wasn't really known for "doing something else" just about ever. Though saying he helped out at least made his mother feel better. Besides, he planned to use the rest of that day to finish packing his stuff for the move. Of course, by "finish" it really means to "start at all."

On the screen played an online game where Mac's fantasy character ran in bored circles while he constantly glanced over to his cell phone awaiting a call. Defeating the 'watched pot never boils' idiom, the phone finally chimed and Mac tossed his headset aside to place the new device to his ear.

"City Morgue." He answered with a singsong tone.

"Very funny, Mac." The female voice of his girlfriend, Natalie, responded, almost as if you could hear her eyes roll. "What are you doing? Have you finished packing?"

"You bet." Mac replied without falter.

"Bullshit." Natalie laughed. "God, how can you just lie to me so easily? Who does that to their girlfriend? Are you cheating on me?"

"Course not." He once again shot back without hesitation.

"See? How am I supposed to know if you're lying?"

"You're not, that's the beauty of it. But I confess. I have been. With a beautiful elven woman named... Buymygolddotcom." Mac smirked as he squinted at the screen.

"You think you're funny, huh?"

"Sometimes." Mac's smile widened as he leaned back against his chair. The conversation continued another hour until Natalie retired for the evening. Mac placed the phone back on the desk and stared at it for a few moments. Finally moving out of his mom's and in with a beautiful girl? In freshman year he would have never thought it possible. Course he was going to have to find a new job, which was a shame because working at a small video store in a nice town meant less assholes and fewer rules. Moving onto a bigger chain would be a headache. Still, no matter what he found he knew it would be worth it...

But he would worry about that later. For now, there were orcs to slay.

--

-July 4th, 12pm-

Mac's pine colored SUV pulled into the Town Square which wasn't too busy yet. There were a few volunteers setting up like he planned to, but otherwise most of the town was probably taking it easy until the festivities started a few hours from now. The dark-haired teen grabbed a movie case on the seat beside him before adjusting his open button-up red shirt and stepping out of the vehicle. He ventured toward one of the nearby shop owners setting out some supplies.

"Hey Harriet. Owen around?" Mac inquired at the middle-aged blonde woman.

"Hi Mac. I just began setting up so if he's around I haven't seen him yet... Would not surprise me if he's already been here for hours now, though."

"Yeah. Well if you see him first, tell him I got his movie. Figured I'd just bring it to him before it got checked out again. I'm just gonna go grab a drink."

"Will do." Harriet smiled before turning back to her work. Mac then depared, twirling the case between his palms as he passed by the barber shop. At first he paid no attention but the number of people glued to the television set eventually caught his eye and prompted him to investigate. The volume increased as he walked inside...

"New reports are coming in that riots are progressing toward the east coast as we speak... It is advisable that you remain in your homes and lock your doors. If possible, barricade fragile areas such as windows... We repeat: Remain in your homes and lock your doors-"

Mac wasn't quite sure what to say, and seemingly the barbershop patrons felt the same. Eventually he could only say the most logical thing everyone was probably thinking...

"What the hell is going on...?"

Ten hours ago any trucker on I-95 near Groton, Connecticut heard the blasting barrage courtesy of Brandon. Aka B66ZR0, "What the fuck do you mean 120 Washington Ln, Royal Oaks?! It's fuckin the 3rd of fuckin July you unpatriotic piece of shit. Did a fucking rat crawl up your pussy and die?!"

"May I remind you, Durnham, you're speaking to a lady."

Anyone who knew Sheryl, aka LadyIce9 laughed as hard as they could while keeping their rigs on the road.

"And I don't appreciate that kind of language."

Now they were all waiting for it.

"So git ur sonofabitchinfucktardassholedickface to 420 Washington Lane. Ya little prick."

For about the next fifty miles every single rig that Brandon passed or saw blasted their air horn in his general direction. He gave each a cute little birdie, and made sure to keep his CB radio off entirely. Instead he touched his Ipod and scrolled to his collection of Zombie, Rob, as he cruised through NYC to I-80 and from I-80 to I-90 and from I-90 to I-75. Of course, Zombie couldn't last the whole trip. So Led, Hendrix, Metallica, Sting, and hosts of other million dollar men, boys, and a few girls passed the time away. Finally, after those ten hours, he pulled off I-75 just two hours from Royal Oaks and stopped at a little bed and breakfast. It was late, around 2am in the morning and his pickup time was not until five o'clock the following evening from the... Wilson Wines winery.

"Well that sounds pleasant as shit, don't it?" Brandon grump'd as his stomach growled. Another night of cold anything didn't fit his bill, and he noticed that there was at least one little pub open at this interstate stop. Unfortunately, but rather predictably the kitchen was closed, but instead of curse anymore Brandon quickly drank his disappointment under the table and stumbled into bed with... Something in his arms... Or someone, rather.

The next morning he opened his eyes to a pulsing head, and long gone hooker. She'd taken all his cash, but luckily he only carried what he needed for the likes of her, and she hadn't bothered to take any of the countless more important items. So much the better, I reckon... Brandon thought as he carefully got dress, and popped several Advil before laying back down for a little while longer.

He woke with a start from house keeping's incessant knockings, and growled evilly, "Get the fuck away... Awww shit, that's bright, you don't fuckin understan english do ya? Ya ya, housekeeping, you clean, you clean, goddamn fucking spics. Ruinin this whole great country. Happy fourth of July you cunt." Slamming the door behind him; Brandon realized he was extremely hungry. He hurried to the bar he'd found last night, and saw the same whore slippin out the back as he came in, but he didn't bother to say nothing cept to the tender, "Give that pretty little minx this when you see her. She looks awful young, must have kids or somethin."

After a delicious meal of eggs, bacon, sausage, steak, grits, hasbrown's, waffles, and several huge cups of coffee with cream and sugar Brandon paid and glanced at the wall clock. "Shiiiiiit," He remarked as he stepped outside and removed a cigar from his chest pocket. He lit it with one hand and puffed powerfully before blowing a long stream towards the sky. He still had an hour or two to kill before heading out the road that led to Royal Oaks.

"Fuckit," He finally decided.

Pressing the ashes into the back of his hand and stowing the unfinished cigar Brandon climbed into the cab of his truck and smiled as the huge diesel engine roared to live. Might as well take my time and be careful, you never can tell with these country ass backwards roads. Let's get movin hoss! Something bugged Brandon as he drove; his radio was silent, but he was sure that he'd turned it on when he stopped the night before. Well, he figured, must not have too many truckers in Michifuckigan.

-July 4th, 8am-

Paula yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. She was standing behind the bar at Kipper´s, serving drinks and breakfast to the few people who couldn´t be bothered to make their own at this time of the day. A cop, a trucker, and the rest of the staff. Her eyes were half-closed as she stared at her cup of coffee with vaguely predatory instincts, as if she was a cat staring at its prey right before pouncing. Except cats did not have to wear miniskirts to hunt.

Harry, bless his idiot soul, had convinced the owner that they absolutely needed to look high-class today to really stand out and rake in the good business. Paula understood that it actually worked, given the attire. For the men, it was black pants, shoes, a pure white shirt and a red bow tie. Harry himself, with his average body build, look pretty nice in it, as did the other males. For the women, it was black, heeled shoes, a miniskirt that hugged their bums tightly and a black vest over a white blouse that was carefully tucked into their miniskirts. And a red bow tie as well. The women looked pretty damn hot, and none better than Paula, according to the trucker sitting in front of her who was now staring at Alice´s butt as she hurried around preparing the tables inside Kipper´s. Paula could not complain about that, looking hot was usually a selling point in her book for any clothes she intended to buy.

But they would have to spend all day in these uniforms. That would be hours and hours and hours of walking around in heeled shoes, carrying towers of dishes and cutlery around between tables, chairs, running kids, moving people, and the ocassional ass pinching or groping.

"Ah, thanks." Harry appeared from a side, and grabbed one of the sandwiches she had prepared. He was a tall, dark-haired guy who for once had managed to shave properly. Paula felt like asking him what the extra pay was again, but she did not want to give him the chance to drive her insane so early in the morning. She grasped her coffee and drank it slowly, enjoying it thoroughly with the extra sugar she had poured herself. Thinking about it, Paula suddenly realized `Admiral Kipper´ might have them all brush their teeth just before lunch time so they would have clean, perfect white smiles, and suppressed a giggle. She choked on her coffee to the alarm of the trucker, who apparently feared she had noticed him staring at her breasts through her vest, blouse and bra as if he had x-ray vision. By this point, Paula actually cared very little about that.


-July 4th, 3pm-

Two pinches, one grope, five suspicious rubbings and two date proposals. Slow day...

Kipper´s looked at its best, Paula reckoned as she swayed her hips out into fresh air with a few more cokes and beers. The interior of the bar/restaurant was decorated in browns and reds, with the bar section full of round tables and stools, and the restaurant section with both normal square tables and dignified chairs, and those enclosed couches and small tables diners usually had. It was packed full, making every trip into and out of the building fraught with foot-tripping peril. But once past the doors, Paula figured that the outside was also packed. The small square Kipper´s Tavern dominated was also a sea of tables, chairs and people under poles joined with strings from which thousands of American flags hung cheerfully. Speakers mounted on the corners of the building and on a particularly tall pole in the center of the square blasted patriotic music that Paula was sure could be heard from her own flat.

"Here you are! Coke?" She leaned over the table that was her next objective just as the Marine Corps´ hymn, Halls of Montezuma, roared over her head to the approval of a few veterans, war buffs and people who had listened to the hymn after watching Flags of Our Fathers (that movie had been a hit in Royal Oaks when it was first released, something to do with a famous officer hailing from the town whose name she had already forgotten). "Thanks, beautiful." One of the young men sitting at the table winked at her. Paula turned and strutted back into the building, a smile plastered on her face, hips swaying to the Marines´ tune. She was in love with the Fourth of July. Maybe it was her cynical mood talking to her, but she swore Spain was nowhere near as patriotic as the United States, and the first few times she had taken part in the celebrations had endeared the Americans to her. Some acted like children, others cooly thought about what the United States meant to them, and the few war veterans and soldiers she knew were proud to have defended freedom and democracy. Even if Paula disliked quite a few things of the government and America´s international policies, it was impossible for her not to be cheerful and a little bit patriotic when everyone in Royal Oaks was so happy in this date.

She set down the platter on the end of the bar and waited for the next orders to come through. That was when she noticed that a crowd had gathered at the bar, staring at the TV set right on top.

"No statements from Washington yet as to the current situation. The riots are being met with the full force of the law, although unconfirmed reports suggest that the National Guard is being mobilized to respond to..."

Paula was startled when Amanda, the girl serving at the bar tapped her on the arm. "Wake up! Table twenty-three, post-haste!" Paula looked down to see two new platters with delicious, steaming food. "Aye aye, captain!"

Back into the breach. The young Spanish woman grinned as she took off with the orders, the news on the TV brushed aside in her mind. However, soon as she was out of the building, she stopped to watch the incoming stampede of people. On the far end of the square, a crowd was running, screaming in panic, in the direction of Kipper´s. The people sitting at the tables looked worriedly at them, the more discerning already standing up and pulling their fellow tablemates to their feet. There was no talking on the tables anymore, only fearful whispers.

And then, the first people with injuries ran past, holding bleeding arms or necks. "What the hell... hey, miss, check!" Paula turned to a table where a family stared at the crowd except for the family head, a man who was hurriedly pulling his wallet out. She hurried to leave the platters on the right table, and then moved back, notebook in hand to start doing the calculations. And then she heard a blood-curling shriek, and felt the impact as something crashed onto her side and knocked her to the floor right under a table. The shock was so great, Paula´s first thought when she was on the ground was that she had somehow lost consciousness between the impact, and finding herself on the floor. Looking to her feet, she saw an unconscious old man, bald and with a short, white beard lying on top of her legs. He had a gash on his head, and was bleeding. When Paula tried to get up she almost hit her head on the table, and saw the blood dripping off the edge.

"Sir, are you Ok?" She asked with a trembling voice. That was when the old man looked up at her with greyed out eyes, and opened his mouth, showing her his crooked, bloodied teeth, a piece of flesh falling off his lips. Something, she didn´t know what, told Paula that piece of flesh was raw, and certainly not any food they served at Kipper´s. The old man shrieked inhumanly as he suddenly threw her arms onto her shoulders and tried to drag himself up to her. Paula lost her breath right there and then as she grabbed his arms and struggled to get him off. Around her, there were the loud noises of people running and screaming, tables crashing to the ground, cutlery flying and bouncing everywhere, food splattering against tables, chairs, ground and people...

Gary never prayed that hard while he was in the combat zone. He was recalling every single dogmatic prayer he could, along with numerous ones he was making up on the spot. Most of them were seeking divine intervention for the mortally wounded pickup he was driving. He didn't care that the engine temp was close enough to make the engine block melt. He couldn't care less about the low oil levels. He had no idea of how much gas was left in the machine. He was keeping it on the road, and moving as fast as he could for as long as he could.

He slowed enough to take the sharp turn. The heavy vehicle almost slid off the edge and down the gully, but maybe one of the deities up there heard him and liked him. Either way, once the thunderous screeching of the loudly protecting tires finished, he floored it and continued his escape from the insanity that was chasing him like a tsunami.

"Yep... at last, I've snapped." He glanced in the rear vision mirror for the briefest of moments. He fought his body's desire to be petrified. To remain looking forward. He hands gripped the steering wheel with an intensity that made the entire hand white from the pressure. This made him swerve violently across the road until he loosened his grip enough to allow for something akin to control.

His wide, bloodshot eyes were barely taking in the surrounds as he tried to forget what he had seen. Thought he had seen. Wished he had never seen.

"Oh... God! Make it STOP!" He thumped the wheel, jerking it enough to send the truck toward the edge of the road. It took a second for him to realize what he had done. Sleep deprivation, stratospheric stress levels and reliving impossible events all worked to ensure that he was barely functioning enough to sit, let alone drive. His brain said press the brake, his foot failed to move before the command to press occurred. The engine roared into life as it flew off the edge into the trees and other flora on the slope off the side of the road.

Absolutely nothing occurred in Gary's brain as the truck sailed through the air just like in any of the Hollywood movies. Exactly like that. Slow motion with the long drawn out sounds of the engine pushing the wheels through thin air. Tree trunks, branches, leaves and the occasional bit of wildlife blurred past him as the truck crashed through on its less than graceful arc.

It slammed onto the road with a resounding crash of complaining metal and aggravated road surface. Gary's head smashed glass, cutting his head open and blood rushing out like a river from the shallow wound. He was dazed, seeing three of everything when he saw the road bend... into the side of the mountain, not away. The head knock did one good thing for him. His adrenaline levels shot through the roof and he was more alert than he had been in days. He swung the wheel in a desperate attempt not to bury the truck in the mountain side. He just managed to rip off the passenger's side of the truck, including the door, as he made the turn.

The impacts had the opposite effect on the vehicle. Smoke and water vapour were bellowing out of the front of the truck, and the groans of the engine were louder and more threatening of a terminal outcome for his ride.

"Three! Three! Things happen in threes. My life has been saved twice by this truck. Live long enough to make it three!!"

He hit a straight stretch of road. Gary relaxed a little, not having to worry about any dangerous bends or other navigational hazards. All the grime coating the windscreen was doing so on the passenger side, leaving his view clear, except for the blood running into his left eye. He pulled a hand away from the wheel, clearing the congealing mess from his eye. The sight of it triggered the very thing he was trying to forget.

Gary was getting the boxes together to load into the back of Old Barker's truck. Sam had been a decent boss. He had been paying Gary well enough, thought not as much as he would have if Gary had ID. But he paid better than most, for the work Gary did for him. Hauling boxes, sweeping floors and doing any other shit jobs about was just what Gary needed. Plus, the Minh's let him get first crack at the end of day produce from their bakery. Helping to strap the old Mother's foot was a good move after all.

But the one thing that made Gary uneasy was all the Police, Fire and EMT vehicles racing around with their lights on and sirens blaring. He was naturally wary of the Police, who took a severe dislike to him being around. They hated vagrants for some weird reason. Still, he kept his head down and worked so they would have no cause to annoy him. But all that aside, it just felt... wrong. He knew where his bag was. He was paid cash daily, so he could do a runner at a moment's notice.

He was about to pick up the first box of tractor parts Barker had ordered when he heard the screams. Screams of people in complete, mindless terror. But it was the other screams he heard that made his blood run cold. Barely more than a sound, the other screams made his hair stand on end. His bowls felt like they turned to water. He couldn't move. He stood rooted to the spot as the screams became louder, closer and more frequent. Finally sense prevailed, and he walked into the store.

Sam, Barker and a couple of other people were looking out the front windows at the stream of people running down the street. Someone blindly ran through the massive glass pane, shredding themselves mortally in the process. Everyone screamed as they were showered in blood from the dying man flopping about on the floor. None of them were ready when 'They' turned up.

Just like in every B-Grade horror film made, they just grabbed people, tearing at them with hands and biting large pieces of flesh out of them. Gary had the front row seat to the opening scene of such a movie made real. Blood by the gallon, body parts and organs were spread liberally around the hardware store. They had no chance to move, say anything apart from their screams of terror before they died. Gary pissed himself as he watched. He couldn't move. His mind was trying desperately make sense of what was happening as six people were slaughtered in front of him. Two of them reduced to a pile of bones, mangled flesh and torn up organs. Seeing the heart of one victim jumping around, trying to pump blood that was no longer there, still hanging on to the two lungs either side was what made him finally react.

He vomited. Loudly, painfully. He tried to expel his visions via his stomach. It didn't work. Instead of the eight... things that killed Sam and the rest of them, he saw that there were twelve! One of them was Sam!

"No... No, this... this is no- No..." Gary started stepping backward, before turning to run. Footsteps echoed behind him, at least one of them running. He heard a skid followed by a crash, not knowing that his vomit saved him from Sam. The creature was now caught under a pile of shelving, scrambling to get out.

Gary got to the alley about back at a full run. He didn't bother grabbing his bag as he pelted down the alley. He checked his six in time to be bowled over by Angie Minh.

"Sorry, I didn-" Gary screamed at the site of the teenager. Her shoulder was ripped open, leaking a little blood. But her eyes, and the blood soaked butcher's knife scared him the most. He fought her, got the knife off her and ran again. She reached for him, and he swung the knife as hard as he could, removing her hand at the wrist.

For over an hour, he ran, hid, dodged, fought and went slowly insane in an insane world. Finally, he returned to the hardware store, purely by chance. He emptied the till, grabbed his bag, and old Barker's truck. He drove out of the city, as well as over more than a dozen... people, before making it clear.

The loud boom announced the terminal status of the truck. Gary was relieved to be dragged back to reality for only a moment. The hood was blown off by the engine's death, showering Gary in glass from the windscreen exploding inward. This time, his foot found the brake on the first attempt. The sudden stop was too much for the front pair of tires. They simultaneously blew, which saved Gary's life by preventing the truck from flipping over. He grabbed his bag full of possessions and jumped out of the truck before it exploded or came to life to kill him in the name of Machine Liberation or something similar.

As he ran, he looked around frantically. His anxiety levels finally brought about panic, and he couldn't think clearly. His feet tripped on the uneven ground and he fell hard to the ground. His body, pushed to the limits finally gave out. He just laid where he fell. A few seconds later, he burst into tears, the pent up emotions finally tearing their way free.


Gary awoke with a start. He launched himself to his feet. "Shit!" Then he heard the sounds of celebration. Music. The clamour of voices. Deep in his mind, a part of him told himself that it was just a few miles to the source. He could run that far. Easy. He ran. With purpose. Intent. The insanity hadn't reached there yet. He had a chance. He could warn them before it was too late.

The town was just starting to wake. Just starting to find that hum of excitement that always precipitated the July 4th Celebration. Kids heckled their parents for sparklers and smoke-bombs, illegal fireworks that they knew the teenagers had but wouldn’t share with them nomatter how many pleases they muttered or how many times they threatened to tell mom and dad. The town was just starting to wake up and he was just starting to get tired, hulking over a picnic table after the last seat was mended and the last bunting hung. Six hours and counting of preparation, a great deal of it on his own, the kind of hard diligent trying work that most men and women feel obligated to see to.

But it wasn’t obligation for him. Not at all. The rest of the town sank steadily into excitement, throbbed and pulsed with life and vigor and the contented happiness of all things American while he? He sat there. He watched them. And he got angrier. To say that the rage was making a dent wasn’t fair, not in the least. The anger had been growing so long and so quietly now that there wasn’t any doubt that it’d the ability to turn liquid in order to stay contained. He’d mastered the art of loathing everything and everybody without giving them the scarcest of hints. It curled up through him with the brutality of a snake bite, infecting everything. It’d consumed so much of him that he felt but a shill to what had once been John Shepard’s son, pride of Royal Oaks.

They certainly wouldn’t have loved him if they knew just how desperate he was getting and just how empty he was. The Christian tenants of the church, a literal Hail Mary effort to save himself, had fallen brutally short of their promised salvation. He’d found the church so uncomfortable he’d almost lost his cool, broken the façade, let the stoic face crack and all the darkness slip out of him and spread along infront of the neighbors to whom he was ordered to provide.

Owen Shepard was barely keeping himself cared for. Sure, by the looks of him, you’d never find a healthier man. The lean plane of his body was carved by daily exercises, daily movements. His grooming was meticulous. Each were a part of the daily rituals that helped him navigate the nagging emptiness swirling and growing inside him. Each of those little motions, from flicking the light switches on and off to counting every push-up in time was a connection to the world he was so quickly falling away from.

So many happy faces. A mockery. He loved them and hated them for their ignorance. The purity of partnership and family and peace fell on these people in buckets, drenched them with the kind of fortune he had been unable to obtain. The rottenness came from envy. He wasn’t proud of it. Infact, the cold nature of it all never failed to announced itself to him. The lack of pride often crossed to outright shame, which shred what confidence he could ever manage to gather and spun him right round into the darkness again. Mondays were the easiest days. Friday’s the hardest. And each weekend he’d get in his truck and drive to the only relief he’d let himself have besides the work.

And fuck, did he work.

Six hours. Two barrel cookers. Enough ribs and wings to feed the small army of men and women that’d beset the plaza. The Royal Oaks All-American Independence Day Parade, a joyful little slice of Americana, paraded the Grape Queen and King from George Washington High on the backs of pick-up trucks. Music, food, fireworks and fun. A carnival atmosphere that was supported by the stalls manned by most of the town’s vintners.

It’d started to draw a crowd ten years ago. Back then, of course, Owen had still been a happy man. He was a soldier and a son, a husband. Things made sense and felt real, tangible, achievable. Anyway, Earl Botts had been the first to lay out a table featuring his wines. The others followed. And what had once been a town-wide celebration turned into a wine-lover’s holiday getaway. The tourists rolled in. Old and white, young and rich. They pissed money out of their pockets and into the town and left feeling better for it.

It was a beautiful thing. A little slice of celebrity for a town good enough to deserve it.

Kipper’s Tavern had donated kegs. Owen had set them in big plastic tubs colored in pastel red and blue, buried them in ice. He’d had a couple to calm his nerves, calm the ocean of feelings churning through him. Calm the memories.

“You alright, Shep?” His dad’s nickname. He wore it unwillingly.

But the rest couldn’t know by the way he smiled. Owen gave it his best as he stood up, reclaiming his full height and moping his sweaty brow with the back of a flannel-clad arm.

It was Don “Kipper” Manischevic. The man’s broad face and round nose was distinctly polish and his balding head a consequence of being in his fifties. He clapped Owen’s shoulder.

“Sure.” Owen nodded. “But I should get to taking orders and making up plates.”

Don shook his head and lifted a hand, pointing at Paula. “She’s all over it, Shep. Try and relax. The old man would be proud.”

“Thanks, Don.” He said, managing another smile. It was sincere enough to disarm his father’s friend. “But I have to get to the shop real quick. I had a surprise to set up.”

Fireworks. His dad’s old tricks reborn. He doubted Don had forgotten. When his dad had died Owen had done his best to slip right into his place, keep things going. The fireworks display that he managed every summer had gotten bigger and bigger and with Owen it was no different. If he hurried he’d be finished by seven. That’d give him two hours to have a hotdog and a couple drinks before it was time to set them off.

The world helped him stay balanced. The tight schedules and endless focus on the tasks at hand grounded him from the grief and the loneliness. He knew that. None of it escaped him. Owen was bright enough to understand that he was barely hanging on. The issues were deep rooted. He couldn’t break the cycle.

But he refused to let it make him unproductive. A man could suffer unhappiness. You learned that in the Army. Suffering unhappiness was a life skill, a reality. It was a way of accepting that in so many ways your lot was chosen for you and the fates were cruel.

“I’m sure it’ll be the best one yet, Shep!” Don called. A big smile on his face.

Owen loved Don like an Uncle. Like so many of the townspeople being kind to them was easy, even with his unhappiness, because they were tremendous neighbors. After all, deep down, he knew it wasn’t their fault that thins had turned out this way. Sometimes the world just dealt you a folding hand and waited to see what you’d do.

Owen wasn’t the folding type. He bluffed.

His phone rang before he reached the door to the store, vibrating angrily in his pocket as he struggled to fish them out of his jeans. The haste in his deft hands robbed them of their dexterity, turned them dumb as he pinched them together around the phone’s plastic and struggled to slip it free. It was an old flip-phone that Marla had gotten him before he’d shipped out the second time, a way to try and get ahold of her. Neither of them had known that the phone didn’t work across the ocean without a special calling plan. They couldn’t afford it. He’d kept it with him anyway, a reminder.

By the time he got the phone out of his pants the call was gone. A number blinking in reply.

He unlocked the store and went in, moving past the racks. Outside there were calls, muffled through the glass. A firecracker went off in the street. Owen ignored it, lowered his head and dialed Lara’s number, unaware of the chaos swirling outside. His attention fixed as he stood amidst the racks of his store. Wishing, just wishing, that the day was over and he could make his lonely drive up to Detroit.

Lara to Owen.

The street was long...Part of a beautiful old small town, to east of main hub. Lara slowed the car down..It crawled in third gear, the engine purring as she searched shop windows for people inside. There was no one in sight..It looked in part as if people had just been sucked right out of what ever activity they were doing..A watering can lay on its side, the water drying on the warm side walk, toppled over as its carrier seemingly left or was taken quickly. A grocery bag lay tossed aside, with a hand print in red dragged across the front wall of the small bookstore as someone had tried to cling to the door frame.
The light turned red at the top of the street, and Lara braked, and waited..It was ridiculous..Sitting at a red light, watching the rear view mirror for sign of some kind of movement. Her eyes nervous, her face pale, obeying without a thought the fucking traffic code.

She pulled out onto the towns main street. It was like leaving one world of a one street, and entering another. There was buntings, banners and celebratory preparations everywhere. And she remembered then..'He' was here somewhere..helping out....doing most of the work himself. She bit her lip..Was he ok..Why hadn't he answered? ''Please be safe''..The radio was detailing how panicked people were calling in, terrified by something they couldn't explain ...No one knew what was happening still..There was no one that could say just what the hell was going on!

The phone rang and Lara almost jumped out of her skin as the bip bip of her ring tone filled the car. It was Owen..She braked, held the phone for a minute, and gritted her teeth against the urge to burst into tears..There was people running from one side of the street down a side alley and she watched them almost numbly..But the emotion was raw in her voice..Her hand shook as she replied, her eyes darting around from mirror to mirror, and the people in the distance still working on tables, still unaware of what was crawling towards them like a wayward wind..All happening, with the sun shining and the trees waving innocently in the summer breeze.

''I'm in town......I'm coming over........Turn on the radio.''

She put the car in first gear, the phone still to her ear, as she inhaled a quivered breath and whispered to Owen, Lara more afraid of the normality still evident on the street, despite the abnormalities of the horror moving through the town.

''Don't hang up...Please...Please stay on the line with me''..

There was no resisting or fighting it then..Lara blinked against the tears the spilled over, the car moving swiftly past the tables, and the people rushing, confusion on their faces, some terrified and aimlessly panicked with no destination in mind., Lara's voice cracking as ''Honest John's'' came into view.

''I'm sorry....I'm sorry''..

Sorry for what?...Sorry for crying..Sorry for calling..Sorry for coming to his store petrified...But she had to..She had to see him to know he was ok. When exactly had she began to care ? ..When exactly had Lara looked at Owen, the guy she'd grown up around;- who had been been her first crush when she was a teenager fighting spots and wearing braces in her teeth- and found she had to hide what she felt behind a soft smile, a few well chosen words, to save a friendship she didn't want to lose because she felt more than what friend should feel.
Owen had been, and still was one beautiful example of manhood.. Her memories of him when she was a kid were different to the memories since he'd come back to town years ago, and their friendship began again. There was something in him that Lara didn't understand. They laughed together..She wasn't afraid to touch him, to reach out to him and insist on him hugging her when she was bold enough to dare. But Owen's smile rarely if ever really warmed his eyes..There was a loss there that she wanted to remove..heal...ease from him...But she knew better than to pry..She'd just be Lara for him...to him..Lara that adored him quietly..She wasn't afraid to call him. He was her friend....Sometimes late at night she'd call..just to hear him talk to her when she couldn't sleep..He had the most beautiful voice.
Did she love him?...It was hard to love a man that kept so much back...But she did..It was easy for Lara..And she wouldn't press him..Look for more than he could give. She wasn't necessarily happy, but she was happy enough in being his friend.. He was, for her, worth knowing the rumors that Lara conveniently ignored despite them hurting her.. She didn't ask him if they were true..It wasn't her business..not as a friend. And in truth, Lara didn't want to know what he did in the city. She just wanted what he could give..and give her freely with out him feeling pressured, or guilty cause his friend was stupid enough to not just love him, but fall in love with him.

She could hear the thumping of a hammer in the distance....and then a drill....She looked around carefully, her left hand brushing her hair off her face..Her skin was naturally dark, but it was almost gray with fear, her bangs clinging to her forehead with a sheen of frightened perspiration. In her right hand hung her handgun, as she walked around the front of her car, the Mercedes front grill twisted with the hood ornament snapped out of its coupling, from the clash with her gates. Her hand on the hood, she walked slowly, constantly watching, looking around her, she still on the phone , whispering to Owen.

''I shot Manuel...I had to.......He was...he was, ..I don't know..but he was a monster......and they're everywhere.''

She sounded insane..she knew that. Lara reached in to the passenger seat and took the rifle out, tucking it under her arm, closing the door with her hip as she dried her eyes with the heal of her hand..

''I'm scared Owen....I'm scared...''

Her footsteps sounded hollow on the sidewalk...Behind her, somewhere, there was one god awful scream..She turned quickly, raised the handgun, and backed towards ''Honest John's'' shop door, still holding the phone, still talking needing the contact until she was inside, where she turned around facing Owen, phone to her ear, a raised handgun pointing at him , and the rifle under her arm..Her hand shook, as she slowly lowered it, and Lara leaned back against the door relief exhausting her fear as soon as she saw him.

''Oh God....I couldn't remember where you said you were going to be...and when you didn't answer...I thought...I thought'''..

And Lara burst into tears, as the scream outside died, and throat cackling howl burst upwards.

Aside from the steady roar and occasional change of gears from his beloved rig the silence grew. The four hundred plus horsepower was the only other sound for miles, aside from his Johnny Cash collection of course. Brandon grew increasingly suspicious as he changed channel after channel on both his CB, FM, and AM radio's. Nothing. With a frown he changed to the last station he'd heard anything on and sent out a call, "Check check, this is B66ZR0, anybody copy?" Damn radio. Antenna must be shot. Next he tried his cellphone, but nobody at the office picked up. Neither did any of the plethora of other drivers he was friends, enemies, or at least acquaintances of. Somethin ain't right. He decided immediately as he maneuvered around a particularly tight curve. Right away he noticed the brake lines, the abandoned police cruiser, and the damaged Oldsmobile. There was something seriously fucked up about this little town. Where the hell was the copper at?

Deciding against his better judgment Brandon slowed his rig onto the shoulder.

After sitting still for a few moments and debating things in his mind he reached under his comfortably highly mounted seat and pulled out his Benelli M4. It was a five round 12 gauge semi-automatic that Brandon had bought during a time when a run of thieves were high jacking high end TV and audio systems out in the Midwest region. He kept it cleaned and loaded, but only had to use it once. Even then all he had to do was show the thieves that he meant business and they passed him by. Fuckin runts... He remembered with a snort, before spitting a wad of snot and spittle onto the ground outside his window. After checking all of his mirrors, and making sure the breaks were all engaged and the transmission was set in neutral Brandon popped open his door and slipped out onto the road.

He looked both ways before bending over and removing his Colt .45 from his ankle holster and stuffing it in the small of his back. Just in case. Making his way over to the cruiser first, he was put on edge by the smell of blood and site of the dead officer. It looked like a bear or pack of wolves had gone to town. Only... Something was wrong; he was still breathing!

Brandon stepped closer, but at the sound of his boots on the pavement the head of the officer snapped around and a unnatural scream left the man's tongueless mouth.

"Holy mother of shit!" That wasn't a man.

"Fuckin hell, what happe-"

The man, thing, lunged at him from his seat in the car. He, no, it tripped on the frame and smashed face first into the pavement, and then tried to get up. "Oh fuck no, I don't think so you crazy ass fucked up monster, stay the fuck down." With a resounding thud Brandon placed the heel of his thick boot on the base of the man's skull and put all two hundred and seventy-five pounds of his weight into his boot. The creature didn't scream in pain, only anger at being trapped. It thrashed violently, but couldn't move or quite get a disgusting hand on him. Glancing over at the Oldsmobile quickly added a few clues to the mystery. The driver and passenger had been shot by the cop, probably because they were just as crazy, but who had gotten a piece of the officer?

It didn't take long for him to notice the tiny trail of bloody shoe marks that led away from the cruiser and towards the town.

"Awwww shiiiiiiit," Blam! The gunshot echoed several times through the valley, "Sorry partner, twas the best thing forya."

In seconds Brandon was back behind the wheel of his rig. Things were fucked up in this little town, and he wanted to turn around. However, he couldn't. Not on this small road with his big ass rig. Plus, from the silence that had drawn on all morning he was almost sure that whatever had turned those three, no, four, into monsters had probably hit other places as well. There'd be no point in going back to a big city where there was more of them, well. Wait a minute you pussy, get a hold of yourself, you could be wrong. There could be people still alive, well and good back east, or in the town for that matter. You've got gun, ain't this what you always wanted? To go to town on all the prick's who live everywhere? It was true, more than once he'd be tempted to put a little led in the pedestrians, tourists, and old faggots who clogged up his roads... But this was just fucked.

"Fuckit," Once again he put the truck in gear and started towards the town. As he drove he reloaded his shotgun and laid his .45 next to it on the seat. Then he took his Remington 700 SPS with a .308 chamber that he regularly used hunting and stood it up as his passenger next to him. The ammo was all in his cabin, but each weapon was currently loaded and he had a box of twelve gauge ammo open on the seat.

As he barreled towards the little city his mind wandered to the little footprints. He wondered if the boy, or girl, were still alive. In fact he kept wondering about it so much that when he saw her up the road a bit he figured it was just apart of his wondering.

That was until she turned around; she looked a few months pregnant. Her belly was swollen from feeding on the cop, he realized with a sickening drop in his stomach.

"That big breakfast was the wrong idear this mornin I guess," He muttered as he shifted gears and accelerated while pulling on his air horn. "Come get it ya little flesh eatin whore!" He screamed out the window with his long hair flowing beautifully out behind him. She turned at the sound, and snarled before running towards him. He saw her stump of an arm, and remembered the missing hand. "Too bad sugar... Looks like someone got a piece of you too... Well, now I'll make sure ta get the rest of ya!"

The collision was over in a second. Only a small splatter of blood reached the windshield. Brandon calmly flicked on his wipers. The small bump was no worse then a little pothole, but a glance in the mirror told him that she was dead. A simple smear of blood scraped across the pavement under his tires. With a rather gleeful grin he continued into town.

Pulling the air horn again as he swung down the main drag Brandon let loose a wild yell, "Cooooooome get it! Fresh flesh ya little creepy crawly fuckfaces!" He came to a stop gently, not wanting to ruin his breaks for the sake of showmanship. While reaching back he took a box of rifle, pistol, and shotgun ammo from the cabin and placed them on the roof of his rig. Then he swung out with all three firearms strapped to his body as he climbed atop the rig, and then jumped the small gap to his trailer.

"It's huntin time!"

The last item he'd brought was an air horn, that he let blast a few more times before pulling the Remington up to his shoulder and taking careful aim at the fat head of an overweight grandma. The pesky ones that drove in the left lane at ten miles under the speed limit.

"Fucking bitch."

The bright splash of blood brought a smile to Brandon's face.

"Hang on grandpa, yer next ya fucker!"

Meanwhile, Brandon carefully lit his cigar as more and more of the horde began creeping slowly out of their shop's, cars, trash cans, and more often than not feasts of delicious man flesh they had been enjoying. With a gentle puff he took a careful siting and grandpa's head disappeared in a flash of red.

"Yeeeee hawwwww!"

-3pm-

A few hours had passed since Mac's arrival to the heart of the town and everything was well under way. A celebratory mishmash full of generic music, greasy foods and loud people filled the town square while Mac remained off to the side. He had never been much of a people person, and all his close friends had moved away for college, so it was hard to justify interacting with anyone. Nonetheless, it was hard to deny that seeing them have so much fun was contagious. Once in a while people just needed a day to forget the troubles of the world and just enjoy themselves and each others company. Somewhere down the line this event had even drawn tourists. It was hard to understand why anyone would willingly travel to a small place like this, but to each their own...

Mac took another sip of his Pepsi and glanced at his watch. He'd return home to start packing in a minute. As he took another look at the bustling crowd he realized he'd kind of miss moments like this, but he knew his mother wouldn't be moving any time soon, so visits back were inevitable. Leaving was a big change for him, but it wasn't the end of the world...

Suddenly, a screech came from the western road. A blue minivan was barreling down toward the crowd, despite the roads to the town center being mostly closed off. The driver apparently cared not as he swerved crazily. Mac could only assume he was drunk as hell, but despite gestures from one of the local police officers to stop, the driver made no indication that he planned on doing so. Much of the crowd was still too distracted to notice and the dark-haired young man ran toward them in a meager attempt to give warning.

"HEY! MOVE! LOOK OUT!" Mac shouted, finally alerting some people. A few screams echoed out and finally people were realizing the incoming danger. Unfortunately for then it was a bit too late. The large vehicle plowed directly through a group of people gathered around one of the grills before its momentum was brought to a halt by one of the nearby building's concrete exterior. The screams were now not just in fear but in horror and disgust at the carnage. The vehicle had been going at least 70...

Mac stopped in his tracks, eyes wide in shock. Never in his life did he think he'd witness anything like that. He even tried to convince himself he was dreaming as some people fled by him. The music was brought to a halt and many of the well-intentioned citizens crowded around the injured to help. The worst of it was the car, however. As Mac waded through the crowed, he could only see smoke rising from the wreckage at first. He imagined how it might look, but once he made the front lines he brought his hand to his mouth to keep from vomiting. There were at least three bodies still stuck underneath, twisted and contorted into unimaginable positions. They were dead for sure.

As for the vehicle itself; the front had been flattened all the way to the windshield. The impact had been so strong that the driver and passenger doors had been flung open allowing full view of the two people up front. Or what was left of them anyway. The driver's face was against the steering wheel, full of glass from the shattered windshield and dripping blood everywhere. He'd been wearing his seatbelt but clearly it didn't seem to have helped much. The woman's body in the passenger seat was mangled against the dashboard. She, on the other hand, hadn't been using the seatbelt. Had the car not been so smashed against a wall, she likely would have been launched out. Instead, she simply smacked the wall with her face, shearing most of it away and slumped downward...

Mac was speechless. Mr. Ross, one of the event organizers, was shouting orders now. The officer from before was doing his best to back people away from the wreck and trying to get them to remain calm. It wasn't working very well. There were a lot of sobs and cries from loved ones who saw their family members get mowed down by a two ton car and due to the town's small nature, almost everyone knew everyone. There just wasn't much room for anonymity in the victims making everything that much more personal. Despite this, Mac didn't seem to recognize the people in the car. Tourists heading into town perhaps... Then again they weren't exactly in their best shape either.

Then a gurgle came from inside the car. It seemed impossible but the woman was actually making noise. At first Mac thought it was merely some residual escaping of gas and fluids but moments later it was clear that the woman was actually groaning. This snapped a few bystanders into action, rushing over to try and speak with her and assure her that help was on the way.... but something felt off. There was just no way that woman was alive. No way.

Someone pulled her body to the seat. As she slumped back, it gave a better view of her face, or what used to be a face. Skull was visible through the forehead, nose and jaw, and most disturbingly the teeth were full of flesh... Mac glanced to the driver and noticed that a large chunk of his neck was missing. It seemed impossible but it was becoming quite clear that the woman had... bitten him. Severely. It was now rather understandable why the car crashed the way it did, but who would do something like that...?

Someone had opened the side doors to the minivan revealing two twin boys, both seemingly unconscious. One had a large scratch on his cheek and the other had a wound on his wrist. They had been strapped in tightly and it didn't seem like their injuries had come from the crash but rather before. So now there was even more to the mystery. Just who had harmed them?

--

The family was coming to visit from out of town. During a stop at a nearby gas station, a decrepit figure approached one of the boys as he bounced a ball outside the van. Without hesitation, the sick man lunged at the child, only for him to barely be dragged out of the way by his brother. Unfortunately the ugly nail of the attacker had made a rather large gash on his cheek.

The family, in fear, drove toward the town in hopes of finding a hospital, but the boy began to exhibit symptoms of a very unusual sickness... It wasn't long after that he passed out, only to seemingly shoot awake and bite his own brother as he reached out curiously. The mother was next, reaching back to separate her children only to have the sick one bite her hand as well...

The rest you know.

---

Mac backed up slowly and ran his hands through his hair in complete and utter confusion. A middle aged man was holding the woman's bloody hand and calmly talking to her. Mac figured that unless someone could literally teleport the woman into the emergency room that she would die before any help arrived. He honestly wished someone with a gun would just walk up and shoot her in the head. End whatever suffering there was...

But she wasn't suffering...

The man holding her hand was.

As the woman was now latched onto his neck with her teeth, causing him to wail out in blood-curdling agony. The children in the back had been unbuckled by a lady intending to carry them to safety, but now she was being mauled by both of them. Panic ensued... People began to run while others made futile attempts to help, only for them to get scratched or bitten as well...

Mac felt helpless. He was frozen in fear. There was nothing he could do. So he ran to his car. He'd drive for help somewhere... but where?

It didn't matter. Right now, he just needed to get away. A woman who had been trying to help only to get bitten raced into her car while sobbing, driving off in a hurry. Mac rushed into his SUV, inevitably following the same direction as the woman. She drove frantically but correctly at first, only to finally swerve and smash into a street lamp about a mile down, causing Mac to have to swerve to avoid a collision of his own...

"Jesus Christ!" He finally spoke up to himself, slamming on the brakes.

"Please! Please, help!" A female voice called out nearby, catching Mac's attention. As he glanced out the window, he noticed a familiar face. Jessa Howards, a classmate of his. At most they had been in some group projects together, but Mac couldn't help but feel a bit of relief at seeing someone he knew.

Mac threw his door open and ran out, taking a look at the nearby car wreck which seemed rather silent. It didn't look anywhere near as bad as the one in town, but he still had a bad feeling when he noticed the woman not moving.

"H-hello...?" He weakly called out, taking a few steps toward the car. He then turned to where the voice had come from.

"Jessa? Are you alright...?" He inquired, only for his attention to suddenly be turned back to the car as a hand slammed against the window, followed by a disgusting guttural moan.

"Jessa... Get in my car..." He stated in a surprisingly calm manner, running back into the driver's side as quickly as he could and reaching over to swing the passenger door open.

''I'm in town......I'm coming over........Turn on the radio.'' She whispered.

"I can't," he answered. "What's wrong?"

Owen disliked talking on the phone. He was never much for words, stories, or anecdotes. Seldom, if ever, did he have more than a few soft words when he spoke to people. It was more natural to listen. Sometimes, with Lara, she'd get going in a happy little chatter. He'd learned to anticipate the cadence of her words or the drawing of certain syllables when she got excited. It was one of the few times the anger had slipped away from him, soothed by an old friend's company, even though she typically managed the lion's share of the conversation. No, Owen disliked talking on the phone so much that it made him that much more quiet.

But he didn't like what he heard in her voice. The trembling of emotion, fear, communicated even as she hissed soft words to him. In his mind he could see her hunched, paranoid, over the wheel of her car.

''Don't hang up...Please...Please stay on the line with me!" He heard her say, sudden and desperate.

"Lara, what's wrong?" The tone of his voice dropped. Deadly serious. She was scaring him. Irrational.

A babble of "I'm sorry" ran from the phone in reply, a soft mournful stream of hysterics. And crying. Soft tears. He made no attempt to interrupt her. It would have been unwise to do so. In all his experience with Lana, the years that they had shared from gradeschool and beyond, he had learned that sometimes women had a need for a cry. It was as if thirty seconds of hysterics translated to hours of certain, easy calm.

But after awhile there was no relief. No calm. He could hear her, gently, crying.

He could not see the street from the shop's interior. The front of the store was a handsome red-brick behind a solid wooden door. It was a colonial building, stretching long from front to back but narrow elsewise, and one of the larger of the type inside Royal Oaks. The floor was dominated by long shelves and racks filled with odds and end, highlighted by farming gear and the town's only grocery.

Owen was glad for that big door. It nearly sound-proofed the shop's interior from the bustle of the street. In this instance he was most glad that those outside couldn't hear him, because he began to speak low. Aware, even in the quiet, of the chance that someone might hear him speaking to her.

Town was small. Rumors got legs quick.

"Lara, listen. You have to tell me what's going o-"

''I shot Manuel...I had to.......He was...he was, ..I don't know..but he was a monster......and they're everywhere.''

Owen dropped the phone. He'd not meant to. He scolded himself for it. But all the same it fell from his strong fingers and exploded on the tile floor in an explosive -CRACK!-. All at once Owen felt things shift, dilate and expand. It was as though the darker aspects of his dreams and the swirling cancer of his anger were swallowed suddenly and sharply by pure confusion. She had shot Manual. That is what he had heard. Clear as day. The rest was a gentle babble through teras, words lost here and there. It wouldn't have mattered, anyway. He could not process the very first part of her confession.

She'd shot Manual. A man, by any account, whom had helped her raise the vineyard's crops of grapes and forge their wine since her father had passed. he had, in some small way, been closer to her then any man could have been so fortunate to be. He'd spoken to her when she was upset and laughed with her when she was happy.

He simply could not picture her shooting him.

And then the bell above the door rang, jingling cheerily as she walked in. His eyes found her, tear-streaked cheeks and dark hair. The lovely girl from Royal Oaks who'd grown to be one of its most beautiful women. A friend. An old friend. She stepped in and closed the door.

He saw the rifle and his heart sank, only to explode in his chest as she spun and lifted the pistol towards him. There was no warning, no words, just a lift of her hand and the pistol she carried. The cold black barrel leveled on him. Owen was suddenly scared, though he didn't show it.

"Lara?" He asked, his words even.

And then the gun came down and she began to sob, shaking by the door as the words poured from her lips. Owen reacted on instinct. Fear evaporated. All at once he reached for her, attempting to curl a strong hand along the back of her lean neck and drag her lissome form against his own, wrapping her up in the broad stretch of his arms.

He didn't ask her what happened. She'd tell him. But right now there were only the pair of them in the store, isolated from the town they had grown up in. And he gathered her into the embrace, offered her the broad stretch of his chest to cry on and gather herself against before the explanation came. Monsters, she had said. And while a part of him doubted, played skeptic, and worried that Lara had done something evil and crazy...

He just couldn't assume the worst. Not with her.

"Easy, kid." He said. A childhood nickname returning. They'd watched Casablanca together in the fourth grade, back when she'd thought of herself as grown up and made a habit of making him watch movies that were in black and white or too full of kissing. He'd caught one of Bogart's lines and parroted it to her every chance he had. She'd always been "Kid" to him after that.

"Whatever is going on, you're alright now. We'll figure this out."

Lara to Owen/Light Ice

There was no taking the fear from her...no making Lara unafraid...., but Owen's embrace did something for her that Lara needed..He calmed her..Calmed her enough that she could force herself to count between breaths, her breathing slowing enough that her heart while full with fear didn't feel as if it was about to explode out of her chest.
Panic was a terrible thing. Especially when it's caused by something that offers no explanation...The news on TV was always full of murders, accidents, wars, deaths of one kind or another, ....but what was happening outside didn't slip into a category ..It was a horror all on its own, with no definition.

She stood there with the handgun gripped in her right hand, and the rifle in her left...She couldn't let them go..She was too afraid to...But Lara didn't move from Owen....didn't try pull back...didn't want to feel space between them as 'Kid' was hugged tightly, his hand beneath her hair as Owen controlled her shakes and comforted her they'd figure it out.
She held him too..The flat of the hand gun pressed against his back, her hand clutching both it and him to her..There was desperation in her embrace as she mumbled against the last gasped sob.

''I just...I just......I didn't know what to do''.

There was something greater than fear she felt..It saddened her that in a moment when he held her , that it was because she was terrified.. She could appreciate just how wonderful it was being so close, even if it was because of fear. She needed it..Needed the holding.
Fear was an emotion...And even it recognized the power of loving someone enough to go looking for them to see they were safe..ok...unharmed, and to want to hold them and keep them safe..ok..unharmed..
It even recognized the relief that came as shakes subsided and bit by bit, sense was being made of something that made no sense at all.

She spoke then...Mumbled against his shoulder..she told him of Manuel...and of Maggy. Maggy who Lara had witnessed being....being...

''...they....bit her.....She was screaming...and they bit into her face...and she was still screaming.''

That morning, she'd left the winery with over 50 people working between the yard and the fields....and Lara had only found those four.

''I don't know what's happened.''

She leaned back...brought her hand up to her face, gun still gripped, and wiped across her eyes with the back of her hand, gritting her teeth together, swallowing hard on another swell of emotion..Soon as she got herself under control, she looked up at Owen again, her words tight, her throat feeling as if it had frozen place as she bit out what she wanted to say.

''But they're in town too.....It's started here too....The Parade Owen...The Parade.''

She looked back toward the front window, the street appearing quiet, the shop secure behind its stout door .

''....The towns already full of people....There's kids.....babies..Oh Jesus!''

As if on que, a tall dark haired man raced by, with a little girl in his arms, then a woman, with gorgeous long blond hair, holding an infant, with a third child racing beside her, holding her hand. She was screaming, the kids were crying..he was trying to open a car door shoving the little girl inside, reaching for the baby in his wifes arms..One by one, in he managed to get the three kids into the car..And only because the two creatures that had followed them, had pulled his wife into an embrace of their own, as Lara stared blankly out , still with Owen..
She pulled free then, robbed of the safety of Owen's arms, and pressed her powerful handgun into his chest, with out looking at him;..her eyes fixed on the two ravagers as the husband sobbed , screaming for his wife.

''Aim for their heads''

...There was a terror greater than fear..It actually frightened her so much, Lara was numb...The father made a choice that wasn't really a choice..rather the only option he had... He climbed into the car, started the engine, and smacked it into reverse, the tires skidding , white rubbery smoke puffing from beneath the bed of the car as he kept their kids safe.....and watched his wife struggling and losing a battle she could never win.

Lara didn't focus on what the two gray faced blood stained horrors were doing to the mother..She concentrated on the need to stop them..She pulled open the door, and the shop filled with the outside noises of tires and the roaring of an engine, and while her attention was on the twisted gut churning scene that unfolded in just heart beats of time, she heard other screams...other horrific triumphant cackling shrill screeches in the distance that made her blood cold, as she raised her rifle and fired into the trio...over and over.

Paula was running on pure instinct. Her body, that is. Her mind was frozen in time as she looked down at the face of the old man dragging himself up to her. His blank eyes, his bloodied teeth, his drooling lips. Some flesh fell out of his mouth, raw, still bleeding, onto her black vest. Dark stains formed from the blood and drool, while the flesh rolled off her clothes. Paula´s own visage was locked in an expression of fear and disgust. Her arms ran on automatic, keeping the man´s hands off her shoulders so he could not propel himself up any further.

And then he bit her breast.

If Paula had not been surprised, she would have cried out in pain. The man´s teeth closed on her left breast, trying to pierce through the leather vest, but his teeth were simply in too poor a state to manage even that. Not that Paula would have known if he could even do that on bare skin, but she still felt him pinching her flesh painfully. And it was the pain that convinced her that she had to do something more than let her body act passively and let the old man do anything else. Her knee shot up between his legs, smashing into his crotch, but the thing on top of her did not seem to feel it or care about it, and was starting to chew onto the leather. "Joder!" Paula cried out in Spanish as the adrenaline started running through her, a heavy thumping in her head and the unbearable need to move fast and hard, strength that seemed about to rip out of her arms.

Using her leg already up, fighting against the tight mini-skirt, she rolled to get on top. She was gasping for air to feed her body as she reached for the closest weapon-like thing she could find. Out of the corner of her eye she had spotted something long, metal, and grasped it with trembling fingers while her other hand closed around the monster´s neck and tried to push him down. Even with the adrenaline and her being on top, she could not dislodge the thing´s grip on her, so she aimed the thing in her hand and jammed it into the old man´s eye. Only then did he seem even the slightest bit surprised, before Paula screamed in fear at what she was doing, and pushed it in.

The spork drove on into the man´s head until half of the handle disappeared into eye. Blood leaked out mixed with a transparent liquid that Paula did not want to identify and, thankfully, couldn´t. The old man´s face remain transfigured into an incarnation of the most abject hatred as she pushed him off, his teeth dislodging from her vest. Paula stared at him, her eyes unfocused on anything in particular, least of all the spork sunk into his eye socket. She remained still, unable to think about anything, only feeling her own body. The tension, the heat and heavy pounding in her head, the cold, clammy sweat on her hands and face, the dead man´s clothes under her legs... it was only a few seconds later that her brain started processing all the noise around her.

Turning to look, Paula saw a scene of utter madness. A huge melee had started in Kipper´s square, dozens of people fighting for their lives just as she had been doing. The man who had asked for the check was swinging a chair madly at two children, who kept trying to lunge at her through the heavy blows they were receiving. His wife and his teenage son were right behind him, the wife crying out, begging for help while the young man held his bleeding arm, sobbing on his knees, confused. Unable to comprehend what was going on.

That´s two of us. Paula stood up slowly, almost stumbling as she tried to make sense of what was going on, but... it just did not make sense. Looking down at the corpse at her feet, she tried to understand, but it was simply impossible, because... because zomb...

"No... no, that´s just impossible." Paula smiled as she felt a crack in her mind. And there goes my sanity.

Turning her attention back to her surroundings, it was clear the people still fighting were getting overwhelmed. More of the monsters came in from alleyways and streets, running like Olympians. Paula did not need any more encouragement, and she did not feel like making a last stand with sporks and knives on top of a tiny table in a waitress´ uniform. She ran for the building, struggling with the heels on her shoes, and slammed the doors open with a push. Inside, it was the same scene. The crowd that had gathered to watch TV was now fighting for their lives, surrounded, their backs against the wall by the bar. The TV was now giving a weather report, and Paula whimpered, wondering why nobody in the TV channel´s offices seemed to be taking this a bit seriously.

The Spanish waitress stormed down the main aisle of the restaurant, her blood pumping furiously in her veins. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the first stool she found by the legs and swung it into the head of the first snarling beast of the group fighting the few human beings still left in Kipper´s. With all the pounding and the shrieking, she couldn´t hear anything, but the monster fell over dead or unsconscious. Paula prayed it was the first because, looking behind her just in case, she was witness to the large glass windows bursting inwards as more of the things jumped through awkwardly. Glass rained onto the chairs and tables, as did bodies. They tripped, slid or fell over, then struggled to their feet.

I have to get away. I have to escape! Paula realized as she reached for the bar, and pushed herself up and over it. Suddenly, she felt a pull on her legs, and fell off the bar rather than land on her feet. She cried out in pain when she hit her elbow against the shelves, bottles falling off them and onto the floor, the heaviest one hitting her on the leg, leaving behind a numb sensation. At first, she thought she´d been caught, but a quick glance down and she realized it was her miniskirt that had caused her to be unable to move her legs properly. She got back onto her feet as fast as she could and limped on to the back, noticing Harry´s corpse as she passed. His right arm was a mess of blood, flesh and bone, a few fingers left. He was sitting in the corner, by the freezer´s door.

Thanks for the miniskirt, fucker. She snarled, almost breathlessly, as she stepped into the freezer and pulled on the heavy steel door. Paula didn´t know why, but she somehow had managed to reach the safest place she could think of. Probably in an unsconscious manner, maybe because she had noted a few times before that the freezer would be as good a refuge as one could find around in one of her sudden moments of fantasy.

The steel door closed, and she rammed the lock into place, in the darkness. It was almost completely black inside, although what little light filtered through the frame of the door bounced on the white tiles and steel all around her, letting her see that she was safe for now. That was more or less when she also remembered that it was called a `freezer´ for a reason. The adrenaline kept her warm inside, but the cold bit her thanks to the sweat. First, she thought that was an ironic thought. Second, as she stepped back from the door, she pulled at her vest to check on it. Paula sighed, trembling weakly in relief when she noticed the old man had not wounded her. Looking under the vest, the blouse was intact. Her breast felt tender, her legs hurt and her elbow was pulsing with an even greater pain... but, as Paula thought while sudden tears ran down her cheeks, she was a thousand times luckier than a lot of people out there. Surveying her surroundings with her large, brown eyes, she noted that there was no danger around. Meat hanging off the ceiling, crates of wine and beer piled against the walls, but no maniac shrieking and running at her in the darkness. She turned the light on, ignoring the growing thumping on the door. Paula figured the things outside had somehow known where she went, but there was no way they would get through the steel door. It was too thick, and too tough to break through with bare hands.

"God... please don´t let them be smarter than that..." She whispered to herself as she climbed onto a small crate and sat against the wall, clinging to herself, sinking her head onto her chest and her knees, rocking softly, crying. She didn´t understand... couldn´t understand what was going on. Because to make any sense out of it, she would have to think about it all, to remember everything again. And Paula couldn´t do that because now, when the image of the dead old man came back to her, he looked a lot like his father. Grey-skinned, thin, and somehow knowing he was about to die. The image assaulted her again and again, and it was just too much to bear, to have that pushed onto her now with all the insanity going on around her.

Paula knew she could get out of the freezer whenever she wanted. It had a back door every bit as impossible to open as the one she had just closed, but she was just too scared and too... too anxious to do anything. She couldn´t cope with it all. She´d rather wait and listen to the thumping and the muffled screeches while feeling safe, than risk her way out and possibly escape... or possibly get caught and... and... killed. And that word was too real to her now. She felt like laughing at that, at how that word meant so little to her nearly all the time. In her videogames, roleplaying games, books, comics... it was just as fantastic as unicorns and aliens. But now, now it was real and no matter how much she wanted to laugh, all she could do was to keep crying...

This was insane. Like out of a bad movie, the type that had Jessa hiding under blankets and pillows, refusing to watch; the terrible horror flicks that Joe and Kevin-

Joe and Kevin.
Oh god. Oh god.

She was shaking now, watching it all unfold around her, unable to move. Her mind screamed at her to run. Get moving, find somewhere, someplace safe and away from this. It wasn't a joke. This was all... real. These people were screaming, these people were dieing. And living. And somewhere in between.

She felt sick.
But she still couldn't move at all.

She could only scream again, sobbing as she tried to make her body work with her. The cars that tore past her seemed oblivious to anyone else still trying to make their escape, caring only about themselves, their own immediate safety. This wasn't happening. It was supposed to be another simple holiday in this quiet little place. The cheesy parade, the barbecues, the fireworks and laughter. Not this. Not screaming and running and whatever the hell was going on. The remains of the crashed car had its horn going off, the occupant most likely wedged atop it.

Someone called her name.
She heard it, just under the blaring horn.
She saw him then, starting toward her. Mac. She remembered him from school, vague snippets of their class times together, small things worked on... but at this moment, he was a familiar face in a sea of so much confusion.

"...M-Mac?" She questioned his being there at first. Was this really him? Was he another of these- whatever it was? He was talking. Clearly. There was no blood to him, not that she could see... That farmer had-
Oh good lord, that farmer.

The horn stopped. A hand slammed the glass, Jessa screaming as it collided. That woman should have been dead-!

Mac told her to get in the car, a lost Jessa doing exactly that and following him, slamming the door closed behind her as he locked them. She tried to think, get anything to come to mind besides fear. "The boys, the guys- god, we were just skating down at that old pool behind Gordon's Farm... I told them I wanted to come home, but they wouldn't listen, they wouldn't listen-" She was stammering between tears now, rocking in the chair as she clutched her bag. "Mister Gordon just- he came out of nowhere... I told them, I told them we should've gone home... His stomach was GONE, Mac! How can someone walk around with their insides hanging out like that?! He went after Joe like some-some wild animal, he ripped out his throat- How the hell can someone do that?!"

She sobbed into the zipper of her bag, shaking her head. This was just impossible... "I just thought it was a joke...," she whispered, closing her eyes a moment, only for them to snap open as she shot upright. "My parents. Dad was supposed to be at the front of the parade- He primps and preens like an idiot before this stuff.. Maybe he..."

She ripped her cell from her bag, calling the reporter's number. It rang... and rang... and rang... "Shit, Dad, please...," she choked out, staring out the window. The click of it being picked up widened her eyes, her father's voice nearly making her cry. "DAD! I- no, stop, wait... Dad, please, listen to me! DAD!" She was almost screaming into it, taking a hard breath as he finally quieted. "Stay inside, dad. Lock up. Don't let anyone in, and tell Mom that I won't be-" She stopped, listening to her father. "...You're not home? Where- where are you?"

"Getting ready to head out for the parade, since we waited almost half an hour for YOU to come with us. Your mother's just going to check on Missus Donaldson next door. She thinks something got in her basement, terrible noise going on down there... Ah! Here she comes! Donna, I found Jessa! She's- honey, what happened to your LEG?!"

"Daddy, run. Please run..."

But he had dropped the phone, leaving Jessa to hear simply the surrounding noise. Her father trying to help her mother, concerned words leaving him, approaching her, trying to tend to her- And then his screams. She had never heard her father scream before, not like this. It was horrifying, bloodcurdling. She could hear her mother, what remained of her mother, snarling and biting, the sounds of teeth tearing through flesh as his screams slowed, then silenced.

She dropped her own phone with that. "Mac. My dad- Oh god."

Mac attempted to listen as Jessa raced through a story between sobs. Thankfully she didn't look like she had been injured... It wasn't hard to piece together what happened and why she was so traumatized. Mr. Gordon, Joe... Two more names he recognized and now they both met the same horrible fate as the people in the Town Square... He had never really known anyone who died before apart from relatives who went by natural causes. Now he was dealing with people being feasted on right before his eyes. There were a million movies and video games he wouldn't mind his life suddenly turning into... but not this one. Why this one...?

Jessa was now fumbling for her phone. He wanted her to stop, just in case the other end held only bad news, but the number had already been dialed. A brief sigh of relief, or at least as much as he could muster in this situation, came from Mac as his classmate seemed to get in touch with her television reporter father. The conversation started hectic but at least he seemed to be alive. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before Jessa got quiet. Seconds later, even through the small speakers of the cell phone, Mac could hear the terrible cries of a man and vicious growls of one of those... things. Jessa pleaded with him to run, but it was clear in her voice that she knew it was futile.

She dropped her own phone with that. "Mac. My dad- Oh god."

Mac was never really good with people, especially when they were in states of extreme emotional distress... What could he say? That it would be all right? Clearly it wouldn't be. The town was literally under attack, and from the reports earlier, likely others as well...

Wait, other towns... Natalie... What if the same thing was happening in Grand Rapids? He wanted to call badly, but as he heard the "woman" pound at her window trapped in her wrecked car he took another look at Jessa, he knew getting her to safety was his immediate priority. For now, he reached over to her and placed his hand on hers, gripping it tightly for a few moments before returning it to the shift stick and putting the car into drive. Where the hell was even safe right now? His eyes darted around as if trying to find some sort of clue until he finally noticed the DVD on his dashboard he was intending to bring to Owen. Owen. He'd gone back to his shop. That place was somewhat off to the side, maybe nothing had reached him yet... If anyone could remain calm in a situation like this, it would be him...

"We're gonna go to Owen's. I'm sorry about your dad... but he'd want me to get you to safety." Mac spoke softly before taking a deep breath and gripping the wheel tightly. With that he slammed on the gas, causing the large SUV to peel out on the pavement and rush down the road...

Things were beginning to trail out of the city's center now. The occasional person running and car flying by, however at the same time there was still an eerie calm whenever those two things were absent. Finally the red bricked building came into view. Mac noticed the Mercedes outside and the fact that it was parked oddly with the damaged grill. He could only pray that it wasn't someone injured that fled there. Then he noticed the people rushing by. A man, a woman, and some children. Most of them made it into a vehicle, but the woman was left behind, soon to be ravaged by the unholy monsters... Mac slammed on the brakes, now unsure of his decision to come this direction... until a figure came out of the large shop doors with a raised rifle, unloading it into the two creatures and the woman without hesitation. He could only sit there aghast at first, but his need to get Jessa somewhere safe snapped him out of it.

The woman who had been shooting was Lara Wilson, a local vintner. An attractive native of the town that Mac mostly knew due to her friendship with Owen. Admittedly when he was younger and still a bit to this day, Mac had a crush on her, but now wasn't the time to think of such things. He drove the car a bit closer before swinging his door open with his hands raised.

"Don't shoot!" He pleaded before rushing around to the other side to get Jessa. "C'mon... we have to get inside..."

Gary started the mile eating run he was taught in the military. It would conserve his energy, as well as his body as he went. The run also had another benefit of calming his frantic mind. With each drop of sweat carried away a little of the anxiety, fear and desperation until he was left with a calm he had missed for many years. His pace was slower than normal, mainly due to the footwear being a little loose and the last thing he wanted was to loose one of them in the run.

Gary lost track of time as he focused on one foot in front of the other, maintaining his pace and controlling his breathing. The meditative state he had achieved was broken by the sounds of failure. Screams and growling were clearly heard coming from the small town he had been running towards. His pace faltered. The crushing sense of failure brought him to his knees. Tears rolled down his face as his imagination ran rampart.

"Not again." All Gary wanted to do was curl up and let the world sweep him under the carpet. "I just wanted to warn them. Why couldn't have I warned them?" He cried at his failure. He cried because of his inability to do something so simple. But the tears and the crying stopped.

"I wanted to warn them? Why? Why did I care enough about them, complete strangers, to want to warn them?" He sobbed a little. "To save their lives? To make up for the last time you were a coward, leaving friends behind?" He looked in the direction of the screams. "I... I don't... want to be... alone."

The screams were lessening. Gary hauled himself to his feet, and started running again. Not the steady mile eating style he had earlier, but the more frantic one fueled by a deep well of panic. Screams were good. It meant that people still lived. It meant that he could possibly save someone. The thin thread of hope spurned him on. He closed on the outskirts of the small town when he fell.

He slapped a hand over his mouth to prevent the swearing. He was sore all over from the fall, his left foot the most sore from the metal that caused his fall. Gary looked at it. A star picket. Four feet of sturdy metal. He grabbed it, remembering that a weapon meant more chance of escape if he was found. He lifted it and continued his run.

The town was just like the city was when he left there. Empty, but showing signs of violence. He ran to get cover behind a large bin. He checked the street ahead. It was clear, so he dashed ahead. He ran from one spot of cover to another, listening to the screams or other signs of survival. Watching for survivors and those already lost. He saw many places open, or easily accessible. He fought the instinctual response to forage, needing to find someone, and then got out of the deathtrap that the town had become.

His path took him further into the heart of the town. His anxiety levels shot through the roof when he finally thought about what he was doing. Everything in his mind was screaming to him to turn tale and run. He looked around like a frightened dog about to get smacked by its master. He had to get out. He had to get safe.

The sounds of rage cut through his thoughts. But it was the sounds of something being bashed that made him stop his thoughts of flight.

'Someone might be trapped. I... I can save them and we can get out of here and be safe. Someone else. No alone.'

He started to stand, then quickly squatted down again. 'No... too risky. I can't try and save them. I'll die... But I can save them. I am armed. I am fast.'

Gary tracked the source to the pub. He slowed down, taking each step with nervous care. It was clear that the fighting had taken place here too. Blood washed nearly everything in the main room, decorated by torn clothing and body parts Gary couldn't name. He heft the star picket, keeping the pointed end in front. Each step made a small squelching noise as he closed on his target. The raging sounds were equal in volume to the pounding something metal was receiving. He moved out to the back on the building, finally seeing what was causing the noise.

Two teenage girls were hammering at the large freezer door. From his angle, both looked normal, but their behaviour told otherwise. With the dawning that someone was inside the freezer, Gary forgot what he was dealing with.

"Fuck!"

Both girls turned to look at him. One bore a bit mark on her arm, the other a deep scratch to her cheek. Neither of them really saw him from their abnormal eyes, but they still looked right at him. All three of them started running at the same time. Gary didn't even bother checking if he was followed. He was in full flight mode. He returned to the main room, and in his haste found himself on the wrong side of the bar. The confusion delayed him enough, that by the time he had thought of jumping it, they were practically on top of him.

A hand clutched him. He spun. The picket braking bones. He was free of the hold. A mouth came at him. Teeth snapped shut in front of his face. He smashed it with his head. Momentary blindness. World dull of lights and roaring screams. Dull thumps of metal on bodies. Eyes open. Girl lunging. Picket smashes into her head. She's still. Backhanded blow draws Gary back to the fight. Thumps at the other girl. Pokes her with the pointed end. Panic rising faster. Kicks the girl back. Drives the picket through her chest. The girls pushes herself down the length. Tips her onto the floor, sliding her off. Stabs her again, hitting her head. She too, stops.

Gary stands still for a moment, then shakes badly. Before him were the remains of two beautiful young women. Dressed in their best for the day. Flowers bloomed in summer. Now, nothing more than blood, bone and mushy bits on the floor of a pub turned kill zone. He puked on them. He grabbed a bottle of the shelf, and washed his mouth out.

"Shit! The freezer." Gary jumped the bar, slipping on the slick floor as he landed. He made his way back to the freezer door. The quick look showed nothing that was locking the door. He tried to open it. Closed fast. He smiled at the clever thinking of whoever was inside. He used the bloodied picket to knock.

"Hey! If you wanna come out, it's safe." Gary chuckled. "Well, as safe as you can expect."

Wine, Zombies and a double-barreled shotgun

Sitting alone in her chair at the small-scale hotel apartment that she and her husband were renting, Emily Abrams whirled her wine glass around in the air out in front of her face and watched as the blood red alcohol cascaded down towards the bottom again. She had been sitting there for probably an hour, and while she wasn't drunk she was certainly more than tipsy. Her emotions were running at an all time high, but despite that she seemed rather somber. Contemplative.

Far too quiet.

After staring at her glass for another minute, Emily breathed a heavy sigh and then threw the glass at the opposite wall. As the glass shattered into a thousand different pieces and sent the rest of the wine splattering all over the wall, she herself broke down into a fit of tears and buried her face in her hands.

She had thought she had gotten over it.

Over all the lying and the cheating.

At first she had tried putting off facing the truth by immersing herself in her work, but her work always circled around to her husband, and he was the one causing her the most grief. They hadn't been married all that long, and she began to wonder just how long his sordid affairs had been carrying on for. Weeks. Months. A year or two, even. Most certainly while they had been dating.

With a shaky hand, Emily reached towards the table just off to her right side and picked up the just about empty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and brought it straight to her lips. Under most circumstances she would have abhorred carrying on with such manners, but for right now she just didn't give a damn.

"Fuck," she groaned, lowering the bottle and wiping away the bit of redness that lingered on her lips. Her focus, or rather what little attention she had left for other things, slowly shifted towards the front door as it opened up, and her husband Thomas walked inside before quietly shoving his hotel key into his right front pocket. The navy blue tie around his neck had been loosened along with the collar, and each of his sleeves had been unbuttoned but left to hang loosely around his wrists.

She might have noticed the thick smell of his cologne if her nose hadn't been stuffed up from all her crying.

She might have noticed how handsome he was if she hadn't been thinking about how much she hated him.

"Our plane leaves in two hours. Call Allen and have him bring the car over," Thomas said as he moved further inside the room. Whether he had noticed her crying or not he never let on. Instead he casually tossed his jacket, worth far more than the room they were renting (which wasn't all that much considering the nature of the town they were staying at), onto the queen-sized bed and then sat down on the end of it, the mattress sinking under his weight while he leaned forward to untie his shoes. Only after he had kicked one of them off did he notice the dozen or so shards of glass that littered the carpet and wooden floor.

"I had a bit of an accident. Might have… broken a few things," Emily explained quietly, grasping the bottle of wine against her chest as if it were a priceless antique and looking at her husband with a stern countenance.

“You’re drunk.”

“No shit,” Emily blurted out rather quickly, and for the first time that afternoon she got up from her chair and stumbled a little over to her side of the bed that they “shared” each night and grabbed her hotel key that was laying on her pillow.

“Where are you going?” Thomas asked with a raised voice, his tone clearly expressing the annoyance he felt at having his wife just walk around in a stupor while they clearly had some things to work out.

“I’m going out for a walk. Make yourself comfortable, dear. I’ll… I’ll be right back,” Emily said as she opened the door and stepped out into the warm, fresh air.

“Fuck it’s hot out,” she mumbled after discovering that there wasn’t, in fact, any air conditioning outside the room. Luckily she had been lounging around in a pair of shorts and a light tee shirt with an even lighter dress shirt wrapped around her body for good measure. Stylish and comfortable.

Her cell phone began to buzz inside her pocket, and after fumbling around for it she finally managed to pull it out. Staring at the number for a moment, she finally flicked it open and pressed it against her ear.

“Dad… what? What… no I’m fine. I just had… what? No I can‘t hear… I can‘t hear what you‘re saying.”

Holding the phone out in front of her, Emily groaned loudly and slapped it shut when she saw that the call had been lost.

'Oh for fucks sake.'

She continued walking down the steps that led to the privately fenced pool area and looked at her phone again to make sure that there was enough service for her to try her father. Pushing the green dial button, she pressed the phone against her ear and waited for him to pick up.

“No, Dad,” Emily continued. “No the town is… I just left my room. I said I just left my room,” she repeated into the phone, turning her head this way and that as if looking around for something. “No I can’t see anything. There’s bushes and things,” she murmured, then glanced down at her bare feet when she walked into something wet and sticky. While her father continued to yell into the phone to try and warn her about all the strange reports going on in the news, Emily was too busy staring at the trail of blood that led away from the pool towards the bushes.

She had seen blood before, certainly, and she wasn't afraid of it, but she had never... ever seen this much blood before. At least not in real life. Movies, perhaps. Movies had a lot of blood. Horror films.

"Dad... I'm gonna... have to...," she mumbled, closing the phone without finishing her sentence as she peered into the bushes.

What she saw there made her stomach do a complete one-eighty. Perhaps it was the alcohol in her system, but she thought she saw someone in the bushes eating what looked to be like a human arm. Frozen in place, she came to the startling conclusion that it was a human arm, and the thing that was eating it… it looked to be human enough too except for the fact that its skin was pale and it seemed to have parts of its own fleshy body just hanging off as if it had gotten into a fight with a chain saw… and lost.

Her presence there, along with her puking up everything she had ever eaten in her entire life, startled the creature out of its feeding frenzy.

Its eyes expressed a primitive hunger... a crazed hunger.

Without warning it dropped the arm it had been chewing on like a toy and began crawling through the bushes towards her.

It didn’t take long for Emily to find her feet, and with a horrified scream she turned and ran back towards the apartment complex. Unfortunately for her the hot July air hadn’t yet dried up the small puddles of water that lined the pool, and she slipped on the wet bricks and came crashing down hard onto her side. She might have cried out in pain had she not been scared absolutely shitless. Craning her head to see if the thing was still chasing her, Emily opened her eyes wide with horror as the mass of rotting flesh came lumbering after her. But when she screamed out in alarm again, her voice was drowned out by the roaring blast of gunfire.

Without looking, she heard a splash as the zombie fell... lifeless... into the pool, tainting it with its vile presence.

"You alright?"

Emily scrambled up onto her feet and looked at the man responsible for saving her life. He was old, certainly old enough to be her father or grandfather, and he was holding steady a long shotgun while smoke came out of the barrel.

"I..."

Emily turned just as Thomas came rushing down to meet her, and in that moment she forgot everything that she was mad at him for. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she hugged him closely, her body shaking in fright while the older man went to make sure that what was dead… was dead once again. Satisfied that the damnable abomination wouldn’t come back for thirds, the old man shouldered his weapon and turned towards the young couple.

“What the hell was that thing?” Thomas asked, his arms wrapped tightly around his wife.

“You don’t watch a lot of movies, do ya?” the old man asked gruffly.

She had been sitting, scarcely making a noise, for almost a half hour. The screams echoed through the open window, and a wide-eyed Asha sat silent on the floor, terrified. God help me... The raw fear of the outside was palpable, made real by so many suffering souls. That half hour, it felt like an eternity, waiting for it to end while her fear bounced within her mind, multiplying itself, amplifying. After awhile, the screams had begun to die. Her eyes focused on the beam of warm afternoon light spilling from her open window. There was only silence. She stood, shakily.

A shrill shriek... and a sickening thump against the door to her apartment. She gasped, taking a step back. Another thump. She felt the panic bubbling up from her heart as a long crack formed in the door, causing it to buckle inwards. "Oh god..." Frantic hands tore at one of the boxes marked 'Sports.' Soon her quaking hands raised a worn cricket bat, just before the door gave.

Before her stood what had once been a woman. Her floral sundress was torn, her breast oozing fetid blood. It looked as if someone had taken a huge bite from it. Her chin and neck were stained with blood, presumably not her own. Her unseeing eyes focused on Asha with unimaginable fury, and she let loose another sickening shriek before she charged.

Asha screamed, raising the bat over her right shoulder and bringing it around as hard as she could. It sounded like a fist plowing into a wet side of beef. It had broken her face, and sent her sprawling on the floor. Her broken fingernails dug into the carpet as the thing dragged herself toward the frightened Asha, before she finished the job, hammering into her head again and again with her improvised weapon. Each strike was punctuated by a half growl, half sob, and soon its head was naught but a gory mass of muscle, blood and bone fragments.

Asha stared incredulously at it... unable to believe that she had just done such a thing. She wretched suddenly, leaning over. But nothing came up. I must get out of here... I have to leave... Not thinking clearly in her panic, she left immediately, grabbing the keys to the U-haul and booking it for the large truck. The things wandered randomly about the street, and amid the mass of bodies strewn about the sight of the block party. Some of them had begun to climb from their eternal slumber. What in the hell...

When she slammed the door to the vehicle, thats when they noticed her. soulless gazes all around her turned in her direction, their steps hurriedly carrying them to their new prey. Jamming the keys into the ignition and starting it, she floored the gas. The shrieks echoed around her, and as she sped down the street, she could hear them clawing at the side of the truck. On of them shuffled unafraid towards the truck, dead ahead. Without hesitation, she rammed directly into it. He did little to slow her progress. A bloody arm smacked wetly into the windshield. She shuddered.

Asha was beginning to regain her calm, when one of the things leapt from atop another car and onto the roof of her cab. "Shit, shit shit!!" She swerved, her eyes leaving the road. But the infernal thing held fast, its fist shattering through the driver side window. Screaming, she yanked the wheel left, slamming at an angle into a brick building. The airbag exploded, saving Asha from serious injury. Nonetheless, she blacked out, blood dripping from the side of her forehead. The creatures lifeless hand hung from the window, pinned against the brick. She was covered in broken glass. Through the opening of what once was a windshield, the cab of the truck faced the interior of a bar. The interior was messy from the chaos of the initial outbreak; covered in the blood of those that had died too young...

-CRACK!-

Afghanistan. The sound of a rifle. The cameraman beside him crumples as the lethal "zzzzzip" of a bullet striking flesh and punching straight through sounds amidst the rattle of automatic fire. Owen is looking down at the reporter's face, registering the sudden realization and the pointed fear.

"I don't want to die." He manages, stuttering weakly as a punctured lung collapses and the cavity fills with blood. It trickles from his mouth. A dark flow that brightens as it touches the sand.

Owen watches him die, trembling, as his body gives its last attempt to retain the life swiftly spilling from it. The look on the reporter's face is an awful mix of hysteria and surprise, tangled as he manages one last ragged rattle before going entirely still. His eyes are wide open and Owen imagines what his last thoughts were.

Why didn't my vest stop the bullet?

Why did I sign up for this?

Why aren't the soldiers trying to save my life?

I bet some dirty rag-head kid shot me.

None of it makes him feel better. It's a morbid humor. These are the things that come to mind when he sees something awful. Owen is not a broken man and this war will not break him. He copes, as do most of the soldiers fighting beside him. They think of similar things or far different ones that allow them to stay alive and keep themselves from making a mistake that will get them dead like the reporter whose blood is quickly and hungrily being sucked up by the sand beneath him.

-CRACK!-

Court. Kelly does not look at him. She is dressed in something new, something she never wore for him. He wonders if it was a gift from her new fiancee or a boyfriend and scolds himself for it. He keeps attempting to look at her, wanting the chance to ask her why?

Why did she wait for him to get back from his service before she filed the papers? Why didn't she just wait awhile longer, wait until she was sure, wait until they knew that they couldn't work it out?

But she doesn't look and he doesn't get a chance to ask. He's glad for it in the end because he already knew the answer and on the unlikely chance she would have given it to him he knows that it'd have broken him. The judge doesn't take long to sort through the paper-work and their claims. She is entitled to the house, nothing else. The mortgage is hers to pay. He will not lose his savings or pay her back for the cash she loaned him for his car.

When it's over he writes her a check anyway, aware that it will drain his checking account and force him to tap into all that he had left. He scratches his signature on the bottom and lays it down infront of her as he leaves.

"Here," he says. A small triumph. He owes her nothing now.

She takes the check without looking up. He doesn't ask his questions. Instead, Owen Shepard looks at his ex-wife for the last time. She is relieved in this moment, bitterly triumphant. Her softly-featured face is still beautiful, almost serene even now. She has gentle blue eyes and fire-red hair, an irish beauty he'd met on leave during basic training and fallen for in the mad rush of youth.

He had spent most of their marriage across the ocean. There had been no children. Owen will learn later that she was pregnant with her new man's child the last time he saw her. It will destroy what little peace he found in everything and rob him the small victory he felt when he gave her the check.

And it will be the thought of her having another man's child, not his, that will be the one that drives him to his first ritual. The lightswitch.

-CRACK!-

Lara is outside the store, racking the bolt of her rifle and firing over and over again. It bucks hard against her lean shoulder, jostling her. For a moment, dumbly, Owen is aware of the full swell of her breasts as they heave and the lean line of her spine leading to the round of her backside. She is beautiful. No longer cute. The cute girl who had been his friend is there only in Lara's heart. He doubts, right at this moment, that she has any awareness of just how strikingly pretty she's become.

-CRACK!-

Another shot. Owen wakes more, begins to feel the weight of the Colt she pressed into his hands. It was her father's. An old M1911, well-cared for and black. He remembers seeing it mounted in their home, safe behind locked glass. It looked much bigger then. Much more frightening.

He's uncertain why she gave him the pistol, uncertain why she's shooting into the street. Every instinct in him, save those trained, tells him that this was not the place he was. It's as though in the course of an instant dimensions had shifted, the universe had opened, and he had been swallowed up in a hellish version of what he knew.

The door is heavy and he pushes through it, Lara fires again. He sees a small crowd of people running down the street, chased by a couple others. The madness of it doesn't compute, doesn't wake him fully. It's only when he realizes Lara is firing into a pair of men that reality finally finds a foothold in his mind.

"Lara!" He shouts, trying to get her attention. She is crying again. The tears run down her flawless cheeks and drip onto her top, darkening the fabric.

The woman beneath the pair of men is finally revealed. A mess. One has bitten her nose off her face. Her arms have been gouged and torn, shredded beneath the nails and teeth of her attackers. She jerks as they feed on her, screaming weakly. The arterial spray from her left wrist has been pumping long enough that it is a dribble now, soaking the concrete beneath her in a widening puddle.

Finally, Lara settles and pulls the trigger. The wild haste of her shots given way to deliberate intent. One of the men jerks forward, his head vaporizing in that same instant. All at once the air is full of a fine pink mist, liquid human head, that hangs for only a second before peppering everything nearby in finite particles of skull and liquidized bits of his brain.

Another shot. Lara's aim has settled. Her hands aren't panicking now. The other creature's body goes still, slumping, a neat hole appearing in the back of its head and another, smaller puff of mist follows the bullet as it exits through the creature's eye and slams into the blood-stained bulk of the blue postal box behind them.

The woman, however, has gone still. Bled out. Her body covered in bites and gouges. Owen keeps the pistol pointed to the ground, unwilling, at this point, to use it.

The street is chaos. Men and women run down others attempting to flee, tear at them and drag them to the ground before savagely biting them. Blood-stained and weary, a wounded man that Owen recognizes as a tourist who had been in his store the moment before rounds the corner and reaches, attempting to steady himself on one of the classic lightposts that line the sidewalks of Main Street. His hand is missing two fingers, bitten off at the knuckles, and his face is puffy and swollen from strikes and scratches.

From down the street a Don comes charging and Owen recognizes him immediately and doesn't all at once. His eyes are blank, ice-gray, and his face is covered in drying blood. Don pinwheels his arms crazily, like a child running through a field, and unleashes a bone-chilling howl before straightening like a missile and launching himself at the staggered tourist.

The impact is resounding, sudden and fierce. Don's bulk covers the other man's body from view entirely, save for his arms jerked to the side wildly. The impact with the concrete is savage but Don doesn't hesitate, he simply sits up and drives his fists down, pounding on the jerking body of the man beneath him. Owen watches, and although he sees it happening, can do nothing as Don reaches down and tears a massive chunk of the man's throat out with his teeth.

"Don't shoot!"

Mac, and Jessa. He doesn't know the girl well but Owen is fond of Mac, surprised to see him.

When did he get here?

The boy is running to the other side of the car, trying to get Jessa out when the woman rises. She sits up, suddenly, her nose-less face suddenly a chalk-white mask stained with blood. For a moment Owen thinks she's alive, and then she looks at Mac and releases a scream.

No. A shriek.

She gets to her feet and begins to charge.

That's what it takes. Owen feels his body react of its own accord, slipping into a place he hadn't been in almost ten years. Smoothly, steadily, his arms lift the pistol and steady the iron sights on the back of the woman's head. She gets two steps before he squeezes the trigger, feeling the automatic buck in his hand as the .45 caliber slug blows the back of the woman's head off and sends her falling forward. Dead hands make no effort to catch her and she crunches sickly against the pavement, head bouncing with an audible crack off the sidewalk. Her forehead takes almost all of the impact with no nose to cushion any of it.

"Get her inside, Mac!" He hears himself saying, short and sudden. The rumble of words breaks what little remains of his shock, bringing him to the moment with the rest of them in a rush. The anger is gone, suddenly and entirely gone.

Lara fires again and he looks back to her, watching as one of the mad men charging through the street goes stock-still and crumples. She'd found her groove with the rifle, he realized, and she was damned fine with it.

A truck suddenly barrelled down the street, and for an instant Owen can see the driver. A woman he's never seen before, dark hair, olive skin. She's recoiling from the glass, her face crunched in a wince. One of the crazies is atop the truck's hood, pounding at the glass. For a moment, that stark instant, things slow down and Owen watches as the driver makes a decision. Her hands spin the big wheel, walking it first left and then spinning it rapidly to the right. The entire truck kicks across the road, jumps the curb, and slams into the face of Kipper's tavern with enough force to liquidate the bottom half of the monster atop the hood and crack its head open on the brick.

"Mac, come on! Come with me! Lara, get Jessa inside! Try and cover us from the upstairs window!"

He'll need Mac if he wants to save the driver, if she's even alive. All at once, he leaves them. Lara gently hurrying Jenna to get inside the last image he has, unable to see Mac as he looks back and begins to cross the street at a quick jog. That army run. That lazy pace that his body knows, recognizes, and follows. The pistol is in both hands, lifted the way he was trained. The smoking ruin of the truck swiftly approaching.

"See if you can get the driver out." He says over a shoulder, hoping Mac was there.

Each satisfying tug of the rifle against his shoulder brought a much more satisfying thud of a body falling to the ground. By the time he was finished with his cigar Brandon had expended about half of his total ammo for the Remington and two clips of his .45. The shotgun he was saving for special occasions, for awhile he'd been watching his cab carefully, but the monsters generally seemed content to be as close to him as they could. In fact they didn't seem to be able to realize that they could climb up the front of his cab while he sat on the back of his trailer. Once Brandon realized this, he actually began to worry about what to do next, because his original idea had been to sit here shooting until he ran out of ammo or got overrun. Now... It was quite possible the latter option would never occur, and even if he did run out, he wasn't screwed.

Suddenly he heard rifle shots that were not his own coming from a block or two away further into the town. Up until this point he'd been blowing his horn and shooting non-stop; there were plenty of target, but all of a sudden he realized not everyone was one of... Them, yet. That was a bit... Disappointing? Shit, nawh, just anti-climactic like what dem film critics say, yea... Anti-climactic.

Suddenly, out of left field an image of the pretty little whore from his last stop came to mind. Sure hope she ain't one of dem, even though I can't remember shit she was a fucking looker. Bigtime buddy. Aight, now what the fuck shall I do next? Once again the snapping sound of rifle shots fill the air, and just to be sure Brandon glances down at his rifle. The little whiff of smoke trickling out of the barrel confuses him for a moment, but then he sees the wide open chamber that is empty as it cools.

"Don't worry ole boy, yer not goin crazy just the fuck yet. Let's go find out who the fuck is shootin up these bad boys. See if we can't put us together a little fuckin army of our own, ain't that gonna be the site? Alright crazies, hold her horses, poppa is comin down. No, no Elain," Just as he pulls the trigger and watches a homely blond's head explode he continues speaking. "I ain't given you a fucking hug, you either Edgar, you sunuvabitchin retarded motherfucker. I still think your momma must've fucked her brother." As 'Edgar's' head explodes Brandon slid both the shotgun and his rifle into the passengers window, before climbing over to the driver side.

"Now the tricky part... Hmm... Okay, Ida, Mary-Kate, Martha, Kimberly, Donny, Benjamin, and cute little Alienna. Time for you all to fuck off, I'm tired of this family vacation of ours. I'll cry at your funeral, but I ain't takin ya to disney world ever the fuck again, capishe?" Seven bullets, and seven holes in skulls later Brandon slipped into the driver door before anymore of the crowd could close in and get him. After reloading the clip and rolling up his window he wiped the sweat from his face with a towel that was hanging on the passenger's headrest for just that person.

"Shit, I'm gettin too old fer this."

For some reason Brandon was worried that his rig wouldn't start, but the powerful diesel engine roared to life just as it always did. Another image of that pretty little hooker suddenly blasted into the front of his eyes as one of the monsters poked her head just above the hood of his faithful rig. She vaguely resembled the hooker, and Brandon felt his cock throb. Quite a time to be thinkin of gettin yer nuts off, eh boy, calm down there... But maybe, yea... After we find out if anyone is alive'ere we'll go check on your friendly pussy. You must've enjoyed her quite a bit.. You fuckin pervert.

Shifting into a low gear, Brandon began to move forward steadily.

The clumsier beasts slipped and tripped under his massive wheels. Several were squished to a pulp. Most just tried to walk on their legs that were literally split in half. Brandon didn't look behind him; he concentrated on picking up speed as realized if the crowd got too thick his ole baby might not quite make it all the way through. As it was now, he was able to pick up enough speed that short of a really thick mob he wouldn't have any problem starting off.

It wasn't hard to navigate in the city once he got used to driving over the bodies of little kids and grandmothers. Having been shooting them for nearly a half-hour helped, and Brandon was sailing along quite quickly. A glance in his mirror told him that a good portion of his holiday crowd was following him, and more were joining. Thoughtfully he slowed down, so that they wouldn't loose interest too quickly until he made his way to the other side of town. A movie theater parking lot provided the perfect opportunity to turn around.

As the massive rig swung around Brandon was confronted by no less then five dozen of the monsters running, dragging, or crawling at him. He didn't slow down, in fact, now he sped up; the diesel roared as he got close to fifty miles per-hour. It was over in seconds, but he needed to use his wind shield wipers for about a minute afterward. Not just the blood, but the flesh seemed to enjoy sticking to his windows.

This time Brandon hurried back through the streets. He attracted much less attention, and the little he did often ended up plastered to his grill or painted across the pavement.

The two blocks to where he had heard the gunfire, and now saw two men holding weapons trying to get someone out of a trapped car, he slid the gear into neutral and killed the engine. Coasting the several ton vehicle to a stop not inches from the crash site. With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and lit another cigar. After a few puff's he pushed his head out the window and raised his hat, "So which one of ya'll started this mess?"

Then with a careful look around Brandon slid out of his rig. Carrying his shotgun, and his .45 tucked into the small of his back.

Paula had been in the freezer for about twenty minutes, or that was the realistic estimate she made after thinking that with lots of monsters outside beating on the door and her earlier anxiety, it was not strange her perception told her she had been there an hour. Also, the cold biting at her long legs, only protected with stockings, accentuated her need to believe that she had been here a long time. She was cold everywhere, but the stockings really did little to soften that up. Paula wondered if Harry was among those beating on her door. Hugging herself tightly to conserve the heat, she started thinking about two things.

One, although the idea of keeping herself warm by drinking the copious amounts of alcohol around her was tempting, Paula knew that would only make her freeze to death faster once the alcohol had dissipated the heat onto the surface of her body. And although she really, really wanted to get out through the back door, if there were those things still beating on the front door, how could she knew there were no more nearby? Maybe even close to the back door? She still remembered the old man she had killed. He was one of those grandpas that are thin and bent under a bad back, yet he had tackled her like a high school jock. She didn´t want to think what an adult could do, and Paula had never been too well built except for her `assets´. Much good they were doing to her now.

And two, with so much time spent alone, Paula started concentrating on the noise of the things trying to get into the freezer. She figured she could make out how many were there, and she realized they were pretty damn few. No more than four, maybe. With two hands per monster, they were not doing too much noise. Thinking back to how many she had seen when she entered Kipper´s during the chaos, she wondered why there were so few now. Had most of them kept running out looking for more victims? Had they been distracted somehow? Maybe she could escape now, fight her way through. But looking around, shivering, her brown eyes having a good look at her surroundings, Paula saw no weapons. Unless you counted frozen goat legs and pig carcasses as blunt instruments. She stood up, slowly, shivering, and moved with cramped legs towards the meat hanging from the ceiling. It was a ridiculous idea, trying to kill those things with frozen meat, but she didn´t have much of a choice and she had watched enough movies to have a passing suspicion that broken bottles would not work too well.

She struggled with the smallest piece of meat she saw, a pig´s leg that looked rather robust. Paula barely managed to take it off the hook, but once she did... well, she dropped it onto the floor. There was no chance at all of beating those things in a fight with what little strength she had, using a piece of frozen meat, and being half-frozen herself.

"Joder..."

Paula fell to her knees, and then slid onto her side, hugging herself and trembling uncontrollably. She was desperate to get out, but knew she couldn´t, and started whimpering. She didn´t want to die, and she certainly didn´t want to die ripped to shreds by a bunch of Infected. If only they were Romero zombies...

As it was, her best options were either to jump into the unknown through the back door, or let herself freeze to death. Her skin was getting numb, so she knew she didn´t have much time to make a choice. But she found it so difficult to get up now that she was lying on the floor.



That was when the beating stopped, and the shrieks started. And then... silence. Paula looked up at the door, and felt the desperate need to stand up and do something. Go out the back door, go out the front door, run around, smash the crates, drink something... anything. Maybe it was her Spanish blood speaking, the blood of people who´d been fucking around with Europe for centuries and not giving a damn. Maybe that last thought was also some kind of delirium brought around by the temperature, but it pushed her to stand up and that was good enough for her. And she still had the lucidity to grap the pig leg.

"Hey! If you wanna come out, it's safe. Well, as safe as you can expect."

Paula didn´t know if she had gone crazy. Maybe the cold had affected her somehow. But that sounded very much like a human voice, and twenty or twenty-five minutes of standing around in a freezer were nowhere near enough to go crazy, or so she guessed anyway. She dragged herself to the door and once there, ran the lock back with the frozen leg tightly clenched in her hand. With as strong a push as she could manage, she pushed the door open.

Three full seconds afterwards, the door was completely open, and she stood in its frame. Five-eight feet of gorgeous, shivering Spaniard stood there, pale, frozen, emitting cold, hugging herself and holding a frozen piece of meat in her hand. And wearing a clingy waitress uniform with stockings and black leather, covered in some parts with frost.

"H-h-heeeeeeyyyyyy~"

Her breath came out as a cloud of steam. And when she saw she had been rescued by a hobo, she was honest in her thinking that she couldn´t care less. She took a couple of steps out, the warmth around her feeling like the worst summer heat of southern Spain to her. She almost didn´t register the loud crash when, where the large melee had taken place right by the bar, a truck smashed through the wall. From where she was, she couldn´t see it, because the shelves were in the way, and Paula had to be honest with herself. She didn´t give a damn what it was, even when she could not hear loud, clear gunfire approaching.

The perfect day. The sun was high in the sky, the temperature just right at around 79 to 80 degrees. The sand was warm but not roasting and the water was cold but not chilly. In a pair of swim trunks, Andy stepped carefully across the beach, waving to his little girl as she built a sand castle near the shore. From behind, his wife snaked her hands around to his waist. He turned about slowly in her arms, looking down into her sunglasses with a warm smile. She grinned back up at him, her teeth perfect save for that one slightly crooked guy near the front. At only a glance you could hardly tell, but Andy knew. Just about the same way he knew the smell of her hair, and how many grey ones she tried to hide when she colored it. Andy knew all about that cute little white rabbit tattoo she had. He saw it every time they made love. His thoughts were interrupted by a noise in the distance, like an echo. Andy could have sworn it sounded like gunfire. He turned his head in the direction he heard it, only for his wife's hands to gently clasp each side of his face and pull him back to look at her.

"Did you hear tha--"

His voice was cut off as she stretched up to kiss him, standing on her tip toes just to reach. Just like that, the errant noise has disappeared from his thoughts.

Hours had gone by, or at least that's how it felt, but when he turned to see his daughter she was still in the same spot and still building that sand castle. She waved, giggling before she scooped up some sand in a bucket. He waved back, letting his worries fade as his wife pulled him down to their towel on the sand. They kissed again, deeper and longer that the last. Each press of her lips to his seemed like it lasted for an eternity and yet it was over too quick. He was about to pull her atop him when he heard another noise same as before. Andy moved to his feet, looking in the direction he had heard the echo, as if waiting for it to come again. A bit louder than before, the rattle of unmistakable gunfire shattered his peaceful moment. He turned back to his wife, but she was gone. His eyes darted up, scanning the shore for his daughter but she had vanished as well. The half-built sandcastle was all the remained. All of a sudden he realized that he didn't know where he was, not even what beach they had been on. Nothing looked familiar. A chill ran down the back of his neck.

THUD!

Like an explosion, Andy shot up from the couch in his dark and empty house, beads of sweat pouring down his face. He blinked a few times, glancing around almost frantically in the darkness. All at once, the reality of his situation came rushing back. A dream was all it was. He let out a disappointed sigh, running a hand through his sweat soaked hair. He had on the same white t-shirt and grey boxers he had been wearing for the past couple of days. Peering around still, Andy noticed the empty bottle of Jim Beam at his feet. It must had rolled off the coffee table, making the sound that woke him up. He was surprised it didn't shatter on the hard wood floor. The coffee table was littered with day old dishes, empty bottles and glasses, and photographs. Scattered around the floor were clothes from the past week and more empty bottles. Andy began to reach down for the Jim Beam bottle when the sound of a shotgun blast roared through the dead silence. Andy jumped, his eyes going wide as he stared in the direction of the noise. It was just outside, he heard it clear as day. He leaned over and picked up the revolver that had been sitting on the couch next to him for a couple days now. A few running steps later and he was at his front door. Another gun shot. He opened the door as sunlight poured in. His eyes squinted, adjusting to the sudden painful brightness.

Andy's mouth hung open at what he saw. He almost dropped his pistol. There were people everywhere, running and screaming for their lives. Most were being chased by other people, some covered or splotched with blood. Some had guns and were fighting back, blowing the others away as they closed in. His neighbors, people he had known for years just up and killing each other. He didn't know what to make of it. The scene was chaotic, like something out of a nightmare or a horror movie. He took a step forward, still too shocked to do anything else. Some of the people trying to escape the others had beent tackled and then torn to pieces, eaten alive even. His stomach turned and he held back the horrible taste of vomit. The sound of feet moving through grass and a gurgling moan caused him to turn to the right. His next door neighboor Thomas, an older man with a paunch only a portion of his hair left was lurching towards him. Andy stopped himself from throwing up again as he noticed Thomas was missing his lower jaw and his nose. Blood dripped out of his mouth, his tongue hanging down unhindered. His neck, chest, and stomach were all drenched in a dark crimson red. The man's eyes were sunken back in his head and eerily blank. He just reached out towards Andy, groaning and spitting up more blood.

Andy's mind was already working through what he saw. He had seen movies like this and he had a feeling he knew what was coming next. So he raised his revolver at his neighbor hesitantly. He aimed for the man's center mass like he was trained. However, he lifted the sights just a bit and squeezed the trigger just as the crazed Thomas started to run at him. A big chunk of the man's head blew clean off.

"Sorry Tom..."

He lowered the gun, smoke still coming out of the barrel as the corpse fell backwards. Andy didn't want to believe what was happening, he didn't want to think that he just killed a friend of his. However, what he witnessed all around him forced Andy to admit that this was real. People he knew, for years even, were being eaten by their friends and family members. The word kept running through his mind, the name for these... creatures. He'd heard it in horror movies time and time again, seen on the tv what he was now seeing in his own front yard.

Zombies.

It still sounded silly no matter how many times he said it in his mind.

Zombies.

Something had happened, a virus... some kind of outbreak. Whatever it was, it seemed like it was in full swing now. He looked around once more, noticing some fires in the distance and hearing the echoes from gunshots all around him.

Suddenly Andy noticed a group of the things moving towards him, all people who lived in the neighborhood. There were even children among them. The walking corpses heard his pistol fire and broke out into a run across the street and up his lawn. Wasting no time, he swung the pistol towards them, aiming for the closest one. He exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger.

Click.

His eyes went wide.

Click, click, click, click.

The cylinder rotated around, empty save for the single casing he had loaded earlier. He forgot he had only chambered one round, intending it for something else entirely. Spinning about in the grass, Andy leapt back into his doorway, landing hard on the floor as he kicked the door closed with his foot. It slammed closed just before one of the undead ran straight into it. He laid there in the hall for a moment, staring at the door, listening to the pounding from the other side. He heard a scream, loud and shrill, from a woman somewhere outside. The pounding stopped and he heard the scuffle of feet lead away from his door followed by more screaming. Andy sighed in relief and moved to stand. He just noticed his legs were shaking, his heart racing still. The rush of adrenaline from seconds before began to wind down. The after effects lingering on.

He took a moment to breathe and collect his thoughts.

Andy knew he couldn't stay there. He had to find somewhere safe and he would need more ammo, not to mention food, water, and supplies. He ran through his house, headed to his bedroom. He quickly slipped on a pair of jeans and pulled a duffle bag down from the closet. Inside were two cases of .357 ammo. Andy reloaded the revolver and set it on his bed. He grabbed a shoulder holster and strapped it on, slipping the pistol into it. Also in the bag was a case of shotgun shells for the pump shottie leaning against the wall in his bedroom, behind the door. After adding a few more items to the bag he grabbed the shotgun on the way out and headed for his garage. Andy slipped on a pair of boots at the door, took one last look at his home, and then headed out. In the garage, he grabbed a milk jug from the recycling and filled it with water from the faucet out there. He had put a small hand washing sink in the garage to clean up after working on whatever project occupied him at the time.

After filling the jug he moved around to the driver's side of his old F-150 and tossed the bag and jug of water onto the passenger side. He hopped into the cab, started her up, and pressed the button for the garage door opener. The door began to lift up, agonizingly slow. He gripped the steering wheel tight and slammed the gas as soon as the door was out of the way. The truck roared out of his garage and down the driveway, clipping a couple of the walking corpses as they rushed it. He spun the wheel, the truck cutting to the right quickly to continue on down the road at breakneck speed, not stopping for a damn thing.

"...What...?" Jessa glanced to Mac, still somewhat in a haze from that phone call. It couldn't be real. It wasn't, it was impossible. Both her parents, right there, through the phone... She listened to them- Heard it all...

He was trying to get her to move, get out of the car. His words were seemingly muffled, lost to her ears. She could see his lips moving, the earnest look on his face, the worry and fear pouring from his features as he beckoned her to get moving. Jessa tried to follow, but everything felt slow motion. He had said her father would want her to be safe, that he was trying to do that. She should move. Go with him.

Get up. Work, legs. Work, brain. Work.

The sound of the gun broke through the barrier blocking her hearing, her eyes widening as she looked back quickly to the hit target. Another group of those- things, one fallen with a hole through its forehead. She choked at the sight, quickly grabbing Mac's hand and letting him haul her from the car. Her slow motion response of moments ago was replaced with something of double speed, compensating for her lagging before. Her heart was even going faster than she had ever felt it, gasping as they came into the door.

She vaguely knew these people.
But they were still people.
LIVING people. With guns and just as frightened as she and Mack.
Hence his scream to not shoot them. Right now anything that moved and was unfamiliar was holding a bullseye to its forehead, one that Lara looked more than ready to catch dead-on.

She slunk to the floor once inside the shop, still death-gripping that bag. She didn't know what to do at the moment. Try to help? Try to hide? Bury herself into the comfort of her bag and just sob?

That last one seemed good right about now.

Clutching it tightly to her chest, the attached board resting against her forehead, she began to cry. Silent tears, silent sobs into the fabric.

A shriek outside forced her to let go of the bag, shoving it from her lap as she wiped her face against her arm, striking off any tears that clouded her vision as she peered outside. More of those things, snarling and stalking, looking-but-not-seeing everyone around them. She wondered how they knew, could sense the difference between 'them' and 'us'. Heat? Sound? Smell? That one there didn't even have a nose, half a face. How could it smell?

And that one-
...That was the little boy she had met yesterday. The sweetest kid she'd ever met. Asked her about her skateboard in front of the gas station, she had let him try it, laughing together as he wobbled and she helped push him around on it. She had told the guys to screw off when they made fun of her for it. He had slipped and fell against the building, scraping his arm... but he didn't cry. He said he was tough. It had left a good mark.

Didn't see it now.
That arm was gone.
Those sweet little blue eyes were that horrible grey haze, the mouth that had giggled insanely when she was pushing him now snarled into a horrible expression, half his lower lip ripped right off.

She closed her eyes, taking a hard breath as she turned back around, letting the view out the window try to leave her mind. That was impossible, she knew. But she had to get around it, somehow.

The lady. Go help her.
(Like you'll be much help.)
She glanced around. Owen had a soda fridge, the large "PEPSI" logo embellished on the side. Yanking it open, she snatched a few bottles of water out of it, chasing after Lara.

"Here." She held it out to her, frowning slightly. "Dehydrating is be the last thing we need to worry about right now... Looks like there's far worse ways to go."