Fan Fiction ❯ Untitled ❯ Untitled ( One-Shot )

No one had believed her, of course. It was a standard thing to have happen; when something very strange happens, no one believes it, and it had seemed odd, even to her. Sarah had been the first to discover the one body in the park, which would certainly have been traumatic to anyone, but that wasn't what was so odd, it was what she had seen before hand. She had taken the walk to clear her head, the psychology work she was doing caused her mind to break down after six hours, and the park nearby on 22nd was the perfect place for a break. It was a warm summer evening, and even at eight o'clock, it was lit up like noon. This was the city, after all, and the streetlights never went out. They hummed merrily as power coursed through them on her way to the park. Once she reached the park limits though, they began to be farther and farther apart, and darkness prevailed in many places off the path, as did as a multitude of the city's vagrants, most were harmless, some just extracted pity from her for their predicament. Today, however led to an entirely different thought than other nights, the silence here was deafening in its obscurity.

Sarah had almost never known true silence like this. In the city, there was always the noise of cars, neighbors, and there should be barking dogs and people talking, but something had driven them away. Oblivious to of all of that, she strode on, confidant that she could conquer the homework that lay remaining on her desk, taunting her with its complexity even as she walked, though it was now a block away. The silence didn't trouble her, it was strange, even eerie, but this was the middle of the city, there was nothing supernatural here. It was odd that this was her thought as she saw them, because the topic of her studies was currently `Solipsism', the belief that when you say things, they come true, because you are the only true reality.

Regardless of that belief, she came upon the bizarre spectacle. She thought it was a gang beating, uncommon, but not unheard of in the, until she saw their heads. There were two of them, and an injured man on the ground. She contemplated running at them, but realized that would put her in danger, so instead she turned behind a tree and reached for her cell phone, the ever-present weapon of today's young people. Frantic, she was interrupted when she heard a loud crack coming from behind the tree. She turned and looked around to see what appeared to be the one man pulling something off of the man's arm, with his mouth. She started hyperventilating, this was obviously something far beyond her understanding, and she prayed to God that the phone would dial faster.

`Hello, Police Division twenty-two, what is the matter?' came the voice of an angel on the other end of line.

`I'm in 22nd street park and I think there is an attack in progress.' she responded quickly.

There was a moments pause before,

`Police and an ambulance have been dispatched, we highly suggest you stay away from there until the police arrive. Are the assailants still there?' the woman on the other end of the line asked. Sarah turned and looked around the tree again, apprehensive that they might see her, but when she looked, there was no sign of them. She breathed a sigh of relief, not stopping to think about how they could have left so quickly.

`No, it looks like they've left.' She breathed a sigh of relief, she could hear the sirens already approaching and watched as the ambulance and police cars drove up. One of the policemen walked over to her, the other to the scene of the attack, where the paramedics were checking the man's injuries.

`What's your name ma'am?' said the one cop, with a slight Southern accent.

`Sarah. Sarah Marat.' she spit out, so relieved that the police had arrived. She wasn't ordinarily this upset, but something odd had happened, and it unnerved her to not have control of the situation, at least in her own mind. The officer asked her some questions about what had happened and she told him all she knew, when suddenly one of the paramedics spoke up sharply.

`Look at this, Mike, this break is weird, I've never seen anything like it.' He paused and the paramedic called Mike took a look.

`Hmm, looks like serious force was brought down here, and here' he pointed at two points close together on the arm. `a crushing break, that'd take some fair force, and then tearing of the flesh and…' He trailed off, realizing that Sarah was watching him, and appeared to be retching, `it looks like he's gonna make it though.' He finished up, trying to redeem himself.

`Sorry ma'am,' the cop interrupted, `I think that's all we need from you today. I suggest you go home and sleep. Can we give you a ride to your home after we take down your statement?'

The next morning was a terrible one. Sarah hadn't slept a wink, thinking of was that horrific walk. Now, however, in the morning's light, everything seemed very bright, and last night's events seemed very far away, almost unreal. She grabbed a bottled water, the first of at least three every day, and had a bowl of cereal cereal. She'd never trusted the town water, it tasted kind of funny, and she knew they put fluoride in, and who knew what they else they didn't tell you was in it. She looked over her schedule for the day. She had her early class today, which meant that she had to leave at eight, so at seven fifty, she stepped out of the house for the 5-minute walk.

This was just the time that Chad, the mechanic who worked next door, was opening his shop. She liked to leave early, before he put on heavy metal, and if she wasn't up by now, she would be very soon. He called it `Pantera', she called it noise.

`Looking terrible today, Sarah.' he called as she walked by. That was Chad for you, very outspoken, and more than a little crazy. He was one of those types that believed in every tabloid ad they saw. She quickly decided that telling him about the events of the previous night was completely out of the question, but it seemed he knew of the event already.

`Heard about the attack in the park last night?' he inquired, completely oblivious to the fact that she might be ignoring him after his previous statement.

`Yeah, I heard.' She responded wearily.

`No you haven't, you haven't even picked up today's paper.' He pointed at the paper on the porch of the townhouse she shared with several other students, who were all away for a week or so. She gave him a glare, and decided to just let him have her side, just to shut him up.

`It just so happens that I know about it, because I reported it.' she said calmly, gauging his reaction, from what she already knew of him, this should goad him into something entertaining. She was disappointed by what his reaction was

`Really? What happened, they say he suffered multiple contusions and some fractures and broken bones, but they don't say anything about how.' He looked at her for a moment, but she said nothing, afraid to say anything about the strange events.

`I bet it was vampires.' he said, grinning. She looked at him, not entirely sure if he was being himself, or just trying to irritate her. In the end she couldn't decide, so she opted out by leaving him standing there at the door.

`See you tomorrow.' he called, grinning irreverently.

Sarah walked up to the school, and had to pass by the government funded labs on her way to the lecture hall where her early morning psychology class was held in the early mornings. The labs were government funded, working on human regeneration formulas that would allow people to regenerate at incredibly quick rates. So far, they'd had absolutely no success, and legend among the students held that all they'd done so far was destroy cell tissue. Instead of inciting growth, they managed to cause it to stop all function.

Nevertheless, the researchers plunged forward in it, and from what the public was told, they were testing the serum on more complicated parts of the animal bodies, and were hoping to apply to the FDA for the option to do human testing.

Normally the labs were quiet, but today, there was a busy mass of people gathered around the entrance, where ambulances and a police car were parked. Sarah's mind shot to the events of the previous night, but she quickly struck these thoughts from her mind by her more rational side. She asked one of the students she knew, a tall boy with wild hair named Philip, what was going on, and he merely shrugged. She walked by the ambulance in order to get into the main hall, and was chilled by what she heard. Two paramedics were loading two bodies into the ambulance, one body was already in the ambulance, and the second was being loaded in now.

`Jesus Christ, Mike… have a look at this.' Sarah heard and realized it was the same two paramedics that she had met last night! She stopped for the moment and her blood ran cold at the next words, `this is just like last night, look here.'

`It can't be like that, that was just too weird' Mike said, `it's got to be a weird coincidence. I can't believe something like that could happen again.'

She stopped, breathless, torn between wanting to know what had happened and wanting to get the hell out of there. Mike looked into the back of the ambulance, and Sarah couldn't help herself from leaning over the DO NOT CROSS line and looking in as well. She wished she hadn't. The man had an enormous bloody wound on his neck, and her stomach flipped again as she listened to the one she knew as Mike speak.

`Look here, Jamie, there's signs of serious pressure being exerted and then torn away, here, here, here, and here.' He pointed at the stomach, then the left arm, and the right arm, at the forearm and shoulder. `…and the guy got finished off by this one here, serious pressure applied, then a twisting and pushing motion, and the distance here is about the same distance on all of them as last night's wounds.'

`I don't like the look of that.' A short pause and Jamie contemplated, `if I didn't know better, I'd have sworn those were human bite marks, but look at the force exerted here and here' he pointed at the shoulder and arm, which Sarah was very glad she could not see.

`Jesus… you don't think that this other guy here…' the second paramedic, Jamie, pointed at the other guy in the ambulance. Sarah could see little of it but an arm hanging over the side, with just an end where the elbow should have been.

`Man, let's just get back, I think I need to retire and get the hell away from this place.'

`Amen to that, Jamie. Let's go.'

They closed the doors, and Sarah was left with a feeling of great disgust and fear welling up in her, she rushed out the bathroom and was late for class. The rest of her day passed uneventfully, but she couldn't get the words of the two paramedics out of her mind.

When Sarah got home later that day, the news beheld even more bad news, when she turned on the TV, there appeared to have been several more attacks, as well as a half dozen `disappearances.' Even the news anchor spoke with a very worried tone. Sarah knew what they all meant of course, she knew that these all related to what she'd seen, last night at the park, and then this morning as well. The reporters any evidence to about what it was, or of the horrific forceful wounds inflicted upon these people, but she was sure that there was something behind it all.

So was Chad, it seemed, the young mechanic hadn't said anything, mocking or otherwise to her as she walked home. There was just the sound of that annoying `noise' as well as seeming to be fixing up part of something very large around the entrance. Knowing Chad, it probably was a blockade, to stop the `vampires' from coming in to get him. At least in his own mind. He was like that, a while back he had believed that there was a hairy man beast attacking them all, and had blockaded himself in the back until a small cat had turned up and the hair had stopped appearing around the neighborhood.

The more she thought about it however, the more she realized that what she'd seen last night was at least as strange as anything Chad had ever told her. She sighed and turned back to the work in front of her, she was almost done the effects of human fear on the rational mind, and then she could go to sleep. It seemed almost ironic to her, as she realized that this was the project when the last few day's events had had such an effect on her. Once it was finished , she was just happy to get to sleep. Shutting off the TV, and turning off the lights, she went to sleep.

Sarah was awoken very suddenly, by a single, long scream. It was terribly loud, and seemed to go on forever, and then it was suddenly cut short with a ragged choking sound. It seemed several blocks away at the least, but close enough to cause her heart to race rapidly. A dozen different thoughts cut through her head all at once, most of which were centered on the events of the past few days, as almost all of her thoughts were now. She sat bolt upright, and looked at the clock; it was 1:54. She then picked up the phone and dialed 911, the dial tone was busy. That's impossible, it can't be busy, there are dozens of lines! Dozens! Something had clearly caused all the lines to be jammed by other callers. The implications of that were terrifying to her, there was some sort of mass calamity going on in the city, and she was right in the middle of it all. She tried to remain calm, but her thoughts were frantic, they went about her head like unruly children, giving her all kinds of horrific thoughts as to what could be happening.

She sat motionless, for a few moments, waiting for the inevitable doom her mind had portrayed for her, in a dozen different fashions. It didn't come, minutes passed and still she stayed there, but nothing happened. It was just silent, entirely silent. The silence around her was as frightening as the noise she had heard beforehand, and she wasn't sure which she would have preferred. The silence meant that nothing was happening outside, but the silence was unfamiliar to her, so alien, that it made her shudder with fear in it's cold, black emptiness. After a few torturous moments, she got up, and made her way as silently as she could, over to her window, and hazarded a look out. She dreaded what she might see so she decided to look slowly and carefully. The window ledge was there, and she took a deep breath in, then pulled herself over it, just peering over the edge, able to view the street clearly. She saw nothing. There was nothing in the street at all, the street lamps were still on, glowing proudly, belying the nature of what had happened only moments before, only a few blocks away. Sarah looked around wildly, searching for some sign of what had caused the police station to be flooded with calls, but there was nothing, it was the shining example of normality.

Suddenly, she saw a movement and her head snapped towards it, hoping it was something as normal as the streetlights, and that this was just a bad dream, but fearing that it could be everything she had dreaded and more. She saw it was a man, he was dressed in street clothes that were fairly clean, but there was something trailing from his left arm, but it was too far a distance to see what it was. Regardless of what it could be, Sarah was overjoyed just to see a human figure. He was moving a little slowly, but she was sure that this was just a fellow out because he couldn't sleep, she recalled the times she'd done it. She then realized she could get an answer to her questions if this fellow had been up a while, perhaps he knew why the police were receiving so many calls. She quickly pulled on some clothing and rushed to the front door, hoping to catch him before he made it too far. She rushed out the door, seeing him halfway down the block, moving towards her, and walked out to meet him, in the cool night air. He seemed to notice her and began moving towards her, no faster than before, but definitely towards her. This seemed strange to her and more than a little disconcerting, but as she drew closer, he hadn't changed his speed, so it did not worry her. As the man passed by the door to Chad's shop, he passed under a street light, and she could see him clearly for a moment. She realized with shock that he was covered in blood, literally dripping with it. As he disappeared from the light, she couldn't see anymore. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she started, and stopped, then called out to him, tentatively.

`Sir?' she called, her voice quavering slightly. There was no response, so she stopped, and started moving slowly backwards away from the inexorable advance of the man. The lights in front of Chad's shop were between him and her, and as she stepped backwards, her motions slowed by shock, he moved into them, and she gave a hoarse gasp as the impossibility registered itself on her: it was the man from the park last night.

He was dripping blood, but did not appear to be wounded himself, other than the object hanging from his arm, now recognizable as a IV line, set into a vein, but no longer attached to an IV or blood transfer bag. His eyes showed no recognition of her, but he still continued that path towards her. She called again.

`Sir, are you all right? I remember you from the park, I was the one who found you, remember?' her voice was a little stronger now, but still she felt fear. The man gave no response, although his jaw fell slack and began moving, as though he were trying to speak, but had completely forgotten how to make the noises. The eyes however, were what caused her to abandon all efforts and just freeze. The eyes were dull and blank, they showed nothing to her, no thought, no action, he was an automaton, those eyes said to her, and that frightened her more than anything. All too quickly, he was upon her and she cursed her foolishness. She had wasted that precious time she could have run, but now those eyes were boring into hers with their coldness. He reached out his hand and gripped her arm, and with a gasp, she felt the pain it exerted on her. The man's grip was like a vice, it closed on her arm, and she could not wrench it free. She started to scream, desperate for anyone to come and save her from this creature that had her arm. Those cold eyes moved in on her, ignoring her pleas and frightened screams as though it had not even heard them, and he pulled her arm towards it's face, struggling as she pulled against it with all of her strength. It did her no good, however, and he just kept pulling at her, trying to pull her arm towards him, with extraordinary strength, clearly content with merely ripping the arm clear out of it's socket if he could not have it now. She kicked at him, and continued screaming the whole time. Her kicks were not weak, but this man seemed to merely ignore them as he focused on the prize. Growing weak, Sarah began to resign herself to her fate as the man just continued to pull, giving an enormous tug that knocked her off her feet. He quickly used his advantage to pull her arm towards him, with a finality that told her it was the end for her when suddenly PANG! The sound of metal hitting the soft human body echoed through the street and the man doubled over, clutching his skull in a very human sort of way that seemed to mock her with the inhumanity of only a few moments before. She looked up and saw the face of her savior and it was the one person she never thought it would be: Chad.

`Come on, let's go, let's go!' he said tersely, only barely allowing her enough time to get up before he moved on, all the while moving his head around frantically, watching for something. As soon as they were inside, he dropped the tire iron, which he had struck her tormentor with, and shut the door, locked a number of padlocks and latches, and only then did he speak.

`I was wrong, wasn't vampires, it was zombies.'

`Zombies? You've got to be kidding me!' Sarah scoffed.

`No kidding today, Sarah, I'm totally serious, guy exudes classic zombie behavior, just like the rest of em running around outside. Watched the news for a while, people just walking around, biting people, dragging em off into alleys, screams all that gets heard.' He sounded very worried, she knew from her studies that using bad grammar was a sign of his disbelief.

`I refuse to believe that those are zombies out there, these people are just sick or something, it's the only thing it could be.'

`That guy just tried to take a bite out of you! And he's not the only one around here that's trying, I saw a guy actually fight one off down the street, anyway, the zombie bit a chunk out of his arm, then bit him again and broke his arm, could hear the crack from here.'

`Why didn't you help him?' She accused him

`What do you mean? I'm scared enough for my own ass, let alone everyone else's, you should be so lucky I saved you, and I probably wouldn't have if you hadn't been right outside my door. Situation like this, a man has to watch for himself, just wait it all out and come out when the fallout's gone.' He said, Sarah looked at him.

`So now what do we do? Huh, smart guy? Tell me that. We sit here and wait for all eternity? I say we go and find out what's ACTUALLY happening instead of sitting in here. It's probably just a small problem that will be resolved by morning, and we call an ambulance for the guy outs-` she cut off abruptly, as she heard an ambulance siren approaching.

`We should call them over to help him, maybe they can do something?'

`Are you serious? He just tried to bite you, Sarah, believe THAT if nothing else.'

The ambulance siren slowed as it approached the doorway.

`I think they see him!' She said excitedly, `let's go out and talk to them, see what they know.'

Chad sighed and finally said `fine' before he picked up the tire iron and went to the doorway, unlocking the various latches as the two paramedics jumped out of the van. Sarah was struck with an odd familiarity as it turned out, yet again, to be Mike and Jamie, the same two from before. As Chad unlocked the final padlock, the paramedics were moving towards him with a stretcher set up. Chad swung the door open and Sarah was about to call out to them when suddenly the injured man leapt up at Mike, wrapping both of his hands around Mike's throat. He then pulled him down to the ground and bit at one of Mike's shoulders. It was very clear from the angle they had what was happening he was biting deep into the shoulder, putting a great deal of force into it. They could see Mike's shoulder crumple under the pressure of the man's jaws, then the man then twisted away and tore an enormous ragged piece of flesh from Mike's shoulder. He then began to chew and swallow it with the use of his hands. Mike screamed in pain, the sound loud and sudden, being the first noise made since the doors of the ambulance had swung open, Jamie could do nothing but stare at this with shocked disbelief, frozen with fear and indecision. Sarah fell to her knees in the doorway and began to vomit violently into the street watching this very human-seeming monster carefully hold the pieces of human flesh as he chewed bits of the raw bloody meat. Mike continued screaming, but the man paid him no mind. Jamie reacted now, and tried to push the man away from his friend, but the man paid ignored him and merely tried to protect the flesh he was eating.

`You have to help him!' Sarah cried out to Chad, her stomach now completely empty of all its contents.

Chad nodded grimly and walked forward, fighting back the bile rising in the back of his throat. He raised the tire iron, and swung it in a wide arc into the back of the man's head. The crunch was loud and the man dropped to the ground, no longer clutching at anything, the automated functions held in the eyes dimming further to nothing. Chad looked stunned at what he had done, regardless of what he might have thought, this was the first time Chad had ever killed anything, and the power of what he had done struck him. Sarah didn't think about what Chad had done, she was far too worried about the state of Mike, who was no longer screaming, but now just moaning pathetically, clutching at his shoulder, now frightfully bare of flesh and muscle, exposing the bone. Jamie was looking at him with disbelief, but still acting as his paramedic instincts told him.

`We have to get him onto the stretcher, help me.' he looked at Sarah, and they quickly got him up onto it, Sarah was at the leg end, and she knew moving him wrong could be life or death for Mike. They lifted him into the back of the ambulance, and then Jamie got in the back Sarah and Chad stood there, wondering what to do. Finally, the paramedic called to them.

`Drive! He needs help, now!' he was terse, worrying about what to do, he began working immediately.

`Where do we drive him, the hospital?' Chad asked,

`No, it's packed there, nothing's happening there, everyone is treating serious injuries. There've been at least 500 admitted in the last 3 hours. And we've had to turn away at least 5 times that many, because there's no space, our waiting room is filled with victims. We'd been called out a dozen times, even though they knew there'd be no space. There's only one place we can go for anything, maybe.' he paused, `In an emergency situation, we were told to go to the medlabs at the school.' He said nothing of the events there the day before, and in fact did not seem to recognize Sarah at all.

`I know the way,' Sarah said.

Chad nodded and jumped into the driver's side of the ambulance, Sarah followed into the other, and they were quickly off, Sarah directing him.

They passed very little on their way to the school, which was even more eerie concerning what they both knew must be going on somewhere. There were half a million people in the city, where were they all? As they turned wildly down the street to the school, Sarah had a clear view of the barricaded city limits. They had closed off the city, probably to control this problem before it spread elsewhere. No one knew how far it could go, but they couldn't afford to take chances. This also meant that the survivors (that assuming they weren't the only ones) were completely trapped in here. Sarah also absently wondered where all the bodies must be, because there must have been a terrific amount. Where was everything? The school came up quickly after that, and she was thankful, Chad was not much of a driver, but dying from his terrible driving would be almost anti-climactic, after all that had happened today.

Chad jumped out of the passenger seat, carrying his tire iron, holding it tightly for comfort. Sarah jumped out the other side, eyes all around her, watching for any sight of movement, survivors or attackers. Chad knocked on the back of the ambulance, and a moment later Jamie opened the door. With Sarah's help, they moved the stretcher with the moaning Mike onto the ground and into the building. The silence around them was oppressive, there was nothing but their footsteps, broken once by a horrid scream that ended suddenly, many blocks away. Sarah tried not to think about what must have been that person's fate, and what was happening to them now, but it was hard when she looked down in front of her to see Mike's shoulder, still oozing blood through the bandages. They moved through the doors into the building, Silence was all around them, the power had since shut down in this area, and the hallway was as dark as it was silent. Chad pulled a light out of his pocket and clipped onto his vest to light the hallway ahead. The beam covered very little ahead, and did not cover behind them as they moved into the darkened interior of the building.

`We're looking for a double doorway marked MED' Jamie whispered, and Mike groaned. A few moments passed, with only the light illuminating their path and the walls, their footsteps the only things that could be heard. The door came up, and Chad pointed towards it, they opened the doors, which, fortunately for Sarah's shattered nerves, did not open with that fearful creak. They moved into the darkened lab area, and Jamie carefully instructed Sarah into how to get Mike onto a table. Chad swung his light around the room, taking everything in.

The room was perhaps 20 feet long, with several beds across it's expanse, like the one Mike was on and 10 feet across, with cabinets lining 3 of it's walls, and the fourth wall was a line of windows. The windows all displayed the courtyard of the school, and lit the room up slightly, allowing Jamie to see without the light. In the courtyard a single body lay in the middle of it, 40 yards from where they stood, legs and arm splayed, the other arm could not be seen, but Sarah prayed that it was still attached, and if not, whatever had removed it was far from here by now. There was no signs of movement in the courtyard, and Chad kept his flashlight moving until it fell on a door that did not appear to lead into the hallway as well, He shone the light on the door to read the word FILES.

`Ok,' Jamie said, finally, `I need some bottles from the cabinet labeled M that are green and have an R on the top. They told us what to get from here in most situations, just in case. Thank God for that, eh?'

Chad lit up the cupboards around the room. They ran in alphabetical order around it, and he found M easily enough, but searching through it, there was nothing. Opening other cabinets, they found nothing, except for the final cabinet, which was unlettered and locked.

`I think the place has been ransacked.' Chad said, `this one's locked, it might have something in it, and I think that we don't have much of a choice.' He raised the tire iron and smashed the lock. It took him several tries to break it, but he opened the cupboard then and shone the light inside. Sarah grabbed several of the bottles that were in it. They were marked DeioGlobin, and there were some syringes. She brought them over to Jamie, who looked them over.

`DeioGlobin… that was what they were working on in here, the human regenerative formula.' he looked at Mike, who was partially awake, `Mike, this might be your only chance, but this stuff isn't tested on people. Will you try it?' Mike looked at him, dazed, and Jamie was about to ask again, when he nodded weakly. Jamie nodded back, loaded a syringe and injected it into Mike's arm. Mike fell unconscious.

`No telling what's going to happen now, it could be anything, could be nothing, could take a while, why don't the two of you take a look around here, see what you can find. Don't go too far, and if I shout, you come running back, ok? I have to stay here with Mike in case he gets much worse… Not that there's much I could do anyway, we had more in the ambulance than here.'

Chad nodded, `I'm just gonna look in that room over there,' he pointed at the door on the one side, then moved towards it, Sarah following silently behind. He opened the door slowly, watching inside with his light, and when nothing happened, he moved in, Sarah following behind. It was a long office, with this door on one end and the desk and a large chair facing away at the other. He shined the light around the room, along the walls, as he came around the back wall of the long room, he illuminated a large red splatter pattern, then illuminated the chair, which now displayed an arm hanging limply over the edge. Chad moved forwards slowly, tire iron raised, Sarah moved forward slowly as well, and they moved around the either side of the desk together. She stepped on something hard and metal, and when she bent down to grab it, she realized it was a handgun.

It all fell into place as he turned the chair around. Sitting in it was a man she knew was the head of the labs, Professor Barnsley, or most of him anyway. His head had a large hole in one side, and the other half of it was completely missing, or pasted on the wall on the other side from her. He had committed suicide with the handgun. Chad lowered the tire iron and looked around,

`Guy bit it, eh? Wonder why?'

`I think we can find out through this.' She pointed to a handheld tape recorder sitting on the desk. It was fully rewound, so she hit the play button and a voice she recognized vaguely as the professors came through it, crackling through the device.

`To whoever finds this, I apologize profusely for my rudeness and more. You see, I'm responsible for the plague that overtook the city, and I took the coward's way out. But I view that far better than to meet up with the one who would consume my flesh.' Sarah looked at Chad.

`He knew. He knew that this was going to happen, that people were going to try and eat other people.' Sarah said, Chad merely nodded, as the tape continued.

`-I would highly advise that if the circumstances are allowed you, you follow my example and take to the underworld through a far less painful way than that which is likely to befall you if you remain, I even left the gun 5 bullets in order to help you. But I will now get down to business, as I'm sure you're wondering what could have caused this insanity. It was our work, the foolhardy way we tried to play god at this facility. We thought we could incite the human system to heal itself, and I daresay we'd come close. On animals we made incredible recoveries, and noticed almost no side affects, and we were ready for human testing, but the FDA would not hear us out. They refused everything we did, and it took forever every time we met another one of their fallacious specifications to get through and try again, so it came time to take drastic measures, and I'm so very sorry I condoned it.

The test subject was one Martin Segall, and he volunteered because of a severe malformation when he was born causing his arm to end around the elbow.' Sarah gasped, Chad looked at her inquisitively but said nothing, and let the tape continue, `-less to say, the experiment was a total failure, and worse than that, the doctor suffered serious injuries and died while attempts were made to calm Martin. Brain readings taking from him by CAT scan revealed that all brain activity except at the simplest part of the brain had completely shut down because of our serum. He was left, presumably, with few needs, just the most basic, that being the need for food, which he apparently felt the doctor could contribute. A completely unexpected side effect that we had no idea how to reverse, seeing no option, we were forced to end what was left of Mr. Segall's life and call the paramedics reporting a serious accident had taken place. As you can see, morals were not a problem for us, they had become as flexible as our power seemed to be, so we acted in a way not befitting us, it makes me wonder who is the true monster, much like Frankenstein must have felt. Are we the monster, or is it what we have created? We locked up the rest of our product, and vowed never to use it. And I laugh now to think how we even named it after our own idiocy, we thought ourselves gods so we named it after the word, Deity. DeioGlobin.'

Chad and Sarah exchanged a look and rushed for the door, when they reached it they saw Jamie tending to Mike.

`Jamie!' Sarah called, `Get away from him!'

Jamie looked up at her, confused, `why would I do that? I have to save hi-' In a move straight out of everyone's worst nightmares, Mike rose up, wrapped his solid grip around Jamie's midsection and smashed him to the ground, then leapt on top of him, sending several tables flying away. In a flash, Mike's jaws were locked around Jamie's neck, Jamie was screaming, but suddenly it was cut short and turned into a simple gargle, as the windpipe was crushed and blood from the severed jugular vein rushed into it's openings. Jamie's arms flailed about as the creature that had once been Mike let go, then locked his jaw around his neck again, sideways, this time gathering the spinal column into his grip, and then bit down again. He experienced some resistance, but his face contorted slightly as he increased the pressure, with a shudder, Jamie's body fell limp as his cerebellum was disconnected from the rest of the nervous system. Jamie's life was leaked from him like the blood that spread quickly on the floor around him. Chad was moving by this point, but the tables blocked his path, so he was unable to do anything to save Jamie. Sarah moved up to the tables numbly, and looked down at what had become of Mike and Jamie, two people she had known for only two days but had connected with her so fully. She then raised the handgun that the old man had left in the office and pointed it towards them as the frightful creature that had once been Mike lifted the windpipe from it's original place and began to chew and swallow it with a very human energy. She closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger once, then again, and again and again, till it only clicked dully.

She then opened her eyes to see the bodies of Mike and Jamie sprawled on the floor in front of them, Jamie missing most of his neck, and Mike had two enormous holes in him. One just below the neck, and the other nearer his abdomen, the other 3 shots were lodged in the floor and countertop nearby. After the roar of the gunshots, everything returned to absolute silence. Sarah stood there, staring, holding the gun while the tape player started again in the background, mumbling something pitiful and regret-filled.

`There's no way we can get out.' she almost wept, `there's nothing we can do but stay here, there must be food and water, right? We can survive for a while, right?'

Chad shrugged, he didn't know, he was scared and confused too.

`I think I need a drink of water…' She said, falling to the ground in a heap. The silence returned, but suddenly, they heard it, footsteps, slowly, unevenly, moving down the hallway, making that clacking noise that people in important shoes did. But there was no speaking, no noise other than that uneven clack-clack, clack, clack-clack, clack. Chad swallowed hard, and moved slowly towards the door, setting his tire iron into the handles, and then sliding down the door. He began to crawl over to her, and they hid behind the tables as the horrid clacking noise passed by, seeming to take forever. The monster then began to return, then as it seemed to reach where it had come from, it stopped, and returned down the hallway outside their room. Over and over again, then more footsteps joined it after, there must have been at least three of the monsters outside, moving up and down. They all walked with an uneven pace, and made no other noise than that clacking. They kept up this pattern for what seemed like hours, and then they finally moved away.

`I don't think we should make much noise.' Chad said, though he fetched her the water `the shots must have attracted that one, and I don't think it's gone too far.'

`We're trapped here, aren't we?' she asked again.

`Yes, I think we are.' He didn't lie, he was too afraid to lie, she could see it in his face

`We're going to die here, aren't we?'

`I don't know.' He didn't know, she could see that in his eyes, he wasn't trying to be reassuring, he knew they were going to die, so did she, but he wasn't sure this was the place.

`We still have water, we can survive for 5 days on that alone, they'll be gone by then.' He sounded somewhat more convinced than he looked, but he handed over the cup she had asked for. She held it only now, trying to will her hand to stop shaking, staring at the water she held in her hand, watching the trembling make it ripple.

The tape recorder went on in the background.

`-until a grievous error was made that led to this outbreak. One of the bottles of Deioglobin was stolen by a former worker, and in his haste to expose us, he did not mind to take care of it, and it broke, and he was forced to dispose of it into the Nantes river. The Nantes, unfortunately, leads into the city's water supply, and the general populace got it into their system. This was a slower form of infection, but after a few days, we, as I'm sure you now know, discovered that it was ultimately just as bad.' There was a scream in the background on the tape, a tinny sound, probably a woman's voice, the one in the courtyard. `I think that is my cue to end this, they seem to have entered the school area.' There was a click, and the tape stopped.

`It's in… the water…' Sarah let out with a small cry, and looked at the cup in her hand, the only thing that held any salvation for them. Chad looked at her, with that same fear and hopelessness that he saw on her face as she made that pronouncement.

`What do we do?' he asked, this time

`We… we stay here and wait to die… or we drink the water.'