WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel Read online

  It was a fresh start for Amy. Something she really needed, even if it meant that she was alone in the world.

  A short time after moving to her new place, Amy got a job at the Get-A-Way club and over the next year she became the club manager. She could be nice, could be tough, but always knew how to treat her clients.

  When I met her, she was the bartender and acting bar manager. I had just got into town and was still mourning the loss of my dad and really needed to talk with someone. I spent that night in the club pouring my heart out to this beautiful bartender serving me drinks and I promptly got shit faced.

  I’m pretty sure I asked her to marry me.

  I passed out and Amy took care of me. She found out where I lived by checking my driver's license and she didn’t even steal the little money I had left in my wallet. She was nice enough to call a cab and made sure I got in it safely. She told the cabby where I lived and watched me get driven away.

  Thanks to her, I didn’t spend the night in the gutter on the side of the street and I didn’t get taken advantage of by some thief. Why she did this is still something that Amy won’t talk about, I’ve always assumed she was just that kind of person, someone who cared. When I ask her about, she jokingly remarks that she should have just treated me the same way she normally treated any drunk and just kicked my ass out the door.

  “Shelby stayed till you guys left last night because she wanted to be with me. After cleaning up and closing the bar, we headed back to my apartment to chill.” Amy said, bring me back to the conversation. “On the way home, we saw some very strange things, but with Shelby drunk and needing help to walk straight, we just headed home and didn’t stop for anything.” she finished.

  Amy got up, laying Shelby’s head down on the carpet gently and walked to the kitchen. I followed her and sat down on a stool at the breakfast counter. She pulled out a wine bottle from the liquor cabinet and pulled the cork out discarding it on the counter. She stood there and looked at me, then she took a long drink straight from the bottle.

  She then said, “We sat down on the couch and talked when we got home, not about anything in particular, just about life. What she had been up to, what she was doing, those types of things.” She took another drink.

  “After a while, there was a loud knock on the door. It was strange, we both looked at each other, like who the hell would be knocking on our door at this time of night. Shelby got up from the couch and went to open the door.” Amy looked at the front door and then took another long drink from the wine bottle. “She didn’t check the peephole, just unlocked the door and opened it.

  I took the bottle of wine from her hands and sat it on the coffee table. She had already drunk about half of it.

  “When Shelby opened the door, Mike pushed the door open, just forced his way in. Shelby put up her hand to stop him and he grabbed her arm and bit her. Tore a chunk of skin out of her are. Just like that. Didn’t say anything, nothing just bit her. She was speechless, she couldn’t believe that he had done that.”

  Mike was the poor guy lying on the floor in the living room just on the other side of the coffee table. He was Amy’s neighbor, someone she knew and someone she trusted. He was constantly over at her apartment, hanging out. Really a nice guy.

  “I mean, he just lunged at her. Ripped a chunk out of her arm. What the hell? I couldn’t believe it; I couldn’t believe what I just saw. Shit, Shelby couldn’t believe it. “

  I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze to show support. I could tell she was in shock and just talking about it was like living it all over again.

  “Shelby was surprised and stumbled backward falling down into the kitchen. I jumped up and screamed at Mike. He headed straight towards me, chewing on the flesh from Shelby’s arm with blood dripping down his chin. I used the coffee table to block him from reaching me.”

  Amy grabbed the wine off the coffee table in question and took another swig. Setting the bottle out of my reach while giving me a stare that said don’t try and take it away again. “While I was circling the coffee table, trying to reason with Mike, Shelby walked over, holding the wooden butcher block from my kitchen and whacked Mike over the head with all of her strength. Mike dropped to the floor like he was just turned off. Shelby hit him a couple more time in the head while he laid there on the floor.” She continued to take a drink of the wine after every couple of sentences.

  At this rate, she’s going to be useless for a while.

  “I was beside myself. Couldn’t believe she had done that. I mean, she killed Mike, right there. Just like that. I didn’t know what to do.” Another swig.

  “Shelby continued to hit Mike, so I finally stepped over to her and wrapped my arms around her chest, stopping her from hitting him anymore. Look at his head, I mean, what is left to hit?” She took another swig of the wine.

  “I knew from the way his head was smashed, I mean look at it; not to mention the amount of blood, that he was a goner. I took the butcher block from Shelby and moved her into the bathroom to clean her wound.” She took the last swig of the wine and set the bottle on the coffee table.

  “We cleaned the wound and discussed going to the emergency room, but before we could that, I wanted to call the police to report the death of Mike.” She looked around, got up and went back into the kitchen, returning with another bottle of wine.

  “I tried calling 911 and just got a busy signal. I tried a few different times, using both of our phones, but couldn’t get through.” She drank some of the wine from the new bottle. “While I was trying to call the police, Shelby had turned on the TV in my bedroom and was watching the news. That’s when we found out that something big was happening all over the city.”

  Amy took another drink and looked at me. ”The news said to stay indoors and don’t travel, so we figured we shouldn’t go to the emergency room. We sat on the bed, watching the news and applying pressure to the bite on Shelby’s arm. Eventually, Shelby stopped complaining and seemed to pass out. I kept trying 911. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was a dark color.”

  Amy got up and moved to the sliding glass door to her balcony. She used the curtain to wipe the blood and gore off her hands. It was dried and she couldn't wipe it off, but she kept trying.

  I walked up behind her and took her hands and led her to the kitchen. Using the water from the sink, we cleaned off her hands and forearms. I used a towel to wipe off the blood from her face.

  “I was stunned and didn’t know what to do, 911 was a bust, the news said to stay put and from the video I saw, it didn’t look safe to be on the street. As I was waiting I started to hear all kinds of screams in the apartment complex. I just couldn’t take it, I shut and locked my bedroom door and that’s when I texted you.” She turned to me and hugged me, placing her head on my shoulder. “I didn’t know what else to do.” she cried.

  I held her for a while, telling her everything would be ok, which I didn’t think was true, but it was something she needed to hear.

  Really, it was something I needed to hear.

  Chapter 8

  I got Amy to sit down on the couch and relax. I couldn’t stand looking at Mike lying on the floor, so I moved him from the living room, out to the balcony. I figured, outside would be best, just in case something weird happened. Not that this wasn’t weird, but who knew what else we were in store for.

  I also moved the other neighbor lying in the hallway and placed him on the balcony. We didn’t need any dead bodies in the apartment.

  “Amy, are you ok with me moving Shelby’s body out to the balcony?” I asked her.

  “Just close the bedroom door, there’s nothing in there I want anymore.” She replied as she drank the remaining wine.

  I went to the bedroom and wrapped Shelby up in the comforter. I grabbed a change of clothes for Amy and a gym bag for other supplies. I hoped we wouldn’t have to go back into the room again.

  I sat down next to Amy and flipped on the TV to see if any of the channels had any
news playing. I pulled out my phone and checked for any new messages or missed calls. Butch had texted me while I was on my little adventure to Amy’s.

  “Dude, I’m heading to Amy’s, she needs our help.” he wrote. I hoped he was ok and just got a later start than I had.

  CNN was still on the air and was reporting that this was a global event and that China, England, and France had gone dark. Communications systems were failing all over the world, reports of the virus were coming in from the countries still actively online.

  So they were calling this a virus now. They didn’t have clue the last time I had checked the news.

  The news was now reporting that the virus was a strain of the flu vaccine that was made this year. Something had gone wrong the vaccine and people were having adverse reactions. Some of the initial reports were that people were passing away shortly after receiving the vaccine, but then in a very short time later they started to come back to life, but they would attack other people, biting them and tearing them apart.

  The vaccine had been shipped around the world over the last couple of months and an estimated 42 million people had already received the vaccine in the US alone. Some reports had people dying and reanimating faster than others. Sources believed that those people who were predisposed to catch the flu turned quicker than those who had some natural immunity.

  In most cases, once the individual turned, they were extremely slow, like they were disorientated and seemed to be like a newborn calf. They weren’t sure-footed or fully aware of their surroundings and couldn’t speak to others.

  Once they had their first bite of another human and ate the flesh, they seemed to wake up. They became faster, more aware and started the moaning I had heard all day during my adventure to Amy’s.

  There were reports that the infected had improved hearing, better eye site and their sense of smell was heightened. The amount of damage to their bodies impacted their ability to “hunt”.

  The news was actually calling a hunt. Really?

  The infected were ‘hunting’ those that had not been infected. It was like they had a need to spread the virus to as many people as they could. When they found their prey they would bite and spread the virus.

  The mutated flu virus seemed to not care if the person it was infecting was predisposed to the flu or immune to it. Everyone was despicable to the virus, no one was going to be safe.

  After hearing this on the news, Amy and I looked at each other and asked if the other had gotten a flu shot this year. Neither of us had gotten one, so we figured that we should be safe unless we were bitten.

  The news continued to feed us with the same information and continued to provide us with grizzly images from around the world of people chasing other people, attacking them and eating them.

  They reported that the President and his staff were safe in some bunker in Virginia and that Cheyenne Mountain was locked down.

  All air travel was suspended. Emergency teams and the military were trying to respond, trying to get the spread of the virus under control. They were setting up safe zones at military bases, hospitals, and schools.

  I got up from the couch and went to the kitchen to see what we had for food and other useful items. My stomach was beginning to complain since I hadn’t had anything of substance since last night.

  Amy spoke from the living room area. ”When Shelby turned on me, she tried to bite me. I had her in the blankets and was able to use them to control her movements. I had her wrapped up to help with the chills she was having and I just kept the sheet wrapped around her once she tried to bite me. It was weird, she all of sudden woke up, looked around the room, just like they are saying on the news, disorientated, not sure where she was. Then she locked onto me. I was moving towards her because she was awake, but she didn’t have a clue it was me, it wasn’t even Shelby anymore, it was a monster.”

  “I’m sorry that happened that you had to deal with such a horrific situation like that. I can’t even imagine how you got through it. I haven’t been able to bring myself to defend myself, to fight back, let alone kill one of them. I just run and hide.”

  Amy continued as if she hadn’t even heard me. “I remembered how Shelby hit Mike on the head and somehow I knew I had to do something like that to her. I knew deep down that this ‘thing’ trying to bite me wasn’t Shelby anymore, so I grabbed my fingernail file off of my makeup table, threw Shelby to the ground on her back and jammed the file into her eye. It went straight through her eye and into her brain. I screamed when I did it but I knew I had to do it. She would have bitten me and I would have become one of them.”

  “I cried for a long time after that, holding her, knowing I wouldn’t ever wake up next her, never having a laugh with her, there would be no more her. There is no tomorrow anymore.”

  No tomorrow? There would be a tomorrow I thought, but what would it look like?

  She stopped talking and stared at the TV, not really taking what was being said, just zoning out. Completely forgetting that I was there.

  I got up and went into the kitchen to see if there were things we could use for survival, to defend ourselves. I was looking through her cabinets pulling things out that we could use. I pulled out mixing bowls to hold water, knives for defense, a meat cleaver, anything I could find.

  Shit, could you use a cheese grater to defend yourself?

  Amy wasn’t into cooking, she was a well-known connoisseur the various restaurants around her apartment building. She spent a good deal of time eating at the club she managed. Her kitchen supplies were limited, but she had a meat cleaver, go figure.

  Because of the bar, she had a lot of booze, so if we wanted to make some drinks we could, but I figured that this wasn’t the time to drunk.

  I did grab a bottle of vodka to put it in the gym bag I had grabbed from her bedroom. I knew I’d need a drink at some point, might as well be prepared.

  Since Amy had limited supplies, it would mean we would need to to find supplies before we left her apartment. I was pretty sure the floor that she lived on was no free of the infected, but the thought of leaving the apartment was terrifying to me.

  I also didn’t think that Amy’s apartment was a good long term place to hang out since we had dead bodies on the balcony and in the bedroom, so the smell would be a problem sooner than later. Summertime and dead bodies didn’t end well.

  “Amy, let’s plan to spend the rest of today here and see if Butch makes it. Then we can head out tomorrow morning and find a better place to wait this out.” I said from the kitchen. “I think we should get out of the city, way too many of these infected around. We need to find somewhere remote and isolated. Something we can defend. Somewhere secluded and safe.” I was starting to get an idea of someplace that would be safe and we could hold out while things settled down.

  “Ok.” was the only response I got from her.

  She laid her head down on the couch pillow and closed her eyes. I knew, from the story she had told me, that she hadn’t slept since yesterday morning and I’m sure the two bottles of wine had taken its toll on her.

  · I continued to search Amy’s kitchen, looking for something to eat. I found some left Indian food in her refrigerator and used the microwave to warm it up. My stomach grumbled at the smell of the chili peppers, the sweet cinnamon, coriander, cumin and ginger and my mouth started to water as the leftovers heated up. After a night out drinking, I loved some hot Indian food with the spices that would help to settle my stomach and soul.

  I grabbed the food from the microwave and started to shovel it into my mouth. It was delicious….the best I had ever had. Maybe running from the infected put your taste buds in a heightened state of awareness.

  After eating the leftovers, I found a blanket in the hallway closet and covered Amy up so she could sleep the wine off.

  I decided it might be good for me to start checking out the other apartments. Maybe they would have some supplies we could use.

  I headed out of the apartment which wasn’
t something I really wanted to do, but it had to be done. The longer we waited the less chance we might find things we could use.

  Before leaving, I wrote a short note for Amy, in case she woke up and wondered where I was. I grabbed her apartment keys so I could lock the door behind me and my unused bat that I had been carrying around all day. I moved the couch in front of the door a little so I could squeeze out the door and I quietly shut the door and locked it.

  Chapter 9

  Having not been to the other side of the 2nd-floor apartments, I thought it might be good to see what the other side of the floor looked like.

  I moved to the left of Amy’s apartment and stopped at the first door. This was Mike’s apartment and I knew Mike was currently on Amy’s balcony, chilling. I was pretty sure it might be good to check his place out. The chances of running into a problem were pretty low.

  The door knob turned without resistance and the door opened to an empty apartment. Mike was single, so another person in the apartment was unlikely, but I was cautious anyway. All the time we had known Mike, he hadn’t introduced us to anyone special. I kind of figured he was into Amy and was just waiting for a chance. After walking in, I closed Mike’s front door and walked into the living room.

  Mike’s place was pretty clean, considering that at some point he had been infected. There wasn’t blood anywhere or any sign of a struggle.

  I looked in the other rooms of the apartment but found nothing of interest. Basically a single guys apartment. Mike’s place was a typical guy's place, simple furnishings, not a lot on the walls, but the one thing Mike had that might be of use was a set of samurai swords hanging above his couch.