WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel Read online

  At least she looked like she was unconscious.

  “Ain’t she a beauty?” The guy said. “This here is Amanda. She has volunteered to be our play toy this week. What you’ll think?”

  The camera pans up and down the naked girl and then zooms in for close-ups of her body. “Innocent little thing, ain’t she?” A different voice says off-camera.

  “This is very wrong. Sick son of a bitches.” Amy said as the video continued to play.

  “Hey, Jimmy, how about a close up of her face for our friends.” The first guy said as the camera zoomed in closer to her face, filling the screen. Amanda’s eyes open suddenly and she stares at the camera. The look on her face is pure terror and tears begin to fall from her eyes. The gag stifled her screams and all you could hear was a faint sound coming from her.

  “Ah, she’s crying Charlie. She’s in tears she’s so happy.” Jimmy the cameraman says in the background. Charlie appears on the screen and smiles, “Now it’s time for some fun.” He begins to take off his clothes getting completely naked. He moves around the bed, looking at the poor girl, running his hand up and down her body till finally he stops and gets on top of her.

  “I can’t watch this,” Butch states as he turns away and leaves the room.

  “It’s not something any of us want to watch,” I said, “but it might give us some idea on what happened in here. How did they turn?”

  “Who gives a shit? They’re all dead and the two fuckers got what they deserved. I only wish we had walked in here before they turned.” He replied from the other room.

  The video continued to play, showing Charlie raping Amanda. She was screaming but the gag was only allowing a slight sound to escape. You could tell she was in pain. Jimmy was laughing and moving the camera view around the bed showing different angles of the rape.

  Finally, after just a few minutes, Charlie finishes and runs his tongue around Amanda’s lips and the gag stuck in her mouth. He turned to the camera and smiled a wicked smile, “Your turn buddy boy. Have fun. She likes it.”

  The camera switches between the two guys and Jimmy is now on the video.

  He’s naked, stroking himself, “Time for a real ride little lady.” He climbs on the bed and begins to mount her just as she starts to have a seizure. Her body began to shake really hard, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her then she was still like she had passed out. “Oh shit, Charlie, you fucked her so good she passed out dude.”

  “She’s still warm, get some,” Charlie said from behind the camera.

  Jimmy continued to force himself on her, having his way with the passed out girl, when all of sudden Amanda’s eyes open. They were blood red and she began struggling against the restraints to get free.

  It’s obvious to us that she had turned but Jimmy didn’t seem to notice until Charlie said, “Jimmy’s fucking a zombie, everyone.”

  Charlie started to laugh and the camera shows Jimmy realizing what was happening. He jumped off the now infected girl and screamed, “Holy fuck, a zombie. I’m infected man; I’m going to get sick.” Jimmy was running around the room, naked and frantic while Charlie followed him with the camera.

  Even harder laughter could be heard coming from Charlie as he continued to film his friend freaking out. The camera panned back to Amanda showing her still struggling to free.

  “So Amanda turns and the infection is spread to Jimmy through a sexual transmission, like a sexual disease,” I said out loud. “If that was true, how did both Jimmy and Charlie have their throats ripped out?”

  Charlie sets the camera on the tripod and steps into view telling Jimmy to calm down, that he was going to be OK. From the other room, we could hear a loud knocking which stops both Jimmy and Charlie. Jimmy starts to grab his clothes as Charlie leaves the room.

  As the video continues, we could hear from the background Charlie say, “What the fu…..” as a moan is then heard; a moan just like the infected make when they are after someone.

  Jimmy is still pulling on his pants when another guy comes into the room and attacks Jimmy as the video continues to roll. He rips out Jimmy’s throat before moving to Amanda. He lingers over her for a few minutes as Jimmy falls to the floor trying to stop all of the blood and trying to scream. Charlie is still missing, so we could only guess that he was already dead.

  The infected guy continued to stands over Amanda until a loud noise came from off camera. He turned and ran out of the room. The video showed Amanda still struggling to get free for some time until we heard a door slamming in the background.

  Then the video shows Jimmy and Charlie wondering in and out of the camera as Amanda struggles every few minutes to get free. The finally Amy shows up in the video and shuts it off.

  “You think that a whole thing was streamed live?” Amy asked.

  I move the cursor over the connection icon on the laptop and saw that it was still connected to the internet. “It’ still has a connection, so I would say yes. Yes, it did.” I clicked on the search engine icon and open a search page, typing in a news site and pulling up the CNN and BBC news sites.

  Both sites are still reporting widespread outbreaks of the infection and continue to show videos showing the destruction as a result of the infection. Cities were on fire with the infected walking through the streets. Both channels were stating that the world was ending.

  CNN was stating that people were being instructed to head to the nearest military base in their area where they would find assistance and safety.

  “We’ve got to end this girls misery and see if her parents are still upstairs,” Amy said to me.

  “Amy, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go upstairs. We don’t have a clue what could be waiting for us up there.” Butch said as he walked back into the room eating a candy bar.

  Amy ignored him as she moved over to Amanda. She pulled the sheet off of Amanda’s face and takes her sword, shoving it through Amanda’s eye socket all the way into the mattress. Amanda stopped struggling, lying still on the bed. Amy pulled the gag out of her mouth and threw it on the floor. “If her family is alive, they’ll want to know where she is. Just because the world is going to shit around us doesn’t mean we can stop being compassionate and caring.”

  “Let’s finish going through the rest of the apartments to get supplies and then we can decide how to get upstairs with the least amount of risk,” I said as I walked out of the room. I’d seen enough of this place.

  “I wonder how many times those guys did this type of thing,” Butch said as he followed me out.

  I was thinking the same thing. How many times and how did no one on the floor know this was happening?

  The crazy things people do.

  We all walked out of the apartment and past the elevator heading around the corner to the west side apartments where all of the doors were closed. We moved to the first door and knocked, waiting to see if anything answered.

  When we didn't hear anything come to the door, we started to try and forced the door open. Just as Butch was about to try and kick the door in, it opened and an older woman was peering at Butch. A rifle tip then comes out the door and is pointed right at him. “Don't you dare try to force your way in here you punk. I’ll shoot you dead if you try.” She said shoving the gun further out the door.

  We all backed up a couple steps and raised our hands. “Hang on. We thought no one was home.” Amy said as she continued to back up. The old woman continued to point the gun at Butch.

  “Leave me alone. I don't need any help or anything from anyone.”

  “We’re sorry. My name is Amy. I live down the hall in 1011. We’ve seen each other before.” Amy said in response, trying to reason with the old woman. “We’re just trying to see if anyone else is alive on this floor.”

  “I know who you are and as you can see, I'm OK.” She said stepping back from the opened door and slamming it shut. From the sound of it, she then turned the deadbolt and locked us out as she said through the door, “Leave and don't come back.”


  We all looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders moving to the next door in the hallway. We knocked again and got no answer so we broke in moving in one at a time. We didn’t find any living or infected in the apartment, but we did find more food, medical supplies, and more kitchen knives. We also found two brooms which meant two more spears.

  I was really looking forward to building the spears with the knives attached. They would be helpful with keeping the infected away from us and they were pretty light, so we each could carry a few without causing us much of a problem.

  We moved out of that apartment and over to the third door. This time, after knocking, we heard something on the other side of the door. I sounded like someone bumping against the door, so we thought it was a good chance that this was an infected. “Do we leave it or take care of it?” I asked.

  “We can't leave it; someone else could come along and get attacked by it. That's not something I can live with.” Amy stated. “Try the door knob real quick and see if it's unlocked.” She pulled out her sword and steps back to let me turn the knob.

  I moved forward grabbing the knob and turning. It was unlocked moving as I turned it. I nodded at Amy and held up three fingers. I counted down to one.

  Was it wrong that the last finger standing was my middle finger?

  The door opened just a little and an old man’s face is pressed up against the opening. I tried to step back so Amy could use her sword to kill the guy, but just as I moved backed, the old man grabbed the door and jerked it open. I was pulled into the apartment past the old man as he moved to attack Amy. I hit the ground rolling to my side so I could get my feet under me and kicked out at the old man hitting him in the back forcing him past Amy and into Butch.

  Butch pushed the old guy back towards me and just as he is about to hit me, a torrent of blood splashes all over me and the floor.

  Amy stepped over us and into the apartment with the sword in front of her ready to handle the next threat that might be waiting for us. Butch steps over the old man and then me as he moves after Amy. Amy walked into the bedroom hallway as Butch moved into the kitchen.

  I was stuck in place from disbelief and disgust when Butch came back out of the kitchen and hands me a towel to wipe the blood off. “Wipe the blood off and then wash you face in the kitchen sink. Try not to get any of the blood in your eyes or mouth.” He moved after Amy down the bedroom hallway.

  I stood up wiping the blood from my face. I closed the door with my foot as I moved towards the kitchen sink. With the faucet on I began to clean off the blood. It was black in color and even as the water mixed with it, diluting it, it was very dark and thick like tar. After getting most of the blood off of me, I headed down the hallway and into the bedroom.

  Amy and Butch were searching through the dressers and closet in the room. There was an old lady on the bed, dressed up in her Sunday best, makeup on her face and her hair all brushed out.

  She must have died and her husband got her cleaned up, dressed up and ready for the authorities which never came. Then her husband turned, he probably had a flu shot. “She looks peaceful,” I said to no one in particular as the other two continued their search.

  “They were a sweet couple. I saw them all the time around the building; on the elevator and in the lobby. They always said hello to me and asked how I was doing.” Amy stated as she continued to look in the closet.

  “I used to see them holding hands when they left their apartment or when I saw them together. They were so cute; I'd see them in the deli or walking down the street, hand in hand talking and smiling at each other.”

  At least one of them had a peaceful ending I thought to myself as I moved to the bathroom and found an empty bottle of pills lying on the vanity sink. I was pretty sure that the older women didn't want to deal with what the world was becoming or couldn’t and her husband helped her leave this world in a peaceful way. I wondered how difficult that must have been for him.

  We'll never know for sure, but I was choosing to believe that he helped her, that would be a better ending the alternatives.

  I was finally running out of steam after running all day to get here and then the constant action just to clear out this single floor. It was really taking a toll on me.

  I’m sure the mid-day drinking didn’t help. I needed to rethink that.

  It was time to go back to Amy’s apartment, find something to eat, and take stock of what we had seen. Assess all the supplies we found and get a plan together for tomorrow. Maybe we could get some rest before we leave tomorrow.

  I told the others that it was time to head back to the apartment, I’d had enough and I was dead tired, no pun intended.

  They both wanted to finish off the last three apartments and then head back. “If we finish what we started, we can be sure that the whole floor is safe from the infected and we can rest better.” They argued.

  “Don’t forget about the old lady next door. She could turn or just decide to shoot us.” I argued back.

  Of course, I lost the argument so I gave up and we moved to the next apartment starting the whole process over again. Luckily this apartment didn’t have any surprises, but unfortunately, it really didn’t have anything to really use. We had the same experience until the last apartment.

  In the last apartment, we found some camping gear like a tent, a propane burner, a couple machetes and a small water purifier set. After packing it all up, we headed back to Amy’s.

  We cooked up some of the perishable food we had found in the apartments and sat around the coffee table to eat. We really talk while we ate. I’m sure everyone was tired, hungry and didn’t really know what to say to each other. We just ate in silence, each of us contemplating what had happened to us individually.

  After eating, we spent time organizing our supplies. I spent time taking the broom sticks and duct taping knives to the ends. The knives were mostly sharp and would do in a pinch. While we were doing this we talked about what we thought our next steps should be.

  We all agreed that a quick search of the next floor wouldn’t be a big deal. We hadn’t heard any noise from upstairs so we figured there wasn’t a lot of people or infected up there. We also felt that it was important to find Amanda’s parents

  If they were alive, they deserved to know what happened so they could have closure. If they were dead or gone, then at least we had tried. If nothing else, we could live with ourselves knowing we tried.

  Then we could head out and make our way to Butch’s parent's place up north.

  From there, we had some options. We could head to Bull Shores Lake and find a place around there or we could get a houseboat that we could take out to the middle of the lake. Although a manmade lake, it was deep in many areas and was miles long with lots of places to park a houseboat.

  At the end of the night, we had some resemblance of a plan. Something we all felt good about. We found some place to lay our heads and got some rest.

  Chapter 13- Day 2

  I woke up the next morning, day two of the apocalypse, to the bright light of the sun coming in through the balcony window. My whole body hurt, just like yesterday, only this time it was from too much activity and not from the booze. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up to look around the apartment.

  The first thing I noticed was the bodies lying on the balcony. With it being summer, they didn’t have long before they would really start to smell.

  Amy was at her kitchen counter sitting on a stool reading something and Butch was on the floor still asleep with the finished bottle of Jack lying next to him.

  “What time is it?” I asked Amy as I yawned and stretched again.

  “Still pretty early, around seven. Get up and get some coffee.” Amy replied without looking back at me.

  I got up and walked into the bathroom to use the facilities before returning to the living room. I walked up to Amy and gave her a hug. “How are you today? Doing OK?”

  “How am I? Are you serious?” She laughed. “
The whole world is ending, civilization as we know it is dying or being killed off, people are eating other people and you ask how I am doing?”

  “Just trying to have a conversation, some small talk while I wake up, sorry.” I moved into the kitchen and searched through the refrigerator for the eggs and bacon we had taken from one of the apartments yesterday.

  I pulled them out of the refrigerator and started to make breakfast. I’ve always like having eggs and bacon in the morning, it always made me feel like life was good. I really needed something comforting to help get me going this morning. I turned on the stove top and the burner didn’t light.

  “The electric went out last night sometime. You have to use the matches.” Amy said pointing to the box of matches sitting by the stove. “We still have gas and water, but we’d better fill up the tube, sinks and anything else that will hold water, just in case.”

  “We aren’t staying that much longer, maybe just one more night.” The match lit the burner and I placed a pan for the bacon to get it heated up. “Scrambled or over easy?”

  “Over easy please,” Amy replied as she shut the document she was reading and set it aside.

  “How’d you make coffee if the power was off?” I ask looking at the Mr. Coffee machine longing for a dark cup of java to help kick start my brain.

  “Went and found a pot that you can heat over the stove.” She replied pointing at the coffee pot sitting on the hot pad on the counter.

  “You went out of the apartment alone?”

  “We cleared the floor yesterday. No big deal.”

  “Rule number two, watch each other’s back.” I turn the bacon over and got a plate out to drain the grease on. “Rule number one is to stay alive. Rule number two is to watch each other’s back. Rule number three is to be quite. Rule number four is only head shots and last, rule number five is knocking before entering a room.” I repeated the rules.

  I was kind of amazed I remembered them.

  “I didn’t want to wake you guys and didn’t we call the all clear last night.” She smiled at me hoping that the smile would make her actions OK. “I talked with the older woman down the hall while I was out. She was in a better mode this morning, so the conversation was pretty good.”