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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
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| Aug 25 2008, 9:56 PM EDT | 13th.Casualty | 142 words added, 1 word deleted |
| Aug 10 2008, 5:21 PM EDT | 13th.Casualty | 6 words added |
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by the 13th.Casualty
"This is the NSA! Open up or we'll break down the door!" a muffled voice came from behind the door. Of course, no one answered. The warehouse has been abandoned for years. Not even the homeless guy with the Irish accent lives there anymore.
"We're coming in!"
There was a loud BOOM! and the door got blasted away in a shower of splinters. There was wood and dust everywhere.
"Alright, boys, sweep the building!" that was my boss, Special Agent Rivers.
So we were all over the warehouse like clockwork. Just like always. Ten seconds later...
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear."
"I was clear fifteen minutes ago." I am so witty. Gets me in trouble a lot.
Now I'm sure we all realized what we were seeing, but it just needed some time to sink in. I mean, c'mon. Even the most hardened war veteran would be surprised at something like this.
"Jesus. Mother. Fucking. Christ...Who the hell lived here again?"
I take the wood and dust part back, there were GUNS everywhere. Barrett M82A1s, AK-47s, Ster AUG A3s, FN FILs, Colt .45s, P90s, Desert Eagles, .22s, even homemade guns. There were IEDs, plastic explosives, riot armors, suppressors, Dragonskin vests, Kevlar, tear gas and smoke grenades, crowbars, combat knives, machetes, ammo crates the size of Ayers Rock...hell, there was enough firepower here to invade North Korea, Fort Knox, and Mount Olympus.
Oh, and my favorite part, the RPGs. Just hanging on the wall.
"No one answered my question. Who the hell lived here?"
"Either Rambo, Bin Laden, or Hitler's grandson. Damn, I've never seen a weapons stockpile bigger than the one in the FBI headquarters in DC."
Let's rewind back a bit, just to fill you in on what happened.
"...either Rambo, Bin La..."
Heh, nice one.
"Jesus. Mother. Fu..."
I love that one, but no. A little bit more.
"...own the door!"
Alrighty then...A lot more.
"There's been a 911 ca..."
This one's it. Let's start from the beginning.
"Alright you guys. There's been a 911 call regarding a suspicious man walking around a nearby warehouse holding an AK-47 and a rocket propelled grenade slinged on his back."
"Uh, sir?"
"What is it this time, Agent Marks?"
"You rarely get RPGs in the States anymore."
"That's why it's so suspicious, and that's why were going there right now. Get your guns and let's go."
We were already on our way when I decided to go get my personal anti-tank missile from my car. Hey, they had a freakin' RPG. No use taking any chances.
Shit, I watch Futureweapons too much.
Anyway, I stuffed it in the spare tire compartment of the SUV, making sure no one saw it, of course, and we drove off.
And then here we are. In a warehouse filled with nothing but raw firepower.
"Hey, sarge, take a look at this."
Have you ever seen those big screens in a war room, maybe in NORAD? Well, this is nothing like it. There was a laptop there connected to five car batteries that had a Playboy slideshow screensaver on.
"Well, well. What's this?" the sarge mumbled, staring at a Playboy bunny on the screen.
"If they're still powered on, then that means someone's been here recently. In fact, they might still be here, hiding."
"Well then, everybody thoroughly search the warehouse. If you see anyone, secure them and call someone."
They all left the laptop room and continued their search, but I stayed. I got curious about what the laptops contained. Besides, I wanted to stare at the screensaver a bit more. I reluctantly pressed the space button twice to get out the of screensaver, and what I saw surprised me. This guy didn't have a wallpaper, and he didn't need one. It wouldn't have been seen anyway. Except for a Notepad icon on the top left side, the whole screen was covered with Notepad Documents, from Introduction to Journal # something. Hasn't this guy ever heard of folders?
So I clicked Introduction.
I read. And was shocked.
Introduction:
All Journals in this laptop contains the stories of the thirteen survivors before, during, and after the Second Pandemic. Please read this carefully. We hope you will learn a lesson through our hardships. Remember, if you see a zombie and you don't have something to stab a skull with, hide. If you do, hide anyway. Only use that sharp thing when really needed.
Oh, and everything we say here is totally true. No lies, no exaggerations, no distortions (whatever the heck that means), nothing. Even the random notes we type up without even thinking.
Please take the time to read the following Intros.
Chapter 2-A: Janet Morgan's Intro:
My name is Janet Morgan. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors have decided to record the gruesome events that followed the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm a high school student in my sophomore year, and it was spring break for us. I was right outside the local movie theater, but I left my money at home so we really couldn't see anything. (And by we I mean my fraternal twin brother Frank and our friends, Alex, Jeremy, and Jamie.) I was supposed to buy the tickets and the rest of them would buy all the food. Good for me, bad for them, 'cause I eat a lot and the tickets didn't cost much.
We were just hanging out there under the sun laughing at hobos crossing the street. Other than that...nothing much. I knew that Jeremy and Jamie were having fun checking me out again, but me...I was so freakin' bored.
Damn, I'd rather be dead than bored.
I guess my wish came true.
I saw my first one while in the bathroom. I was just washing my face and this little seven year old kid--a boy, in the girl's bathroom--eating this woman sitting on a toilet. She had black hair and dark brown, bloodshot eyes. I think she was about five foot eight or nine, and probably around sixteen or seventeen years old. Worse of all, the Loius Vuitton she was wearing was all torn up and bloody. Uggghh...it still haunts me to this day. The dead chick, I mean.
Well, the purse too...That was a Speedy. So rare...
He just finished gnawing on her neck and was working down to her left tit. Seriously. I ain't kidding here. She had a healthy B or C cup. Anyway...both were drenched in blood. I've seen enough rated R slasher horror and shooter movies not to get grossed out though. Heck, I've even witnessed a death in a bank robbery before. That probably saved my life. I didn't scream or do anything that your stereotype eighth grade cutie would do. I decided to go call the police, but once I opened the door--damn stupid, squeaky door--it turned toward me and started moaning. Ok, that freaked me out. He started coming for me, all slow and stumble-y.
Man, I never thought a person could make that kind of sound. Of course, that's Third Law. Anyone who is turned is no longer human or alive. Do not feel sympathy. This kid isn't a person.
"Jesus, get away from me! You creep! You were gnawing on that girl's-"
Wait just a minute, moaning, slow, stumbling movements, randomly gnawing on people's...is that...a...
"Oh god no. Oh my god no."
I ran. I didn't scream, I didn't wave my hands in the air like those soon-to-be-dead, spoiled, bratty, rich girls in the movies, I just ran.
And I immediately regretted it. Frank, Jeremy, and Jamie's dead bodies were on the ground, with huge, gaping bullet holes in their heads. Everywhere else I looked there was chaos. Again, those shooter movies, slasher horrors, and bank robbery death calmed me down and helped saved my life.
You know...now that I think about it, that death saved my life countless times. When I was there, I kept kicking myself for not somehow stopping the robber, 'cause I was like, what, three feet away? I guess I was scared for my life too. I mean, I was fourteen then, but the guy only had one shot left, and after he emptied his gun, the cops took him down. The point is, by me not saving his life, I saved mine countless times. How selfish can a high school girl get?
Anyways...so...where was I again? Sorry, it gets hard for me to concentrate after a night of burning corpses and outrunning a zack-s.
Yeah, so I was looking for Alex when I saw soldiers down the block. They were shooting at pretty much anything that moved. Anything. Even two year old kids. After that, everything got hazy.
I didn't know what happened. The boss told me but...I don't know other than that. I don't mean to sound so...distrusting (is there such a word?), but, well, I just saw a two year old being shot in the face, and now I wake up strapped to a bed with a gag in my mouth with a total stranger. Just imagine what I was thinking then.
He said it went like this. In a blind flash of rage I took out my hidden Swiss Army Knife (Yeah, I keep a Swiss Knife hidden on me, so what? The boss keeps a .45, expandable baton, and a switchblade on him at all times.) and lunged at the soldiers. I almost killed them too, if it wasn't for him. He tied me up and put my knife in my pocket.
"You think she's one of them?" a soldier asked, his rifle trained on me, hands shaking.
The boss replied coldly, "Hell no. You shot her friends." He jerked his head towards my friends' bodies. "She snapped. I've seen it before a lot of times. She's probably bipolar too." He took out a rifle suppressor and handed it to them. "Take it. You'll need it. And try not to kill everything, will you?"
He carried me over his shoulder and said, "Good luck. Oh, and I heard one in the girls' bathroom."
Just before I passed out I saw Alex covered in blood. Then her skull being blown to pieces.
When I woke up, I was strapped to a bed with a gag in my mouth, as I already told you. I'll spare you the story of how scared I was. I then saw him on the other side of the room loading a 500 Tactical. He heard me make some kind of sound, he's telling me right now that it sounded like the cross between a moan and a grunt, and took of my gag in the slowest way one can possibly move.
"What the hell was that?" I moan-grunted.
"Mossberg 500 Tactical. My second favorite shotgun ever," he replied, then added, "How are you feeling?"
"I meant the way you took off my gag. You don't look like a 75 year old but you damn sure act like it," I almost spat at him.
"Well, I didn't know whether or not you're infected. Since you just talked, and you passed my screening test, you're not."
"You're not a rapist, are you?"
That caught him off guard. He had a look on his face told me he wasn't, but I was gonna give him a hard time anyway. I mean, I just woke up strapped to a bed, gagged, and the first thing I see is someone loading a shotgun.
Stammering, he said, "Uh...what? Wait, no...no! Hell no!"
Where the hell am I? I thought I said. I couldn't tell if I was thinking or talking, but whatever it was, he answered anyway.
"This is my yacht. Right now were anchored half a mile from shore." It amazed me how fast he recovered from that unexpected comment. It was as if he it was nothing more but a bad "Yo Mama" joke that just rolled down his back.
He took out what seemed to be a switchblade and cut off the cords that were strapping me down -- "Stop moving unless you want to look emo." -- and I got up.
Then I finally got a good look at him. He's a handsome man in his mid twenties with dark skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair. He has broad shoulders and well built arms and biceps. He's also about five feet ten inches tall and 130 somewhat pounds. Something like that. I would've dismissed his as Middle Eastern, but it didn't quite sit right. Maybe Native American? To this day, he won't tell me.
This was the man I would be calling boss for the next few years.
My voice was finally coming back. I rubbed my eyes and forehead and asked, "How long have I been here?"
"Uh...half an hour, just about. Listen, I'm gonna be going back to shore and look for stuff we can use. Maybe even survivors. It's the early stages of the outbreak, so there should be lots of lone survivors willing to join a group," by now he was monologue-ing. I was barely listening. My head hurt. "If you want to come, take a primary weapon, a secondary, a sidearm, and a melee weapon. You should take that gear too. You can stay if you want, but take a weapon anyways. If you don't want to be with me, then go ahead and leave, but be advised, your family and friends are probably dead or infected, your house ransacked, and anyone who sees you would either infect you, kill you, rape you, or enslave you. Be ready in five minutes."
I stayed, took that Mossberg of his, and he left.
And that's how I met the boss.
Chapter 2-B: David Marquez's Intro:
My name is David Marquez. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors have decided to record the gruesome events that took place after the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm a twenty seven year old, correctional officer. I was driving to work when it hit, and when it hit, I knew it. Well, at first, I didn't really know it. I thought it was a hallucination that resulted from lack of sleep. I mean, fuck. If you see a people eating other people, and other people shooting other people that are eating other people, I guarantee that you will dismiss it as a hallucination.
As I said, I didn't know any better, so I just ran over most of people I saw. There became more and more the nearer I got to work, and more and more of those people were wearing officer's uniforms, some even holding riot shields and batons. Even more were wearing oh-so-familiar day-glow orange prison garbs.
I finally reached the parking lot of the jail and I saw the warden, Jake Ford, on top of his Cadillac three cars away holding a bloody Glock in his shaking, bloody hands. His eyes were bloodshot and I could see his veins throbbing on his temple (see the theme here? blood?). With a worried look on his face he looked from side to side, up and down, eyes scanning like radar.
When he finally saw me, his eyes widened, like I was a ghost or something. He finally figured out what he saw looking at and hissed at me.
"Marquez!" he whispered in an accent only a true, born and bred American could procure. "Come here, goddamn it! Wait, no, no! Get your gun first!"
I took my baton, personal shotgun and S&W .500 from the back of my SUV and walked toward his Cadillac.
Nervously, I questioned, "Umm, sir? You alright?"
"Shut fuck up, Marquez!" he replied in a pissed whisper. "You-"
There were moans over moans over moans. You would not believe how loud it was. It was like a rock concert. I almost very well would've crapped myself just because of the sudden noise.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, shit! Let's get the hell outta here!"
He got into my car, started the engine, then backed up into me. Clutching my knee, I got into the back, shutting the door behind me. I saw them again, the people who were eating other people that I saw while driving to work. Many were pale. Even more were bloody.
I made up my mind. This was not a hallucination. Well, either that or me and Ford were sharing the same hallucination, which was highly unlikely. I could've been dreaming, but I did feel pain when he backed up into me.
Not noticing that I was panting and sweating, I crawled into the passenger's seat. He drove over a couple of them and we got out of the parking lot. We were on the road for half an hour or so, not saying a word the whole way.
The we noticed huge circular shadows everywhere. Oh, yeah, I've seen enough movies to know what they are. Paratroopers. Finally, help from the military! Now we have professional bullets to help us kill these sons of bitches. We got out of the car and loaded up, preparing to blow blood and guts everywhere.
Wow, I could never be more wrong.
They were falling from the sky and what I saw freaked me.
"Man, it's like Red Dawn with zombies," Ford murmured under his breath.
"I was thinking Turning Point."
I'm sure you now know what's going on. The half the paratroopers were trying to bite and grab the other half of the paratroopers. I cocked my shotgun.
"Say hello to my little friend, you bastards," Ford yelled over wild gunshots.
Finally realizing what was going on, many of the paratroopers started panicking. Most of the shots they took were aimed at center mass, so they really didn't do much. That was Second Law. Only damage to the brain can successfully dispatch the undead. I didn't know that at the time, but I mostly aimed for the head anyway. There's nothing more satisfying that seeing a guy's head get blown clean off. I mean, if they're trying to kill you, of course.
You ever seen those rated R games where someone's head gets blown off with a shotgun? That's really not very exaggerated. I mean, maybe it is a little, but not by much.
I have killed my tenth zombie when my vision started to blur and I got headaches. They were just little migranes, mind you, but they hurt enough to affect my aiming. I pretty much missed everyone--wait, sorry, everything--more than fifteen feet away, which was like, half my shots.
Then I finally saw what happens when you don't destroy the brain.
Ford shot one in the balls. It didn't even flinch
It kept going, then ate him alive. And...he died, kind of.
He escaped before it completely ate him, took my SUV, then I never saw him again. I know what happened to him, of course. I just never saw him again. Maybe he took a plane to Nepal and fell off Mount Everest and split his skull.
That blurred vision and small migrane turned into a skull splitting headache.
I heard the paratroppers surrounding me, protecting me, even taking my shotgun to use to shoot at zombies. I blacked out.
I woke up to see everyone dead. The zombies, the paratroopers, the civilians...It was like waking up from a dream. Five to seven minutes into the "dream," I heard the rumble of an engine. I thought it was Ford coming back, but what came around the corner was a garbage truck. It came up to me...well, at this point, I had a really messed up brain. He, the driver, asked to take me somewhere safe, I said yes, then I asked for him to take the soldiers weapons. Now I know by the boss chose me as the Seventh Guard. It was because of that resourceful thinking. Wait, is that resourceful or something else? It's like, I try not to waste resources. That's resourceful, right? I gotta stop typing random comments. Just like this one. The boss is getting mad at me.
I woke up lying down on a matress being patted down by a sixteen year old girl wearing a gas mask. This was a dream come true, but I was to dazed to appreciate it. I must've said something wrong because she slapped me. Wait, she's telling me right now that I didn't say anything, I was just looking at her like that. C'mon, you all know what that looks like. Then for the first time I saw the boss clearly. He and Janet had a conversation about something about me. I managed to catch something like...
"...probably...exposed...Strain."
"Like me...same...symptoms."
"Both of you...immune...through...airborne....Janet."
"Atlas...not turned?...yet?..."
"Immune...symptoms...go away...in time...Those weak...systems...turn fast...thirty seconds."
"...whole world...Zack?"
"...carriers...can't miss them."
The boss was the first one to talk and Janet was the second. I think.
Then I got a good smack to the head that pretty much finished the job that slap started. I got up quickly and tried to say something, but for a moment I forgot how to talk.
The boss was watching me like I was some kind of zoo animal, then he finally spoke up.
"Right...probably...forgetting...to talk...normal...you're immune, the Atlas Strain...messesStrain...still messes with...head."
As he opened the door to leave the room, he said over his shoulder, "Janet, you...off the mask...now. Dave...not to...collapse. I'll be...to...dinner." He smiled and winked. "People...I'm...really good cook."
Chapter 2-C: Anna Lee's Intro
My name is Anna Lee. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors decided to record the gruesome events that followed the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm just a news reporter. At least I used to be. Fortunately, I was nowhere near the epicenter when it hit (no, not the geology kind of epicenter. do I really have to explain this?), but I was to stubborn to listen to my boss. I was at the exact opposite side of the world. If you drew a line from the epicenter through the earth's core to where I was, that line would be straight as an arrow. All I had to do was stay where I was and I probably wouldn't have brought the infection to other parts of the world...at least I would've delayed it long enough for people to prepare.
But still, my family was there. I had to go and make sure they were safe...
Ah, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start over.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Chapter 1 - Shocked
"This is the NSA! Open up or we'll break down the door!" a muffled voice came from behind the door. Of course, no one answered. The warehouse has been abandoned for years. Not even the homeless guy with the Irish accent lives there anymore.
"We're coming in!"
There was a loud BOOM! and the door got blasted away in a shower of splinters. There was wood and dust everywhere.
"Alright, boys, sweep the building!" that was my boss, Special Agent Rivers.
So we were all over the warehouse like clockwork. Just like always. Ten seconds later...
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear."
"I was clear fifteen minutes ago." I am so witty. Gets me in trouble a lot.
Now I'm sure we all realized what we were seeing, but it just needed some time to sink in. I mean, c'mon. Even the most hardened war veteran would be surprised at something like this.
"Jesus. Mother. Fucking. Christ...Who the hell lived here again?"
I take the wood and dust part back, there were GUNS everywhere. Barrett M82A1s, AK-47s, Ster AUG A3s, FN FILs, Colt .45s, P90s, Desert Eagles, .22s, even homemade guns. There were IEDs, plastic explosives, riot armors, suppressors, Dragonskin vests, Kevlar, tear gas and smoke grenades, crowbars, combat knives, machetes, ammo crates the size of Ayers Rock...hell, there was enough firepower here to invade North Korea, Fort Knox, and Mount Olympus.
Oh, and my favorite part, the RPGs. Just hanging on the wall.
"No one answered my question. Who the hell lived here?"
"Either Rambo, Bin Laden, or Hitler's grandson. Damn, I've never seen a weapons stockpile bigger than the one in the FBI headquarters in DC."
Let's rewind back a bit, just to fill you in on what happened.
"...either Rambo, Bin La..."
Heh, nice one.
"Jesus. Mother. Fu..."
I love that one, but no. A little bit more.
"...own the door!"
Alrighty then...A lot more.
"There's been a 911 ca..."
This one's it. Let's start from the beginning.
"Alright you guys. There's been a 911 call regarding a suspicious man walking around a nearby warehouse holding an AK-47 and a rocket propelled grenade slinged on his back."
"Uh, sir?"
"What is it this time, Agent Marks?"
"You rarely get RPGs in the States anymore."
"That's why it's so suspicious, and that's why were going there right now. Get your guns and let's go."
We were already on our way when I decided to go get my personal anti-tank missile from my car. Hey, they had a freakin' RPG. No use taking any chances.
Shit, I watch Futureweapons too much.
Anyway, I stuffed it in the spare tire compartment of the SUV, making sure no one saw it, of course, and we drove off.
And then here we are. In a warehouse filled with nothing but raw firepower.
"Hey, sarge, take a look at this."
Have you ever seen those big screens in a war room, maybe in NORAD? Well, this is nothing like it. There was a laptop there connected to five car batteries that had a Playboy slideshow screensaver on.
"Well, well. What's this?" the sarge mumbled, staring at a Playboy bunny on the screen.
"If they're still powered on, then that means someone's been here recently. In fact, they might still be here, hiding."
"Well then, everybody thoroughly search the warehouse. If you see anyone, secure them and call someone."
They all left the laptop room and continued their search, but I stayed. I got curious about what the laptops contained. Besides, I wanted to stare at the screensaver a bit more. I reluctantly pressed the space button twice to get out the of screensaver, and what I saw surprised me. This guy didn't have a wallpaper, and he didn't need one. It wouldn't have been seen anyway. Except for a Notepad icon on the top left side, the whole screen was covered with Notepad Documents, from Introduction to Journal # something. Hasn't this guy ever heard of folders?
So I clicked Introduction.
I read. And was shocked.
Chapter 2 - The First Reading: Outbreak. Part 1
Introduction:
All Journals in this laptop contains the stories of the thirteen survivors before, during, and after the Second Pandemic. Please read this carefully. We hope you will learn a lesson through our hardships. Remember, if you see a zombie and you don't have something to stab a skull with, hide. If you do, hide anyway. Only use that sharp thing when really needed.
Oh, and everything we say here is totally true. No lies, no exaggerations, no distortions (whatever the heck that means), nothing. Even the random notes we type up without even thinking.
Please take the time to read the following Intros.
Chapter 2-A: Janet Morgan's Intro:
My name is Janet Morgan. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors have decided to record the gruesome events that followed the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm a high school student in my sophomore year, and it was spring break for us. I was right outside the local movie theater, but I left my money at home so we really couldn't see anything. (And by we I mean my fraternal twin brother Frank and our friends, Alex, Jeremy, and Jamie.) I was supposed to buy the tickets and the rest of them would buy all the food. Good for me, bad for them, 'cause I eat a lot and the tickets didn't cost much.
We were just hanging out there under the sun laughing at hobos crossing the street. Other than that...nothing much. I knew that Jeremy and Jamie were having fun checking me out again, but me...I was so freakin' bored.
Damn, I'd rather be dead than bored.
I guess my wish came true.
I saw my first one while in the bathroom. I was just washing my face and this little seven year old kid--a boy, in the girl's bathroom--eating this woman sitting on a toilet. She had black hair and dark brown, bloodshot eyes. I think she was about five foot eight or nine, and probably around sixteen or seventeen years old. Worse of all, the Loius Vuitton she was wearing was all torn up and bloody. Uggghh...it still haunts me to this day. The dead chick, I mean.
Well, the purse too...That was a Speedy. So rare...
He just finished gnawing on her neck and was working down to her left tit. Seriously. I ain't kidding here. She had a healthy B or C cup. Anyway...both were drenched in blood. I've seen enough rated R slasher horror and shooter movies not to get grossed out though. Heck, I've even witnessed a death in a bank robbery before. That probably saved my life. I didn't scream or do anything that your stereotype eighth grade cutie would do. I decided to go call the police, but once I opened the door--damn stupid, squeaky door--it turned toward me and started moaning. Ok, that freaked me out. He started coming for me, all slow and stumble-y.
Man, I never thought a person could make that kind of sound. Of course, that's Third Law. Anyone who is turned is no longer human or alive. Do not feel sympathy. This kid isn't a person.
"Jesus, get away from me! You creep! You were gnawing on that girl's-"
Wait just a minute, moaning, slow, stumbling movements, randomly gnawing on people's...is that...a...
"Oh god no. Oh my god no."
I ran. I didn't scream, I didn't wave my hands in the air like those soon-to-be-dead, spoiled, bratty, rich girls in the movies, I just ran.
And I immediately regretted it. Frank, Jeremy, and Jamie's dead bodies were on the ground, with huge, gaping bullet holes in their heads. Everywhere else I looked there was chaos. Again, those shooter movies, slasher horrors, and bank robbery death calmed me down and helped saved my life.
You know...now that I think about it, that death saved my life countless times. When I was there, I kept kicking myself for not somehow stopping the robber, 'cause I was like, what, three feet away? I guess I was scared for my life too. I mean, I was fourteen then, but the guy only had one shot left, and after he emptied his gun, the cops took him down. The point is, by me not saving his life, I saved mine countless times. How selfish can a high school girl get?
Anyways...so...where was I again? Sorry, it gets hard for me to concentrate after a night of burning corpses and outrunning a zack-s.
Yeah, so I was looking for Alex when I saw soldiers down the block. They were shooting at pretty much anything that moved. Anything. Even two year old kids. After that, everything got hazy.
* * *
He said it went like this. In a blind flash of rage I took out my hidden Swiss Army Knife (Yeah, I keep a Swiss Knife hidden on me, so what? The boss keeps a .45, expandable baton, and a switchblade on him at all times.) and lunged at the soldiers. I almost killed them too, if it wasn't for him. He tied me up and put my knife in my pocket.
"You think she's one of them?" a soldier asked, his rifle trained on me, hands shaking.
The boss replied coldly, "Hell no. You shot her friends." He jerked his head towards my friends' bodies. "She snapped. I've seen it before a lot of times. She's probably bipolar too." He took out a rifle suppressor and handed it to them. "Take it. You'll need it. And try not to kill everything, will you?"
He carried me over his shoulder and said, "Good luck. Oh, and I heard one in the girls' bathroom."
Just before I passed out I saw Alex covered in blood. Then her skull being blown to pieces.
* * *
"What the hell was that?" I moan-grunted.
"Mossberg 500 Tactical. My second favorite shotgun ever," he replied, then added, "How are you feeling?"
"I meant the way you took off my gag. You don't look like a 75 year old but you damn sure act like it," I almost spat at him.
"Well, I didn't know whether or not you're infected. Since you just talked, and you passed my screening test, you're not."
"You're not a rapist, are you?"
That caught him off guard. He had a look on his face told me he wasn't, but I was gonna give him a hard time anyway. I mean, I just woke up strapped to a bed, gagged, and the first thing I see is someone loading a shotgun.
Stammering, he said, "Uh...what? Wait, no...no! Hell no!"
Where the hell am I? I thought I said. I couldn't tell if I was thinking or talking, but whatever it was, he answered anyway.
"This is my yacht. Right now were anchored half a mile from shore." It amazed me how fast he recovered from that unexpected comment. It was as if he it was nothing more but a bad "Yo Mama" joke that just rolled down his back.
He took out what seemed to be a switchblade and cut off the cords that were strapping me down -- "Stop moving unless you want to look emo." -- and I got up.
Then I finally got a good look at him. He's a handsome man in his mid twenties with dark skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair. He has broad shoulders and well built arms and biceps. He's also about five feet ten inches tall and 130 somewhat pounds. Something like that. I would've dismissed his as Middle Eastern, but it didn't quite sit right. Maybe Native American? To this day, he won't tell me.
This was the man I would be calling boss for the next few years.
My voice was finally coming back. I rubbed my eyes and forehead and asked, "How long have I been here?"
"Uh...half an hour, just about. Listen, I'm gonna be going back to shore and look for stuff we can use. Maybe even survivors. It's the early stages of the outbreak, so there should be lots of lone survivors willing to join a group," by now he was monologue-ing. I was barely listening. My head hurt. "If you want to come, take a primary weapon, a secondary, a sidearm, and a melee weapon. You should take that gear too. You can stay if you want, but take a weapon anyways. If you don't want to be with me, then go ahead and leave, but be advised, your family and friends are probably dead or infected, your house ransacked, and anyone who sees you would either infect you, kill you, rape you, or enslave you. Be ready in five minutes."
I stayed, took that Mossberg of his, and he left.
And that's how I met the boss.
Chapter 2-B: David Marquez's Intro:
My name is David Marquez. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors have decided to record the gruesome events that took place after the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm a twenty seven year old, correctional officer. I was driving to work when it hit, and when it hit, I knew it. Well, at first, I didn't really know it. I thought it was a hallucination that resulted from lack of sleep. I mean, fuck. If you see a people eating other people, and other people shooting other people that are eating other people, I guarantee that you will dismiss it as a hallucination.
As I said, I didn't know any better, so I just ran over most of people I saw. There became more and more the nearer I got to work, and more and more of those people were wearing officer's uniforms, some even holding riot shields and batons. Even more were wearing oh-so-familiar day-glow orange prison garbs.
I finally reached the parking lot of the jail and I saw the warden, Jake Ford, on top of his Cadillac three cars away holding a bloody Glock in his shaking, bloody hands. His eyes were bloodshot and I could see his veins throbbing on his temple (see the theme here? blood?). With a worried look on his face he looked from side to side, up and down, eyes scanning like radar.
When he finally saw me, his eyes widened, like I was a ghost or something. He finally figured out what he saw looking at and hissed at me.
"Marquez!" he whispered in an accent only a true, born and bred American could procure. "Come here, goddamn it! Wait, no, no! Get your gun first!"
I took my baton, personal shotgun and S&W .500 from the back of my SUV and walked toward his Cadillac.
Nervously, I questioned, "Umm, sir? You alright?"
"Shut fuck up, Marquez!" he replied in a pissed whisper. "You-"
There were moans over moans over moans. You would not believe how loud it was. It was like a rock concert. I almost very well would've crapped myself just because of the sudden noise.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, shit! Let's get the hell outta here!"
He got into my car, started the engine, then backed up into me. Clutching my knee, I got into the back, shutting the door behind me. I saw them again, the people who were eating other people that I saw while driving to work. Many were pale. Even more were bloody.
I made up my mind. This was not a hallucination. Well, either that or me and Ford were sharing the same hallucination, which was highly unlikely. I could've been dreaming, but I did feel pain when he backed up into me.
Not noticing that I was panting and sweating, I crawled into the passenger's seat. He drove over a couple of them and we got out of the parking lot. We were on the road for half an hour or so, not saying a word the whole way.
The we noticed huge circular shadows everywhere. Oh, yeah, I've seen enough movies to know what they are. Paratroopers. Finally, help from the military! Now we have professional bullets to help us kill these sons of bitches. We got out of the car and loaded up, preparing to blow blood and guts everywhere.
Wow, I could never be more wrong.
They were falling from the sky and what I saw freaked me.
"Man, it's like Red Dawn with zombies," Ford murmured under his breath.
"I was thinking Turning Point."
I'm sure you now know what's going on. The half the paratroopers were trying to bite and grab the other half of the paratroopers. I cocked my shotgun.
"Say hello to my little friend, you bastards," Ford yelled over wild gunshots.
Finally realizing what was going on, many of the paratroopers started panicking. Most of the shots they took were aimed at center mass, so they really didn't do much. That was Second Law. Only damage to the brain can successfully dispatch the undead. I didn't know that at the time, but I mostly aimed for the head anyway. There's nothing more satisfying that seeing a guy's head get blown clean off. I mean, if they're trying to kill you, of course.
You ever seen those rated R games where someone's head gets blown off with a shotgun? That's really not very exaggerated. I mean, maybe it is a little, but not by much.
I have killed my tenth zombie when my vision started to blur and I got headaches. They were just little migranes, mind you, but they hurt enough to affect my aiming. I pretty much missed everyone--wait, sorry, everything--more than fifteen feet away, which was like, half my shots.
Then I finally saw what happens when you don't destroy the brain.
Ford shot one in the balls. It didn't even flinch
It kept going, then ate him alive. And...he died, kind of.
He escaped before it completely ate him, took my SUV, then I never saw him again. I know what happened to him, of course. I just never saw him again. Maybe he took a plane to Nepal and fell off Mount Everest and split his skull.
That blurred vision and small migrane turned into a skull splitting headache.
I heard the paratroppers surrounding me, protecting me, even taking my shotgun to use to shoot at zombies. I blacked out.
* * *
* * *
"...probably...exposed...Strain."
"Like me...same...symptoms."
"Both of you...immune...through...airborne....Janet."
"Atlas...not turned?...yet?..."
"Immune...symptoms...go away...in time...Those weak...systems...turn fast...thirty seconds."
"...whole world...Zack?"
"...carriers...can't miss them."
The boss was the first one to talk and Janet was the second. I think.
Then I got a good smack to the head that pretty much finished the job that slap started. I got up quickly and tried to say something, but for a moment I forgot how to talk.
The boss was watching me like I was some kind of zoo animal, then he finally spoke up.
"Right...probably...forgetting...to talk...normal...you're immune, the Atlas Strain...messesStrain...still messes with...head."
As he opened the door to leave the room, he said over his shoulder, "Janet, you...off the mask...now. Dave...not to...collapse. I'll be...to...dinner." He smiled and winked. "People...I'm...really good cook."
Chapter 2-C: Anna Lee's Intro
My name is Anna Lee. I am a survivor of the Second Pandemic. I and my fellow survivors decided to record the gruesome events that followed the introduction of the pathogen into the system of the Thirteenth Casualty.
I'm just a news reporter. At least I used to be. Fortunately, I was nowhere near the epicenter when it hit (no, not the geology kind of epicenter. do I really have to explain this?), but I was to stubborn to listen to my boss. I was at the exact opposite side of the world. If you drew a line from the epicenter through the earth's core to where I was, that line would be straight as an arrow. All I had to do was stay where I was and I probably wouldn't have brought the infection to other parts of the world...at least I would've delayed it long enough for people to prepare.
But still, my family was there. I had to go and make sure they were safe...
Ah, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start over.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
