“Argh hiss”, I heard the thing breathe next to me and I slowly turned my head to look at it.
“Oh shit!” I said just as it jumped on top of me, I knew then I wasn’t ready to die, I had decided prematurely and now it was too late.
The smell of the creature was a mixture of death and chemicals, it leered over me scraping its large claws on the tiled floor and the noise made my skin crawl. Then before I could react it howled loudly like a victory cry before turning its mouth to me, it then spat spraying out a clear saliva like liquid all over my face, I closed my eyes saving them but it covered my nose and some got in my mouth. I felt the bile rise in my stomach as the fowl tasting liquid hit my tongue making me scream out in terror and anger.
The creature almost laughed raising its claws in the air and howling, this gave me the chance to reach for my penknife, it was just within my reach. I didn’t have time to think I just drove the blade into its skull, it cried out in shock and brought down its claws stabbing one of them into my arm, shouting out in pain I thrashed about trying to get it off me, just as I did I aimed the knife awkwardly again slicing the things throat.
A bloodbath flooded over me literally covering me completely. With a sudden strength I didn’t know I had inside me I shoved the thing off me, the adrenaline pumped through me and it was my turn to jump on the creature, I then stabbed the thing repeatedly until it was just a bloody pulp of flesh on the floor. As I stood up from it I felt all the creatures blood clinging to me like a wet suit, some dripped and spat onto the floor but I was so covered in it I looked like a different form of monster.
Suddenly the creature that hid up the hole dropped down in front of me, I sighed as it looked at me clicking its claws, “ARGHHHHH!” I screamed at it, “COME ON THEN, COME AND GET ME!”
The creature then howled before scurrying off down the corridor, I turned to look behind me to find another three creatures all looking at me but they didn’t jump at me instead they all stepped back into the gloom of the darkened corners and vanished from sight.
Standing there shaking I didn’t know what was happening but I didn’t care I had to make sure Monique was ok, running round the corner I laughed as it turned out she had indeed killed the creature that went after her. I then ran charging after her hoping she hadn’t left without me, I used what was left of my adrenaline to get me through the corridors as fast as possible, I noticed a few random caved in faces look at me from the corners but not one stepped out to stop me. I felt the back of my head where Amanda had pushed me and winced it still hurt but the adrenaline was masking it, so I could run, so I could live. I reached a set of double doors which had been smashed open maybe by Monique so I carried on following this route until I found myself at the main entrance to the hospital.
Running out into the daylight I called out her name, looking around I noticed the truck was gone along with one of the ambulances, she must have gone after Amanda.
Checking a few of the other vehicles nearby I found one that had the keys inside, jumping in I started it up and sped off after them both. Racing out the car park I nearly screamed out again as I spotted a crowd of normal looking creatures heading my way, running some of them over I forced my way out until I saw where they had come from, the field where they had all been trapped had been breached probably by Amanda, a large section of fencing had been pulled down by what looked like a chain and some force and my thought went to the truck, she must have tied the chain to the fence and the truck driven off and pulling it down in the hope that me and Monique wouldn’t be able to follow.
I cursed her name as I drove through the horde hoping it wouldn’t kill the car but after a few minutes I made it out the other side, I noticed some other tire tracks on the road all bloody and covered in gore and hopefully that meant Monique had made it out with the ambulance.
I slammed my foot to the floor and sped off after them following the road we had come by, I was nearly to the children’s zoo when I noticed a broken down ambulance which hadn’t been there before. Pulling over I jumped out to look inside, “Monique? Monique are you here?” but it was empty and there was no sign of her on the road. The bonnet was smothered in blood from the creatures she had driven through.
Jumping back into my car I sped off hoping to catch her up, she would be on foot now so she couldn’t have gotten very far. I looked all around me as I drove, down all the ditches, down small pathways but there was no sign of her anywhere. Then up ahead I spotted some tail lights, I just spotted the red specks of light driving up the road, I sped up even faster maybe it was Amanda and she had forced Monique of the road? Maybe she had caught her and killed her to cover up what happened at the hospital? My foot was so flat to the floor I didn’t even know what speed I was doing I just had to catch up to them. Then without warning my body was on fire, a pain so severe ripped through every muscle and tendon making my back arch and making me throw myself across the seats screaming. My brain was smashing itself against my skull in a bid to dull the pain but it was making it worse, much, much worse. My skin was so hot to the touch and it felt like it was going to melt right off my bones, I screamed and cried out but no one could hear my cries. I had forgotten about driving the car as the pain was so intense until I saw a flash of sky and realised the car had flipped at speed with me in it. This was it, I was going to die, CRASH!
~
Monique heard the crash from behind her and looked out the back window, a small black Volvo had taken flight flipping off the road and crashed back down onto the tarmac.
“Stop the car, Stop the car!” she said to the strangers that had driven past her as her ambulance broke down and offered her a lift.
“Whoever that was is probably dead now darling”, a hard looking bloke said from the driver’s seat, he had long mousey hair, wore a leather jacket and jeans and had a cigarette leaning out of his mouth.
“Stop Damien let her go it could be her friend”, a woman with long dark hair said from the front passenger seat.
Damien sighed but done as she said and turned the car round, when they reached the car they could see it was a total mess, blood was all over the windows, glass and metal had bent in ways not possible to be done by hand.
“Cough, Cough”, they all heard the coughing coming from inside the car.
Monique raced out and knelt by the driver’s door, “Oh my god Stacie!” she said almost to tears at the sight of her friend. She was covered in so much blood Monique couldn’t see where it was coming from, she had thrown up on the dashboard and was unconscious sprawled on the seats.
“We should leave her sweet, there ain’t no way she gonna survive to your camp”, Damien said in a thick drawl.
But Monique didn’t listen she climbed in and pulled her friend from the wreckage, the woman with the dark hair came over and knelt down checking the girl over, “I don’t think the blood is hers”.
“What do ya mean?” Damien asked.
“The blood looks old, like creature old”, she said back to him, “And it smells like creature blood”.
“Do ya think she’s infected?” he asked putting out his fag and lighting up another one.
“What creatures did you come across at the hospital?” the woman asked Monique.
“Some crazy weird ones, they had all caved in heads and faces”, she replied.
“Crushers”, she felt Stacie’s skin and hissed at the hot fever that radiated from her, “I think she’s infected which probably means she was infected by a crusher”.
“What does that mean?” Monique asked her.
“It means your friends life is in danger, Damien pass me my bag”, she asked.
“Is she going to turn into a …Crusher?” she asked her.
The woman nodded, “Yes”.
“Wait no we have a cure back at camp, she’ll be fine”, Monique sighed with relief.
“You have a cure?” the woman asked unsure whether to believe the girl.
Monique nodded, “Yes Stacie found it at the hospital in
Brighton, off some weird fucked up doctor, it works the guy who needed the antibiotics was bitten but he’s fine now, the wound just got infected”.
“Well let’s get her back to your camp and hope she fights it off till then, in the meantime I have a serum which should slow it down”, the woman said taking her bag off Damien and pulling out some syringes, she pushed one into Stacie’s skin, “Let’s get her in the car”.
Between the three of them they all got Stacie in the car, Damien cuffed her hands behind her back just in case she turned before they made it.
As they sped off Monique asked the woman, “What serum is that and how do you know that it works?”
“Because I’m a doctor and I have been trying to make a cure but I have only managed to make something that slows down the process”, she replied.
“Oh right, well maybe you can look at our cure and make more?” Monique suggested.
“I hope so, then we could rid the world of this horrible disease”, she said with hope.
Over an hour later they pulled up outside the camp gates, the people guarding it were a little weary but when Monique climbed out they opened up letting them all in.
“Get Sarah and the cure Stacie’s been infected”, she told a male guard who nodded and ran off to the medical centre.
Within seconds Sarah was at the car with the case filled with the cure, “What happened?” she asked as she administered the cure into the unconscious girls arm.
“We were all attacked and Stacie got hurt”, she replied.
“Did you find the antibiotics?” Sarah asked.
Monique nodded, “Has Amanda not given them to you?”
“She’s not returned”, Sarah gave Monique a questioning look.
“When we were attacked we got separated but the truck was gone when we got out I just presumed she would be here”, she said to Sarah.
Sarah didn’t say anything but just gave Monique a strange untrusting look.
“We need to get her to the isolation room”, Sarah said looking the two new comers over.
“We’ll help”, said the dark haired woman, nudging Damien into gear.
About ten minutes later Stacie was being cleaned up by the nurse and then strapped down to a bed on the orders of the dark haired woman, “If she turns she will be too strong to take down without a fight and it will be better for her own safety if she is strapped down because fighting this infection is going to hurt her. She might try to harm herself”.
“How do you know this?” Sarah asked the woman.
“Because I’ve seen this before, only thing is the person I met who had been infected by a Crusher didn’t have the cure to hand so when they turned there was no going back for them, for her it might be different but I still reckon painful”, she replied.
“What’s your name, I think I recognise you?” Sarah said.
“It’s Toni, Doctor Toni Bennet”, the woman replied.
~
The pain was roaring through my veins at break neck speed and there was nothing I could do about it, the pain was so surreal it felt like someone had injected my veins with lava and had left me to burn from the inside out.
I knew that I had been strapped down to something because when I tried to writhe in pain I could hardly move a muscle, this made me feel so angry deep down that I was in so much pain yet they couldn’t be nice enough to let me move about to try and make it feel any better. The anger flowed through me more as the pain swept over in waves that prickled my already scorched flesh and although I knew it was futile to try and move I couldn’t help it, I thrashed around under the restraints like a mad woman high on pain.
The words that must have been coming from my mouth were not really mine, they were coming from the beast of tortured pain from inside me. Calling out for some kind of miracle to stop it but nothing happened other than it felt to be getting worse, much worse.
Another wave of mind splitting venom tore through me and I tried so hard to free my hands as I desperately wanted to tear the flesh from my very bones, I wanted to peel off my skin like a snake sheds its own, I needed and wanted to be free of this and if that meant running in my bare skeleton then I would have to do so.
My vision kept wondering off in sparks of light, shooting around the room until I came to the conclusion that it was no longer my eyes that I was seeing from but from the invisible creature that was tearing pain through my already tortured soul, crying out to no one, I didn’t know how much more I could take before my body would finally give up the ghost taking my ruined mind with it. The thing flickered into sight, it was sitting up in the corner where the wall and ceiling met, it clung there with its claws turning its head to stare at me with its sunken eyes and crushed in face. I could swear it was smiling at me as it knew I soon would become one of them, I would become a creature but one so fearsome looking I would never want to see my broken body again, as it laughed it told me I would probably claw my own eyes out because I would be so horrified by my own appearance.
Then it jumped down its claws clicking on the tiled floor of the Brighton hospital, it ducked down below the bed I was strapped to the raised back up but it wasn’t the creature, it was Doctor Demetri. He tilted his head at me before sighing, “I could have made you so much better and stronger but you chose this path instead, what a fool. Now what shall I do with you?”
“You’re dead!” I screamed at him.
“No your dead!” he screamed back at me before grabbing the sides of his mouth and pulling, he slowly pulled them apart with his bare hands and I could hear the flesh tearing, revealing his rotting burnt corpse underneath. He smiled at me with his half melted face, one eye had slid down his cheek but it still looked at me, blinking, “I think I will do to you what you did to me”.
“What?” I shuddered.
“I’m going to crush your hopes”, he snarled his burnt face twisting in such a way it showed all the crisped muscles underneath.
“You monster”, I snapped at him.
“I think you should look at yourself, you’re the monster”, then he raised his hands, in them he held a large rock and he plummeted it towards my face.
I knew I was screaming so loudly as my own eardrums threatened to burst but the pain of him smashing in my skull never came, I opened my eyes to see that I was still in the hospital but I was no longer with Demetri I was sitting with Sian at the bottom of the lift shaft, flames licked around us but we were both just sitting there.
“I wondered when you would come”, Sian said holding her arms around her legs.
“I thought you were dead”, I said.
“I am and so are you, see”, she showed me we were dead by placing her arm into the flames but it didn’t burn or hurt her, it just flickered through her wavering arm like a ghost.
“Why are we here? Why haven’t we moved on yet?” I asked her.
She shrugged, “Unfinished business I guess”.
“What’s yours?” I asked.
“My unfinished business?” she said.
I nodded.
“I think its you”, she said looking deep into my eyes, “You failed me, you failed my brother and you failed yourself. How could you let yourself die? How could you let them take you? How could you! How could you! How could you!” she was screaming in my face those three words over and over until the noise became too much and I fell into the flames.
“I’m sorry!” I shouted as I fell, I could feel the wind pull at me as I fell down.
Splash!
My eyes flew open but I couldn’t see a thing as it was too dark, I knew I was in water and that I needed to swim but I couldn’t see which way was up. Reaching out I tried to feel for the surface but nothing just the thick watery liquid I swam in, I then pushed my legs out to try and find the bottom of the pool or pond whatever it was that I had fallen into but my feet felt nothing. Kicking my legs and stroking the water with my arms I tried to swim to the way I thought was up or at least I hoped it was up as I could feel my lungs start to burn with
the need for air, if I didn’t break the surface soon I was going to drown. My heart skipped wildly as I saw a hint of light flood through the surface just a few meters above me, my hands broke free first then my face a few seconds after, I took in a large gulp of air before choking and gagging, heaving and vomiting as the smell and taste of pure death filled my mouth, nose and lungs.
I looked all around me to the sickening view of rotten bloody death, I sobbed uncontrollably as I saw I had fallen into the field of blood, guts, gore and rotting bodies. I was in the field full of broken and lost souls and now I had become one of them too, I was a bloody, rotting corpse. Looking behind me I spotted the hospital where the damned creatures had attacked me and infected me with this virus, suddenly I heard it the gentle clicking of claws on tiles, then it got louder and louder and I knew they were coming for me, they knew I had returned and were coming back to get me. Then without warning my vision warped and I was inside the hospital running, my claws scraping the walls and floors as I charged to get the stupid human that was stuck outside like a lamb to the slaughter.
I shook my vision back to me as the panic set in, I began flapping my arms wildly to try and manoeuvre out of the gloopy, red slush pile but it was like quick sand sucking me back in stopping me from escaping, it was as if a sea of souls were pulling down. This made me cry out in fear as I knew they were coming, not one, not two but hundreds of them all their claws clicking as they crashed out onto the concrete of the front of the hospital grounds.
I had to think, I had to get out somehow, then I spotted a nearby body it looked solid and stiff from death but it might be my only chance, if I could climb up it and jump to the other bodies nearby I might be able to get out of the field and have a chance at running. Splashing over to it I raised my arms up to try to climb upon it, my arms and hands were so red it looked like I had been bathing in bright red hair dye, the gloop from all the blood and guts clung to my clothes making it harder for me to get out. Just as I pulled up the body tipped throwing me off, I splashed back into the gore before looking up and seeing the body I had tried to climb onto was Tanya, she lay there silently floating in the red sea.
Alone Page 33