by Pero, Sara
Scientists found a new form of bird flu in South America, which was killing people by the thousands. They tried to create a vaccine for the new strain, their first trials caused the lab rats to die or become weird mutations. Finally they thought they had found the cure, the virus cells had been eaten by the vaccine all traces of it were gone, or so they thought. So they decided to go to human trials. They selected four men who had volunteered through a military program. First they injected the virus into their systems and let it take effect. After the virus took effect they injected the vaccine, the scientists monitored their progress, and the virus cells were being eaten by the vaccine. The men were getting better, but something went seriously wrong. Instead of the vaccine eating away at the virus completely, the virus began to take over causing the men to become extremely sick. Their skin began to become grey and start to rot off, they complained that their stomachs felt bloated. When the scientists checked through scans and ultra sounds they found that their insides were tearing themselves apart. The four men died a few days later. The scientists took the bodies down to the morgue for further examination, so that they could figure out where they had gone wrong. As the mortician conducted his work he didn’t notice that the hand of the man he was working on had moved. Suddenly the corpse sat up and grabbed at the mortician. He started to back away stumbling into the table behind him, the dead man leaped forward, grabbing the mortified man. The dead man started ripping him to pieces, bite by bite. Two guards hear him make a commotion from down the hall, they rush in to see the gruesome scene and the one guard pulled his pistol from its holster, aimed and fired. Two shots rang out hitting the dead man in the head killing him instantly. The other guard ran up to the scientist to try and help him, little did he know it was too late, the mortician had already began to turn. When the guard grabbed his shoulder the mortician sprung, sinking his teeth into the guards arm. The second guard shot, killing the mortician. He grabbed the other guard and they ran out of the room, blood was gushing from the guards arm as they entered the infirmary, a doctor rushed over to check him out. Down stairs in the morgue the other bodies started to get up, slowly they each walked out of the morgue toward the rest of the facility. The guard that had brought his team mate to the infirmary heard screams from down the hall, he assured his friend he would return to check on him and ran down toward the screams. The doctor was cleaning out the other guards wounds, when he noticed it looked as if the tissue around the open hole was already beginning to deteriorate. He looked into the guards eyes, the guard lunged and sunk his teeth into the doctor’s neck. Soon the whole facility was full of flesh eating corpses, a few lucky people had been able to escape with minor injuries. The government shut down the facility and closed off all access to it, thinking they had stopped any spread of the infection. The news got wind of the incident and stories of the rotter’s had spread across the globe. The people that had escaped the facility were treated for their wounds and released, little did they know this would start the worst outbreak the world had ever seen.
A few days after they had been released one of the survivors of the rotter outbreak began to feel sick, it started out as flu like symptoms so he called his doctor to find out how he could treat it, the doctor examined him and gave him some antibiotics to cure his ailment. As he tried to get up from the examination table he felt dizzy and slipped. The doctor had grabbed onto the man but had been scratched when he reached for him. Once he felt well enough the man returned to his home to find a message on his answering machine, the other survivors had become sick and we’re being detained at a government facility until further notice, they were sending out some men to get him as a precaution. The man waited for the government officials to show up, as he was waiting he started to cough violently. He ran into his bathroom to grab a glass of water, as he was filling a cup he noticed drops of blood fall into the sink. His coughing got worse, and soon he could barely breathe. He reached for his phone to dial the emergency number but soon everything went black. The government officials had reached the last of the survivors home, when they knocked there was no answer. They peered through the front window and saw the man walking around inside. Peering through the window watching him, they knocked again but he ignored them. Then one agent grabbed the door knob and tried to turn it and the door was unlocked, so both men decided to walk inside. “We were sent here to pick you up” said one of the agents. The man didn’t say a word, he kept walking the opposite direction. One of the agents walked over to him, he grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. The man lunged at the agent, tearing at his arm with his fingers and biting at his neck. The agent fell backwards onto the floor, the man they had come to detain was ripping at his stomach, biting and clawing his way through. The other agent watched in horror as her partner was being eaten alive. She pulled out her side arm and started shooting, her bullets piercing through the rotter’s skin. It looked up at her as she fired her last round, it was a direct hit into its skull. Her partner laid there, his stomach and intestines sprawled out onto the floor, his windpipe was ripped from his throat, she watched as he gasped for air. She picked up her cell to call for help but she couldn’t get through. Her partner soon died, she started to leave the house but heard a noise behind her, when she turned around her partner’s body was gone. She backed toward the door, trying to reload her gun. Suddenly the thing that was once her partner came sprinting toward her, it latched onto her shoulder and bit down. Blood ripped through the air as it sank its teeth, it clawed at her chest and her ribs began to show as it ripped pieces of her flesh from her body. Across town at the clinic the doctor who had been scratched earlier that day was starting to feel ill, he sweated profusely and was now feeling faint. He called his nurse in to let her know he was going home, when she saw the way he looked she requested he go to the emergency room instead. She walked over to the hospital with the doctor and sat with him in the waiting room until they came to bring him back. The doctors in the emergency room were asking him how he got sick, he couldn’t tell them anything useful other than he had taken care of a patient with the flu earlier that day. As they were hooking him up to monitors paramedics busted through the back doors, they had a patient who had been bit by someone and was bleeding out. Soon more started coming into the hospital, all with similar injuries. The doctor who had come in with the flu symptoms died while they were working on some of the other patients. His body was left in the hall while they were scrambling around trying to figure out what was going on. Patients started turning on the nurses and doctors, biting and scratching at them. Security guards tried to stop some of the patients using whatever force they could to keep them from harming anyone. The nurse from the clinic heard the commotion and ran back to see what was going on, the doctor she had brought in was standing in the hallway as people were running around. She ran up to him to help him back to his room but when she grabbed his hand something seemed off. He turned to look at her, blood was pouring out of his mouth and his eyes looked like that of a corpse. He jumped at her and she fell backwards onto the nurse’s station hitting her head knocking her out cold.
A few blocks away over at the community college, Britney Hawkins and her classmates listened to a lecture on the science of human evolution. The professor had turned on the television so they could watch a movie that was playing on the geographic channel. The beginning of the movie was interrupted by a news broad cast. The news caster was frantically trying to explain the events that were happening at that very moment, she handed the broadcast out to her affiliate who was at the horrific scene. Yes Bridget it seems that all across the city people are attacking one another, my sources tell me these random acts of violence seem to be cause by what he explained looks like the rotter’s epidemic that occurred at the now shut down disease control facil
ity a few days ago. We don’t have any clue as to when it started yet but we will update you as information comes in. Britney picked up her cell to call her brother Kevin, he was out hunting ducks so she was sure he hadn’t seen the news yet. Kevin answered, she told him about the news cast and the phone lost signal. The news caster on the television suddenly started to panic, the class watched in horror as they watched a rotter grab onto her and sink its teeth into her face. Students started to panic. Britney and her friend Jennifer grabbed their back packs and started to stand up. The professor yelled for everyone to calm down. “Ladies and gentlemen calm down please. So far this hasn’t reached the campus area, we need to calmly gather our things and in an orderly fashion leave the classroom. Students who normally ride the bus to get home, I would suggest you find a ride with a friend. For those of you who live on campus, try your best to get out of here. It was an honor teaching all of you, may you all be safe and god speed. You are now dismissed.” Everyone started grabbing their bags to leave, they heard screaming outside and everyone rushed to the windows. Rotters were running around chasing people around the campus. Britney and Jennifer followed the others out of the class and headed for Jennifer’s car. People were getting attacked all around them, Jennifer saw a cheerleader get her leg ripped off by one of her team mates, while another kid got cut in half by a truck who’s driver had had his face ripped off by a rotter. The smell of blood and rotting flesh filled the air, it was chaos. Jennifer reached for her keys, they weren’t in her pocket. Britney screamed for her to hurry, Jennifer searched through her purse, still no luck. She must have dropped them in her back pack earlier in the day. She began to search frantically, Britney saw a rotter heading straight for her friend she called to her “Jen look out behind you.” Jennifer swung around with her back pack, smashing into the rotter’s side, it flew and smashed into the back window of another car. Britney grabbed her friend and they started to run. A truck pulled in front of them both and stopped, it was Kevin, he yelled at them to hop inside, both girls hopped into the front seat. Kevin hit the accelerator and they sped off through the campus parking lot. Rotters were everywhere, chasing down people turning them into more rotters. Kevin smashed through a horde of them to get to the main road. They drove as fast as they could, not bothering to obey the laws as the three of them did their best to escape the carnage. Britney and Jennifer were panicking as they watched their school become a blood bath in the rear view. Kevin drove the girls up to a cabin outside of town, his friend George was outside cleaning his freshly killed ducks. Kevin hopped out of the truck, “George we need to gather up all our supplies, no one can call us crazy now the apocalypse is here just like we said.” George put the duck down in the bucket, “I’ll grab the fire arms out of the safe. You and the others grab the food and medical supplies out of the shop over there.” Kevin opened the passenger door, “Britney you and your friend come with me, because we need your help getting everything together.” Britney and Jennifer hopped out of the truck and followed Kevin to the shop, he showed them what they needed to grab. They took the supplies and loaded them into a motor home George had parked in the back. George had brought out all the fire arms and was now working on the ammunition, he and Kevin had been stocking up for this for years. Jennifer, Britney and Kevin had finished loading up the supplies and headed into the cabin to help George. With all of them working together loading up the motor home went a lot smoother. The light was starting to fade the evening was creeping up on them and George decided they should leave that night. George hopped into the motor home and fired it up. Kevin grabbed his truck keys, they figured two vehicles were better than one. Their two car convoy headed west toward California, they drove for hours. Rotters were now taking over the state, the military had sent out troops to stop the spread but the rotter’s were too many in number. For every one they killed ten more popped up in its place. Soon the troops were over run, human life as everyone knew it was quickly dwindling. Kevin and his small group made it through two states before the motor home decided to break down, they were stuck in the middle of nowhere with a horde of rotter’s closing in on them fast, they had to find parts to fix the vehicle before the horde reached their location. George took a couple fire arms with him leaving Kevin with the girls so he could find some parts. Kevin, Britney and Jennifer hunkered down in the motor home while George took the truck into the next town. He drove passed houses and vehicles, the town looked deserted. Up the road a little ways he saw a repair shop, it had every part you could think of on the shelves. George parked the truck and walked inside. As he was loading up the truck with bottles of oil he heard a low growl, he looked behind him and saw a rotter walking toward him. The rotter’s leg had been busted in half, as it walked its leg bent in a awkward shape. It was too far away for him to worry about it just yet, besides if he shot at it the bang from the gun might bring more to where he was. George loaded parts of all kinds into the truck, next door was a small market, George ran inside to get some food, he loaded up boxes and took them out to the truck. When he loaded the last box he heard the growl again, this time it was closer. When he turned the rotter was upon him, it reached out and grabbed his coat. Kevin was looking out the window of the motor home, George had been gone for quite a long time and Kevin was getting worried. Suddenly they heard scrapes along the side of the motor home, Jennifer looked out the small window on the side. Three rotters were walking next to the motor home, she gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Kevin looked back at her, she pointed to the window and mouthed something to him, he looked out the front window, at least a dozen rotter’s were walking pass them towards the town. Kevin pointed toward the guns, Britney handed him a pistol with some extra magazines. She and Jennifer grabbed their guns and got the ready to fire, suddenly they heard the truck speeding down the road toward them. George slammed into a couple rotters and hit the brakes, he started shooting the other rotter’s in the head. Kevin told the girls to stay put, he jumped out of the motor home and started shooting the rotter’s with George. Once they had killed the small horde George and Kevin started working on the radiator. Britney and Jennifer kept watch while they repaired the damage and filled the radiator with coolant. George hopped into the front seat and cranked over the engine, the motor home sprung to life and they started off on their way. They drove through the little town and noticed the gas was getting low. Kevin radioed to George, to let him know, he needed to stop. “Alright brother but we need to make this fast, towns crawling with those rotter’s, I almost became ones next meal last time I stayed here too long.” Kevin pulled into a gas station off the side of the road, he filled up the trucks tank and started on the motor home. Britney and Jennifer walked inside the station to see if they could find anything useful, they spotted gas cans and other supplies. George walked in behind them and started grabbing things, he told the girls to take whatever they could carry and wait inside the truck. Britney grabbed cases of water and other drinks and headed out the door. Jennifer loaded up bags full of canned goods and started to head out, but she didn’t see the rotter behind the counter until it was too late. The rotter leaped at her from behind the counter she blocked his bite with bag of cans. George ran up behind the rotter and plunged a screw driver he had in his pocket through the base of the rotter’s skull. Jennifer pushed the rotter off the top of her and checked herself for injuries. If it hadn’t been for George she would have become one of them, she thanked George for saving her life as he helped her off the floor. He grabbed a shirt off a rack and handed it to her. “Use this to clean off the blood on your face and hands, try not to get any in your mouth” he said. Jennifer wiped away the blood and grabbed another shirt from the rack. She took off her bloody shirt and tossed it to the floor, she put on the fresh shirt and picked up the bags of canned food. George had turned around to allow her a bit of privacy, he grabbed the gas cans and ripped some shirts off the racks. They walked out to the motor home and shoved the food inside. Jennifer joined Britney in the truck and watched the guys fil
l the gas cans. Soon they were back on the road. Everywhere they went the towns were deserted, they only stopped to gather supplies and gasoline when they needed it, making sure they didn’t stay in one place for too long. Britney started feeling sick, she tried not to let the others know that being on the road for so long was taking its toll on her. The small convoy stopped outside a rundown motel in the middle of a forest in Wyoming. The air was turning cold with fall on its way. Kevin hopped out of the truck, he left the girls with a couple guns just in case they ran into trouble. George followed Kevin around to the main office, they walked inside, their guns at the ready. They searched the office, George found the manager sitting in a chair, his body covered in blood. He had taken a pistol and blown his brains out after the outbreak started. Brain matter was dried on the wall behind his rotting body, George grabbed the ring of keys off the body’s belt and continued to search around. Food was molding on the table next to him. When they didn’t see anything useful they left the office. George walked over to a room and unlocked the door, he slowly opened the door and walked in. There was blood covering the walls and floor. He searched around the room was empty of rotter’s. There was a second room joined to the one he entered. George unlocked the door and opened it. The room was fairly clean, dust covered the counters. He searched around as a precaution, there was nothing inside the room. George called to Kevin, “go grab some clean linens from the office and the cleaning supplies, you and I will take this room, the girls can have the room next to ours that way we can stick together in case those rotter’s show up.” Kevin grabbed the stuff George asked for and returned to the girls, we found a place to hold up for a bit, grab the supplies and I’ll take you to your room okay? Britney and Jennifer hopped out of the truck and grabbed everything they could carry, they followed Kevin to the room, Jennifer and Britney put their supplies down and laid on the two beds, it felt nice to finally be laying on a comfortable mattress. Kevin turned on the faucet, dirty water flowed out for a few minutes so he shut it off, well girls we don’t have clean water for bathing but at least we can be comfortable. Britney had already passed out on the bed. Jennifer looked up at Kevin, “she’s been ill for a couple days now, we need to find antibiotics or something otherwise I’m afraid she won’t last too much longer.” Kevin sat on the bed next to Britney and felt her forehead, “she’s burning up, Jennifer keep an eye on Britney for a while. I’m going to see if I can find some medical supplies around here.” Kevin left the room and went to talk to George. George was finishing cleaning the blood off the walls. Kevin sat on the newly cleaned bed and put his head in his hands, “we have a problem George, it’s Britney, I think she has a flu or pneumonia.” George looked at Kevin with remorse on his face, “I have a few antibiotics in the motor home, but it’s not enough to fully kill any virus she might have.” He ran out to the motor home and returned with a bag. He dumped the bag onto the bed and searched through the pill bottles. Soon he handed Kevin a couple small bottles, “have her take four of these antibiotics and two of these, they are fever reducers.” Kevin took the bottles and headed into the other room, Britney was still sleeping. Kevin woke her up, and handed her the pills as George instructed. She took the pills with a sip of water and went back to sleep. Jennifer covered Britney with every blanket she could find and placed a wet towel on Britney forehead, she turned on the television to see if she could get anything, she couldn’t get anything. She laid next to Britney and tried to get some sleep, every little bump was a rotter in her mind. Kevin was trying to find something on the radio, he went through every channel. Finally he heard talking, he adjusted the channel to try to get it clearer. It came through a little bit better, Kevin strained to listen to the broadcast. Food and water, medical supplies. Rotter free in California town, we are heading there soon, those that hear our broadcast come find us. Kevin called to George, listen to this. George leaned in and listened to the radio and said, “it sounds like a ham radio whoever is broad casting this post must be close by. Let’s get a bit of rest, I’ll go for whoever is sending out this message when the sun rises. They might be able to help us.” Kevin and George crawled into their beds and fell asleep. The next day George got up early and started to leave to find the person that was sending out the broadcast, Jennifer walked out from the other room. “Can I go with you?” she asked. “I want to go see if I can find some more medicine for Britney and maybe some other things.” She quickly added. George nodded and said “try to keep up okay, Kevin and I heard a broadcast last night and I want to see if I can find who sent it. I saw a couple buildings down the road a bit, thought I would try there first.” Jennifer rushed to keep up, they walked down the road toward the buildings George had seen. They kept quiet as they walked down the road, George had a pistol at his side and a machete close at hand. Jennifer had her trusty ninja sword and a small side arm. They reached the first building, George slowly entered, the bottom floor was a small clothing shop, Jennifer saw some clothing she wanted, “do you think the owners would mind if I take a few things?” George shrugged and said “don’t grab too much, we still have to find those people that sent the broadcast.” Jennifer nodded and grabbed a couple bags, she filled them with as many items as they could hold. Mostly sweaters, coats and warmer clothing. George hung the bags off his back pack and continued to search the building, the place was deserted. They continued on to the next building, George entered first the downstairs was clear of rotter’s, Jennifer saw medical supplies all over. The building used to be a pharmacy. While Jennifer loaded her back pack with medical supplies George continued to search. They heard a noise come from upstairs. George cocked his gun and headed up slowly and Jennifer followed behind him. They reached the top of the stairs, George slowly opened the small door, he walked inside slowly Jennifer followed. They walked around the front room, George went to open a door to a bedroom when he was pushed back hard. Jennifer reached for her gun but was grabbed from behind. She tried to fight but the grip on her arms was too tight, George started to reach for his gun but when he grabbed the butt someone kicked it away from his reach. George put his hands up in surrender, their captives started asking them questions. “Are you here to kill us? How many of you are there?” George answered them, “we aren’t here to kill anyone unless you’re a rotter. There are four of us, our friends are over at the hotel down the road, my one friend is sick she has pneumonia. We were coming here to see if we could find some medicine and whoever sent out the broadcast over the radio.” The one guy uncocked his gun, “I put out that broadcast, we didn’t know if anyone had heard. There haven’t been any people since we got here a week ago. On our way here we had heard a broadcast that there was a rotter free place in California, that’s where we are headed. Your friend could get medical attention there”. “My name is Bruce, that’s Yuri and Ahmed is around here somewhere.” Suddenly a small boy popped his head out from another room, he didn’t say a word but walked over to Jennifer and smiled. He grabbed her hand, Jennifer smiled back at him, “I’m Jennifer and this is George.” Yuri asked George if they had a car, George nodded, “we have a truck and a motor home at the hotel, we need to get back before our friends think something bad has happened to us.” Bruce smiled and said “we will gather up our things and head to the hotel in about an hour if that is alright with you, we need to leave this town. I heard a broadcast about an hour ago, there’s a horde of rotter’s on their way right now, don’t know how long before they get here, last time a horde came through a lot of people died.” George and Jennifer grabbed their packs and headed back to the hotel. Kevin was outside waiting when they got back and asked “What took you guys so long? We had just about given up hope on you two.” George walked toward the hotel room and replied “we need to gather up our stuff, three people will be here in an hour and we are leaving as soon as they get here.” Kevin followed George “we can’t leave yet, Britney needs rest.” George grabbed Kevin by the shoulders, “there is a massive horde of rotter’s on their way here right now, if we stay it won’t
matter if Britney gets well or not now does it?” Kevin pulled away, “alright I’ll get her ready then.” Jennifer walked into the hotel room, Britney was still asleep. She put the bags of clothing down onto her bed and shook Britney to wake her, “Britney we need to get ready to go, I brought you warm clothing, I’ll help you get dressed.” Britney slowly sat up, Jennifer started putting on the warm clothing over her other stuff, and then she gave her some water and the antibiotics she took from the pharmacy. “I’m going to go help Kevin and George put the supplies in the motor home, you come sit in the truck it will be a lot safer there alright?” Britney nodded as Jennifer helped her up. They walked to the truck and she helped Britney inside and shut the door. George and Kevin were loading the motor home as Bruce showed up with Yuri, Ahmed and a bunch of supplies, they put everything into the motor home. George introduced Kevin to the three men. Jennifer ran over and grabbed her sword off the hood of the truck and yelled “look alive people we’ve got company.” Rotter’s started coming out of the wood work, there’s too many of them, we will be killed before we get through the first few let’s get out of here. Everyone hopped into the vehicles and headed toward the next town. The rotter horde was surrounding the small convoy. George plowed through, rotters were grabbing onto the sides of the motor home. George weaved around almost rolling the motor home. Bruce and his friends were hanging on to whatever they could to avoid flying forward, supply boxes were falling to the ground, opening and spilling out items all over the floor. Finally George had gotten the rotters to fall off and they drove as fast as they could. Kevin was following close behind, Jennifer had Britney laying over her lap. A rotter grabbed onto the side mirror and was trying to break the window, Kevin swerved toward a tree knocking the rotter to the ground and its body exploded as it hit the ground. The small convoy drove on through the night. Fuel was running low, George radioed to Kevin “we need to get some supplies at the next town.” Kevin looked for signs for any kind of gas station ahead “looks like we have a city in about forty miles do you think we have enough fuel to get there” he radioed back. George looked at his gauge and said “we should make it there but we’ll make it on fumes.” When they reached the city they took it slow. George told the passengers in his motor home it was going to be dangerous, a city like this could hide dozens of rotter’s without anyone seeing them, they could get surrounded quickly. The streets looked bare, fires were burning uncontrollably all across the city. Bodies lay in the street, some torn to pieces, others cut in half. None of them moved as George and Kevin drove their vehicles through. George saw a station at the end of the block, it was the only one they had seen that hadn’t caught fire. George pulled in and shut off the motor home, he waited a minute to see if any rotter’s were waiting to spring out. When he saw no movement he hopped out of the motor home. He checked the pumps to see if they were on, the power was shut off to the pumps. Bruce volunteered to turn on the power. Before the apocalypse he was an electrician. Bruce grabbed a flashlight and headed toward the back of the station. Jennifer left Britney laying in the seat of the truck to help gather things they needed. Jennifer and Yuri walked inside the station and were grabbing items off the shelves when Jennifer heard a noise coming from the back room. Jennifer reached for her gun and headed to where the noise came from. She entered the back to find the attendant hanging from the rafters. The hanging rotter reached for Jennifer as she got closer she noticed its eyes were bulging out of its head. She put her gun away and brought out her sword, Jennifer plunged the blade through its skull. They walked back out into the store as Yuri was loading the last box. “Where did you run off to?” Yuri asked. Bruce told him about the rotter in the back and how Jennifer killed it. Suddenly there was yelling out front, the three of them rushed outside with their weapons ready. Kevin and George were aiming their guns at a bunch of guys dressed in partial military outfits, it was a standoff. One of the guys put his gun in the holster and started to talk, “we don’t want to hurt of you fine people, I’ll have my guys put up their weapons if you have yours do the same.” Kevin looked at George, they both put their weapons away. The man had his guys put their weapons away as well. My name is Greg Hammond, these are my men. We live in an encampment a few miles from here, there is food, shelter and medical supplies there. We came into town to see if there were any survivors left, when we saw your vehicles we had to investigate. From the corner of Greg eye he saw Britney sit up in the truck, she had been woken up by the commotion, he looked at George, “that person in the truck has she been bitten or scratched?” George shook his head, “no she got pneumonia when we got to Wyoming, she’s been very sick, I gave her some antibiotics I had left over from before the rotter outbreak but we’ve run out of medication for her.” The guy replied “if you come with us she can get the medical attention she needs, we have a doctor back at our camp. Follow us, you can stay with us as long as you want, and if you want to move on to wherever you all are going after your friend starts to feel better.” George and Kevin thanked Greg and headed back to their vehicles. The three car convoy headed out of the city toward the high mountains.