Chapter Two

Chapter 2





"Form a line!" Sergeant Tyrell Keyes' voice boomed over the mass hysteria of citizens behind his platoon evacuating the city. Dozens of the undead were stumbling towards his dwindling team, mouths open wide and moaning for another meal. He had lost two men just this afternoon from the undead bastards, both eaten alive. Two others had suffered wounds but made it out alive. Including himself, only seven people remained of the ten-man squad. How many more would he lose to this epidemic that was sweeping the nation? Tyrell had been on the front lines in both desert storm and the war in Iraq. He thought he'd seen just about all the carnage and decimation that war had to offer, from civilians being used as shields to bombings of innocent people. The Sergeant had killed countless insurgents in battle, always using the mentality of it being him or them. But what was going down in the city now, throughout probably the country, was just unthinkable. The very people he spent the last twenty years of his life fighting for he was now gunning down in cold blood. Race, gender, age, or social class didn't apply. These... things didn't seem to have a specific group.

The sounds of rifles cocking snapped him out of his transfixed mind. His M9 Beretta trembled in his hands as he held up his megaphone once again and ordered his men to fire. The staccato of the rifles rocked the street as his men open fired and the undead were peppered with gunfire. Clothes and flesh exploded in a crimson shower as the hot lead tore them apart. However, only a few went down. His men weren't aiming for the head.

"Aim for the head! Make every shot count!" The Sergeant growled. "Yes sir!" The unit replied in unison. Sergeant Keyes dropped the megaphone on the hood of a police car and raised his sidearm, picking off a few close shamblers. He never let a situation get the better of him. Then again, he was a having a lot of firsts today. As the handgun kicked in his hand and a woman's head was split in two, he began to worry. More and more of the shamblers had begun stumbling out of the dark shadows of alleys and buildings, creeping over broken window displays. Keyes ejected his magazine and quickly slapped in a fresh one, not bothering to pick up the empty as it clattered to the street. He holstered the sidearm and unstrapped his rifle from his back.

"Do not let them break the line!" He ordered over the gunfire as he switched the rifle to fully automatic.


"B-but sir, they're everywhere-" One of the soldiers began.

"That is a direct order, soldier!" Using the police car's hood, he propped his gun up and began firing on full-auto, spraying back a seemingly endless wave of the...

"Go ahead and say it." He mumbled. "Zombies."



Private Mark Jones felt like shit. The rifle in his hands was growing heavy. After each shot fired, the recoil from the stock almost knocked him over. His aim was off, none of his shots seemed to hit home. The private let the rifle fall from his hands as his rifle clicked empty. He left the smoking gun on the ground as he stumbled over to the pavement and collapsed, the bite wound he'd received on his tricep earlier was throbbing and bleeding again. He'd tried helping some bitch up from the ground, only to find out she was a shambler. Before he could take her out, she reached up and ripped a large chunk out of his arm.

"Son of a bitch..." He mumbled to himself as he shakily stood up again. He looked down at his arm and saw his uniform becoming soaked with blood. Private Jones grasped the bandage and unwrapped his arm, eyes going wide with shock when he saw what lay beneath the drenched bandages. The skin around the wound had turned gray and rotten. His now purple veins bulged out, yet they seemed dead. He had lost most feeling in the arm, and could barely close his hand.

"Jones! What the fuck are you doing?" Sergeant Keyes' voice boomed in the background, it seemed very far away.

"S-Sarge..." Jones said as he stumbled forward, arm outstretched. He collapsed and his knees and threw up blood, the pavement below becoming soaked with a deep red.

"Medic!" He heard somebody cry, but his vision was now blurring and reality as he knew it was rapidly spinning away. He was beginning to see things differently. A thin shade of red seemed to apply to everything he saw. Hunger arose in his stomach as the team's medic Kelsey ran to his side, dropping her rifle and opening up her medical bag.

"Just hang tight Jones, you're going to be fine." She assured him as she tried getting him to lay down again. Mark Jones was not going to be fine. The soldier's head wobbily rolled to look over at her as she said something else that was lost between the gunfire and moans of his new breed. Mark grabbed her by her head and sank his teeth into her neck, welcoming the warm flow of blood that ran down his chin and the warm flesh in his mouth. Kelsey let out a surprised gargled yelp as he bit down again, this time on her throat. He yanked his head back, tearing out her Adam's apple and feasting hungrily. Mark let out a long and mournful moan, losing himself to the insatiable blood lust. Private Mark Jones was no more.


Sergeant Keyes turned his head when he heard the medic scream.

"Jesus..." Private Mark Jones joined the ranks of the undead and was feasting on the medic's cooling corpse. "Take him out!" Keyes barked, turning his attention back to the advancing crowd. The street was littered with bullet-riddled bodies now, the advancing shamblers stumbling over them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Corporal Styles kick Jones in the face. Jones clumsily fell backwards on his back. His former Private moaned and slowly sat up to a rifle in his face and ate a bullet, finally at rest.

"Oh fuck! Fuck! that's goin' to happen to me too, right?" Private Wallace yelled as he stopped firing. Keyes shifted his attention momentarily to the worried soldier. Wallace was also bitten just over an hour ago. "I don't wanna become one of 'em!" Wallace's eye darted between Keyes and the shamblers.

"Calm down, Private." Keyes took a single step forward with a hand raised before Private Wallace pulled his M9 out of his hip holster and rested it under his chin before pulling the trigger. A shower of brain matter and gore exploded out of the top of his skull, his eyes rolling back into his head as his legs gave out and Wallace collapsed on the street.

"No!" Tyrell Keyes focused his attention back on the shamblers, some of them now pressed up against the construction signs and cars being used as a makeshift barricade. He let loose a long string of fire into the zombies, splattering the city block with blood. As the remainder of his team concentrated their gunfire on the closest shamblers, nobody noticed the dead medic's hand twitch. Corporal Styles was standing right beside her, and he couldn't hear the faint wet moan emit from her throat over his rifle, or see her slowly crawling towards him. Kelsey grabbed a hold of his leg and sunk her teeth into it, the Corporal screamed and fell to the ground. Keyes abandoned his post and ran to his soldier's side, cringing as Kelsey bit down on Wallace's ankle.

Wallace howled as Keyes flipped his rifle around and bashed the stock down on the back of the former medic's head. After a sickening crunch, she moaned again and the Sergeant brought the carbine down once more. This time, her body spasmed and she stopped moving. Knowing that him and his men needed to move and they needed to do it now, he turned his attention to the three remaining soldiers, watching as the shamblers all started tearing apart the barricade.

"Hold them back, do not let them through!" He ordered. As the men open fired once again he crouched next to Corporal Wallace and wrapped an arm around him. "We need to move." The Corporal wearily shook his head.

"Sarge... I'm infected..." Keyes ignored the soldier and helped him up, noting how Wallace had a bad limp but not wanting to admit he was about to lose another man.

"You're coming with us." He turned to the trio of gunmen barely holding the line. Two of them had switched to their M9's, their carbines dry. They were all firing blindly now, desperate to keep the undead back. Wallace grimaced as he hefted his rifle and loaded a fresh magazine into it.

"Fall back, I'll hold them back for as long as I can, sir." The Corporal said, Keyes could see the fear in his eyes as his gaze rested on the seemingly larger mob of shamblers. Keyes was about to object, but the look in Wallace's eyes suggested his mind was set. The Sergeant saluted Wallace before calling out to his men.

"Fall back! I repeat, Fall back!" The three men on the firing line ceased fire and retreated, each slapping the Corporal on the back and wishing him luck. "God bless." Keyes said as Wallace open fired just as the barricade was broken. The zombies poured through like ants, spreading out once through and rapidly approaching the screaming Corporal as he unleashed hell upon them. Keyes turned and ran after his men, only stopping to hop in the back of the unit's Humvee, a Private already behind the wheel and awaiting orders. Keyes gave a swift nod of approval and the Private floored it. Keyes spared a glance back at Wallace as the vehicle sped off. A few shamblers had wrestled him to the ground and were tearing into him, the Corporal's dying screams could be heard as the distanced between them increased. The citizens unlucky enough to be at the back of the evacuation were being dragged to the ground and torn apart, the infection spreading like wildfire. All that could be heard throughout the city were the cries of the dead and dying.

"God help us all..."



"This is Private Tom Williams of the U.S. Army, Bravo team. Stationed in Times Square. I request immediate backup, multiple hostiles inbound. I repeat, if anybody's out there please respond, over." Katharina Ziesmann grunted as she pushed a lounge chair in front of the doors, fear creeping through her body as the doors rocked in their frame. The creatures outside threw themselves against the glass windows and doors, hissing and moaning as they tried getting in. Bloody smears streaked all over the once almost sparking displays. Outside she could only watch helplessly as defenseless people were brought down and ripped apart, their screams of help lost to the undead. Katharina pushed a strand of long brown hair out of her face. Just months ago she thought it was the end of the world, being fired from her position as a secretary of some corporate CEO for not sleeping with him. With her high-paying job gone she had to sell her apartment and move in with her close friend from college. Her friend had introduced her to Karen, who was beginning to open up many clothing stores throughout New York City. Karen had hired her on the spot, being close with her roommate. The work wasn't the most appealing, but it payed the bills. She cringed when the thought of Karen popped into her head, how the undead dragged her away screaming.

Katharina should have known something was wrong this morning when she took her daily morning job. The streets of New York were always crowded, but in the morning they were packed. Yet, she thought nothing of it. As she weaved in and out of people down the sidewalks, she noticed a police struggle with some bum. One of the cops held the snarling man down while the other tried to cuff him. As the handcuffs came on and they let him up, the officer holding him down managed to break free and bite him. Yet again, she thought nothing of it. Just another drunk, right?

The soldier that saved her continued his distress call, although deep down she knew nobody would come, everybody else was probably occupied with saving their own skin. Katharina turned away from the front of the store and looked for anything else that could be used to block them from getting in. They had already pushed all of the sofas and chairs up front, as well as the clothing racks. Once the windows broke though, she knew they were doomed.