WorldLost- Week 1: An Infected Novel (9 page)

“This is fucking sick,” she said, moving to the video camera to
the side and shutting it off. “People are scum sometimes. This young girl is
from a family upstairs. I’ve seen them in the rec room downstairs; I pass them
in the garage and in the front lobby. I had conversations with them. We’ve got
to go up there and see if they are home so we can tell them where their little
girl is.”

“I agree,” Butch said.

“Hold on, let’s discuss this a little bit. We have no clue
what is happening upstairs or on any of the other floors. There could be a 100
infected on her floor. She could have escaped from up there and ended up here.
Anything could have happened.” I said, looking at both of them.

“Let’s look at the video and see if we can determine what happened,”
I said as I turned to the computer and hit the replay button on the video.

The video began with one of the guys looking at the camera,
smiling and then saying, “We’ve got something very special for everyone this
week. A special little something that everyone will enjoy.” He continued. The
camera then panned to the left and there on the bed was the girl, naked except
for a gag in her mouth and unconscious.

At least she looked like she was unconscious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crazy things people do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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