feet before he turned on his heels to go back to his fallen comrade. He saw that he was too late. Three of the creatures were now almost upon Stan, less than five feet away. David brought his rifle to bear, and with the night scope on, hit two of them on the forehead. Both went down and the third, a voluptuous woman who must have looked quite striking before her transformation, but now looked like a bleeding, yellowing monster like the others, took a three round burst to the chest which sent her reeling back.
'Stan, come on!'
But Stan did not move, instead he just gripped his ankle and looking at David with eyes that were blank with fear. David now saw several more shadows converging on Stan. The young pilot now looked David straight in the eye.
'Sir, please do it. Don't let me become one of them!'
David knew what he was being asked to do, but his hands felt as if they weighed a ton. Stan screamed again as the first of the wraiths was about to reach him, yellowed and bloodied hands reaching out for him.
'Please, for God's sake. Please.'
David took a deep breath, brought his rifle up and fired a single shot into Stan's head. A collective howl seemed to go up from all the creatures around as they realized they had been deprived. The one who had been reaching for Stan now crouched over his body, turning his lifeless head in his hands and then turned to look at David.
He must have been a middle-aged office goer, perhaps with a family of his own, no more than a day ago. Now his bloodied, yellow face was contorted with hate, and his clothes were in tatters. The black turban hung precariously from his head as he raised a finger towards David and screamed.
David selected full auto on his M4 and a dozen 5.56MM rounds shredded the creature's head. David did not wait to see if it would get up, since a dozen more launched themselves towards him.
He ran as fast as he could, his eyes stinging from the tears that were now running freely down his face.
***
As soon as the woman had looked up at her and screamed, Hina had run downstairs, aware that she was now in terrible danger. She pulled a sofa in front of the main door, hoping it would at least slow the creatures now converging on her house. She was panting from the exertion and was trying to catch her breath, when the window behind her shattered, showering her with glass shards. A yellowed hand reached in and grabbed at her shoulder. In trying to get away, she fell to the ground, and got a closer look at the face that was now peering in at her through the broken window. She saw the crooked glasses, the yellow shirt, and realized with a stifled sob that this creature had till a few minutes ago been Mr. Patel, the man whom she used to buy her groceries from. However the friendly smile she had known for a dozen years was now replaced by bared, bloody teeth. His face was cut in a dozen places, and Hina realized he had used his head to smash the window. His face was yellow, and the skin seemed to be peeling away in patches and his hate filled, crazed eyes seemed more like those of a rabid animal than those of a human being. The turban on his head would have looked absurd had Hina not been so terrified. She heard several more hands beating on the door, and then the sofa, slowly but surely, began to slide back under the onslaught.
At her age, and especially after Imran's passing, Hina had thought of her mortality often. With Imran gone, and her children more a distant memory than a real family, she did not have too many things or people to live for, and on the occasional lonely night, she had wondered if she could bring herself to end it all. A bottle of sleeping pills perhaps. But now, faced with a horde of attackers beating down her door, she realized that she wanted to live. Whether or not she had anything to live for, she did not want to go like this. Most certainly, she did not want to become the kind of monster Mr. Patel had become. The door was now ajar and she saw a foot slip in. The yellow, bloody leg looked incongruous in a Gucci high-heeled sandal, but Hina did not have any time to contemplate that as she got up, looking frantically around for some way to defend herself.
Mayukh's car was now bobbing and weaving around the cluttered street, and in other circumstances, he would almost certainly have been stopped on suspicion of drunk driving. But now, all the cops around were either dead or had joined the marauding bands that were rampaging through the city. He braked hard when he saw a body lying just in front of his car. Both he and his mother looked at it, wondering what they should do. Even though it looked dead, Mayukh could not bring himself to run over another human being. He began to reverse his car so he could drive around it, when the body sat up.
It was a young man, perhaps not much older than Mayukh himself. Except that he was now one of
'Drive!'
Mayukh hardly needed the encouragement from his mother. In blind panic, he floored the gas and their Honda City sped forward, carrying their unwelcome passenger with it. With his view blocked by the man hanging onto the windshield, Mayukh had now way of knowing what lay ahead, but he hoped that as he picked up speed, the man would be thrown off his hood.
Hina's door was now wide open, and she saw several figures crowding the doorway. It was pitch black outside, the streetlights having all gone off some minutes ago. Her lights were still on, driven by an old diesel generator, and seeing the shadows entering her house, she knew that her time was up. She closed her eyes, and began praying when she heard an ear-splitting crash.
She tentatively opened an eye and saw a sight that she had never imagined. A car had come to a halt just outside her house, and had plowed through the creatures trying to get to her. Some of them were lying scattered out on the street, and one seemed to be trapped under the car. The back door of the car had been flung upon in the crash, and the driver was revving the engine, trying to get away. Without thinking too much, other than the fact that she was finished if she stayed in her home, Hina ran as fast as she could toward the car and dove in through the open back door.
Mayukh had just started the car and was about to get away from the carnage when he sensed someone enter the car behind him. He spun around, his gun in hand, only to see a thin, old lady. He had no idea who she was, but she was not one of
'I'm Hina Rahman. I am, well I guess I was now, a Professor.'
Mayukh just nodded at her and told her his name. His mother said nothing. Mayukh looked at his mother, to see what shape she was in. She was continuing to try and call his father on her mobile, but all the networks seemed to be down. Her hands shaking, she finally threw the phone hard against the floor and began sobbing.
Hina reached out and held her shoulder, and this simple act of kindness seemed to make his mother further collapse into loud sobs. Mayukh's mind was blank. At one level, he was more terrified than he had ever been, but at another level, he still had hope. Hope that this was somehow all a bad dream he would wake up from, hope that there surely was some government in control somewhere. The world as we knew it couldn't all just end, could it? He looked at his mother.
'Mom, we just need to get to the stadium. The Army will be there. Whatever this infection is, they will contain it and get a cure. All we need to do is get to the stadium and we'll be okay.'
His mother seemed to take some heart at his words and they drove on in silence, their car's headlights providing the only illumination in the dark streets around them.
David had taken a bike he had found abandoned on the roadside and rode it, hoping that the US Embassy could offer some sanctuary. Given the chaos all around him, there was no way to be sure of that, but it was not as if he had any better options. After ten minutes of riding, he realized that it would be suicidal to continue riding in the darkness.
He stopped his bike near what appeared to be a cluster of shops. With his small flashlight, he saw a broken sign saying 'Khan Market'. Not seeing anyone around David figured his best bet was to hunker down for the night, and then proceed in daytime. That was unless the creatures were now active in the day as well. He walked around the shops cautiously, using the night scope on his M4 to watch for any sign of trouble. The market seemed totally abandoned. After a few minutes of walking, he came upon, of all things, a McDonalds. He realized his stomach was
