Chapter 1
She’d been bit. The start of the problem was mere weeks ago and my girlfriend of three weeks and two days was primed and ready to begin her flesh eating career.
Some psycho freak bit her, but the worst part was that she knew exactly what she was doing when she contaminated Chelsea. Right on the shoulder, in almost an affectionate way. It was something that could have been hot in some strange porn straight out of Japan. Unfortunately for millions of horny pinched eyed teenagers, Chelsea was near guaranteed dead.
The crazy psycho bitch snuck into my backyard and took a chunk out of my girl. Needless to say, my full aluminum thirty-two ounce Rawlings baseball bat connected with her skull to create the second ‘shot heard ‘round the world.’ The bitch’s head splattered, her weakened cells exploding at the force of my swing, dying the silvery aluminum fifty shades of crimson blood.
I would say that her remaining body fell, but it didn’t. It dropped, or flopped, whichever gives the better image. The bitch was no longer any part of the living or the dead, and the remaining human race was better for it. Any person who became purposely contaminated do not deserve to walk amongst people.
It’s not as if it mattered anymore. Chelsea was just the next person on the killing block, and she knew it.
The plague had already taken any of her family living within five hundred miles of Peckon Fields of North ‘Jersey, and there had been no contact with anyone on the Pacific coast since the initial contamination took place over three weeks ago.
I was all that she had left, her boyfriend of three weeks and two days. Yet, she was all that I had too.
My whole family had safely made it to secure centers, but I was still in what was considered a contaminated zone. My mother and two younger brothers were in school when the contamination happened. Since schools and hospitals were the first to get to secure centers, they were fine. My father was able to directly leave the architectural job he was working on and, after numerous times of telling him that I would be okay, he was able to reach a secure center as well.
It was at this point that I was left with my grandmother and Chelsea at my home, as the governor had warned all people to wait in their locked homes until military help arrived. It finally did, a week after the announcement. Chelsea and I elected to stay behind in order to let others have their chance at leaving the town. Besides, we had not seen any of the contaminated since the announcement, and we had the entire house to ourselves. The military truck that arrived also said two weeks ago that it would be back in three days for those that remained. They lied.
And Chelsea stood in front of me, her dirty blonde hair blowing in the light fall breeze. Her bright and innocent twenty year young eyes gazed from fear into my own, a desperate tear struggling down her cheek.
Her slender arms wrapped around my neck in full embrace. I slid my arms around her gentle waist in response, my fingers brushing against the curves of her body. As we hugged, I realized that it was probably the last time that we would be together. I also became suspiciously aware of her now contaminated mouth buried in the crease of my neck, and its position in relation to my jugular.
Alas, for Chelsea’s last moments, I held myself together, managing not to flinch at the thought of her ripping out the flesh surrounding my neck with her teeth pulling away muscle and tendon gushing with warm and sticky blood. I was glad that she kept the biting to the bedroom.
It was consoling, at the moment, when the hug ended and she took a step back from where I stood. I could not tell if she knew what I had to do. Her small hands lowered to her sides, sliding the thumbs into her pockets.
She finally looked up to me, “So, what now, Daryl?”
I stared into her eyes. She was damn cute, especially when sad. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I knew where this had to go. “I think we know what has to happen,” I barely choked out.
Her face flinched. She was holding back a complete breakdown. Chelsea’s normally bright pink lips had turned a darker shade of pale blue. Whether it was part of the transformation or her fear of the upcoming event, I don’t know. “Chels,” I started but couldn’t finish.
I had slain a few of the contaminated before, and only a few of the partially contaminated, such as the crazy bitch who bit my girlfriend. Killing these things had been nothing new to me since the contamination had started, and after it had gotten worse about a week ago. I tallied three contaminated and two crazy bitches killed by my hands, all to protect a dying person standing before me. Killing the contaminated and threatening was one thing, but killing a person who drew the shit straw at the end of someone’s cruel joke was another. The bitch knew that she was contaminated. The bitch knew that she was carrying a deadly infecting disease. The bitch was trying to spread it for her cruel game.
I clutched the Rawlings bat as tightly as my numb hands would allow. I knew what I had to do, and it was right in front of me. Killing Chelsea with a baseball bat seemed inhumane, though these were inhumane times.
There had been no word from the government since the military convoy had left my small town. Communication had been cut in order to save energy and keep strict contact intact for military personnel and emergency police. I hadn’t heard from any of my family in
