“Daryl, I don’t-“
“I know,” I replied. “You don’t want to die, but-“
“No, it isn’t that, well yeah that is part of it, but,” she let out a long breath, “but I don’t want to become one of them, the freaks.” I had never seen more fear in her eyes than when she said freaks. That’s what they were, freaks. The mindless murdering machines that marched without an end or care. They kept going without hesitation in order to achieve their goal: to feed.
When the convoy came, they told us about what caused the contamination, though they were not sure of the entire details themselves. It was an extremely resistant parasite virus. It was not one or the other, but an actual parasite virus. It lived as an actual creature, but infected its host as a virus would. They lived off of moisture, but not any moisture. The one thing that they needed was blood, enough blood to operate the main functions of the spinal nervous system, or the brain. The reason that the parasite virus was so successful was because it duplicated off of the oxygen in the blood of humans. It fed off of blood, and was able to duplicate itself endless times in order to gain full control of the body. Once in control of the nervous system, it could do whatever it wanted with the body. Due to the need of moisture, it is hypothesized that the parasite virus spread from a water supply.
This is how the contaminated body moved when under extreme duress. If you shot off an arm, the parasites in the body were still alive to move the rest of the body as if it was unharmed. The parasite virus did not feel the pain of the body, but instead it felt the lack of blood being given to it. Under normal conditions, just this was not enough to give an actual scare to any government. The problem would normally be quarantined while a cure for the disease was found. But this was nothing close to normal conditions.
Once in control, the parasite virus released a toxin into the bloodstream. This toxin created a huge amount of testosterone and other chemicals, giving the body extreme strength and abilities not normally found in a human. Given the situation of knowing who was and was not contaminated proved an interesting dilemma when a family awoke to screams of a loved one tearing into the chest of another, and not how you are thinking.
Overall, this kind of shit sucked big time. Unfortunately, that was not the worst of it. This faction of people emerged once the contamination broke out. I don’t’ know what else to call them, but I jokingly named them the CRU, or Contaminated ‘R’ Us. Okay, it’s not proper grammar, but people are barely alive, I think they’ll forgive me.
The CRU would go around and give everyone nervous fits. They started off as a small group of strange nerdy people, but many eventually grew into their own organized faction with a good number of members. The CRU encompassed people from all types, religious, nerdy, stupid, and more! The CRU is the single reason that the military could not stop the contamination from spreading around the world.
They are devious people, and quite frankly, assholes. The CRU would purposely get infected, believing that they were contributing to a higher purpose or betterment of people. Once infected, they would roam around the military quarantines and essentially suicide bomb military personnel by making attempts at contaminating them. They used different tools to contaminate them: bloody knives, blood bombs, syringes, it was nuts. There were also those who would sneak past the military guarded areas, aka the safe zones, through an unguarded wood or sewer pipes just to get into the uninfected areas. Once inside they would try to contaminate whoever was within reach and move to the next person in line.
This was Chelsea’s fate as of now. Someone had broken through the military guard, assuming there still was one, and contaminated Chelsea. She now had the parasite virus flowing through her veins. The only positive was that it could not be contaminated through saliva. This is why the CRU was also referred to as the ‘Red Mouth.’ They would cut apart the insides of their mouth with a blade so that they were bleeding from the gums. This allowed them to break the skin of their target quite easily and transfer some of their blood, as if they were the opposite of a vampire.
“What if,” she began before catching her voice. Chelsea wanted to live, and I couldn’t blame her for it. Being bitten by a random person was such a shitty way to death’s door. What was worse was that I would have to smash her face in with a baseball bat in order to do it, not a very pleasant or painless way to go.
I looked down on her. I didn’t want to beat her face in with a baseball bat. Besides, it felt like I was murdering an innocent girl, not something that I am morally okay with. “Maybe you aren’t contaminated,” I began, and then looked to her shoulder where she was bit. Blood had begun to crust over the wound. It was not a deep break of the skin, but it was too risky to allow. “I have some rubbing alcohol under the sink-“
“Don’t be stupid, Daryl,” I could hear the shakiness in her voice now. “If all it took was rubbing alcohol, then I don’t think this would be a national crisis.”
“We can still try!” I do not know why I did not give up. It was a hopeless situation and I thought I knew it