It hadn't taken long for everything to collapse.
These are the things Malcolm Trisnam contemplated every now and again as he walked down the road. He wasn't sure where he was going at this point.
It had started with the rumors of a cannibal cult in Mexico. People caught chewing human flesh or gnawing through the muscle of someone they just attacked. Just deranged lunatics, most people thought.
Till the reports started drifting further down Central America and to the continent below. Then people began to theorize. Flesh eaters. Undead. Some began to scream about ancient curses and the folly of man. Others said there had to be a way to understand it with science. The conspiracy theories of certain countries developing a bioweapon and testing it in Mexico were prevalent for about three months. They tried to contain it. The world's leaders came together and worked their best to contain it. But there were private citizens across the world who wanted something so ‘exotic’ for themselves and thus paid out the ass to have the infected shipped to them. That's how it got overseas. If you think people couldn't have been dumber? You're dead wrong. The trope of bitten people on zombie media hiding their bites? People actually fucking did that. It made things so much worse.
Malcolm felt his gaze turn skyward, and noted a helicopter trying to stay airborne as it's engine began to give up mid-flight. It's tailspin was inevitable and it soon came down hard behind a nearby building. Survivors. Maybe they could help him. He was hungry, weak from it even. He just needed to get to the damn aircraft.
He remembered the day everything finally went to complete shit. The full scale riots across the planet, politicians abandoning their office via fleeing the public eye or openly ending their lives on camera. From there, the world had dissolved into a twisted mess of survival and carnage.
He could smell the smoke and hear a man struggling in the cockpit. He'd help him out, then barter for some of his stuff. Just needed some food. His stomach hurts from hunger. He could hear other zombies approaching the site. Shit. He'd killed so many of them at this point. Most of them indirectly. He'd do it to save these people if need be. He approached the chopper, seeing that one of the crew was beginning to climb out. Malcolm already had a plan; help this guy, and get a cut of the salvaged cargo.
After all, bartering was the key to survival in this new world.
New World…
The fact that the phrase was thrown around by almost every survivor now, and not just radicalized political nutjobs on college campuses, was almost maddening. But it was accurate. A new world of death, suffering, and nightmares. But it wasn't all bad. There was immunity to the undead plague. Malcolm knew because he'd been bitten saving a young girl the week prior. Bitten, and hadn't turned yet. He'd felt sick for a day or two, then fine.
If he'd taken his gun to his head like he'd planned, the discovery would never have been made. But after getting the girl to the safety of another group, then failing to enact his plan of suicide and subsequently discovering his medical anomaly, he'd had to make the tough decision of going alone. No way was he going to risk people not understanding and trying to execute him! He'd not seen another person since.
He found his progress blocked by a metal fence reinforced with sheet metal. He didn't have the strength to climb that at the moment. Food was scarce, and the virus hadn't been exclusive to mankind. When bands of survivors found their pets turning, or undead bears and bucks charging from tree lines, they'd found the ever-sloping decline of humanity turning into a freefall.
The mice had made it all the worse.
Malcolm found his thoughts drifting back to his family. The family that had been his anchor before hell had opened it's gates and spilled out onto the Earth. His father, the biggest fucking nerd on the planet. Watching a man in his late fifties foaming at the mouth at the chance of own the original Knight Rider car had been an… experience. His mother, so patient with both him and his father's antics. She had been kind, but not above telling him off when he'd act like a fucking fool. His little sister. She barely got time to be an adult. To become her own person outside of the usual high school cliques. He'd long since forgotten their names. He'd driven the knowledge away, desperate for any way to relieve the pain in his heart.
Malcolm remembered the day it happened. The collapse… they were riding through the eye of the storm at that point… and his father had come home pale and complaining of a stomachache. He'd mentioned that there had been a commotion at the relief station where he'd gone for supplies. The military had been more than willing to use lethal force one quite a few people. In the chaos, he'd been with something sharp. Remembering what came next still chilled Malcolm, who had peeled away the man's sleeve to reveal a bite. He'd not had time to speak before his father had descended upon his sister. Teeth and nail opening flesh, swallowing it down. Malcolm had frozen, and that was all it took to allow his father to attack his screaming mother. When her wails of agony had finally anchored him, he'd rushed past the feasting corpse that had been the man who'd raised him. He still sometimes felt the shockwave of the knife that he'd planted in his father's skull.
He was finally yanked back to the present by the sound of a man struggling. Right, the survivor of the crash! He continued circling the area until he found an opening between two sections of fence. The helicopter itself was a mess, part of it was on fire. The struggling man was clawing at the dirt to pull himself out. Malcolm rushed over, ready to help extricate the man from the hunk of metal.
He reached out, getting a firm grip on the man… and holding him in place as he felt his jaw open, drooling heavily.
What? No! What the fuck is this?! He found himself mentally screaming. What was he doing?
The man was openly screaming, and all Malcolm could do was watch as his own body betrayed him. Stop. What am I doing! FUCKING STOP! He continued to scream to his body.
He tasted iron as his teeth sank into flesh. His fingernails were digging like claws to expose more skin. He felt the hunger being sated, and if he had more than just his mind to his own control, he'd have vomited.
A horrifying realization struck him as reality set in. He'd turned… at some point during those two days of feeling sicker than death itself, he'd turned… and was still completely aware of what was going on.
He was nose to gore with his meal. He couldn't pull away. All he could do was look.
Trapped… within the collapse itself.
Written by CaptainCreepyPastaOG
Content is available under CC BY-SA