Pandemic *CANCELLED*

Picking Up the Pieces

A new day a new start. So I've been told. The car had given up on me a long while ago, I drove through the night, but I didn't get nearly as far enough away as I wanted. The car had ran out of petrol so I had to stop and rest somewhere with doors and a lock. I couldn't sleep but at least I was as safe as I could've gotten, but I was ever so hungry. My stomach's rumbling resinated in my head; as the hours went by, so did the call for food. The car had stopped near an old village luckily, convenient for me. I honestly had no idea where this was, so I assumed it was a rural part of Manchester. I trudged down into the valley in the distance.

The village was in sight, but it was quite a long way off, so I had some walking to do. Great. As soon as I moved my leg, I was reminded of the pain, which seemed to have intensified significantly. I dragged my leg out of the car and proceeded to drag it further down the long stretch of the gravelled road. There were no infected around, but I'm sure I could've blended in with them with the way I was walking. I smiled to myself finding it quite amusing. I carried on at a steady pace, trying to move my mangled leg as little as possible so as to not cause myself anymore pain. 

After what seemed like forever and a half, I arrived at the village and upon arrival, I was met with at least a hundred infected. I had heard them from a short distance away before I arrived at the edge of the town itself, but it didn't sound like there were as many as there clearly were here. I walked steadily, all the while trying to figure out how to approach the situation I was about to put myself in. I was in desperate need of bandages, disinfectant and more importantly food. It was impossible to tell when I was going to pass somewhere like this, so this wasn't an option, I had to do this. But the only thing was, I had no weapons or means of self-defence. If I was bitten, I was dead.

As I approached the village, the groaning grew louder as I got closer. I tried to make the least amount of noise possible so as to not attract the infected. Crouching down behind a broken wall, I spied the premises. There was no safe way in. Unarmed, injured ands tired, the odds weren't exactly in my favour, but I needed to get in. I shuffled over to the gap in the wall where all the bricks had been smashed apart. The smell hit me first, a rancid, acrid taste hung in the air. Was this the smell of the infected. Up until now, I had never really paid any attention to them, their movements, smell, sounds, thought processes, it had never occurred to me that they could have distinct features. That could've been because they look human, or because they used to be uninfected. But this smell that burned my nostrils was so pungent and repulsive I couldn't believe how I didn't pay attention to it before. 

I observed further waiting for the slightest opening I could take. I moved around the village, under the cover of the walls, trees and shrubs. Finally I'd found the back alley between two buildings, after crossing the arid wheat field. I moved in, sliding carefully and being as quiet as I could possibly be. I peered around the corner, before dragging my leg out into the open. The coast was clear, so now it had to stay that way. The door to the building next to me was wide open, so I dived in and shut the door behind me. It was a small house and probably home to some old guy with a shotgun... Or at least I hoped. I rushed into the kitchen, checking all the cupboards, the fridge, the freezer. There was some out-dated milk, a loaf of mouldy bread and half-eaten cheese. The good stuff had been taken. I found a small flower pot, blocked off the bottom with a broken plate I had found and proceeded to fill it with the milk. I was in desperate need of some liquids as well as food. The cheese had gone hard at the edges so I picked off as much as I could and tore off the mouldy parts of the bread. It all tasted like piss, but what else was I supposed to do, starve? Not an option. I continued to search the cupboards for anything else. There was spilt bleach under the sink and, a sponge in one of the sides. It was hopeless.

I hauled myself up the stairs, noticing he fragility of the structure. Someone had attempted to smash the stairs through to prevent anyone getting in. But it also stopped anyone getting out unhurt. The landing was eerily quiet, quite a contrast to the ruckus outside on the street. I moved carefully into the bathroom. Everything had been cleared. Someone had even taken the curtain rod from the shower. I checked the cupboards with no luck. I turned and stared at myself in the full-length mirror. It was cracked, so I'd come to the conclusion that I'd get seven years of bad luck. Well... it's not like it could get any worse than this. I looked dishevelled and broken, to be honest, I looked like a sanitarium patient after shock therapy. I looked like complete shit, almost inhuman. I punched at the crack, and fragments started to fall off. I felt a sharp pain in my knuckle and looked down to find a piece of glass sticking out of my hand. An idea flooded over me: I could use the mirror shards. Using the pieces on the floor, I attempted to pick off bigger shards that would be of more use.

After countless scratching and pointless moaning, a razor-sharp piece of mirror produced itself, falling with a clink to the ground, over all the other pieces. I picked it up and held it, judging its weight and size. It wasn't particularly large, but it was big enough to shiv someone in the neck and buy some time. Pleased with my discovery, I walked out into the corridor and pushed open one of the doors, which revealed a child's bedroom.

The room was decorated a sombre blue colour, with tiny rockets filling the walls. A loft-bed sat heavily lopsided; half of it was slumped over the desk underneath it. The rest of the room was completely demolished. Ripped clothes were strewn all over, the wardrobe was smashed to pieces and there was a thick coating of blood splattered all over.

I moved out and into the master bedroom. Where the bodies were. Three blood-stained carcasses lay on the double bed in the middle of the room. I stared, unmoved by the horror in front of me. Three deaths that not even the virus could bring back. The smallest body was in the centre, a small boy's body was in a kneeling position over the bed. His head was tilted backwards, mouth was open and eyes had undergone decomposition. The skin was gray and death surrounded him and his parents. Two larger bodies were either side of the boy. The largest had fallen to the ground, the mouth hung open and the eyes were practically non-existent, like the boy's. This one was clearly a male with a bullet in his head, no doubt the three had each been killed in a different manner. Finally the third body was positioned like the child, except the head rested on clasped hands. The face was nondescript, all features obscured and twisted into nothing. I gripped the shard tightly in my hand, letting the blood run. So now I had to be wary of humans too. It was obvious someone had killed them, infected may be able to "hunt in packs" but they're not capable of assigning roles? They kill and they eat, that's all.

I trudged back downstairs and opened the front door to find a shotgun pointed in my face.

"Admiring my art are we?"