Wither With Me

CHAPTER 37 - CHARISMA

The projector turned on with a subtle humming noise. The big room was occupied by a crowd of people. All available seating places were taken, they weren't enough for everyone. The air was saturated with unintelligible murmurs and whispers.

Something important must had happened for the head of the hospital to gather them all like that. Hopefulness, skepticism, curiosity... With a wide variety of expectations, all eyes focused on the white screen. A video started playing.

******

The camera is seemingly being carried by an unidentified female running down the street and zigzagging around idle vehicles. It swings heavily from side to side, as if hanging around her neck.

A man is running ahead of her, holding her hand and pulling at her in a state of panic.

"Hurry!! Hurry!!!" he says.

"H-Hold on...!! Honey...!! W-What about...!!?"

"Audrey and Carter will be okay, forget about them!! Come on!!"

The sound of sirens, screams and gunshots can be heard in the distance.

The couple gets past the traffic jam and rushes through a gate in a fence wall. There are more people ahead of them, also running at full speed. The ground is littered with corpses, many of which showcase obvious gunshot wounds. The group passes a sign:

[QUARANTINE CHECKPOINT]

On the other side of the wall, a bridge comes into view. In the middle of the bridge there's a second wall, heavily reinforced and surrounded with razor wire. There's military vehicles and equipment in the area. Human figures can be seen on top of the fortification, but they are too far away to be identified.

"There!!! There's the checkpoint!!!"

"B-But...!! Honey, something's wrong...!!"

The group rushes over more corpses.

When the first ones get about half the way to the outer wall, several gunshots are heard, and they drop on the spot.

"They're shooting...!!!"

"Stop, we're not infected!!!"

"Please, we—!!"

The soldiers on the wall open fire indiscriminately. Among screams, the rest of the survivors start dropping one after another. The woman holding the camera lets go of her partner, and attempts to turn around and run away. The image is shaken up and turns sideways as it crashes against the asphalt of the road. The woman can be heard moaning in pain.

The video is now sped up, showing no signs of movement over the span of one hour, until the camera battery runs out.

...

The video now depicts a different scene. This one seems to have been recorded with a mobile phone.

The cameraman is hiding in a narrow alleyway. There's barely any noise. The city is shown to be in a severe state of abandonment, signifying the depiction of much more recent events.

Out in the open, in the main street, there's a small squad of half a dozen soldiers. Several bloody corpses lay around on the ground.

A man is on his knees in front of one of the soldiers. It's too far away to clearly understand what he's saying, but he's crying and seems to be pleading with the soldier. The soldier ignores him and slashes his throat with a bladed weapon. The man drops, immobile.

The soldier walks closer to one of the corpses. It looks like the person is still alive, and they lift their arms as if trying to cover and protect their face. The soldier finishes them off as well.