Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG

Chapter 49: A New Type Of Infected?

Flies buzz over the walking corpse as it stumbles its way down the empty street in search of food.

In search of prey.

A noise to the left draws its attention to a small department store, the door hanging wide open.

It carelessly barges its way inside and breathes in the air, its rotting lungs exuding the thick stench of death and decay as it lets out a breath. It continues on towards the source of the sound but is met face to face with another.

This one is different though.

This one carries a knife and, with quick efficiency, kills the walking corpse with a stab to the skull.

Dead once again.

_

You grumble as you make your way down the street. You're wearing a black hoodie and a pair of your usual camo trousers. You had to scavenge yourself a new shirt after what happened at Fort Summer but the only one you could find is a slightly oversized white shirt, not exactly a suitable colour for fighting the infected but it'll make do. 

How long until it's red with blood?

You chuckle at that thought. You've tried to avoid the infected as much as possible since leaving Fort Summer but you can't help imagining that any moment you're gonna be face to face with a horde or something else equally ridiculous.

You went to the stash Anderson talked about in his final moments, an apartment in a small nearby town. He was right about there being some food and water. Unfortunately, it's all gone now and all you have left is the stuff in a military backpack, another item that was found at the apartment stash.

It has a Union Jack patch on it and also has the name "James" sewn onto the inside.

You don't have any idea who James is though.

As you walk further down the street, you hear a clanging noise coming from a run down department store and decide to take a closer look. From the outside it doesn't actually look too bad. The big glass windows on the front are mostly intact and the front door to the store is wide open, blowing around slightly in the wind.

As you're low on supplies, you decide that the store is worth investigating so take a step inside. The air around smells of mould and mildew, hinting to you that there isn't going to be anything worth taking; but that same clanging noise you heard earlier starts up again from deeper into the store. Unwilling to leave until your curiosity has been killed, you move further inside.

You do a quick check on the shelves as you walk past to see if there's anything worth taking, there isn't, you do however spot the source of the sound; a can attached to a string which is repeatedly rocking back and forth hitting itself against the wall and a shelf. Your eyes follow the string, trying to find the source of it, find what's making the can hit the wall.

You follow the string, which takes you behind the counter, and find yourself face to face with one of the infected, who's bound to a chair with rope and duct tape, it's arm attached to the string. Every time it moves its arm, the string tugs on the can, making a noise which causes the infected to struggle against its binding which in turn, makes it move its arm. It's an endless cycle.

You put on your mask and take a step towards the infected, putting it out of its misery with your machete, and wiping the blood off before sheathing it. "What kind of sick fuck does this?" you mutter quietly to yourself.

You don't have time to answer this question as the door to the back room swings open and in strides an infected.

Holding a knife.

It looks at you and stands still, your eyes widen as you try to comprehend what's going on. 

Is this a new type of infected?

"Hello?" you ask it.

It just stares at you, menacingly.

You hand slowly reaches down for your machete and you gently begin to tug it out of its sheath. The infected sees this and grabs an empty can off the floor, lobbing it at your face. You duck and watch as the infected sprints to the back door. In anger you give chase, diving through the door and bounding after the surprisingly fast infected through the back alleys.

The infected clumsily clambers over a barbed wire fence, allowing you to easily catch up and expertly climb over. You're almost in arms reach now. It turns down another alley and stops dead in its tracks. A dead end.

It spins around and begins to back away down the alley, swinging its knife at you whenever you get too close. You stop advancing on it and wait for it to hit its back against the building behind it before doing anything.

"You going to put the knife down?" you ask in a calm, and slightly menacing manner.

It doesn't reply and, if anything, seems to clutch the knife in a tighter grip. You sigh and sheathe your machete, opting to pull out your pistol. It's empty but the infected thing doesn't know that.

"Shit, shit, shit. Chill man!" the infected blurts out rapidly, dropping its knife and ripping its face off revealing it to be a mask.

"Please don't tell me you're wearing the face of an actual infected" you say disgusted at him, "Like, what the actual fuck?".

"Please man, look!" the guy begs, "My name is Charlie, I seriously mean you no harm, please let me live!".

You study his face, he's a Korean-American, slightly shorter than you but probably your age, but more importantly, he looks like he's telling the truth. He doesn't want to harm you, probably.

"Why the fuck are you wearing that mask?" you ask him.

He scoffs and points at you, "I could say the same thing you know!".

You move your finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger itself.

"Okay, okay!" he gulps, "I'm part of a group who live among what you call the infected, we use the masks so they don't attack us".

You almost burst out laughing, "I'll give you and 'A' for effort" you reply, "But tell me the fucking truth".

"It's true!" he says, panic cutting through his voice.

"That's bullshit. You're just making stuff up, you're stalling" you say harshly, taking a step towards him. You want to kill him, it's the only way to guarantee your safety, but to do that you'll have to get close to him.

"No, you're right" Charlie says, the panic leaving his voice, "I was stalling. But I was also telling the truth". He nods behind you and you turn, seeing a group of similar age boys wearing those ridiculous masks and holding homemade spears.

You let out a sigh and consider your options, they've cut off the entrance to the alleyway so there isn't a whole lot you can do. Just then, an absolute beast of a man pushes his way through the boys. He's easily well over 6ft tall, and his mask, cuts off half way, allowing a thick but dirty beard to hang raggedly off his face.

"You will drop your gun" his deep voice booms, "Or feel the wrath of the Whisperers".

This didn't feel like much of a choice, especially considering the gun doesn't even have any bullets, so you drop it to the floor, kicking it over to him.

"Good" he bellows before turning to the boys, "Tie him up, Alpha will want to meet this specimen".