The Changed Ones

Six

For the next half hour or so, the entire group was silent in their room. Mark was pacing up and down the room, still traumatized at every moment when he had to kill his friend. Felix decided to break the silence with hopefully words of encouragement.

"Well, we got all the information we needed about these zombies!" Felix encouraged.
"That doesn't bring back Wade now, does it?" Mark harshly responded.

Felix went silent again. Mark finally stopped pacing up and down the room and leaned against a nightstand.

"You should've seen the look on his face..." Mark mumbled. "When I saw him with the gun pointing at him, and when I pulled the trigger." He put his hand to his face. "He didn't want to die..."
"It would've happened eventually, Mark, it's not your fault." Lily assured.
"I know... I just... I should've given him another day!" Mark stuttered.
"He could've been one of them in a day, you never know." Bob said.
"Maybe some people could be immune to bites? Like in The Last of Us?" Sean asked.
"You're not helping!" Mark exclaimed.

Just then, they heard what sounded like a few men yelling. They looked out the window, noticing men wearing protective gear walking down the street.

"Are those the inspectors?" Marzia asked.
"They have to be!" Mark replied.
"What should we do?" Jackie asked.
"We're gonna go down there and tell them what happened that's what they'll do!" Mark asked.
"What if they think we're crazy?" Lily asked.
"Well if they decide to send us all to a mental asylum outside of the city, it's better than being stuck here!" Mark explained.

The group made their way down into the lobby and out into the city where they met up with the inspectors.

"Are you guys the inspectors?" Mark asked.
"Yes, we are." The first inspector answered. "Why aren't you wearing any protective gear?"
"The air is fresh again." Felix responded.
"Okay, well that's great! But we have a lot of work to do." The second inspector explained. "Why don't you two head over to the bridge, tell the officers we sent you!"
"We have to tell you something first!" Mark explained. "It's very important!"
"What could that be?" The first inspector asked.
"There have been... These weird inhuman-like creatures roaming around the city." Mark explained. "It already... Killed one of our friends."
"Well, I'm sorry about your friend, but I highly doubt that's what killed him!" The second inspector said.
"We saw it with our own eyes!" Lily explained.
"Listen, we don't have time to hear these stories, we still have a lot of buildings and streets to inspect, so if you can just--" The first inspector said.
"Frank, look!" The second inspector suddenly interrupted. "It's another survivor!"

Everybody looked at to what the inspector was pointing at. Mark's eyes widened as the creature was walking over towards them.

"No wait, you don't understand that's not a survivor!" Bob told the inspectors.
"Sir!" The inspectors yelled to the creature, running over to them.

A few moment later, the zombie made a loud hissing sound and sent both of the men to the ground.

"We gotta do something!" Lily yelled.
"Shit! We don't have our weapons!" Mark exclaimed.
"Why would you not bring your weapon?" Sean asked.
"I didn't want to bring a weapon and then have us arrested for anything by these guys!" Mark explained.

Suddenly, they turned noticing both guys lifeless on the ground. They had already been bitten and their lives sucked out of them by the zombie. The zombie then turned around, eyeing the group. They made a run for it, to the bridge that was blocked off earlier, but when they got there, a large group of zombies were there, and they had already killed the officers.

"What do we do?" Jackie asked.
"Slowly back away, and then once were out of sight, run!" Mark explained.

The group slowly began backing away. Just as they thought they were out of sight, one zombie saw the group and hissed at them, leading all the other zombies to spot them and go after them too.

The group ran the fastest they could back to the hotel. They were thankfully able to outrun the zombies and they made it back to the hotel, locking the doors behind them. They all paused and took a deep breath.

"THAT was WAY too scary!" Sean said, catching his breath.
"I didn't know there would be that many zombies out there!" Jackie said.
"Does that mean we'll have to fight all of them eventually?" Felix asked.
"No... No we're not doing that!" Mark stated.
"If we wanna get out of here then we probably have to!" Bob explained.
"Alright, but we're not doing that now!" Mark explained. "We're gonna wait it out another day or two, maybe find some sign of survivors, maybe team up with them and fight all of those zombies together!"
"I don't know about that..." Lily explained. "They probably won't be able to trust us and we can't trust them!"
"She's right!" Bob agreed. "They'll probably think we're infected or something!"
"We'll figure out a way to convince them once, or should I say if, we find survivors." Mark explained.

The group was silent for a moment but then finally agreed with Mark's idea. They all decided to go upstairs and rest after running around for the rest of the day.