Zantanium

The Bloody Man

The air was warm in the small city Chicago, I always enjoyed the approaching summer weather. My brother Murphy walks beside me, slowly browising into stores.

Murphy was younger than me but played the role of the mature "older" brother. No doubt he got his confidence from dad. I however was the black sheep of the family, I had long blonde hair and a short body frame, never fully reaching the slender heights of the rest of the family.

"Stephanie, in here" Murphy calls walking towards a small shop that held mom's favorite perfume.

I began walking when a man ran into me, nearly knocking me onto the ground.

"Jesus Steph you okay?" Murphy asked looking towards the direction of the man

"yeah I'm fine, I must've not been paying attention" I say meekly.

When we entered the store, I automatically ran towards the sample clerk, it was a childish habit but I loved the sweet smells. From the corner of my eye I could see my brother standing with an expression that stated she's adopted. I laughed slightly to myself and went back to browsing. After making a selection we walked out of the small store.

When we began walking down the cobble stone sidewalk I noticed a panic expression on a woman's face and instantly got a disturbing gut feeling, Murphy sensed this and pulled me to where I was standing behind him. In the distance a couple of female screams were heard and made my blood turn ice cold.

"What's going on?" I asked peaking around my brothers shoulder

"I'm not sure" his voice sounded far more scared than mine.

We continued to walk when we noticed several people running towards us in a panic, Murphy quickly pulls us into an ally before the stampede approached.

"I'm scared" I whispered, my brother looks at me and nods his head "I am too" he whispers back. When the crowd started to shorten we emerged from the ally. We began to see another man, he walked with a limp and had blood all over his face. Then came that feeling again, that horrible gut feeling. I began to back away. "Murphy, let's go" I say motioning for him to walk with me. He holds up a finger and slowly walks towards the man. "Sir? Sir do you need any help" my brother asked in a serious tone, the kind of tone he uses when I enter his room without permission. As soon as Murphy said the last bit of his sentence the man started sprinting at us, "Stephanie run!" He yells grabbing my hand, I began to run ocassionally looking over my shoulder at the bloody man.

My heart was pounding and my legs were starting to ache, I wasn't use to this and I felt my sides hurting as I violently took in oxygen. We kept running until we were at the small shop again, we ran inside and I collapsed as soon as my feet hit the shag carpet. "What was that" I said in between breaths "I don't know, you stay here and I'm gonna go get help" Murphy says walking towards the counter. I got up from where I was sitting and looked out the window, people were screaming and wrecks were happening, suddenly a man carrying a woman entered the store, I looked at them horrified as I saw the woman with a gash on her leg "what happened" the sells clerk said helping the man set the woman down on the couch.
"We heard the screams in our car, we didn't know what was going on until we seen a man attacking someone in the car beside him. Me and my wife got out to maybe try and help and he fell to the ground, my wife Sandra had walked over and that's where he grabbed her leg and and bit it" the man's voice sounded hysterical and confused and quite frankly so was everyone else. We all exchanged looks after he had explained how a man bit his wife. I walked over to Murphy, our eyes exchanged terrifying glances as we ourselves tried to process his bizarre story.

"Let me get this straight, you said he bit her? As in he grabbed her leg and just started gnawing on it?" Murphy asked looking at the woman's leg "believe me this is just as crazy for me" the man said holding his wife's hand. The woman didn't move for a while, judging by the blood on her leg she looks like she lost a lot. "I'm sorry we never caught your name" the sells clerk said looking in disbelief "you didn't, it's Jason" they shook I and then went back to staring at the woman. "Stephanie" my brother calls, motioning me to come towards him "I think we need to call mom and dad or at least try to go back out there" "go back out there, I'm not sure if you got a good look of that woman's leg but there is no way I'm going out there" I said angrily. He nods and walks towards the phone, he placed the phone to his ear and sets it back down "it's broken" he says looking towards the door. I sighed and sat down on the floor. "I know you said you don't want to go back out so why don't we just stay here until it's safe" he says plopping beside me. I nod and rest my head on his shoulder before closing my eyes.

When I woke up I heard yelling, Murphy wasn't beside me and I felt my heart race, I ran into the small opening where I found Murphy and Jason trying to fight off an angry looking Sandra, she had a mixture of blood and foam, her leg was oozing a greenish slime and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like the bloody man that tried to attack us. "Sandra" Jason called to his wife, grabbing her by the shoulder, when she felt Jason's touch she stopped, everything and everyone stopped to stare. That's when it happened she lunched toward Jason and began attacking him rapidly biting at his skin. I began to feel sick as Jason's screams filled the room. We all were froze in our tracks until we heard a loud bang fill the room. It was the sells clerk and he shot Sandra where she now laid on top of a very much dead Jason. I felt my eyes water as I looked at the dead couple who's blood turned the white carpet into a crimson. Murphy ran over to me, pulling me into a tight hug where he too was trying to figure out what happened.

Everything was quiet except for the alert sound on the stores radio "This is breaking news, we just received word on a cannibal outbreak. People have been reporting violent acts of citizens that are trying to attack them, we advise that everyone lock there doors and windows, do not go outside until we are for certain what is going on and just how potentially dangerous this may be"

Cannibal outbreaks? "Great so now we have thousands of Jeffery Dahmer's running around" the sells clerk says when the radios alert goes off. "It isn't just here" I say looking up at Murphy "we got to get home" Murphy says running his hands through his brown hair. I nod and look back at the bodies lying on the ground. "This is crazy" I say opening the door to the now deserted town.