"Riley? Riley!" The sound of my father's frantic voice roused me from my dream world along with the sound of his fists pounding on my door, nearly breaking it down. "Wake up! Nicole!"
I blinked against the darkness, disoriented, before sliding out of the bed. My feet touched the cold hardwood floor and I shivered before shuffling towards the door, wrapping my arms around myself.
"Coming," I mumbled, stifling a yawn.
Just as I reached the door, the pounding suddenly stopped, replaced by an eerie silence. I paused, pressing my ear against the door.
"Dad?" I whispered, receiving no answer.
My heart thudded against my ribs the longer I waited, but I could hear nothing on the other side.
The door jolted as something rammed into it with enough force to send me stumbling back a little in shock. I watched as whoever, or whatever, continued to work at the door, the hinges beginning to splinter.
The sight of a small hole forming in the wood caused the ice that welded my feet to the ground to melt and I bolted for the window, stumbling over my bed to reach it. The pounding grew fiercer as I fumbled with the lock on the window, my fingers seemingly dumb with fear.
I forced it open just as the door gave way, sending bits and pieces of wood flying. I made the mistake of turning around as I climbed onto the window sill.
It was my dad. But it wasn't.
A low growl emitted from his blood encrusted lips before he lunged for me, fingers curled into claws.
I awoke in a cold sweat, my heart lodged in my throat. I gulped in lungfuls of air and sat up, my fingers digging into the hard soil beneath me. Only when my pulse slowed did I rise to my feet unsteadily.
My stomach cramped from hunger but I couldn't feel it, not really. Since the night before, numbness soaked my body through and through. My thoughts were in a confused tangle. I still didn't understand what had went on.
I gulped, forcing the memory to the back of my mind before focusing on the task at hand.
It didn't take me long to reach the streets. Cars were scattered up and down the roads, doors left open in their owner's haste to get out. Not a single soul could be seen nor heard; overnight, my home had turned into a ghost town.
The sun was already hanging high in the sky so I assumed it was somewhere near 12 in the afternoon.
"What happened last night?" I mumbled to myself, wrapping my arms around my body out of habit. I knew this couldn't have been some type of drug trip; I never touched the stuff, not even when my friends had pressured me to.
I spent maybe five too quiet minutes wandering aimlessly along the abandoned street before I came to an alley way, the sound of dumpsters being tampered with causing a shot of hope to be injected into my heart.
Whoever this was, maybe they could clue me in on what was going on.
I paused in the mouth of alley, spotting a man haunched over near the side of the dumpster, his shoulders shaking beneath dirty grey track jacket he wore.
"Hello?" I whispered timidly, taking a small step back.
For a second, the shaking stopped. Then the man lurched to his feet, turning to face me with a hungry snarl. It was then that the smell reached me. It was worse than awful, like rotten eggs and cow patty mixed with the dumpster scent. Rot.
I shrieked.
Blood stained his entire front, already crusted black on his previously white shirt. There was a chunk missing from the right side of his throat, but no blood oozed from it. His eyes were beyond bloodshot, mixed with the sick yellow color around his pupils.
YOU ARE READING
Infected
Kinh dị"It doesn't matter who we were before all this. All that matters now is surviving." It started with a new virus. No one was quite sure where exactly it had come from, but there wasn't time to try to figure it out either. It ravaged the world, sweepi...
