Seeds Of Hunger

Chapter 10: Dangerous...

Casey and Jameson both took the time to reload their weapons. They had sprinted since leaving Carter and needed a moment to rest. Casey fumbled with the shells and dropped a few. Jameson picked them up and casually handed them back to him.

"Thanks. What's your name, partner?" Casey asked as he started feeding shells into this shotgun.

"Anton Jameson, Sergeant, United States Marine Corps." Jameson smiled, trying to give the young officer some hope. I've been a lot tighter places than this, he was trying to convey to the cop.

"Jack Casey. Nice to meet you. Glad to see you know how to use a rifle." Casey held out his hand as Jameson shook it.

"Two tours in Iraq will make you learn quick." Jameson, said as he set himself as lookout, making sure they weren't being followed.

"What unit were you with?" Casey asked as he racked the shotgun, putting a round into the chamber and making sure the safety was on.

"I was with 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, Alpha Company, 2nd Platoon. My first deployment was in support of Iraqi Freedom back in 2006 and then back to Iraq again in 2008. We kicked a lot of ass and took many names." Jameson said, full of pride as many Marines are.

Casey nodded, "Awesome! I'm really glad to have you with me now. We need to get back to the police station. We can get some supplies and there should be some reinforcements there too. From here, it should be about an hour or so back to the station, depending on if its clear or not." Casey closed his eyes, bringing up his mental map as well. "From here, we can shoot up the highway, turn right on the Maple Street, and from Maple Street its a pretty straight shot back to the station on 1st."

Jameson checked his watch, "Its just bout five o' clock now. The sun will set in about three or so hours. We need to hurry if we don't want to spend a night out in the town."

Casey started walking, "Right, let's go. It should be easy; we drove through there about an hour and a half ago. We can dodge the zombies easily."

Casey and Jameson started walking and only spoke if they needed to. Casey admired Jameson, he was a real pro and didn't let the current situation faze him. That's probably the result of his time in Iraq, Casey thought as they made their way up the street. Casey noticed there wasn't any infected on Maple Street even though Casey and Carter had been through here less than an hour ago. His instincts started telling him something was wrong when Jameson stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his eyes getting wide.

"Jameson what do you-" Jameson grabbed onto Casey's arm and lead him underneath a stairway. Jameson pointed his two fingers at his eyes then pointed down the street, signaling he saw something. The look in Jameson's eyes told Casey that something was definitely wrong. Casey peered down the road until he saw a person standing in the middle of the intersection, a few infected starting to come out onto the street. The infected just shambled about, clueless to whatever the thing in the street was along with them. Casey couldn't tell from this distance but he noticed that the usual grey color of the infected was now a greenish color. The extremities of the infected long, slender and blood red,  the limbs on the infected looked stretched almost, like they were on of the old toys Casey played with as a toddler where you can stretch the arms and they would snap back. But on this zombie, it was as if someone had held it down and stretched him out. The infected's hands were almost dragging on the street as it began to sway back and forth. It lifted its head and Casey saw that its mouth was now changed as well; the jaws no longer apparent but the lips resembled a leech's, pulsating and making a sucking motion. Casey realized that the new infected was making a loud noise like a balloon that was deflating. The creature now started walking, mindlessly, until it bumped into another infected and made a louder sucking noise. The infected raised its two long arms and grabbed the infected piercing the zombie with its long, slender, appendages. It placed it's sucker lips on the exposed neck of the infected and made a horrible sucking noise. The captive zombie started to move, as if trying to escape the grasp of its brother, but soon started to shrivel up. The new infected kept sucking, draining the captive parasite carrier, until it was nothing but a skeleton. The Leech, as Casey started to think of it, released the body of the drained zombie and let it fall, the body hitting the ground with a hollow sound. The Leech started shambling on, mindless of the others., not even registering the other zombies now.

"What the fuck is that thing...?" Jameson whispered to Casey. Casey didn't reply, not knowing what it was either. "Have you seen one of those before?" Casey shook his head.

"No, I've never seen that thing before but I wish I hadn't. Now along with zombies we have vampires zombies." Casey shivered, not wanting to ever go through that.

"It looks like it ate the other one out of hunger. If there's no fresh meat, then they cannibalize the cannibals. Interesting..." Jameson thought, wondering if these things were as easy to put down as the other ones.

"What should we name it?" Casey asked, just to see what Jameson's response would be.

"Fido." Jameson remarked without looking at Casey, feeling that he had been asked that on purpose. Casey stifled a small laugh.

"So now we got zombies and Leeches. I wonder if anything is mutating around here." Casey said, his hands sweaty as he gripped his shotgun closer. They waited until the Leech was out of sight before moving again. The other infected were of no worry as long as they didn't let them get to close. They tried not to fire their weapons as they didn't know if the noise attracted more of them or not; and they weren't in the mood to find out. After an hour of playing leap frog through the streets they made it to 1st Street and the police station was in sight.

"I wonder if Carter made it yet." Casey asked as they walked. Casey did respect Carter tremendously not because Carter trained him but they worked good together and had become fast friends. He hoped that he had made it.

"Let's find out. Why are they're so many police cars?" Jameson asked as he lifted up his M4.

Casey chuckled, "We asked the same thing." Casey and Jameson started to maneuver through the cars, picking a spot in the lot and moving towards it. Casey started to notice a lot more blood than they saw the first time. "Jameson, watch yourself. The blood wasn't here earlier." Jameson nodded and shouldered his rifle as he made his way through the cars. They reached the gate and noticed the tinge of copper in the air; the smell of blood. Casey saw a school bus in the courtyard with bloody handprints along the side of it. Casey was so distracted by the school bus he didn't notice the courtyard was a blood bath until he almost slipped in a puddle of it. Casey and Jameson looked at all the blood but didn't see the bodies that the blood came from.

"Casey, this place didn't look like this earlier did it?" Jameson said, still shouldering his rifle. He saw no immediate threat but the hairs on the back of his neck were as stiff as a board. Every instinct of his told him something was way off but he saw no threat, didn't hear the shuffling of the infected. In fact, he didn't hear anything at all. There was no sound; it was if the area was in mourning. Jameson looked toward Casey who was as white as a ghost.

"Let's check inside, Jameson." Casey's voice cracked as he walked up the stairs. He saw no blood on the door but everything in him told him to find somewhere else to buckle down for the night. He was on the outside of the door his hand on the knob as Jameson took the position on the other side of the frame, his rifle lowered, ready to breach.

Casey signaled with his hands, 1...2...3. On 1, Jameson exploded into the lobby, rifle leveled. He looked around and almost dropped his rifle, with Casey right behind him. Casey stopped and looked around, feeling the bile in his throat.

"Oh my god..."