Monsters Among Men || Calum Hood

Chapter One: Fate

I remember when the world fell apart.

July 7th, 2018.

Monsters disguised as people stalked the streets, attacking and ripping and killing anyone in sight.

In the beginning, I had no idea that they were already dead. I had no idea that she was already dead when I killed her. I truly thought that I had taken her life for weeks; knowing that the virus had taken her spiritually from the world before I had taken her physically would have helped me on those first couple of nights, but fate was not that kind.

My mom.

My sweet, wonderful, loving, caring mom.

She was the woman that comforted me through my first break up, that pushed me on the swings as I shouted "Higher! Higher!" when I was five even though she was exhausted from work, the one that sang me lullabies as a baby and cradled me through the lone hours of the morning, the one that I could tell anything and everything to and would have nothing but kind words to say back.

And now her hot, crimson blood was dripping down my no longer innocent hands which gripped the blade that had pierced her skull over, and over, and over again.

Her blood was not just on my hands.

It was everywhere. On the walls, the carpet, my clothes, even the ceiling; nothing was left untainted by her death that day.

I remember hyperventilating, the panic, and the disgust. I remember the bile that rose in my throat and splashed at my feet. Bright green mixed with dark red.

I couldn't move. My eyes were locked on her mutilated corpse and refused to look away.

I did this. This was my fault.

The pounding of grief in my ears made me neglect to hear the moans echoing throughout my house and the rapid footsteps approaching fast. When the monster burst into the living room, I jumped in fright, backing away as quickly as I could. But I could only retreat so far before my back met a bookcase while it kept coming, closer and closer with gnashing teeth and hungry hands.

With no other option, I shot forward and kicked him straight in the chest, stopping him in his tracks before lunging at him with my knife.

The threat of death was an incredible motivator.

His arms lashed out and knocked my arm away, making me lose my hold on my knife. The hard thud as it hit carpet resembled the feeling of my stomach as it dropped to my knees, and it took everything I had to jam my arm under his chin into his neck, using nothing but my strength to hold him back and keep his rabid jaws away from my soft flesh.

My mind raced for something, anything, that would be able to get me out of this situation alive, but I drew nothing but blanks. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't even notice him until a sharp blade that wasn't mine sliced through the man's head, cutting it clean in half. Hot blood splashed against my face before the monster collapsed at my feet, dead.

I struggled to catch my breath, but despite it being everywhere, my lungs found none.

It was all too much.

My mother lying limp just a few feet away. The dead man at my feet. The feeling of blood... everywhere... surrounding me. And the smell. God the smell was revolting. Pungent and warm and rancid.

It was all. too. much.

The room began to fade and I was falling, but a pair of strong arms caught me before I could land on the blood-stained floor, and then everything went black.

~~~

Waking up, I hoped that it was all a horrible nightmare. But when my eyes focused on the red of the ceiling, I knew it was real. A living nightmare. Tears began to form in my eyes but before they had the chance to fall, a deep voice broke the silence.

"It's about time. You had me worried, Mils."

His voice was so familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I should have known him then and there; there is only one person that has ever called me that.

Maybe it was the trauma that made me forget.

When I finally let my eyes travel from the ceiling to my savior, I couldn't help the tears that fell and the rush of relief.

He was alive.

My body moved before my mind was ready and I only managed a couple steps before I was falling again, but his arms were ready and I fell into him again and I felt safe.

He was my safety net.

Before the beginning of the end, he was my other half. We were inseparable. Best friends since birth.

After the beginning of the end, he was my everything. My reason for fighting so hard. The only light in this horrible fucking world.

He was my safety net and I was his. We fell into each others arms after nights that were too hard, when innocents were enveloped by death, or we came too close to it. We trusted nobody but each other, because this was the end times, and people that were still people could be monsters, too.

I wouldn't be alive months after that first day if it weren't for him, and he wouldn't have made it this far without me either.

The moment he drove his machete into my attacker, our fates were sealed.

But fate was not, and never will be, kind.