Cancerous

Poison

The Earth had become very ill. The air was toxic, it rotted the lungs and caused the skin to slowly peel away. The water was all but poison, fish that weren't dead swam with lethargy, feeding on the carcasses of dead animals. Trees quivered and died within a breath, leaves turning black and seeming to turn to ash as the wind hit them just slightly too hard.

The world was dying. There was nowhere to run and people screamed as cities were burned by those who only wanted the end to come sooner. Monsters from the deepest depths of hell rose from these fires, devouring the living and the dead, tearing their souls from them, drawing all the life from the planet.

She was dying. Was there a cure?

Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't but Sam was gonna find it. He had every intention of traveling to the corners of the Earth and back to find whatever cure their might be, or simply to slaughter the soul sucking monsters that emerged from its every crevice. There was no "resistance" built, it was just him wandering the streets with a baseball bat and a gas mask along with a decent sized knife. He found the bat had served him better than the knife, and the mask was needed for obvious reasons along with keeping as much of his skin covered at all times as possible. He was anything but immune to the poison in the air but he found it had begun to irritate him less over time, though he definitely sported some splotchy scars now.

It couldn't have been later than four in the afternoon when he went to make his "rounds" about the city, time was nearly impossible considering the sky was a purply red all the time and the position of the sun was impossible to discern. It could have been midnight for all it mattered but it wasn't like Sam was afraid of being out here. So he made his way along, doing his best to avoid being anywhere where he would easily be spotted from above. There were no resistances but people had banded together and simply become The Cannibals as Sam so affectionally called them. Being spotted and hunted by one of those didn't sound like a dandy time to him.

As if on cue there was a horrified scream from one of the side streets, and Sam gave considerable pause. 'Its probably a trap.' He reasoned, except the scream had sounded far too genuine. If he went down that way tomorrow and some poor kid was disemboweled he'd feel awful, he wouldn't sleep right for weeks. "Why doesn't everyone carry a fucking bat?" Sam pushed the gas mask firmer into his face before bolting off, sliding over the hoods of wrecked cars with ease as he advanced towards to sound of the screaming.

Near the end of the side street stood one of those monsters. It -he?- looked as though it could have been a man at one point. It had the vague body of a man, large and muscular with the head of some sort of dog. Its fingers curves into sharp claws and Sam could see the monster was pinning someone to the wall, a boy about his own age who was screaming and crying defenselessly.

Sam drew the knife he carried and hurled it at the creature and to say he missed would have been too flattering. The blade had spun and veered completely off course like a total train wreck. The blade smacked into a nearby trash can though, and the monster snapped it head up from its soon-to-be kill, giving Sam no time for embarrassment.

"Aw shit," Sam muttered under his breath. The knife would have been nice to have now that he thought about it. Lost in the heat of the moment, he supposed. He went for the bat strapped to his back and grinned lazily. "Come on ya mutt!" His words were muffled but he didn't really even know if the dogman knew what he was saying.

He must have, because dogman gave a ferocious snarl before lunging towards him, abandoning his current toy to make for Sam.

Dogman was on him in a second and Sam swung the bat just fast enough toe catch it in the jaw, sending spittle and blood flying everywhere. He took a hurried step back to avoid claws lashing out at him and swung the bat again, slamming it into dogman's nose. The creature howled and snarled before lunging forward, tackling him to the ground. Sam screamed out of surprise as his back crashed into concrete, suddenly dogman had the upperhand and the only thing keeping his teeth from clamping down on Sam's head was the bat he was using to defend himself.