Alone

Chapter 1

I could hear them. Sniffing. Growling. Searching. They were looking for me. I had been followed throughout town without my knowledge, and when I discovered them following me, I quickened my pace. I hadn't realized that I had gotten myself into a corner. I heard them coming closer and ducked into a nearby building. I scanned the room I had fallen into for a place to hide, all the while listening as they grew closer and closer. I found a cabinet that I could just fit into and hurriedly fiddled with the handle so I could slide in. It was no easy feat, but I finally managed to shimmy my way in.
* * *

The sickness took everyone. The young. The old. The strong. The weak. Everyone. There was no rhyme or reason to who got sick. The disease spread rapidly, and once you showed symptoms, that was the end for you. You didn't have a chance at survival. Once diagnosed, you were thrown out on the street to fend for yourself, and if you were brave, you'd kill yourself. Death was imminent anyways. One way or the other you were a goner. After the virus, disease, sickness--whatever it was--got a hold of you, it would then make its way to your brain. Once there, it would turn off all rational thinking skills. One would essentially go insane...the rest is, well, history.

I watched as the sickness took my family and everyone I loved, and watched as they went feral and tried to kill me. Yes. That's what it did-it made you kill other people. That is all it did at first...then they started getting hungry. They could no longer think straight enough to look for their own food, so they resorted to eating those they killed. Their hunger was insatiable. People eating people. But they weren't zombies, they didn't raise from the dead and eat our brains, but they weren't exactly people either...they were just "the sick." They ate every part of their victims. Survival was key, and you cherished everyday you found yourself waking up another morning wondering how you even made it through the night before.

* * *

The cabinet was cramped and smelled horrible. I wasn't sure if it was the actual cabinet that smelled or if it was the creatures outside. Of course they smelled, they hadn't taken a shower, let alone cleansed themselves in over a year. I tried to steady my breathing and slow my heart so they couldn't detect me. The disease seemed to have heightened some senses like smell and hearing in them. They didn't seem to be able to see, and as far as I could tell they relied solely on those two senses. Sometimes it was beneficial that they couldn't see, for it was fairly simple to disguise my own scent for only a short amount of time. It was like they knew the difference between diseased and non-diseased blood, like a horse knows what's poisonous and what's not for their bodies.

I heard them start to approach my place of hiding. It was dark and the only thing I could hear was their scratching around and sniffing everything. I prayed that they wouldn't come near. I held my breath, crunched in a ball, and tried not to make a sound. I felt sweat roll down my neck and all the way down my back. Suddenly, I heard a crash from the adjacent room, and whatever it was, disturbed them enough and they went shuffling out of the room. I let out a breath of relief as the last and slowest of them left. I was breathing in short labored breaths and felt the oxygen in my hiding place depleting with each breath. I started kicking at the door and the worse thing that could happen in a situation like that occurred...the door wouldn't open. I was in a panick kicking and wheezing from the lack of oxygen. I started to feel light-headed when, finally, the door swung open. Fresh air flooded my lungs as I coughed and then looked up.

I stared into the faces of my rescuers. There were three of them, two boys and a girl. It's been maybe six months since I had seen another healthy person. I wasn't sure if this was happening. I stumbled out and quickly drew my weapon at the intruders, but maybe I was the intruder. Either way, trusting people in this new world was hard to do. One would think that all the healthy people would want to team up and battle this thing together, but the reality was just the opposite, and everyone turned on one another.

"Easy girl," a boy with a tattered leather jacket spoke up, "we ain't here to hurt ya."

I stayed silent, weapon still at the ready. I wasn't going to let my guard down that quickly. I glanced beyond them at the open door and realized that the sick ones were no longer scurrying around. I examined my three rescuers closer and realized that their weapons--an odd assortment of stakes and swords--had fresh blood on them from a recent battle. I slowly lowered my weapon looking from person to person.

"Who're you?" My voice sounded alien to me, like it didn't belong to me anymore. I was surprised I still knew how to speak to other people.

"My name's Jack, the girl's name is Stacey, and my buddy over there is Luke," the boy in the leather jacket informed me, "And yours?"

"Angie," I said coldly, "thanks for, uh, releasing me."

Jack held up his hand as if to say "it was nothing." "We didn't know what was in there, we were ready to kill whatever jumped out and when we saw you weren't a sickie...let's just say, we were relieved after what happened outside."

"They've been following me for days, I slipped up and they caught up to me, there were too many for just me..."

"They're dead now. We got every one of 'em and chopped 'em up good," Jack stopped me mid-sentence.

Stacey suddenly butt in, "We have to go, the others are gonna smell the carnage from our slaughter and come running."

I was hesitant about going with them. I was just fine living on my own. Large groups were difficult to organize and keep under control. They always fall apart in the end. They bring about their own undoing. I wanted to high-tail out of there. Forget any of this happened. Forget these people. Forget this place. Forget I had almost died from, not the disease, but from suffocation. They stood there staring at me, no doubt wondering if I was going to join them. I made up my mind that I would stay with them until I knew I was safe enough to go back out alone, after all, I knew these streets and my way around pretty easily, additional people would just slow me down and attract more sickies in our direction.

"Well, are we just gonna stand here or are we gonna get outta here before we become a sickie's next meal?" Jack said abruptly. "You comin' with us or not?"

"I, uh, yeah," I finished with certainty.