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The Story:
I’ve never seen them before. The old stories were believable enough. Once they contracted the virus, they would lose individuality and revert to a primal state. They banded together in the darkness, afraid of the world and of each other.
I had to see them.
Caleb opened the door to let me through.
“Remember, don’t touch them.”
I nodded, focused on collecting my courage. Caleb studied me with sympathetic eyes.
“You know, Vics, you don’t have to…”
“Yes, I do.” I looked him in the eyes, “I do.”
If anyone understood, it was Caleb. After what happened to his parents in the early days, he would never forget.
He allowed me to enter and shut the door behind me. I walked over to the stairs, my footsteps echoing loudly through the empty space, and began my descent.
There was a stench coming from the heart of this building, wafting up the stairwell. The place was abandoned, but it seemed to be living and breathing. I turned on my flashlight as I reached the bottom.
The first room was empty, just some debris and a rat that scurried through a hole in the wall. So, I headed toward the second room.
The moment I stepped through the old doorway, I heard loud breathing. Shining my flashlight to the left just inside the door, the light fell on a grotesque human-like face mere inches from me.
He was leaning against the wall, just breathing and staring into nowhere. As I panned my light over the room, I saw remains of human carcasses and several others just huddled together.
Actually seeing them made it impossible to not care about curing them. They were formerly human beings. Biological tampering had birthed an unfortunate contagion that rendered them mindless carnivores. They devoured one another and would viciously attack anyone that touched them.
I had to leave, but as I turned around, my arm lightly grazed the man by the door. He stopped breathing and looked at me. An inhuman growl came from him as his lips curled, revealing his sharp teeth that had been shaped by years of cannibalism.
I made a run for the surface.