Chapter 2

After treading through the mountainous terrain of rural Colorado for three hours, the four decided to stop for a rest before heading back to the camp. They didn't have enough time to make it to the top but was high enough to observe the top-down view of the greenery below while enjoying the fresh, pine-scented breeze that the mountain offers. Hiking can be a wonderful experience as long as you are cut out for extended walks, and clearly, Kate wasn't too into it, her legs started to give out and the pair of jeans she wore was extremely uncomfortable.

Why did I even think about hiking? Movie night would have been a much better choice, Kate thought to herself, but she didn't regret the decision because, after all, she got to spend quality time with Trevor, the person whom she had been having a crush on for the past three months. It all started on one faithful day when they first exchanged looks, it was not exactly love at first sight, but since then, her feeling for him kept growing every day, the way he smiled, the way he talked, his caring demeanors to those around him, those are the thing that made him precious in Kate's eyes. And before she realized it, she had fallen head over heels for him, his presence alone made her feel butterflies and every time he smiled, her heart skipped a beat. But she had to play it cool or else she would come off as a total creep, she thought.

"So Trevor, what do you do for fun these days?" Kate asked, wanting to start another conversation.

Trevor looked at the sky absent-mindedly for a bit, thinking before opening his mouth. "Not much nowadays, oh, Me and Eric have this new thing where we just watch really bad movies and make fun of them. Well... it might not sound like fun, but I swear it does. Right, Eric?" Trevor turned to Eric, looking for backup.

"Yeah dude." Eric gave a passing remark and turned his attention back to his game console, he has this thing where he only looked ahead once every four steps and spent those steps playing his game with little to no concern for safety. It was actually impressive how he could walk like that for the entire hike without tripping over a rock or something.

"How about you? What have you been up to these days?" Trevor inquired.

Whenever he said her name, Kate's heart started melting and she couldn't help blushing. "Um... I've been knitting... It's not that interesting of a hobby but it helps pass time. I'm not that good...But...but if you want, I...I can knit you something." She stuttered, covering her face to hide the blush.

"I never have anyone knitted for me before, " Trevor confessed. "It does sound kinda nice I'm not going to lie."

Things were actually working out between Trevor and Kate, they were getting to know each other. Beth was happy for her friend, but being happy didn't make her immune to boredom and she couldn't talk to anyone during the hike, Trevor and Kate were a no go so there was only one option left, Eric, but he was rather obsessed with his video game and didn't seem to be interested in talking. "Well, can't hurt to try." Beth sighed, making her way to Eric, upon closer inspection, he was holding a game boy advance, an older console.

"Eric, right? I'm Beth," Beth greeted, this was the first time they ever chatted, well, only if Eric decided to reply that it. "What are you playing?"

"Pokemon," Eric answered, he looked at Beth, who was trying her best to be friendly for a second, then averted his gaze. "It's a game where you can catch monsters and make them fight." Eric saved his game, started a new game, and gently, planted the console in Beth's hand like it was his most prized possession, startling Beth as their hand touched, Eric, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice and was pretty casual about it. "Here, you can try it."

"Oh, okay." Beth accepted the offer hesitantly, she had watched a couple of episodes from the anime but had never played the games so she was kinda curious, also, it's would have been impolite to refuse.

The control was simple enough for Beth to get a hang of without much of a struggle. "This one is kinda cute." She said casually, picking one of the starter pokemon, which was a Bulbasaur, After playing for a bit more, she was invested, Eric looked over her shoulder while she played, looking somewhat amused, he enjoyed watching her reaction to the game and listening to her comment on it, maybe even more than playing it himself.

In the end, everyone enjoyed the hike, one way or another, Kate somehow fought off the fatigue and made it through like a soldier, Trevor was getting a new scarf, Beth discovered a possible new interest, and Eric, had his hobby validated, everyone won something in the end. And when they thought their day couldn't get any better, they were right, things started going south.

Beth, Kate and Eric's phones started ringing, the three teenagers had a brief moment where they just look at each other in awe, realizing how abnormal the situation was before hastily checking theirs' phones. "What's going on?" Trevor said in a worried tone, not knowing what just happened since he did not have his phone with him.

The second Beth look at her phone, her eyes widened, hand gripping her phone tightly. On the waiting screen was a message titled Emergency Alert, it read. "Due to the rapid spread of the N4Z1 Virus, all citizens are now required to stay indoors until further notice is given. This order is effective at 12:01 a.m EST on October 26, 2018. Make sure to stock up on basic necessities. Further detail at: bit.ly/1sNZMwe"

"What the actual fuck." Beth cursed, she looked up and saw the worried look on everyone's face. "Hey, Are you guys reading this?"

"Wow, this is just fucking sad." Trevor remarked, not even trying to hide his disappointment.

"First they banned interstate travel, and now this?" Eric complained, clearly frustrated, knowing that the quarantine was not close to over yet, and he was not going home anytime soon.

"At least it can't get any worse than this, right?" Kate chimed in, trying to brighten the mood, having no idea that thing was going to get worse, fast.

The sky had turned crimson by the time the group arrived back at the camp, there, they were immediately greeted with an eerie atmosphere, something was off, the entire camp was dead quiet, the air filled with a faint metallic smell, it was not long before they had realized, here, they were the only people left.

"Where is everyone? I'm I going insane or there's no one else but us here." Beth said, observing her surrounding.

"B...Beth," Kate muttered, wide-eyed, her face slowly turned white as fear began to set in. "L...Look!"

"What?" Beth turned to Kate, expecting a response but she said nothing, her shaking finger slowly pointing down, looking down, Beth saw the ground, tainted with a dark red substance.

"Is that what I think it is?" Trevor whispered.

"Let me see. " Eric said as he crouched down, picking up the red substance with the tip of his finger, had a look at it, and took in a whiff, the heavy metallic smell confirmed his hypothesis. "It's blood." Eric's curiosity made him ignorant of Beth, Kate, and Trevor's loss for words, Beth and Kate looked dumbfounded, while Trevor was 10% more confident that his friend was an actual psychopath.

The oxidized blood formed a trail leading to the back of the girl's dorm, something sinister was happening here and they all knew it. "Guys... I think we should call the police." Kate said, but the other three had started following the trail, she sighed. "I'm going to regret this."

Following the bloody trail was a bad decision, since it led them right back to the source, and by the source was the killer. The four hid carefully behind the sidewall of the dorm, only exposing their head to see the back of the dorm, where they witnessed the most horrible scene that would haunt them forever.

The trail of blood led to a mangled human corpse that was half-eaten by a terrifying humanoid figure, the upper half of the body was so badly disfigured that you couldn't tell who the victim was, and the figure, the thing, the beast was busy gnawing on the corpse's arm, its' teeth pierced deep into the flesh easily, taking out big chunks of red meat one at a time as it made an animalistic grunt.

Witnessing the absolute horror, Kate's face turned green as she felt her lunch escaping her stomach and flooded her throat, leaving her with acidic taste in her mouth, feeling extremely nauseated. The other three also had similar reactions, albeit Beth experienced more fear than disgust, her face was whiter than it was green.

"Go inside now." Trevor ordered, his voice filled with absolute urgency, Kate had never seen him that serious before. No one said another word and the group began to quietly traverse away from the creature.

"Crack." Not paying attention to the ground, Beth stepped on a thick tree branch, breaking it, creating a loud sound that pierced the air in the process. She immediately froze up as she realized her mistake. "Fuck."

Behind her, the beast let out a heart-stopping grunt and started closing the distance with its' next victims. The terrifying noise sent a chill on everyone's spine which made them started running for their life, Trevor, Eric, Kate, one by one all made it through the door, Beth the only one left with the beast just a couple steps behind her, getting closer and closer. When she got inside, she was within reaching distance of the beast, luckily, Trevor was fast enough to push the door and stopped it from coming inside. But that wasn't enough, the beast was strong enough to hold the door partially open and Trevor was having a hard time pushing against it, he started sliding, losing friction. "Eric, help, I can't hold it...longer."

"I'm on it." Eric said as he backed away from the door and started running toward it really fast. Trevor was dead sure that the beast was gonna get in, then, Eric from behind pushed hard against the door, the lock made a clicking sound, notifying that it was closed. Even then, they still couldn't catch a break as the door was still being banged on furiously, they had to move a closet to block it.

"T...That was Mr Morrison." Trevor muttered, he had a chance to see the thing's face and behind the veil of blood and torn skin, there was no doubt that it was Mr. Morrison. "But...He killed some one."

"And It was about to get us too". Eric said, breathing heavily. "That thing was not Mr.Morrison even if it did look like him."

Kate threw up in the sink, and just, bust out of tear, scared for her life, the encounter with the beast was too much for her to handle, and Beth, who had just escaped from certain death, was so in shock that her mind couldn't even register the fear, so she tried to calm her friend, patting her in the back. Eric was lost in his thought, he couldn't make sense of what had just happened, so he just sat in a corner, trying to somehow rationalize the situation but failed miserably given how absurd it was.

"We are fine now, I called the police, they said they were coming." Trevor approached Kate, trying to calm her down. Kate looked up, wiped her tears off, and stopped crying, only because she didn't want the person she liked to see her crying.

When things calmed down a little bit, the four called their parents to let them know about the situation, at first they thought it was a joke but after some persuasion, they were worried, but there was nothing they could do for their kids since it was the quarantine, they had to rely on the police.

The group sat down for a discussion on what to do. "The police is coming, all we need to do now is wait." Trevor said.

"That's good. But how long do we have to wait?." Kate inquired.

"They didn't say, but I hope they'll come tomorrow morning. " Trevor answered.

"I hope so too" . Beth sighed in relief.

"What do you guys think that thing was and why did it look like Mr. Morrison?" Trevor chimed in.

"What, it looked like Mr. Morrison? Maybe it's..." A sudden thought sparked on Beth's mind, but she shook her head and tried to ignore it.

"What ever it is, when the police come, they're going to shoot its' brain out." Trevor exclaimed, clenching his first tightly.

Later in the evening, everyone had gotten some rest, and after having raided the fridge, Beth and Kate sat together on the sofa, sharing the same blanket, not because there was a blanket shortage, it was just more comforting sharing. As for the boys, Trevor did some push-ups to get his mind off things while Eric walked around the hall, still trying to figure out what had happened.

One day passed without the police showing up, and they didn't pick up the call when Trevor decided to call a second time. On the second day, the power cut out and so did the telephone services, without electricity and no connection to the outside world, they bit their teeth and waited the entire day but no one came.

On the third day's evening, the gang sat down together, combining theirs' withering phones together as the final light source. They had held it together and waited for 3 days straight, and now, theirs' patience was running low, and so was theirs' rations.

"The police is never going to come, we have to do something and we have to do it now." Eric concluded. Beth, Kate and Trevor all nodded in agreement.

"So what's the plan?" Said Trevor.