Chapter 1: Before the End

James McAllister had a regimen, and it was one to which he devoted himself on a daily basis.

The alarm was ringing at 5:30 sharp. He'd get out of bed, grab boots, and stumble over to the bathroom, splashing himself with a quick wash before shoving on his work clothes. The city outside was awakening—the rumble of traffic on the street, the muffled boom of building, the thrum of people rushing off to work. He no longer noticed.

In the diner a block or so from his apartment building, the coffee was always barely warmer than lukewarm, but it did the job and held him through to morning. "Same as always?" the waitress would smile blandly, and James would nod, sitting down in a booth by the window. Out there, the world was so alive. Everybody rushing to get where they were going, intent, blissfully ignorant of how thin things really were.

He did building, work that required no more than lifting, hammering, and occasional yelling at the guys in the crew. It was work that exhausted you at the end of the day, but one that didn't take any emotional energy from you. He enjoyed that.

James hadn't always been that way. He remembered when he used to have goals, when he wanted to amount to something with his life. But that was before everything else changed. Before the world had become a world where survival exceeded ambition.

It was an ordinary day when the news erupted.

The virus.

Initially, it wasn't a big issue. A few people falling sick in some other city. But then it spread so quickly. The hospitals first, the schools second, and soon the army was called in. People were instructed to stay indoors.

It was like any other crisis. The kind the media made a big noise about, then immediately forgot all about. But this one was different. There was something in the air that he just couldn't identify.

James had worked the next day when it happened. He and his crew were taking a break, standing in front of half-built buildings, watching cars speed along when the first keen wail of sirens cut through the air. The cars started moving fast down the street, shouting back and forth to each other, the air charged with alarm.

Even before he came home later that night, it was all coming apart. Gossip on the street, people speculating about what was happening in the hospitals. They claimed the sick weren't sick—they were changing.

James did not pay attention much, until he saw the first one. A woman staggering along the street, empty in her eyes, pale and sick. Unsteady, jagged steps to take. And suddenly she leapt on a man who stepped too near her.

He didn't know what was happening.

The world had changed somehow overnight. And James, deep inside of him, knew it was going to be no better.

The sirens grew louder as James stepped out of his apartment. Streets were crowded with people, but there was a tension in the environment that previously did not exist. Something was wrong. He felt it in his bones.

Everything was. off. The sky darker in some indefinite manner, people rushing too hurriedly, glancing back and forth as though waiting for something—waiting for something to turn bad.

He did not catch it until he made the corner onto Main Street.

A woman, her clothes torn and smeared with blood, stumbling towards a man propped against a convenience store. She was stumbling and her arms stretched out as if she were attempting to catch him. The man did not see her coming until it was too late.

In a shriek, the woman attacked, sinking her teeth into his neck. The man howled in agony, hands trying to push her away, but she was too strong. Her eyes were glassy and empty. This wasn't right. This wasn't this crazed attack—it was something else.

James was frozen, his heart pounding in his chest, his stomach twisting. He couldn't look away, couldn't accept what he was seeing.

Then the man's scream was cut off, and a disgusting gurgling sound took its place as the woman tore at him. The world stopped for James. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. It wasn't until the man went limp that he snapped out of his daze.

Run.

His body took over from his reflexes, and James sprinted along the side alley without a look back. His legs pumped fiercely as he curved around the corner, his wheezing sounding in short bursts. His brain was spinning—what was this? What was it?

The city was breaking apart.

He needed to hide somewhere.

James had been running for what felt like hours, until he collided with a small alley, out of breath and dizzy from the adrenaline. He was leaning on the brick wall, trying to get his breath, but now the sound of sirens and screams filled the air. People were running, running away from something—but no one knew what they were running from.

He felt the sound of footsteps behind him, quick, too quick. James turned around at the same moment the figure appeared at the end of the alleyway.

A figure—tousled, wild-eyed, clothes in disarray, his face pale and cadaverous. The figure stumbled towards him, but there was something wrong about his movement. His body jerked unnaturally, his eyes wide and empty.

James stepped back hard.

This was not fear. This was different.

Before he was able to answer, the man struck him. James stepped aside just in time, with the man's hot breath on his neck as he narrowly avoided the assault. The man's teeth clacked wildly through the air.

James was not about to hang around and find out what this was. He brushed the wall off himself and sprinted. He dare not look over his shoulder—him, simply sprint, faster than he'd ever moved in his life.

Behind him, the snarling of the man resolved itself into the rhythms of street anarchy. James, though, continued to run.

He just couldn't stop.