CH 4
The bullet tore through my thigh first.
I didn't feel the pain—not right away. Just the heat, like someone had pressed a lit cigarette to my leg. Then the blood, black and thick, soaking through my jeans. The CDC agents shouted behind me, their boots pounding the pavement like war drums.
"Subject is fleeing northwest! Contain perimeter!"
I vaulted over a chain-link fence, the metal rattling under my grip. My lungs burned, but not from exhaustion. From the static. It hummed in my skull now, constant, a radio tuned to a frequency only I could hear. The wound in my leg itched. I glanced down. The edges of the bullet hole were already knitting together, veins squirming under the skin like worms.
*Wrong. All wrong.*
Another shot rang out. This one grazed my shoulder, spinning me into a dumpster. The impact should've cracked ribs. Instead, I bounced off, stumbling but upright. The agents rounded the corner, rifles raised.
"Drop now or we fire!"
I ran.
---
The alley narrowed, trash bags bursting underfoot. Rats scattered, squealing. The static swelled, drowning out the agents' shouts. I could *feel* them behind me—six heartbeats, six sets of panicked breath. And beneath that, something deeper. Hungrier.
A bullet punched through my side. I slammed into a brick wall, coughing, the taste of iron flooding my mouth. Black blood splattered the concrete. The agents closed in, forming a semicircle, muzzles trained on my chest.
"On your knees! Hands behind your head!"
The static became a scream.
My vision blurred. The wound in my side pulsed, flesh writhing as it stitched itself closed. The hunger hit then, sudden and vicious. Not for food. For *more*.
"Sir… his eyes—"
I lunged.
The closest agent didn't even scream. My teeth sank into his throat, hot blood flooding my mouth. The static *purred*. The others opened fire. Bullets ripped through me—shoulder, stomach, ribs—but I didn't stop. Couldn't. The hunger drove me, a compass needle spinning wildly.
When it ended, I was on my knees, surrounded by bodies. Their blood pooled around me, black and glistening. The static faded to a whisper.
*What did you do?*
I vomited, bile mixing with the blood on the pavement. The wounds were gone. Smooth skin, unbroken. But the hunger remained, gnawing at my insides.
---
**Nightfall**
The city's sirens wailed like a dying animal. I stumbled through the ruins of a boutique, mannequins staring at me with hollow eyes. My reflection in a shattered mirror stopped me cold.
My eyes weren't just red anymore. They glowed faintly, like coals in the dark. The veins around them pulsed black, branching down my cheeks like cracks in glass. I touched my face, half-expecting the skin to crumble. It didn't.
The hunger surged again, sharp and insistent. I gripped the edge of a display case, knuckles whitening. The static whispered, a siren song urging me to *feed*.
"No," I growled. "Not again."
But my legs moved on their own, dragging me toward the street. A blue-eyed shambler lurched past, dragging a severed arm. It ignored me, fixated on the distant clang of a fire escape.
The red-eyes weren't so passive.
They materialized from the shadows—six of them, maybe more. Their gazes locked onto me, heads tilting in unison. One stepped forward, a woman in tattered scrubs, her jaw hanging by a thread of sinew. She sniffed the air, red eyes narrowing.
*They're waiting. For what?*
The static hummed, low and steady. A thread connecting us.
"Stay back," I warned.
They didn't move. Didn't blink.
The hunger twisted my gut. I doubled over, clutching my stomach. The woman in scrubs lunged, but not at me. She tore into the blue-eyed shambler instead, ripping its head off with a wet *crack*. The others joined, reducing it to pulp in seconds.
When they finished, they stepped back, blood dripping from their jaws. Waiting.
*For you.*
The scrubs woman nudged the shambler's remains toward me with her foot. A offering.
"I don't… I don't eat that," I choked out.
She tilted her head, confused.
The static flared.
*HUNGER.*
This time, I listened.
---
I blacked out
I don't remember collapsing.
One moment I was crouched in the street, the red-eyes circling like vultures. The next, I was waking up in a nest of shredded cardboard and newspaper, the stink of motor oil sharp in my nostrils. My head throbbed, the static reduced to a faint buzz.
They were still there.
Red eyes glinted in the dark, two dozen pairs now, clustered at the edges of the parking garage. My infected. *Mine*. They didn't approach. Didn't snarl. Just stared, heads cocked like dogs waiting for a command.
I stood, legs shaky. My clothes were stiff with dried blood—theirs, mine, I couldn't tell. The hunger was quieter now, a dull ache instead of a scream.
The city groaned outside. Sirens. Distant explosions. Glass shattering.
I found a convenience store two blocks over, its windows blown out. The TV behind the counter still played, volume low.
"—authorities confirm outbreaks in Tokyo, London, and Moscow. The infected exhibit pale blue eyes and sluggish movement. However, San Francisco remains the epicenter of a more aggressive strain—"
The screen cut to cellphone footage—a red-eyed infected scaling the Transamerica Pyramid, limbs contorted, jaws unhinged. It lunged at the camera, the feed cutting to static.
"CDC Director Morales urges citizens to avoid downtown areas. Martial law is expected to—"
A shadow moved behind me.
I turned. The red-eyes stood in the street, motionless, their faces tilted toward the TV. Waiting.
*For what? For you.*
The static hummed, softer now. A thread connecting us.
---
I stepped outside. They parted, forming a path. Down the block, a blue-eyed shambler lurched into a streetlight, moaning. The red-eyes didn't react. Didn't even look.
*Same virus. Different monsters.*
The hunger stirred again. I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling the muscle shift beneath. Not human. Not anymore.
In the distance, the Bay Bridge burned, orange flames licking the night sky. My infected stared at me, patient, loyal.
*Yours.*
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I walked. They followed.