Stage 6 (Book 1) Read online

  Stage 6

  By Dylan James

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Day 1

  Day 2

  Day 3

  Day 4

  Day 5

  Day 6

  Day 7

  Day 8

  Day 9

  Day 10

  Day 11

  Day 12

  Day 13

  Day 14

  Day 15

  Prologue

  The Scientist bolted through his office door and turned to slam it shut behind him. Crying and trembling with fear he quickly dragged his desk back to the door to barricade it. Without realizing it, his gaze became fixed on the revolver he held in his left hand. “One bullet left,” he muttered.

  Not that he was up to using it. The sound of movement outside his office startled him, and he put the gun on his desk. His hand shook as he grabbed his phone off the desk and hesitantly dialed the phone number of the Head Researcher at the institution, Jonathon M. Howard. “Pick up, pick up! Please God, pick up...”

  An automated response greeted his futile pleas, and he swore. There was more movement outside the office. He fixed his gaze on the door and listened for what seemed an eternity to, “After the tone, please leave a message. Beep.” He whispered violently, “Jon! I need help. I need...” The Scientist looked around at his surroundings, and faintly detected what sounded like snarls outside his office. He saw no exits other than the door, and no way to barricade the door for long. He said aloud, “I don’t know what I need...”

  Then suddenly, with a new resolve and a hard look in his face, he stood up straight and said, “Jon. The strange virus they sent us, the one with the new project we just got in. Have nothing to do with it! It- It changes us Jon. Carl, Beth, the others; they’re all gone.”

  Something slammed against the door, interrupting his message. He glanced at the door, which would have been already broken if not for the desk propped up to reinforce it. He amended his statement, “Well... Not gone. Jon this virus, it affects us in ways I can’t even comprehend. I’ve killed people today Jon. They were my colleagues, my friends. And I killed them.”

  He was interrupted again, as the door shattered under the pressure of beating hands. Hurriedly, The Scientist continued, “Jon, under NO circumstance should you continue research on this virus. Destroy it if you can Jon! Promise me that!”

  The desk lurched back and the splintered door opened the rest of the way, revealing the attackers. The Scientist grimly surveyed his Infected colleagues, who were now barely recognizable. He locked eyes with the leader of the group. At first it stood virtually still, as blood dripped from its mouth and from cuts all over its body. Then it snarled, and began to haul itself over the desk. The Scientist said, “Hello Carl.”

  He reached over and picked his gun off the desk. Carl climbed over and fell to the ground, and then began to stand up and reach hungrily with his outstretched arms. One of the others behind him let out a high pitched scream, almost as if celebrating the end of the hunt. The Scientist backed up against the wall, and then decisively put his gun against his head. He shouted, “Good luck Jon!” and pulled the trigger.

  Day 1

  It was summer break, and as a seventeen-year-old high school senior, I was trying to make my free time last. I had just finished playing a four-hour marathon of Call of Duty with my friends. We played really badly; nobody could focus with all the recent news reports of people going violently insane. The first report came a little over a month ago. Then a few more showed up on the news. After a while, it became a daily occurrence. Then when the broadcast came a few days ago advising all healthy individuals to stay indoors, that freaked us out. After that, it didn’t help when plans for a state-wide Containment were leaked online at some conspiracy website. My Mom and I were scared enough that we had a serious conversation about leaving, but our lives are here. One of my friends was convinced we were being chemically attacked by an enemy nation. A few months ago I would have thought he was crazy, but now... I figured the best thing to do was to play it safe, and wait for the people in charge to take care of it, whoever they were. I was resting my eyes and petting my two year old German shepherd Hunter, when my mom, Jane walked in. “Mom, there’s nothing to eat.”

  “You say that every day Jack, but if you would get up off your butt once in a while you’d see that our pantry is just full of food, waiting for you to eat,” she replied.

  We’d had this conversation many times before. I was about to reply sarcastically, when Hunter barked as we heard some loud noises from our next door neighbor’s house. A guy called Devin lived there with his dad. I didn’t pay much attention as I didn’t like him very much. He was always having his girlfriend Lucy over, and I didn’t agree with the way he treated her. I peered out the window to check it out. There was nothing, so I ignored it and turned away.

  “What was that,” my mom asked?

  “It was nothi-”

  Just then a loud scream came from next door, and we could distinctly hear crying.

  As I hurled myself to the window again, my mom nervously said, “Oh those neighbors of ours always getting into fights...”

  I saw Lucy run out of his house, closely followed by Devin who was covered in blood. They turned at the side walk and stopped, as if at a loss for what to do next. Lucy’s eyes caught mine in the window, watching her, and then screamed as a man ran out of their house. They started running towards my front door.

  “Mom! Devin- he’s bleeding and there’s some maniac chasing him! I’ll get the door you call the police!”

  As I ran towards the front door she screamed after me, “What are you talking about?”

  I replied already shaking from the adrenaline, “Just get the phone and call! They’re screaming!”

  I could tell my words got to her as she heard more screams and she grabbed the phone. I unlocked the front door and ran outside, “Devin, Lucy, over here!”

  They bolted past me and I slammed the door behind them, securely locking it. Devin collapsed on the couch, shaking in terror while Lucy just stood there as if in shock. My dog was staring at them, growling and snarling at Devin. He was interrupted however by a huge THUD! I jumped as I looked at the door and saw what could barely be recognized as Devin’s dad repeatedly slamming his face into the window, trying to break it.

  I shouted in barely coherent English, “Devin what the hell is going on!? Why is your dad trying to kill you?”

  Devin couldn’t talk, just sat there shaking back and forth. I looked at Lucy and she looked back at me, distantly. Hunter ignored her, but sat rigidly watching Devin. She said nothing for a few seconds and my patience was running out as blood was smearing all over our windows.

  Then all of sudden she started talking rapidly, “I just don’t know what happened I was with Devin and we were sitting on the couch when his Dad came in and we just... looked at each other for a few seconds. He was acting weird, and suddenly said he was going to lie down in his room and rest... We just laughed about it, and then just a few minutes later Devin’s father came out of his room. But, he didn’t look like he normally did. Devin jumped up to ask if he was okay, but then his Dad just attacked him! He started clawing at Devin’s face and trying to pin him to the ground. Devin was screaming in shock and pain and I grabbed a chair and smashed it on his dad’s head. Devin yelled and we both ran out of the house, but his dad just-”

  She was cut off as my mom came into the room and asked fearfully, “Can you hear the sounds in the neighborhood? There are screams everywhere, and no sirens.” She then added almost as an afterthought, “The police station was down or there were too many calls or something, because no one answered.”

  We all looked at each other for a long se
cond, and then I asked, “Maybe we should try the T.V. or radio stations?”

  Our only radio was outside in the shed, and nobody was going to volunteer to leave the safety of the house. I went to turn the T.V. on.

  I flipped the power on, and quickly found the nearest news station. Lucy dropped her phone in shock as we saw what was happening. The live footage was showing mobs of people chasing others and pinning them down. Store windows were broken, and we could see in the distance one building on fire. There were car wrecks littered in the street. The news feed cut to a helicopter camera, and we could see the entire city was dissolved in riots. We looked at each other in silence, until my Mom cleared her throat and said, (as the only adult in the room),

  “Well we can assume that these people, whatever their problem is, are extremely dangerous and not in their right mind. Perhaps some sort of drug that has gotten into the water supply or something? I think all we can do is wait here until somebody gets back in control.”

  It sounded wise to me considering the circumstances, and Lucy was nodding as well. This was interrupted as Devin’s dad smashed through the window by the front door, and reached his arm through trying to grab anything in range. Hunter was a few feet back from the window barking madly. Paralyzed, we watched as Devin’s dad attempted to squeeze himself through the window. Luckily it was a small gap, and we could see there was no way anything the size of a human was going to fit through it. We watched as the glass shards from the window began to cut and tear at his skin. I suggested as politely as I could, “Perhaps we should try and make this a more secure house? I don’t look forward to sleeping with whatever that is out there trying to get inside.”

  My mom agreed, “Alright that sounds like a good idea. Jack, you get the spare wood and nails from the garage, and Lucy is it? We’ll start moving furniture to block the large windows.”

  Lucy looked in horror at all of our numerous windows and our rather large sliding glass door in the back.

  It was lucky that we had agreed to let a friend store his building supplies at our house while he went out of town a few weeks back, and several hours passed as I sawed down the extensive supply of wood to fit the windows and nailed it into place. In some areas I used a power drill to screw the boards in more securely. During this time there were a few more reports from different news channels, all of them conflicting with each other, and nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on. Devin was silent, moody, and unhelpful throughout this process, but I let it slide considering his own father had just tried to eat him. By night, all the windows except the two in the kitchen were secured with boards, and the sliding glass door was only guarded by a couch. Unfortunately, however we had run out of wood. Exhausted, we all collapsed by the kitchen table.

  Lucy timidly asked, “Why not chop this table down and use it?”

  I was about to shoot her suggestion down, when I realized she was right. We could chop down all of our remaining furniture and use the wood to board up the windows. I set to work quickly, as it was already dark outside. I secured the upper half of our sliding glass door with the table, and then pushed our old grand piano up tight against the bottom half. We then chopped down several large wooden doors throughout our house, and used them to secure our last two unprotected windows. Satisfied with my work, I went around the house to double check that I hadn’t forgotten anything. At about midnight, after making sure there were no unprotected entrances, I pulled a chair to the living room and sat to sort out my thoughts while Lucy and Devin sat together and watched the T.V. Lucy was obviously trying to be affectionate, but Devin was barely acknowledging her presence. My mom was off towards the front door, keeping an eye on Devin’s dad. I went to join them on the couch, sitting on the far side of Lucy. We sat that way for several minutes, when Devin suddenly stopped moving. I assumed he had fallen asleep, and Lucy was about to say something when she was suddenly cut off as Hunter growled and rushed towards Devin. I moved to restrain him when suddenly Devin went into spasms and started vomiting up blood. I backed up, not knowing what to do. Lucy just stared, shock and horror on her face. Devin started lashing out and suddenly stood up and locked eyes with me. Hunter barked and moved between us, and I instinctively knew what was about to happen. Devin lunged towards me at the same time I made a dash for the kitchen. Hunter let loose a vicious snarl and jumped on Devin as I bolted past him and grabbed one of our steak knives on the kitchen counter. I turned around to see Devin kick Hunter away and crouch down towards him trying to strangle him. Enraged at the abuse of my dog I ran towards Devin and shoved him off and onto the floor. He slowly got to his feet and reached out at me.

  I yelled, “Devin stop! What the hell is wrong with you?” His eyes flashed, and I stabbed him straight in the heart as he dove towards me. Lucy screamed as Devin sank to the floor, still moving with his arms out stretched towards me. Blood began to pool on the floor, and he began crawling towards me. Grimacing, I ripped my knife out of him and stabbed him again and again until he stopped moving all together. I stood there in silence as my mom, Lucy, and I slowly gathered our thoughts about what had happened.

  Lucy then started to yell, “You just killed him. You just killed someone! You’re a murderer!”

  I yelled back, “It was in self defense! You saw him! He was just like his dad, out of control and mad!”

  As Lucy was no doubt about to yell something back, my mom interrupted and took charge. “Both of you get it together. He’s bleeding all over our floor.”

  Surprised at the cold indifference in her voice, I helped as they moved the barricades against the sliding glass door and then dragged Devin’s body out to the back yard. I hurried them inside, and then slid the couch against the door. My mom and Lucy, now blood-smeared were huddled together on the couch watching any news they could find. I immediately went to the bath tub and washed myself and changed clothes. I wanted to return to my room, and there was no way I was getting it all bloody. I went back to my room, and started to make a list and collect items that could be useful in this epidemic, because I was now sure that this was indeed an epidemic. It spread to Devin from his father in a matter of hours, turning him into a raging psychopath. I had never been very much for fighting, but I loved puzzles and strategy games. I made a list of all the things I had to use at my disposal, keeping in mind strategic themes I had learned over the years.

  A dog. This is an invaluable weapon. Judging from the experience with Devin, Hunter seems to instinctively know when somebody is about to transform. He will alert me and he will protect me.

  Information. It was approximately twelve hours after Devin had been attacked by his dad before he grew violent. It seems likely that Devin was infected by his dad, possibly via scratches or bites.

  Last, and in my opinion most important, is a Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun. Before my dad passed away, he had bought this for “home defense.” I’m sure he never imagined a situation like this though. When I was thirteen, he had taught me most of the basics of handling the gun and I remembered most of his teachings. After loading the twelve chamber shotgun, there were still plenty of shells left in a large ammo box of his.

  My mom walked in and started to ask something when she stopped.

  Looking down, my mom noticed the shotgun. She looked at me as one might look at a misbehaving baby, and asked “What do you think you’re going to do with that? You might have killed Devin because he was attacking you, but we aren’t going to make a habit of murdering these people.”

  Surprised at her sudden attitude, I retorted “Well you don’t have to use these, but I for one am not going to be caught by one of those things again without a proper weapon.”

  She yelled back “Don’t call them ‘things’! They are real living people, and you have to treat them as such!”

  “The hell they are! Devin tried to kill Hunter back there, and his dad tried to eat him! Don’t tell me these are normal people. Normal people don’t vomit up blood on other people’s couches.”

  Be
fore she could come up with a reply I brushed past her and walked to where the kitchen table used to be. I sat down in one of the old chairs, and thought about how amazingly different our house had become. In one hard work-filled day, we had transformed it from a comfortable home to a well defended fortress. Thinking about forts however, I remembered that the easiest way to beat a fort is to starve them out. I began to make plans.

  If we were being affected in a small county in Texas, then we could reasonably assume it had already spread through many other places. I hoped that this would get better, but it never hurts to think. Planning for the worst scenario was my philosophy, and it had served me well in the past. Where would we go? We couldn’t survive indefinitely here without any way of getting more food. My thoughts were interrupted as Lucy turned the volume up and I could clearly hear the T.V. from my room. Now there were a bunch of official looking people on the T.V., and the words STATE BROADCAST were splayed across the top. I walked into the living room. There was a politician speaking into a microphone, and a crowd of people in medical suits standing behind him. He started to address the camera.

  “We now have the unfortunate responsibility, of informing anyone who is watching that this, ‘Infection,’ has engulfed the population. In the next few minutes, I will attempt to prepare you with the information we have. The state of Texas has been placed under military Quarantine. Nobody is allowed in or out, until this is dealt with. We are working on a way to fix this situation, but for now... Be on the lookout not only for Infected humans, but also any strange acting animals. We have reason to believe this virus can jump species. This virus spreads through body fluids, and can be transferred through saliva via bites, or contact with Infected blood. Once Infected the victim can feel no pain, and will be consumed with an irrational hatred for everything and anyone. It will see any living thing as its only possible food source. We do not have medical treatment. The only way to deal with the Infected is to kill them. In this state of emergency, we are lifting all laws regarding violence with the Infected. If you come into contact with an Infected, you MUST do whatever you can to survive. We estimate that at least twenty percent of the population is Infected, although this number is increasing extraordinarily fast. They tend to move in groups, and rarely act alone. Even just one will soon attract more to its location, especially if they have the scent of food. We have no way of knowing how long this will last. I must emphasize the military is organized and in control. Camps and forts are the biggest and best defenses we have going right now. There are trained soldiers waiting there to protect you. This will not last forever, and there are already many Nations mobilizing their Outbreak Control forces. They will help us soon. In the absence of a timely solution, you can expect electricity, power, gas, and water to shut off within weeks. Good luck to you all, and may God be with us. Any new information we have will be added to this broadcast. This message will repeat itself indefinitely.”