Chapter 1: Since

"Where the hell are you, man..." Riley whispered to himself as his feet continued to crunch against the forest floor. He looked around hoping to see his friend somewhere through the foliage, but still saw no trace of the man. Clutching his backpack, Riley continued to trek on through the forest, hoping that he'd meet up at the where they had left their car.

''How long has it been? Two hours, maybe. Well, I'll probably be able to reach him by calling.'' Thoughts rang across the lone man's mind as he lifted his right arm and examined watch. Riley periodically checked his watch while his boots stomped through the leaf covered forest floor. Stepping out from the trees, would continue for the next few minutes before reaching his car. His vehicle sat alone in the park's lot, collecting moisture all over the glass. The man stopped, staring at the desolate parking lot while wiping sweat off his forehead.

Opening the vehicle, he examined the contents and made sure than nothing inside was harmed. He reached inside for his phone and lifted it. ''No signal. Going to need to drive out a bit more and see if I get anything out there.''

Riley threw his pack into the passenger seat and entered the vehicle, starting it and driving off onto the road, still clutching his phone tightly and examining when it'd obtain a signal, while still keeping his eyes on the road. "Hope ya remembered to bring your phone along of this one, Shaun."

The road was completely empty and shrouded in darkness, the tall and leafy trees blocked any sunlight, with only a few cracks of light managing to shine down on the asphalt. Riley bounced his eyes back and forth from the road to his phone constantly. After driving for what seemed like hours, luck had struck, a single bar. Rushed with excitement, Riley quickly dialed his friend.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Nothing.

Dial.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"GOD DAMMIT! ANSWER SHAUN!" Riley yelled at his phone in a fit of rage, quickly tapping the dial button again. Looking back up at the road, Riley's attitude changed to one of confusion, a figure limping slowly in the center of the road towards the vehicle. Riley quickly pushed the brakes, halting his car and sat still, squinting and starring at the man.

"Sir?"

Riley moved his hand to lower the window and stuck his head back out into the humid Louisiana air. "Sir? Do you need any help?" He smiled, trying to make the man feel more comfortable to talk to him. "I can give you a ride if you need one, there's a rest stop just up the road. Its not exactly safe to pace around the middle of the street."

The man said nothing, ignoring Riley and continuing to limp towards the vehicle. "Are you alright? Need any help? I got some bandages and antibiotics if you need some." Still no response. "Hold on." Riley's smile had disappeared by now, putting his head back into the vehicle to check his phone. Nothing. Riley looked up to see the man still heading towards him and stuck his head back out.

"Listen sir, I gotta get going. Like I said earlier, I can give you a ride to town if you want." Riley's heart beat grew faster and faster as the man approached, his appearance covered by the shadows of the trees.

"Are you alright, sir?"

The man groaned in response. Riley, frightened, went back inside and started his car. The man stood still at the hood of the car, Riley honking in response.

God dammit...

"Sir, can you move?" Riley stuck his head out once more. The man moved closer.

"Sir, I need to get going." The man stepped into a small bit of sunlight, revealing his face. Pale grey skin, pitch black bags under the eyes, dry blood under every orifice.

"HOLY SHIT!" Riley, without hesitation, popped his head quickly back inside his car, rolling the window up and swerving his car around the man, driving off at high speeds. His heart rapidly beating as he eyed the mirror to see the man turn around and continue to limp towards the vehicle until he was eventually out of sight.

New Orleans, 27 Miles

Continuing his drive, Riley began trying to calm himself, breathing heavily and attempting to clear his mind, his eyes locked on the road

''Probably just seeing things. Got too worked up about Shaun and the man just not responding. Could probably be some drunk how just hasn't slept for the past few days.''

Still no matter how many scenarios he could make up nothing of which could explain the man's odd behavior other him possible being drunk or someone just trying to play a sick joke. "Probably just need some rest." Riley clenched his eyes together tightly and slowing down as he did so. He opened his eyes to sunlight as he left the forest behind.

Riley kept his eyes glued in front of him, occasionally reading a road sign. During this time he began taking notice of the desolate road and hadn't seen anyone since his encounter with the drunk. No cars. No sign of life. Just blacktop.

New Orleans, 10 Miles

Probably just waiting for me at the apartment building...

New Orleans, 7 Miles

Or just shopping for the cabin...

New Orleans, 5 Miles

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

New Orleans, 3 Miles

Going crazy.

New Orleans, 1 Mile

I could be the last god damn man on Earth.

New Orleans, 1/2 Mile

Alone.

New Orleans ⇧

Riley's eyes looked up to the tall buildings, and back down at the road, other vehicles in sight, but completely still. The sky looked more gray over the area and there was the faint scent of smoke that filled the air. The only noise echoing in the nearby vicinity was that of a vehicle.

"What the hell?" Riley looked at the littered road, the cars were pointed in various directions and some being covered by duffle bags strapped on top. Others looked broken into with the windows shattered, and bloody claw marks on the doors. Riley stopped, unable to drive any further.

Getting out his vehicle he examined as the seemingly endless sea of cars and empty buildings. With, a deep breath, Riley grabbed his backpack next to him and walked into the sea of cars, leaving his own behind. As Riley strolled, he peered into the cars to the left and right of him, the vehicles being empty and dark. Some cars broken into, others locked and shut tight completely. The road smelled unspeakably, flies littering the area. Despite being less than a mile from the city, the road seemed to go on forever.

Riley continued to ease his way in between the mess of cars blocking the road, time seemed to slow down for a bit, it had felt like it had been hours since he exited his car and began his trek to the city.

The road and cars hadn't changed, still ransacked and littered, crimson claw marks and puddles covered the road. Riley continuously turned his head left and right, looking inside the vehicles. Each seemed to tell their own story. As Riley looked up, the skyscrapers seemed to grow bigger and bigger, taller and taller as he approached. He didn't know what to expect when he got there, he could only hope for closure. As Riley observed the vehicles crowding him, something caught his eye. A family lay silent in all their seats, buckled in their minivan. There was no emotion on their faces, only flies picking on their flesh. They lay dead, faces pale, eyes lifeless, and flesh rotting away. Riley stood and looked on in disgust and despair.

"What happened to you people...what happened to me...what happened..." Riley muttered under his breath, his eyes staring into a deceased boy in the back seat. With a heavy breath, he closed the door and continued on.

The buildings were now beside him, and the wave of cars had been left behind, only a few vehicles lay still in the center of the road, forming a sort of wall. Riley took to the right side of the street and began turning his head to look at the seemingly empty and quiet buildings upon the sides of the road. Windows and doors had been smashed or broken down while other buildings were completely boarded up, leaving an eerie and desolate feeling being given off by the once bustling streets.

Soon reaching a point where the wall of cars had ended and made the sidewalk, the only possible way of continuing deeper within the confines of the city. An awful smell hammered against his nostrils, causing him to recoil and grip his nose in disgust. The odor was coming from one the buildings with the door ripped start off its hinges and what appeared to be dry blood and claw marks. Out of curiosity and worry for who may be inside, Riley neared the doorway and spoke.

"Hello? Is anyone hurt?" A long pause occurred, his voice the only sound in the area.

"Hello? Anybody?" The seconds of waiting for an answer seemed like minutes. Calling out again for someone in the desolate city, Riley was answered by the echo of pattering feet, growling, and the foul stench becoming more and more prominent. Riley stepped back from the door, his face widened with terror as a man crept out from the building, pale and bloodied.

"Oh my god...what's happened to you!?" Riley backed up as far as he could to a truck behind him as the man limped towards him.

"Help! Somebody, help!" Riley cried out as the man was upon him, his jaws opening up and his arms ready to swing. Riley kicked his attacker down in a panic, turning around to the truck, he quickly attempted to open the door, but to no avail. The man was knocked on the ground and struggling to get up.

The man began to growl as he tried forcing himself to return straight-up and snapped his jaws with eyes filled with a predatory gaze. Still, Riley tried forcing the vehicle open becoming more panicked at the man began getting back up.

"Shit! Shit! SHIT!" Becoming increasingly desperate and out of fear, Riley slammed another foot into the man's chest and knocking him back on the ground. A crack echoed as the man's arm snapped with the bone sticking out. Riley took the opportunity and bolted away from the man, trying to gain as much distance as possible between the two.

After sprinting down the street, Riley lost his breath and stopped in his tracks, his hands on his knees. Turning around, the deranged man was but a still dot in the distance. He smiled. The city seemed calm and quiet once again, if only for a few blissful seconds.

POW.

"What the hell!?" A gunshot rang out. Riley's heart went back to beating intensely once again, looking around for the gunman.

POW.

Another shot. Riley looked up across from him to the silhouette of a hatted man donning a scoped bolt-action rifle.

"What the fuck, man!? What are you doing!?" Riley yelled.

POW.

No response but a gunshot.

"God dammit, man! Stop it! What are you firing at!?" Riley's eyes widened. The familiar sound of growling struck his ears again. Looking behind him, droves of feral citizens turned the corner.

Seeing the pack sent a feeling of dread down his spine as the shots continued to go off in the distance. Looking around for way to hide, he rushed to a nearby truck and peered into the window. The pack moving like a colony of ants charging for something, but he certainly didn't want to know what.

Got to find somewhere to hide before they reach me. Thoughts passed through his head as his eyes had shifted around looking an area to hide and not be spotted by the beings closing in on him. Their jaws snapped repeatedly, mixing in with continuous shots going off in the distance. The pack moved steadily between the vehicles in the way of their destination. Their strange scent grew stronger and the moans uttered from their cracked lips began filling his ears.

Looking down, Riley thought of an idea and worked as quickly and silently as he could to complete the task of removing his backpack before they reached him. Taking off both straps, Riley dropped it to ground gently and kicked it underneath the truck. Crouching towards the ground and going in head first underneath the vehicle, hoping that the creatures hadn't yet spotted him. The gunshots continued for what seemed like hours, and the strange slow-moving people blocked any escape from underneath the car. After awhile, the gunshots grew louder and louder, closer and closer, and a person would drop down, dead, their lifeless faces staring at Riley. He closed his eyes, waiting for everything to go away.

Eventually, the gunshots stopped, and the pale legs of the hoard of people nowhere to be seen. Kicking his backpack out, Riley crawled from underneath the vehicle, blinded by the sunlight. Looking up, the gunman was no where to be found. Turning around, the herd was far off in the distance. Riley sighed in relief and put his backpack back on, heading to the corner from where the herd came.

This brief period of relief ended quickly, the growling had started again. Another pale human turned the corner, his boney fingers gripped tightly on Riley's shoulders and jaw wide open.

"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" Just when everything seemed to be over, the man's head split and dropped dead, its crimson blood splattered on Riley. A man with a small shovel stood across from Riley and the dead body.

"Come with me, quickly."

The man stared Riley waiting for him to react, "What the hell are you waiting for? Standing around is going to get you killed!" After that, he bolted away and turned into a nearby alley. "Come on! I'll explain on the way!"

Riley considered his options. So far, this was the only guy who seemed like he was willing to help him. Shrugging, Riley follow after the guy with the shovel, trying to keep pace, "What...what's going on?"

The guy didn't even look back, "You know how there was that anthrax scare back in the 90s? This ain't anthrax. What ever the hell this is, it kills the people, then revives them, and repeats the process on who ever they bite." He turned a corner and sprinted towards an exit that lead to a parking lot of a stripmall.

As Riley caught up to him, it was slowly dawning on him, "So...what, the corpses are alive?"

The guy shrugged and tried to explain, albeit out of breath, "We were advised to not call them that, news called them 'Viral Victims', but we all know that it's not true. So we've taken to calling them 'Husks', you know, from that game Mass Effect."

The guy looked across the parking lot, "It's not too bad, guess the gunshots lured them away," He peeked out again, readying his shovel, "Get ready to run, we're holed up in 'In Bloom' garden store." The man took off again across the asphalt. During his sprint, he swung his shovel again at a shambling body, dropping it dead to the ground. The man approached the front doors of the store, and hastily pulled out a keyring, unlocking the door as Riley caught up.

Both men rushed into the store and Riley began panting due to the adrenaline with his brushes with death and the new found knowledge of these creatures. A young woman waited at the counter and smiled as the two entered. Riley's new found ally began locking up the door and peered through the boarded windows, looking outside.

"Well, we're in the clear on this one. Don't think any saw us come in."

"Thank god you're okay Jonah." The woman said and pulled the man away from the door. "How did the search go?"

Jonah knelt down and opened his backpack, revealing several cans of vegetables, beans, and fruit. "Found a church that had been running a food drive, grabbed as much as I could, but I found something else." Jonah jerked his thumb up at the new guy, "Before you even start Denise, I didn't think he'd actually follow me back here."

"It's alright, it's good to finally see another human, but our private time was pretty nice. Here, I'll dig through some more." Denise reassured Jonah.

Handing her the bag, Jonah stood up and locked eyes with Riley, still breathing heavily from the sprint. "The only other person here with me is Denise, my girlfriend." Denise looked up and waved, but went back to work going through the backpack. "She was visiting me on break at GameOn a few stores down when everything went to hell. We went through each the different stores to collect anything we could use before we decided to bunker down in here." Jonah smiled. "You alright? Don't exactly seem like you're doing too well."

"It's just a lot to take in." He gasped out through breaths, "Hasn't exactly been the best learning experience that I ever had. I've pretty much kept finding myself with the threat of being attacked ever since I entered the city. But now that we're safe, care to give me some better perspective on all this stuff?"

"Where the hell've you been? Under some rocks? We've been in here a bit over a month, I'd say." Denise asked, laying out the canned goods on the store's counter.

"I've been out camping for the past month. I suppose I just managed to miss out on all of this." Riley answered, finally catching his breath and taking a seat. "Guess I dodged a hell of a speeding bullet there, didn't I?" Trying to see the best in the situation that he was being thrown into.

"Yeah," She replied, "well now that you're here with us. Might as well get comfortable, can't imagine that this whole process has been easy for you to adjust towards."

Removing his backpack, Riley began taking out his own portion of food and water placing them near before Denise. "Don't know if this is much, but I got some food and water leftover from camping to share with if it helps."

"We're going to need all the help we can get, pal." Jonah said. "Plus, it'll help to have another hand around here."

"Don't know if I'll stick around much longer, but I'll see what I can do to help for now." Riley replied, sitting in front of the counter.

"And why's that?" Denise asked.

"Looking for a friend."

"You don't think he..."

"No, no way, he's tough as nails."

"Sorry to say but I don't think you're gonna find him, pal." Jonah added in, taking a seat behind the counter across from Riley.

"I know him, you don't. He's tough."

"Whatever you say, pal."

"You encounter any other survivors?"

"Only seen 'em, haven't talked to them. Looked like they were on their way to the cathedral."

"Cathedral? I don't know shit about this town."

"This church that's been converted into a safe-zone, has walls and gates, plenty of food and water, doctors. Denise and I were on our way there, but those damn things got in the way, had to jump in here. I swear, they were practically a wall between us and the church, they're probably trying to swarm the place now."

"There's a chance Shaun could be there, I need to get there, now." Riley stood up and zipped his backpack up in a hurry. "You can keep the food, I won't need anyway when I get there."

"Easy there, pal," Jonah stood up. "You don't even know how to kill a Husk, what makes you think you could handle and get past a whole mob of 'em?"

"How the hell do you know I can't take them?"

"I didn't save your ass out of nowhere, pal."

"He got you there." Denise joked.

"Plus it's getting dark out, can't hit what you can't see. Stay the night, we'll see what we can do to help you get there in the morning."

"Alright, I think I trust you guys, wouldn't have saved me if you weren't good people."

"You're damn right. Now, let's eat!"

POW

"What the hell?" Riley muttered as he woke up rubbing his head and eyes. The echoing boom of gunfire combined with bright rays of sunlight shining through the cracks in the boarded up garden store awakened the trio of survivors.

"Not this guy again, when in hell's name is he ever gonna run out of ammo." Denise stretched and yawned on the ground.

POW

"Dammit, that idiot's at it again." Jonah remarked, unzipping and stepping out of his sleeping bag and stretching, walking up to the windows and peeking out the cracks to observe a mob of the undead.

"Forgot to ask about him, what's his deal?" Riley removed his covers and stood up as well, still rubbing his eyes.

"He's been up there for the past week or so, keeps moving rooftops somehow, must be distracting mobs with his rifle, smart guy, but it's to our detriment, hard to concentrate with gunshots ringing in your ears every minute. Guy must have a helluva lot of ammo to be firing as much as he does." Jonah moved towards the store windows, peaking through the cracks to observe the outside world. "Shit."

"What's wrong, hun?" Denise asked, fixing a cup of coffee behind the counter.

"Whole buncha those things outside, we wouldn't last a minute if we stepped out there." Jonah replied, stepping away from the window and turning to Riley. "We don't have a lot of options here."

"Is there any other way we can get out of here?"

"You can get out through the roof, we're staying here, I ain't putting Denise in harms way."

"You said you'd help me get to the church, Jonah."

"That's when I thought a sniper and a crowd of those things wouldn't be hinderin' us."

"You know I won't last long out there."

"Then stay here, where it is safe, man."

POW

"God dammit!" Jonah yelled in a fit of rage. "The motherfucker needs to stop firing that damn thing!"

"Calm down, Jonah. It's going to be alright."