9. Fame
After 15 minutes Alex is still trying to refine the corrupt energy in his body.
‘What is happening?! I should be done by now, but I can still feel the corruption in my body. It wasn’t as much corruption as other times, it was even one of the lowest amounts that I had to deal with’.
‘I have to try something different I feel my body starting to cramp up’.
Alex relaxes his body as he inhales and tenses his body as he exhales repeating this process for 2 minutes, he notices some progress.
‘I think this is better, next time I should try something different maybe I can find a better way to do this.’
Alex kept refining this way for 10 more minutes before the corruption was finally refined and the remaining impurities expel.
Suddenly the muscles of his back and abdomen started to cramp.
‘Aa crap’
After another 5 minutes of massaging his body, the cramps subsided.
‘I probably should stretch next time’.
Alex gets of the truck and starts to make his way towards the house where he saw the man, making sure there aren’t more zombies around.
‘I hope that I didn’t see wrong, and it was actually zombie.’
Halfway through the lawn Alex stops and starts to take off his weapons, leaving them behind and he keeps walking towards the door. Once he is a few maters away from the door he stops.
“Excuse me sir, my name is Alexander Chana, and I was wondering if I could take some of your time.”
No response
“it’s been a coup-…... has it really been a day and a half since everything started? Cough I mean, look sir I don’t want to cause you any trouble I was just hoping that you could let me use your computer or phone.”
No response
‘Sigh He probably think I’m about to turn or that I want to rob him.’
As Alex turns around, he hears the door opening. Turning back Alex sees an older man with glasses and white hair standing in the doorway holding a hammer. Before Alex can say anything, the old man waves him in.
“Quick get your weapons and get inside!”
Alex starts running for his weapons, grabs them and starts running back towards the house. Once inside the Alex noticed that it was dark, all the lights were off and the curtains were closed, the only source of light was a few candles.
Locking the door behind Alex the old man turns around and stare at him. Not wanting to agitate the old man more Alex puts down his axe and raises his hands.
“I don’t want to hurt you I just need some help.”
“….. Are you alone? Are you with the Army? Where is your team? When is the help coming? What’s the government doing?”
The old man kept asking questions until he ran out of breath.
“I’m alone, I’m not with the Army or Any military institution, and I don’t know anything about what is going on with the government or why did this happen”
After answering some questions, the old man calmed down a little bit but soon grew agitated again, raising his hammer.
“YOU, you got scratched on the back I saw, why haven’t you turn!”
“Yes, I got scratched, what I did was- “
Alex explained what he had done to deal with the corruption. The theories that he had regarding what had happen on The Big Knockout, the old man looked weirdly at Alex when he said the name of the incident, what corrupt and vital energy where and what refining the corruption had done to his body.
“She, she could have been saved. I, I failed her”
The old man let go of the hammer and slumped on the ground. Alex, not being sure what to do, gets closer and puts a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for your loss, but please don’t blame yourself I was just lucky to figure this out there was just no way for you to know how to help. Whatever this is it happens too fast to know what to do.”
“I …… no you are right. …… Thank you for taking her out of her misery. I know she would not want to hurt anybody.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Taking a deep sigh, the old man gets up with some help from Alex.
“Where are my manner my name is Clark Smith”.
Says the old man extending his hand for a handshake.
“Alexander Chaban but everyone calls me Alex.
Alex responds shaking Clark’s hand.
“So, you need a computer or a hone, Alex.”
“Yes, I wanted to know if the army has organized any refugee camps or anything of that sort”.
“I see, that sounds like a good idea. The computer is in my office upstairs follow me.”
As they make their way towards the stair Alex asks some questions
“Have you heard anything from the news or the internet?”
“No, when my wife changed, I was swallow by grief, and when I wasn’t grieving, I was looking at her trough the window trying to come up with a way to set her free.”
“How did it happen, if you don’t mind telling me.”
“We were on our morning run when it happened. We both woke up but one of ore neighbors wasn’t waking up. My wife rushed to the neighbor to see if she could help. My wife and I are doctors, so I rushed to the house to get my equipment. Almost the moment that I started to run my wife yelled, when I turned around, she was being bitten. I managed to kick it off my wife, she was bleeding hard, so we rushed to the house to treat her. As we were making our way towards the house, that, that thing was following us, its black eyes were so terrifying that I forgot about my wife for a second and just focused on getting home.
“When we made it to our house that thing had almost caught up to us, it claws and bit at the door trying to get inside but eventually it run off to chase another person.”
Clark took a deep breath holding back some tears and continued his story
“It was too late, when I finally got to treat her injury, her skin was unnaturally white, and her eyes were turning black. Then, then, while trying to help her, somehow, she kisses me and pushed me on the floor, by the time I got up she was stepping out of the door.”
This time Clark didn’t try to stop the tears and started crying.
“When I made it to the door, I saw her, but it wasn’t her anymore. The way she twitched, the white of her skin, everything about her wasn’t her. So, I just hid and watched her, trying to make sense of what had just happened and thinking of how I could help her. Until you show up”
Those words sounded a little bit accusing to Alex. Making him stop in his tracks suddenly concern of the hammer the old man was carrying.
“Sorry I didn’t mean sound like I was accusing. I just wanted to help her.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way. Once they arrived Clark turned on the computer and while it booted, he asked Alex some questions.
“You said earlier that you didn’t belong to the Army or any other military organization. What did you do before this happen?”
“I worked in a cleaning supplies manufacturer.”
“Really”
“yea”
“For the way you moved I though you were MMA fighter or something similar”
“Na It’s just that I have had to fight for my life since yesterday.”
“Then why are you out there, shouldn’t it be better to have stayed home”
“I was on my way to work when The Big Knockout happened”.
Clark raises an eyebrow and looks amused but doesn’t comment.
“A there we go”.
After 30 minutes of searching on related websites and social media they found a lot of people asking for help, videos of people getting attacked and changing, but they couldn’t find anything about a refugee camp been opened. Just the same stay at home massage.
“The second day hasn’t even finished, so it’s probably too early for the Army to have a refugee camp up and running or at least functional enough to receive people. We should check tomorrow to see if something changes. I’ll go get that black truck and start moving the things in my truck to that one.”
“Are you sure you want to go outside, there could be more of those things around”.
“I already got used to fighting them and besides, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“Hmmm would you be ok whit a medical examination and a demonstration of what you call refinement.”
“I’m more than ok whit the medical examination. My body has gone through some changes, and I have no idea what the corrupt and vital energy really did to my body. The demonstration, on the other hand, I would appreciate it if you could hold up until tomorrow. Today I discover that if you do it too often you could get crams all over your body.”
“Alright I’ll lock the door behind you, ring the bell when you want to come back in, I’ll keep looking around the internet for any information”.
“Alright”
Alex left the house and headed towards the other one whit the black truck. Fortunately, the house was unlocked, unfortunately it had two zombies, but Alex was able to finish them with a couple of fast swings.
It took an hour for Alex to move all the things that he had to the black truck. When he met up with Clark again, Clark had told him that he had found some survivors groups that were putting their location on the internet hopping for the Army or anybody that could help to notice and rescue them.
‘I don’t know if I should join one of these groups or keep being by myself. If I join a group, I’ll have some one that watches my back and help me survive, but if I get a bad group, they could make it more difficult to survive or even kill me for my food.’
As Alex thing of the pros and cons of a group Clark proceeds with the medical examination.
“Hmm after examining your body I only found one point of interest. Your heart rate is lower than the average 28-year-old but not by much. If I had proper equipment, I could tell you more.”
“As long as I don’t have an infection or anything like that, I’m ok for now.”
“Well, it’s getting late let me get you something to eat and you can stay in the guest room.”
“Thank you I really appreciate it”.
After eating and showering Alex goes to sleep.
Early the next morning after Clark and Alex have breakfast Alex demonstrates his refinement technique.
“That’s both impressive and disturbing. What do you think is the black stuff that is coming out of your body?”
“I just call it impurities and I think that is either some kind of waste that is produced while refining the corruption or parts of the corruption that I was unable of refining.”
“Interesting very interesting. This could help a lot of people, say have you tough of putting this discovery on the internet”.
“I…. I did but I didn’t have access to the internet at that moment and I eventually forgot”.
“Then let’s get to it, we can still save people”
Alex feeling ashamed cleans himself quickly and stretches.
‘I don’t know if impurities are going to come out, but I should at least demonstrate it’.
When Alex finished getting ready Clark started to record from his phone. Alex explained what the refining technique was. The step-by-step way to do it. how he came up with the refining technique. What his thoughts were on what happens to people when they get bitten or scratched, showed the cores and finally, he demonstrated the technique, sweating light brown.
“Alright this is good, I’ll upload it in any platform that I can and send it to everyone that I have their contact information of. I’ll probably have to edit it if I want to upload it in some platforms.”
Leaving Clark to deal with the video Alex clean himself and starched. When Clark came back Alex was going to try something that had been on his mind for a long time. Eating a core.