On his way home from the precinct at the end of his workday, detective Mark Taylor drove his car up the road and into the suburbs. He idly glanced at the houses lined up on either side of him, which were all tinted orange in the sunset going over the horizon.

In spite of his tired current state of mind, Mark somehow found himself feeling a little pleasant from how peaceful everything around him seemed at the moment. From the sunset’s orange glow giving off warm, cozy vibes, to the whole neighborhood rather still and quiet, this tranquility was exactly what he needed. Especially after the particularly frustrating case him and some others had to deal with back at work.

He kept driving all the way into Romero Street, eventually pulling over onto the driveway of the fourth house on his right. Just as he got done turning off the car’s ignition, his phone rang.

Recognizing the number as that of his neighbor and close friend, Mark picked up the call, saying, “Hey Don, what is it?”

The voice on the other side replied, “Hi Mark, I was just wondering whether you were home yet.”

Mark laughed. “Well, you called at the right time, bud. I just finished parking my car on the driveway.”

“Man, good timing.” Don laughed along with him, before adding, “So, I assume this means I’ll be over at your place in a bit?”

“Not like there’s any hurry in that.” Said Mark, glancing over at the house next door as he exited his car, which was also the house Don lived in. “But yeah, see you real soon.”

“Yeah.” Don replied shortly, before ending the call.

Entering his own home, Mark put away his badge and firearm in his typical secure storage in the house, before beginning to prep the kitchen table for a dinner. Don’s wife was out of town on a business trip right now, so the other day Mark had suggested his friend come over for a little get-together over dinner between the two of them, what with Don having particularly nothing else to do after work in his wife’s absence.

“Don’t mention it man, I needed something like this as well for a pick-me-up; my department’s been handling a really tricky case these days and it’s making my head spin like hell. So yeah, think of it as a helping each other out of sorts, friend to friend.” Mark had told Don when he first suggested the kind gesture yesterday over the phone.

As for what that case in question was about, Mark got around to telling Don when he came over by the time the table was all set.

Opening a bottle of beer for each of them, Don first brought up the subject, “Damn, you do look worn out quite a bit now that I got a better look at you here. Was the case you mentioned really that difficult?”

“To make a long story short without sacrificing detail,” Mark replied, nodding, “A recent murder case took us on a path with more twists and turns than your average episode of CSI. That body found at the local motel you may have seen on the news a few days ago – that lead us straight to a series of evidence pointing to this one person you also may have seen on the news being the culprit.”

“Mhm.” Following the story with no problem so far, Don also nodded before adding, “My apologies if I’m not caught up with a few things, I haven’t been watching a lot of the news recently – way too much stress than what I endure already.” He then took a swig of beer as if even just talking about it troubled his mind.

Mark chortled at that, then continued, “With every bit of evidence we gathered so far screaming ‘this person is the killer’, you’d think that would be the end of it, right? Hell no, because another long investigation later, it turns out the evidence was deliberately planted where we found them for the real killer to get away scot-free by framing an innocent person, can you believe it?”

“That scum!” Don exclaimed with a frown. “It’s already more than bad enough that this culprit killed one person, but to try and ruin the life of another just so they could get away with it…”

Shaking his head, Mark sighed in agreement. “I know… and they would’ve actually gotten away with it, because everyone around me fully believed the planted evidence until just recently.”

As Don took another swig of beer while listening, Mark explained in a bit more detail, “Despite what all the others in my department thought, I couldn’t for the love of me bring myself to believe that this scared, emotional wreck of a person we had in custody could’ve possibly committed a murder. And this wasn’t just a feeling in my gut either, I even went so far as using a lie detector during investigations, much to the objections of my peers. They still believed more in the presented evidence than anything else.”

“Whoa, you and the wrongly-accused suspect against the whole precinct.” Don mumbled, now looking at his friend in a kind of awe. “I now see where all that frustration came from.”

Drinking from his bottle as well, Mark could almost feel the cold beer drowning out that very frustration which had been scorching his mind like an inferno these past few days, saying, “Yeah, I mean – they don’t say ‘innocent until proven guilty’ for nothing, so with that in mind, I worked my ass off on looking for any evidence that might help prove a different story to the case.”

Don nodded. “And you found it.” He said, then heartily clapped him on the back. “You done good, buddy. If I was in your shoes I never would’ve managed what you did. All the evidence and attitudes stacked against me definitely would’ve made me doubt my actions, if not downright give up. Or even worse, let myself give way to all that pressure and then regret it later.”

Flattered at his friend’s compliment, Mark managed a small grin and replied, “Even I had a few moments of doubt during the process. But every time I did, I kept myself going with the reminder that if I’m right and I succeed in this, I’ll be saving an innocent person from a terrible fate. And if I’m wrong, then there’s still no harm done in making fully sure we’ve got the right suspect. With that said, long story short; we caught the real killer and vindicated the previous suspect.”

“Oh man.” Said Don, laughing half in awe, half in amusement at these words. “They need more righteous people like you on the force to make this town a better place.”

Mark found himself laughing along, caught up a little in the nice moment they were having, and not feeling as stressed as before, “Oh come now, I was only doing what a member of the local law enforcement rightfully should do.” Then changing to a slightly more serious tone, he spoke again, “Here’s what I believe in – it’s important for law enforcement to be able to apprehend dangerous individuals like that killer for the well-being of the community. But lest we forget that very well-being also includes the community being able to trust its law enforcement to keep the people safe, such as, well, not putting away innocent folks behind bars. Because if people can’t trust their community’s law enforcement to protect them, who can they trust?”

Then realizing Don had abruptly paused in the middle of putting a forkful of food into his mouth to stare at him over what he’d said, Mark awkwardly added, “Excuse me if I was rambling, don’t stop eating just because of me.”

Maybe the few sips of beer had already gone to his head and he was indeed just rambling, but somehow Mark felt much, much more relieved from getting off all the weight the murder case had piled on his chest through his words. As much as he never regretted his decision to work in the police force, the job obviously wasn’t without stressful moments like this. And whenever they were to happen, he found talking his feelings out with someone to be a good way to ease his mind. For that he sometimes visited his department’s counselor or called his family (he was still single as of now). But most of the time, Don was there to hear him out as his friend, much to the detective’s gratitude. It was just that Mark didn’t want to be a bother to him by talking about such matters to him all the time. The man wasn’t his personal therapist or anything, after all.

Don chuckled a little, put the fork in his mouth and chewed his food, before saying, “It’s fine, Mark. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you talk about your job with this much insight before.”

Not knowing what to say about that, Mark simply chuckled back and helped himself to a bit of food too, as Don added, “And you weren’t rambling or anything, I kinda agree with what you said. Like, you did raise a lot of interesting points back there.”

Chuckling again, this time out of gratitude, Mark said, “Thanks, man. What would I do without folks like yourself hearing me out?” to which Don kindly replied, “You deserve it mate, and besides, we’re friends. Is there any reason for me to not do so?”

With that grateful and wholesome exchange, the rest of their dinner went over rather fine, until they finished and it was time for Don to head back home. Then Mark tended to a few other things – mostly stuff concerning work and receiving a brief call from his family – before calling it a day and heading off to bed.

***

The next morning, Mark awoke to a series of events he never would’ve even imagined happening, and all of them right out of the blue without so much as a warning. First off, when he picked up his cell phone from his bedside table to turn off its morning alarm, he also found the screen showing what looked like an emergency text saying something about mass breakouts of unexplained violence all across the city.

With no time at all to go through his typical morning routine in a situation like this, Mark simply splashed a handful of water onto his hair before hastily drying it with a towel, scarfed down one slice of bread, and got dressed to head out and do his job, armed and ready.

But even that ran into its own series of unexpected events the moment Mark opened his front door and stepped outside. Once on the streets, Mark could see whatever was happening out there was already slowly making its way into the suburbs as well. He spotted one or two people here and there occasionally running past the neighboring houses in the distance, uttering either screams of terror or seemingly angry growls.

That was a minor but weird thing Mark couldn’t help but notice. Based on what he read in the emergency text he could understand the screams, but growling? And it wasn’t like the kind you’d typically hear coming from an angry person, but rather, some sort of rabid animal.

With these thoughts going through his mind, Mark was just about to unlock his car door when in the reflection of the car’s window, he saw something slowly approaching him over his shoulder.

Turning around, Mark saw the horrific sight of a man streaked from head to toe in blood limping across the yard towards him. The man was also sporting a severe wound on the side of his neck to boot, and the cause of his limp turned out to be his left foot having been twisted in a weird angle.

Obviously shocked, but seeing the man was in need of immediate help, Mark told him, “Sir, keep pressure on that wound in your neck, I’ll drive you to the nearest hospital once I-“

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Mark had meant to say that he’d drive him to the nearest hospital once he got his car started. But he never got to do so, or even finish his sentence, when the bloody man suddenly leaped at him as soon as he was close enough, uttering the same rabid growl Mark had heard earlier from some of the passersby in the distance.

Granted, this man had a bad ankle so he wasn’t able to do much other than grab onto Mark and continue to growl ferociously, but this still startled Mark enough to make him drop his car keys and resort to using both hands to try and fend off the madman.

“What are you doing- stop!” Mark screamed, grabbing the man beneath the armpits to push him away from him. By now the man was baring teeth just as bloodstained as the rest of him to violently snap them at the detective, as if trying to take a bite out of him.

While his mind had gone into utter disarray in the chaos he’d witnessed over a mere few minutes, Mark’s survival instincts thankfully weren’t faltered. He eventually managed to throw the man off him by slamming him against the car and kicking his bad ankle. This caused the man to fall on the ground beside the car, giving Mark the chance to get some distance between himself and the man.

However, before Mark’s eyes, the man almost immediately began to stand back up, as if he was completely immune to the pain of falling down or having his broken ankle hit. Momentarily flailing his legs about on the ground – and to Mark’s great annoyance, unknowingly kicking his car keys underneath the vehicle in the process – the man planted his feet, including the broken one, onto the ground and picked himself up. Doing so, his limbs moved and bended in the most grotesque ways Mark had ever seen, almost like a contortionist performing a flexible stunt. And once he was back up, the man continued to snap his teeth at Mark as he slowly limped towards him again.

That was the last straw. Mark drew his gun from his belt and aimed it at the man, and though at this point he doubted whether the man could even understand him in such a state, he shouted firmly, “Sir, I’ll have to ask you to stay where you are and put your hands in the air!”

The man only snapped more and limped closer to Mark, whose grip on his gun was becoming more and more sweaty by the second with his anxiety reaching its boiling point, “If you do not comply, I’ll have no choice but to open fire!”

Again, the man showed no sign of compliance, looking like he was about to lunge again. Yet despite what he just said, Mark’s finger could only tremble before the gun’s trigger instead of pulling it. Was it the pressure of all this chaos nobody could’ve been prepared for? Or the uncertainty of if he was really willing to shoot a man without having the faintest idea of what was driving him to act so crazy (even if it was in self-defense)? Either way, Mark found himself unable to act at that moment.

Luckily for him, someone else did. Before Mark knew it, a baseball bat came swinging seemingly out of nowhere to hit the bloody man in the head with a dull THWACK, sending him down onto the ground a second time, except this time he didn’t rise again.

This finally snapped Mark back to his proper senses as he looked in the direction the bat had come from and exclaimed, “Don!”

Poking the bloody man with the bat to make sure he was really down, Don turned to Mark and asked with both relief and frustration in his voice, “What the hell were you brandishing that gun for if you weren’t gonna actually use it to protect yourself?!”

Unable to explain the reason himself, Mark ignored the question and instead simply thanked Don for saving him, to which he replied, “Naw, don’t mention it… more than that, are you alright?”

Mark nodded. He then glanced at the faraway sight of more people running for their lives from other growling ones like the one Don took down, before asking, “Do you have any idea what all this is about?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Said Don, now looking equally confused as Mark. “I was heading outside to check my mail when I saw these people running here and there like crazy, and the next thing I knew this lady with blood all over her mouth and nothing but murder in her eyes came running towards me at top speed…”

Don gestured with his head over at his front lawn where sure enough, Mark could see the lady he described lying spread eagled on the grass. No doubt she’d been knocked down by Don in an act of self-defense, as proven by Don glancing at the bat in his hands and adding, “Good thing someone had dropped this thing near my house, or who knows what she could’ve done to me…”

“Good thing for me too.” Said Mark. He looked around quickly to see if any more growling people were coming at them, before asking, “My keys fell underneath the car, you think I can use that bat to retrieve them? I have a feeling we’d wanna get away from here as far as possible and find a safe place from whatever the hell’s going on.”

Don nodded and handed the bat over to Mark. “But better hurry.” He said, also observing their surroundings, “We don’t know when we might get jumped-“

But he’d spoken too soon. No less than a split second after Mark had begun to kneel down beside his car with the bat in hand, there came a couple of screams nearby, and what was more, they were getting closer.

Bolting upright, Mark gave the bat back to Don and pulled out his gun again, just in time to see a woman and a man running for dear life from the other side of the street to where the two men were at. Following them were two more growling, bloodstained people hot on their heels.

Being more prepared this time, Mark knew what had to be done, and almost as if by instinct, so did Don. Both of them shouted at the two folks running in their direction, “Get down!” with their weapons at the ready.

Noticing Mark and Don, the man and woman leapt out of the way. The growling people chasing them likewise tried to lunge at their targets, but then were thwarted by Don swinging his bat at the chest of one of them, knocking them to the ground. The same fate met the other one as Mark shot them in the knee, the sound of the gunshot cracking like a whip through the early morning air.

This left Mark’s ears ringing a little, but that was the least of his worries right now. He bent down and helped the man back up to his feet, asking, “Are you okay?”

“Thanks to both of you, yeah.” The man replied in a raspy voice, sounding both extremely relieved and grateful. It was then that Mark noticed the man had a slight limp on one of his legs as if it was injured. It’s a wonder how he was able to run that hard on a leg like that, Mark thought.

The lady was also thanking Don as he helped her up too, exclaiming inbetween heavy panting from all the running, “I thought I’d be a goner for sure by those crazies if it weren’t for you saving me, thank you so much!”

“Save those words for later.” Mark told the lady, “We all can’t stay here any longer.” He glanced back at the two growling people he and Don had knocked down. The one hit by Don’s bat was convulsing like crazy on the ground but still far from staying where they lay. Meanwhile the one Mark shot in the knee was desperately crawling across the pavement towards the four people, gurgling more animalistic growls through a mouthful of blood.

“I’ll get your keys for you.” Don said to Mark, and was just about to crouch down next to Mark’s car when they were interrupted by yet another disturbance – a disturbance none of them could possibly ignore and take the time to retrieve Mark’s keys from beneath his car, because there was no time for anything this time other than to run.

From far up and down the street to behind some of the neighboring houses, dozens and dozens of more people growling from bloody mouths emerged and ran towards the four people they could see who were still acting normally; Mark, Don, and the two folks they’ve rescued.

Even in the split second he noticed them before leaping into action the next moment, Mark realized these people had been attracted by the sound of his gunshot. The noise had undoubtedly carried for an extremely long distance all across the neighborhood. And once it was heard, there’d been no turning these growling folks back as they made their way towards the source of it.

There was nothing else for it. The only thing any of them had enough time to do before the horde of crazies came at them was to barricade themselves within the closest place of shelter accessible right now, which was Mark’s house.

“Go! Inside, now!” Rushing to his front door and unlocking it in what felt like half the speed of sound, Mark opened it wide, made sure the three others made it inside safely, then slammed the door shut only a split second before the very front of the growling horde reached the doorstep.

“Jesus bloody Christ…” Mark locked the front door behind him and slid down to the floor. The fear-induced adrenaline from earlier left every inch of his body all at once upon him and the others’ successful entry into the house, where they were no longer in danger from those growling people and whatever was causing them to act the way they did.

Don, the limping man, and the lady were all either kneeled or collapsed on the floor as well, panting like mad and staring at their surroundings like they couldn’t believe they’d actually made it. In fact, all of them had to remain in such a state for a good couple of minutes before Don looked up and broke the silence by asking, “Are all the windows here locked, Mark?”

For a moment the man and lady looked panicked, thinking they might not be safe even in here if so much as one window was left susceptible to intrusion. But the moment passed as soon as it came when Mark replied, “I always keep my windows locked when they’re closed, don’t worry.” Then glanced around at the living room windows, all of which were fully covered by curtains, as were the rest of the windows throughout the house. At that moment Mark felt extremely grateful for himself that he always closed the curtains on his windows at night (he’d of course also had no time to open them this morning from being in a hurry).

Don and the limping man breathed a deep sigh of relief, then the former mumbled, “Yeah well, guess a police officer of all people would know better than to leave his house unsecure…”

“You’re a cop?” The limping man asked in a still raspy voice, to which Mark responded with a nod and gave the man a glimpse of his badge. However the lady, who looked like she was not yet reassured enough of the house’s security, paid no attention to this exchange and said, “Who’s to say those crazies won’t just break the windows to get in?”

Once again there was a moment of terror in the air, one that lasted longer than the first, as well as struck all four of them this time. The lady had a point, those people out there came across as unhinged enough to not give a damn about whether they cut themselves on broken glass shards – if that was the case, they could most certainly get into the house by breaking the windows. Not to mention there was so many of them, so they had more than enough strength to do it as well.

Thankfully this brief moment also passed, as when everyone in the house fell silent from the fear of what could happen if this worst-case scenario came true, what they heard in their ears right then and there restored their composure. Or rather, what they DIDN’T hear.

Sure, they could still faintly hear the growls of the crazies outside the house, but right now the growls felt more subdued in a way, and not just because they were hearing them through a wall. It was rather unlike the growling sounds reminiscent of an actively attacking rabid animal that they’d heard before. Moreso, they couldn’t hear anything along the lines of fists furiously smashing against the glass. If anything, the windows were being left alone by the crazies completely.

Standing up to look at the windows, Mark also noticed on the curtains the faint silhouettes of the people outside. Rather than looking like they were attacking violently, the way they idly swayed this way and that seemed to suggest the opposite.

This sparked a revelation in Mark’s mind as he mumbled, “Are they not attacking because they can’t see us…?”

“Huh?” The man and lady glanced at Mark with confused looks on their faces, while Don leapt up from the floor and silently exclaimed, “That must be it! It doesn’t make sense for those people to run like hell at us outside but then go somewhat calm once we got indoors, unless that’s the case!”

Mark turned to look at Don with an almost impressed glance, saying, “You read my mind…” but the lady, again, was not reassured. She nervously rose to her feet and asked Mark and Don, “That’s still only an assumption for now, though… what if you’re wrong and those people come barging in when we least expect it?”

Neither Mark nor Don had an answer to that. So the only thing they could think of doing in response, as well as to answer a lot of their own questions to their situation, they went over to the TV in the living room and sat down in front of it. They beckoned the other two to come join them, saying “Maybe the news can give us some useful information… at least, we hope.”

After the man had limped and the lady had walked over to the couch Mark and Don were sitting at, they took a second to introduce one another as a news broadcast showed up on the TV screen.

The news informed them that while the cause of all this remained unknown, recent reports and witnesses have managed to deduce how these acts of violence seemed to work; the most noticeable fact was that there was one common thing every one of the crazed growling people did to others, which was bite down on any bit of flesh they could sink their teeth into. As for the ones bitten, they too went crazy not too long after and acted the exact same way as those who attacked them. The description alone made it sound like some sort of horrible disease was spreading out there.

“What is this, some sort of epidemic?!” The lady, Vera, exclaimed in terror at what she’d heard. The limping man, Gerald, simply sat still with wide open eyes. Don replied to Vera, “There doesn’t seem to be a better way to put it…” and Mark said, “Shh, wait – they’re saying something else…” as he concentrated more on the TV screen.

The news then spoke of what appeared to be a recognizable pattern with how this phenomenon, which was now being called “the infection” due to the way it spread, presumably worked. Based on witness reports, anyone who got bitten showed the infection symptom of coughing up blood, then fully turned into a “crazy” shortly after. Not only that, the speed of the infection to completely take effect varied depending on how far away from the head the bitten body part was.

“At least we know something now, that’s better than nothing…” Don piped up, then found his voice trailing off as he turned to the others to ask what they made of this information. Because right as Don looked at the three sitting next to him, Gerald had let out a few coughs into his hand, and when he removed it from his mouth, everyone saw the palm was spattered with blood.