Bennie sprang into action, like a quarterback ready to tackle anything before him. He sprang forward like a bullet and kicked the right knee of the threat. With a crisp *thraaack sound, the leg of the poor lady bent inward. Like a drunken bastard, the threat fell down head first towards the sand. Bennie stepped back observing the creature with apprehension.

I knew what he was thinking. The head is where we should focus but without a clear transmission vector. We don't know if this... this.. whatever this phenomenon is, infects through contact or airborne. We have no way of knowing. I'm sure Bennie didn't stomp on the creature due to fear of the unknown factor. So I looked around and luckily found a sizeable rock. The size of at least a bowling bowl. I sprinted towards it, literally staggering just to get to it.

"Richie, it's crawling!" Bennie shouted.

Damn, the fucking thing still moves? No pain receptors. So that's one sign. No shouts of pain. I tell you, all those movies we see on TV shows are a far cry from reality. The loud "creatures" as I like to call it for now, are quite unrealistic. This creature however is too damn quiet besides a few rasps here and there. That's understandable, you need air flow to make your voice box produce, more like vibrate a sound. But as far as I can tell, this creature is not breathing. "Rock!" I shouted back towards Bennie.

"Step on it's back! The center of gravity! Keep it still!" I bellowed. "Easy for you to say!" he replied but still went around the creature and stepped on its back. The creature, immobilized as it is, flailed around. "Fuck!" Bennie staggered. He must've underestimated the strength of the creature. Losing his balance, he fell onto his butt. "ooofff" Bennie grunted.

"Ben!" I heard Abigail shouting. I ignored her and sprinted towards the creature crawling towards Bennie. The creature was trying to grasp Bennie's foot while he was struggling to kick the creature's hands away. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Bennie struggled.

" Get clear!" I warned. Bennie rolled to the side 3 times. It was amusing to watch. His version of STOP DROP AND ROLL is way better than those commercials we see these days. Posturing like a sleeping vampire, he closed his fist and rolled away from the creature.

I raised the rock above my shoulder and cried out as I was throwing it right towards the back of the head of the creature. With a war cry. and every bit of strength I had, the rock with all its momentum hit the the creature's head dead on. With a loud *Thwack and a bit of crack, the sounds of a skull broken to pieces resounded clearly in my ears. I stood there. Looking at the mess I made. I just killed somebody. STOP! No, it's not somebody. People who are alive don't move like that. They don't act like they want to eat a buffet out of you and surely they don't shrug damages to their bodies like Bennie's knee kick like it was nothing. But still, I just killed something that looks like a person.

Whatever the movies said about killing. It doesn't come easy. Yeah, I would kill to survive and even kill to defend myself but this? It's like killing a neighbor you always see on the block but never knew who the individual was. It's still gonna be bothering me. My hands were shaking as I was stepping away. I felt some wetness on my cheek. I felt blood and some wet gunk. " Oh god." I heaved to the side. "I feel like throwing up," I said to nobody in particular. Whatever those movies described what the end of the world is like, how those games made it look so easy and bearable? It is so.. so much worse. I forced myself not to puke. I'll lose fluid if I give in puking right then and there.

I felt a hand grabbing my shoulder and I jerked. I swatted it violently and relaxed when I saw Bennie standing there. " You okay?" he asked. Do I look okay to you? I wanted to lash out but now is not the time. I'm sure he was sincerely concerned about me." I'm fine." I answered.

"Uhm, guys!" I heard Abigail calling out to us. That stopped me from thinking too much about what I just did. I looked at her pointing at something near the sandy hills with a few trees on top. It was the hills that obscured our position from the main road towards the border town. There, at least 150 meters from our position stood a few figures of people. Walking towards us like wasted drunks. Abigail was about to wave when I called out to her. "Stop!" I shouted to her while taking deep breaths. Bennie looking at the spectacle frowned. " Those aren't people," he muttered. "Must have been drawn because of my shouting," I added.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"What do you mean?" Abigail questioned. She looked back and saw 2 figures fell downhill while walking with outstretched hands towards us. I don't know what Abigail thinks is happening right now but it's either she's stupid or she just doesn't want to accept what kind of situation we are in, or what kind of situation the world is in right now.

"We got to go." Bennie hurriedly led the way downhill towards the edge of the border town. "We got to break contact," he added. "You're right. We don't even know if those things can see or just hear things pretty well." I agreed. Following Bennie, Abigail was holding a piece of wood. More like a twig really, close to her chest. What are you Harry Pottah now? No amount of adava kadava's gonna save us if we don't get the hell away from here right now.

But you gotta acknowledge her a bit. She probably picked it up while we were fighting Miss Bloody Violet over there. Thinking the magic twig can even do something to that lying mess right now.

"I hope we find Dumbledore," I whispered to Abigail. She turned around and said, " What is it?". She saw me looking at her holding her magic wand with trembling hands. She cursed. "Oh, that's how it is then huh?" Is she British? I can hear a bit of a British undertone on how she speaks. She was about to slap me with it when we heard Bennie call to us with an angry tone.

"You both seriously gonna do this right now? I know you both are shaken with this shit happening, fuck!. I am too. But I'd rather focus on staying alive for now and joke all I want when we are at least secured!" looking with disappointed eyes at both Abigail and me. "You're losing your edge Richie." he pointed at me. " and it's gonna be the death of you or for the three of us."

"Got it," I replied. He's right. I know I'm just refusing the gravity of the situation by taking it out on Abigail. But he's right. I have to get my head in the game until we are somewhat safe at least. I slapped both my cheeks and focused back on the task at hand.

"Sorry," Abigail added while we continued the trek towards the edge of the border town. Towards another kind of hell.

~~~~~~

Day 2 12:07 PM

"This is Frost, Does anybody copy over?" *click. Calling over her radio with barely a whisper for the past few hours, Amber Walters sat up slowly in a dark storage room in a major intersection at the southern part of the border town. A gas station explosion blew her towards the front of a clothing store last night embedding a large glass shard to her left leg and succeeded in knocking her out. Luckily, when she woke up, with her first aid kit, she was able to pull the shard out. Or be it while biting her gun sling. It was a clean wound. No arteries hit. Just embedded deep in her left leg muscle. She was lucky but it still hurts like a mother fucker. "Embrace the suck." She chanted. She was going to send a message from C-1 or checkpoint 1 to C-2 at the next intersection closer to the administrative building of the border town.

She didn't know why they were holding a containment procedure or what was going on. Her orders were to hold the line and shoot anybody who broke into the containment area. Whoever idiotic politician ordered that was either stupid or just had no idea what to do besides to keep themselves safe. She was just a private first class. Got kicked out of the army because of dishonorable conduct which she doesn't want to recall. Without work and pay, she jumped at an anonymous invitation to work as a mercenary at a newly established border town. With double the pay, she had nothing to lose. She accepted the invitation. What's the worst thing that could happen? She just started last week. Got inserted into a patrol unit to keep up security, get rough with anybody who thinks they can do anything they want without consequences and that's it. It should be easy. It was supposed to be easy. Then this clusterfuck happened.

"Easy day yesterday Frost. Should not have signed those contracts if this was gonna happen." she sighed to herself.