The Green Flu

Chapter 5 - Devon

"How did this happen?" Anthony asked no one in particular. This was about the third time he's brought it up.

"We need to focus on getting to the lab." Anthony was a little shaken, we both were. Can you blame us? But we couldn't let that distract us now. In a worst case scenario, we might need to fight our way in. We've only seen about 4 of these once-human-creatures, but there were hundreds of people working in this building. Logically, that could mean that there would be hundreds of these things, but I really didn't want to believe that everyone was gone.

I got up slowly since the cuts on my chest made doing simple tasks hard. Anthony reached out to help me, but I waved him off. I can get up by myself and besides, this wasn't even all that bad. They're just like the sort of cut that you would get from barbed wire. I'll survive.

"There's a couple more down that hallway." Anthony said, pointing down the hallway that we have to go down to get to the lab. I gave a sigh of exasperation when I saw how many creatures were down the hall. I counted about 12 throughout the whole hall, but there were many rooms off to the sides. Who knows how many creatures could be hiding in those rooms?

"Well," I started. "We'll have to fight our way through. We have to get to the lab. If there's even a tiny chance of anyone surviving this, that's where they'd be." I could see the fear on Anthony's face, but he nodded never the less.

"You ready?" He asked and received a nod from me. We both looked ahead and pulled the trigger. One out of the two shots hit one of those things in the head. One body fell and the rest of the creatures turned towards us. With a collective scream, they ran at us all at once.

I heard Anthony take a quick breath and saw him take a step back. Then, without hesitating, he starting shooting as many bullets as he could at the nearest creature. Many fell dead, but some were only wounded. I started shooting as well, but I took my time to aim properly and more of my targets were eliminated quicker than Anthony's.

Within a matter minutes, the creatures were laying on the floor, dead. Our hearts were beating faster and our breaths came quicker, but we could now walk right through the hall. I gave Anthony a pat on the shoulder and he gave me a weak smile. He wasn't looking too good. His skin was a little paler than usual and he was moving the slightest bit slower.

Almost like Daniel was, I thought to myself. Maybe Anthony caught the flu that was going around?

"Hey, are you feeling alright?" I asked, starting to get concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He showed me his smile again, but I could tell that he wasn't himself.

"You sure? You don't look fine." Not only did I care about the well being of Anthony, but if he can't shoot these creatures then I'd have to do all the heavy lifting and I'm already hurt. We can't keep going down these hallways and killing all those creatures if Anthony is getting sick. "We need you at your best, especially now."

Anthony just shook his head.

"I'm alright, don't worry. It's just a cough." He and I both knew that it wasn't "just a cough", but we couldn't do anything about it now.

"Okay, let's get going then."

***

For about twenty minutes Anthony and I turned the corner to see a hall full of those creatures. But we took care of them and kept going. Other than a creature getting too close or one of us needed to reload our guns, the journey was uneventful. Soon we found the door to the main lab and after a couple of minutes of trying to get the right keys, we got the door opened.

The main lab is where the scientists and researchers do most of their experiments. It is the largest lab and the most expensive to make, which means its the most effective. It's actually two floors. They have a small upstairs area where they monitor all the cameras in the lab and where they observe whatever they are testing. The downstairs area is just a really big room that has different purposes.

When we got there, there was tons of creatures in the room downstairs. None of them had noticed us yet, but we weren't about to take any chances. I would rather catch them by surprise then they catch us, and Anthony must have agreed with me because he started shooting at them. I aimed my weapon and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, and so on until I lost track.

When we started firing, all of them in the lab could hear and they all turned their attention to us, which was bad. All that we had to defend ourselves was two little pistols, two M1911s. And we certainly didn't have the ammo to keep missing our targets. I made sure to aim for the heads and so did Anthony. There couldn't have been more than 30 of those creatures there, but with all of them coming at us at once, it seemed like so much more.

Eventually, I had to push some of them back. Anthony had to as well, but he was moving slower, whether it was because of fear or because his cough had gotten worse, I couldn't tell. Anthony hasn't been able to keep as much of a level head as I have. I only hoped that it wouldn't effect how well he can kill these creatures.

I shoved away a couple of them that had gotten too close and glanced at Anthony. He was backing up quickly and was shooting wildly, trying to hit one of the creatures. Only half of his shots actually found their targets and most of those weren't kill shots. I turned and took aim at the creature closest to Anthony.

He pulled the trigger, but nothing came out. He ran out of shots. Looking at me fearfully, Anthony rushed to grab his magazine of bullets. Now I was the only thing stopping those creatures from ripping Anthony to shreds. Though, I still had creatures of my own to worry about. Dodging from the clawed grasp of a grey skinned creature, I saw Anthony back up to the wall and no further. He was trapped. He frantically tried to reload his weapon and I frantically tried to cover him. I took aim at a creature that was creeping a little too close, but suddenly I was knocked down to the ground by a charging creature.

I held back a scream as hot pain flared from the scratches on my chest. I shoved the creature off of me rolled onto my side to shoot it. Once it was dead, I dragged myself up. Just as I did, a painful scream pierced the air. My head shot up and could only watch the scene in front of me unfold. The creatures surrounding Anthony had finally closed in. They were clawing at him, leaving nasty marks behind. A couple even bit him.

I struggled to steady my aim and soon Anthony had jammed the magazine into the gun and was killing the the creatures once again. He shouted out of anger and fired even faster. Anthony's face was a mix of pain and hot anger, and he let all of that anger out of those creatures. Within a matter of minutes, they were all dead.

Anthony was breathing hard and he looked around, wondering how he had managed to fight off all of those creatures so quickly. Just as I was about to check if he was alright, a voice rang out from the intercom on the wall by the door leading to the second floor of the lab.

"Nice job taking out those infected."