To Be A Hero

Chapter 1: Pound The Alarm

"Runner One, come in! I repeat, come in!" Janine yells.

"Yang! Yang!" Veronica screams. "Run, run! It's coming!"

There's a growl.

"People, are you reading this?" Nadia gasps.

"I don't care! Get him up!" Janine yells. "They work together!"

There's the sound of blood spattering.

"I think he's dead! I think it killed Yang!"

"Where's Paula, Veronica?" Nadia asks fearful.

"She's just collapsed, like she does."

Paula coughs.

"Oh God!"

"What is it? What?" Sam asks drowsily. "Uh, no, no. I'm awake."

"No, I don't know where they are. Something's interfering with the tracker!" Nadia pauses. "If I knew what, I'd just say, wouldn't I?"

"It's coming for me! It's going to get me!" Veronica cries. "It's not a zom. It's not moving like one."

"No, Runner Thirty-one doesn't have the field experience," Janine says. "I want Runner Five to deal with this personally. No one else."

Veronica screams.

"It's... it's got her."

"Five!" Sam yells, and I wake up with a gasp. I raise my hands to ask him what's wrong, but I pause at the fearful look on his face. "Yang Pulse, Runner One, is dead. Runner Twenty-three has collapsed. Veronica McShell's been kidnapped. We don't know by who or by what. We need you."

He pulls me off my bed and shoves my backpack and headset into my arms. "Get out there! Run!"

I do. Slipping on both items I head for the gates, turning my head just in time to see Sam racing back towards the coms shack.

So it wasn't just a dream.

I reach the gates, heart pumping hard in my chest even as my limbs still feel stiff from sleep.

"Raise the gates!"

The alarm fills my ears, and I run, not worrying about the zombies near me. Our snipers take care of them with ease. The thump of undead bodies hitting the ground doesn't faze me, nor does the October air that fills my lungs.

My pace is quick, steady as my mind thinks back to what Sam said, and what I dreamed. It was flashing scenes, most of them too quick for me to truly grasp onto and remember in the waking world, but I do remember what I heard. Something killed Yang, something off. Veronica said it wasn't a zom, but humans don't growl like that. Whatever took her... it's not normal.

Paula's collapsed, again. She's getting worse with each passing day. The plasmapheresis treatments are having to go on longer, and the effects of them are shortening...

The zombie plague is finally catching up to her. If I'm remembering my dream correctly, her falling over is what stalled Yang and Veronica. It's the reason one of our people is dead and one is missing.

I hear paper rustling through my headset.

"Alright. Alright, Five, just keep going. You're looking good. A couple shamblers behind you, but you're good for the next mile or so. You should be, at least. It's kinda hard to see when it's dark outside. Um, I'm just catching up on the mission briefing notes here. Uh, Nadia, what is 'ZAS 133'?"

"'Zombie Anomaly Sighting', and the number. We've been following up all possible anomalies," She answers. "It's Veronica's plan. The notes Moonchild led us to at the Natural History Museum suggested that some Vikings might have cured people of the zombie plague back then."