Chapter 5: A city of psychopaths

Ethan walked toward the building, followed by Brantley, he looked down an Alleyway and saw a Rebel, shot dead, and the wounds obviously swat work.
“Stupid Swat and Rebel brawls, it’s a waste of human life.” He said, and he continued walking.
Brantley perked up and looked at Ethan, “How did the war start anyways?”
“Well, a year into the infection, a national guard group was sent in using swat re-enforcements. Soon after, it became apparent that the swat only wanted to save themselves, so it gave rise to the Rebels, a faction made to kill the swat, and save civilian life. If only they would work together, they could save hundreds more.” Ethan continued the walk, and turned down an alley, headed toward a building at the end. “I’ll kill everyone if I have to, this war must stop.”
Ethan pushed open the small door into a small room, stacked to the roof with crates. As they stepped in, a shot rang through the room, piercing Brantley’s foot, Ethan swung around, aiming his MP-4 assault rifle. Nearby, a man wearing a yellow shirt and Kevlar vest stood, aiming an AK-47 at him. “Get the hell out.” The man said, not dropping his aim.
“Colby, it’s me, Ethan!” Ethan said, lowering his weapon, Colby circled Ethan as he did the same. As Colby passed by where he was standing before, Ethan saw several dead bodies, violently shot to death.
“Leave, or I’ll kill you! Now!” Ethan complied, as he walked out of the door, followed by a limping Brantley, he opened up his vest and removed a small satellite phone. “Cody, Colby’s gone mad. He had already killed at least twenty.”
“Shit.” Cody said through his end of the phone, a few moments later, a simple reply came through the phone. “You have the right to dispose of Colby in anyway possible. Be careful, Todd won’t be happy.”
Ethan agreed, he remembered Todd, Scott’s twin brother. A swat member and the only survivor to see the outside of the city in five years, Colby had recently hired Todd to be his bodyguard, and Todd took his job seriously. Ethan than turned around and walked through an open doorway into another house, who’s leader was dead on the floor. He ignored Colby’s kill and sat down at a table, sorting through the chemicals that he was supposed to deliver to Colby. “A little block of C4 should take care of Colby, nice and easy.”

.  .  .  .  .

Chance lay on the ground, his once clean bandages now soaked in his own blood. He stood up and looked out of the window of the small dank garage, and decided to wake up someone.
“Scott, get up. I need help.” He said solemnly as he lay back down, Scott rushed over and began to replace his bandages with clean ones.
“This is going to be hot; I boiled this bandage so it should kill off any bacteria.”

“I can’t live like this forever…” Chance said, wincing in pain as the steaming water fell on top of his wound. “It won’t scab, it won’t stop bleeding, it’s a true wound, and I’m going to die soon.”
“Don’t talk like that, you’ll be fine, there’s always a backup plan.”
“What, exactly, is your backup plan?”
Scott sighed, and avoided Chance’s gaze “Listen, it won’t be pretty, and it’s a last resort, that’s all you need to know.”

As they both stared at the rising sun, the door to the garage opened, Aaron ran through carrying a pole and a basket. “Can you believe it? This garage is only about two miles from the river!”
Scott looked into the basket and saw a few fresh, small, trout. “Wow, finally some real food. Help me cook them, I already have a fire started, used it to boil Chance’s bandages.”
“Sounds good.” Aaron said, looking around. “Got a knife?”
Scott searched his trench coat, as a sudden wave of panic filled him. “Oh, crap! I used to have three bottles of Stimulyte, I think I dropped one.” He handed Aaron a knife, and Aaron began to skin the fish.
“Don’t worry about it, its not like any of the infected can change with it, right?”
“I suppose your right.”
“I always am, now help me clean the fish.” Scott walked over to Aaron and grabbed a trout; he continued talking as he began to skin it.

.  .  .  .  .

Ethan attached the remote unit to the last block, he had seven now. Seven blocks of highly-volatile C4, each with remote units that would send an electric charge into them at the same time. He placed the last block on the south side of the building, and began to walk away, setting the charges for six minutes.
As he left, he saw a figure on a roof a few blocks down, in full Kevlar body armor, wearing a night-vision mask with red eye coverings, a true swat leader. “There’s Todd, off to try to save Colby, if he tries, I’ll just set off the bombs.”
Brantley nodded, watching the figure approach the doomed building. As Todd jumped from the empty building onto Colby’s, Ethan re-set it for twelve seconds, realizing the change, and seeing Ethan, Todd jumped off of the building. Halfway into the jump, the massive explosion knocked down the walls of the building, sending Todd off-balance and onto the ground at a weird angle. Both of his legs snapped with a resounding ‘crack’ as he collapsed to the ground, un-conscious.
“He’s not going anywhere; let’s just let the infected take care of him.” Ethan said as he and Brantley walked away from the burning wreckage.

.  .  .  .  .

Scott handed over the cleaned, cooked, fish to Chance, who happily took it and ate it slowly, he then began a coughing fit, which Scott knew wasn’t good.
“I can’t feel my arm, Scott.”
“Let me see your chest.” Scott removed the bandages and looks at Chance’s chest, a large red line was showing through the skin, from the edge of the massive gash, all the way up to his neck.
“It isn’t good, is it?” Chance said, his eyes drooping sleepily.
“Damn it Chance, stay with me! It’s infected, really bad.”
“I can’t move, Scott. Oh god, I can’t move anything!” Chance began to fall back, his eyelids closing and his mouth standing open.
“Damn it! Don’t die!” Scott yelled as he laid Chance’s head against a pile of old clothes they had found in the garage, he reached inside of his trench coat and pulled out two vials that he poured into a syringe. Immediately as he did, thick, white foam began to form on top; he stabbed it into the vein on Chance’s arm, whose location he knew all to well.
“I didn’t want to have to do this, but I have to, it’s the only thing that will save you now.” Scott knew exactly why it was a last resort, in one vial was blood from the super-infected monster, in the other, was the Stimulyte compound.

.  .  .  .  .

Ethan opened the small door into the all-too familiar room, in the back corner stood a man in a trench coat; a man he knew was Cody.
“Colby is dead, as you know, our C4 worked wonders.”
“One less psychopath on the city streets, thank you Ethan, and I guess we get to keep what chemicals we didn’t use.”
Suddenly, a recorded mass-sent call came out on Cody and Ethan’s satellite phones; the recorded voice of Scott rang out in-mistakably.

“Get any weapons, supplies, and vehicles you can. We have decided to attempt to make a convoy to get out of this city. Contact has been established outside for a massive ferry drop that will take us across the river. Tell who you can, and meet up in the square just after dark, travel in packs, the infected are sure to follow. This is survivor researcher Scott Hampton, I am transmitting on all AM, FM, and XM frequencies, if you can hear me, take this into consideration.”