Devoured - - (list of e readers .TXT) 📗

The spectral wail of the infected stabbed at Lance’s ears.

He jumped out of the recliner, confused and disoriented. His foot throbbed when he landed on it.

Agonized screams and bloodcurdling cries for mercy came from the window. He hobbled over, shoulders tensing as he reached for the taped curtains. He paused before opening them, realizing the television blared behind him, and turned around to shut it off. Any light visible from his apartment would give away his position.

Flashes of mutation skirted along the edges of light provided by the streetlamps. Lance saw glimpses of massive musculature and distended arms and fingers.

Bile stung his throat as he watched a woman get torn apart at the waist, two of the creatures fighting over her flesh.

They’d grown larger and faster.

Meaner.

Hungrier.

People fled in all directions, chased down by the beasts.

A man stood in the window of an apartment across the street, firing a shotgun at the infected as they ran by. He stepped back when he ran out of ammo and reloaded, shoving shells in as fast as he could.

Lance watched, horrified and awestruck, as one of the brutes lunged from the sidewalk, grabbing hold of a window ledge on the first floor. It leapt to the second story window with ease, climbing the building like an acrobat from hell.

The shotgun-wielding man never saw it coming. Lance wanted to shout a warning, but dared not give away his position.

It burst through the window as the man shoved another shell into his weapon. His cries of agony carried to Lance from across the street.

A car dirt-tracked around the corner, barreling through an intersection at an uncontrollable speed. It sprinted forward, engine growling, and smashed into one of the mutants, metal and meat crushing under the impact. The car veered from the collision and ran onto the sidewalk, hitting a garbage can before ramping up the steps of a building.

Two more of the infected leapt from shadows as the driver opened the door. He didn’t get out of his seat before they were on him, claws tearing at the interior of the car.

His screams only lasted a few seconds.

“My god.” Lance gaped at the havoc for a couple of moments before covering the window up again.

He paced around the apartment, hands shaking, teeth chattering like he had hypothermia. It didn’t seem fair. He fell asleep under the impression that the Xavier virus had burned itself out. Now the infected stalked the streets like a nightmare.

“They’re dying out,” he said, mocking the Pentagon official. “My ass. They’re climbing the fucking walls.”

Where had they been all day? Lance saw one of them shy away from a light in the hospital, but it hadn’t meant much to him at the time. Did they not like light?

He went over to the window again, peeling back just enough of the curtain to stick his head through. He focused on the area under the streetlights, doing his best to ignore the insanity that pervaded the night. They occasionally ran under the lights, but they never lingered. Usually, they skirted the illuminated area, wailing into the night like hellhounds.

An explosion rocked the neighborhood.

The windows in Lance’s building rattled. Car alarms triggered. The beasts shrieked.

A ball of fire licked the night sky, peaking over a large building down the street. Lance knew a gas station was nestled back there. He’d often thought to himself about the horrid location of the place as he drove by.

Several of the infected poured from the mouth of an alley, fleeing the fire behind them, ducking into the shadows of cars and dumpsters and stairwells.

Confirmation settled in Lance’s mind—they hid during the day because they feared the light. Did it harm them? He considered how their skin changed, growing gray and thin.

His inability to defend himself thundered home as he watched the carnage. A knife wouldn’t suffice. They’d tear him apart with ease. He needed a gun.

Though he and Liz had lived in the building for several years, they didn’t know any of their neighbors. They recognized some of them by sight and well enough to say hello, but he wasn’t even aware of their jobs. Could one of them have a gun in their apartment?

If he tried to break into a neighbor’s place, the racket might attract attention. He decided to wait out the night, hoping the morning sun would send these bastards back to whatever hole they hid in yesterday.

He looked back at the barricaded door. It might be strong enough to keep one of them at bay. His windows were the problem. They had no issues climbing buildings and smashing through glass. The thought of nailing a table across the window occurred to him briefly, but he figured they’d break through it like balsa wood.

Turning the television back on, Lance lowered the volume to barely above a whisper. He stood three feet from the screen, staring at the warfare displayed.

Tanks fired at a shopping mall in Boston. The front of a JC Penney exploded outward, showering the parking lot with debris.

Apaches fired rockets into the entrance of a subway station in Washington D.C.

Hundreds of the infected stormed down a street in Cincinatti, gunfire cutting them down as they plowed forward. They jumped off the sides of buildings and lunged from the hoods of cars. A line of soldiers waited for them at the base of a suspension bridge, loosing bullets at a maniacal pace.

The beasts hit them like a tidal wave. One moment the soldiers bravely stood their ground—the next they were torn to shreds on national television.

The camera cut to the studio, the newscaster sitting behind a desk, mouth agape.

“Matt! You’re on!” The voice came from off camera.

Matt snapped to, shuffling papers in front of him. An Alfalfa spike stuck out from the crown of his head. “Uhh—” He looked off to his right, holding his arms out, palms up. “I don’t know what to say! This is fucking crazy!”

Lance could relate.

Matt ran his hands through his hair. “We’re looking at… devastation. The sick that we were told had died during the day have reappeared. They’re attacking randomly… consuming everything in sight. I implore you to stay indoors, turn your lights off, and pray. The military is currently engaging them across the nation and—”

A shriek came through the TV.

Matt recoiled, his hands jerking up, the papers flittering through the air. “The hell was that?”

Someone screamed off camera and Matt stood from his chair, his head snapping around as if on a swivel.

A blur of muscle and claw flashed from the left side of the screen, pouncing on Matt and knocking him behind the desk. Lance couldn’t see what it did it to him, but the screams and arterial spray coming from the other side of the dark mahogany left little to the imagination.

People ran past the camera, casting glances over their shoulders as something devoured their co-worker a few feet away. No one tried to help him.

Lance changed the channel.

The camera pointed at an empty set on MSNBC.

C-SPAN ran footage of a massive battle in San Diego. A tank rambled down a street, rolling over the hood of a car as it headed toward the frontline, tracks sliding on the concrete.