Writing: Moment in Time - Infection (Desperation)

He cradled his weapon, his friend, close to his body as he watched the others. His clothes torn and tattered, hanging from his body since the day he killed everyone he loved in this world. Now he sat in a college building, barricaded inside to escape the infected, with other refugee's. They hadn't gotten far from where he joined up with them before the infection spread beyond their speed. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleavland, all had fallen as they made their way from Maine. They would have gone north, but the word was from the scattered radio signals they picked up that Canada had reached critical infection and nowhere was safe. He stared at them in turn and each of them stared at him, then to each other. No one was operating at full mental abilities anymore. Suspicion and fear was written clearly on every blood and mud smeared face.

He leaned up and looked out the barred window, watching infected run across the quad, moving in packs, reminding him of things he had seen on the Discovery Channel. Hunters. Gatherers. They regressed to primal, animalistic creatures. He brushed it aside, they wore clothes, had jobs, families. These were people, not animals. He squeezed his gun tighter to his body as he thought about the brutal way he killed his own mother. He can't even remember if she was infected or not. She wouldn't stop screaming, clawing. She had to have been infected, there was no doubt. She didn't say anything to him to stop him. . . or did she? No, she didn't. He was comforted by this knowledge. This knowledge would save him one day. A movement from the room brought his gun up and aimed at a child approaching to look out the window. He relaxed and beckoned her to the window. None of them have spoken in days, but used hand gestures to communicate. The infected had superb hearing, sounds attracted them in droves. He watched the child walk slowly to the window and watch the packs run through the lawn and looked out himself. A smear of blood was fresh in front of a building across the yard, someone who tried to get to safety but couldn't make it. He shook. It could have been him. It might have been him. What if he was dead, he thought. What if someone in here was infected and that would be him. He would be dead already since every exit was blocked in a way that it took more than one person to remove the items blocking it. He looked to the child to move her away from the window, and himself, but he froze, ice filling his veins.

The child was coated in blood, eyes red, and breathing hoarsely. He couldn't distinguish the infection from tears, all he was was her blood red eyes. He recoiled, desperately crawling away, taking aim with tremors running through his body and watched as the child fell to the ground, two rounds piercing her brain and blowing out the back of her head. Cries of alarm echoed through the building as people came rushing towards him. Jibbering in fear he sprayed shots through the room, never feeling the weapon recoil, just watching the infected die before they were able to kill him. He would survive, he thought with fevered thoughts. Women, children, men, teens, each fell. He thought that he should feel bad, because they were once people, but pushed that aside, knowing that he would die if they reached him. Rend his flesh and feast, or worse, turn him into one of them. Standing up, he screamed defiance and made his way through the building, sparing no mercy. His brain seethed with his fear and insanity. He searched for a way out of the building, but realized that he was too late in killing them, they alerted the infected from outside. They tore at every door and window. There was no way out. He sighed and felt a calmness come over him. He walked past the bodies around him and back to the window, glancing at the blue eyed girl laying face up in a pool of her own blood. I saved you, he softly said, now I save myself. With a smile on his face and glassy, insane eyes, he put the hot barrel under his chin and squeezed the trigger.