While I was walking through the forest, I heard a distant explosion that was followed by screams. The screams were like a bunch of people screaming all at once. I turned in the direction of the noise. There, above the tops of the trees, I could make out the sight of smoke billowing into the air.

“The hell?” I mumbled to myself. The first thing I had said since I watched the bigger creature chow down on the hare-creature.

I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck when I realized that was the direction of the airport. Something had clearly happened. Something bad.

My emotions were mixed. On the one hand, I was relieved that I had managed to escape whatever had happened. On the other hand, I was trying really hard not to think about what I had witnessed since I had left the airport.

Still, it was unimportant to me at that moment, so I pushed it from my mind. There was no point in returning to the airport. Especially not when there was a forest between me and it. Along with whatever else was lurking in the forest. I did not want to run into whatever had distracted the big creature long enough for me to flee.

Briefly, I thought of the teenager. But I forgot about that thought as I climbed to the top of a hill at the edge of the woods and got my first look at my home city since I arrived.

Looking over everything, I suddenly wished I had never boarded the plane back from my European trip.

Even with where I stood, I could see the utter chaos. The highway was full of stopped cars. Smoke rising from some of them and others looked demolished. Despite the number of cars, there was something almost empty looking.

It did not help that the buildings on the edge of the city looked deserted.

Things had certainly not seemed this bad when I was at the airport. Just people trying to flee the city.

“He wasn’t kidding when he said things went bad as soon as it rained.” I mumbled to myself before rubbing the back of my neck.

It made no sense to me that things had gotten this bad this quickly. I had only been in the forest for a few hours, maybe a little more. Definitely not long enough for the city to look like it was abandoned.

Especially given that taxi cabs were still running. Or at least they were still answering the phones.

I sighed to myself and began walking down the hill. The further I walked from the forest, the more eerily quiet everything became. It was like before when I had been in the forest. All the sounds the little creatures made were gone. There was not even the sound of crickets.

My heartbeat echoed in my ears like a drum as I finally stepped out onto the highway. There was still a distance to go to the city, but I knew I did not have to go fully into it. Being a poor twenty-something-year-old, I had not been able to afford anything nice in the center of the city. I had little choice in that matter.

Only now, it seemed like I was extremely lucky to get a place that was just a little out of the way.

The sound of shuffling drew me out of my internal gloating.

Glancing over at the rows of abandoned cars in front of me. There was someone moving on the other side. It was hard to make out exactly what they were doing, but it sounded like they were dragging something.

That survival instinct from earlier came back. It was like my brain was screaming at me to hide. I just knew I had to get out of the way of whatever was coming.

This time, I listened.

One of the cars near me still had an open door to the back of the car. It was a tight squeeze to get between the two cars parked next to it, but it was as good a hiding place as any. A quick glance inside the car let me know there was a lot of junk piled in the back.

It looked like someone had been on their way home from a baseball game when they abandoned the car. I could make out a kid’s uniform and a wooden bat in the pile of junk.  

Quickly, I darted inside and crouched down on the seat. I turned to look in the direction of the shuffling noise.

I noticed that the rain had stopped as that noise got louder.

Immediately, I gagged once I saw what was making the noise.

What was walking along the road was definitely human. A bulky gym rat looking guy. He was almost normal if I did not think about his blood-stained shirt or the crazed look in his eyes. Of course, there was also the half-skinned body he was dragging behind him. Bits of skin sloughed off on the pavement, but the guy never looked back at the body.

I shivered in fear, but kept my hands clamped over my mouth. I dared not make a sound.

The gym rat stopped a few cars away from me. I could only watch as he plopped down next to the body.

I thought he was going to sit the dead person up next to him.

I was wrong.

I could only watch in horror as he lifted the body’s arm and bit a chunk out of it. A sound that was like a scream echoed along the empty highway, but it sounded muffled. Like something kept the person from screaming.

My eyes went wide as I stared at the body.

That person was still alive.

I had no idea what to think as I stared at the man who was steadily chewing on raw person meat. I lowered my head and did my best to keep quiet. My thoughts once more going a mile a minute.

What the hell is happening?

Logically, I knew societies would fall apart if an apocalyptic event happened. But this whole day was full of things that just made no sense to me.

It was like I blinked, and then the whole world had gone crazy.

From mutated animals to cannibals. I just could not wrap my mind around what was happening. The rain becoming strange did not explain this to me at all.

Now I was certain that I needed to get off the highway. If there were more things like this guy up ahead, then I needed to find some other way to get to my apartment without being seen. I just really hoped that this guy was a one off.

Glancing up, I looked in the direction of the crazy man.

Only to see that he was no longer standing there.

FUCK!

The body was still where he left it, but I could not see where the big guy had gone. I turned my head to the side and finally saw him hunched down on the ground. I could vaguely hear the sounds of panting. Like the guy had just run a marathon and guzzled a bottle of razor blades. That sound was not the most concerning.

It was the way his whole body seemed to be twitching. The look was almost like a seizure. Only each part of his body was having a different seizure at the same time. As if every muscle in his body was tensing up and relaxing repeatedly. His left arm would twitch to his side while his right hand would grasp at nothing in the air.

He’s going to change!

The thought crossed my mind that he was going to be like my former classmate. That his body was going to twist in some horrific way. My mind ran wild with different ways his body could develop another mouth.

I watched in abject horror as he hunched further and the muscles on his back seemed to balloon up. His shirt tore, the sound echoing across the highway, and I could see the twisted skin that seemed to keep growing.

First it turned red. Then the veins began to protrude.

Only his body kept growing. Or at least his muscles did. His skin stretched to the limit and then beyond. Everything was taut. It even looked like his bones were straining to poke through his skin.

I could not turn away as I watched his body contort beyond anything normal. I just continued to stare until the unthinkable happened. There was an audible ripping sound and then he just popped.

One moment, he was crouched there, and the next he had become a fountain of blood and fleshy bits. It was as if his whole body suddenly exploded. The bits of his body cascading down on the cards in some horrible rain.

My mind simply could not comprehend what had just happened, and I immediately blacked out.