D E A T H R I S I N G

xx

Chapter One

Thursday, March 8th 2007

"See ya." Daniela muttered to the driver as she got off the bus and stepped onto the rough sidewalk concrete. The driver smiled and closed the doors, pulling off and leaving Daniela to walk the last half block home.

Sixteen and still riding the school bus. Tragic. She thought dryly while glancing at the houses she passed. While walking down the sidewalk of her lovely suburban cul-de-sac.

She faked a smile and waved at the nameless old woman who was puttering about with the half dead azalea bushes in her lawn. While inwardly scrutinizing the shifty looking ‘mumu‘ the ancient bag was dressed in. One good breeze and Daniela had the feeling she‘d be traumatized by seeing Mrs. Fenderson in a new. disturbingly graphic light.

The teenager’s face contorted, without attempting to hide her revulsion chose to look at her shoes for the rest of the short walk home.

A few minutes later she arrived at her house, small white one story with blue shudders. . She walked in through the open garage and into the kitchen. Where a red haired woman was standing over the sink doing dishes.

Daniela felt her shoulders tighten as she eyed the woman, wearily on the defensive.

"Hey, how was school?" The woman asked pulling her yellow-gloved hands out of the dishwater.

"Fine Barbara" The teen answered, in an obviously over sweet voice.

A short silence followed, where the two females just looked at each other. Not in a hateful way, certainly not in a caring manner. Just competitive, as though each were sizing the other up.

"I hope your getting your grades up then" Barbara replied in a sweet yet acidic tone, taking off the gloves and setting them by the sink.

The teenager blinked without expression and left the room. Barbara followed closely.

Dan grunted something and walked strait into her bedroom closing the door behind her. Right in Barbara’s face.

"I hate Fridays." She mumbled and dropped her backpack on the floor. She jumped onto her bed, stretching out with a content sigh before falling asleep quickly.

A loud ear piercing scream filled the air as Daniela Summers sat straight up in bed, heart palpating unnaturally from fear.

Another pain packed scream pierced through the walls, knocking Dan out of her disorienting sleep haze. She gave her room a once over and then jumped out of bed just as the sound of things crashing echoed through her home.

She ran out into the hallway. Her sneakers slipped on something wet and she skidded a foot, trying to steady herself by bracing hands on either side of the small highway. Carefully she continued- becoming aware of the fact that there was a lot of whatever she had slipped on, enough to coat the entire hallway.

Running and slipping her way to her parent’s room. Another scream, though somewhat muffled assaulted her ears and she flung the door open. In the room illuminated with the pale blue light of dawn, she could see three figures struggling with each other. She leaned in the room and flipped on the switch, only to wish that she never had. It was an immediate sensory overload. Blood, it was everywhere- smeared on the hard wood floor, splattered on the eggshell wall, drenching the teal green comforter of her parents bed. It was more blood than any one thing should have been able to hold- or for that matter lose.

Unable to breathe, unable to focus, seized by panic. Dan was almost grateful for the gut wrenching cry her father sent out. It snapped her back into the reality of what was happening, kept her from going comatose from shock.

Barbara began screaming again, at such a high pitch her lungs should have exploded from the force of it. Danielle's father tried to pry an old woman, the same old woman

Dan’s face contorted in confusion, she knew that woman. She had waved to her earlier. It was a split second awareness before she instinctively ran forward and tried to help her father.

The woman had practically ripped off Barbara's limb off from the inside of the elbow, her teeth were tearing through flesh and all but scraping the bone. Blood oozed freely down the wound and spread across the floor. Only cartilage, pink and bloody held together Barbara’s arm.

She tried to shove the woman off- attempted to pull her away to no avail. The old woman had attached herself to Barbara with some demonic leech hunger, and was not about to release her.

"Call 911!" Dan’s Father boomed at her and Dan immediately let go of the woman and ran to the corner of the room, picking up the phone and dialing.

A calm electronic female voice answered Dan’s Dialing "We're sorry but your call cannot be-" Dan hung up and dialed again. "We're sorry but your call-" Dan hung up and tried again "We're sorr-" Dan hung up and was about to begin dialing again when her father let out a loud cry.

Her attention cracked back to the struggle on the other side of the bedroom.

The old woman had turned on Dan’s father and Barbara was crawling on the floor backward away from them. Wild eyed and sobbing.

"FUCK" Dan screamed and threw down the phone angrily. Panic left behind, replaced by rage.

It was fight or flight, and she couldn’t leave her father- she couldn’t leave Barbara either.

She hesitated only moment then launched herself at the old woman, trying to pull her off of her father. She grunted as the old woman jerked back violently causing Dan to slip in the large pool of blood, she fell and her back smacked into the hard floor- in a puddle of lukewarm crimson..

From the corner of her eye she saw Barbara crawling into the closet, sobbing, in shock.

The woman went for Dan’s father again, biting him on the left cheek, shaking her head violently as though attempting to rip the flesh his skull. With all the shaking the woman's dentures fell out but she was still trying to bite him with her gums. Drool and blood drizzled from the woman's toothless mouth as a soulless groaning tore its way from her throat.

That sound, she didn‘t know what was so wrong about it, only that it chilled her bones when she heard it. Dan was up in a flash seizing the bulky bronze lamp on the bedside table and smashing the old woman in the head with it, repeatedly.

A thud, and simultaneous crunch severe enough to make her clench her eyes shut as she brought the lamp down one more time.

Then the sound of another thud, hallow, lifeless.

Hesitantly she opened her eyes and sure enough- dead on the floor lay the old woman.

The lamp stained with blood fell to the floor with a clank. Dan hadn’t noticed she’d even let go of it.

Her father collapsed onto the bed, half of his cheek had been bitten through, she could see the shredded skin and layers or raw, torn muscle right through to the inside of his mouth in some spots.

“Daddy?” Daniela asked in a pained whisper.

His eyes went to his daughter and he blinked a few times, he looked so helpless, so lost. Her dark hazel eyes swelled with unshed tears and she reached out for her father. Only he seemed to regain some bit of awareness and got off of the bed. He then stumbled to Barbara who was still cowering in the closet, neither of them gave Dan a second glance.

"Are you okay Baby?" Dan’s father was fussing with Barbara, petting her head kissing her cheeks.

Which was so weird, she felt- empty at this expression of worry the two adults had for each other. Yet they showed no concern for Dan’s own wellbeing. No anger, no resentment- only detachment gripped her.

It was her minds way of keeping her from going insane, it had shut down emotional functions. Motor skills remained, but needless distracting feelings weren’t necessary to survive. The ability to physically react was.

"We‘ve got to get to the hospital, the keys are on the hook" Her father ordered in an strangely calm tone just as Barbara's body began going limp.

Dan nodded and ran down the hallway, sliding on some blood and catching herself on the corner of the wall, once again broke into a run through the kitchen, and dining room into the living room, by the front door which was wide open. She grabbed her father’s keys off of the hook and ran back to the room.

She was running as fast as she could, without caution or care. She hit her hip on the edge of the counter, it didn’t even slow her down, she hadn’t even been aware of the impact, or of the pain following.

Through the kitchen again when she heard her father yell. If it was at all possible she pushed her body to pick up the pace, everything was a peripheral blur as she stormed back into dangerous territory.

Once again in her fathers bedroom she saw Barbara ripping and pulling at her father. Barbara's teeth were sinking into the meat of his neck, nails clawing savagely at his chest and arms.

When Dan was slapped in the face by this vision, she had just turned a corner full speed. Trying to stop abruptly by grabbing the wall corner again, she slipped and fell on her side painfully with a thud the keys skidded across the floor under the bed.

Her father yelled something incomprehensible and Dan got up as fast as she could, sliding in the now cold blood as she lunged to defend her father

She pulled on Barbara’s arm, trying to haul her off of her father. Barbara only continued to snap at Dan’s father’s neck and he began to convulse. Dan was still struggling with Barbara when she noticed how cold Barbara's skin was.

People didn’t go that cold that fast, they just didn’t.

Dan let go and backed up, this was bad, so very unbelievably bad. Dan just stood there watching, not believing what she was seeing, her eyes were filling with tears as she stared at the horrible sight.

A voice, without voice in her mind slashed through the panicked thoughts of the teenager.

She scanned the room quickly and didn’t see them, she ran to the end of the bed and looked under it, there they are she reached under and her fingers only grazed them, she dropped to her stomach and snatched them standing up just in time to see her father stop shaking and Barbara quickly turn to her and let out a loud, horrible… hungry moan.

Dan ran from the end of the bed to the door past Barbara quickly, sliding on the blood a little but managing to stay on her own two feet. She didn’t know how close Barbara was behind her, and she didn’t look back. She wouldn’t look back. Something told her that if she did she would die. Something also told her, her father and stepmother had just given up the ghost themselves.

She refused to believe it- to accept it. Dan would get in the car and get help, she would come back with police officers and paramedics, it was going to be alright.

It had to be.

The feeling in her gut, and the voice in her mind obviously had no heart to disillusion her- for they fell silent.

Dan’s entire body went on autopilot. She turned abruptly and jumped out the front door, running across the lawn and clicking the unlock button of the keys. She didn’t even think about doing it- it was like she didn’t have to, her body simply reacted for her, grabbing the car door and ripping it open instinctively.

She got in the car and locked it. Barbara was just now emerging from the front door as Dan put the key in the ignition. The car started and she stomped the gas. Nothing...

"Shit Shit Shit" she chanted like a mantra as she saw two more people stumbling towards the car. The Ferguson’s… her next door neighbors. Blood drenched and pail, stumbling towards the car and groaning inertly.

Dan nearly stopped there, she nearly stopped and broke into tears. Preparing for complete and total mental breakdown.

But that voice wouldn’t have it.

Dumb ass! The inner voice yelled as the realizations that she had to take the car out of park first before driving hit her. She put it into drive and smashed the gas pedal. The car screeched as it took off down driveway, turning quickly down the road.

She was going way to fast, she knew it and didn’t give a flying fuck.

Radio.

She looked down and snapped on the radio, keeping one eye of the empty road in front of her. Struggling to hold any focus on the Radio at all.

"Stay away from those who have been infected, if they are friends, or even family members do NOT try to communicate. Infected must be shot in the head and if possible burned immediately."

Her eyes darted to the radio, questioning what it had said. Questioning her own sanity for that matter.

She never even saw it coming.

One of those small green gasoline electric cars sped out of a side street and slammed into the side of the car Dan was driving with a loud crash, making her Black Bravada skid on its side until the back end smacked into a power line. Dan was sitting there, gripping the steering wheel tightly, trembling, green wide in sheer surprise.

That may have snapped her last nerve.

Dan’s eye twitched nervously as she fought an inner battle to keep her sanity and temporarily keep the gruesome bloody scenes she had witnessed less than 10 minutes ago out of her mind. She had witnessed her father die, and Barbara.

She forced the thoughts from her mind and looked in the back seat hoping to find a baseball bat, or a pistol or even a samurai sword, something anything she could use to defend herself..

A red windshield scraper lie behind the front passenger seat.

“Samurai sword.” She growled at the roof of the SUV, hoping whatever power that was up there would magically turn the scraper into a sharper, deadlier weapon.

She snatched it and jumped out of the car. Plastic windshield scraper gripped in her hands. She walked around her car and looked up and down the ‘empty’ road.

The small car wasn’t going anywhere. The front was smashed in, windshield nearly shattered. It was one of those crashed cars that didn’t look like anyone on the inside could have survived the impact, because the car sure didn’t.

"YOU OKAY?" She yelled, trying and failing to keep her voice steady, it still cracked and despite efforts to keep any emotion out of it, she sounded terrified. The green cars door opened and Dan readied her windshield scraper. Raising it like a bat over her shoulder.

A middle-aged man with dark brown hair and a goatee got out of the car, gun in hand, he pointed it at Dan before looking relieved.

"Its okay, jus’ a kid" He told someone in the car and lowered his gun. The passenger’s side door opened and pretty woman with long strawberry blond hair got out, and eyed Dan.

"You’re frightening her" She said sympathetically about Dan to the man,

"Fuck you lady." Dan said sharply out of defense

He looked back at Dan who was still standing swing ready with her windshield weapon of doom. "She doesn't seem very frightened." he replied dryly.

A loud moaning scream echoed through the air as someone came out from behind a mass of trees and moved towards the woman. The man had pulled out his gun and shot it in the head before it got any closer than 20 feet to them.

Dan stood there silently, eyes darting all around. As people began emerging from the woods, and houses now surrounding. Almost as though she had teleported there Dan was in her car and pulling out with a loud screech.

The people left there in shock.

Not dieing for them.

She looked at herself in the rearview. Her green eyes hardened.

Not dieing for them.

She slammed the breaks abruptly, screeching the car stopped on a dime. Surprising herself as much as the people she’d left further down the road.

They’re not dieing because of me.

She threw her car door open.

"GET IN" She screamed to the people before slamming it quickly.

Dan buckled her seatbelt and turned around to see the man and woman helping someone out of the back of the car quickly.

The dark haired man pried open the back passenger side door of her car and hopped in, followed by a guy with short curly dark hair and the woman, who could barely shut the door behind her because Dan had stomped the gas the second she was in.

"Hello" the guy with short curly hair supplied waving a little, keeping his head at a low angle. Dan adjusted the rear view mirror and examined him. The guy was about maybe in his early twenties, he held himself at an awkward angle and spoke with a thick tongue.

"Hello" she replied all the same.

"I’m Bobby" he continued happily.

"Oh, I’m Clair; this is Steven" the blond woman supplied awkwardly, motioning from herself to the middle aged man with dark hair. Steven nodded but kept his eyes on the blond woman.

"Dan" Daniela responded and clicked the radio on with a shaky hand.

It is extremely helpful to use this opportunity to comment on an aspect of the story that can be improved.

A well rounded critique is often the most rewarding tool for the writer.