Chapter II – Ascension

Two years have passed since the virus was released into the world, experts soon recovered a body, these experts and anyone around them were the first to fall, the virus was still fresh, this lead to them turning into an Undead in a few weeks, not at death. From there they immediately attacked neighbouring cities, to fast for the populace to fight back, the hoard swelled to twice its numbers.

The horde progressed, infecting the population of Russia in a few days, more experts predicted that for every of the Undead killed, two more would join the horde.

Eventually only a few bastions of humanity remained in Russia, but the virus didn't stay in Russia, it progressed to the rest of Europe and from there to every corner of the globe, and earth was powerless to fight back at this new breed of zombies.

They were smarter and stronger than anyone could have previously imagined, and within one more year, the earth's population was mostly Undead.

But in some areas of earth, humanity survived, struggling to survive.

In England, humanity quickly prepared, constructing great concrete strongholds to train Special Forces against the new threat.

In one of these few fortresses, a man in his early twenties sits alone, his mop of fair hair covering his face, he watches the last fraction of sunlight make its retreat behind the hills, giving the darkness free reign of the over hanging skies.

Shortly after, light floods the tiny room, the door is open and another man stands on the threshold he is tall with short auburn hair, he looks down at the other man smiling lightly.

"You ready for tomorrow Andrew?"

Andrew nods slowly

"It's a big day Jack, we need to get ready" he mutters

Jack shrugs

"Biggest operation since the buggers started slaughtering humanity" he says

"Anyway why are you in here alone Andrew?"

Andrew raises his head, staring at his friend

"Haven't you heard the reports?" he asked

"I've heard little bits, here and there" he replies simply

"It's enough to scare anybody" Andrew says, looking to the floor angrily

Jack stares at his friend before swiftly shrugging his shoulders

"Come on man, let's just drop it and eat, it's the best meal they've given us in a long time!"

Andrew looks up at his friend

"I'll catch up later, you go on ahead" he said

Jack nodded before turning and leaving, closing the heavy metal door behind him, leaving his friend alone in the tiny dormitory.

Ten minutes passed before Andrew collected himself and walked to the mess hall,

When he arrived he saw it really was a huge dinner, all the serving trays were full,

Either people were not eating, or they kept refilling the trays.

After a brief look around the room he knew which assumption was correct, he quickly found Jack and sat down beside him, he looked to him smiling.

"What're they doing, fattening us up for them?" he said

Everyone on the table laughed and Andrew found himself calmer about the operation they were attempting the very next day.

Meanwhile in Utah a young a boy of 13 sits on the corner of a road, searching through his pack, he pulls out a chocolate bar and immediately eats it.

All of a sudden the door to the building behind him bursts open, sending remains of wood flying, the boy starts to sprint away from the door, looking back over his shoulder he spots a group of zombies limping to him, their dead eyes staring in no particular direction.

His heart does a flip of fear and he starts to run faster down the street, he is scared, terrified, he looks over his shoulder again, the Undead are still following, he turns his head back around and his eyes widen, another Undead is running at him from that side of the road too, he grips the knife strapped to his belt and carries on running, as soon as the zombie is near he leaps forward, attempting to jab his blade into any part of the zombie, luckily he digs it into its neck before colliding with it and sending himself sprawling onto the floor, he quickly rolls from the injured corpse of the zombie and keeps running down the road, he looks back at his kill and sees it standing back up, turning its ruined head to him.

He turns a corner and darts into a store named 'gory's store" he spares a few precious seconds to look at this sign.

"Maybe it used to be called Gregory's Store" he thinks to himself

He runs into the back room, exhausted, he lets himself slide down the wall the boy is still scared, having just avoided death, he looks around the room, looking for some sort of weapon, he instantly finds a baseball bat, propped up against the wall.

"Can I defend myself withthis!?" he says quietly

Suddenly he hears the front door opening; they have followed him in here!

He Panics and looks around for an exit, he tries to calm himself but the images of the bodies littering the roads flood his mind, discarded, destroyed and gore covered, would he become one of those bodies?.

The Intruder is close, the door bursts open and his fears are confirmed, there stands an infected, blood dripping from its skinless arms, it only has one arm and it bleeds furiously covering the floor.

It stumbles towards him groaning, a terrifying, gurgling groan, its arms are out stretched, the boy finds himself pleading for his life, "What's the point in pleading!" He Thinks to himself, he raises his bat and sends it into the side of the Infected's head, it stumbles to a side but regains its balance, it is getting closer now, the smell of rotten flesh overcomes the boy, he swings his bat again multiple times, blood splattering onto the bat, after six successful hits the Infected's head collapses under the impact, it collapses at the boys feet, the boy is stunned, staring at the corpse at his feet, blood spilling onto the clean white floors.

Shortly after this, the groan reaches his ears again, the boy is much more exausted than before, he looks up to the wrecked door and sees another of the infected running at him, he swings the bat once more but the infected skilfully grabs it and throws it to the other end of the room, the boy throws multiple punches but the smell of a dead corpse is over coming, he backs away to the wall, the zombie is bearing down on him, its arms outstretched, the blood thirsty groan emitting from its throat.