Hybrids: A New Species

There are sounds of heavy breathing, twigs and leaves being crushed from hefty footsteps throughout the quiet woods. The sun is being shielded from clouds and a rainstorm is approaching. Ben rushes through the woods, he’s desperate to get back home to his wife and daughter. Severe winds start to blow through the trees, and rain begins to fall. Ben ignores the rain and fierce winds; he is determined to reach his home before the Fallen arrive. He must prepare him and his family for the herd of the undead. The storm is starting to come in heavy. Ben struggles to get through the woods. Lighting flashes in the sky. Even with this strong storm, he keeps pushing through. His vision is blurred from the twigs and bits of leaves fly into his face. He wipes the gunk off his face. Suddenly a grotesque face of a Fallen appears in front of him. The dead snarls and attempts to bite Ben’s face. He puts his hand around its neck, however, struggles to push the Fallen away from him because of the fierce winds. He falls over. The disgusting corpse keeps trying to bite him as they struggle on the ground. He is using both his hands to keep it off him. Up ahead to his right, he hears the gurgling sounds of another Fallen walking towards him. Ben begins to panic. He yells in rage and pulls his 10mm gun out. The Fallen snarls and snaps at him. Ben puts his gun to the head of the Fallen that’s on him and pulls the trigger. Its head explodes and blood splatters on his face. His ears are ringing from the shot and he struggles to look at the other Fallen walking towards him. He points his gun at it and shoots. He misses the first three shots. He shakes his head as if he’s trying to get the ringing out. He looks at his target again and shoots at it one more time, it’s a clean shot through the skull, and it drops. Ben gets up and doesn’t bother trying to catch his breath. He wipes the black rotting blood off his face and continues his path to his cabin home. His family is waiting.

The wood cabin is in the distance, the rain and wind start to calm down. Ben begins to catch his breath and is relieved he could get home in due time.

“Hailey! Pam!” Ben yells as he walks to the front door.

Ben opens the door, “Honey! Grab Hailey, we have to prepare for-” Ben stops mid-sentence.

His eyes open wide, and they meet with his wife’s eyes. Pamela is on the floor and her beautiful blue eyes are lifeless. Her jaw trapped open and blood is oozing from her mouth. She’s dead. Right over her is a little girl, eating. The chewing sounds of bloody organs being ripped apart comes from her. Ben is shaking,

“Pam. Wha- what?” he struggles to speak.

Ben drops to his knees. The little girl eating Pamela stops. She turns around. Ben is in shock and his eyes begin to water, he tries to say something but nothing comes out. The little girl eating his wife, is his daughter Hailey. She looks at her father, with her white, lifeless eyes. The little girl, once known as Hailey, has turned into one of the Fallen. She didn’t live through the sickness. The virus took over her system, turning her. Her skin is pale and teeth is yellow. She licks her mother’s blood around her lips, and hisses at him. She snarls and begins walking toward her father. Ben doesn’t move, he’s completely in shock, but he positions his left arm out.

Ben struggles to say a few words, “Hailey. Honey. Come to daddy.”

He still has his left arm out, as if he’s going to hug her. Hailey approaches him and bites into his left forearm. Ben’s eyes open wide, and he breaks out of shock. He yells in pain and pushes his daughter off. Ben looks at his bitten arm. Dark red blood flows out of his wound. He gets up and looks at his former daughter. A chunk of his skin is hanging from her mouth. She gets up and goes after Ben again. He doesn’t have the courage to kill her, so he runs. Ben rushes out the cabin and looks back, Hailey is still walking towards him. Ben is panting from the pain but he ignores it and continue to run away from his home. He’s suddenly stopped from a random Fallen. It scowls and swings its stiff arms at him. Ben dodges it and kicks it to the ground. He sees more of the Fallen approaching into his property. The herd has come. Ben can do nothing now. So, he runs. He continues to run towards up the mountain and flees from the hoard and terrible scene he has witnessed. Everything he had, everything that kept him going all these years, and everything that he worked so hard at to survive, is gone.

Night is approaching. There are sounds of crickets, birds, and other small animals throughout the woods. They’re all coming out, now that the storm has passed. A trail of blood is leading up the mountains, and there are blood marks on the barks of trees. Ben is leaning against one, wheezing. He looks at his bitten arm, dark dried blood is around his wound, and it is still oozing out. The pain is unbearable, like hundreds of sharp needles constantly stabbing him, however, the pain that Ben feels for the loss of his family is far worse. He takes his shirt off and wraps his bloody arm. His fit muscular body is drenched in sweat and dirt. Ben looks ahead, he notices a small opening above a rocky hill. He decides to go in. Ben’s mind is racing, he doesn’t know why he keeps running. Why he chose to wrap his arm up, as if it was going to help. He’s a dead man anyway. Once bitten, the Fallen virus takes over the immune system faster, killing the cells in the host’s body and turning them. Some people are turned immediately, some take a few hours, days, or at most, a week. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for the virus to begin working. In the end, people still become a mindless walking corpse that savors flesh. This was a race for what would kill Ben first, the loss of blood or the virus.

He begins climbing up the rocky hill. Once he reached the top, he enters the cave. It’s pitch black dark. Ben doesn’t care. He sits down on the cold rocky floor and begins to catch his breath. Some time passes and his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness. He’s surrounded by brown mossy rock. The wall, floor, and ceiling is all rock. Ben’s mind is a complete mess. The scene of his daughter biting him and eating his wife plays over and over in his head, like a movie scene repeating itself. His breathing settles. His arm is still throbbing in pain. Ben leans his head over and begins to tear up. He grabs his head and shakes it, as if he’s trying to shake the memories away.

“No. Hailey.... Pam....” Ben says with a choked-up voice.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!! Fuck!!” Ben suddenly yelled.

He begins banging his head on the rough rocky floor, yelling his wife’s and daughter’s names. Ben is losing his mind and begins to emotionally break down.

“Why? WHY?! Why the fuck did this happen?! I couldn’t save you!” Ben shouts.

He stops banging his head.

“Honey... oh god my little girl!! This shouldn’t have happened!”

Ben begins to cry.

“Hailey.... Pam.... I’m...” Ben stops mid-sentence.

He looks up and leans back down against the wall. He’s looking up at the ceiling, and smiles. His eyes are red from crying; tears are still falling along his face. He lets out a small chuckle.

“No... this isn’t happening.” He says as wipes the tears from his face. “This is all a dream. Yes, a dream.”

Ben is in denial and hasn’t come to terms with his loss.

“Pam is making dinner, and Hailey is playing with her toys.” He begins to laugh.

“Of course! It all makes sense now. I should get home....”

He stands up and struggles to move. He takes one step and immediately falls to the ground.

“Fuck!” he yells.

The pain in his arm suddenly wakes him up from his illusions. He realizes this is reality and what has happened.

“Girls, I’m sorry.” Ben whimpers.

He has lost everything dear to him, but he still can’t comprehend it. The death of his family has made Ben go insane.

The sun has gone to sleep, and the moon shines bright in the dark sky. Inside the cold grim cave, where Ben has taken shelter, he lies there, staring at the wall with a blank expression. Ben’s mind has become isolated, as if he’s sitting in an empty white room, and he’s in the center. It’s quiet, the faint sound of dripping water is heard from the entrance of the cave. Ben looks off to the right, where the sound of dripping water is coming from. This monotone noise is keeping his attention,

“Drip, drip, drip, drip” Ben whispers to himself.

He can’t think anymore; the virus is slowly eating away his brain. Ben keeps staring at the droplets of water falling, until he notices a figure approaching from outside. It’s slowly walking to the cave, and Ben now has his attention on the moving figure. The mysterious figure approaches closer. It’s too dark for Ben to see if it’s the Fallen or a live human. He stands up and struggles to hold on to the wall. Ben pulls out his hunting knife and prepares himself. The dark figure approaches, and as it gets closer, the sounds of grunting and moaning emits. Ben is now sure his mysterious guest is a Fallen. Ben puts his knife up and prepares himself to attack. The Fallen finally gets close to Ben, and he puts his forearm against its body. He pins it to the wall. He’s now face to face with this grotesque creature. Its slimy wet face looks like it’s melting off, and the odor of wet dead flesh fills up his nostrils. Ben examines the Fallen, as it desperately tries to devour his face.

“Soon, I’ll be just like you.” Ben tells the moving corpse.

It continues trying to eat off Ben’s face but can’t move.

“Because of you!” Ben yells, as if he personally knows this thing.

“It’s all your fault! My daughter is dead because of you! My wife is dead because of you!” Ben continues to yell at the Fallen.

He punches it in the face, but the blow does nothing to it. Ben throws the Fallen to the ground and gets on top of it.

“You’re the reason I lost everything!” Ben yells at it as he continues to punch it.

Every hit Ben delivers to its face, flashes of his family goes through his head. He’s crying in guilt as he hits the Fallen, as if this moving corpse was the reason he lost everything.

“Why did you do this?! Why?! You killed them!” he yells.

The Fallen has stopped moving. It’s dead. Ben delivered enough blows to its head that he smashed its soft rotting skull. However, he continues to hit it, until Ben’s fists start to hit the rock floor. He stops, and looks at his hands, they’re covered in blood. He’s trembling. He clenches his hands into fists,

“I killed them...” Ben mutters.

He looks at the dead Fallen. Its head is completely flattened out, and a small pool of blood surrounds it. To him, this undead creature was a grim reminder of what he will become. The despair Ben feels is destroying him on the inside, as if this dead corpse was supposed to be him. Ben sits there in silence, on top of the Fallen, and covered in blood. He lays back against the wall where he was originally at, and blankly stares at the rock wall again. Ben is drenched in sweat, eyes are dilated, and he looks terrible, as if he’s been beaten and thrown around. He closes his eyes and tries not to think of the severe pain he is feeling throughout his body. He calculates that he will turn by tomorrow afternoon, or maybe earlier if he’s lucky.

“Maybe…”

Ben pulls his 10mm out from his pants. The little black gun feels heavy in his hand. The thought of suicide goes through his mind now. He points his gun to himself. His hand is shaking. He positions it inside his mouth and gets ready to pull the trigger. He closes his eyes, and tears begin to fall. He struggles to do it. Then the image of his daughter and wife plays in his head. He can’t. Ben drops his gun. The metal echoes when it hits the rock floor.

He cries. He’s not able end his life. Ben just sits there now, crying.

It’s the middle of the night, and the moon still shines bright in the sky. The sound of footsteps coming from a distance awake Ben. According to the sound, Ben feels it might be another live human, he’s cautious. He picks up his gun from the floor and prepares himself. Enters the cave is a man in a muscle shirt, he stands up to about six feet, just a bit shorter than Ben, with messy brown hair, and covered in dirt.

“Stop right there!” Ben grunts at the mystery man, with his gun pointed at him.

The man stops in his tracks,

“Woah man! I don’t want any trouble. I just came here to find shelter” says the mysterious man.

“You got to find another place, it’s not safe here.” Ben tells him.

“Why? You in trouble buddy?”

“No, but you will be if you don’t go away!” Ben rudely says as he cocks his gun.

“Okay! You don’t have to tell me twice. But there is one thing before I go.” he asks.

“What?”

“Night-night.” the mysterious man says with a smile.

Ben raises his eyebrow in confusion. Suddenly, another man appears from behind and strikes Ben across the head with a bat. He’s thrown to the ground, dropping his gun. Ben is barely conscious; he sees the shadowy figure of the man who knocked him down. He can’t make out the face, but he notices dirty feet in sandals. The sounds of a menacing laugh come from the mystery man.

“Take him back to the camp. He will do nicely.” says the menacing voice.

Ben begins to lose consciousness, and the voices from the two men begin to go faint. Everything goes black.