Riding The Apocalypse Read Free Page A

same bloodstained grass hill and together they barreled toward the bottom. The dark red bloodstains contrasted starkly against the vibrant green of the well-manicured front lawn. It was like a fucked up, horrific Christmas card. I will never again look at green and red together in the traditional way.
    I actually winced as he and the bloody stump hit the grass over and over, gaining speed, but he didn’t seem to notice. I cannot explain how strange it was to see someone crashing like that and making no attempt to mitigate the impact, or shield his severed appendage, flailing and slapping against the soil. It was seriously messed up.
    Just then I saw a flash of movement that tore my eyes from the one-armed man. A woman came running out of the emergency room’s double doors at an amazing clip. Moving quickly, at first glance she appeared unhurt, though her screaming was gut wrenching. I reluctantly removed my hand from my ex’s side and fumbled for the remote. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as her high-pitched shrill caused me to bite my lip so hard I felt the warmth of blood and the taste of iron in between my teeth.
    Muted.
    “Stop! Not that way!” My ex and I shouted at the television as the woman hurled herself down the hill directly at the two bloody men trying to stand up at the bottom. She obviously could not see them from the crest of the hill, probably because they were not yet upright. The monsters had worn an opaque red patch in the middle of the grass as they fumbled against each other, trying to gain purchase on the matted lawn. She spotted them just as the two men got to their feet, stopped dead in her tracks less than ten feet away. The woman changed course, as nimble as a child who just heard an ice cream truck, and disappeared to the right of the camera shot.
    “Why are they still broadcasting this?” my ex whimpered.
    I quickly flipped the channel, not wanting to traumatize her further but unable to turn it off. I looked for a news anchor to make some sense of what we were seeing.
    Flip…
    More of the same. I stopped on the third channel just in time to see a police officer rushing into a panicked crowd in front of City Hall. He struck a man in the back who was attacking a screaming woman on the street. The man turned, revealing his ghostlike complexion and jet black eyes, similar to the men we had just seen on the hospital lawn. The attacker opened his mouth, revealed his bloodstained teeth, then bit the officer on the right side of his neck. The blood spewed out of the officer’s jugular with such force it temporarily blinded the attacker with dark red blood. The monster was not intelligent enough to rub his eyes clear, and lost track of his catch as the officer broke free. The cop took just two steps before the loss of blood caused him to meet his Waterloo. But before he even hit the pavement he was savaged by another infected bystander, who, if he could have rationalized, would have had difficulty believing his luck. The original biter joined in the feast as soon as he stumbled onto it. Within seconds, three more joined the buffet. The camera began to shake so much it was no longer possible to see what was happening.
    I grabbed the remote.
    Flip...
    Static snow.
    Flip-flip...
    What station still uses a damn test pattern?
    Flip...
    “What the hell are these monsters? Are they rabid or something?” I asked my curled-up ex.
    The man, or monster, or whatever it was, was being filmed from the back. He was shirtless and had been relieved of the entire left side of his waist and back by another monster, I surmised. The wound was gaping and bloody. Although his small intestine dragged behind him, it did not seem to cause him any distress. The visual reminded me of a dog that had broken his leash.
    So much blood, it was everywhere, on everyone and everything.
    It was absolute chaos. Terrified, screaming, running, panicking people were rushing around, unsure where to go. The city streets were