The Infected 1: Proxy Read Free Page A

only to wake and find the man holding his nose closed or putting a hand over his mouth.
    "You're not so tough now, are you, you piece of shit?" The man sounded eerily calm and angry at the same time, a less jovial version of the freaks in the bar. At least they'd laughed occasionally as they beat him.
    The man, apparently bored or tired from all his hard work, called in several others who carried Brian to a tiny cell, a metal door from the sound opened, a scent of old urine and desperation coming from whatever lay behind it. Then they forced his hands behind his back again and fastened the chain to his legs, which they bent at the knee so that his feet nearly touched the chain between his wrists. Chuckling evilly they left him lying like on his stomach.
    Brian didn't know how long he laid there, not able to move, pain coursing through him if he tried to do anything at all. It was just as bad if he didn't move half the time, arms and legs cramping painfully from the odd position. Fighting for breath and not making it, a feeling of panic came over him, telling Brian that he was about to die here. No one came to let him ask for a lawyer or to take him to a doctor. They just left him there.
    To die.
    At first, maybe a day or two later, he'd thought that his eyes were still swollen shut, but realized after a while that blinking was possible. At least with his right eye. Then, he thought they'd managed to beat him into blindness. Eventually Brian realized it was probably just pitch black in the little room and clung to that idea. It was better than being blind after all.
    He didn't know its size, but the room sounded small, if that meant anything, no echo's from his breathing or anything noticeable to clue him in.
    Some time later, Brian couldn't tell how long, the door opened and he was sprayed with water, enough hit his mouth for a few tiny swallows. The man at the doors voice sounded hard and more than a little evil, but that didn't surprise Brian too much, all police seemed to be wicked and bad now. Maybe it was a prerequisite for the job?
    He knew it probably wasn't really true, but there'd been a lot of cops beating him and he hadn't even tried to do anything wrong, not to anyone. More to the point, if only the "bad cops" had beaten him, why hadn't the supposedly good ones tried to help him at all? No one had even called out that he'd probably had enough.
    "Drink up. It's your last meal, bitch." The man came in and kicked him in the chest, stomach and groin over and over again for a while, forcing pain to sear through him, a feeling that seemed like his bones themselves hurt under the greater pain. Then, the asshole laughed as he left. Brian couldn't be sure, but he thought it might be the same one that had attacked him at the house, mustache guy with the horrible case of ass face. Brian felt helpless, under the pain, but really wanted to kill the guy.
    At that moment, Brian would have killed them all. All police everywhere. If he could have. Maybe that rage was his main emotional thing? He doubted it though, because that feeling faded as he blacked out and when he came to again all he felt was sad that he hadn't saved the woman in the bar. Brian didn't know how he knew it with such certainty, other than the obvious failure. The knowledge just rested in his mind, sitting there, taunting him with the pure fact of the matter.
    He hadn't even bought her time to run. Head against the cold cement, he cried for her, face half in the standing water on the floor, built up to nearly an quarter of an inch deep. For some reason the room didn't have a drain.
    He couldn't drink the water on the floor, it smelled bad enough that he instinctively knew it wasn't safe. Worse, most of that stench had come off Brian, a scent of rot from his wounds, swollen and infected by now most likely. Regular infection that could have been treated with drugs, antibiotics, if the police weren't killing him.
    Desperate, Brian forced himself to check out the