Living Nightmare Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Dayton, Ohio

Thomas' body was going through a violent seizure. He had just dropped to the ground for no apparent reason. Unbeknowest to the people surrounding him, Thomas had breathed in a toxic fume that slowly attacked his insides. He had been driving in his Cadillac the day before with the top down, and a military airplane had dropped the deadly substance onto the people below.

Ever since a government building had been attacked, the government decided to finally test its experimental chemicals on the citizens of America. They were aiming to create a drug that made the citizens stronger, faster and more tolerant of pain. This was to let the citizens have peace of mind should there be an attack on American soil in a war. Unfortunately, those tests proved to be very successful, but in a very bad way.

Government scientists also created a serum from various poisonous insects and man-made chemicals to use on people who were on the brink of death. This serum was made with the same stuff the airplane deposited on the citizens in the streets. Time was of the essence, the government believed, so they took the military aircrafts and positioned them over strategic locations throughout the country.

A man knelt beside Thomas, who had stopped moving. The man felt Thomas' pulse and announced, "He's dead." The man looked up at his girlfriend for a moment with a sympathetic expression. His girlfriend didn't like seeing dead people because they frightened her. Thomas' eyes opened and he saw the man kneeling beside him. Thomas opened his mouth and bit into the man's forearm hard. The man yelled out in pain and wretched his arm free of Thomas' mouth. The result was a large chunk of flesh being ripped from his arm. The man covered up the wound to try and stop it from bleeding.

"Davis! Davis! Oh, god Davis!" his girlfriend screamed hysterically.

Davis stood and grabbed the girl's arm. "Come on! Let's get the fuck out of here!" Davis pulled his girlfriend after him and ran as fast as he could to the nearest hospital to get patched up.

Thomas stood and faced the crowd of people that were gathered there. Everyone was frozen to the spot as they watched in anticipation, waiting to see what Thomas would do. He leaped at a young woman and bit into her shoulder. She screamed and began to hit Thomas in the head with the palm of her hand. "Somebody help me!" she screamed.

A man grabbed hold of Thomas and tried to pull him off the woman. The only thing the man did was to get into Thomas' way and he got his cheek torn off with Thomas' cheek. That man yelled as the woman ran away. The people who were watching were in full motion now. Some of them were trying to help the other man, while others were running away screaming.

Davis' poor girlfriend was now fighting for her life as her boyfriend attacked her and bit into her arm. She screamed frantically with pain and fear and she began to feel dizzy from loss of blood.

Meanwhile, the woman who was bit in the shoulder tackled a little boy to the ground and was ripping into his neck. The boy's cries attracted the attention of the people nearby and many tried to come to his aid, to either get pushed off of the woman, or get bit in the process. The boy's mother was crying and hitting the other woman with her purse. "Get off my son! Leave him alone, he's only a little boy!" Her pleas went unanswered as some of the men wrestled the woman off the little boy. The mother looked down at her son's unmoving body, a large pool of blood surrounding his frail little frame.

The mother covered her face with her hands as she sobbed. She felt movement by her leg, so she uncovered her eyes to see her son moving. "You're okay!" She cried in relief. The little boy moved his little body onto his side and grabbed onto his mother's leg. He pulled himself up and bit into her calf. The mother screamed and then asked, "What are you doing honey?! You're hurting mommy!" A man grabbed her from behind and bit into her neck and she screamed again. Soon, a few others pulled her down to the ground and she had her throat ripped out. She tried to scream again, but the blood in her throat was choking her.

Another woman was running to her car. She pushed the button on her keyring to unlock it, then she opened the door, got in and locked it again. Her trembling hands struggled to put the key into the ignition, but the key quickly found its way into the ignition and she turned it. The woman put her car into reverse and she screamed when a bloody hand smacked against her driver's side window. She pushed her foot harder onto the gas puddle and accidently rammed the car into the vehicle behind her. Her upper body lurched forward and hit the steering wheel.

The woman put the car into drive and slammed her foot on the gas peddle again but her car slowed down as the car hit another walking corpse. She tried to hurry her car along, but the zombie at her driver's side window started banging on her window. She screamed again and the zombie's hand smashed through the window. She continued to scream as it grabbed onto her hair and tried to pull her head through the broken glass. "No! No! GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!" the woman shrieked as she pounded her fists against the hand that pulled her. Her head went through the window and she gave a bloodcurdling scream as the zombie took a large bite from her forehead. Another one came over and took a chunk out of her neck. The woman struggled frantically against the two dead men and she brought her head up too fast to know what happened. Two shards of glass pierced her eyes and broke through to her brain. The woman's body twitched uncontrollably as the zombies ate her face.

Twenty-two year old Tammy unlocked her apartment door and slammed it shut. She turned the lock on the knob, then she ran the chain through the other lock. She ran her hands through her long, black hair and took a shaky breath. She took out her cell phone and her emerald eyes scanned through the names on the screen. She found the number she wanted and pressed the call button. After a few rings, her friend Tyler answered his phone.

"Hello?"

At the sound of his voice, Tammy sobbed. "Tyler?" she asked.

"What's wrong Tammy?" he asked.

"I-I-I'm so scared Tyler!" she cried.

"Why? What happened?"

"I saw a man die earlier!" Tammy replied.

"I'm sorry," Tyler told her sympathetically.

"No....you don't understand!" she yelled into her phone. "The man got back up and bit another man's arm!" she sobbed some more before continuing, "I ran away after I saw that happen."

"Calm down. Just talk to me and calm down," Tyler ordered gently.

Tammy took a few deep breathes and was about to speak again when she heard a car crash outside. She ran over to the window and looked down at the street. A woman was screaming in a car as a mangled man hit her window repeatedly. Tammy began to hyperventilate as she watched the man's fist went through the window and grab onto the woman's hair. Her head was pulled out and the man bit into her forehead. "Omgod! Omgod! Tyler, they're outside my building!" Tammy screamed into the phone.

"Ow! Stop screaming would ya?" Tyler asked from the other side of the line. "Try to calm down and...."

Tammy took the phone away from her ear so she didn't hear the rest of what Tyler was saying. She pushed the button on her phone to zoom into the scene she was watching, and she pushed the button to record a short video of the zombies eating the woman. After she couldn't record any more, she looked at her phone again and sent the video to Tyler's phone. About a minute later, she could hear Tyler exclaim, "Holy shit!" He came back onto the phone, "That shit's happening right outside your building?!"

"Yes," Tammy answered as she turned her gaze back out the window. She watched as a teenage girl took down a teenage boy and bit into his cheek. The sight disgusted her, so she turned around and walked over to her couch to sit down. "What am I going to do?" she asked.

"Sit tight and I'll come get you. I'll be about ten minutes, so get whatever you think you'll need and pack it up," Tyler ordered. "Then, we'll come back to my place and see what we come up with."

"A-alright," Tammy stuttered. "Talk to you later."

Tammy stood and went into her bedroom to find her duffle bag and packed it full of clothes. She reached into her closet to get her regular backpack and she put her two photo albums into it before going into the bathroom.

She packed a few toothbrushes, toothpaste and a few other toiletries to last for a while. She opened up the little jewelry box that was on the sink and placed the contents into one of the small pockets on the front of the backpack. After she was finished with that, she went back to her room to pick up the duffle bag and then she went into her living room. She placed her duffle next to the door and then proceeded to the kitchen to pack some of her nonperishable food into the backpack. Before she knew it, Tammy heard a knock on the door. She ran out of the kitchen, to the door and asked, "Who is it?"

"It's me Tammy!" she heard Tyler yell on the other side. Tammy unlocked and unchained her door and opened the door. "Are you ready?" he asked. Tammy nodded and ran to get her backpack from the kitchen. Once at the door, she shouldered her duffle and followed Tyler out into the hallway of the apartment building. She turned to lock her door, but Tyler stopped her, "There's no reason to lock the door. I doubt it will work against looters."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes, it's totaly chaos outside," Tyler answered. Tammy noticed for the first time that Tyler had a baseball bat in his hands. "My van is right in front of the
doors, so when you get outside, just run."

"O-okay," Tammy replied with a shaky voice as she followed Tyler down the stairs to the first level. Once they were on the first level, they ran full speed to the entrance of the building. Tyler pushed open the door and hit a button on his remote to unlock the door. He ran around the front of the van and got into the driver's side. Tammy got in on the other side and she slammed her door shut. Tyler started the van right before a bloodied hand smacked the glass on his side. Tammy screamed as another hand slapped the window beside her. Tyler kept his cool and drove away from the chaos around him.