FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

~~~CHAPTER 1~~~

~2 hours later~

"Is that pickup chopper getting any closer, Greg?"

Harry, I love you like a brother, but I swear to Almighty God if you ask me that one more time, I will stab you with every sharp object I can make. And that's A LOT.

"No. Go bother Francis for the next half hour. If he tries to freeze you again, you'll know that it's working."

After we had finished clearing the city block of every zombie we could find, we were on the roof of one building Harry didn't decide to destroy, waiting for our lift back to the HAC base. Since Harry's earpiece fell out during a teleport, as it commonly did for him given the nature of his abilities, he'd been slowly driving me insane with questions only HAC could answer. Still, it was better than the inevitable mission debrief, since our superiors loved making us remember small, easily forgettable details WAY more than people should.

The missions themselves were always the same; get dropped off in an infested part of a major city, kill all the 'zombs, and get out while not attracting more of them. It was a long, thankless job, but our enhanced DNA made us immune to the infection, and our superpowers took care of the dirty work. Most of the people in the world had already been infected, and there were numerous pockets of survivors scattered around the nation, but only a few of us actually wanted to fight back. Of course, all it cost us were our rights, our bodies, and the remainder of our lives.

"Okay, okay, I'll shut up! Wait, Fra---"

Told ya, Harry...

And while I stood there on the roof, waiting for the helicopter and for Harry to thaw himself out, I found myself once again doing what I usually do when waiting for our evacuation ride: flashing back to before all this happened. I hated remembering that day, I hated it more than life itself. But it was like porn; once it got inside my head, I simply couldn't get it out until something in the real world grabbed my attention and left me dumbfounded.

I remembered it all so vividly... Too vividly, really.

I remembered my old life ending and losing everything.

But most of all, I remembered her...

Cali...

~Thirteen months earlier~

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Must...find...snooze...button... Must...not...destroy...clock....again....

I slowly reached out to snooze my alarm clock, almost falling out of my bed in the process for the third time this week. Of course, there was a perfectly good reason why my bed always seemed to move away from my clock: constant rocking. And as I shut the alarm off, the cause of that rocking rolled over and gave me a good morning hug.

"Morning, sunshine" she said sweetly.

Her green eyes sparkled from the sunlight leaking into the room, looking like perfect, little green diamonds. I smiled and pulled her in for a kiss. A quick one, but passionate enough to kick start her day. And boy, did she know it.

"You should wake me up like that every day, Greg. That alarm just scares me awake sometimes."

"For you, Cali, I'd smash every alarm clock in the world." Kinda lame, I realized, but it was 7:30am, and my brain wasn't fully awake yet. And five solid hours of boring college classes would probably keep it that way. But she just giggled at my lame joke and slowly got out of bed, still completely naked from the night before.

Oh yeah, this IS a great way to wake up. And every part of me seems to agree...

No matter what time of day it was or what the situation was, Cali always looked like she came straight out of a Playboy magazine. She had long, flowing red hair, reaching all the way down to her perfectly curved ass. Her entire body was finely toned and muscle-tight, thanks to years of playing tennis. Her face was lightly freckled, just enough to perfectly mix with the rest of her body. She had C-cup breasts, my personal favorite size; not too big, but definitely not too small. They were her favorite feature, but truthfully not mine. I had to cast that vote to her perpetually warm smile, which always managed to make my heart melt away with joy. Last but not least, she had a tiny scar under her right eye from taking a tennis racket to the face years earlier in a freak accident. She hated it, but I thought it made her even cuter. It didn't even matter, because in my eyes, she was perfect. And no matter how many times I've seen her au natural, it was a lot to take in, and would never get old.

She picked up her clothes from the floor and entered the bathroom to change while I just stared at my reflection on the ceiling mirror I put there. I'd say I used to be a pretty good looking guy, with my short haircut, goatee, and moderately impressive muscles.

Hmmm, maybe I should lift more. Chicks love guys with big muscles, right?

But as I was starting to visualize myself with The Rock's arms, Cali burst out of the bathroom halfway dressed, and quickly pulled up the blinds on my bedroom window, letting in a painful flood of sunlight.

"Greg, look at this..."

I knew that tone. She was genuinely scared, and whatever the reason was out there, considering she must've looked out the bathroom's window. I got out of bed and walked over to the bedroom window, with nothing to prepare myself for what I saw outside.

"...Cali? Are those---?"

"Y-yeah..."

"And I'm not---?"

"No, y-you're not s-seeing things. I see them, too... I can see them everywhere..."

Bodies. Tons of them. Being torn apart and eaten by legions of grey-skinned, pale-eyed zombies, with each grisly sight more horrifying than the last. People were frantically running, probably screaming, though my soundproof walls thankfully prevented us from hearing any of it.

And the blood... Blood was just everywhere...

"This can't.... This can't be real!" was all I could stammer out. But in my mind, I knew it was the real deal, THE FUCKING DEAD WERE FUCKING WALKING. It was Judgment Day, there was no more room in Hell, and every other famous zombie movie quote was running through my head. If my stomach had been just a little weaker than it was, I'd have been vomiting with disgust right then. But all we could do was just stand and stare at the horror outside for a good minute until we both came to our senses and took a deep breath each.

Like a proper gentleman, I took control of the situation:

"Okay. Okay, okay, let's not panic. We panic, we die. We've both seen a few zombie movies in our time, so we both know what we need to do. We need to find out who else is in this apartment, grab enough food and water, and barricade ourselves on the top floor."

"Yeah, but what about our families, Greg!? They both live close to where we are, and we have a car. We need to go get them before the zombies do!"

Normally, I'd have argued that our chances of making it across town in a situation like this would be slim to none, but she was right. I loved my family, and I knew she loved hers as well. I couldn't bear not knowing if they were in trouble or not.

"Okay, you're right. But first, we have to find out who else is alive in this building. If anyone's infected, they're our first priority." As I said this, I grabbed my sports bag from my closet and took out my two baseball bats, one for me and one for Cali. We both finished putting on our clothes, and silently opened my bedroom door. No noise was coming from anywhere else in the apartment, and a quick search showed that none of my roommates were there.

God... They were probably walking back here late last night drunk off their asses and got mauled by these... things...

I knew that that was probably what had happened, but I stayed focused on our primary goal nevertheless. Luckily, my car was parked right outside the apartment, and none of the zombies noticed us getting in. But as soon as I started my engine, every single one of their heads turned and gazed at us with pure hunger in their dead eyes.

All of them, about 30 in total, started limping towards us. Pretty fucking quickly, too.

Cali screamed. I didn't blame her.

But I already had my foot on the pedal, and in a split second we safely sped past the ghouls, though their haunting moans seemed to follow us wherever we went. But the roads were surprisingly clear, save for one or two walkers or corpses. It's because this wasn't the city, like you'd expect it to be in a situation like this; we were outside a thickly-settled area. But the walking dead were everywhere, that part stayed the same. Some were in good enough shape; others had gashes and missing limbs. Some were feeding on corpses; others were feeding on alive and screaming people. Cali just covered her head with her arms and tried to drown out the sounds of the insanity all around us, while I kept looking forward at the road straight ahead. I resolved to not let myself become distracted by the world going to hell. We had an objective, and by God we were going to complete it.

"It's gonna be all right" I said while gently rubbing her back. "We're all gonna make it through this."

She sniffled, obviously holding back tears. "Do you REALLY know that, Greg? I trust you with my life, don't get me wrong, but how can you be so sure?"

I sighed. "I'm not. I'm not sure of anything anymore..."

~~~

Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at Cali's house, which was still in one piece. That was a good sign right there. There were also no zombies walking around outside. Even better sign!

But the front door was wide open. BAD sign.

"Greeeg...." was all Cali could nervously stammer out.

"Cali, stay in the car. I can't see any of them around here, but I'd feel better if you were safe. If you see any out there, just ca--"

"Damn it, Greg, my family might be in there, and whether they're safe or infected, I need to see them! Even if the worst happened, just let me say goodbye!" She had tears rolling down her face, something never liked seeing. I knew she was right; I just didn't want to risk her getting bitten.

And yet... End of the world or not, I'd be a dick to deny her this...

"I know... You're right. But stay right behind me. I'll watch the front, and you watch the back. That way we'll be ready for anything." I pulled her in for a reassuring hug while I said that. It seemed to calm her down enough.

"Okay."

We walked across her front yard and up to her front door as quietly as we could, keeping an eye on the entire neighborhood as we walked. But it turned out that Cali's worst fear had been avoided, as a sign stapled to the door showed us.

I read it out loud: "This home has been evacuated by the U.S. Army. All 3 persons inside this home have been accounted for and are en route to our established bases for quarantine. Please refrain from making any contact with them, as the air space must be reserved for military and emergency use only. Please be assured that your loved ones are alive and are in our care." The "3" on the sheet had been drawn on with a Sharpie.

Cali quickly shifted from sad and frightened to joyous. "Oh, thank God! Mom, Dad, and Mikey are safe! But why the flying fuck can't I call them!? I don't care what the paper says; I need to hear their voices!"

I re-read the paper to myself, just to make sure I didn't miss anything. "I say try it anyway. But you never know, they could've shut down the lines. I tried calling my house on the road, and I got nothing."

And call them she did. While we drove to my house, Cali tried numerous times to call her parents and little brother on their phones, but to no avail. We kept looking at other houses in the area to see if they had signs on the doors or not, and not many did. That made my heart sink a great deal. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think that I could open the door and see my parents eating each other or someone else. I could only pray that if the worst had really happened, then they were dead and not undead. I couldn't possibly put them down myself.

Couldn't AND wouldn't...

As we turned onto my street, I saw several armored cars and jeeps with military fatigues on them, as well as armed soldiers and hazmat personnel walking around outside my house. One soldier was near the door, motioning for someone to come out.

Oh, thank GOD!

This was good! My family was being saved by the army AND I'd be able to stay with them in a secure area! I immediately pulled the breaks and ran out of the car, straight towards my house, hoping that Cali would follow suit.

"Greg, wait! I can't run as fast as you!"

"Don't worry, baby, they have guns! They'll kill anything that comes at you!" Yes, it was stupid to leave her behind like that, but this was my parents we're talking about. Kind of important, too.

"Mom! Dad! It's me, Greg! I can't believe you're---"

That's when I saw who the soldier was telling to come out of my house.

It wasn't my parents. It was more hazmat personnel. Carrying two body bags.

I swear my heart had stopped. "No..... NOOOOOOOOO!!!"

I couldn't think. I had to run up to my house, go inside and see that my family was still inside. I had to see that it wasn't them in those bags. I had to see that I was coming to the wrong conclusion!

"MOM! DAD! PLEASE!!!"

One of the soldiers noticed me running to the house, looked at a clipboard in his hand, and started to walk towards me.

"Gregory Ossland?" he shouted.

Out of breath, all I could do was rasp. "What? Yeah, yeah, that's me! Please... Please tell me that that's... not..."

I stopped talking when I saw his face. I could still see it through the hot tears in my eyes.

"I'm sorry, son. Your neighbors were infected and were able to get inside your house. We had no choice..."

"AND YOU KILLED THEM? YOU FUCKING KILLED MY PARENTS!!!"

"Greg, your parents were already dead. The things we shot were NOT them. Not anymore."

"But... But..." I couldn't finish my sentence, because I knew he was right. I knew that they had been transformed into soulless killing machines, but my logic was being blinded by common sense.

"Listen to me, Greg. We have to get you out of here. We have bases set up everywhere, we have to get any unharmed survivors to---"

And that's when God decided to make my day even worse.

"AAAHHHHHHHH!!! GREEEEEEEEG!!!"

We both spun around to see Cali, still close to the car, trying to fight off a lone zombie that had appeared out of nowhere. She was tossing and turning madly, trying to escape the zombie's grip, but also making it impossible for any soldier to get a clear shot at the ghoul.

I dashed towards her with the little strength left in my body, aiming to tackle the zombie to the ground and curb-stomp him Sam B-style.

But I was too late.

He bit a chunk out of Cali's left arm.

And then another one.

And then another one.

But before he could do any more damage, his head exploded from a perfect headshot that should've happened seconds ago. I ran towards my love, knelt down and cradled her in my arms. She was clutching her arm, which did little to stop the flow of blood from her three wounds.

She's been bitten. She... She's been bitten...

...OH MY GOD, SHE'S BEEN BITTEN!!!

"Cali... I..."

She was in shock from the attack and from blood loss, and was slowly slipping away. But she still managed to whisper "Greg... Greg...? The zombie... My arm, I... I..."

With fresh tears rolling down my face, I held Cali close to me while the hazmat team ran up to us with a stretcher and medical equipment. They tried prying her out of my arms, but I held onto my dying girlfriend as long as I could.

"D-don't t-talk Cali, just... Just stay with me. Please..."

~~~

The next two hours were a complete blur, between the army moving us to their closest base, Cali being moved to the surgery area, and me just sitting outside waiting. I was in so much shock that I literally couldn't think. My mind was completely blank.

Then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I stood up and saw it was the head surgeon.

"Greg, I'm afraid she didn't make it. She just lost too much blood. We're all very sorry."

She's dead...?

I stood in silence for what felt like an eternity, even after the surgeon left me alone. And then it finally clicked; I had nothing left in the world. Nothing. No parents, no girlfriend, and with the world slowly going to hell, no future. No way to start a family of my own. My entire life was now meaningless.

It was all over.

I had nothing.

Nothing left to do but scream.

~~~

~~

~

I realize that this isn't technically a "furry" chapter, but it's necessary for plot development. The next chapter will deal with my transformation and will make up for the lack of furriness, I assure you.