Post by Ethan on Apr 9, 2007 11:39:00 GMT -5
RATING? umm....NC- 17...joking....ummm...I'd say PG 14 for some adult matter and some swearing
ok, my fellow guildins...this is my new project...PLEASE tell me wat you think...but dont go all nit picky and analyze every letter of every word of every sentence...i want an overall review...what did you like, what didnt you like, how i could change the parts you didn't like so that you would like them, why did you like the parts you liked, and an overall oppionion...
I only have the prologue and the first chapter written so. . .
His heart beat violently in his under his white, button up shirt, as they ran down the deserted, but once flourishing, city streets. He was out of breath and shape. Why hadn’t he taken that gym membership when he was offered it, or taken his wife’s advice and exercised more? Gary’s forty two years proved as much as a disadvantage to him as his tar filled lungs, and arthritis stricken knees. His flabby gut weighed him down, as his folds jumped erratically with each stride of his stubby legs.
He had been an accountant, and a good one. Numbers were his forte, running wasn’t. How had he gotten into this? How had he been conned-not conned, but forced- into this predicament where his purpose was solely to gather food, or be food. The very though of them getting him made his stomach curl with disgust and fear, and the hair on the back of his neck to stand erect and stiff.
Taking heaving, inwards breaths, and relieving painful outward ones, Gary was at the back of the group. This was by orders, and not by physical ability, for a few of the members were in worse shape than he was, and they were all within his age group.
The group of mid-life morsels came to an exhausted stop at their destination.
The silent trip worried Gary, as he had been on this run before, and the journey to the spot was usually much worse than they had just experienced. Gary, who used numbers often in his daily, hectic, and dangerous life, had once come to the conclusion that, on the way to retrieve the food, they chances of not returning were two in five. Meaning that, for every five people with them, two would not come back. Of course, there were exceptions, as there are to any generalized probability. There were times where no members were lost, and also times, although Gary did not want to recall them, when the party did not return.
He looked curiously around at his fellow fodder. The nine, along with himself, were no more than the last resort; the unneeded ones; the replacables. They were expendable, cannon fodder, and, although they’d be missed when they were gone, they only had one purpose, food.
Whether it was a meal for either side, food was all they were worth. When a party member did not return, they saw it as an advantage. At the very least it meant one less mouth to feed, both for them, and them,
Now feeling an inferiority complex, Gary spoke in his wheezy, deep voice. “Tom,” he said, recognizing a familiar face.
Tom was a good friend, even from before the incident. They had worked together in the same field and office. Their families were close, and, when they both lost everything, they had stuck together, found the Alliance, and joined willingly, signing their lives away for the “greater good” of mankind.
On second thought, what good had they done? The only thing they did was make widows of women, or orphans of children. They had even helped populate the other side. This was unintentional, of course, but the fact that it happened did not help.
“Yeah, Gary?” Tome responded, snapping the accountant out of his thoughts and grievances.
“You and Scott and Alec are with me.” He motioned to two other veterans of the food game.
Scott was in the best physical condition, and Gary always made it a point to take Scott on his side. Scott was completely bald, muscled and toned, but reminisce of the older man was still in him. Scott’s eyes showed signs of fatigue, but his face was stern, with cold brown eyes and a grizzly goatee that covered the bulk of his featured visage. Scott was forty, just out of the range in which he would have been previously “safe” from becoming a snack.
Alec, on the other hand, was a scrawny older man of forty six, and was a rookie to the Alliance. He would act as a distraction for Gary, Tom, and Scott to make an escape if the need arose, although Alec hadn’t the faintest of clue as to his position, due to the obvious fact of his own opposition. Gary felt remorse for making Alec his own human shield, but it was necessary for his own, and the Alliance’s survival.
Tom was also bald, but had wreath of thinning gray hair around his head, and wore glasses over green eyes. Tom had an enthusiastic view on life, and was a persuasive man, despite his flamboyant personality.
“What about the rest,” Scott asked, eyeing the other six.
“Right,” Gary nodded, he wasn’t thinking straight. “Umm, David,” he motioned to a short, plump Latino man, “can come with us as well, and the rest will be the second group.”
“What exactly are we getting?” Scott asked. He knew it was food, but there were different types they retrieved for different trips.
“This is a dry run,” Gary explained, “We go for bread, rice, other filling foods, instant potatoes, noodles, and the like as well. As for water, we have enough stockpiled to avoid having to gather some this trip.”
They knew what they walked into. They knew it was a trap. They knew it all, as they played into their claws.
Ryan drummed his fingers impatiently on the edge of the small oak desk situated in his pavilion, the beat growing in intensity with every passing moment. Where was his dad? He’d been gone for hours past his scheduled time of arrival, and Ryan feared the worst.
Leaning back in his wobbly chair, Ryan ran his thick fingers through his earlobe length, messy brown hair, revealing large green eyes beneath the knotted bangs. He scratched his head.
Ryan, who was too frustrated to stay still any longer, stood quickly, knocking his chair over as he rose to his six foot two form. Ryan was scruffy, yet handsome. Underneath his unshaven, well past five O’clock shadow were chiseled features, with thin lips, and pointed canines. His nose was large, but not so much as to distract a viewer from the rest of his face.
His large head sat atop a sturdy neck, jutting upward from a toned, thin body. Ryan wore blue jeans that were ripped at the knee, and a tight white t-shirt under a black button up dress shirt, undone, and hanging down to his thighs.
The tall, scruffy eighteen year old wandered out of his pavilion, more from boredom than frustration.
It was a nasty habit of Ryan’s to lose interest quickly, which made his father perpetually frustrated with him. His dad was an accountant, and Ryan did not inherit his father’s gift with numbers, patience, or intelligence. He was a screw up son, and Ryan knew it. Ever since he could remember, he was letting his father down. There was always something he did that lowered Ryan’s trust in his dad’s eyes.
Ryan was always in trouble, whether it be in school, at home, or in the general community. He had been arrested three times for petty crimes, and suspended from school twice for engaging in fights with other students. Ryan’s father would always make it a point to state how much of a disappointment he was to him, and that only caused Ryan to act out more.
The latest of misdemeanors Ryan had on his record before the incident was a breaking and entering. Ryan’s dad had been furious, yelling that Ryan was the worst son anyone could have gotten, and dramatically asked the heavens what he had done to deserve such a failure.
Ryan shook his head, deciding not to think about how much his father did not love him. He was worried.
Looking around, Ryan frowned at the conditions in which he was forced to live. It was a dump! Literally. The alliance set up their base of operations inside the city garbage disposal yard, which was just a fancy way of saying “a big garbage pile”.
His sniffed with disgust as the scent of waste filled his nostrils.
Some sanctuary, Ryan scoffed, remembering how his father had told him this was “a sanctuary for the average citizen.”
Wandering through the dump, Ryan still wondered why they didn’t just leave the city. Whenever he would ask his dad, he would say that had all of the exits blocked and guarded. Then Ryan would always inquire as to why the army didn’t come to help, or why no one contacted the outside world.
His dad would always get angry at this part retorting with “Don’t you think we would have done that if we could have?! They have cut all means of communication between us and anyone outside of the city. And any tourists or passer-bys that come are either turned or eaten. This city is little known, and doesn’t get many people. You should know that, son. Use your head for once!”
At that point, Ryan would leave the subject alone, and storm off. He hated it when his father insulted him. It hurt worse than when a stranger did it. This was his dad, the man that was supposed to teach him about life. The man that was supposed to show Ryan life lessons through love and compassion.
Ryan scoffed, “Love and compassion, my butt!” he muttered to himself, “More like hatred and disappointment.”
Ryan shook the negative thoughts out of his head. It was hard to be worried about the man when all he could think about was how much his dad disliked him. It would have been even harder to morn that kind of man.
He wasn’t dead, Ryan told himself, knowing he probably was. His dad was six hours overdue from the trip, and that was never good. Anything after four hours overdue was said to a lost cause, and the team was declared M.I.A.
Ryan approached John Stevens’ pavilion, which was much larger than the others. This was with good reason because John Stevens founded the Alliance, and allowed everyone to find refuge in its arms.
John was an aging man, forty at least, but he had never been sent out in search of food for the rest of the Alliance. He was “too important” to lose.
Mr. Stevens owned a pharmaceutical company by the name of Pharmatech Inc. The plant researched new medicines, vitamins, and various prescription pills for the city. Pharmatech boomed within months of its creation, and John Stevens became an instant millionaire.
When the incident occurred, Mr. Stevens suffered greatly, losing his company and all of his fortune. No one was able to work in his plant when they were fighting for their very survival, and, within hours of the incident, the plant was abandoned. They worked too quickly, too efficiently, and they took Pharmatech as their nest.
Ryan suddenly thought of something. They didn’t have a name. They were just referred to as them. Ryan would change this, if given the chance. He suddenly found himself wondering what they were like. How they sounded, looked, and acted. Ryan had never been out of the dump since he and his father were brought there. He was “too young” to be leaving to search for food.
The only thing Ryan did know about them was that they were intelligent, but this was something that he himself had come to conclude. The simple fact that they could block the roads out and cut the communication was astounding.
Ryan stood in front of Stevens’ pavilion, and, since in place of doors and walls, tarp was up, Ryan could not knock.
“Umm,” he called into the pavilion, “Mr. Stevens? Are you home?”
A charismatic voice called from within, “I haven’t been home since the incident,” it chuckled, “Come in,” the voice beckoned Ryan.
Ryan pushed past the tarp and stepped into the pavilion, and, upon instinct, surveyed the room.
It was lavishly decorated, and was about twenty feet by twenty feet in size. There was a comfortable, king sized bed in the far right corner and a velvet armchair, beside a hanging lantern, in the left one. There were bookshelves filled with the usual suspects, and a small, old fashioned wood stove that looked like he had found it in the contents of the junk piles.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Fox,” Stevens said, flashing Ryan a white, toothy smile.
He was a good looking older man, with styled, dyed brown hair, and the beginnings of wrinkled spreading across his chiseled face and once-upon-a-time toned body.
“It’s Ryan,” replied the other, “and hello, Mr. Stevens,” he added quickly, not wanting to sound rude.
Stevens laughed, “Ok, Ryan it is, and, please, give me the same courtesy and call me John.”
“Ok, John,” Ryan stated warmly, putting on a fake smile. He never liked this guy.
John wore reading glasses, and was half paying attention to Ryan, and half reading some reports. “So, Ryan,” he said, sitting his large oak desk, situated in the middle of his room, “how’s your mother?”
Ryan suddenly felt as if he was justified in his dislike, “Dead,” he said coldly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my mind’s a bit off today,” John apologized, but his voice held no signs of remorse, “How’s the old man then?”
“My dad? He’s the reason I’m here. He hasn’t come back yet.”
“Come back from where?” John said, not really paying attention to Ryan.
“From going to get the food, he’s six hours overdue.”
“Well,” Stevens spoke, “you know that after four hours they are M.I.A. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“He isn’t dead!” Ryan snapped, “I know it. But I think we should send a search party.”
John looked up, his face was stern and serious, “You know I can’t do that. It would be sending lambs to the slaughter.”
“What are you talking about?!” Ryan’s voice was filled with anger now, “Sending them is like sending lambs to the slaughter. They don’t even carry weapons to defend themselves!”
“I don’t allow them to bring weapons because it lowers the amount of food they can bring back. And, besides, you know as well as I do that there is no firearm ammunition left.”
“What about hand held weapons?” Ryan asked coldly.
“All of those are reserved for the men here, who need to defend the base in case of an attack.”
Ryan went to complain, but realized John was subtly changing the subject, “Anyway, if you don’t send anyone, I’ll go.”
“You know I can’t let you do that-“
“I wasn’t asking for your permission.”
John continued as if uninterrupted, “you could be infected, and we can’t have that.”
“I don’t care if I get infected. I am not leaving my dad out there to die.”
“Chances are he’s already dead.”
“Shut up!” Ryan yelled.
“Ah, the impatient youth,” Stevens laughed, “can’t even hold in your anger. How do you expect me to listen to you when you are so immature?”
“I could just beat you until you give me what I want,” Ryan threatened.
“But then I’d have you thrown out of the Alliance.”
“But then I could be infected,” Ryan smirked coldly.
“Maybe, maybe not. There primary objective is food, so you would probably be eaten. They don’t infect on purpose, not usually. In most cases, the infecting occurs when they scratch or bite someone, and then that person gets away before being eaten. The virus then passes through their system and mutates the cells, turning the person into one of them.”
“Well then,” Ryan said, in light of this new information, “if I go, I’ll be sure to let it eat me if I am wounded by it.”
John laughed, “I still can’t let you do that.”
Ryan was about to object, when a man came running into the pavilion, “Mr. Stevens!” he said, through heaving breaths, “The food party is back, and they’re hurt.”
John looked slightly disappointed, but Ryan didn’t notice, “How many of them are back?”
“Two,” the man answered.
Stevens stood, and left without saying so much as a good bye. Ryan immediately followed him.
ok, my fellow guildins...this is my new project...PLEASE tell me wat you think...but dont go all nit picky and analyze every letter of every word of every sentence...i want an overall review...what did you like, what didnt you like, how i could change the parts you didn't like so that you would like them, why did you like the parts you liked, and an overall oppionion...
I only have the prologue and the first chapter written so. . .
Prologue: In Search of Food
His heart beat violently in his under his white, button up shirt, as they ran down the deserted, but once flourishing, city streets. He was out of breath and shape. Why hadn’t he taken that gym membership when he was offered it, or taken his wife’s advice and exercised more? Gary’s forty two years proved as much as a disadvantage to him as his tar filled lungs, and arthritis stricken knees. His flabby gut weighed him down, as his folds jumped erratically with each stride of his stubby legs.
He had been an accountant, and a good one. Numbers were his forte, running wasn’t. How had he gotten into this? How had he been conned-not conned, but forced- into this predicament where his purpose was solely to gather food, or be food. The very though of them getting him made his stomach curl with disgust and fear, and the hair on the back of his neck to stand erect and stiff.
Taking heaving, inwards breaths, and relieving painful outward ones, Gary was at the back of the group. This was by orders, and not by physical ability, for a few of the members were in worse shape than he was, and they were all within his age group.
The group of mid-life morsels came to an exhausted stop at their destination.
The silent trip worried Gary, as he had been on this run before, and the journey to the spot was usually much worse than they had just experienced. Gary, who used numbers often in his daily, hectic, and dangerous life, had once come to the conclusion that, on the way to retrieve the food, they chances of not returning were two in five. Meaning that, for every five people with them, two would not come back. Of course, there were exceptions, as there are to any generalized probability. There were times where no members were lost, and also times, although Gary did not want to recall them, when the party did not return.
He looked curiously around at his fellow fodder. The nine, along with himself, were no more than the last resort; the unneeded ones; the replacables. They were expendable, cannon fodder, and, although they’d be missed when they were gone, they only had one purpose, food.
Whether it was a meal for either side, food was all they were worth. When a party member did not return, they saw it as an advantage. At the very least it meant one less mouth to feed, both for them, and them,
Now feeling an inferiority complex, Gary spoke in his wheezy, deep voice. “Tom,” he said, recognizing a familiar face.
Tom was a good friend, even from before the incident. They had worked together in the same field and office. Their families were close, and, when they both lost everything, they had stuck together, found the Alliance, and joined willingly, signing their lives away for the “greater good” of mankind.
On second thought, what good had they done? The only thing they did was make widows of women, or orphans of children. They had even helped populate the other side. This was unintentional, of course, but the fact that it happened did not help.
“Yeah, Gary?” Tome responded, snapping the accountant out of his thoughts and grievances.
“You and Scott and Alec are with me.” He motioned to two other veterans of the food game.
Scott was in the best physical condition, and Gary always made it a point to take Scott on his side. Scott was completely bald, muscled and toned, but reminisce of the older man was still in him. Scott’s eyes showed signs of fatigue, but his face was stern, with cold brown eyes and a grizzly goatee that covered the bulk of his featured visage. Scott was forty, just out of the range in which he would have been previously “safe” from becoming a snack.
Alec, on the other hand, was a scrawny older man of forty six, and was a rookie to the Alliance. He would act as a distraction for Gary, Tom, and Scott to make an escape if the need arose, although Alec hadn’t the faintest of clue as to his position, due to the obvious fact of his own opposition. Gary felt remorse for making Alec his own human shield, but it was necessary for his own, and the Alliance’s survival.
Tom was also bald, but had wreath of thinning gray hair around his head, and wore glasses over green eyes. Tom had an enthusiastic view on life, and was a persuasive man, despite his flamboyant personality.
“What about the rest,” Scott asked, eyeing the other six.
“Right,” Gary nodded, he wasn’t thinking straight. “Umm, David,” he motioned to a short, plump Latino man, “can come with us as well, and the rest will be the second group.”
“What exactly are we getting?” Scott asked. He knew it was food, but there were different types they retrieved for different trips.
“This is a dry run,” Gary explained, “We go for bread, rice, other filling foods, instant potatoes, noodles, and the like as well. As for water, we have enough stockpiled to avoid having to gather some this trip.”
They knew what they walked into. They knew it was a trap. They knew it all, as they played into their claws.
Chapter 1: Impatience
Ryan drummed his fingers impatiently on the edge of the small oak desk situated in his pavilion, the beat growing in intensity with every passing moment. Where was his dad? He’d been gone for hours past his scheduled time of arrival, and Ryan feared the worst.
Leaning back in his wobbly chair, Ryan ran his thick fingers through his earlobe length, messy brown hair, revealing large green eyes beneath the knotted bangs. He scratched his head.
Ryan, who was too frustrated to stay still any longer, stood quickly, knocking his chair over as he rose to his six foot two form. Ryan was scruffy, yet handsome. Underneath his unshaven, well past five O’clock shadow were chiseled features, with thin lips, and pointed canines. His nose was large, but not so much as to distract a viewer from the rest of his face.
His large head sat atop a sturdy neck, jutting upward from a toned, thin body. Ryan wore blue jeans that were ripped at the knee, and a tight white t-shirt under a black button up dress shirt, undone, and hanging down to his thighs.
The tall, scruffy eighteen year old wandered out of his pavilion, more from boredom than frustration.
It was a nasty habit of Ryan’s to lose interest quickly, which made his father perpetually frustrated with him. His dad was an accountant, and Ryan did not inherit his father’s gift with numbers, patience, or intelligence. He was a screw up son, and Ryan knew it. Ever since he could remember, he was letting his father down. There was always something he did that lowered Ryan’s trust in his dad’s eyes.
Ryan was always in trouble, whether it be in school, at home, or in the general community. He had been arrested three times for petty crimes, and suspended from school twice for engaging in fights with other students. Ryan’s father would always make it a point to state how much of a disappointment he was to him, and that only caused Ryan to act out more.
The latest of misdemeanors Ryan had on his record before the incident was a breaking and entering. Ryan’s dad had been furious, yelling that Ryan was the worst son anyone could have gotten, and dramatically asked the heavens what he had done to deserve such a failure.
Ryan shook his head, deciding not to think about how much his father did not love him. He was worried.
Looking around, Ryan frowned at the conditions in which he was forced to live. It was a dump! Literally. The alliance set up their base of operations inside the city garbage disposal yard, which was just a fancy way of saying “a big garbage pile”.
His sniffed with disgust as the scent of waste filled his nostrils.
Some sanctuary, Ryan scoffed, remembering how his father had told him this was “a sanctuary for the average citizen.”
Wandering through the dump, Ryan still wondered why they didn’t just leave the city. Whenever he would ask his dad, he would say that had all of the exits blocked and guarded. Then Ryan would always inquire as to why the army didn’t come to help, or why no one contacted the outside world.
His dad would always get angry at this part retorting with “Don’t you think we would have done that if we could have?! They have cut all means of communication between us and anyone outside of the city. And any tourists or passer-bys that come are either turned or eaten. This city is little known, and doesn’t get many people. You should know that, son. Use your head for once!”
At that point, Ryan would leave the subject alone, and storm off. He hated it when his father insulted him. It hurt worse than when a stranger did it. This was his dad, the man that was supposed to teach him about life. The man that was supposed to show Ryan life lessons through love and compassion.
Ryan scoffed, “Love and compassion, my butt!” he muttered to himself, “More like hatred and disappointment.”
Ryan shook the negative thoughts out of his head. It was hard to be worried about the man when all he could think about was how much his dad disliked him. It would have been even harder to morn that kind of man.
He wasn’t dead, Ryan told himself, knowing he probably was. His dad was six hours overdue from the trip, and that was never good. Anything after four hours overdue was said to a lost cause, and the team was declared M.I.A.
Ryan approached John Stevens’ pavilion, which was much larger than the others. This was with good reason because John Stevens founded the Alliance, and allowed everyone to find refuge in its arms.
John was an aging man, forty at least, but he had never been sent out in search of food for the rest of the Alliance. He was “too important” to lose.
Mr. Stevens owned a pharmaceutical company by the name of Pharmatech Inc. The plant researched new medicines, vitamins, and various prescription pills for the city. Pharmatech boomed within months of its creation, and John Stevens became an instant millionaire.
When the incident occurred, Mr. Stevens suffered greatly, losing his company and all of his fortune. No one was able to work in his plant when they were fighting for their very survival, and, within hours of the incident, the plant was abandoned. They worked too quickly, too efficiently, and they took Pharmatech as their nest.
Ryan suddenly thought of something. They didn’t have a name. They were just referred to as them. Ryan would change this, if given the chance. He suddenly found himself wondering what they were like. How they sounded, looked, and acted. Ryan had never been out of the dump since he and his father were brought there. He was “too young” to be leaving to search for food.
The only thing Ryan did know about them was that they were intelligent, but this was something that he himself had come to conclude. The simple fact that they could block the roads out and cut the communication was astounding.
Ryan stood in front of Stevens’ pavilion, and, since in place of doors and walls, tarp was up, Ryan could not knock.
“Umm,” he called into the pavilion, “Mr. Stevens? Are you home?”
A charismatic voice called from within, “I haven’t been home since the incident,” it chuckled, “Come in,” the voice beckoned Ryan.
Ryan pushed past the tarp and stepped into the pavilion, and, upon instinct, surveyed the room.
It was lavishly decorated, and was about twenty feet by twenty feet in size. There was a comfortable, king sized bed in the far right corner and a velvet armchair, beside a hanging lantern, in the left one. There were bookshelves filled with the usual suspects, and a small, old fashioned wood stove that looked like he had found it in the contents of the junk piles.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Fox,” Stevens said, flashing Ryan a white, toothy smile.
He was a good looking older man, with styled, dyed brown hair, and the beginnings of wrinkled spreading across his chiseled face and once-upon-a-time toned body.
“It’s Ryan,” replied the other, “and hello, Mr. Stevens,” he added quickly, not wanting to sound rude.
Stevens laughed, “Ok, Ryan it is, and, please, give me the same courtesy and call me John.”
“Ok, John,” Ryan stated warmly, putting on a fake smile. He never liked this guy.
John wore reading glasses, and was half paying attention to Ryan, and half reading some reports. “So, Ryan,” he said, sitting his large oak desk, situated in the middle of his room, “how’s your mother?”
Ryan suddenly felt as if he was justified in his dislike, “Dead,” he said coldly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my mind’s a bit off today,” John apologized, but his voice held no signs of remorse, “How’s the old man then?”
“My dad? He’s the reason I’m here. He hasn’t come back yet.”
“Come back from where?” John said, not really paying attention to Ryan.
“From going to get the food, he’s six hours overdue.”
“Well,” Stevens spoke, “you know that after four hours they are M.I.A. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“He isn’t dead!” Ryan snapped, “I know it. But I think we should send a search party.”
John looked up, his face was stern and serious, “You know I can’t do that. It would be sending lambs to the slaughter.”
“What are you talking about?!” Ryan’s voice was filled with anger now, “Sending them is like sending lambs to the slaughter. They don’t even carry weapons to defend themselves!”
“I don’t allow them to bring weapons because it lowers the amount of food they can bring back. And, besides, you know as well as I do that there is no firearm ammunition left.”
“What about hand held weapons?” Ryan asked coldly.
“All of those are reserved for the men here, who need to defend the base in case of an attack.”
Ryan went to complain, but realized John was subtly changing the subject, “Anyway, if you don’t send anyone, I’ll go.”
“You know I can’t let you do that-“
“I wasn’t asking for your permission.”
John continued as if uninterrupted, “you could be infected, and we can’t have that.”
“I don’t care if I get infected. I am not leaving my dad out there to die.”
“Chances are he’s already dead.”
“Shut up!” Ryan yelled.
“Ah, the impatient youth,” Stevens laughed, “can’t even hold in your anger. How do you expect me to listen to you when you are so immature?”
“I could just beat you until you give me what I want,” Ryan threatened.
“But then I’d have you thrown out of the Alliance.”
“But then I could be infected,” Ryan smirked coldly.
“Maybe, maybe not. There primary objective is food, so you would probably be eaten. They don’t infect on purpose, not usually. In most cases, the infecting occurs when they scratch or bite someone, and then that person gets away before being eaten. The virus then passes through their system and mutates the cells, turning the person into one of them.”
“Well then,” Ryan said, in light of this new information, “if I go, I’ll be sure to let it eat me if I am wounded by it.”
John laughed, “I still can’t let you do that.”
Ryan was about to object, when a man came running into the pavilion, “Mr. Stevens!” he said, through heaving breaths, “The food party is back, and they’re hurt.”
John looked slightly disappointed, but Ryan didn’t notice, “How many of them are back?”
“Two,” the man answered.
Stevens stood, and left without saying so much as a good bye. Ryan immediately followed him.