The Minority

The two scouts started describing what they had seen while on duty. The infected are gathering in the garage, and their numbers are increasing rapidly. There are already well over 50 of them gathered. That's, of course, just the ones visible from the rooftop. Some simply collapsed on the floor and never got up, some leaned against a wall and had visible growths on their bodies. That was the majority, but there was also a minority of them who acted very differently. There was no uniformity in their behavior. A few of them were eating pigeons they'd snatched mid-flight. A small number was chewing on the bodies of the infected who were scattered over the floor. They didn't seem to be harming the swellings under their clothes. Furthermore, those swellings, when clothes got ripped off of the bodies, turned out to be fungi. That leads us to the two most disturbing types of behavior the scouts had noticed. Some of the infected fought against each other, tearing their bodies to pieces. They wouldn't stop until their body was so torn apart that the muscles didn't have anything to pull on. In other words, they only stopped moving once their muscles got torn by the others, or their limbs got torn off, and the muscle tissue was just hanging from the torso, dragging along the floor. As a result, a large part of the garage was painted blood-red. Body parts and guts were scattered everywhere. Up to this point in the story, the scout's faces seemed to have some color back in them. That all changed with the following part of the report. There was a small number of people who were in the garage ever since before the infected started gathering there, or they went there seeking shelter above ground. The details of their circumstances aren't important, though. The first healthy people the scouts spotted were moving along in a group of three people. They were making their way past the unmoving bodies when, out of nowhere, two infected came running after them. They burst out of the shadows like demons chasing lost souls who wandered too close to the gates of Hell. The group tried running away, but the infected were so fast that it almost seemed like the group was standing still. One infected leapt at the man to the right. He grabbed onto his head and pulled himself closer, almost as to gain more momentum for crashing into him. The man fell to the ground, with the infected on his back. The screams were audible all the way to the roof when the infected started tearing into his neck and upper back. The behavior resembled more that of a rampant beast, than that of a human being. The infected would tear off a chunk of flesh from the man, smell it and squeeze the blood into its mouth before throwing the chunk of meat off to the side. The other dove for the legs of the man on the left. While still in the air, the infected sunk its teeth into his right calf. The man collapsed as the infected crashed into him, and the muscle was bitten almost in half. The infected rose up and tore off the man's entire leg before turning the man over. With the left arm holding the man's leg, it crouched and thrust its right arm into the man's torso, as if aiming for his diaphragm. With its arm still inside the man, it started getting up. Still in the motion of getting up, it threw the man forward and to the left, straight into a wall. The man's neck snapped due to the impact and he fell to the ground, dead. By then, both infected were chasing after the woman. They caught up to her in under 15 seconds. When they did, one swung the torn-off leg at her head while the other thrust its open fist into her stomach. They proceeded to drag all the bodies onto a pile where they further tore them apart, feasting on their flesh. The scouts started talking about another incident involving a man who decided to get out of his car and run for it, but the main guard stopped them, saying they should write out a report, so as not to recall the events repeatedly. He'd noticed their faces were drained of color and life while they were describing their findings. "We should take these guys back to the outpost. They've been thru enough for now. Let's move out." said the guard. Daniel just now started realizing just how bad the situation really was. Hit by the realization, his curiosity was sparked and he decided to take a look at the garage. There, among the blood, in the shadows, he noticed a figure that seemed to be looking at him. He couldn't make out any features, but he had a feeling it was staring him down. When he turned back, he noticed the guard motioning for him to go down the ladder, as the others were already making their way down. Once they were all back on ground level, they started making their way back to the outpost. After walking for about 10 meters down the street, Daniel notices a wet sound. It seemed to be occurring at regular intervals, so he wrote it off as some stray dog drinking water in one of the narrow alleyways. That was a mistake.