• CHAPTER 1: LIKE CAT’S EYES

    I stretched and yawned, narrowing my eyes as the light hit them. I hissed viciously at the flashlight beam.
    “Are you still sleeping in here, Kara?”
    “Yes! Now what do you want?” I snapped. I’m not much of a morning person.
    “Kara, it is three in the afternoon.” The voice behind the flashlight whined.
    Sighing, I heaved myself off the air mattress and got to my feet. Work, which is where I was headed next.
    Okay, freeze-frame. First I would like to introduce you to the girl who is undressing in the dark with the red rimmed, sleepy eyes. That’s me. My name is Kara Bloom. Pronounced Car-uh not Care-uh. Secondly, the woman with the flashlight is my caretaker, or foster mother (Blach!). Her name is Tiana Morgan.
    Now this is the deal. About ten years ago humans, such as myself and probably you, started going haywire. CHRIS is named after the person who showed signs before everyone else. (Why did this happen? Well…oh just keep reading!). CHRIS is a genetic fluke that spreads a disease into your bloodstream. The disease is called chromo-something-or-other syndrome, I just don’t really know what the whole acronym stands for. Anyway, it gets into someone else’s system if the diseased persons blood touches them. Yes, if it only touches them, it gets absorbed through the skin. The disease or infection doesn’t make you crave blood or howl at the damn moon. It just makes you want to eat people. Like their flesh and liver and heart, I don’t really know, I’m not infected. They are supposed to be like zombies, only they aren’t dead. You know, their hearts beat and they breathe. So that is the low down. Play scene again.
    I didn’t have to be at work until six, but still the fact that I had slept until three…
    I yawned again and than hopped towards the bathroom. I got in the shower, expecting the water to be freezing (it was winter after all). Instead it jetted out of the showerhead like liquid fire, attempting to burn tiny holes into my spine. I yelped, leapt up into the air, and slipped as my feet hit the wet porcelain. I fell with a loud thud. Want to know what that “thud” was? It was my head hitting the side of the bathtub.
    “Damn it all to-damn. Just damn.” I sat up and rubbed my head.
    I finished showering, wincing in pain every time I blinked, and then slipped out as fast as I could without falling again.
    Tiana was upstairs in the kitchen humming a song as she cooked. “Crazy b***h” I believe is the name of the song.
    “You okay? I thought I heard you slip.” She said it so calmly, so…uncaring.
    “You thought…” I narrowed my eyes, anger burning inside of me. “You hear me slip and than you don’t rush to my aid?”
    She turned to me and cocked her head to the side. Her long hair falling like a veil over the side of her face. “I didn’t want the food to burn.”
    I glared up at her through my bangs, my blue eyes trying to burn holes into her back. She had already turned back to the stove, but I was pretty sure she knew I was evil eyeing her.
    “Now, now. You are okay.” Tiana said. “Come and eat.”
    “No thanks. I’m going in early.” I said, and with that I grabbed my coat and left.

    Work was aggravating as hell. Like always. I walked down the dimly lit street, wrapping my light coat around me for warmth. Epic fail, by the way. People scurried quickly through the streets, head down, eyes looking nowhere but the ground.
    “Kara!” a voice called behind me.
    I felt my body tense and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
    “Kara!” the voice screamed again, this time closer. “Hey come on it’s just me. Chill out!”
    I relaxed a little, finally recognizing the husky tone in that voice. I turned to look at him.
    “Hey, William.” I said, smile pasted on my face.
    “Whoa! A little too sugary sweet, don’t you think?” he joked pulling me into his arms.
    He was warm and smelled like…well him, the best smell in the world.
    “You been working?” I asked.
    “Yes, shoveling snow in fact. How was work?” he unwrapped me, but kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked.
    “Honestly?” I replied. “Horrible. Any news?”
    “Yeah, some of the infected,” He said it with venom in his voice. Nobody really had sympathy for the damned. “ Have escaped the hospital they had been…placed in.”
    Instead of placed, he should have said locked, because that’s what they were. Prisoners to their own body and inhuman needs. Damn shame, not that I would tell anyone that it bothered me.
    “Wait, they escaped?” I squealed. “How?”
    He shrugged and half smiled. “No one knows. It’s a mystery, Kara. A very interesting mystery.”
    Okay something you should know about William is that he is very enthusiastic when it comes to breaking The Rules. Well any rules really. A troublemaker at heart.
    “No you are not!” I whispered, well more like hissed. “No way are you looking for them.”
    He frowned and gave me the puppy dogface. “Pretty please?”
    “Hell to the ******** no!” I yelled.
    People’s heads shot up to stare at us, but one look from William and everybody scampered off into the shadows. He had that effect on people.
    “No.” I said, my voice had an edge to it. But I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or exhaustion. Apparently William took it as the first one.
    “Hey, no need to fear. William is here!” he smiled that lazy, seductive smile.
    “Oh yeah, I feel protected all right.” I rolled my eyes so far up my head started to hurt.
    “Aw come on. You know I won’t get hurt.” He tried to reassure me.
    “You say that now, but what happens when they tear the flesh off of your bones? Than what?”
    “Why are you so afraid? You never cared about all the stupid s**t I did before.”
    I glared at him and couldn’t believe what he was saying. But he looked genuinely confused. How could he not see…?
    “Didn’t care? Who was the one who called you thirty seven times after you tried skateboarding down the ten flights of stairs in your apartment building complex?” I hissed at him.
    “Thirty nine.” He stated.
    “What?” I demanded exasperated.
    “You called thirty nine times, left twelve voice mails and I think twenty two text messages.” His eyes were burning into mine. “Don’t ask why I still remember that.”
    I honestly didn’t want to know. I opened my mouth to say something, but he interrupted.
    “Look I have to go home. Call you later tonight.” And he disappeared into the shadows. He just faded like he was never there.
    I sighed and continued to trudge through the two-inch deep snow. Not very deep, but enough to put a big damper on the whole walking home thing. I cursed as snow started falling again, only tiny little wispy flakes. Still I was not in a merciful mood.
    “Damnit!” I swore, kicking a trash tin.
    Self-consciously I snapped my head up to see if anyone was looking. But no one did. Odd. Most people found that kind of thing…
    That was when I realized no one else was on the street. It was completely deserted. There were no cars or people. Not even a stray dog or cat.
    “What the…?” And then I heard the footsteps behind me on the sidewalk.
    I turned and smiled at the strangers walking. There were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman was short and slim. She had shoulder length curly blonde hair and an innocent looking face. The man was tall and broad shouldered, and he seemed to walk with a purpose.
    “Excuse me.” The woman said, her voice cold yet somehow sweet; A practiced sweet. “Can you tell me where I can find someplace nice to eat?”
    I cocked my head to the side slightly. I thought I saw a glimmer in her eyes. A gleam that reflected silver in the lamplight.
    “Yeah. There is a restaurant called Butlers two blocks over.” I smiled, or tried to anyway, but these two were giving me the creeps.
    They had an intent look in their eyes. Completely focused…on me. I resisted the urge to shudder and took a step back. The woman’s eyes flashed silver and she drew up her lips in a smug smile. The man stood motionless, too motionless.
    “I uh…you’re welcome, but I have to get home.” I stammered and started to turn.
    “Aw, why don’t you join us?” the man asked, a smile in his voice. “ We would love to get to know you better.”
    Suddenly I was running, my feet pounding against snow and ice. They followed, laughing as they chased. Was this some kind of game to them? What the hell did they want? But I already knew that answer, I just hadn’t wanted to admit who they were.

    “Their eyes gleam silver when they get caught in the light, but they look like normal humans. Isn’t that cool Kara?”
    I made an “ick” face at him. “William, I will never understand your obsession with this stuff. Plus they are still technically human right? They still breathe and have heart beats.”
    “So do cattle and hamsters, but they aren’t classified as human. No Kara, these people - these things- are monsters.”

    Oh s**t! I snapped back to reality with a jolt. These people weren’t people. William was right, these things, they were monsters strait to the core. And oh s**t cakes, they wanted to eat me! I scampered, my sneakers sliding on the icy concrete. I saw my opening up ahead. The alleyway. I had been down this way so many times as a short cut home from work. I turned down it and saw that the street beyond was crawling with pedestrians and cars. Of course! I sped up. Ten feet from safety.
    “Don’t go Kara!” He called bitterly. “We won’t hurt you.”
    Alarm pricked through my skin as my foot slid and I twisted my ankle. s**t!
    “Yes. We just want you for dinner!” she crooned, her laugh cackling like a witches in a storybook.
    I was out of the alley. Cars zoomed by fast and people turned to see what was happening.
    I turned around to see large glowing eyes staring at me from the alleyway. Like cat’s eyes.