The Cold (Short Story)

[TheEmptyAutumn999]

Hey guys. This is a little short story that I wrote for my 10th grade English class. It had to be an 'Epic' or a journey for a weak character while along the way, he/she gets stronger.


The Cold

Friday, May 21, 2019.
Area: Noiranos City
Status: Out of Commision

Notes: Nobody is to go in or out of the city. Block all paths of entrance and exit. All ‘Affected’ are to be shot on sight. Whoever can last…
Please, stay alive.
-Dakk Stanley

A dark and desolate abandon awaited any who lay their fingers on its doors. Creak after slow creak was silenced by three, of what were called, ‘unaffected’.
This time WAS a time of prosperity for the human race. Many scientists had just discovered a cure and prevention drug for the common cold. It was to be injected immediately into the many cold sufferers at the moment. Unfortunately for all, the many people who were unprotected from the cold in times of the colonies and died, faced an unexpected side effect. After a few hundred years or so, the virus would spread to all systems in the body, including the nervous system and use the human corpse as a vessel to corrupt more innocent lives, making the carrier nearly invulnerable to everything. In short, they were turned into the undead, or ‘the affected’ by the local authorities.
The three entered the cold-aired building ever slowly, avoiding taking too many chances to alert the ‘affected’ of their presence. The sign read ‘Morgue’ above their heads. The three knew that they were dangerously close to being discovered. One of them spoke up in a whisper “Why the hell did we have to come HERE, Joey?” said a young girl, just in her 13th year of existence. A young man, of 20 years, replied to her “Because we needed to find shelter Karlie, that’s why! Now shut up and keep close.” The third was Alsek, a boy of only 16 years and hadn’t spoken, to not agitate Joey. All three of them had escaped from the contaminated quarters of juvenile hall. All three were sent to the kid slammer for the attempted shootout they planned a few days before the outbreak.
The three came up to the freezer and pried open the rusted door. Joey took out a flashlight and shone its beam all around the room. When the light reached an open locker, the being upon the locker who was dead at the moment or so thought to be, began to rise up from his cold, metal table. Joey quickly ran to the body and placed his bat upon the ‘affected’ one’s neck, pinning him against the table. “Al, get over here! Help me with this one!” Joey screamed. Alsek dashed over to the table. His shotgun cocked, Alsek pressed the barrel against the affected’s head, and pulled the trigger. The skull shattered into a million pieces, leaving the body lifeless again. Through the flash of light, a young boy of 13 years old curled in fear. “Little boy, are you alrig- AHHH!!” Alsek screamed as he looked down and laid his eyes on the toe tag, marked:

Name: Dakk Stanley
D.O.D.: TODAY
C.O.D.: Cold Virus
Label: Affected
Note: BURN IMMEDIATELY!

Even though Dakk had been marked as an Affected, he spoke up. “WAIT! WAIT! STOP! I JUST WANNA KNOW WHERE I AM! All I saw was a blur and I blacked out!” then as soon as Alsek rose the barrel of his shotgun to meet the poor boy’s face, he brought its tip back to the floor. All three of them stared at Dakk in disbelief, for this boy had died hours before the team discovered him, but he was alive, before the three’s very eyes. Even though the young survivor was supposed to be one of the ones that should be killed, Joey slowly walked up to Dakk and got on his knees to meet his face. In a quieter voice than usual, Joey spoke up “Well, do you know what happened before you…Woke up?” The quivering boy shook his head left and right, an indication that he didn’t have a clue that he died then rose again. Joey explained the setting of Noiranos to Dakk and he listened to every word. When Joey finally came up to the point where he told Dakk that he was one of the undead, brought back by the infamous common cold, Dakk just sat with wide eyes, trying to digest the reality of what he was. “What I can’t figure out is…how the hell did he manage to keep his conscious and human side alive, when the cold took over his body?” Joey said to both Alsek and Karlie. Both raised their elbows in the way that tells people ‘I don’t know’. Joey spoke again, finally wanting to get out of the once lively morgue. As they left, Alsek took a .45 caliber pistol from his backpack and handed the hand-cannon to Dakk, who looked up at Al with a scared look. As Dakk looked back in front of him, the sun began to rise once again. A sense of hope filled the now four-person team.

*****

The team reached a snack factory in ruins. The once bright-orange walls held a blood-red sheen, a sign of the many that lost their human lives here. “Step lively, people” Joey said in a joking manner. No one laughed at the horrible pun. They continued into the rubble, coming across torn limbs and blood puddles as they go. Karlie was coming up on the next pile of rubble, when she poked her head over and witnessed a plethora of the Affected. She gasped and dove back into the slight cover of the rubble. “What is it?” Dakk whispered to Karlie. She replied with just “Whole lot of Affected down there. Blood pool’s enormous.” Dakk looked over for himself. The group of Affected was massive, almost stretching across every square foot in the space that the open area contained. Dakk quickly rushed back into the shadows. Alsek broke the silence.
“So what’s the plan this time, Jo?
“We might have to break out the last Hole-Puncher.”
“Hole-Puncher?” Dakk asked.
“A Hole-Puncher is a bomb we designed together. It’s a special type of grenade that contains sharpened shrapnel bits inside, and it allows us to ‘punch a hole’ into a group of Affected.”
“Karlie, get ready.” Alsek whispered as Karlie raised her arm, ready for the initial burst of energy to throw the homemade explosive. Karlie let go of the bomb. A few seconds later, the only sounds to be heard were ‘Crack’, ‘Boom’, ‘rattle’ and ‘thump’, as the grenade was set off and the dead again Affected hit the floor.
With a surprised look as she peered over the hill, Karlie witnessed the biggest stack of bodies she had ever seen. “Took ‘em all out in one shot.” Karlie said, triumphantly. To reinforce Karlie’s excitement, Joey said “Heh, never has just ONE bomb been able to take out that many.” Putting all their joy aside and bringing themselves back to reality, the team continued on.
“So…are we looking for anything?”
“Just food, water, weapons and ammunition. We only look for things we can salvage if anything else, Dakk.”
“Oh. Good to know. Thanks, Joey.”
Joey’s smile began to rise, but slowly faded as glass clattered around them. “Karlie, Dakk, stay here. Al, you come with me.” Joey whispered. Before he disappeared into the dark, Joey gave Karlie a very strict order. “Give the kid a gun.”
“What type?”
“I don’t care. As long as he can hold it steady, aim and fire.” Were Joey’s last words before his figure was no longer in view.
Karlie reached inside her bag of toys. She gave Dakk a variety of weapons to try and hold up. He was unable to hold up any of the firearms Karlie pulled out, until she gave him hold of the H&K G36c. Dakk held it in his hands tightly and a few tears came to his eyes. Karlie found this a hazard to their safety “What’s up with you?” Dakk replied with joy and dismay at the same time “My dad…he sent me photos of him when he went to try and stop something he never told me about. He always had this gun on him.” They gave a short pause to Dakk’s memory of his father. As if he didn’t give it a second thought, Dakk cocked his assault rifle and joined Joey and Alsek in the darkness. Karlie hesitantly followed, knowing that she was disobeying a direct order.
Dakk and Karlie proceeded further down the hall that their other two teammates recently went into. It was deathly silent, not a thing to be heard except for the faint clip-clap of their boots kissing the polished floor and leaving it again. After a couple hundred meters, they saw a light illuminate the shadows from a little further down the hall. They crept forward, making sure that each step they took wasn’t loud enough for any Affected to hear them outside the door, if there was even any inside.
They reached the door, it was cold to the touch, but then again so was Dakk. A loud squeak echoed around the two survivors as they opened the door. Inside, they found that their two teammates were ripped to oblivion. Barely any pieces were visible amongst the blood pool. Even the dismembered limbs of the Affected that killed their comrades were scattered around the blood pool. An eerie laugh made them lift their heads and gun barrels to meet the laughter’s location. Their eyes met the eyes of a gray-haired man, probably into his 70s. “You can’t pick up the pieces, kiddies.” The old bag said with a hint of happiness in his tone. The two team members just looked at each other with an evil smile on each of their faces, and then they approached the man and put both of their barrels up to his face. “Are those even loaded?” The man scoffed. The two looked at each other once more, and then cocked both of their weapons. In a crap-outta-luck position, the man screamed out all his secrets to the two kids.
The snack factory near where they were at the time was a cover for what they were really in. They were actually in the original lab that discovered the cure for the cold. The man that told them all this was Dr. Hank Freedo, the main scientist and discoverer of the Cold Cure Lab. Hank realized that after everyone was cured, they would have no use for it anymore, so he just let the virus take over most of humanity. With no control over his efforts, he decided to hide away inside his steel sanctuary. He’d wait the virus out. Unfortunately for him, this never occurred. The virus began to form a new race with the human corpses as vehicles for their needs. Then, the whole world became a threat for the cold. Naturally, the threat was terminated. Or so the strain thought.
Karlie and Dakk had heard enough. They squeezed the last bits of information they needed out of Dr. Hank, including the cure’s safe location. With no more need for the good doctor, they left the room with his brains all over the place that he used it most.
Dakk and Karlie had went in the direction that the good doctor had pointed them in, farther down into the lab. They had taken one more step forward and heard the several pairs of footsteps resounding from inside the vault that Dr. Hank said the cure would be stored. Karlie took a quick peek through the slightly open door and witnessed 12 Affected scuffling around the vault, knocking over whatever their bodies hit. Karlie took a quiet gasp as she directed her view to the center of the room. There she saw the cure, sealed in a clear, cylindrical storage canister, hovering a little bit below the ceiling. Karlie moved aside to let Dakk take a look for himself and he had the exact same reaction. As soon as they found out that the cure was just within their reach, it eluded them. Both of them realized that they could fight the Affected, but they never did in a small room, which constricted their field of fire. The cure, which was sealed inside a container that was unknown of how enduring it was, provided even less that they could do to halt the destruction being made from the Affected inside. Dakk had one last idea. He pulled out 3 knives, of two lengths, one was a long dagger, the other two were a little bit longer than butterfly knives, from Karlie’s bag. She picked up what he was trying to tell her. Karlie took the dagger and readied herself. Dakk did the same. Silence filled the air around them. They let 25 solid minutes pass by. Then, they burst inside, slashing their blades into each Affected. Drop after drop of coagulated blood from their targets leaked onto the floor below them. One of the Affected snuck around while Karlie was enjoying the anguish of another Affected she impaled the head of on her dagger. Then it grabbed Karlie by the arms and dug its black teeth into her open shoulder, making her life source flow down her lower body and sending her into such pain that he screamed at the peak of her strength, as if she was going to get help as quick as she wanted. Dakk turned around fast and darted at the Affected with his two knives. He took flail after flail at the Affected’s head, to where it looked like he exceeded the speed of sound. When he backed away, the remains of the Affected’s cranium fell to the floor in a wave of confetti. The battle was won. Dakk rushed over to aid the wounded Karlie, slumping in a pool of her own scarlet syrup. He knew that she was being overwhelmed by the cold virus, so he clenched the cure’s container in one hand and it shattered. Dakk held up Karlie’s arm and inserted the needle, pumping all but enough that they’d need to duplicate the cure into her bloodstream. The syringe pinged as it hit the floor and rolled away from them. Karlie lay motionless. Dakk lowered his head, in thought that his once alive friend was doomed to be killed again. But as if a prayer to an almighty force heard his plea, Karlie opened her eyes and sat up, not knowing what had happened. Dakk held her in his arms, glad to see that he saved her from a second death by his own hand. Karlie picked up the nearly empty syringe and walked out of the hellish lab with Dakk, and hope that the world could be returned to it’s glory once again. –Dakk Stanley

[My World]

It's really long but it's interesting

[TheEmptyAutumn999]

[SickPuppiesFanMike91]

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE THAT WAS AWESOME. That has got to be one of the best stories I have ever read. Your really good man. I could SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO see this being a movie. Do you write just every now and then or do you want to be a writer for a living. I think you got a lot of potential man. I bow to your Awesomeness

[oddone68011]

That really was a great story, it should be a movie. And hire all of us as the actors......just a suggestion..

[TheEmptyAutumn999]

[TheEmptyAutumn999]