| The Race is RunAt a full run, Diana turned the corner into the abandoned alley. She quickly glanced over her shoulder to see if she was being perused. As she snapped her head back. her long ponytailed black hair flipped around and hit her own face. She silently cursed herself for not getting it cut short before she took on a field mission. The fact that her husband loved her long dark, curly hair, and the lax regulations the resistance had for such things had kept her hair long. In a previous generation she might have been mistaken for a Laura Croft look alike. This generation, however, did not have such luxuries, at least not in the resistance. Though the alley was filled with junk, it had no fence. “Thank God.” she said to herself. as she dashed through the alley. She was being paranoid really. She was on a routine recon mission in an a portion of the city that had been picked over long ago. Her presence in this part of the city demonstrated how desperate her particular tribe had become regarding supplies. This was part of a large scale sweep. Since she and her partner had been so inexperienced, they had been picked for this relatively safe sweep. So, when Diana heard the distant sound of a barking dog, the fact that she panicked was not surprise. After all, it was a dog, and she was a woman. It could have been halfway across the city for all she knew, however. Reason finally returning to her, she slowed her run a bit. “Got to find Fred.” she whispered to herself. She was upset with herself for being separated from her partner. That was realistically more dangerous then the false worry over a distant dog. At least that’s what she was telling herself as she turned the corner from the alley to another street. That was when she saw the dog two blocks away from her. For the first time in twenty years, she was seeing an actual dog. Diana hadn’t seen one since she was a small child of four years. Of course she had seen drawings and photographs many times since the outbreak took hold. In the early years, before they were the resistance but were still the majority of the world, back when there was actual video equipment, she had seen videos of them. She remembered as a teenager seeing a video she should not have seen. Everyone had seen it though. She had wondered if the leaders had allowed it to be seen, especially by young girls. It was a video of what an infected dog did when it got a hold of a girl. That video, which she had seen over eight years ago, was replaying in her head in graphic detail.Diana froze in place. It had seen her. The dog was staring right at her. Quickly she began to run through her training. Was she already too close to it? Could she already be infected? No, she knew she needed to be much closer, for that to happen. The dog, however, had undoubtedly caught her scent. She quickly began to run through escape scenarios in her head. In the early day’s people would try to throw food to distract the animal. That never worked. Back when they had working laboratories, there were some attempts as making chemical chaff to distract the dogs. That didn’t work either, and even the results of those nearly futile attempts had run out long ago. All her training had to say on the subject was to attempt to use your environment. Her environment was a deserted city street, strewn with decades old junk. She could try to run into a building, but then she would be trying to escape a dog in closed quarters. The buildings were too high to climb on the outside. She could attempt to pick up a pipe and beat the dog, but then she would have to get close to a dog, far too close. As she ran through the various dead end options, she was jolted back into reality as the dog began to quickly close the distance between them.“So fast.” was all that she had time before the dog had cleared the space between them, and leapt into the air.The animal’s front paws came down on her shoulders, forcing her backwards. She landed on the street with a thud, pinned under the animal.“I’m touching one.” she thought. “I’m touching an actual dog. It’s all over, I’m infected. I’ll never be normal again.” she thought as she smelt and felt the dog’s hot breath on her face.Tears began to well in her eyes. She wondered how long it would be before she began to feel different. She hoped it would be soon. She hoped it would be before the dog was very far along, before the dog did horrible things to her. The dog leaned forward, it’s snout only an inch from her face.“Please, no don....” she whimpered as she closed her eyes.As she was speaking, the dog answered. He extended his tongue and began to lick her open mouth.-----------------------------------------------------------------So there's part 1. Should I keep going? |
