Henry is walking down the narrow street. It's close to midnight, and with no lights on the street, the full moon is the only thing keeping Henry from tripping over countless bags of trash and random objects. He steps over a few bricks, neatly stacked as if someone placed them there deliberately. The buildings on either side tower over him, their red bricks creating an atmosphere that sold the whole aesthetic of dirty back alley. Henry isn't faced much by the state of the street. He'd walked the same way many times before, to and from the shabby gym he visited regularly. It was an uneventful street, and he had yet to meet any other person while walking on said street. The gym was only about two kilometers to and from his house, but with the shortcut through this street, he could save about a fourth of that.

  Suddenly a loud noise catches Henry's attention, that of someone crashing into one of the trash bags behind him. He turns around as he pulls on the strap of his backpack, filled with sweaty gym clothes. In the middle of the empty street, a man is lying on top of one of the trash bags Henry had just passed. The man isn't moving and so Henry takes a cautious step towards him, looking around to figure out where the man had come from. There were no side streets he could have come from, and he felt like he would have heard the man if had been walking behind him all along. Henry looks up towards the top of the buildings, but there was no way, cause the buildings were at least 10 stories tall.

  "Hey", Henry carefully calls out, as he continues to step closer.

  "You okay?". There is no answer from the man, and so Henry starts walking a little faster towards the man. When he is just a few meters away, the man finally moves, the trash shuffling underneath him as he tries to get himself up. Henry stops up and stares at the man. Suddenly, just as the man is about to get to his feet, a bunch of steps can be heard coming closer from behind Henry, the way he was going before. Henry looks around, and sees a bunch of men in suits of armor running towards him.

  "Get away from that man! NOW!" Yells the man in the front, and as Henry looks back at the man in front of him, who finally found his footing, he notices the black veins running up the mans thin arms, disappearing into the black t-shirt he was wearing, and appearing again on his neck all the way up to his jaw. The man is bloody and dirty, and staring at Henry with a glare that couldn't be misunderstood. Henry's eyes widen in shock as he realizes. He is just about to turn around and run, when the man pounces towards him with incredible speed, his fingers gripping into his neck before he realizes, and tearing through the right side of the neck just as quickly as the man moves his hand away.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "SHOOT!", is the last thing Henry hears as his vision goes dark and blurry from the pain, and the immense blood that had already left his body.

  -

  "Zombies". That's what people took to calling them, only a few months after they first started appearing. At first in America, but the virus quickly spread, and within a year, they were everywhere. They were nothing like what you saw on television. They were still human. They could still think and talk and act like any other person, But the virus, officially named Tarved-24, would infiltrate the blood, turning it almost black. The virus then would infiltrate the whole body, creating a phenomenon never seen and still unexplained by science today, almost 10 years later. People infected by the virus would gain unnatural powers, superpowers as some would say. Some gained superhuman hearing, some turned fire resistant, some of the more extreme stories told of people able to turn invisible, run at insane speeds, or breaking cement walls with their bare hands. But it wasn't all good news, other than just giving the infected superhuman powers, they would also get an almost uncontrollable urge to kill. And on top of that the virus fed on the brain of the host, turning the person into a lifeless husk within a few years.

  It was a five year long world crisis, before effective counter measures were found. A company called "EVO Future", created a serum that would attack the virus and immobilize the infected for at least a few minutes. They helped round up all the infected, and had them brought to labs all around the world, where they could search for a cure.

  That was almost 5 years ago, and the world had all but gone back to normal, Governments all around the world had made a silent agreement to try and bury the whole thing, and so most, if not all videos and other evidence that they had ever existed, disappeared from the internet. People weren't in a hurry to try and remember the events either, and so barely anyone protested or challenged the decision.

  But if the virus killed the host within a few years, how had Henry just wandered into a zombie, five years after the last zombie roamed free in the streets?

  -

  Henry opens his eyes slowly, staring into a sharp light that makes him wince. He can hear the muffled sound of talking, but can't make out any of the words. He tries to turn his head but realizes his head is strapped to the table he is on. He tries looking around, and notices a man in a medical outfit standing on his right side. It's a big white room from the limited amount Henry can see, and he assumes he is in an operating room of some sort. The doctor next to henry is holding a syringe, stuck into Henry's right arm right at the elbow joint. The man pulls the plunger of the syringe back, and the syringe fills with a black liquid.

  Henry's eyes widen, as he stares at his own blood. He starts to shake, and the doctor looks up at him. He looks away towards something or someone, and says something. Henry still can't tell what. His heart is pumping so loud it's ringing in his ears, and he tries to move, but the rest of his body is strapped to the table just like his head. He panics, and can't help but let out a loud scream.