Earth Runs Red: 2015

Chapter One - Bloodshot

Nate sighed in the darkness, he had tried to sleep,but the parasite had half re-wired his biology, the second ring of pupil in his eyes picking up every tiny Infra red glimmer. That was a gift he'd thought at first, night vision built in to him, but like most things that seem great at first this had it's problems, unlike night vision he could not simply switch it off and see the multi-tonal black that makes night time so amazingly peaceful. When things got dark for him, his body switched to reading light spectrums beyond human perception and his pointed ears filled in the gaps with some weak sonar, the night was alive for him. Shapes and sounds, temperatures and smells, they all formed an amazing image in his head, and of course, when he closed his eyes the sonar vision improved and the smell became more acute.

This was not a problem for Nate though, for the same reason as everything else, The God damned parasite. It had improved his physiology to the point that he needed little more than an hour of sleep a day, but he cherished it and tryed for longer. It made him feel less outcast, everyone sleeps and he'd love to be one of those people. Cared for and protected by the E.R.G, Earth Retrieval Group, the name is self explanatory but for those that need it spelled out;

The Earth Retrieval Group is a government run by the rich and powerful business men of yester-year, they agreed to work together for the good of humanity. By which I mean they agreed to let you live in their Fortress city and work for them, hopefully by the time the infection dies out, your not in debt to them, because I see it all becoming very mercenary, very quickly. Even the city names were derived from their companies,the biggest of which being here on the former site of London,United Kingdom. MCF-001 or Jee City as it's known locally, Owned by General Electrics... which helps you understand the name I suppose.

It's wasn't that Nate was unhappy, he had more than most.... a lot more. Vatica Corp. paid him handsomely for his work, searching the deep infection areas for anything worth getting, stuff like old factories full of raw materials,technology rich buildings and he got a small amount for every N.I.P, Non Infected Persons, that he brought back. He also got to keep anything he wanted that Vatica had no use for, anything from Mo vies to a very lucky corgi puppy named Jax. He had relatively large quarters considering the lack of space in the cities,he owned the top floor of the apartment complex that V.Corp. owned, four apartments which he destroyed in favour of a more open plan living area, the walls were supposedly white, not that you could see it through the plaster of old poster,flags and wall hangings, he owned this space.... and Jax owned the corner where the jolly roger was pinned up, no argument from Nate the dog had pissed all over it and despite his best efforts it still stank of dog urine, with a lemony cleaner hint of course.

So with another sigh, he raised his muscular, slim form from the bed,walked over to his comm's station and hit it on, then walked into the kitchen area to make coffee. Jax was already awake and waiting, bowl in mouth with one year cocked down in a fashion that screamed 'I must be loved'. Nate slopped some left over chicken fried noodles from the previous night into the dogs bowl, and in true dog style, Jax picked through the bowl eating the chicken and licked the flavour from the noodles, but never actually ate the noodles. He then proceeded to look up as if to say "more meat please", this look was met with a cheerful laugh and the better part of a joint of lamb.

How is this dog not fat?, Nate pondered the answer for a few seconds til the sound of boiling water and the tell-tale click of a kettle. He liked his coffee 'black as hell and stronger than the Devil's piss', which meant that 12 spoons of his own espresso mix later, he was content. He took the steaming and went to sit, cross legged on his bed, Jax followed suit still dragging the lamb bone with him, and sat in between his masters crossed legs.

The machine blinked on, he was automatically logged on to the Vatica system,there was a message from the reclamation squads,two more crates of Items that they didn't want or need, which today turned out to be;
15 assorted DVDs, 12 assorted CD's, clothes (48 items, both genders) and various (205 items).
He pressed his thumb to the screen and accepted the crates, anything he didn't want he usually gave to the less fortunate residents of Jee City, charity made him feel more human.

He moved on to the wanted lists, objects and people(s). He laughed, another scientist wanted a pint of infected blood for tests, and they were paying 50,000 UniCreds for quality samples. He had at least three pints of blood from various missions, he had recently received some beanbag rounds for his Remington and caught onto the fact that, yes Vatica pays for every deceased P.I.R.S but they go to waste. The meat from infected animals is tougher and chewier than farmed cattle sure, but not harmful in any way, people were just cautious. And the blood was an easy money harvest.

He replied;

In regards to wanted blood samples

Avian,bird of prey,possibly a falcon of some sort:
1 pint.

Canine,large breed,possibly Alsation or husky:
1 pint,Skull Inc. teeth.

Human,Female,7" 5',latter stages of regression:
1 pint.

Buy all 3 and you can have the skull.
Blood freshly drawn yesterday.

He knew the scientist would jump at the chance,they always did.

Finally he noticed a wanted post that intrigued him "P.I.R.S Gorilla escaped,15,000,000 reward.", lazy careless experimental scientists, small secretly funded bio-weapon research labs, the only places that would have a live P.I.R.S animal and that amount of money to burn.
He replied;

Job accepted, Vatica Agent 826-Z, Nathariel.
Keep your money, I'm a trophy hunter.
I want heli-drop and vehicle pick up for me and the dead animal.
Also,your status as a private Military firm allows you to freely trade arms,instead of cash I will take 300 frag, flash bang and Incendiary grenades,that's 300 of each type,1000 12 gauge shells and a Barrett 50.cal Rifle with 100 each AP rounds and standard rounds.
should set you back about 3,000,000.
Have the Helicopter ready to drop me off in 1 hour, south gate.
Pick up when I radio for it.

Nate grabbed his Remington Double barrel,his regulation pistols and his regulation hook knife, and left for the heliport.

An Hour later he was airborne, flying low over some patch of Dutch or French farm land.

You may be wondering how a ground based gorilla managed to cross the English Channel, well during the great influx of people to the Fortress cities,a pontoon bridge was built across the channel, longest in history, to allow people to cross on foot.

Nate leapt from the chopper at about 60 feet from the ground, wind rushing past his face. Faint sounds of the pilot yelling "he's crazy" down the microphone, His long black trench coat whistling as it tore through the air.

THUD!
He had forgotten to bend his knees again, it didn't affect him much because of his superior muscles and high bone density, but it did make a loud noise and destroyed any element of surprise.
He ducked his head instinctively, in this tall grass he could remain virtually invisible. Closing his eyes to better use his sonar vision,he detected the all to common sounds of a heartbeat, about 200 yards away, in that heavily wooded area. And like a crouched tiger he sprung into action, taking huge strides across the field, still low and undetected.
Coming close to the trees he jumped for the highest, closest branch. Landing with super human grace and agility, closing his eyes again to find the ripples on his vision.....

Where are you,you crazy simian bastard?

....unfortunately for him the ripples came from behind and he turned just in time to get two ape feet with near a ton of weight behind them, straight into his chest and lower jaw. Launched him from his perch and down through the branches of nearby trees, he caught a branch with one arm, used the momentum the kick had given him to throw himself to the top of the tree, drawing his pistols akimbo mid-climb and peppering the black hairy thing with random fire.
Nate looked from the momentary safety of his high branch.

'Holy shit, that think has more power than freight train and the muscle is padding it like Kevlar. It must be 12 feet tall.'

He had no more time to think as the ape sailed through the air and smashed the trunk of the tree with it huge forearms, shattering the wood. Nate holstered his pistols and drew his double barrel in one motion and as he fell past the monkey,unloaded both barrels into its face while screaming "Feel my boom stick,Primate!", landing acrobatically and smirking about the evil dead line he had finally managed to use. He loved Bruce Campbell...

'Just get the body and go hom....'

His thoughts were interrupted by a larch branch being snapped over his head as the ape and its improvised weapon fell from above,he turned and watched the individual pieces of shot fall from the gorillas face, and watched the wounds start to heal before his eyes...

'I need to cut off its supply to the parasite,It's being fed adrenaline like water....'

Nate tensed his legs and flipped over the creature,drawing the hook blade in the motion, jammed the knife into the back of its head and searching for that lovely click sound that means he got the bug, it failed to come in time as the ape spun around making him lose grip on the blade.......

'Plan B, same as usual...'

...It wasn't that he didn't notice the barrel sized forearm cutting through the air,he needed it. As it hit him and propelled him 30 yards away,he released the Incendiary grenade. The animal had time to look and tilt his head in confusion before it was caught in the blast and was coated in burning chemicals.
As it screamed and panicked, Nate like some sort of ninja, sprinted towards the flaming monster placing both feet on its back and yanking so hard the entire brain came out, parasite and all.
He threw in onto the ground, where a pool of flaming chemicals lay and listened to the popcorn sounds of the eggs in the parasites sack.
Then walked over, sat on the twisted crispy lump that was a gorilla once and hit his transponder.

26/01/2015.
Hi again....

Today was a rare occurrence,
If you believe it, I killed a Mutated Gorilla in Southern Holland.
Anyway, that's not the weird part.....It had no visible reaction to U.V light.

It had to have been longer than 6 hours to walk or run to Southern Holland, and the thing weighed a damn ton. It had to have been out there for at least 8 or 9 hours and not even a blister, the tech heads remind me that it was covered in fur but the head an' hands were still exposed.
And the rest of it was different from human standard regression, no enlarged ears, no second ring of pupil and far as I could tell it had no other attributes from heightened strength and rapid healing.
It seems the parasites are grooming living beings for their own specific roles, building their own lil' freak army.........

....They'd win ya know, if they ever formed a cohesive fighting force, they have enough specialised creatures to over come every situation.

Reports from Diablo Bay, our South American M.F.C, tell tales of extreme cases called Titans.
Titans are when a parasite see's a very diverse and plentiful local population, and decides that It's gonna eat up and throw off the shackles of size limits, a bat the size of a small aircraft, a wingspan of about 70 feet flies over the city and hundreds of the usual sized bats drop in for a midnight feed, it was repelled after 3 hours of gunfire and 90 injured,3 dead and 12 infected.
They also note;
-1 Anaconda,heavily armored and able to dig and burrow underground in seconds. Estimated 200 feet long.
-A herd of Warthogs the size of a small car, with armored heads and forward facing tusks that nearly cut through a foot thick reinforced steel door
- And my personal favorite, one chameleon that was the size of a human and very physically similar wandering around freely until the following day, without tree cover it seems, their skin can't take even 4 hours of direct sunlight..

Any way,I must endure this day to day hell...*dog barking*...
Sorry Jaxie...I'll feed ya now.

Got to go, whoever happens to be reading this...Your a douche bag, invent a time machine you futuristic bastard and kill homeless man number 1 before this shit hits the fan.

Log finished.........................