Bleeders by Max Boone

His breath stunk as his teeth chomped again and again. A face that probably never so much as frowned in all its time on Earth wanted nothing but to bite me open and taste me. With each chomp he got closer, clawing his way up me and to my throat. His teeth were an inch from my throat and I could feel his hot breath on my neck.
    Andre suddenly lifted off me so fast it was like he had a bungee cord tied around his waist that had just snapped back. He flew across the hallway, bashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor a pile of bones and laundry.
    Jeremiah stood over me looking pissed-off. His hungry expression made me think he'd only pulled Andre off me to claim me for himself. But the moment passed and he got dizzy again, nearly face-planting into the wall. Andre was already getting to his feet even though from the looks of him he had broken a few bones in the fall. His focus was on Jeremiah now, the man who was the biggest threat to him right then. Jeremiah was in no condition to fight him off- he had used up everything in him to save me.
    I can't explain what happened to me next other than to say I was overcome with anger, but that doesn't do it justice. It was like someone shoved a stick of dynamite in my brain and lit the fuse. I even heard the explosion and then saw a flash of light that filled everything I saw.
    The next thing I knew, I had Andre pinned to the wall and was bashing his skull open with a wrench. I heard it crack and then blood sprayed me in the face like a can of soda that had been shaken way too much. The anger drained from his face and his red eyes went still.
    I let go of him and he slumped to the floor, dead.
    "You took it from his toolbelt," Alison said, noticing how I was staring at the bloody wrench in my hand. Jeremiah was behind me, sitting with his back against the wall and his head in his hands, mumbling to himself. What a group we were.
    "I don't remember anything," I said, but it was a lie. There were flashes, like cue cards of violence. I looked down at the bloodied corpse at my feet and thought of him from before all this, when he was just a guy with a job and an easy smile. "His name was Andre," I said. "He was probably the nicest guy I ever met. Even with the sickness I can't imagine him hurting anyone."
    "It's the brain damage. It destroys pieces of the mind that control personality, inhibition, empathy, all the traits that make us people."
    "And that includes you and I. People who come back from it."
    "That's what I was trying to tell you. We don't come back completely."
    Something about this chick didn't sit right with me. I walked closer to her, Andre's wrench at my side. "You sound like you know a little too much about what's happening."
    "I'm a quick study," she said, dismissing me.
    "You're a bullshitter, so why don't you tell me what your deal is, starting with that ring on your finger?" I pointed at it with the wrench.
    Her expression changed instantly. Her eyes softened and her lips pursed. She looked down at the stone on her finger, taken off-guard by the question. Obviously she didn't intend to relive the memories.
    "My fiance'. Frank. He was a doctor working with the WHO."
    "That shitty classic rock band?"
    She squinted at me. "The World Health Organization. It's the part of the U.N. that deals with communicable diseases."
    "Oh. That makes a lot more sense."
    "Frank was treating the early cases of Red Flu. His team was studying the virus, trying to figure out a cure before everything went south."
    With the distant sounds of angry Bleeders in their air, she told me her story. She explained how Frank told her about the things he saw, all of them, even the things he wasn't allowed to repeat. How the virus caused encephalitis- swelling of the brain- much worse and at a higher rate than was common in the flu. That the effects were more like rabies or mad cow disease, but the doctors ran test after test and there was no such infection present, only what looked like a new strain of