DEGREES OF DEATH

Chapter 1: A Humid Afternoon on Campus

 

The afternoon air felt incredibly thick. Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The sky above campus was a heavy, impenetrable gray, completely devoid of sunlight. The wind had died down entirely. The stifling humidity trapped the heat like a giant greenhouse, choking the skin.

"Damn it. It’s absolutely boiling today." Xavier tugged at his collar, fanning himself. "I swear we're about to get a massive storm."

Daniel leaned against the second-floor balcony railing, his gaze fixed on the central courtyard below. Hundreds of students hurried past one another.

"This isn't a normal storm front," Daniel said quietly. "The humidity is off the charts. The air feels sticky inside my lungs."

"You always overthink things." Xavier let out a soft chuckle. "I'm more worried about the classroom AC. It’s been dead since this morning. We pay a fortune for tuition, and the facilities are worse than a cheap strip mall. Once it rains, this will all blow over."

Daniel didn't return the joke. His eyes narrowed. His mind registered a minor anomaly in the crowd below. There was something wrong with the way a man on the lawn was moving.

"Look at the guy sitting on the bench to the left," Daniel said, gesturing with his chin.

Xavier leaned further over the railing. "The one in the red jacket? What about him?"

"His posture is incredibly rigid. His head is tucked down so low it’s almost touching his knees."

"Probably drunk. Or running on zero sleep from an assignment." Xavier shrugged. "Campus security will wake him up in a minute anyway."

Suddenly, a piercing shriek echoed from the cafeteria below.

"Hey! Get the hell off me!"

The man in the red jacket suddenly lunged forward. He slammed into a wooden table, sending it flipping across the grass. He pinned a female student who happened to be walking past with a stack of textbooks. Heavy volumes scattered across the lawn.

"What the hell are you doing! Get off her!" Another student rushed over, grabbing the large man’s collar from behind to pull him away.

Xavier let out a low whistle. "Well, look at that. Another brawl. Engineering versus mechanics, probably. This is going to get messy."

"It's not a fight," Daniel interrupted quickly, his mind analyzing the scene with cold precision. "There was no verbal provocation. He lunged purely to tackle his target from a blind spot."

"Maybe a personal grudge, man."

The student trying to break up the scuffle suddenly screamed in sheer terror.

"Damn it! He’s biting my hand! Help me, get him off!"

Daniel straightened his posture. The logic of his old life struggled to find a rational explanation. The female student pinned to the ground had stopped struggling. A thick, dark crimson fluid flooded the collar of her white shirt, soaking into the grass.

"Oh, God. Is that real blood?" Xavier stepped back, the color draining from his face. "Daniel. Look at that guy. He’s eating her neck."

"It could be a new synthetic drug," Daniel said, forcing a logical explanation. "Flakka can induce extreme cannibalistic behavior. Their brains undergo severe hallucinations. This is a medical emergency."

"A medical emergency?" a senior screamed, sprinting past their balcony in a panic. "That guy is a lunatic! Run, all of you!"

Panic spread like wildfire. Dozens of students in the courtyard were now running in every direction, colliding with one another. Bags and phones were abandoned on the pavement.

Two security guards ran from the main gate, wielding black batons.

"Stop right there! Break it up!" the lead guard shouted.

The guard swung his baton hard, striking the man in the red jacket squarely in the back. A sickening crack of bone echoed all the way up to the balcony. The man turned around very slowly. His eyes were completely white, the corners of his corneas ruptured and bloodshot. He showed no sign of pain.

The man lunged directly at the guard's throat. The two went down, rolling onto the asphalt.

"They don't register pain," Daniel said, absorbing the new data. His jaw tightened. "This isn't a student prank."

"We need to get out of here right now." Xavier grabbed Daniel’s sleeve, pulling hard. "I'm not dying here."

"We head to the main corridor on the second floor." Daniel turned away from the scene below. "This building has thick, double-paned glass doors. We barricade ourselves in a classroom until riot police arrive."

They walked briskly down the long hallway. The humid air felt even heavier inside the building. The smell of sweat mixed with raw panic drifted from groups of confused students gathering outside their classrooms.

"Move, get out of the way!" a student shouted, shoving past a group of women in the hall.

"Watch where you're going! You hit my shoulder!" one of the women snapped.

"There are maniacs eating people downstairs! Don't go down there if you want to live!"

Daniel reached out, his grip firm on the running student’s shoulder.

"What exactly is happening down there?" Daniel asked, his voice calm.

The student shoved Daniel's hand away violently, his eyes wide with terror. "I don't know! They're just biting people! My friend's neck was torn open by a girl from the library!"

The student bolted toward the western emergency stairwell.

Daniel looked down at his own palm. "A torn neck. A normal human does not possess that kind of hydraulic jaw strength. The average human bite force is only about one hundred and sixty pounds per square inch."

"Daniel. Do you hear that?" Xavier swallowed hard, his hands beginning to shake.

"Yes. I hear it."

"Those are footsteps coming up the main stairs."

Daniel looked toward the northern end of the hallway. A set of heavy double glass doors separated the stairwell from the second-floor corridor.

"They're coming up," Daniel said, his voice dropping to a chill. "Keep moving. Don't stop."

Xavier didn't need to be told twice. He pressed forward, keeping close behind Daniel.

The heavy thud of boots, loafers, and high heels rumbled violently from the stone staircase. The stride pattern was completely chaotic. It lacked the rhythm of a human walk, sounding more like dozens of maimed animals dragging their limbs.

"Open the door! Let me in!"

A student pounded on a classroom door to their right. The students barricaded inside did not respond. Panic had stripped away any sense of social order in the corridor.

"Help me! Don't leave me!" A heavy-set student collapsed right in front of Daniel. He wept hysterically, clutching his ankle, which was bent at an unnatural angle.

Daniel stared down at the man for a fraction of a second. His mind ran a mathematical calculation. Carrying an eighty-kilogram load would reduce their walking speed by forty percent. The safe distance to the nearest empty classroom was fifteen meters. They wouldn't make it.

"Get up," Daniel ordered, his tone devoid of pity.

The student shook his head violently, tears streaming down his face. "My ankle is sprained. Please, just put my arm over your shoulder."

"I'll help him." Xavier knelt down, reaching for the student’s arm.

Suddenly, the air in the corridor seemed to freeze. The chaotic footsteps from the stairwell stopped abruptly just behind the double glass doors.

Daniel narrowed his eyes, the muscles in his neck tightening.

The silhouettes of dozens of people pressed against the frosted glass. Their shoulders moved unnaturally. Their heads were tilted sideways at angles impossible for the living.

"Leave him, Xavier," Daniel said.

"Are you crazy? We can't just leave him here."

"Look at the doors."

Xavier looked up. His eyes widened in horror.

The shadows behind the glass began to slam against the barrier. They weren't using their hands. They were using their foreheads and cheekbones as battering rams. Flesh and bone smashed against the thick glass repeatedly, completely indifferent to the destruction of their own faces. Dark, fresh blood began to smear across the glass panels from the other side.

"God. What are those things?" Xavier's voice trembled near Daniel's ear.

"Step back slowly." Daniel took a step backward, his eyes locked on the doors. "Don't scuff your shoes. They seem to respond to the noise in the hallway."

The assault on the glass doors grew more brutal. The two-centimeter-thick safety glass began to spiderweb from the center hinges. The cracks spread rapidly, compromising the structural integrity of the doors.

"Daniel. The glass isn't going to hold against that kind of force," Xavier whispered, his breath shallow.

The fractures widened with every relentless blow. The injured student on the floor shrieked in terror at the bloody display.

A final, sharp crack echoed through the corridor.

The glass doors shattered into a thousand pieces as a tide of blood-drenched students surged through.