REBORN: ENTER INTO THE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER ONE - Before it Ends

“Arrgh! You promised” Ray screamed helplessly. “You said you would release her!”

Dani was on the ground sprawling weakly in front of him.

Her clothes were tattered and her face was covered with dirt while her chin was bleeding as she trembled violently.

This kind of trembling was not because she was cold but because she had been severely tortured and it was due to fear.

Ray had witnessed enough of the apocalypse to understand what the shaking meant and the moment he understood it, his emotions died instantly and permanently, he was about to lose his sister.

He has done every single thing he was asked to do.

He had commanded zombies on their given orders and had cleared sectors, he had been pushed into the infected zone by Wolfe and his men and had used the ability to separate him from any other living being on earth for their purpose.

Why? Because they had his sister and had promised not to hurt her as long as he obeyed all their orders.

But it was all a lie.

Wolfe bent down beside Dani and stamped his foot on her belly, then on her face and pinned her face sideways to the ground, then he looked at Ray and smiled wickedly.

“We’ve had enough fun with her, so don't worry about her.” He said.

Ray pulled himself up forcefully and groaned. “I will kill you.” His voice came out loudly.

Wolfe stood up and smirked, he cleaned his jacket slowly and smiled. He was always looking sparkling clean. It's been a few weeks since the world ended and he looked like he was still in a government office.

“You won't be able to do that Ray.” Wolfe said.

Ray asked himself a million times how he ended up in this condition.

******

He was a supermarket worker and always on night shift at Whitefield on Allen street, and he earns $12.50 per hour. 

He was the guy who knew where every single item In the supermarket was located offhand without even having to check a clipboard. That was his entire life four weeks ago.

He was always stocking shelves and counting inventory in order to make enough to take care of his sick mom and sister.

But eventually Project X happened.

Project X is a highly classified government experiment that used electric currents generated from live electric eels to revive humans who were in a coma or near death.

The thesis behind it was that it could jumpstart failing organs and make them function well as brand new. It had been tested on animal specimens and had worked out perfectly well.

And for months the government has been looking for a human sample to use but failed to see a perfect match.

But  Anna's condition worsened one cold evening and Ray received a call from work that his mother was at the brink of death and had been rushed to the hospital.

The doctors confirmed that her heart was failing and hence the proposal was brought to him.

Ray was told that the only way his mom could survive was to initiate project X or else she won't make it.

He had no choice than to sign the consent form and he was paid a reasonable amount of money because it was a government research with his mother being the first human it was tested on.

That was where he met agent Wolfe, a top tier officer in the special forces and also a government agent in charge of the project.

But the experiment didn't work out as it was planned.

His mother came back abnormal, with dark black spots all over her skin, black veins, offensive smell and decay and within a short time she turned into a zombie.

The doctor got bitten immediately, before they could realize what was happening it had spread throughout the hospital building.

For almost seven hours there was panic everywhere in the hospital building. Before the government agents could control the situation and get the infection contained it had already gotten into the streets.

When Ray saw the situation on ground was going beyond control, he grabbed a serum of the experiment and injected himself, believing if he was a zombie he would be free from emotions and thought and he would be brain dead.

But he was wrong, instead of project X to turn him into a zombie as it had done to his mother, it reverse engineered inside him and gave him a new ability.

Ability to control zombies and provide unlimited supplies ranging from food, water, medicine, equipment tools from his body without getting exhausted.

He also came back with super strength and his injury healed in hours.

He had worked in a supermarket throughout his entire life and he knew about inventory and supplies and now his body did too without running dry. 

He was a walking stockroom that never emptied. In a world where every resource had collapsed and people were killing each other over a can of food, that made Ray Parker the single most valuable person alive.

Throughout the first week of the apocalypse he used his powers to rescue people from the zombies and  also keeping his sister close.

He thought that gave him power.

But he was wrong.

All these abilities were studied by Wolfe and his team and the first week after the apocalypse he was captured and a chip was inserted inside his neck.

All his abilities were now controlled by Wolfe and his men. He only chooses to use them at his own will with the help of the chip.

Every crate of supplies his body produced belonged to Wolfe and his men, every zombie he commanded served in Wolfe's territory.

He cleared different parts of the city with the zombies under his command and this made Wolfe expand his control all over the city.

Ray lived in a prison cage even after serving Wolfe and his men with food pushed through a slot in the door every morning.

And all these were because of his sister Dani.

She had been captured and used as a means to force Ray to obey Wolfe's command, else she would be killed.

*******

Ray stared at her completely on the ground now and her being alive was the only reason he had not been broken completely in four weeks.

Wolfe stared at one of his guards on his left and nodded twice.

The man opened a laptop and faced the screen towards Ray without uttering any statement. On the screen were charts, numbers and graphs a display Ray didn't quite understand but when he stared at Wolfe face he had realized what Wolfe was up to.

Ray's entire body system was still.

Wolfe smirked and rolled up his sleeves, a small device that looked like a tracker was fixed under his skin, a green light blinked on it.

A zombie was quickly brought out by two of his men and placed on the ground, it launched at them as if to bite them but he was suppressed with a taser.

Wolfe turned towards the zombie and pointed his fingers at it towards the ground and the zombie sat down immediately.

He pointed towards the wall, the zombie stood and walked towards the wall immediately.

Wolfe lowered his finger  and smiled then looked at Ray.

“Thank you for holding your powers for me, now they're all mine.” He said.

Ray looked at his sister on the ground and she turned her face towards him. Her eyes found him and she shook her head twice, slowly and steadily.

Even now when she was still tortured, beaten and battered, she still cared for her brother checking on him whether he was okay as usual like she always did.

“Ray, it's okay.” She whispered slowly.

Ray knew everything was not okay and he knew now that they are both useless to Wolfe and he would kill them both. 

They're both liabilities now and Wolfe never spared liabilities.

Wolfe raised his fist and turned towards the door.

“Open the gates, let the zombies feed.”

The door flung open and they hungrily scrambled inside in numbers, not tens or twenties but in hundreds, with sounds of their footsteps echoing on the ground.

Ray pulled himself towards Dani and grabbed her arms up, they were both chained but they could still manage. They both knew there was nowhere to go.

Dani faced him directly, smiling emotionally, the same as she had given him when she needed him to know she might be tortured but not afraid.

“I promise I'll see you on the other side.” She held his hands.

Ray pulled her into himself and held her close.

The zombies reached them within seconds and covered them completely.

Ray closed his eyes still holding his sister and  at a certain time he could hear the noises of the zombies and feel the pain of how they were tearing off his flesh but then….

He couldn't feel anything.

Everything suddenly went black.

****

Ray opened his eyes.

He could see the ceiling and sunlight also the little crack above his bed from the pipe that had been leaking two winters ago.

He grabbed his phone from the floor and stared at the screen.

It was Tuesday, 6:00 am. 

A week before the hospital incident. A week before Wolfe and the briefcase and the consent form and his mother and the apocalypse.

He pressed two fingers to the back of his neck and he felt nothing. There was no chip. 

He had also lost his abilities.

He sat on the edge of his bed and listened. His mother was coughing in the next room. She was alive. Dani was also four miles away on Reston Avenue and she was also alive.

He had only one week between him and Wolfe control.

He remembered everything. Wolfe's face, the compound, the chip, what they did to Dani while he cooperated and believed their promises. He remembered the exact moment he signed that consent form thinking he had no other choice.

He  now had a single choice.

He won't allow this to happen again.