A Strange Sort Of Apocalypse
I'm awoken by a knock at my door. It sounded strangely urgent, so I got up, with a groan, wondering who could possibly be here at this hour. Still holding my teddy bear, Alec, whom refused to let me put him down on the bed, I walked toward the door.I set Alec down in a chair in my living room, telling him to stay there while I check the door. I walk slowly over to the door, about to open the blinds to check who it is when I feel the stuffed bear hug my leg from behind. Sighing inwardly, I picked him up."I told you to stay in the chair," I lightly chided. His response was to hug me tighter. I sighed and smiled. Alec was by far the cutest thing I've ever seen.His height from the bottom of his feet to the tips of his ears was approximately three feet and he had soft, medium brown fur all over. He had a black button nose, as one would expect, and a short fluffy tail. His eyes were red rings with black circles for pupils, and his mouth was made of black fabric of some sort.I checked the blinds to see my friend Zarvaun standing on the other side of the door, knocking furiously. I let him in."Dude, what gives? It's four in the morning." I hissed."Look outside," was all he said. I did, and my eyes grew to the size of hubcaps. I saw shambling creatures marching mindlessly through my backyard, the forest behind me, and everywhere else. Closing the blinds, I pushed Zarvaun away from the door before continuing our conversation. "Dude, why are you holding that teddy bear like that?" he asked, referring to the fact that I had clutched him tighter to my chest and was rubbing his back."He got scared," I responded. "What happened last night?""An inanimate object got scared?" Zarvaun asked, ignoring my second question."He's not inanimate, Zarv. I thought we went over this." I reminded him."Whatever," Zarvaun dismissed, "with respect to your question, be glad I obsess over everything strange going on." He pulled out his laptop from the backpack I had designed for him.The backpack, by the way, is a specially designed backpack that brakes the laws of physics by having no bottom to it and converting everything put into it into a hundredth of that object's original weight.He opened up the laptop to show me a story he stumbled across on a website I didn't recognize. It showed that an illegal lab had been discovered doing nasty things to people using a virus of some sort. As Zarvaun closed the laptop, I could've sworn I saw
something that looked a lot like Alec. I decided that it was best that Alec didn't see that."So, that virus get loose or something?" I asked, to which Zarvaun nodded. I heard a faint whimper escape from Alec, and tried to console him."Okay, I'm starting to wonder if what you're saying about Alec is true." Zarvaun mused. As a response, I gently gave the stuffed bear to my friend, instructing him to be gentle or else. I saw his eyes widen, which I took as meaning that he heard Alec's whimpers. "Oh my God, he is alive!""Told ya." I said with a smart alec tone."Regardless," Zarvaun dismissed, handing Alec back to me, "You should probably get ready, cuz we need to leave.""Why?" I countered, "Those things don't know we're here, and this house has solar panels. We'd be best here for now.""Fine, but how are we-" Zarvaun started."I'm going to go check the roof, and you can get to work quietly boarding up the windows." I interrupted. I got out my own backpack of the same design as Zarvaun's and set Alec in it with his head poking out. Since the backpack had one strap, it looked like he was peaking over my shoulder."And how do you suggest I do that?" Zarvaun asked in regards to the windows."Quietly." I replied, "Try using blankets or sheets.""I'll try, I guess," Zarvaun started, "but I'm still gonna have to make some noise getting them up there.""I'll try to make a distraction while I'm on the roof." I suggested, standing up. "Back in a bit."I went into the hallway to pull down the ladder that led to the roof as Zarvaun started searching my house for sheets. Once I got on the roof, I saw the true amount of carnage. The walking corpses were limping everywhere I looked. I got to work making sure the solar panels were in good shape and then thought about how to cause a big enough distraction.I was running out of valid ideas when I saw my neighbors house out of the corner of my eyes. Had this been a cartoon, a light bulb would have materialized over my head and turned on with a ding. I set my backpack against the chimney and took Alec out, setting him to my side. While he immediately got up to watch what I was doing, I had begun rummaging through my bag for a very specific device I had made.Once I found it, I held it in the air theatrically. I was always one for overreacting to the smallest things. Well, in a good way,
anyway. I turned on the object, which looked like a handheld mirror apart from the fact that I could see through it and it had various buttons on it.After pressing a few buttons, I was able to see into my neighbors house with thermal vision, checking to see if anyone was home. I saw that they had fled already, so I prepared to make a noisemaker to put into the house.As I was assembling the contraption, I heard a muffled mumbling. Out of panic, I grabbed Alec and hid behind the chimney. It was then that I realized the source of the mumbles.Alec was trying to speak.I looked at the bears mouth while repeatedly saying, "I hear you, I hear you. It's okay, I'll fix this." I eventually found that his mouth was, in fact, sewn shut by the yarn that I thought was his mouth. Grabbing the scissors I'd been using, I motioned for the bear to be quiet while I cut the yarn, free his mouth which he promptly began yapping away."Oh my gosh, 'tank you, 'tank you, 'tank you!" he squeaked, hugging me, "I never 'tot I would be able ta speak again. Those mean scientists had sewd my mouth together so I wouldn't tell anybody their secwets.""Shhh," I insisted, "you'll give away our position." I stroked the bear's back as I continued. "How old are you, by the way? I can't help but notice that childish speech pattern.""Well, I was four when this happened, so I might be lisping evewy once in a while. Chronologically, I'm about ten to eleven now, depending on the time of year. Mentally, I guess I could be around twenty five at genius level intelligence. Behaviorally, I definitely still four." the bear explained."It appears that your speech clears when you talk matter-of-factly." I noted, "So, I assume you were in that lab that was working with the virus that caused those." I pointed at the zombies."Unfortunately." was all the bear said, looking down."What's the virus's behavior?" I asked.Alec replied, "It's a roll of the dice, it seems, on how it affects you. I wasn't supposed to witness any of it, but one scientist took pity on me the day I was turned."I wasn't entirely sure," Alec continued, "what was going on that day. My father, the evil man he was, took me to work one day saying I could be the new test subject. Not knowing what this meant, and seeing the happy look on his face, I bought it. I had learned all too late what it actually meant."He hooked me up to a machine, and his assistants tied me down so I couldn't move. At
this time, I became scared. I didn't know much, but even a four year old could sense the danger surrounding where I was. My father might not have even wanted me to be tested, for I saw a tear escape his eye as he kissed my forehead one last time as he injected something into my arm. He then promptly left the room."That's when the pain started. God, how it was excruciating. I felt everything morph and change, writhing in agony until everything went numb. I must have passed out 'cause I woke up to my father asking me if I could hear him. I nodded even though I never wanted to speak to him again."When he asked me how I was feeling, I refused to speak. He was insistant, but I held fast. I never knew how stubborn I could be until that day, and, for some reason unknown to me, I knew a lot more than I should. And that's when I realized something. I couldn't feel my heart beating."It's shocking, really." Alec continued, not looking up the whole time, "It feels so strange not feeling that muscle pump inside your chest. I also noticed that I wasn't breathing, and that I could barely feel the warmth of my father's hand on my head."Alec began tearing up, almost to the point of sobbing. I urged him to go on. I needed more information in order to be able to figure anything out. Even if it didn't matter, my morbid curiosity for knowledge was winning over my sense of reason. I pulled out a pad and pen and started jotting down notes."When my father got angry from me not answering, he grabbed me by an arm and lifted me high." Alec said, "He probably thought it would hurt me, but I didn't feel anything but a gentle tug on my shoulder. That's also when I saw what I was."I was a big, brown, fluffy little toy bear." Alec said with emphasis on every adjective."Well, little wouldn't exactly be the word to describe it." I commented, trying to cheer him up. "What about your mouth? How did that happen?""My father." the bear replied, "He had said, 'If you won't speak, I'll make sure you never will again!' as he sewed my mouth closed. He then left me there and left the room with all of his assistants in tow. All except for one, that is."Her name," Alec mused, "was Adela, I think. She stayed after everyone had left and picked me up. She rocked me, comforted me. I didn't even realize how shaken up I was until she began caring for me."She soon began sneaking me into observation rooms. This way, I could witness that I was lucky. I watched as they brought in an elderly woman. Somewhere in her 90s, I would guess. Anyway, as the
virus got a hold of her, she began to shriek as she keeled over and died. She then came back to life, moaning and swinging an arm at anyone nearby. They quickly end her unlife."As Alec mentioned this, I wrote down a quick scribble that said: "Old; female - zombie", attempting to be able to connect the dots later."Next was a man in an orange jumpsuit. A death row inmate, as Adela informed me." Alec continued, "He, too, shriveled up and died, coming back to life shortly."After they ended the inmate's life, a man was dragged in, being led by one of the scientists. They apparently knew each other. The scientist was reminding the subject about saying that he'd give anything to be a real furry and that this was his chance. That didn't seem to calm him down. The subject began yelling at the scientist, saying he was the worst boyfriend ever and the like, until he was injected. Honestly, it took me until now to wonder what their goal was in this. Where did the virus come from? How did they have so much of it? I watched as the new test subject, indeed, turned into an anthropomorphic animal. He became giddy with relief that he didn't die, and, as I heard him say, that he was even his fursona. They quickly hauled him off as he spat swears at his former partner."I had written these things down as I glanced around me and checked inside on Zarvaun using the thermal scanner. I saw the thermal imaging of a tailed beast rummaging through my storage closet. The virus must've gotten to Zarvaun."Next was an amputee who was missing both legs." Alec said, shaking me from my musings, "His results were him growing the legs back and developing some sort of super speed. All I know is he escaped..."I noticed that Alec had stopped, and I looked up to see his lips quivering. If he had tear ducts, they would be dripping tears down his face."What happened then?" I asked, trying to encourage the information along."Then," Alec said with a tinge of loathing, "they brought in a kid. Much similar to me, same age. He was turned into a plush as well. After that, I refused to watch. That was until I saw the ray of hope. Someone was fighting back."The man had a katana, heck if I know how he got it, but he was fending off the scientists until they managed to get his weapon out of his hands. They then strapped him down and injected him. He didn't seem to feel the same pain the others did, and proceeded to rip the restraints off the examination table and threw the scientists about the room."I saw something strange," the bear then said, "The shadows in the room seemed to
elongate on their own accord, creeping towards the man. He absorbed the shadow through his feet, and as they crept up his legs a black and white pattern of fur crawled up his body, his body morphing into a strange creature with the face of a shark, tail of...some other creature...I don't know. I then saw him fashion a katana identical to the one he had, but this one completely made of shadows."After he either knocked out or scared off all the scientists, he heard the alarm sound and, I guess out of some new instinct he had, reverted to a more infantile form and then turned into a plush toy like me, but was still in the shape of the strange beast he'd become.""The beast you mentioned," I interrupted, "sounds a lot like a sergal." I was still furiously taking notes and checking our surroundings."Adela ran into the chamber after this, grabbed the toy, and ran out to her truck, telling us that she was going to take us to a place where we wouldn't be found." Alec continued.