Patient Zero (Chapter One)

“You ok dad?” Samuel asked, patting his dads back. It was covered in sweat. Raulph laid back down, his hair wet with perspiration.
“Yeah Sammie, I’m fine. Go play with your sister.” Raulph said, messing with Sammie’s dark brown hair. Sammie grinned and ran out of the room. Raulph wiped the sweat off of his forehead. Something was wrong, that much was obvious.
Its probably just stress, he thought closing his eyes, just stress from work. His job was getting to him.
Raulph worked at National Genetics, the leading company in Genetic Exploration and Rewiring. He worked in the experimental division and brought home a six figure salary. He was lucky to work with his best friend, Richard. Worked. Four years of dead ends and genetic mishaps led to Richard being fired and Raulph being thrown into another project halfway. They had almost had it too...
Raulph pulled the bed sheets closer.
So cold. He felt the sheets stick to his body from his sweat. I should feel warm, he thought, bundled under three sheets.
But he felt so cold.
Right after work he started to feel bad. Started to sweat.
Just stress, he thought. Just stress.
So cold. He shivered.
He felt something very light run down out of the corner of his eyes. Like tears it ran down his face, flowed under his chin and dripped onto the sheets. Raulph brought his hand to his face to wipe away the tears, but when his hand came back into focus, they were red with blood. His hand fell back down, and try as he would he couldn’t lift it. He tried opening his mouth to scream, to get help, but he couldn’t.
So cold.
Frozen to his bed, sweat pouring from his body, Raulph died. His death was sudden, quick, and relatively painless.
So cold, he thought.
He...what an odd word, he thought. What is he? Who is he? What is who? What is what? What...what...what...wha-.....
Raulph got up. The body that was Raulph got up. Raulph died when his thoughts ran out and his brain stopped asking questions.
Hunger.
That was all he could feel. He needed to fill his belly, gorge on food, whatever it may be. He needed to drink, to feel something warm course down his throat.
Raulph walked out of the room, his feet dragging on the wooden floor. He could hear noises. Gibberish, meaningless.
“I’d like to put a house on Park Place”
He followed the sound. It followed the sound, felt a twinge from its body.
Hunger. All other words lost meaning, became useless. He rounded the corner and found the noisemakers.
There were two of them, pale skinned creatures, sitting at a table. They turned to look at him when he entered the room. They made more noise, gibberish.
Raulph studied them, the pale noisemakers. One had short brown fur on its head and fat cheeks. It had blubbery arms and a round belly. The other one has long blonde fur, and was smaller and skinnier. But it didn’t matter, his body felt just the same about both of them.
He could smell them, a mix of bacteria, feces, urine, sweat and emotion. He just knew they would satisfy. He moved closer. He could hear blood coursing through their veins; he could see the red blush that meant they were full.
They continued to make noise as he approached. They neither moved away, nor froze with fear. He found no reason to be afraid of his prey.
He dived for the fat one, using his teeth to tear strips of warm flesh from its neck, from its arms, eating eating, ripping at the skin, and shoving mouthfuls of it in.
Hungry, he was still hungry.
He ripped at the skin, gorged himself on its belly, but left the organs alone. They were too rubber looking, too foreign. The skin, however, was warm and delicious. The blood was as well. The warm flesh brought tears to his eyes as he shoved more and more into his mouth making his stomach burst, but he didn’t care. The other noisemaker was long gone.
But he was still hungry.
The body twitched once before getting up.
It no longer looked appealing. Blood did drip, but it was no longer warm or flowing, no longer appetizing. Its skin was already fading from pink to grey. No longer appealing.
But he was still hungry.
So he looked for more.
More of those tasty noise makers.