Free Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller by Ken Stark

morning routine heedless of the strange new sounds coming from down below. He'd nicked himself shaving in the dark, but somehow managed to get himself all the way down to the lobby without further incident. Now he blithely strolled off to work with his briefcase in one hand and all of his attention focused on his dead cell phone in the other.
    Look up! Look up, you fool!
    Mason opened his mouth to shout a warning at the man, but it was already too late. Before the fool had taken a handful of steps, the old man and the girl were flying toward him. The man turned at the very last moment and saw them coming, then a bewildered look came across his face, and he simply stood there gaping like an idiot. It looked to Mason like he didn't even have time to register what was happening before there were on him. The cell phone went one way, the briefcase went the other, and the man fell backward with a confused yelp. His arms flailed about as the young girl tore at his throat, and he attempted a weak punch as the old man ripped his shirt open, but that was the extent of the struggle. By the time the old man had his face buried in the man's abdomen, all signs of life ceased.
    An inadvertent cry of disgust issued from Mason's throat, and he immediately recognized his blunder. The two males who had been standing close by, listening, picked up on the sound and turned his way. Then one of them took a single step toward him and growled. Mason held his breath and stood perfectly still, and thirty seconds passed before the madmen lost interest and went back to their silent vigil.
    Absurdly, with all that was going on around him, Mason couldn't help but wonder why these two hadn't also been attracted to the man with the briefcase. Sure, they had been farther away than the old man and the girl, but they had to have heard. So, why hadn't they attacked as a pack? For that matter, why were these feral beasts not attracted to the sounds made by others of their kind? Clearly, there was something in their programming that allowed them to differentiate between a human and one of their own, but was there also some underlying agreement among them? Could it possibly be as simple as 'this one's mine, that one's yours'? It didn't make sense, but what part of this insanity did?
    Just then, the sharp crack! of a gunshot echoed through the street. Every one of the wild things lifted their heads and heeded the noise, but none of them moved. Again, Mason was perplexed. Shouldn't they all be racing off helter-skelter? But then he understood, and here was something that he could finally wrap his head around. The buildings formed an echo chamber of sorts, so by the time the gunshot reached this place, it had bounced off of so many walls that Mason, himself, couldn't tell its location. So, the creatures' hearing was still human after all. That bit of understanding may have seemed incidental, even trivial, but it was actually a great relief.
    Okay, good enough, but now what? Where should he go? Where in all of this horror would be safe? He couldn't keep wandering the streets, that was for sure. His best bet was to find some place to lie low and wait for help. Surely, the police would get a handle on this eventually. Maybe the military would even show up in their armored Humvees and hazmat suits to restore order. But even as he considered those possibilities, he knew that it was all wishful thinking. No one was coming to help. The police had a whole city to contain, and the army would have bigger things going on than to worry about Mason's sorry ass. He may as well make a wish for his fairy godmother to appear and whisk him off to her magic castle. He was in this alone. Just like the man with the briefcase or the woman in the high heels or the poor guy in the stairwell, in a city of over a million souls, everyone was in this alone.
    Every man for himself ….. Mason thought again, grimly.
    He had to get away from the madness. Out of the city and into the suburbs.