War Is My Lover, Book One, Chapter One

Kent sighed and placed his chin on the windowsill, staring out at the vast emptiness of the fields. It had been more than a month since his group had come into contact with anyone else, and thing were beginning to look grim. Morale was at an all time low, and supplies were almost out. Almost none of the men knew how to forage properly, and most came back empty-handed. To him, there wasn't really any point in this scouting mission, since the war it supported was pointless. A zombie outbreak exactly one year ago flipped civilization upside down, and organized, or ragtag groups began to war on each other. Some survived, others died. That didn't matter though, since it seemed that only the civilized and governed groups managed to live on another day.

“Why are we even out here? Shouldn't we be going back to base?” He asked, his lips curling into a frown. The voice of a woman spoke up behind him, tending to the almost directionless question.

“Orders are orders, Kent. We were told to find where the enemy H.Q. Is, and we're going to do exactly that. It doesn't matter if we've been cut off.”

“It does matter Claira, what if they got hit by that damn infection? We need to find out!”

“We'll find out later. We just need to get the job down. Our C.O. Wouldn't be too kind if we returned with nothing and gave the excuse, 'we were worried.'”

“Ugh, fine woman. You win, again.”

“Just how it should be.” Claira said, smiling and walking off. The soft steps of her shoes faded in mere seconds. This is ridiculous, Kent thought, thrusting back the conversation he had just now. Their telecommunications had gone down a week ago, which was two days before their supposed deadline for the mission was. Now, since there was no one to call, Claira, the commanding officer of the group, told them to push forward. One of them had already deserted, but they had found his body two days later, ravaged by an unknown sickness. One of his limbs was missing, along with part of his face. It was most likely those... things, the creatures called zombies in fantasy novels. Kent never thought it could have been real.

“Kent, get your ass down here! We're moving out!” A voice yelled, obviously coming from the lower floor.

“Alright! Don't get your panties in a bunch!” He shouted back, grabbing his M4A1 by the grip and mounting it on his shoulder. He got up and led himself down the steps, making his way towards the Cougar outside.

“You're always staring off into the clouds. That's why we never put you on watch.” Said a man sitting on the 'crow's nest' of the vehicle, a mischievous grin on his face.

“You and I both know that I have the sharpest eyes and ears of the platoon.”

“Yet you still can't shoot a quarter on the ground in front of you if your life depended on it.” The male retorted, running his hands over the XM312 .50 cal machine gun mounted to the top.

“Yeah yeah, shove it Charlie” Kent shook his head lightly with a smile, making his way to the back of the Cougar and pulling himself. He was greeted by Marcus and James, the former being the medic, and the latter engineer. “So, where's Claira, Kit, and Ronaldo?” He asked.

“Claira and Kit are getting the supplies from the shed out back, while Ronaldo is invading the wine cellar. Cheap bastard just can't keep his hands off the alcohol.” James answered.

“I swear, one day he's going to get the fire squad just for the amount of shit he's drank over the past few months.” Marcus said, a curious mix of serious, and funny filling his voice.

“Well, the man hasn't had a drink in a week, give him a break. We'll just throw out most of the heavy stuff when he gets back.” James replied.

“He said he was going to shoot you if you did that again James, don't push it.” Kent warned.

“Yeah, I'd like to see him try. All the fucker every carries with him is a Desert Eagle. Powerful pistol, yet shit in his hands because he can't hold it right.” James snorted.

“Going to bite you in the ass one day, James.” Marcus said, placing the butt of his SCAR-L on the floor of the Cougar, and resting his chins upon his hands on the nozzle.

“Bring that snake on, I'll-” James was cut off as Claira appeared at the rear, shoving some of the supplies into the vehicle. A smile was on her face as she climbed aboard, resting her FN-FAL on her lap.

“Kit is in the front today, I'm riding with you guys.”

“Oh, fun.” Marcus said, his voice full of sarcasm.

“Yep, we're going to play the silent game for the first five minutes too. The loser gets to strip themselves naked for a day.”

“Looks like Ronaldo is going to get to dance nude again.” James said, a look of disgust on his face.

“Speak of the devil, here he comes with five bottles of God knows what.” Marcus replied, pointing towards a rather tall man with an inhumane grin on his face.

“Hey guys! These people sure knew their stuff! I've got some Vat 69!”

“Good, then you won't be drunk unless you drink all of it, which you're going to do when we stop again.”

“Yep, now let's get rolling.” Ronaldo said, hopping up and sitting near the front. He set down the bottles on his bags and patted the metal wall between him the driver. “Time to go!” He shouted over, Claira grabbing the handle of the back door and shutting it, sealing it tight. The familiar hum of the engine started, and then the lulling ride to somewhere in the distance began.


Three hours later in the blackness of the back, Kent looked about at his sleeping comrades. Each of them had their own strange position, and kept to it with their strange sense of comfortableness. Kent usually didn't sleep, and no one seemed to notice. Oddly enough, the usual bags never appeared under his eyes, and he always seemed well rested. He never remembered why that was, why he was fine with no sleep. For some reason, being awake was more refreshing than letting his body rest, more relaxing. And that was rightly so, since most of his rest was plagued by dreams of a time long since passed, and of people he hardly recognized. Kent was one of those people who seemed normal on the outside when you talked to them, but was ultimately different, or weird. He was an orphan of sorts, picked up by a scouting group while wandering around with a trench knife. His 'kidnapper's lost one man that day to the teeth of his trench knife.

When tested to see if he was 'good enough,' they drafted him into the sniper corps, and later brought him back into infantry. They said he was the best shot they'd ever seen, and also the strangest man they'd even run into. It wasn't their fault for thinking that though, Kent spent most of his time just sitting there, staring off into space with a blank mind. His memory was an empty bank, and held nothing before the time he had been found. It was all blurry, and the only reason he had a name, was because it was the one written on the blade of the trench knife.

The eerie noise of metal gliding across another hard surface broke the silence, Kent drawing out the old knife and looking at its used surface. How many times has he actually killed something with it? It seemed like many, since the blood was never washed off of it. Everyone told him to clean the knife, but he just ignored them and toyed with it whenever his mind thought necessary. He looked towards the right, particularly at nothing. The Cougar was moving strangely...

Just then the vehicle swerved to the right, its passengers being tossed to the left. Kent dropped his trench knife and flew forward, hitting the opposite wall of with jarring force. Everyone was awake now, but couldn't react soon enough as the vehicle, flipped, beginning to roll over several times. It stopped after the fifth, leaving the four in the back with bruises.

“What the hell was that?” Marcus shouted confusedly, looking around half asleep. The alcohol was surprisingly still intact, strewn across the ceiling. At the present, everyone was confused, as they had been interrupted by the strange movement of the vehicle and mostly brought awake by the painful bouncing about. Kent looked around frantically for his trench knife, ignoring Marcus at the moment. His hands touched down on a warm liquid, his first guess going to urine. It was possible that one of them had pissed themselves, but upon further inspect, the dark color revealed it as blood. Shit! It must have hit either Claira or James! He thought, looking first for James. His guess was right, as the knife had implanted itself into James' abdomen, the man himself looking at it in shock, but making no noise. Kent quickly moved over to him and shouted for Marcus. Claira seemed to be out of it at the moment, probably brought away by the initial roll and knocked unconscious by another one.

“What happened?” Marcus asked, the same tension and confusion in his voice. His eyes widened when they found the hilt of the trench knife jutting from James' stomach, immediately moving to Kent. “We told you to stop playing with the damn thing, now you see why!” He shouted at Kent, roughly pushing him aside and taking out the med kit to work on him. Kent's head hit the floor with a loud smack, disorienting him before a brief second. He quickly recovered, shaking his head and and looking for Claira. It wasn't hard, as the space was limited. He moved over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders, shaking her roughly.

“Wake up, Claira! Kit must have hit something, we need to check on her!” Kent shouted, still shaking the woman out of her daze. Claira slowly came too, looking at Kent with lazy eyes. Immediately after they shot awake, Claira sitting up quickly and kicking open the door. She left Kent behind and ignored their surrounding walking up to the front and looking for Kit. A gasp of horror was all she could manage, her eyes staring directly at Kit's body. Kent grabbed his M4A1 and made his way over to Claira, following her eyes into the drivers seat. There Kit was, her head lulling to the side with a bullet in it. She had probably lowered the window and was shot by someone, but that someone didn't seem to be around anymore. How...?

They were interrupted by a series screeches, Kent and Claira turning around, straining their eyes to see. What they saw wasn't pretty, and put them on alert. Charging directly for the totaled vehicle were around twenty figures, all of them letting out sounds similar to those of the infected.

“Marcus! Infected contacts three o'clock! Claira, get your rifle!” Kent shouted, being the first one to move into action. He took a few steps forward and position the assault rifle on his shoulder, firing a few rounds at the charging figures. Two dropped to the ground, the others unaffected by the bullets fired. Claira sprinted for the back of the Cougar and retrieved her SCAR-L, pivoting on her heels, and firing. Kent's mind began running over the short roster of who was injured and who wasn't, and immediately began looking around. Where the hell is Ronaldo? He asked himself, looking around after firing a few more ineffective rounds. His answer came with a cold grip on his shoulder.

Kent spun around and shoved the nozzle of his rifle in the face of Ronaldo, the man groaning softly. His skin was dead white, and one of his eyes was pure white. Infected? When? Fucking idiot! Kent squeezed the trigger and fired a round into Ronaldo's head, watching the man drop to the ground, dead. He turned back around to see Claira crouching down by the back entrance, attempting to help Marcus pull James out. A vision flashed across his mind and numbed his senses. His mind was taken to a place foreign to him, several figures standing about. Each looked up to him with fear, all of them grabbing at the same time. He was screaming, shouting furiously, unable to fight back the onslaught of hands. He was taken somewhere, into a lab of sorts it seemed, bright lights everywhere...

His mind came back when Claira started screaming, the roar of her assault rifle dying off as several of the infected contacts barreled into her and Marcus. Kent was frozen, unable to move.



Sudden idea that I had, wrote this in a few hours. Curse forums and their inability to recognize indentations. Would make this look a LOT better.

Bwahaha, thanks. This was an on the spot story. So, thanks to your feedback, I'll be continuing. IF you guessed that Kent is going lone wolf, then you're right. Everyone else is insignificant. Although, a few more important characters may arrive. Again, thanks for the feedback.

Well, it's based around military organizations. Do you expect them all to talk like British people?

Can you stop calling me kiddo? It's getting rather annoying.

Though legally she can, as she is basically older than you.

Age is a number.