Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1)

The Infected: Ripped to Shreds

Hush

P.S. Power

Orange Cat
Publishing

Copyright 2015

Cindy smiled at the bloodshed.

It made sense to her, since she
loved that kind of thing. Really, she kind of already wanted more of it, even
as the job was being done in the moment. It was a sign of how much she truly
loved her hobby.

Lovely red liquid poured from the
man in front of her. The scarlet stream flowed from his pale skin in a
wonderful cascade. His brown business suit turned a rust red below his neck,
the sticky fluid being absorbed still. Wicked up by the cotton of his button up
shirt, underneath it all. He looked up at her from his knees, into her blue
eyes, and tried to gasp out a single word. The sound wasn't working right, his
voice box already having been destroyed by the blade in her hand.

Still, she could read it on his
lips. The word appeared over his head too, in the same red that his blood
stained his clothing. He worked hard at it, moving over the single frame four
times in a row. That one word repeating, almost flashing in space as she
watched. The scent of copper and iron filled the air, as she moved close to
him. He'd slipped sideways on his knees after about fifteen seconds, toppling
to the left, and mad a wet sucking sound. Gasping as he started to drown on his
own blood.

The word was just
why
.

They almost always asked that
kind of thing. As if they didn't know the answer. No one was really that stupid
though. They had to understand the real reason for it. She
wanted
them
to die. What better reason could there be for killing, she didn't know.

Cin growled at him.
That
was a thing that no one in the world would have taken seriously. She was only about
five feet tall, and weighed in at under a hundred pounds. Her hair was a soft
blonde that gave people the impression that she was gentle and a bit bookish.
Hell, she really
was
, most days.

Until she met evil people. The
ones that did the wrong things, and hurt others. Things that she could kill
them for. That thought nearly got her to laugh. Cindy was many things, but a
secret do-gooder wasn't one of them. It was just an excuse she used from time
to time, to amuse herself and the dying men.

"You were a
very
bad
man, Lester. You know what you did. It's one of the worst things that anyone
has ever done in the existence of the world. You cheated on your taxes.
Knowingly
.
That can't be allowed, can it? You didn't think that you'd get away with it,
did you?" She looked at him, locking eyes as he seemed truly baffled. It
was clear he was about to go out, but didn't know what she meant.

She could read the words still,
over his head. Her power let her see his dying thoughts, which were scared, and
held almost no comprehension of his real crime.

As if the five hundred dollars
that he'd taken from the government simply didn't count to his mind. He knew it
however, or else the red words that told about what he'd done wouldn't have
hovered over his head when they'd met a few days earlier.

Forcing her to sneak up on him as
he went home for the evening, and ambush the man from behind. Again she wanted
to laugh, feeling giddy about the whole thing. Her power didn't let her fight
better than anyone else, so she had to use skill. Cunning and trickery. Moving
in quickly, when no one would suspect anything could happen. Grown men didn't
fear tiny women, and at times they really should have. That didn't mean she
wasn't going to use that against them if they weren't smart enough to work that
one out on their own. Her job was just to end their lives and revel in the
aftermath. Not to correct people, or their actions. Even her accusations to
Lester were part of a game for her. A way to leave him scared and confused as
he died. It made it better for her that way.

The Infection had hit her several
years before, just as she'd settled into her job as a resource librarian. Literally
within weeks of taking her current position, not that it was related. She had a
degree in the topic after all, which was a waste. Now that the library system
was dying, she could see that. Not that it bothered her that much, even though
she'd thought that there could have been. There were lots of ways to make money
after all. Before, when she was younger, that had been too hard to see. It had
really seemed hard to get things like that. A thing that people had to struggle
for, all the time. Now it was easy. All she had to do was read the signs. The
floating red words over the heads of everyone she met. The books of their
lives. The ones that only she got to see and understand.

Most people were bad, inside. Not
horrible at every turn, but not that great, no matter what they pretended to be
for those around them. She could see that. It was incredibly clear most of the
time, and one of the first things she read about when new people came up to
her. She was pretty evil, too. Worse than most of the people around her even.
She'd killed a lot of people in the last few years, after all. That was
illegal. It wasn't about the law however. That wasn't why she did it.

No, she knew
who
had to
die as powerfully as anything could ever be described. Telling them that it was
over some minor crime was just a bit funny. The truth was that she could
feel
it. Like a buzzing in the back of her head. Annoying, but that wasn't why she
did it, either. That told her who to kill.
Who
she needed to remove from
the world.

The real fact was that she was
just a serial killer. It gave her a thrill to end the lives of certain people.
Possibly everyone, but she didn't just walk around killing at random. There was
a method to the whole thing. A plan that came from deep inside her soul.

One of the ways she knew that was
due to how very sexy the blood on the sidewalk looked. Being careful to wipe
the blade off on his once nice jacket, destroying her finger prints, if any had
been left from earlier, she stuck it into his throat from the outside, getting
a squeak from him. It was
adorable
. Like a kitten that wanted a treat
really badly.

Cindy loved cats. She even had
one, back in her house. Blackie. It was a joke name, for an all white long
haired Persian, but no one had ever said that she didn't have a sense of humor.
Honestly Blackie was her neighbor's cat, but she gave her food, and the little
beast let her pet it, so to her mind it was hers, too.

While she walked away, dressed in
a disposable gray hoodie that was a bit over sized, she pulled off the rubber
gloves that she'd worn. The clothing she had on would all have to be burned, as
soon as possible. Not that there was anyone that could find her. She was
careful, but
also
nearly invisible as far as searching for criminals
went. Even if the police thought it might be her, they'd look at thousands of
men in the area first. So far as she knew they didn't even have a task force
yet. Most of the people she'd gone after had been dark haired men, all over six
feet tall, and nicely dressed.

It was
probably
due to
daddy issues, but she didn't really care about that. She had her needs, and
really couldn't care about other people that much. It was psychopathic,
naturally, but that had been there her entire life. A constant thing that she'd
had even before the Infection had set in. It didn't bug her that much, really.
The violence, now
that
was kind of new. Probably because her first mode,
her default emotional state, had gone full out insane on her three and a half
years prior. That she'd kept it together as well as she did most of the time
was impressive, even if she did have to think of that fact herself.

It wasn't like she could just
share her hobbies with everyone else in the world. No, if she did that, then
people would feel obligated to stop her. She really didn't want that. Not
because she feared being caught for her crimes. The real reason was that if
that happened she'd miss out on all that lovely blood, and the last gasp that
everyone dying made. At least if they had a knife in their throat.

So, she held herself close, and
tried to make certain that no one would suspect her.

That was fine. After all, she was
considered to be nice by most people. It wasn't hard really. You smiled at
them, pretended to care about the crap they said, and on occasion actually did
something nice for people. That got most women on her side, and pretty much all
of the men. That last bit wasn't hard for her even.

It was really kind of amazing
given that she was just a bit past average in looks. Her figure was good
though, and she worked out enough that she could pull off being toned.
Unfortunately her Infected power hadn't given her super strength or speed. If
that
had happened a lot more random people would be dead about then. Her being
careful was a little bit because of her physical abilities being so limited.
She only had what working out and training could get her to work with. It
really wasn't fair, but whining about things like that wouldn't help her.

Cindy walked, heading to the spot
that she'd chosen to dispose of her things. There was a full change of clothing
there, back behind the abandoned building across town. Hidden in a garbage bag.
It was an unmarked thing, carefully chosen from things she stole from a thrift
store bin. There was no way to trace them back to her, and until she wore some
of it, there was nothing approaching DNA on it. Not hers, even if it was found.
True, it was a risk, but she had a backup location, just in case something
happened to her stash of goodies.

That was the real trick to
getting away with murder. Being careful, and doing the extra little bit just in
case. So far it hadn't really been needed. One time, but other than that
security guard coming to check on something unrelated, nothing. Even then she'd
just bluffed her way out of it, pretending to be out jogging, and getting away
well before anyone had found the body. No one had ever mentioned her in the
press about it. Probably because small white women just weren't involved in
things like that. Even when they were.

It would have been easy to assume
that not be caught meant she was smarter than the cops, or the FBI. They were
the ones that should have been coming for her, but weren't.

A street lamp turned off as she
walked underneath it. That was due to the reflection from her light colored
hood, which was up at the moment, just so that any cameras wouldn't be able to
catch her as easily. Not that this part of town had a lot of those, given that
it was the wrong side for that, but the things were cheap now. Everyone and
their sister had a thousand of them all over the place.

Even at work, behind the building
where no one went to do anything except take a leak at night, or occasionally
hooking up behind the bushes, they had them. Watching, always. Glaring little
glass and metal eyes that spied on you, without ever even blinking. It reminded
her a bit of George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Big Brother was always
hovering over them all, in the most unlikely of places.

The invasion of her privacy left
her raw, and edgy.

Feeling abused by the world.

That constant surveillance made
it harder for her to do what she wanted. Killing was frowned upon, but so was
spying. It wasn't hard for her to see the one thing, invading her privacy, as
clearly trumping the right of people not to be killed. Those people weren't
her
,
for one thing. They barely counted. The best thing most of them had ever done
in their entire lives was to give her a few minutes of pleasure and relief as
they died.

That part was the best. For a
while, the first five or six times she'd killed someone, Cindy had felt elated
for weeks. Scared, too. Not too much, fear not being a big factor for her, but
enough that she'd read up on the topic of how to baffle the police and other
law enforcement. How to make sure that her DNA wasn't left behind. With her it
was mainly about hair, of course. Blood too, if she ever got injured in a
fight. That had happened, a few times. She just wasn't huge. Even killing grown
men with her first move, they'd still fight from time to time. That meant she
had to lie to the people at work about it.

The first time she'd claimed that
it had been a mugger, but that had cramped her style
far
too much.
Wallace from work, the skinny guy with thick glasses and nervous tick in his
cheek, had insisted on walking her to her car every time she worked. Even when
he hadn't been scheduled, the guy had come in just to make sure she was safe.

That got her to shake her head as
she walked.

Cin knew that anyone that had the
story in total would have thought that she'd despise him for being what he was.
Nerdy, geeky, and clumsy enough that some of the women they worked with had teased
him about it. Not in a nice way either.

She knew better than to think of
him poorly, however. He was the hardest worker they had at the library, and
while he did want her to have sex with him, he
also
kind of wanted her
to date him, at the same time. It wasn't just about getting into her pants, or
anything nearly that crass.

It did flash over his head when
they met, almost every time, but a lot of men did things like that. Most
without more than a nod to her being a person. Wallace actually
liked
her. Several of the other women, and customers, were desired at the same time,
but it was both harmless and cute enough for Cin not to be rude about.