work-in-progress short story, horror/sci-fi

This is a short story I've been working on lately. I gave it to some friends who write, but haven't heard back on any critique. So please read and tell me if you think it's any good, if you'd want to keep reading, what you didn't like, etc.

“What We Shoulda Done”
By Dillon M. F. W.
What we shoulda done is never left our sector.
But we did, and that’s that, we have to live with the consequences now. But in our defense, we didn’t think it could possibly get this bad. This isn’t what we had in mind. Not what I had in mind.
I joined the marines in 1990, and was involved in the Gulf War, a quagmire which many people have now forgotten about. Thankfully, that conflict ended quickly, but the military believed we would have to fight the Iraqis again eventually. So, okay, I was trained to help build weapons. Biological weapons.
Those people have some fucked-up shit on them now, man.

In Which the Weapon is Misused​

Col. Sturgess lit a cigar. He was celebrating. He used a wooden match. Some younger guys used their cigarette lighters, but Col. Sturgess had more class than that. He felt it was important to have standards. He was the type of man who always knew where his shoes were.
The Weapon was similar to Mad Cow Disease, except that it affected humans, was selectively airborne, and did not kill it’s host. It had been engineered by a group of so-called military researchers, mostly the smartest of the marines who survived the gulf war, which was most of them. But this war now… People were dying. It was good that it would all be over soon.
“Colonel.”
And here one was now, a soldier-scientist who had assisted in ending a nation. He probably didn’t even realize what he had accomplished. Or maybe he did. Maybe he got some kind of sick thrill off it. Maybe got off on morbidity. Who am I to judge? Thought the Colonel.
“Yes, officer.”
“Do you think this is right?” The soldier-scientist looked uneasy. He might get off on the death factor, but, at least, he seemed sorry about it.
“I mean, it’s like a nuclear bomb, in a way, don’t you think? It’s like what we did to the Japanese in WWII.”
The Colonel didn’t think. This was completely different. The bombs dropped on Japan in the 1940’s did most of their damage instantly. Sure, the radiation caused some effects later, but mostly it just made people get sick and die. This would have a minimal initial effect, followed by days to months of mayhem. The people would get sick… And then not die, living, barely, decaying, infecting others with a bite. And why were they biting? They’d get hungry eventually, of course. They’d eat whatever was around, just to keep themselves going. Compound that with the random airborne infections, and you had a bunch of fucked-up people that would be damn near impossible to stop without completely blowing them to pieces.
And that’s exactly what they’d do. Once all of Iraq was infected, it would seem necessary, humane, even, to bomb them to bits before they could infect the rest of the world. War over. Problem solved.
“Colonel?”
Oh, shit. Forgot all about him.
“Sorry, kid, I get lost in my head sometimes.”
At thirty-some odd years old, the soldier-scientist was far from a kid. But, he allowed the Colonel to call him kid, because he was the Colonel, damn it, and don’t we all need heroes? However, this man, who had worked his way up from being a jarhead to helping build something which was going to single-handedly end the Iraqi conflict. And now he had somewhere to be.
“Kid, make America proud.”
Soldier-scientist, still not looking very comfortable with this whole business, turned to go back to the control room, and that’s when it happened. Col. Sturgess had seen many grenades in combat, and he would have suggested that the first explosions were roughly equivalent to those of grenades, if the Colonel hadn’t been blown to pieces immediately. His blood sprayed soldier-scientist, who would later burn the lab coat he was wearing for fear of infection.
At first, the Colonel gagged on his blood, but soon enough, he was still. Someone was screaming, then there was a gunshot and it stopped. Men were yelling in Arabic tongues. The girl who had been screaming now moaned quietly, not dead at all, just shot in the eye. Vitrous fluid oozed down her face. Then someone fired again, and the head was sheared off completely, sprayed against the wall behind her.
One of the men is rushing through the control room. A soldier-scientist screams at him
“This is madness! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
But the only response is a burst of fire from an Uzi, the soldier-scientist, who has served his country for more than ten years, dies slumped over a control panel. It is a few seconds after this western civilization is brought to an end.
There was a pause of a few seconds which seemed to stretch for hours. The few still alive who know what is going on experience a horrible moment in which they do not know whether or not the weapon had been deployed.
They then had a worse moment where they realize the worst, most horrible thing that could possibly happen had just happened, and it was all over, everything, it was done. They were all going to die. And these terrorist mother fuckers didn’t realize it yet.

In Which a Terrible Infection Spreads​

“As we had surmised, the initial explosion was not very large, but it’s effects were immediate. Those of us who were close to the bomb began to scream and flail around. It happened to some of the terrorists too. Their eyes turned yellowy and bloodshot and started to weep this yellow shit, and a lot of them fell down. What we shoulda done, from the beginning, is made it so the people stayed down. But we didn’t do that, and that was a big problem.”
The man in the torn lab coat leaned back against the wall. His coat slipped down off one of his shoulders, but he didn’t notice or didn’t care. He had dark circles under his eyes and his face was dirty. A cigarette butt rested in his lap. It had fallen there a few minutes earlier, burning out as the man stared off into space. “I haven’t smoked in ten years,” he’d said, “but one of my less fortunate peers had these, and I need to fucking relax.” He’d then lit the cigarette with one of the alcohol burners.
“It took them a second to get their bearings, and then they were at us. They ran funny. They swung their arms like propellers. They were drooling everywhere, and their spit had blood and bile in it. A lot of them pissed themselves, and shit themselves. One puked all over his shirt.” The man shivered. “I know they’re scary looking now, but they were even more terrifying then. These were people I knew, who I had spent a lot of time with, and now they were insane, homicidal, and losing control of their own bodies. They were still humans then. Fucked-up humans, but humans. That was terrifying.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “We were lucky in one respect. They got at the bodies first, before coming after us.”
He’d told me the back story, but it was difficult to wrap my head around. I realize now I was probably in shock, and this was not without reason, because I had seen the most horrible thing in my life a short time ago.
The man, who had introduced himself as Lieutenant Daniels, had arrived about half an hour ago. I heard him drive in; He was in a military jeep, and it had been shot several times. One of the back tires was completely gone, and there was a loud grinding as the car swerved into the parking lot. The man leapt from the car, turned and threw something. The car’s interior burst into flames immediately. The object he had thrown was a Molotov cocktail. He stripped off his lab coat and threw it into the flames, then began running towards the lab, where I was standing in the doorway, staring at the campus but not believing what I was seeing.
Two of the buildings in my sight were in flames. There were six or seven bodies in front of each, belonging to the people who had decided to jump off the roof. Several more bodies were on the lawn, now more closely resembling skeletons. Near the buildings, the skeletal forms were charred. These were the infected who had ignited in the blaze of the buildings. The unburned bodies were the remains of some of the early infected who had simply rotted and fallen.
I don’t know how I was passed over. I was the only one, as far as I know. Everyone else had either commit suicide or become infected.
“Later on, they just took a couple bites out of their victims. That’s the way the virus was meant to program them, so that they would infect as many people as possible. But they tore the dead apart. It was like a feeding frenzy. I escaped with one of the men who had worked on the virus with me, but he began to develop symptoms. He must have gotten it airborne shortly after the explosion. In any case, I shot him in the head and threw him out the side of the Jeep. He’s probably been eaten by now.” He paused, looking thoughtful.

 

“Anyway, this is where the military sent me to learn how to build death. It was the only place I knew of nearby. Do you think you’re the only survivor?”
“I don’t know,” I said, realizing those three simple words applied to the situation perfectly. “I don’t even know why I survived. But if there are other survivors, it’s not looking too rosy for them now. The other buildings aren’t as sturdy as the lab. This is the building the students supposed to go to during emergencies, because it can withstand a bomb, as long as it’s not too big.”
“All right, I guess it’s just me and you against the world, then, isn’t it?”

In Which a Terrible Infection is Announced to the Nation​

The President of the United States of America stood on a podium which had been draped with an American flag. He’d always thought it was cliché and a bit pompous to give speeches at podiums that were decorated as such, but this thought was driven from his mind by what he actually had to give a speech on. His country, the country he loved, had been turned into a shitty horror movie.
“Citizens of the United-” He paused to clear his throat. “Citizens of the United States, thirty-six hours ago a terrorist act released an extremely dangerous virus from one of this nation’s military laboratories. The terrorists used pipe bombs to destroy the doors and cause a panic. It Is believed that during the confusion, a vial containing the disease was broken, causing the release of one of the most catastrophic infections ever documented.” That was mostly a lie. The President was well aware of the bio-weapon purposes of the virus, and that it had been released from the detonation of an American weapon. In addition, this wasn’t one of the most catastrophic infections, it was the most catastrophic infection. Hell, it was quite possibly the most catastrophic event in American history.
“Infected persons will be easy to spot. Within hours, their bodies begin to decay. They have little control over their own bodies, vocal cords, etc. Their eyes turn first yellow, and then black, and will eventually either sink into the head or fall out as the body decays. If you are bitten by one of the infected, you will become infected yourself.” The crowd gasped, the President grimaced. “The virus is also selectively airborne. If you see an infected person, get away-I repeat, get away. Find a place to hide which is air-tight and does not show light to the outside, such as a bomb shelter or a basement. Try to barricade your hiding place well. If we can prevent further infection, this will pass.” The President didn’t say that it would pass because the sick ones rotted to death. No need to upset his people too much.
A reporter in the front row stood. Normally, they all would, it would turn into a circus, but it seemed even the media scumbags were shocked into silence. “Mr. President, why has the military not intervened and quarantined the infection victims?”
Because half of them are infection victims, and the rest are hiding from their former comrades, thought the President, but he quietly stated “I cannot answer that question at this time. Are there any others?”
There were, but none that anyone wanted to ask.

In Which the Proverbial Shit hits the Propeller of a Plane Which is Traveling Across America​

Following the explosion and the release of the Weapon, those not immediately infected attempted to escape, with varying levels of success. Most of them were halfway down the hall when the infected began to chase them. The ones in back became infected and tried to get the ones in front. Someone began firing a gun, but the decaying disease victims shook off bullets easily.
“In the fucking head, shoot them in the head!” screamed someone, and whoever was shooting followed orders, but it didn’t really help to put a bullet in a brain that damaged, although the mob did slow down to eat the blood and brains of their comrades. All in all, two people escaped, and one was shot and left on the road as the other escapee drove away with all the cool-headedness of a person being chased by his undead co-workers.