Joseph M. Chiron Quotes

In the front was a man he knew only as "Samson," a big man that from all appearances was a former juice head gym rat with exquisitely defined muscles, stripped to the waist and carrying a huge nine foot cross hewn from raw timber and held together with nails and twine. Behind him in a rough line were the flagellates: five men also stripped to the waist, holding various chains, heavy corded ropes, and one with what looked like a leather whip from the S&M sex shop. They beat their backs as they slowly walked down the center of the street.

Black vomit came gushing out Samantha's mouth, adding to the puddle already on the floor. Samantha was covered in a sheen of sweat, crouched on all fours on the wooden hallway floor, like an animal. Her thick yellow fingernails made deep scratches in the wood as her body convulsed with each new expulsion of the black vomit. Her hair was long and thick and full; thicker and fuller than he had ever seen it. It reminded him of a lion's mane. Her skin was a sickly pale grey with disturbing red boils the size of grapefruit and weeping puss-filled black blotches where others had burst. Spider webs of blue veins were visible under the skin all over her body.

He first noticed it on the plane ride. There was an odor about her and it was becoming more pronounced with each passing hour. It was like the smell of rotting meat.

Warren could see humans further up the street, that had appeared to be dead, now rising to their feet and swaying drunkenly. One man had a huge chunk of flesh bitten from his face and another from his neck, yet he moved forward even though he appeared to be in enormous pain. Many of the newly changed screamed and contorted their limbs and faces in anguish. They moaned in pain almost continuously.