[ STAGE FOUR : THE OUTLINE ]

"Hey, you blacked out when we got to the top of the stairs."

Sluggishly Martin opened his eyes. It was hard to see the girl in front of him with wild blonde hair that framed her pale angular face. She sat against the wall opposite him. 

"I checked all the rooms, and except for a few boxes downstairs this place is practically empty. Anyway, we can stay here for the night." 

He lifted his hands—well one—the other wouldn't budge. Metal clanked as he shook and tugged, he was shackled to a sink pipe. "What the hell is this?" 

"Look, I couldn't risk you leaving. The cuffs are only temporary." She paused, "How are you not sick? I saw you scavenging those dead bodies...." 

Martin tried to steady his eyes, trying to take in the girl across from him. She didn't look healthy. Her cheekbones jutted out and her eyes, surrounded in dark hues of purple, bulged.

She's sick, he thought. 

Pain erupted in his thigh when he tried to move. He grimaced, dropping his head down, looking to his left leg. Carefully he peeled away the slashed fabric of his jeans, everything was wet and sticky and the copper-like smell of blood was unmistakable. Trembling fingers ventured into the deep valley of the gash. 

"I'm gonna go downstairs and see if I can find anything that'll help your leg, I'll be back."

Unknown time had passed before her figure reappeared.  

"Hey, I was starting to think you were out cold again. Look what I found," she held a liquor bottle up by its neck. "I think it'll do the job. This is the closest thing we've got to surgical and I need to get you fixed up so we can go to the Safe Zone." She knelt down in front of him.

The dying girl believed in fairy tales.

Numbly Martin shook his head. "It doesn't exist." 

"Did you forget we're living in a perpetual hell? Seriously, you should be dead and I've been thinking, if there's a chance that your blood, for whatever reason, has a cure..." she tied an old rag above the wound, creating a tourniquet. "Then the rest of us might have a chance. They'll make a vaccine. They'll make a pill. They'll do something." 

Martin bared his teeth, when the girl poured most of the liquor into his gaping wound with no warning. "F—"

"Watch your mouth."

"You're crazy." 

"Crazy for having hope, huh?" 

He wiped at his brows. "How long?"

"What?"

"How long have you been sick?" 

The girl recoiled. "It's just a cold." 

"The longest I've seen last was thirty-six hours. I'd say you're about eighteen in." 

"You don't know what you're talking—" as if on que a coughing fit broke loose. She fumbled a hand over her mouth and brought it away with a look of horror mumbling, "No." 

"Blood? That's how it starts." 

"YOU —you gave this to me!" she shouted, searching beside her for the pistol that wasn't there. A soft click stopped her short. Martin wasn't entirely useless when she had left to search the house.

He swallowed hard. "I'm going to give you mercy. Then, I'm going to bury you and continue on my way." 

"No, there's people that need you. I need you, dammit."

"It's too late for you." Martin had a hardened gaze. He had seen too much death and mercied so many that he had forgotten the number, yet none pleaded like this girl. She still thought she could be saved and he, this stranger, could be her superhero ... but he wasn't a hero today. "I give you mercy." 

BANG. 

It took four hours to bury her. Martin hobbled along with the injured leg that he patched up with what he could find. The woods this far north were dead. Just the sound of his labored breaths accompanied him as he limped aimlessly through the tree line. There was no where to go. A radio dangled in one hand and the pistol with one remaining shot hung in the other. 

Just end it. Here. Now. 

The metal felt hot in his grasp and cut into his hand, finger itching to pull the trigger. He pressed the barrel against his head, wet eyes clenched. 

Crackling. 

The radio hummed to life. 

Static. 

Inaudible chatter. 

Martin dropped the gun and grasped the radio pressing its controls. "Hello?"

"Safe," inaudible chatter "zone, copy?"

Safe Zone? Maybe there was hope for humanity after all. 

WORD COUNT : 748

OUTLINE

CHARACTERS :

Protagonist : Martin Smith, one of the last surviving male humans.

Antagonist : Sister Mary, leader of Red Hand.

Jeb : Sister Mary's son.

Red Hand : Multiple people introduced.

Bomber : Sends radio transmissions.

Blonde Girl : Stranger, never learns name.

INTRODUCTION / WORLD BACKGROUND :

The year is 2301. The world has been decimated by a virus; more carcasses than living bodies can be found. With male population numbers dwindling, humanity itself has been slaughtered. It had been predicted that in such event, women would bring the world peace — how wrong they were.

Everyday is a fight to stay alive. Martin Smith leaves his small hometown and ventures through the locked-down towns of America's heartland. Clinging to the woods for shelter he avoids survivors at all cost, until one fateful run-in proves one thing :

Some thing's are worse than the virus.

INCITING EVENT :

When Martin stumbles across a junkyard where he finds not only food but a running vehicle, it's too good to be true. He is confronted by a small group of armed survivors led by a man named, Jeb. A standoff follows suit over the stolen items and gun fire soon erupts. Martin fatally wounds Jeb.

RISING ACTION :

Jeb later dies from his wounds, sending a fundamentalist militia of ruthless survivors called, Red Hand, to relentlessly hunt Martin.

It is revealed that Jeb was the son of Red Hand's leader, Sister Mary. The Lord speaks to Sister Mary, and tells her that Jeb is still alive and his spirit now resides in Martin's body. They force Martin to convert to a Red Hand, all the while preaching to others that he is Jeb in a new flesh.

An attempt to flee the Red Hand colony only makes matters worse.

Sister Mary will never let her son go again.

Confined in the heart of the small colony people become sick. Babies are stillborn. Women start dying just as the men before them had. And what small number of men that remain alive turn into something that makes Martin ponder the true definition of living.

CLIMAX :

The virus spreads to both genders. It evolves, becoming smarter, even keeping its host alive longer for maximum contamination.

FALLING ACTION :

Injured and isolated in the mountains, wandering North and on the verge of suicide a radio transmission rebirths all hope that the Safe Zone exists.

Blood loss and infection sets in. Martin is on death's door before a small group of supply runners, from Safe Zone itself, finds him. All new comers must submit to a blood test and pass a forty-eight hour quarantine.

Martin's blood results are in and the Safe Zone isn't what it claims.

WORD COUNT : 442