Horror novel - I'm rewriting this one...

Horror novel - I'm rewriting this one...
Here are the first two sections...if anyone wants to comment, I'd thank you kindly. Please ignore any formatting glitches - I fear some italics were lost in the transfer. I'm just looking for thoughts on the story. Oh, one more note - nothing erotic here, but lots of blood. If you're squeamish, please don't read. I won't be offended. D.R. --- -- 1:30PM -- The temperature outside was slightly warm for this time of the season, yet it was still a pleasant fall afternoon, and a light breeze blew gently across the small town’s bustling main drag. The wind intensified for a couple of seconds, sending the businessman’s tie whipping around his neck. The businessman took no notice of this distraction (he had more important things on his mind) and continued hurrying toward the hotel on the corner. He carried a bag over his shoulder, the type that looked like it might carry a laptop computer. It was black leather, costing nearly as much as the contents inside. He was running late for his lunch meeting, and his appointment would be very upset if he was late. Of course, so would my wife, if she knew the appointment I was late for, the man thought, with more than a little guilt. Still, he was excited in spite of himself. The fingers of his left hand unconsciously spun his wedding ring, and without a second thought he slid it off his finger and dropped it into his jacket pocket, where it landed with a soft thump next to a discarded gum wrapper from three weeks prior. This particular businessman was headed for a lunchtime rendezvous with a woman he met at the convention he attended a few weeks ago. His name was James Benton, and he was one of the top salesmen for Eastern Techtronics, one of the fas-*test*-('")-growing computer companies in Ohio. He had worked for them for a number of years, and typically enjoyed his job -- especially the added perks that came with it, such as today’s lunchtime meeting. Eastern Techtronics (E-Tech for short) started as a small business in California but when the dot-com bubble burst, the company relocated to Patton, Ohio. The official company line was that the move would save on overhead costs and enable E-Tech to retain most of its core sales force. James thought it might have a lot more to do with the small-town atmosphere -- Patton only had a few thousand residents -- and it was much easier to defend against corporate espionage when you didn’t have any other competition for a few hundred miles. Yep, James thought, it’s easier for me to sell computers without so much competition around, too. He began to whistle, the sound carrying on the light breeze. As a computer salesman for E-Tech, he traveled quite frequently. It was at the most recent convention -- the one where he unveiled Eastern Techtronics’s la-*test*-('") laptop computer design (it only weighed in at a meager three pounds, the lowest weight for any notebook computer with a seventeen-inch viewable screen) -- that he met Jacqueline, the most stunning woman he’d ever seen in his life. Tall, tanned, and with long flowing golden hair, she was a good-looking woman. In fact, she might be the most beautiful woman anywhere, at least in James’s opinion. The sex was incredible, too; she could do things to him that his wife couldn’t even think about, let alone try. He’d been with his wife a long time -- eleven years in December -- but things between them had soured years ago. He’d tried to stay faithful, but then, while on his third conference trip for E-Tech, he slept with a rival saleswoman. After the first time, it became much easier for him to cheat on his wife; his conscience didn’t even bother to try to stop him anymore. There was no chance his wife would ever find out either, so that was one less problem to worry about, as far as he was concerned. He’d never leave his wife -- he’d worked far too hard to be forced to give her half of his money -- but just because he was married, it didn’t mean he couldn’t solve the problem of a boring, loveless marriage without a messy divorce. After all, what was a salesman without the ability to think around corners, to solve problems? It was his lover’s hair he was thinking about when a man in a gray shirt bumped into James, causing him to fall to one knee and drop the bag containing his notebook computer (and his cologne, a pair of handcuffs, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a few other goodies). The sound of his wedding ring escaping his pocket and bouncing on the sidewalk caused him to freeze for a second, but then something much more important stole his interest. Like a slow-motion replay, James saw the screen of his laptop seem to swell, then a jagged gash ripped across the screen and plastic keyboard parts were bouncing along the sidewalk and into the street. As he tripped, he felt a sharp prick in the small of his back, but that pain was quickly overshadowed by the howling agony radiating from his knees and hands. Cursing, he turned to see who had bumped into him, ready to give the idiot a piece of his mind. “Hey, watch it, man,” he said as he gathered his things from where they were scattered onto the ground. “Why don’t you watch where you...” He looked up and realized that the guy that had bumped into him had not even slowed down, let alone stopped to consider helping. The nerve of some people -- guess there’s more of the big city here than I thought after all, he said to himself as he collected the last of his gear. Standing up, James looked at the man who had bumped into him, deciding whether he should go after the jerk. Before he thought about it too long, though, he realized that his back was really starting to hurt. The man that had bumped and jabbed him walked away as if he had no idea that anything had happened. He was dressed in black pants and wore a dark gray polo shirt. As he walked, the man pulled a small handheld device from his pocket and looked at it, then began to tap on it with his finger. The man in gray continued walking until he was twenty or so feet from James, then turned to look right at him, casually leaning against the side of the Swifton Hotel, the very place James had been headed to meet his lovely Jacqueline. When he saw the man stop and look at him, anger replaced the confusion mounting in James’s mind. James started to run to where the man was standing, to confront the idiot who had bumped him, knocked his bag to the ground, and ruined his expensive laptop. And why did he stop to watch? He could have helped me; he saw what happened -- why else would he turn and look at me? He didn’t even stop typing on that PDA. Does he think this is funny, or is he just that rude? James was completely taken aback at either the level of audacity or the level of discourtesy the man in gray displayed. After he took a few steps toward the man in gray, a sharp pain in his chest caused James to collapse to the ground. He fell face down, making no effort to break his fall. Someone ran over and rolled him onto his back -- they were talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. He tried to sit up, to move his hands, to move anything -- but he was unable to move. He was paralyzed. As he lay on the ground, trying desperately to draw just one simple, necessary breath, he had time for one more thought as people began to crowd around him; what the hell is happening to me? Then he died. -- 1:35PM -- Within a couple moments, a small crowd of curious onlookers gathered around the collapsed businessman. A few people had seen him fall, but nobody saw the man in gray that had bumped him, or the way the man in gray had jabbed him with the five-inch needle. Everyone assumed the man on the ground was just another high-strung business type that had filled his years with fast food, stress, and hard living. The man in the dark gray shirt and black pants leaned against the cold brick wall of the hotel, observing the concerned crowd. He knew he couldn’t linger for very long, assuming the toxin worked as it was supposed to, but he had to make sure it did work before he left the scene. They had -*test*-('")ed the toxin on a few subjects -- mostly homeless people whom the group had taken in, promising them food and a comfortable place to sleep -- but the toxin had not been -*test*-('")ed in a real, live area. Only controlled laboratory environments; at least until now. The man in gray stared at the businessman’s silent, prone body, and finally noticed what he was looking for; a small slash of movement from the man’s foot. The man in gray quickly noted the elapsed time, from stick of the needle to the first twitch of the man’s foot, and entered this data into his device. The businessman had collapsed just thirty seconds ago, and the crowd around him partially obscured his view of the body, but the man in gray thought he saw a little more movement in the businessman’s right foot. There was an audible gasp from the crowd, and someone shouted, “He’s still alive! Someone call an ambulance!” The businessman’s heel began to tap on the ground, slowly twitching at first, then picking up speed. Within seconds, his entire right leg was quivering and shaking. The crowd’s silent contemplation of the man’s apparent death changed into a murmuring sense of uneasy optimism. Someone in the crowd shouted that he was convulsing, still others shouted that he was going to be okay, to get back, and to give him some air. A man who had knelt next to him and attempted CPR yelled that he was dead -- that he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. The man in gray could hear one woman screaming over and over for someone to call an ambulance, the paramedics, the cops, the fire department, anyone. The man in gray tapped a few more notes into the small device he carried in his hand. He looked up and continued watching the whole scene, fascinated by the reactions of the people around the downed businessman. Finally, after a few more seconds of mild chaos, the man in gray witnessed the event he had been waiting for. In one swift, mechanical motion, the businessman sat up. He turned his head and fixed a blank stare on the man taking his pulse. The crowd stood silent, unsure what to think. A few sighed with relief, and the woman who had been screaming for the ambulance gasped. The thing that had once been James Benton, star computer salesman, turned to the man that had been vainly attempting CPR and ripped his throat out with its teeth. The bitten man fell backward, clutching helplessly at his torn, bleeding throat. Choking, wet burbling sounds spilled from him as blood flowed from beneath his clenched hands. The crowd’s feeling of relief was replaced instantly by an overwhelming and immediate horror. The former computer salesman had managed to stagger to a standing position again. He lunged at another person, the woman who had been screaming for the ambulance. He clawed and tore at her face, then knocked her to the ground. As the crowd watched, still too stunned at these sudden developments to react, the ghoul that had once been known as James tore out the woman’s throat, too, then plunged its hands into her lower abdomen. Tearing, ripping, pulling at her flesh, the James-corpse was finally successful in ripping her belly open, and it plunged its bloody, gore-flecked hands into her in-*test*-('")ines. Pulling a long strand out, it began to eat, squeezing bile from the woman’s entrails as it chewed thoughtfully. A few bystanders began to scream hysterically, and the remaining people began to panic as well. The man who had tried to save the salesman was lying on the ground, having died almost instantly due to the wounds suffered from the vicious attack. The geyser of blood pumping from his savaged throat had quit, and the man lay on the ground, covered in so much blood that it was impossible to tell the color of his shirt. Nobody had tried to help him -- it had all happened so fast -- but unlike the businessman, everyone was certain that he was dead. When that dead man opened his eyes and sat up, covered in his own blood, the small crowd that had gathered finally lost the last remaining shreds of its nerve and began to scatter. The man in gray watched all of this with casual detachment, much as one would view a painting in an art gallery. He tapped a few final notes into the small handheld device he carried. When he saw the second victim sit up, he decided he had seen enough. The plan looked to be a success; now it was up to the others to prevent the problem from spreading. Still, at least for him, it was time to get out of the city while the getting was good. He turned around and walked down the alleyway next to the hotel, picking up his bag that he’d stashed behind a trashcan in the alley. It would be best if he didn’t dally too long in the city; things were apt to get quite messy, and he really wanted to be ahead of the carnage. The -*test*-('") of the toxin had been a success. It had been quite a horrible sight (although it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it), but the man in gray knew something else -- something even worse. Mark, you’ve started something in motion, he thought to himself, with more than a little pride. If this works, we’ll all be rich, and we’ll have everyone at our mercy. Nations will be forced to submit to us without us ever having to fire a shot or risk a single soldier. It will be a new era of war...a safer one. Think of the possibilities. And to think about what else these creatures could be used for! This was only the beginning.

More...
My only major fear right now is that the story's going to be about 320 pages, but I don't introduce the main (real) heroes until 46 pages in, and then a few after that. However, I do introduce a lot of the villians first, and they play important roles as well... I'm still trying to decide if I need to bring my heroes in earlier or if I can get away with it where it is currently. I'm trying to give the sense that really, nobody is expected to survive this ordeal - that way, it makes the heroes seem extra-lucky, for lack of a better word. I'm hoping the reader will really pull for them after seeing so many \\"false starts\\". I guess I'm just going for something different here - sort of a third-person account of a disaster. Anyway, here's the next three parts. ---- -- 1:40PM -- Chaos spread rapidly through the city. As the people at the scene of the incident scattered, few managed to escape to safety. Fewer still managed to escape totally unharmed. Taylor Smith watched James Benton die, but even though she witnessed his resurrection and savage attack on the man trying to save his life, she did not understand the danger she was in until it was too late. As the second man lay dying on the ground, blood leaking from his throat and pooling on the pavement, she had tried to help him, to get him to his feet; it was just her natural instinct to try to save him. When she tried to lift him, he went completely limp and expelled a final gasp of air and blood. She cried out in frustration and disgust as he sprayed quite a bit of blood in her face, and she let him drop to the ground. She wiped at her eyes to clear the blood away, and failed to see that the man who had just died was sitting up again. He reached for her, and she jumped as his fingers touched her arm. She looked and saw the ghastly grin of his death-face, and began to scream, the sound bursting free before she could stop herself. Terrified, she tried to push him away, but he bit her on the arm. Blood spurted from the fresh wound -- her blood -- and she screamed again, louder this time. The creature bit her again, this time on the shoulder, and Taylor shrieked as a searing pain flared through her shoulder. Nobody seemed to notice; everyone else had their own safety interests in mind at the moment. Terrified, the last shreds of her courage broke and she sprinted for the only safe place she could think to go -- her boyfriend’s apartment. Jeff would know what to do. Jeff lived in a small complex near the edge of downtown, and Taylor arrived at his doorstep in just a few short minutes. When he opened the door, she staggered into his arms. Her clothes were covered in blood. Blood -- some drying to a tacky, sticky reddish patch, some still fresh and bright -- was splashed in her hair and streaked on her clothes. Jeff gawked for a moment, then pulled Taylor inside and began to pepper her with rapid-fire questions. After a few moments of incoherent shrieking, gasping for air and unintelligible rambling, Taylor calmed down. Jeff had started to call the police, but Taylor stopped him; her wounds didn’t hurt so much anymore. As she explained everything she could remember about the attacks, Jeff started a hot shower for her and helped her into the stall. Pulling the heavy, smoked glass doors shut, he stood next to the shower and listened to her continuing story about the attacks, and how she had been bitten by the wounded man. A couple of times, she blanked and forgot what she was talking about, but James figured she was just overstressed. When she had finished her shower, he helped her dry off, then took her into the bedroom. He saw that the bite marks on her arm and shoulder were clean -- the blood had been washed away by the shower -- but they were emitting a foul-smelling yellow-green, oozing pus. Fearing an infection of some kind (could that guy have had rabies or something?), Jeff poured some peroxide into a washcloth and pressed the cloth against Taylor’s arm. She screamed at the fresh burst of pain and began to cry. Jeff sat with her and tried his best to calm her down. Soon her tears slowed, then stopped as she fell into a deep sleep. Jeff covered her up and went into the living room to call the police and report the attack; regardless of whether Taylor wanted to report the attack or not, Jeff felt like the police needed to know that there was some crazy out there biting people. Jeff dialed the telephone and waited for the answer. No sound came from the bedroom. Jeff twisted the telephone cord around his fingers, waiting for someone to answer. -- 1:57PM -- “Hello, Patton Police Department, Tanya speaking, what’s your emergency?” The receptionist’s voice carried an impatient, don’t mess with me tone, and Jeff paused, momentarily taken aback. What’s her problem? “Yes, my name’s Jeff Gaston.” He was suddenly very nervous -- he hadn’t heard a sound out of the bedroom since he laid Taylor down, and she was usually a fitful, noisy sleeper. He craned his neck, peering into the bedroom, but Taylor was right where he’d left her, lying perfectly still under the covers. His voice trembled a little as he searched for the words. “My girlfriend was just bitten by some lunatic in the street, right in front of that hotel, you know, the fancy new one...I can’t remember the name of it...” “Calm down please, sir,” the dispatcher said. “Is she okay? Does she need an ambulance?” “I...I don’t think so. Maybe -- I don’t know why, but she said the guy bit her -- that is, umm, I think she’s probably okay. I just wanted to make a report,” Jeff replied, turning his gaze from the bedroom to stare at the phone. For some reason, looking at Taylor in bed like that, unmoving and silent, gave him the creeps. He was confused; why would someone bite Taylor hard enough to break the skin? If you’re going to attack someone -- who bites? And what was that stuff on her arm? Jeff was startled out of his thoughts by a noise behind him. Taylor stood in the doorway -- completely nude, just as he had left her -- a blank, vacant look in her eyes. She normally looked beautiful without her clothes, but there was something about that look -- Jeff felt a cold chill trickle down from his neck to the base of his spine, like a worm crawling through his back. Taylor just stood there for a moment, staring at him with that frozen gaze, then began to walk toward Jeff, staggering unsteadily. Jeff didn’t notice her limp; he was just glad to see she was out of bed. Why am I getting creeped out? She’s my girl -- she’s beautiful. He blinked, hard, and reality settled back in. His girl had just been attacked by some idiot on the street, and obviously she’d heard him speaking to the police and had changed her mind about declining to file a report. “She’s here now -- maybe she can tell you what happened. Honey, want to tell the police what...” The police dispatcher heard a low moaning sound, then a masculine scream that dissolved into a liquid gurgle. There were a series of rustling noises, then the unmistakable thud; the sound of a phone landing on a carpeted floor. The dispatcher repeated Mark’s name into the phone a few times, then decided it must have been a prank call after all. Stupid teenagers, she thought to herself as she reached to disconnect the call. Just before she hung up, Tanya heard something else. Chewing sounds, coming from the phone. Now fully convinced that this was yet another stupid prank, Tanya disconnected the line. “Damn kids and their jokes,” she said to nobody in particular as she stood up and walked toward the kitchen to get another cup of coffee. She’d been getting quite a few strange calls over the last few minutes, all from nutjobs claiming that people were coming back from the dead and eating each other, or screaming incoherently into the phone; stuff like that. People can come up with better pranks than this, Tanya thought as she poured her coffee. Must be the summer heat -- it’s got the kids ready for mischief. Still, Tonya was a little disconcerted by the calls. Just a little. -- 2:01PM -- Down the road a bit, at the local BP station -- the only gas station in the whole of downtown, for that matter -- Phil Dawson sat behind the register of his small convenience mart, reading the newspaper and thinking poisonous thoughts about his help staff. Stupid kid, always calling off, he thought as he pondered why he was sitting behind the cash register when he could be at home balancing the books, or watching television. Even though his was the only station in downtown Patton, and busy enough to support a good-sized staff, Phil had hired only two full-time people, Rich Flanagan and his good-for-nothing friend, Thomas Markonsen. Customers frequently complained about Thomas -- that boy, always screwing around in here during work hours, Phil mused bitterly -- but Thomas was the employee of the year compared to Rich. At least Thomas didn’t call off twice a week as Rich was apt to do. Thomas had asked for the day off because of a terrible head cold (probably a fuckin’ hangover, like as not), and Phil had allowed it, mainly because he had also scheduled Rich to work today as well. And of course, Rich hadn’t shown up. Rich occasionally had the courtesy to call, but he usually didn’t warn Phil ahead of time when he intended to miss work. It looked like he was going to no-call, no-show again. At least he works cheap, Phil thought. Worse yet, because he had scheduled both full-time boys in today, Phil hadn’t bothered to schedule any of the worthless part-time slackers, either, so he was stuck behind the register instead of relaxing at home like he wanted. Annoyed, Phil grunted and went back to the newspaper. When the door opened, the little bell over the doorjamb rang, and Phil looked up from his reading. It was just another student, looking at the rows of snacks and worthless highway trinkets, probably just trying to get up the nerve to steal something. They all just like to steal -- can’t wait for school to start up again, get rid of all the little bastards. A mean smile grew on his face, making him look even uglier than the fifty-odd years of anger and frustration he’d lived through so far had managed. The young man placed a couple of candy bars and a car magazine on the countertop, then tossed a couple of wadded-up bills on top of the magazine. Phil took the money, counted it carefully, then opened the register and gave the kid his change. With a final, disapproving look toward the young man, he went back to reading his paper. Maybe now I’ll get a break. The bell over the door went off again moments later, and Phil looked up from his paper, the annoyance now crystal-clear on his face. I’m never going to finish the fucking funnies, he thought to himself, not if these fucking customers keep coming in here. He looked up and saw a figure disappearing behind a row of shelves, but he could tell from the figure’s height that it wasn’t another one of those stupid students. Confident that grown adults weren’t interested in stealing from him (he saved most of his prejudices for the young) Phil quickly forgot about the customer and went back to reading the comics. The bell didn’t ring any more for a few minutes. As he finished the last comic on the page, a strange thought suddenly occurred to him; he hadn’t heard the tall guy leave yet. He folded his paper and walked toward the restroom area, to check if the guy was inside. Not like anyone would want to spend much time in there, since he hadn’t cleaned the restrooms today. Or the day before. When was the last time? As he walked past the candy aisle, he smelled something terrible -- like spoiled meat. Has the freezer broken down again? I just fixed that fuckin’ thing last week. Son of a bitch, if it’s busted again... The thought rose in his head, then flew away like a bird that had been startled from its perch. As Phil turned the corner and looked toward the aisle that held the ice cream, chicken, and other ‘forgot to buy’ items that he sold, he came face-to-face with the missing customer. It was a tall man, covered with dark brownish-red stains all over his shirt, and even around his mouth. Why’s he covered in mud -- I hope that fucker didn’t get it all over the bathroom, Phil thought, his anger rising. He started to yell at the guy, but took a second glance and let his jaw snap shut. Has he been eating it, too? After a long moment, Phil realized that it wasn’t mud on the man’s shirt, but blood. Lots of dried, tacky blood. The customer stared blankly at Phil for a long second, and Phil stared back into the eyes of the dead man, not quite sure what he was seeing. The dead man just stood there, and then his gaze fell on Phil and the man jerked, as if it was noticing him for the first time. With savage speed, the dead man fell upon the owner of the gas station and ripped his throat out. Phil fell backwards from the force of the attack, smashing his head on the metal shelf behind him and mercifully knocking him unconscious. The walking corpse dropped down next to the gas station owner, disemboweled him, and began to eat. Moments later, the dead owner of the gas station stood up and pushed the other corpse away. Phil’s blank eyes turned and scanned for other signs of life in the store. There were none. The two corpses waited in the cool air of the shop together, quietly swaying in place, waiting to hear the bell over the door signaling the entry of another victim. After a few minutes of waiting, the Phil-corpse shuffled toward the front door. Instead of his usual obsession with money, a new thought consumed what was left of his mind. Hungry.

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