Journal of Corporal Thomas Mews

May 7th, 1942
About 22:00 Hours
Salerno, Italy

	Okay, I'm Tom... Great start, analysts will be pecking at this when I get done, so I'm gonna say screw it and just write what happened, ain't no use in putting it in military format for them to get their jollies.

	I had all this already written out when we first landed, but after getting infected, they rushed me to the quarantine and later informed me that they've burned and sanitized everything in and around my bunk, so I guess I'm gonna have to write down what happened again.

	So, according to all the papers back home, The Nazis had come up with some sort of super weapon that's been making the civilians and soldiers on all sides incredibly sick, though the papers never specified the symptoms of this infection. Whether this is from a lack of knowledge or by government order, I do not know, and I sincerely doubt that it matters either way now. The damage is done and we've lost hundreds of strong, young men to this ghastly illness. I should prolly get on with my recollection of events. Sorry about that, Analyst.

	This happened six days ago, on the first of May, when the United States Army Rangers landed in Salerno, Italy, to assist the Brits after they requested aid and additional troops to help "Quell the panic in the streets, hunt for Nazi spies, and help care for those infected by the weapon."

	At the time of landing, I was just a Private, and like I said before, we were NOT prepared for what kind of hell we were being pushed into. When we first arrived, there was a group of British paratroopers holding off the infected with a pair of Bren guns. By the time I'd set boots on the brickwork of the street, they'd managed to overheat two barrels and emptied several of those massive top loaded magazines. Our boys got in there and helped put down some fire while the crews set up another pair of Browning .30s. This was my first encounter with the infected. It honestly horrified me and most of the other Rangers. These looked like animals, running on two or four legs, all kinds of beasts, real and fictional, sprinting in our direction, jaws wide and drooling like some sort of scene from a horror novel. The worst part was that the majority of these beasts were still at least partially clothed in the uniforms of their former affiliation; even a few British paratroopers were mixed in with the crowd. A major problem was that sometimes getting hit with a bullet didn't slow some of the infected down and they'd get significantly farther than the rest. One even managed to break through and maul one of the mag loaders for the Bren. It got a big chunk of his shoulder, but our fellas managed to unload a trio of grease guns into the thing before it could finish him off.... Then his mag loading partner did the job for him and splattered the crying man's brains on the brickwork of the street. 

	It took quite a bit to calm us down after seeing that, and one of the officers tried to have the man arrested, but one of the arriving British commandos managed to pull him aside and tell him why it was required. Later that day, a few of the officers called together anyone not on guard duty.... The attacking infected had slowed drastically and shrunk in number by far, by this time. I was in the second group to meet with the officers, and watching the pale faces of the first meeting group exiting the command tent was truly unsettling. Though what came next was even more unsettling. According to our commanding officers and a few of the British troopers, any transfer of fluids, like a bite, blood, or other means insures a complete 100% infection rate, with only 25-30% chance of retaining any kind of sanity after "The Change", too much of a risk to let someone turn fully during a full-fledged attack. Thus why the paratrooper executed his friend.

	That was the first. The next day, Corporal Smith gathered me and ten other men together as a squad to help secure a bit more of the town, since the infected had seemed to have retreated for the most part. So, we were going to work with another squad and start at the far edge of town to drive any stragglers towards the heavy guns. It went pretty smoothly for the first few hours. We only ran into four or five, holed up in buildings, sometimes eating or fucking each other, but it was fairly easy to just open fire and light the building up once we were sure it was clear. Then the radio man hollered for us, apparently the second squad had uncovered an old munitions tunnel that went underground all the way to the next town over. Of course, the first men to head in to investigate were no longer responding and from the noises, the other radio man thought that there were a LOT more infected inside. So, we were supposed to come and regroup with them and a third squad to try and clear out the tunnels.

	Each of us was handed an extra magazine for our sidearms and an additional full load for our long gun. At the time, I had the standard Garand, as did the majority of the Rangers around me, there were some grease guns scattered throughout, and the buildings on either side of the street by the tunnel entrance had a BAR set up on a bipod a gunner and two magazine loaders. Then, in one of the taller buildings down the road, there was a Brit with an Enfield with a scope mounted on it. We were all ready at positions when the attack began. It was a bit unexpected, just a mass of bodies, snapping at each other as they tried to be the first out for their meal. The first few that made it out were rather quickly dispatched by our guns, but more and more just kept pouring out. After nearly an hour of the same continuous fighting, IT arrived. 

	By IT, I'm referring to the group of German and Italian soldier infected. They seemed to have retained their minds, and the other infected were just pouring around them, rather than tearing them to shreds. Once we spotted them, we made them the main target. The machine gunners were still mowing down the infected waves, but in the middle of the road, we really didn't have any cover, like the others did, and when the sane infected began firing, a good deal of us ended up getting wounded or killed then and there, the rest of us scattered to try and take cover. Without the main group firing into the infected the advance quickly turned in their favor. The last thing I remember is a brown cat man tackling me and claws ripping into my chest.

	When I finally woke up, it was just after sunset, the tunnel was empty, and everything was quiet. I could see perfectly though... and I found myself infected and fully turned. Apparently, according to the nurse, I'm adorable and remind her of her mom's barn cat... Great confidence booster. Oh, nurse happened last night, sorry, just popped into my head. Anyway, I'm about a foot shorter than I was and... Well... I'm an orange tabby tomcat... Is this infection a joke or something? I'm supposed to live life as a cat man... named Tom Mews... That's two jokes... I want to make it clear to the Analyst reading this... I was having a serious mental breakdown at the time... Hell, I might still be having one; I'm just not really up to writing about it in detail to a total stranger. You know? 

	But anyway, I had to sit and do all the inspections and think back and remember what was going on, why everything was totally ruined and where I was. All the whoo ha like that. Then, I don't know, but I kinda just went into a sort of trance or one of those automatons from the picture shows. I stood up, strapped my rifle on, and started checking the bodies. Out of the thirty six squad infantry, I found sixteen, eleven of whom had passed on from their injuries. Four of the five living were unconscious when I dragged them into the cover of the right machine gunner’s building. The fifth miraculously was Corporal Smith, with only a broken nose from getting knocked down. He awoke the second I began dragging him and started to yell upon seeing my new complexion. It took quite a bit of effort to hold him down, with my hand over his mouth before he quieted down and I was able to get him to listen to me. He still looked at me like I was a rabid dog, about to tear out his throat or something, but I was able to get him to help me check the other survivors as well as look for our radioman and check for any weapons our fallen brothers had left behind. I could only find one radioman in the dead, the others must have retreated or joined the swarm of infected, but we were able to find a few guns in the street, and a few in the buildings, though those were empty or broken. The BARs were empty and the barrels were warped from excessive use, so there really wasn't much point in grabbing those. Among the weapons from the street, there was a dinged up MP28, with half a magazine, so at least our guys managed to get one of the smart ones.

	I had to sit back when one of the other wounded finally woke up. Had to let Smith tell him what happened, and once again, I got daggers stared right into my soul. Both of them kept an eye on me at all times, like I was a bomb that was gonna explode at any moment and kill them all. With the new guy, Jackson, We were able to get two more back to consciousness. I made the mistake of being the first face Private Wriggly saw when his eyes opened and ended up with a black eye from a right hook. Williams was a lot easier, he just sorta looked at me, reached out a hand and tried to pet me... I have no idea if he's gotten better, but for the time I was with him, he was not fully there at all.

	 We finally had enough people to do a bit more exploration, search for any other survivors not in the immediate vicinity. It didn't take long to hear the snarls and growls coming from the third building, and as we approached, the sounds of scratching and banging on wood became audible. The closer we got, the louder they became, just a bit quieter than the monsters, we could pick up soft sobbing sounds as well. We took a bit of time to get into the building, from there it was weapons up and clearing room by room until we came to the stairs and spotted the source of the noise. It was coming from four infected trying desperately to tear their way through the door to the upstairs bedroom, where the British marksman had been posted. It was fairly dark, but I could tell that at least one of the infected was a Ranger from his tattered uniform, but unlike me, he was completely off his nut.

	We had to get them away from the door, so we could fire without shooting through the wood and possibly killing the person we were trying to save. So, Smith had me break the window down the hall to get their attention, then when they came sprinting, Smith and Wriggly fired their greaseguns from either side of the hall, from side bedroom doorways, catching the infected in the crossfire and ending their torment in a bloody pile. I was careful when stepping around them, the other two changed out their half empty magazines for full ones and then we headed upstairs to the door. When we got there, Smith gave a slow tapping knock and asked if anyone was alive inside and if they were alright. What we got in return was a sob and the voice of the Brit telling us that it was a trick and if he opened the door, we'd get him or something. I honestly can't blame him, He'd probably been locked in there by himself for hours after seeing pretty much all the other soldiers getting murdered or turning into monsters.

	After about ten minutes of convincing and listing off the names and ranks of who all had survived and was currently at the door, it opened. There were at least three startled gasps, one from Smith, one from Wriggly, and one from the marksman, who we later learned was named Cochran. He'd been infected, like me, and like me, he'd come out of it with his mind intact... Though he kept his height at least. Maybe even gained an inch or two. But now he was a German shepherd man... And of course, the guns came out and everyone ended up pointing at each other. It took a few minutes of scolding, but I managed to get Smith and Wriggly to lower theirs, then I had to convince Cochran that I wasn't going to try to eat him or something. We had to hand over one of the grease guns, and a mag of ammunition for him, since his Enfield was empty. One of the problems with having different ammo types, none of the bullets we had were a British .303. He still slung his rifle over his shoulder to take with him.

	By the time we got back to the other injured, another had woken up and was attempting to fix one of the radios, without much success. I don't think I ever got his name, but he looked at me and Cochran the same way the others did to start... Though I believe they had started to trust me just a tiny bit more. After the explanations, we started talking about regrouping with our main force, see how well they fared and such. The sun had already begun to come up while we were trying to figure out the German "sane" infected not getting torn apart by the regular infected and I don't think I've ever gotten an answer about that.

	So, after all the preparing and scrounging for any ammo or guns that we might have missed, we left two men with the remaining injured and headed off towards the shore, where we'd first landed. It actually took quite a bit of time to reach our landing point, but by the time we arrived, there was very little left. Even the infected had mostly moved on. There were still a few stragglers, banging on doors, eating the dead, or fighting amongst themselves. We made sure to remove them as a threat while they were distracted. It didn't look as though there were any survivors left this time. It was as if the infected had stayed behind long enough to make absolutely sure that every soldier, doctor, and nurse was either dead or infected. There was even a wall, where the Nazi infected had lined up the few sane American infected and simply executed them. They didn't leave them for the regular monsters, like they had for me and Cochran.

	It took about an hour and a half to fully check for infected still hiding about the encampment, but it was obvious that the main force had moved on to another town or something, the only thing we really knew is that they weren't here anymore. With the general area secured, we finally got to take a look out to the open waters, where two of our warships were still sitting, a third still slowly sinking into the depths, engulfed in flames and full of holes from the cannons of the other two ships... Well, anyway, we had to start digging and setting up the fallen tents and such. In a tiny bit of luck, the radio was still functional and after about fifteen minutes, Smith had it tuned in to the American warship and we were able to make contact.

	Smith informed them of our status and the status of the others at the landing site and field base, though they had figured as much from the lack of soldiers retreating. Though one landing craft of surviving soldiers had retreated to the now submerged ship, one of them had been infected and turned on board, rapidly overtaking the mostly unarmed crew and forcing the others to sink the vessel. On a brighter note, Smith introduced me as Private First Class Mews, so apparently I received a small battlefield promotion. Not much, but at least it's something. Cochran and I were to be put into quarantine at least an hour before the fresh faced landing party reinforced us. So, I managed to catch a few hours of sleep in my cot from when we first arrived, then moved to one of the few intact buildings remaining around the base of operations and waited for orders.

	It took them a few damned to actually come check on Cochran and I, other than bringing food and water, and when they did, they brought at least four guards, like we were gonna go rabid and attack them. Hell, they basically treated us like animals, even though we were very clearly answering their questions. When the doctor left, Smith and one of the higher up officers came in, at least Smith had convinced the officer that we weren't lower than scum or just plain prisoners and we each gave a debrief of what occurred. Then I was ordered to write it all down... so here's my first entry...