Rage (fictional virus)

Rage is a fictional virus appearing in the 2002 film 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle, and in the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. It also appears in the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath.

Symptoms
Upon exposure to Rage, the infected experience violent spasms as the virus rapidly spreads through their body while ruptured capillaries within their eyes result in both their irises and sclera turning blood red. Internal hemorrhaging of the digestive canal leads to the infected vomiting or drooling copious amounts of infected blood and they scream incoherently when attacking. When they attack the non-infected, they sometimes tackle them and vomit infected blood upon them, causing them to became infected. They may also hit and bite their victims to death.

The Rage virus does not directly cause the death of its host, but because the Infected are solely focused on infecting or killing the non-Infected, they do not eat and eventually die of starvation. Since the Infected act with no regard for self-preservation, they will not act to evade mortal danger, such as fire or bullets.

The Infected will disregard each other and only attack those who do not show symptoms of infection. This is similar to the classic Romero-style zombies, who attack only the living. As a plot device, this allows for huge hordes of the Infected to hunt down a few lone survivors, and allows the virus to spread at an exponential rate through any group of people. According to 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, the Infected have a heightened sense of smell that can detect the odors associated with emotions. The Infected smell varied emotion in non-Infected, but they only smell intense rage in each other. This seems to be a matter of the infected recognizing the symptoms of the virus rather than the presence of the virus itself, since Don Harris attacks his wife Alice when he becomes infected, despite the fact that she is a carrier of the virus (see below).

Though not widely covered in the films, it is obvious that at least some Infected retain a measure of intelligence. This is probably due to the fact that they are not re-animated corpses but living people consumed with rage. There are only four cases within the films that prove this: the infected boy in the diner who shouts, "I hate you!" at Jim (however this may simply be the soundtrack for the scene being louder than others, as a number of other Infected attacks have similar cries in the background), and infected soldier Mailer who acts like he is injured and needs help in order to lure Jim close enough to attack. Also, when Jim frees Mailer, Mailer ran into the mansion in an attempt to kill the soldiers instead of trying to kill Jim, though this could have been because Jim was on a wall high above Mailer. When Mailer tried to find a different route through the mansion to find Jim, he instead came upon the soldiers. Also, when the group fled from the Infected in a cab in the underground road tunnel, the Infected stopped giving chase, knowing that they weren't fast enough to catch up.

Don
Don, the main infected character of the second film, appears to retain the most intelligence, or at least the most control over his actions. Examples of this include Don having a flashback of happy memories with his family, Don's ability to use objects as melee weapons, and attacking Tammy, Andy, and Scarlett from the darkness. Also, unlike other Infected, Don showed a sense of self-preservation. He followed the group around, but never attacked, knowing that he would be shot by Doyle. He also hid when District 1 was firebombed, as well as hiding from the chemical gas attack on the city, avoiding death twice.

One other example, though very brief, is how Don moves within the darkness of the subway; he is vaguely detected by the night vision scope on Scarlett's rifle, seen walking cautiously while Scarlett calls out for Tammy and Andy. This contrasts with how those infected with Rage move with frequent bursts of speed accompanied by vocalizations.

It should be noted that Don has been infected by his wife, who was a carrier of the Rage virus, rather than an Infected herself. A direct connection to this fact hasn't been mentioned but should be taken into consideration.

Immunity/Carriers
28 Weeks Later explores the discovery that there are certain people who will not display any symptoms of the virus except for partially red sclera. The film also suggests that a sign of immunity is heterochromia. These people are classified as "asymptomatic carrier". The person will not become uncontrollably violent like other Infected, and retain their normal personality. The person is not immune to the virus, however, just the symptoms, and the person can spread the virus as easily as any other Infected (such as saliva contact) in a manner similar to the real-life case of Typhoid Mary.