“Does your house have a back door?” I asked not having realized that I forgot to get Melissa’s attention before asking the question. I ignored the fact that she didn’t catch what I said and I snatched her hand and pulled her along with me to the backyard of one of her neighbors. The infected gathered behind us but we ran around the back of Melissa’s neighbor’s home and hers. By the time we reached the front of her house, all of the infected lost us and roamed the neighbor’s yard.
The curtains covered the windows and hid anyone inside. There was an untouched SUV on the driveway and that could have meant that someone recently arrived in it. All the other cars in the area were crashed and destroyed. Melissa instinctively took a single key out of her front pocket and scrambled to get the front door open. All the light the sun offered was swallowed by the night sky at this point. All that was left was the light from the moon dimly lighting everything directly under it. Melissa turned the knob and pushed the door open. A small family sat in the living room, huddled around a lantern.
A man with a military haircut, a brunette approximately the same age and a young boy; father, mother and brother respectively. They all turned their heads to face Melissa and me. Her family stood up instantaneously and she ran over to share in a soft squishy moment of hugs and kisses. I shut the door behind me but I didn’t allow myself to relax. I examined the area surrounding me, the windows and doors; to make sure there was no way we could’ve been spotted from the outside.
Melissa and her family were all communicating with sign language and it became clear that my theory of sound was correct. The family managed to stay alive through the silence of their sign language. None of the infected even realized they existed because of how quiet their communication was. This just brought more questions on the infected to mind. Their total lack of rational thought and how their drive was to attack and eat anything they could get their hands on made them more zombie than human. At some point in my dazed thought of zombies and the current zombie apocalypse, Melissa’s mother magically appeared next to me and hugged me. “Thank you for bringing my little girl back in one piece!” She said while she choked the last bit of oxygen left in my lungs after having run and dodged infected for the past few hours.
“It’s fine. I need to get to my family as well. I’m sure that they are waiting for me at home too,” I said brushing off the fact that us being alive at all was a lottery ticket on its own, and having made it all the way to Melissa’s house was nothing short of a miracle.
“We are going to the safety haven in The Hills. They have a school that is being protected by the military. They’ve advised everyone to head there if their homes become unsafe,” Melissa’s father said.
“We came back to wait for you to arrive. I knew you’d be fine.” Melissa’s mother added with a joyful smile on her face. She was ecstatic to have her daughter with her.
The little boy quaked behind his father. Who knew what that kid witnessed happening in the span of the day?
“Come with us!” Melissa said, she walked over to me and took my hand. “You helped me get here alive. The least I can do in return is to make sure you stay alive too.
The offer was a good one and anyone else would have taken it, but I wanted to be sure that my family was safe too. We could find a way to that school once we were regrouped. “I need to find my family first. We can meet up with you at the school.” The words flew out of my mouth involuntarily. I lived only a few blocks away from Melissa. It couldn’t be much more difficult to get to my home than it was to get to hers.
“Are you sure?” Melissa’s father arched his eyebrows, surprised at my response.
“Yes. I’ll have to leave before it gets any worse outside, but I will see all of you at the school for sure!” I shrugged and assured him that I was going my separate way and doing it safely.
I moved to the door and Melissa rushed over to me and gave me a hug, as tightly as her mother did. “Thank you. Be safe,” she said with worry in her cute deaf girl accent.
I pulled her off of me and focused her on my lips. “I’ll see you again when we are both at the school,” I assured her and she smiled.
Melissa’s father vanished into another room for a moment and returned with another lantern also lit. “Take this with you,” he said and handed it to me, “it’ll make things a bit easier out there.”
“Thank you so much!” I said. It was time for me to leave and head to my family. Melissa and her family gathered around the door and watched my leave, with Melissa and her mother waving at me.
The door shut behind me and I was alone. I walked; every step I took echoed louder than the last. I became suspicious of everything around me; every sound I heard, every shadow, all potential infectees ready to jump out at me and have a feast. My senses turned against me. Although having to travel alone created the illusion the trip was longer than it should have been, it was easier to maneuver around any of the infected I came across silently and carefully without an extra person to worry over. After a few minutes of my walk home I realized two things. First, my house was down the street which meant I was nearly there. Second, my mother’s car was gone, they left me behind.
I was understandably surprised that the driveway was empty and it stopped the world for a brief moment. No car meant my mother was gone which also meant my brothers must have left too. The open front door only confirmed this. I went down the street to my empty home. All the lights on the inside were dead like the rest of the town’s power. The front door was open but there was no clear view of the dark insides. The lantern revealed the same disaster found in the apartment that Melissa and I searched for weapons in earlier. Things thrown everywhere, furniture flipped over, broken glass, clothes and appliances all over the floor, the place was an absolute mess.
I walked in through the front door. The mess now looked worse with the change in proximity. It actually looked worse than the apartment did. The mess left behind signaled to both a rush and distress, maybe even some sort of struggle that might have occurred in the house. My first thought was that they were attacked by the infected in the house, but I knew my family and how they have handled earlier stressful situations, it was likely they were just too scared and created this disaster themselves without additional help.
I scanned everything while walking through the house and kept a tight grip on the baseball bat in case something or someone jumped out of nowhere. The living room, the kitchen, the hallway and the staircase, everything was vacant and everything was safe. Next, I searched the bathrooms and made my way to the bedrooms and saved mine for last. My room had the same mess the rest of the house did; this meant my family expected me to be wherever they went. They didn’t abandon me, they thought I abandoned them. They probably went out in search of where I could have been, couldn’t find me and doubled back to pack for me expecting me to be at the school. While I ran all these scenarios through my mind I sat on my bed and realized there was a note on my dresser I nearly missed due to the darkness. It was signed ‘Jason’, my older brother.
The police department came by and they are making us pack and leave town. We are packing some of your things hoping you’ve been evacuated already. We looked for you at the college but couldn’t find you through all the chaos and assumed you’d come back home, but you weren’t here either. We are heading to The Hills high school. It’s been turned into a quarantine zone for all the non-infected. If you are reading this then you are not with us heading there. If you didn’t find your own way yet, the neighbor left his collector’s car in his garage so that you can take it. It isn’t locked or anything and you need to crank it to start. He left with his family and told us to inform you about the car so that you can take it. Take it and meet us at the quarantine. We aren’t sure how to get there but we will be escorted by the police department once we all meet at the town boarder. Find a way to get there. It’s about a full day’s drive if you drive straight through the day. I’ll see you there, dude!
My life might have been saved by my family’s complete attention to detail such as a note with instructions on how to stay alive in the case that I did get left behind which actually turned out to happen. I had to find The Hills which would be no easy task if I didn’t have any knowledge on how to reach it in the first place. I had to locate a road map and build a route out of Springfield that lead to The Hills, as well as a few emergency routes in case some had too many cars blocking the whole road.
I ravaged through the house and made messes unnoticeable because of the mess already present. I couldn’t find a map. My search proved fruitless; there was nothing of use to be found in the house. My only other option was to search the neighbor’s house till I found a map in it. I went outside and walked across the front yard to the neighbor’s house.
The darkness outside wasn’t as much of a concern as locating a map in the dark while inside the neighbor’s home. The garage was closed so I couldn’t ready the car first in case I needed a quick getaway. I was going to have to break into the house and work my way to the garage from the inside to reach the keys. Difficulties excluded, I was glad there was a car behind the garage door in wait for me, but the real mystery was in whether there was a road map or not. Just a guess wouldn’t get me anywhere. On that note, I picked up one of the neighbor’s cobble stone decorative rocks and I flung it through their living room window. Loud crashing sounds surrounded the window instantly; the rock shattered it into a million shards and spread out over the rug on the inside. I walked up to the empty window hole and carefully checked for movement of any sort inside the living room. The sound was sure to attract all the infected in the immediate area over. I boosted myself over the hole where the window was before I shattered it and walked into the darkness.
The lantern’s range was no more than two or three feet. The moonlight shined in through some of the windows, but it wasn’t enough to improve much on what was already visible. I held the baseball bat ready to be swung in one hand and the lantern in the other. I walked as lightly, softly and quietly as I could but sound was unavoidable over wooden floors covered in shards of glass that cracked beneath my shoes with every step I took.
Most of the homes on the street I lived on were laid out the same on the inside and this home was no different. I knew the basic layout of the house and that included where the kitchen, living room and bedrooms would be located. I needed a quick search and a quicker exit from the house before the infected in the area that heard the window break could get to the house. I searched the living room first, but the lack of light did not make anything easier for me.
There was one hallway in the living room which I was sure connected to the kitchen. I walked to the end of the hallway and came to a full halt when something roaming up ahead, but once I stopped it became clear it was all in my head, the sound of my clothes ruffling against each other and my footsteps all added to the ambient sound I heard and interpreted at first as movement in the house. My mind played games with me. I started my slow and steady stride down the hallway again. As I turned into the kitchen, from nowhere, one of the infected ran out to attack me.
The lantern and the bat both hit the floor while I struggled to fight of the infected girl. Thankfully the lantern did not turn off and the kitchen maintained the light of the flame dancing around. The infected girl chomped her teeth at me and reached out to scratch and grab me. Her strong grip eventually took a hold of my right arm. We both fell to the floor. I barely manage to get my right hand around her neck, to prevent her from biting a chunk off of me. The baseball bat rested on the floor directly next to where I struggled with the infected and I needed to reach it somehow, but it was difficult to focus entirely on that when it became apparent the girl overpowered me easily. The girl was half my size with the strength of two full grown men. I kicked aimlessly, nonstop, until the infected girl loosened her grip on my arm and I kicked her into the wall behind her which gave me the chance to get away from her. She gasped from the force she hit the wall with and slid down the wall to the floor. With the opened opportunity I grabbed the baseball bat, dashed over to the girl to beat her over and over until she no longer moved or struggled to get back up. She laid there motionless, in my head I tried to debate whether I just killed a person or if the infected were even people anymore. If they weren’t, I was much more justified to do what I did. I assumed it was over and picked up the lantern to continue my search.
I kept an eye on the infected zombie girl I just beat the crap out of while I searched the kitchen and noticed the back door was open; that explained how the girl entered the house. I should have checked the backdoor. I closed it in case there were more infected outside, ready to come in. I continued to search the kitchen, just like the living room, nothing was of use. Between the hallway and the kitchen there was a staircase that led to the second floor. I went up to search the bedrooms. I stayed up there a little under two minutes to miss nothing in any room, one by one I found nothing, empty dressers, closets and end tables. I was screwed. All that was left now was for me to guess my way to The Hills in a crank car.
I finished my search of the rooms and made my way to the stairs. Precisely at the same time that I touched the first stair I heard repeated banging in quick succession like something shook or vibrated underneath. Something rapidly moved downstairs, somewhere in the dark. I paused to listen, it continued for a full minute before a girl’s scream followed up. The screams were insane and chaotic with random gasping between each one. It was loud enough to get whatever infected were already gathered outside to come closer. Maybe even close enough to find a way in. Regardless of all that, my concern for the moment was nothing other than the source of the sound. I was prepared to hit whatever jumped out. I pictured a girl under attack downstairs after following me into the house. The screams stopped. Whatever caused them still ran around downstairs. It moved back and forth through the living room, hallway and kitchen in front of me.