You saw on the news today that the new world wide disease with no official name has been spreading dramatically. Like, very dramatically. The reporter on the news had described the epidemic by saying that it spread nearly 10 times as fast as AIDS did. But you have your doubts that it's spreading that fast, since news channels always love to stretch the truth. You are also well aware of what happens to infected victims. The irises of their eyes turn a light shade of gray, as do their skin tone, depending on their skin tone beforehand. The darker the tone, the darker the shade of gray. Their skin would also become sickly loose and unhealthy, making it easy to peel or rip. Most of, if not, all of their veins begin to show, which look blue/purple on the surface. Their tongue would grow warts and bumps, and would even become freakishly long, ranging from a light red color to a sickly purple.
Basically, they'd turn into zombies.
The whole eating humans and becoming absolutely brainless and unintelligent stereotype that you'd see in movies applied to them. You found out that the only way to become infected was if they bit you, if you got a decent amount of their blood ingested, in a wound, or if you simply die. The infection wasn't airborn from what you've been told. You've seen a lot of zombie movies, ranging from the classic "28 Days Later" to the new and recent television series "The Walking Dead". You never would have thought that it would be possible for a crisis like this to turn into reality, but from what you saw and read on the news, the government had it under control.
Well, that is, up until now.
The anchorman was now warning anybody watching to board up their houses and quarantine yourself in the house until further notice. This is when you start to get a little alarmed. You decide that it'd be better safe then sorry, as you get up from your seat.
You then remember that your best friend is still at one of her girl friend's house. She's been living with you, since she couldn't afford to provide for herself in her own house just yet, so you generously decided to let her live with you. You've both been friends all throughout high school, and has had a crush on her ever since. Unfortunately, you've gotten friend-zoned the entire time, and she'd always turn down your request to take your relationship to the next level. You still care for her and have a ton of great times with her, but you're not sure whether you let her stay with you and provided for her because you care about her that much as a friend, or simply because you were hoping that it would spark something between you two. It's not like you were unattractive however. You're a handsome guy, and had minimum trouble getting a girl you liked, aside from of course. You were no body builder, but you were athletic in high school, and have a nice fit body.
You pull out your Iphone and select her name in your contacts to give a call.
The phone rings around three times before someone answers, "Hello? ?"
"Hey, . Have you heard what they said on the news?"
"Yeah! I was just about to call you! I'm here with Arisa right now, and I want to come home, but my car shut down, and Arisa's boyfriend is using hers."
"Hi, ! You hear in the background. Arisa is 's female best friend. She's been friends with longer than you have, and you know they make quite a pair when they're together. She's a very friendly girl, to you at least, and she's accepted you as a close friend as well. She has long black hair that stops at the middle of her back. She has fair light peach skin, and a gorgeous face that should be on the front page of a magazine. Her eyes were dark brown, and she had a nice build. She didn't have the biggest breasts or the biggest butt, but her body was still slim (but not too slim) and very sexy. You've always secretly promised yourself that if things between you and don't work out, you'll search out Arisa.
...Even though she's 's best friend. But that wouldn't make you a bad person, right?
"Tell Arisa I said hi." You say with a chuckle. "But do you want me to pick you up?"
"I'd appreciate it if you did... But don't worry, I'll give you gas money if you do."
"Alright, I'm on my way." You say into the phone as you pick up your coat. "Gas money isn't necessary though." You add. However, you know that if it was anyone else, you wouldn't have said that. Gas prices are crazy nowadays.
"Such a sweetheart." She says. "Oh, and Arisa wants to come, too. She said that she doesn't want to be in the house by herself."
You shrug, "That's fine with me. But where's her boyfriend?"
"She said that he just went to work. He wont be back until much later, so she said that she'll stick with us until he gets off of work in the morning."
You look at your watch. It's 9:13 pm. Late worker, you think to yourself.
"Okay, that's cool. I'm on my way." You say as you exit out the door to your house. There was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground, and it was 28 degrees farenheit outside. It was in the middle of December, and it wasn't exactly good weather for a tank-top and cargo shorts.
"See you when you get here... Oh, and ?" She says.
"Yeah?"
"Be careful, please?" You could tell by the tone of her voice that she was very concerned.
You smile, "I will." With that, you hang up the phone.
You take out your car keys once you approach your black 1998 Honda Accord and open the door. You get in and turn the vehicle on, reving the engine once or twice. Once you turn the radio station to the station of your choice, you pull out of your driveway and drive onto the road.
You sigh as you realize that Arisa's house isn't exactly around the corner. It's a good thirty minutes away, and that's if there's no traffic. But as you drive along the express way, you realize that you haven't passed a car yet, and you've been driving for a good 5 minutes so far.
Your phone then makes the noise that signifies that it has a low battery. You take it out in one hand and look at the screen.
"Less than five percent..." You sigh out loud. You resent all those times today that you played Temple Run on your phone, and--
CRASH!!!
You drop your phone and grip the steering wheel with both hands. You hit something. And you hit it hard. You were going well over sixty miles an hour, and your foot immediately hit for the brakes. You were so in shock, that you had trouble controlling the steering wheel. And the fact that whatever you hit shattered your windshield hadn't made the experience any more easier to deal with. Not to mention the fact that the road was still a bit icy. You try hard to stop the car from swerving, and try stopping as urgently as possib--
CRASH!!!
After a bright flash of white, your vision meets darkness.
...The headache you have is currently overwhelming. You groggily wake up to the sound of your car's horn blaring continuously. You open your eyes and struggle to lift your head up. You manage to do it, and the blaring stops. You had your forehead against the middle of the steering wheel.
"Ugh... Shit..." You groan to no one, holding your throbbing head. Your vision is blurry, and you can hear your own rapid heartbeat. You try looking around, and can make out the fact that you're still inside your car. As your vision clears up, you see a lot of broken glass inside the car, and on you. You also see a little bit of blood on your black leather jacket and grey jeans. You look through your busted window in front of you, and nothing but smoke from the engine and a telephone pole meets your gaze.
You're too hurt to be angry. You just totaled your car, and probably your face. You don't know how long you've been passed out, but as you pick up your Iphone and see that it's completely dead now. You curse to yourself silently and take a deep breath as you sigh back into the seat.
It was then that you remember hitting something in the middle of the road, which caused the accident. You struggle to open the door, and you stagger as you step into the night time air. You look at your car again and sigh at the collateral damage done to it. The telephone pole was threaded deeply into the middle of the hood. You're shocked that you didn't die. You don't even think that you strapped yourself into your seatbelt before you left.
You begin to walk away from the car and back where you think you hit something. As you appoach, you can see a figure laying flat on the ground. As you get closer, you can see that it's human. As you get closer, you can see that it's lying on it's back. As you get closer, you can see that it's a male.
As you get closer... You see that it was one of the infected.
You're now around ten feet away from him, and it's a little hard to decifer all of his exterior traits, due to the lack of light and due to the still slightly blurry vision you have. All you see is a pool of blood next to his head as it slowly dripped out of his gushing head.
"Fuck... Did I really hit him...?" You whisper as you can see your own breath each time you exhale. As you look upon the corpse, you see something sticking out of it's pocket. As you look harder, you see that it's the handle of a pistol.
You think for a minute. You know that if this... 'thing' is here like this, then there are probably more nearby. You need protection. You know that fighting them with your bear hands is practically suicide.
Crouching, you reach down for the gun and pull it out of it's pocket. You hold the gun in your hand and analyze it. It was black and small. It looked like the same kind of pistol that cops carry around with them; a 9mm. Along with zombie movies, you've also watched a lot of action movies with guns, so you know a good thing or two with how a pistol functions. You press the button on the side of the handle to eject the magazine to check it's bullets. You see that it has a full clip. You put the magazine back inside and turn the safety switch off.
Just as you do this, the 'zombie' that seemed dead a few seconds ago know hisses and locks its eyes on you. Your heart races and you take a big step back, pointing the gun directly at him. Your hands are shaking. Your breathing is ragged. But before it can get up to stand on it's feet--
BANG!!!
The infected person falls on the floor with a 'Thud'. A perfect headshot. Your ears ring at the noise of the gun as it fired. You've never held a gun in your life, nor have you fired one up until now. You'd be excited about the rush the new experience gave you, but you're too alarmed about the infected to even be thrilled right now.
You take a very deep breath and try to relax yourself and think about the situation at hand. You know that your car is completely out of commission, and you have no way to call anyone. You're stranded, it's cold, and there was no one on the road, it looks like. So you now have three options, all with a potential benefit and consequence:
1) You can wait here. Maybe hope a car passes by to give you a ride. However, you can possibly be ignored, and that last gunshot could have attracted more of the infected, leaving you an open target.
2) You can try walking to Arisa's house anyway. The trip may be long, but you were at the end of the express way, so there were houses ahead with potential uninfected people inside to help you. Then again, maybe not.
3) You can try to walk back to your house. Good side to that: it's a shorter walk than walking to Arisa's. And if you get home safe, you can use your house phone and call for help. Bad side: It looks like a very dangerous journey. That telephone pole you took out also knocked out the street light, and that seemed to be the only working light for another half a mile in the direction your house is. And not only was it dark, the road was surrounded by woods and trees, making the trip seem a lot more deadly. |