Chapter 1 - It Happens

“Damn! Why does this guy think he needs to blind me?” Every time I am driving at night it seems like there is always some oversized truck following me with their bright lights on. This time it is a blue truck with a “Ghetto Redneck” decal on his back windshield. I only know that because I see this truck all the time sitting at a house just up the road from my family’s house.

I am actually on my way there now, and the guy behind me is probably going home too. I do not usually come home often, but my mother and stepfather, Melinda and Richard Garrick, need someone to watch over my three younger siblings so they can go see my stepbrother, Rob, graduate from army boot camp. So on this Friday night after I finished all the work for my college classes, I packed for the weekend and started heading home. My parents should already be gone and on their way down to Georgia by the time I get there. It is not too long of a drive from where we live in Tennessee, but for some strange reason Richard prefers to drive at night instead of getting up early in the morning.

By now I am already getting pretty close to home, but it is so difficult to see the road, due to the blinding light coming from behind me, that I cannot even tell if I am on it or not. I would slow down but I do not want to take the chance of the jerk behind me ramming into the back of my car. I start mumbling names like “asshole” and “bastard” under my breath, because I have to keep my head somewhat bent down to avoid the blinding lights. I look up squinting, just enough to see a shape stumble into the road, and ask myself, “is that a person?” I have just enough time to yell, “Oh shit!” before I swerve off the road and skid along the guard rail. I manage to slam on my brakes to stop just before the guard rail turns into a big tree.

I take a second to think about what just happened; everything happened so fast. Then I remember the guy driving right behind me. Time seems to slow down as I turn around just in time to see the truck smash into the person on the road. Without any sign of slowing down the truck suddenly makes an extremely sharp cut to the left, causing it to start flipping right before it gets to my car. Preparing to be hit I crouch down as low as possible and wait for the impact, but everything goes silent. I sit up and stare at the truck horrified. It missed me and my car and slid down the road flipped upside down, but still, I know I just witnessed two people die.

I step out of my car and stumble over to the flipped truck while waving black smoke out of my face. I keep an eye out for any sign of a fire in case the truck might explode. I walk over to the driver’s side of the truck and see the entire top crushed. To make the scene even worse, the driver of the truck is halfway through the windshield with blood pouring from all over his body. There is no doubt he is dead, and with the truck crushed the way it is, there is no way to get him out.

I do not see any sign of the body of the person who was hit around the truck. Then noises come from behind me back up the road. I turn around to see a bloody mass rising up from the road only a few feet away from where the person was standing only a moment ago. There is no way that person can be alive though; it was slammed by the truck full force. Yet there it is, half walking and crawling its way towards my direction. The noises it is making are unhuman, like a growl and moan mixed, and no normal person could live through a wreck like that.

I do not know if it is instincts of just fear, but the look in its eyes tell me to keep my distance. I quickly get on the other side of the truck, hoping it forgets I am here. When the thing makes it to the truck, the noises become louder and angrier. I kneel down on the ground, so I can try to watch it through the passenger side window. It looks like it is about to come around the truck to where I am hiding, but instead it suddenly drops to the ground. The surprise makes me fall back on my ass. It does not appear to catch its attention though, but the alternative is just as horrific.

The thing, monster, whatever it is starts biting chunks out of the dead man’s side. I watch in horror as it digs its hands and teeth into the poor corpse. I cannot stand the sight anymore and try getting up to leave, but as I use the truck to help raise myself, the metal lets out a piercing screech loud enough for anything around to notice. The noise comes from directly next to my ear and is enough to put me in a small daze, while grabbing the attention of the thing feasting on the dead man. By the time I was completely on my feet, the thing is already blocking the path to my car. It looks directly at me and suddenly charges at me, throwing around its whole body.

This should be impossible, it is moving way too fast for something with obvious broken bones all throughout its body. That does not stop it though, and in seconds it is already lounging at me. I hopelessly yell, “Stop!” It does not seem like it could even understand me and forces me to jump back out the way. It dives at me again without hesitation, but this time I am not able to avoid it and instead grab both its wrists. I can tell I am still stronger and faster than it, but it is not giving up. I use all my own body weight to swing the thing into the side of the truck. In the rush of excitement I start stomping every obvious weak point I can see on its body, making sure there is no way it can move. I finally focus all my strength into my right foot, and stomp on its chest causing it to cave in. I pull my foot out of its chest cavity, and try shaking off the dark blood covering up to my ankle.

The thing is dead but still moving, and I do not understand how. Before I can even take a take step away from this thing, noises are coming from its bloody mouth while its limbs twitch from trying to rise. I see an ax laying a little ways down the road along with some scraps of wood I assume must have fell out of the truck when it flipped. I walk over and pick up the ax, examining it. Out of pure rage I run at the quivering corpse, and swing the ax straight into it forehead. I step back, and the corpse instantly stops all movement and noise.

I turn around to go back to my car, unable to believe what just happened. Then I hear the noises again. This time they are not coming from the same corpse though; they are coming from the front of the truck. I walk to the front of the truck again, and see the dead driver squirming around, making the same horrible noises. “What the fuck is this?” As soon as I say this, the dead man looks up at me, and starts going crazy trying to grab at me. I do not know what to do, so I run to my car as fast as I can while trying to block out everything happening around me.

I get in my car, and luckily it starts without a problem. I stomp on the gas and speed away. I pass the truck and the dead man, while refusing to look back. Feeling like I am going crazy, I start muttering to myself, “what is this? What is happening?” The dead are not staying dead, one started to eat the other, and then tried to attack me. I need to hurry and make sure my family is okay; I have a very bad feeling something will be wrong.

I grab my cell phone sitting in the cup holder, and call my family’s house phone. No one answers, but instead I get a busy tone. I try calling two more times, only to end up with the same result. I yell through my phone, “Answer the phone dammit!” I do not yell because of anger, but from worry. I toss my cell phone into my passenger seat. It is not helping anyways, besides I can already see my house just down the road. Unfortunately I can also see my parent’s car, but that is not right, they should have already left. That must mean something did happen. I speed up even more, pushing my car as fast as it can go.

I swerve into my driveway and slam on my brakes. Lying in the middle of the driveway is what looks like another dead man. It looks like his head had been smashed into the paved driveway. I stop paying attention to it, and get out of my car. I run straight into the house through the downstairs door, which leads right into my parent’s bedroom.

I notice a small puddle of blood on the bed, and a trail of blood drops leading out of the room. I start to follow the trail, but first grab one of Joey’s, my brother who is a couple of years younger than me, baseball bat leaning against the wall behind the outside door. Keeping my guard up so that nothing will surprise me, I slowly make my way through the house. As I am passing through the downstairs den, I notice the gun cabinet’s glass door had been shattered open and, from what I remember, it seems one of the pistols is missing.

I take one of the two pistols still in the gun cabinet, and make my way to the stairs. As I get closer I hear what sounds like crying coming from above me. I run up the stairs, careful not to fall with the gun in my hand. When I emerge at the top of the stairs, into my family calls our “middle room,” I see blood splattered along the floor. At the end of the room, and the entrance to the dining room, my mom is laying facedown with two bullet holes in her back and one in her head. Further in the dining room is my stepdad in a similar state, also face down at the beginning of the hallway where my youngest brother’s, sister’s, and a guest bedroom are located. When I get closer I only see two bullet holes, both in the back of his head.

I hear the crying again, which I briefly forgot about, and look down the hallway to see my sister, Kristen, sitting against my youngest brother’s bedroom door. I hurry over to her, and as I approach she raises her head to look at me. She appears very weak, and does not appear to be able to talk, although it seems like she is trying. I start talking first and ask, “What happened here, and where is everyone else?” I still have not seen my two younger brothers.

“You’re here,” Kristen is eventually able to get out. She looks like she is about to say more, but starts crying again even louder than before.

I try calming her down, “I’m here; it’s okay now. I need you to tell me what happened though. Can you do that for me?” I request.

Kristen nods. “They were getting ready to leave,” she says gesturing towards our parents with her head. “I was in the living room watching Richard finish packing the car when a strange man wandered into the driveway. I watched as the man suddenly tried to attack Richard for no reason, but Richard slammed the man on his back to the ground. Then the man bit Richard on the shin, and ripped away a chunk of it. Richard fell straight to the ground, and slammed the man’s head into the pavement until the man stopped moving. Then Richard fell flat to the ground, and also stopped moving."

"I screamed for Mom as loud as I could, and she came running into the living room. As soon as she looked out the window, she immediately ran outside through the front door of the living room. I was about to go with her, but first I thought I should go downstairs and get Joey out of his room to help too. We both ran outside, and saw Mom already pulling Richard off the ground. Joey helped her bring Richard inside as I cleared off their bed so they could lay him down. Mom grabbed the phone to call for help as Joey went into their bathroom to get stuff to stop the bleeding. Mom tried to call 9-1-1 while watching over Richard, but before she was able to get a hold of anyone, Richard suddenly popped up and bit her arm.”

Kristen stops talking again, and I can tell she is fighting back tears. She continues though, but in a more frantic voice, “then Mom dropped the phone and fell to the floor. I wanted to go over to help her, but my body wouldn't move. Richard just stared at me with a crazy look in his eyes, as blood drooled out of his mouth. He jumped off the bed at me, but I ran away screaming. I heard him start to run after me, so I tried throwing things behind me in an attempt to stop him. I tried to take a second to see if it was working, but the stuff was barely even stalling him. I saw Joey come out of the bathroom, and then Mom got up and charged at him. I screamed again and continued to run to the stairs as I heard a door slam.”

“When I got to the stairs I tried to shut the door behind me, but Richard made it to me before I could and grabbed my right arm. I was able to pull away from him, but as I did he scratched me down my arm.” Kristen puts her right arm on her lap, showing me the scratches. The scratch marks look more like she was slashed with large claws, but she still should not be this weak just from these. They are bleeding, but it does not look like she has lost too much blood.

“It actually hurts worse than it looks,” Kristen continues, noticing the questioning look on my face from seeing her wound. “I just ignored the pain though, and kept running until I got to the top of the stairs. When I got to the top I heard something else coming, and when I looked down I saw Mom running up behind Richard. They both started to climb over each other trying to get up the stairs after me, but the stairs actually seemed to really slow them down.”

“I started to cry; I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then I remembered him,” she say looking up at our littlest brother’s bedroom door. “I had to make sure to protect him, and make sure he was alright. I ran for his room, but they were right behind me. I tried to find something in the dining room to fight them off, but there wasn’t anything and they were almost already caught up to me. I gave up looking, kept running here, and was going to lock myself in the room when I heard a gunshot. It scared me, and caused me to trip and fall right over there.” She points, without raising her arm, at a spot near the beginning of the hallway, just a foot or so from Richard’s dead body. “I heard two more shots, and it sounded like one of them fell down. I looked up and saw Richard still coming at me. I didn’t have time to stand up, so I desperately crawled backwards as fast as I could to try to keep away from him. I was going to just give up, but then Joey came up behind Richard and shot him twice in the back of the head. Richard fell to the ground right away, and Joey just walked away without saying anything.”

“I remember hearing another gunshot a few minutes later, but I don’t know what it was for. I’m so scared; I don’t understand why all of this happened. It all happened so fast, then it was over, and then you showed up.” Kristen’s voice is so soft, just barely above a whisper, and slow now, and her eyes are hardly open. “I protected him though. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to him. I knew you would show up eventually to help.”

I assumed she was referring to our youngest brother again. “Thank you, I know you wouldn’t,” I say to her as I give her a gentle hug from the side. Suddenly her body gets heavier, and her breathing stops. I lay her on the ground, and her eyes are completely closed now. I hopelessly try to shake her awake, but sadly there is no response. When I check for a pulse I find nothing but cold skin. I know what this means; she died right in my arms, and I did not even get a chance to help her.

I get up and stare at the door, hoping my youngest brother really is in there. I slowly turn the doorknob, and quietly push the door open. Then I see him, sitting on his bed playing with toy trucks and watching cartoons on his television. I let out a little chuckle. I must be insane to do that now, but he looks so happy and oblivious to everything that just happened right outside his room. I cannot hold it in and let out another chuckle. This time he hears me, and looks my way. “Hey Lucus,” I say to him.

He gets up, runs over to me for a hug, and yells, “Ace!”

I cannot think of anything to say back at first, so I just ask, “So how are you?”

His reply throws me off guard, as he starts asking questions right away. “What are you doing here? Where is everyone else? What was happening out there?”

I do not know how to answer any of the questions he keeps blurting out. I eventually tell him the only thing that comes to my mind, “it is pretty late already buddy, and past your bedtime. Let’s go ahead and go to sleep now, and we will talk more in the morning.”

“Okay,” Lucus says. He knows it is past his bedtime, and that it would be useless to argue. “Are you going to sleep too?”

“Not yet, but I’ll stay here until you fall asleep,” I answer back.

“Oh okay, goodnight,” Lucus says cheerfully.

“Goodnight, see you in the morning,” I say back to him with a smile as he settles into his bed and closes his eyes to sleep. I sit at the foot of his bed until I know he is completely asleep, which only takes a few minutes.

I leave Lucus’s room, and see Kristen’s dead body still lying in the hallway. This reminds me of the awful situation I am in, and the things I need to get done tonight so Lucus does not find out. I just do not know how he would handle this. After a bit of thought I realize Kristen has not turned into one of those monsters. I decide the first thing I need to do is to make sure the house is safe. I walk through the house checking every door and window to make sure they are shut and locked, and also I make sure there is nothing else in the house. When I get downstairs to check Joey’s bedroom, I figure out where the last gunshot Kristen heard came from.

I find Joey sat up against a wall in his bedroom with a gun in his hand and a bullet hole in the side of his head. He does not appear to be physically hurt in any way, but I guess anyone being forced to shoot their parents would be psychologically damaged beyond repair. Just seeing all my family in these gruesome conditions is enough to start questioning my mindset as well.

After making sure the house is secure I put my families’ dead bodies down in Joey’s room; I will have to deal with them tomorrow. I try to clean up some of the big spots of blood, but that will also need more work tomorrow. I think about calling the police or somebody, but after Kristen told me Mom could not get a hold of anyone, I figure I would not have any better luck.

I decide I should go upstairs in our living room to check the television, and see if I can find out if there is any news that can let me know what it was that happened tonight. Unfortunately all local or news channels are out, and the only channels still operating are useless advertisements or cartoon channels just like Lucus was watching earlier; which probably just run on an already programmed schedule. I get on my families’ desktop computer next, hoping for better results, and luckily the internet is still working perfectly fine. I start to search through every news website I can find, and quickly discover the horrors that have occurred throughout the world.

The information is pretty much the same on every news website. The whole disaster started that morning, while I was still in my college classes. Almost simultaneously, hundreds to thousands of reports from around the world claimed people started to attack and eat each other. By noon any densely populated area fell into chaos, and by the evening that chaos had spread to even the most rural areas. Thanks to my small apartment complex being isolated off of campus, and my families’ home being located miles outside of the next town over, I was able to remain as oblivious as Lucus to all this chaos for as long as I did. Even so, it is almost unbelievable this all happened in a day.

I try looking for any details that may explain how this could have happened and how to deal with it, but most of the news websites only tell people to stay inside and avoid any confrontation with others. They also do not say how it started; only that it is some unknown epidemic that should be resolved soon. When I search though some more questionable online blogs though, I find plenty additional information that may actually be more useful.

One of the theories I find, that makes the more sense than any of the others at least, talks about how this whole thing was one massive terrorist attack on the world that got way too out of control. Apparently according to this blog, the number of victims, the starting locations, and also the rate at which this epidemic spreads cannot be coincidental. The blog also contained information on the monsters specifically. The most important part is that all of these monsters are already dead. If they are not put down permanently, which the only way to do that is to destroy the brain, they will continue to kill other people to eat without hesitation, or remorse.

After I get off the computer, just for a little extra security, I make another sweep of the house to push all the heavy furniture against any doors and windows leading outside. I do this as quietly as possible so that I do not wake up Lucus, or worse, catch the attention of anything that may be lurking around outside. I decide to sleep in Lucus’s bedroom just as another precaution, since it will be bad if we are separated if something happens during the night. I drag the twin size mattress, along with its sheets, blanket, and pillow, from the guest room bedroom that I was originally supposed to be staying in, down the hallway, and lay the makeshift bed down on the floor next to Lucus’s bed.

I am too tired to take off any of my clothes, and about get into my makeshift bed until I remember how much nasty junk, which Lucus did not seem to notice, I am covered in. It is probably best for me to take them off, in order to not further spread it around my body and bed as I sleep. I make sure to keep the pistol in easy reach, and lay in my makeshift bed trying to calm down and relax enough to drift to sleep. This seems to be taking forever, but eventually the exhaustion from the day fully envelops me. My eyelids drop like a brick, and I am fast asleep within a second.