Greg was 18, a senior, and captain of the cross country team. He rounded the turn to start the 3rd and final mile at the State Cross Country meet. The crowd seemed to be going wilder than what should be for a cross country meet. “Run, Greg RUN!” yelled Greg’s assistant coach.
Greg looked to his left and saw another competitor running next to him. Then another runner rushed up behind him with an amazing kick. The other runner grabbed the competitor, clearly violating IHSA rules.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? You’re going to hurt him!” Greg said to the other runner. The other runner then leapt up onto the now screaming competitor from Belvidere North. It ripped his arm from his body and began eating it.

“What the…?” Greg stopped and turned around with a horrific look on his face, clearly appalled by what he was seeing. Then one of Greg’s teammates, Josh, grabbed his arm to take him away from the scene.

“Greg! RUN! We gotta get to the bus! There are zombies everywhere and they are eating everyone! Coach is going to leave any minute!”

“What is going on?”

“I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know? People are getting eaten by zombies!”

“Just run!”

Greg and Josh sprinted back to their bus to see it pulling out of the lot. Coach Hale yelled out the window. “Come on! We will open the doors!”

Both Greg and Josh managed to jump in just in time, but the driver could not close the door before a mutilated zombie got on. The zombie lunged forward and bit the driver on his arm creating a blood oozing hole. He reached under the seat, pulled out a handgun, and shot the zombie in the face covering the glass doors with blood spatter. He then kicked the zombie out the door where it smashed the pavement in a pool of blood. “The b****** got my arm! Damnit!”

Coach Hale responded. “Just get us out of here now! And give me that gun!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going!” The bus peeled out of the lot. Hank, the bus driver, laughed manically as he violently smashed through zombies as it went. Some zombies threw themselves at the bus windows causing the what was left of the team to scream in terror.

It was 7:30 pm, and the sun was setting, leaving the world darkness.

“You know there is no hope! Did you see those things tear people apart? We are all going to die!” The comment came from Blake and following came several moans of despair. The team considered Blake to be “freshman of the year” for being the biggest p**** in school. He never failed to live that up.

Hearing this, Coach Hale turned around to address the survivors. “No one here is going to die! Not on my watch. I will see 10,000 of those freaks dead before they kill one of us! Pull yourself together and we will get through as a group, like we have all season. Now I want silence on this bus. Not a word.”

All of sudden the bus turned off the road and into the ditch, Cindy screamed and Blake cursed while everyone else tried to brace themselves for impact. When the bus finally stopped everything went silent. The bus driver had been thrown out of his seat out the front window and into the corn field. Hale could see the headlights shining over his seemingly lifeless body. The windshield was broken, blood dripping from the broken shards.

“Is everyone all right?” Hale whispered.

Everyone nodded up signaling they were ok.

“All right everyone, stay here. I will be right back.” Hale stepped off with the hand gun to inspect the driver.

He slowly walked out to where the corpse had been, but it was gone. The hairs on his neck stood straight up. “Hank? You ok?” He cautiously stepped forward into the corn raising the handgun in front of him.

Hale walked a few yards into the corn, guided only by the buses headlights. Suddenly the lights flickered off. A chill rose up Hale’s spine; it was time to get back in the bus. He slowly made his way back through the corn. And then a slight moaning came from somewhere out in the dark. Hale whirled around with his handgun pointed in the direction.

“Hank?” His eyes were adjusting to the light and he could see the outline of a man limping towards him.

“Talk to me hank!”

At that moment the lights flickered back on revealing the mutilated zombified corpse of Hank. An eye was hanging out, his skin was hanging loosely off his skull, and pieces of his body were missing everywhere.

Hale’s reaction was immediate. H fired 5 shots; 3 to the chest and 2 to the face. The zombie went down to the ground in a pool of blood and brains.

Cindy was screaming.

Coach climbed back on the bus. “Everyone stay calm and keep silent, we are going to get out of here.”Off in the distance, faint moaning could be heard growing louder towards the bus.

“I told you they can hear, now they are all swarming us. We have to get out of here!”

But the bus would not start.
“We are going to have to go on foot. Everyone out of the bus, there is not time to waste. Everyone needs to stick together and stay calm.” As he said this he reloaded the handgun. “I saw a light off in the distance that I think is a farm house. We will make for that.”

All 8 filed off the bus and out into the darkness with only the light of their phones and the moon to guide them through the corn. A zombie broke through the corn towards Josh. One of the students took off screaming into the corn. Just before the zombie could get his hands on Josh, Greg smashed in its face with a crowbar he had taken from the bus.

A few minutes after the girl had run off, a scream penetrated the dark quiet. The screaming lasted several minutes and grew more agonizing until it became silent again.

“She got eaten! We are all going to be zombie food!” Blake whispered. A few began to whimper uncontrollably amongst the group even after coach beckoned them to stay silent. But they stopped as soon as they saw the dimly lit farm house.

No one dared speak as Hale walked the steps and began opening the door.

“Don’t move you b******.”

Everyone froze.

“We are looking for safety.”

“You came to the wrong place.”

“There are zombies coming this way and fast. We will die in minutes and so will you unless we work together.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Get your butt in here fast and help me kill these freaks. I’m nobody’s body guard though. You want protection, you gonna have to play your part.”

The man inside clearly had been through some trauma. He was an older fellow and looked hardened but there was insanity behind his bloodshot eyes. He had a gallery of cuts, and bruises on his face. In his hands, he held a double barreled shot gun.

Greg stayed back to make sure the others all got in. He began closing the door and looked up to see the outline of a man standing on the sidewalk with the moon outlining his back. Greg stared stricken for a moment then quickly shut and bolted the door. “They are coming”

“Grab a weapon, anything. I have held them off all night but it sounds like you have attracted even more.” He threw his shotgun to Greg. “You look like you could handle it.”

He pulled out an M16, “just a little souvenir from ‘nam” he grinned.

The others grabbed machetes, baseball bats, and knives.
The zombies could be heard just outside, moaning for the brains of the few survivors. What they thought were tens of zombies were hundreds, walking silently towards the small farm house, the moon barely lighting their rotten flesh. Even as they fought for survival, the apocalypse was spreading around the world and hope was being snuffed out.