My gun fired. I felt my heart beating out of my chest. My life flashed before my eyes…again. The undead creature dropped dead before me on the cold November ground. This is typical. I walk to my pickup truck, my gun warm in my hands, stepping over bodies of the people who I used to know and some even love.
It’s been a hard 4 months, 2 days, and 7 hours since the disease infected patient zero. Those were the happy days. At times I couldn’t stand my family and even considered running away. Now, I realize that those were the best people in my life. I miss them terribly now.
My sister, she and my brother were playing outside on a cloud free, sunshine day. They saw a figure from afar, but didn’t do anything about it. Our next door neighbors were like family to us, but for a while they didn’t talk or even come out of their house. It was weeks until little Tommy came out. I remember I saw him walk through my window’s view to the street. What I didn’t see is he bit both my sister and brother. They killed my parents. I was up in my room doing homework when I heard a pounding on the door. I thought it was my sister trying to annoy me. Then their hands broke through the door. I saw that they didn’t look like they usually do. Their skin was sick looking, so pale it was almost green. They all had a bite mark in their left arm. Their eyes were glossy and shifting in different directions. I was scared. I grabbed my bat and did what I had to do. I’ve always been comfortable knowing the dead are among us before all this happened. I go to cemeteries to give my best wishes to them. The creatures that run wild on the Earth now are not dead or humans. They are complete monsters. Even when I kill the undead, I wonder if when they actually die, if their souls go to Heaven or Hell. Are they already there? When they are turned into these monsters, you have to wonder what happens after that.
I climb in my truck and hold my shotgun firmly in hand as I check the backseat for dead heads. I start my truck and drive away from the scene. My destination? Unknown. Some days I drive and drive for hours figuring out where to go. I make sure not to stop until I find a safe place.
The first time I heard about this sickness was from my friend Abigail. Mid-July she came to my house with her face as pale as snow in mid-winter. She said lifelessly, “It has begun…” I knew what she was talking about and my eyes went cold. We were the only a couple freaks that theorized, one day the apocalypse would start. She told me July 14th and died on July 16th, my birthday. I still dread the call I got from her cousin Lucas telling me that her, her siblings and her parents got attacked by the un-dead creatures. She had such a great life ahead of her. She was going to go to the Julliard School for music and become a famous violin player. And I? I didn’t have the slightest idea if I was going to college or not. I now pursue the sad learning experience know as zombie killing. I grow from every battle I fight. Yet, I am numb and ask myself, “Why?” Why am I the one to survive? I was never the smartest or the most talented, or the nicest. I see everyone turning into monsters, good people dying, not me. Me of all people. I’m the survivor.
I heard a loud thump coming from the top of my truck. I slammed on the brakes and saw an undead creature slide down my windshield. I sped up and drove as fast as I could down the road. I think, “How would that have looked to people on a crowded sidewalk?” I smiled for a second but it disappeared within seconds. “Don’t go that way,” I heard a voice say. I looked over at the passenger seat and saw nobody. I’m never sure if I’m now crazy, so I ignored the strange warning and kept going. Nothing to lose that way.
As I drive, this place becomes more and more familiar to me. I remember the small windy roads, the woodsy feeling, and the black and white road signs. When I passed by a sign that said Minn Rd., I stare at it nostalgically and made a sharp turn. There were so many memories and so many experiences. This is where I grew up. This is the place that I found love and got it taken away at the same time. It kills me every time I think about it. As I battle off all these undead creatures, I also battle my heart with my mind. I can’t help but wonder where my friend is or if he’s dead or not. That person enchanted me and made me fearless for a while, but now it’s hard to speak of him. Now, I’m haunted for as long as I live to know where Skyler Armstrong is. It kills me to even fathom the very likely idea that he’s either a monster or was eaten alive. I drive some more and see a sign that says Clarkson High. I slammed on the brakes because I know that, that was my high school.
It’s been six months since I’ve seen this place that seemed so evil before, but now it’s calling to me as if it were my own mother who had just made hot cocoa after being in the cold for so long. I couldn’t wait to get out of that torture chamber that some called school. I was a B to C student in the class of 2100. I had one more year till “freedom”. I certainly got my freedom alright. And now I use it to go back to school?
I drive up the school’s long driveway and notice instantly the dead bodies and the dry blood on the side of the road. I look around and absorb it all in and think about what it used to look like. It was a fairytale then to what it is now. Back to reality, and I notice that I’m still driving, right into a streetlight. The screech of tires only postponed the outcome. My car smashed into the lamppost, and I flew into the exploding airbag. The world became fuzzy for several seconds, and I knew I was going to blackout. I had to shake it off. I knew the noise was loud enough to summon a mob of the undead. I can only think of how much of an idiot I am for doing that. I scrambled for my gun in the backseat, and looked to see if they were coming. Sadly, my prediction came true. I saw their dead lifeless bodies bolting toward me from all directions as I braced myself for war.
Battles against these monsters are tough, but manageable. I let out all my anger, frustration and confusion on the ones that killed my friends and family. After about fifteen minutes, the monsters were dead, again. I see one moving just the slightest bit and shoot it immediately. I’m not really scared of the undead as much as I feel bad for them. I have to be paranoid, just a little bit though. If I wasn’t, then I would be dead for sure.
This time I will not walk back to my truck and drive away. I grabbed some ammo out of my truck (just in case), and walked towards the front doors of the school. As I approached them, I saw there was a giant zero spray painted on the door. The doors were glass with a wooden frame. Just as I remembered, but now with a peculiar zero painted on it. I reached for the handle and I heard a voice say to me, “good bye.” I looked around me with my heart racing and I saw no one. My imagination distracts me and make me think the same question over and over again: Should I listen to them? Every time I think about it, I come up with the same answer: No. I proceed with the question in my head. I open the doors carefully and quietly. I enter and stop in my steps just a few feet in. My mind overflowed with memories and sadness. While I looked around, I saw…death, dried blood and decaying bodies all around. School still stinks. I felt tears swelling up in my eyes from the mixed emotions. I wipe them away and fell a hole being cut into my heart.
I maneuvered around the school and felt the life being sucked out of me slowly. I pass my old locker and tried my code that surprisingly came to me. 13-24-9. I opened it and felt something pushing it open, so I jumped away knowing something may fall out. I shut my eyes scared to see it. I finally looked at the object and my eyes widened while wishing they never opened.
Nothing could prepare me from seeing what I saw. The moment I laid my eyes on it, I felt my soul being sucked right out of me. The innocent, mysterious, adolescent I knew, Skyler Armstrong, fell right in front of me. Dead and Lifeless.
About a million thoughts went through my head. Where I first saw him, every word he said to me, and the last words he spoke to me, “See you next year ‘senior citizen’”.
Sometimes it’s funny how everyone assumes to live another year or even another month. Skyler was just a boy, who lived in his own world. There were so many things I wanted to know about him, but now the adolescent I knew is gone forever. At that moment I completely broke down on the floor. Tears welled up my eyes, but this time I didn’t fight them back. I started off quietly sobbing gradually getting louder and louder. I realized I have nobody, and I finally reached the basement of insanity.
After about two minutes I heard a small rumble coming from below me. I ignored it until I saw a figure come out from the darkness. It stood there for a while, watching me, as I crouched over Skyler’s dead body. A minute or two passed and more figures appeared from afar. I looked around for my gun, soon realizing that I left it where the figures were standing. I quickly jumped up and started to run. After several yards, I had the whole hoard on my tail. Unarmed, being chased by dead heads, former teachers and classmates, I tried to remember where everything was, but I couldn’t. I sprinted around the corner until I came to the stairs, realizing too late that they stood before me. I fell down a long flight of stairs and couldn’t get up. I couldn’t breathe or see, but I could hear, voices. The voices of my friends were telling me to come with them. I ask where, but they don’t answer. All I saw was a hand to hold. I took it and felt a sharp pain in my arm, followed by some kind of electric pulses. Then my whole body went numb, and everything became black.

Haley Jones was a survivor of the undead war of 2099-2113. It started one year before she graduated and thirteen years after she turned and became one of them. Scientists have been hiding underground all that time struggling to find an antidote. In that we were successful, and she became our ninth person to be tested. The medication worked for five days during which she told her story. However, she died due to too much medication and an infection in her blood.














R.I.P
Haley Jones
2082-2113
A fighter