children eating the flesh of their parents.
All phone calls to 911 got busy signals or just static. The police started out heavily armed but there were so many undead that they were overwhelmed. Most jails across the USA were filled with both the sick and the healthy. The cops could no longer tell the difference, and more attacks would happen in the jails and prison cells. There was a problem of overcrowding,
Danny couldn't believe all of this had been happening while he slept. There should have been warnings and sirens—he shouldn't have had to just wake up next to the wild beast that was once his loving wife.
His heart was broken and he wished that he could die. He never had it in his heart to hurt anyone.
Now his simple life had turned into a struggle for survival.
Danny sat in the corner of the room feeling sorry for himself, something he had never had to do in his entire life. His future no longer mattered to him. He could live without the promotion. He couldn't imagine anything worse than this, whatever the hell it was.
When he finally ran out of tears to cry Danny got up, dead inside with a black hole for a heart.
He went downstairs and looked out the window. Sure enough he could see flames rising up in the distance, and the sun was shining brightly. The clouds were little, white, and puffy, drifting across the sky.
At 12:00PM Danny turned on the TV. The news stations were still broadcasting, so that was a good thing. They were talking about how the virus or plague, as they called it, was a form of Chemical warfare, an attack on US soil—the worst attack in the history of America. They reported how it was airborne for the first few hours and then how it turned into a blood borne virus. One bite or scratch would cause the victim to contract the sickness, which was how it traveled so fast.
There was only one thing for Danny to do now—go out and find other survivors. He got dressed and went out to his car. He drove off, for the first time without paying attention to the sights and sounds of the world beyond his windshield.
He sped through the mountain roads and rushed to the nearest gun and ammunition store.
Most of the guns had been taken and there was no one in the shop guarding the place. All Danny could think about was finding the living in the world of the dead. The air smelled of smoke and a strange metallic substance. He still wasn't too far from town.
As he walked to the counter he shouted, “Hello! Is there anyone in here?”
A crackling noise came from behind the counter,
Danny grabbed the nearest gun and loaded it with ammo. Hoping it wasn't another one of those creatures, he listened closely. Everything was so quiet he could hear and feel his heart leaping in his chest.
The crackling noise sounded again.
He went behind the register, looked under it, and spotted an emergency scanner.
He pushed the button on the radio and said, “Hello, can you hear me?”
A faint voice answered, “Copy that, I read you load and clear.”
Danny's heart leaped for joy. Even if it was a stranger it was a survivor.
He asked for the location and was told that the survivors were holed up in the local Buy-Right super center.
Danny wasted no time. He grabbed a gun and five cases of ammo. Each case of ammo held 30 rounds, and he also picked up five ammo clips that held 30 rounds each.
He left the gun and ammo store and drove to the local Buy-Right super center. Knowing that there were survivors out there made him feel a little bit of comfort in a world of chaos.
As he reached town he was surprised to see the amount of damage the creatures had done. Some buildings were on fire, while others were missing their storefront windows and glass doors.
A lot of merchandise had been taken from different properties during the night. The damage was fixable, and the lost merchandise could always be replaced. The thing that really got under Danny's skin was the loss of human life.
Every zombie that was killed used to be somebody’s loved one. Danny thought back to when he had to face his wife Molly as a monster, and just as before, he cried until there were no more tears.
Finally he reached town, and it was crawling with a countless hoard of zombies. The streets were full of the filthy beasts.
A female zombie with brown hair stumbled in front of Danny's car. He tried to swerve to miss her, but she fell under his front left tire, and her head exploded between the rubber and the road.
Danny kept on telling himself she was already dead as he drove into the Buy-Right super center's parking lot.
He whipped the little Dodge Neon into a handicap parking space next to a buggy coral. He sat for a few minutes, loading bullets into the ammo clips. He was preparing himself for the absolute worst.
He cautiously climbed out of the car, palms sweating, heart pounding, and with a sinking feeling in his gut.
He grabbed the gun and the ammo clips, stuck the gun into his belt, and put the extra clips in his deep cargo pockets.
He grabbed the scanner radio and pressed the button and quietly said “This is Danny, can you hear me. I am in the parking lot of Buy-Right super center.”
A voice crackled over the radio saying “This is Tom. I hear you loud and clear.”
Danny asked about Tom's location with the other survivors.
“We are in a hidden room just beyond the exit doors at the rear of the store next to the restrooms. Be careful. You can enter into Buy-Right through the lawn and garden section, all you have to do is climb the fence, get to the other side and slide the glass doors open, and you will be in.”
Danny placed the radio through his belt and hurried across the parking lot.
Looking back and fourth through the parking lot he could see the shadows of the zombies growing. He froze dead in his tracks when he heard the chattering and whimpering behind him.
Danny couldn't see the zombie too well because it was on the ground crawling towards him. He saw it at almost at the last minute. He kicked the teeth out of the creature's jaw bone, and then ran full speed to the fence at the lawn and garden.
As he reached the fence he found himself dizzy and out of breath. He looked out across the parking lot and saw that zombies were coming from all sides. Some were missing large chunks of flesh from their throats or their arms, and many were missing their fingers.
They seemed to move as one, all closing in on Danny's position. There must have been fifty or sixty of the sick beasts coming toward him.
Where had they all come from? What was leading them directly toward his exact location? All Danny knew was that he couldn't face so many of them by himself.
He had to do something and do it fast. Every second that he stood there watching them, he was that much closer to death.
He backed up and took a running jump on the fence, but he only made it about three feet high—and it was a twelve foot fence.
The nearest Zombie launched forward and grabbed Danny by the pant leg. It yanked him from the fence and slammed him hard into the pavement.
Danny screamed in pain and horror when he saw the wild eyes of the zombie, with her jaw broken off and her tongue hanging out like a dog panting for water.
He flipped on his back and scooted back away from the hungry dead.
The zombie jumped on Danny again. He pulled out his gun, put it against her temple, and pulled the trigger. The bullet violently ripped off a large piece of the skull and blasted over half of her brains out of the back of her head.
Danny got to his feet and made another desperate leap for the fence. This time he made it about six feet up the barrier.
He scrambled to get his legs over it and fell heavily to the pavement on the other side.
He got to his feet, listening to the chattering of teeth and the moans coming through the fence.
Just as Danny was about to turn and push open the sliding glass doors, a zombie slammed into the high fence.
But he showed no sign of the ability to climb. He slammed into the fence again and fell flat on his backside, an
d then sat there and growled.
Danny turned and pushed the sliding glass door open and closed it behind himself.
The Buy-Right was completely dark except for the emergency exit signs. From where he stood Danny could see four emergency exit signs that led to the world outside.
What he didn't know and couldn't remember was which door led to the hidden room.
He thought that Tom had said something about it being next to the restrooms. Just to be sure he reached for the radio, but he discovered that it was no longer attached to his belt.
It must have fallen off when the zombie pulled him to the pavement. Now Danny found himself disoriented and confused as to which exit to make for.
Day 3
Danny took his time walking through the empty aisles.
A couple of times he thought he saw shadows moving towards him from the corners of his eye.
He stopped and listened to the silence. A primal fear was taking over.
Somehow he managed to find batteries. He gathered three of each kind of battery and placed them in his pockets.
He remembered that the flashlights were in the camping gear next to the toys at the front of the store.
He clumsily made his way there with nothing but the exit light to guide him. It took him a good twenty minutes.
Finally he reached the flashlights. He picked one off the end cap and tried to open it.
The blister packaging was much thicker and stronger than he could have imagined. He would have to find a knife.
He searched the camping supplies, but found nothing. He thought hard, and finally decided that the knives would most likely be in house wares, or