Alive

The Zombie

"Fuck... fuck... BRO WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?" Aaeiden yells first. Maria bursts into tears while I stay frozen half squatting on the floor looking at the horror before me.

Sweet Ms. Beth. Her nightwear stained red, her long brown hair with strands of white escaping messily from the low bun on her head. But now half of her skull was smashed and splattered all across the bottom of the stairs.

I slap my hand over my mouth overwhelmed with the smell of rotting flesh.

"Everyone step back!" We all shuffle back from the still body staring in shock. Oliver hiccups before he begins to vomit on the kitchen floor.

"Aisha are you okay?" Mike asks. A sudden thought struck me as I check every inch of my exposed skin seeing anything out of the ordinary but to my relief I had no scratch or bite marks. If I had watched or read enough zombie books i knew that to be scratched or bitten by them would mean...

"No body touch them! If you get scratched or bitten I think you get turned into-"

"Shut the fuck up Aisha! What are you some virus expert all of a sudden? This isn't a zombie movie! You don't even know what these things are and your telling me to stay away from them?" Maria screams at me and we all look at her in shock. Her mascara running down her cheeks and her eyes puffy and swollen.

"That's now what I'm saying, I'm just stating facts that seem to be obvious! Don't you notice how quick the virus is spreading? The fact that they attack anyone who doesn't already have it? It's safe to say we should stay the fuck away from these things!" I scream and the whole group goes silent.

My chest heaves and my body shook, still high on adrenaline.

"We gotta get the fuck out of here man..." Chase says panting in the corner. Candy bursts into tears muttering about her family, Oliver walks to her and pats her back taking her away from the scene. Maria tucks into my brothers body letting her tears spill on his shirt.

I turn my eyes to the body of the woman, black skin forming on her arms. She must have caught the infection a while ago if her skin was already starting to rot like this.

"Where do we go...?" I ask thinking about my dad.

"I gotta go get my family man..." Mike says, his hands tugging through his hair and his eyes cast on the bleeding skull at his feet.

"Okay first let's get to a secure location. Once we find the safest spot we will all go scout out and retrieve our families." Aaeiden says.

"Unlike you, our families aren't in fucking prison. I can't wait that long! I need to go home right fucking now dude!" Oliver's says coming into the room with Candy sobbing behind him.

"We have to find a secure home-" "fuck your secure home I need my family with me!" "Think right man... " "Fucking apocalypse."

"SHUT IT!" I scream feeling my brain melt in the complication of the matter. Everyone stared at me for a few seconds.

"Going into the fucking city right now, that's most likely crawling with these shits is a bad fucking idea!" My brother stares at me in shock.

"Oliver I completely get it! You wanna go home make sure your family is safe but you live on the other side of the city. That means going on the main road and fishing around areas that could be devastatingly dangerous right now. Didn't you see this bitch try to fucking eat me?" I say looking at Oliver, pointing to the dead woman and Oliver's defiant look softens at my tone.

"She's right..." Chase says and Oliver's face drops in defeat nodding.

"It's only a matter of time before the zombies make their way out of the city to look for more food and then what do we do? We are sitting ducks here without a solid safe hold."

A idea hits me as I walk out of the now disturbing room. I grabbed my phone on the table and quickly search up maps.

Our location pings up and I scroll out before I find the exact spot I was looking for. The perfect place. A lake, 10 minutes away is the beach and my dad has a cottage and a treehouse out there. It's quite far from here but there is a town across a set of hills with a mall accessible nearby.

"What had I learnt from zombie, apocalypse movies? It's that you need a place to fortify. You need a place where you can grab supplies that are close and easily accessible but far enough not to keep running into threats." I race up the stairs stepping around the body and grabbing my zombie book.

Mike, oliver, Chase, Maria Aaeiden and candy all come to stand at the lounge room coffee table where I dump my zombie book.

"It's pure coincidence that I found this book three days ago, and I think we should follow it. I've researched and made detailed descriptions on the best possible outcome if the world came to an end. Call it an obsession, call it a crazy girl idea, but it may just save your life."

I watch everyone's face as they frown in confusion. My brother grabs them book lifting it up and examining the strange black cover I had scribbled over.

"Why did you make this?" My brother asks and I could only shrug.

"Who writes a entire book on how to survive the end of the world?" Maria asks scoffing and giving me a stink eye.

"Aisha would... " my brother says opening the book and reading a page on how to create fires.

"Oh shit..." we all look at Oliver who has his hands in his hair.

"We won't have the internet anymore- we won't have access to maps, Google, emergency contacts-" everyone grabs their phones.

"We need to gather as much information as we can if the internet cancels out. I'm talking about healthcare, what to do in emergency situations, how to build whatever we need to survive! Get books get pens!" I say panic in my voice.

"She's right-"

I made up my mind.

"I have a spot..."