CECILIA BELLWOOD
"WILL YOU PLEASE just give me a ride to practice?" I asked Brooke. "If not, I'll just kick you out, because you're not staying at my house alone for two hours while no one is here. That's just weird." Brooke stood up from the bean bag in my room and smiled.
"Don't be stupid, Ceci. Of course I'll drive you to practice. I wasn't going to actually make you walk." I smiled at her and looked back in the mirror to perfect my ponytail. Okay, so it didn't matter how my ponytail looked, because I was just going to softball practice, but big deal. I didn't want to look like a slob, even though I'd probably be a tired mess after the two and a half hours working in the field. My light brown hair was tied up into a high ponytail. I realized I hadn't taken off my mascara, which made my blue(ish) eyes stand out at least a little, but that was fine. As long as I didn't cry during practice, which I wasn't planning on, it wouldn't matter.
I bent down and finished tying up my converse. I'd change into my cleats later. I didn't want to put them on now and scratch the wood floor of my room, even though they were already kind of scratched up from me coming back from practices, too lazy to change out of my cleats. I had black socks and softball pants and a random shirt I'd grabbed from Big 5.
Anyway, as I got into Brooke's car, she adjusted the mirror—and her lip gloss—and pulled out of my driveway. Her blond hair was down, which was nice, because I really liked her hair. It was so healthy and long, and it was something I definitely envied from Brooke Santiago, but that doesn't count her naturally beautiful features. Honestly, I envied her appearance in general.
My house wasn't too far from the high school, where practices were held—obviously—, but it definitely wasn't the funnest walking distance. Which was why I was grateful Brooke was driving me. When she pulled into the parking lot near the softball and baseball fields, we noticed a beat up car. Well, it wasn't totally beat up, but the front window was smashed and the passenger's side door had a large dent in it. I cringed at the sight.
"Yikes," Brooke said, "I'd hate to be that person. Imagine what they're gonna look like seeing their car like that." Little did we know, that person probably would never see their car again. At least not while they were sane. Or alive, if that makes sense. It all will in time, don't worry.
Anyways, Brooke parked, and I got out. I walked towards the field, but as I got closer, it looked empty. Like no one was there. I was never the first one to practice, and even if I was, the coaches always got there, like, thirty minutes early. There was no sign of anyone. So I figured they were in the dugout or something.
They weren't. I went and stood over by the pitcher's mound and looked around. There was absolutely no one. I looked over and saw Brooke was still parked. She gave me an inquisitive look and I shrugged. I didn't know what was going on. Maybe practice was canceled. I was thinking about leaving when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. I turned and saw someone walking towards the field, except they were limping. I squinted to get a better view, and as they got closer, I noticed more and more that they weren't normal. It was a girl, but she had pale blue skin and a limp. Her eyes were like she had no pupils or irises. They were totally white. And her face—her face was really beat up. So was her hair. I don't judge girls for how they look, but it looked like she'd gotten into a fight.
"Um, are you—" Then she attacked me. She made some kind of noise, like screaming. Or retching. I gasped and ducked out of her grip. The girl was trying to bite me. I immediately knew what it was, but I couldn't bring myself to believe it. How? When? Why now?
The second time she came at me, I'd reach my softball bag and grabbed one of my two bats. Luckily for me, I had a powerful swing. The girl tried to grab for me again, but I swung my bat and hit her in the hip. Her limp got worse, but she still tried to swat at me. I swung again, this time hitting her hard in the thigh. She lost balance this time and stumbled to the ground. As she struggled to get up, I took one last swing and hit her hard right in the head. She fell to the ground and stopped struggling.
I looked around, panting. In the outfield, I saw another one. I didn't want to risk anything, so I ran and grabbed my bag—I don't know why—and sprinted to Brooke's car. She was shutting her door and getting out when I reached her. "Get back in!" I shouted, and she looked majorly confused.
"Did you just beat that girl up with a bat? Now, I'm all for it if she attacked you, but if you get sent to prison—"
"Get in the car, Brooke!" She looked at me and immediately she knew something was wrong. She gripped her car keys and got in, starting the car and backing out. She drove out of the high school parking lot and began questioning me.
"What's going on, Ceci? Why are you so panicky?" I kept looking behind us. I didn't see any more now, but I was sure I was going to see quite a few more soon enough.
"Okay, Brooke, you have to believe me here." I tried to sound calm, but I was also thinking there was no way to say this without sounding completely crazy. "There was—that girl, she was—"
"Spit it out!"
"I think she was dead!" Brooke looked at me, mortified.
"You killed her?"
"No! She was already dead!"
"You killed a dying girl?"
"Brooke!"
"Okay! Okay, fine. I'm listening. What do you mean, you think she was dead?"
"I mean," I gulped and looked down at my bat. It was splattered with blood, and so was my arm, which was still gripping the bat. Brooke seemed to have just noticed, too. "I think she was...a zombie. It sounds crazy, but you have to believe me—"
"But...but how? Those things aren't real, they're just in movies, like The Walking Dead and Shaun of the Dead. They're not..." her voice trailed off. "Like unicorns. Unicorns aren't real, I wish they were, but they're not, and neither are zombies! Why couldn't it be unicorns? Unicorns are—" This is what happened when Brooke panicked. She started rambling.
"Okay, just calm down!" I knew it was hard to calm down at the moment, but we had to figure out what we were going to do. I thought as Brooke drove. I didn't even know where she was driving, so I decided that we should probably figure that out. "Take this left." Brooke looked at me like I was crazy and halted to a stop.
"Are you crazy? Left takes the freeway to the city. That's suicide, Ceci!"
"It's also the freeway to weapons! Food! More people! It's our best shot at surviving, Brooke!" Brooke groaned and turned left.
"I swear, if we die, I'll kill you in the afterlife!" I knew we were just driving into trouble going to the city, but we'd just be in and back out, right?
☓ ☓ ☓
THE CITY WAS crazy. There were helicopters flying around, people running through the streets, panicking. Brooke pulled up next to a gun shop. In the window was a television and there was a man on the news. He looked panicked. "It's here. It seems like the undead have risen from the grave. All cemeteries in Eastport seem to have exploded with the dead—the national population is decreasing by the second. We have no clue what caused this outbreak, but safety tips for survival are as follows: stay away from large crowds. Stock up on food. And don't get bit. Now—" The television glitched and flickered off. Me and Brooke gave each other an eerie look before walking inside the gun shop.
It was crowded with people. Everyone was trying to buy a weapon. The man at the front desk looked like he was about to have a breakdown. Me and Brooke walked up to the counter and tried to get someone's attention. No one gave us the time of day. I looked at Brooke, then at the gun cases sitting on the counter top, and I grabbed two cases.
"Ceci, you have to pay for—"
"Rules won't matter when everyone's infected," I explained to her, and we walked out. The beeping indicating that something was just stolen rang out through the store, but nobody seemed to notice. Outside, chaos broke loose. The infected had reached the city. It seemed like everyone was getting attacked. I left my bat in the car, and there was no time to take the shotgun put of the case.
"Get in the car!" shouted Brooke, and I did as told. When we got in, we didn't even have time to buckle up before Brooke slammed on the gas pedal. We swerved around groups of zombies, trying not to hit the people they were attacking—even though it wouldn't matter. Brooke drove through a dirt road, hitting bushes as she tried to get out of there fast. I noticed something that she was about to drive into. I gasped.
"Graveyard!" she jerked the wheel and the car skidded to the right, sliding through dirt and trees and bushes until it slowed to a stop. We both got out and Brooke cursed. Her car was wrecked. Even if it could miraculously start, it wouldn't be able to get out of all the bushes it was stuck in. "What are we supposed to do now?" She snapped, and we both looked around the woods. "We can't go back into that city yet, it's madness. We have to wait for...the...wave? The wave of zombies. We have to wait for it to pass." I nodded. She was right. Even if we tried walking home, it wouldn't be safe enough. We'd just die immediately.
I took in our surroundings. Nearby, there was the back of a shop. The walls were brick and there was a window facing the forest. Facing us. I realized there were two figures running towards the window and I pulled Brooke down to hide behind the wrecked car.
The window shattered and we heard a thud, probably the zombies landing on the ground. I peeked through the shattered window of the car to see the two figures trying to get up off the ground. They were distracted. I stood up and Brooke tried to tell me to get down, but I walked towards them. I creeped up behind them. Their backs were facing me. I reached up one of my fists, but a twig snapped beneath my feet. One of the figures turned to see what the sound was, but my fist collided with their face before they could see me. The other figure said, "Oh, shoot!"
Wait, what? Zombies don't say oh, shoot. I looked, confused, at the zombies, but then I realized they weren't zombies at all. They were humans. I looked down at the guy I'd knocked out. He was holding his nose, which was bleeding. "Oh my god. I thought you were—I didn't mean..." The guy stood up with the help of his friend. The two both had brown hair, but one's was curled and the other straight. The straight hair boy, who was still holding his nose, looked at me and blinked.
Aside from the probably broken nose, he was gorgeous. He had amazing dark green eyes. "You thought I was a zombie." He finished for me, and I nodded, not realizing I didn't finish my sentence. These guys must have been from the city part of Eastport, because I didn't recognize them from my small part of town. I couldn't help but wonder what their names were. "Well, thank you, because now I'll blend in with the dead people perfectly because of my beat up face."
I shook my head to snap back into my sane train of thought. "I'm so sorry."
"I just said thank you." He smiled. Was he actually thanking me for punching him in the nose? I smiled back for a second, then called Brooke over. She was cautious of the people at first, but she always warmed up to whoever she met.
"Ceci, what are we going to do? We don't have anything to set up camp. We can't go into the city." Brooke looked nervous. I'm sure we all were.
"You guys are in the same state as us," the curly-hair boy said. "I'm assuming you don't have any weapons either?" I looked down at the gun case Brooke was gripping.
"We actually just shoplifted these guns." The guys blinked at us, then looked at each other, then shrugged like it was no big deal.
The sound of an engine started getting louder. All four of us turned toward the noise and we saw a pick-up truck speeding towards us. We all jumped out of the way in a panic and the pick up truck slowed and stopped right before it crashed into the brick wall beside us. Two more guys jumped out of the truck like it was about to explode. I backed up, just in case.
One of the guys, who jumped from the driver's seat, fell on the dirt and landed with an "Oof!" He scrambled up, and when he realized there were people, he brushed himself off like nothing happened. "What's up guys? Crazy outbreak, huh? I'm Xander, this is Julian—"
The blond boy, Julian, punched Xander in the shoulder. "Shut up, Xander! You don't go telling random people your name in an apocalypse, they might jump us!" He made eye contact with me and added, "No offense."
"None taken, I'm flattered."
Xander piped up. "But these people aren't random! See, look, there's the guys from school; Forrest and Weston; and—oh, sorry, I don't know you ladies." He blinked at us and looked at Brooke. "Wish I did, though." Brooke smiled.
"You're funny. We were trying to get out of town, but..." her voice trailed off. "Something got in our way." She was talking about the zombies, which, yes, they did get in our way, and it was rude.
Xander shook his head. "Oh, no, the last thing you want to do is get to a smaller place. The food will run out too quick. Plus, everyone goes to small towns. They thing they're being safer. You're more likely to run into, like, bandits or something." Me and Brooke took that into consideration. I didn't know how this guy knew so much about apocalypses, but he had a great point. He smiled and looked proud of himself. "I play a lot of video games."
Suddenly, there was an explosion. Not a big one, but enough to shake the city and knock me off my feet. It lasted a few seconds at most. I had lost my balance, which was kind of embarrassing, but Forrest and Brooke helped me up. "What was that?" Julian asked, but of course no one knew.
An odd stench filled the air. It was like...gas. A gas explosion? An gas leak? I didn't know, but I was curious to find out.