-First chapter in 1st person and past tense, from future perspective
-I tried censoring the bad language, but you all know what it means anyway.
-I made it as Australian as I can.
No one knows how it started. No one knows where it started. In the beginning anyway. As time moved forward, I discovered these truths and now wish to tell others my story. So let me start at my beginning and explain things how I remember them.
I had been dozing in my hammock in the afternoon. I remember hearing my dad yelling, though he sounded far off. When I opened my eyes to look at him, he had already reached me. He had tripped over the metal poles that held the hammock to reach me.
"F*cking c*unt." He swore, but didn't stop. Confused and disoriented had not even begun to describe how I'd felt, as he'd picked me up and run into our house.
My dad had bought a gun years ago, after getting his gun and hunting licences. He went out to hunt Kangaroo's almost every weekend, bringing them back and turning them into skins that he would sell. He kept the skin of the biggest kangaroo he'd caught and had it as a carpet in our loungeroom. Our gun safe was displayed beside this carpet, since he showed off his gun and carpet together.
When we had entered the house, he had kicked the door shut and thrown me onto the couch, lunging at the gun safe and pulling out his hunting rifle. He had picked up his hunting bag, my hunting bag and mum's hunting bag as well as our emergency supplies bag. Then he turned to the wall. On this wall he had displayed many weapons he had gathered. Most were cheap things he had bought online and displayed, but that didn't make them any less dangerous.
"Dad, what's going on? Where's mum?" I remember asking, thinking the worst after all those late nights watching crime shows. "Did you kill her?" I had almost vomited when the words left my mouth, clenching my hands but wanting to know what he did.
"What? I didn't lay a hand on your mother, you sh*t head." My father had looked at me like I was crazy.
"Did you help someone kill her?" Was my next question.
"Why would I help someone kill your mother? Sure, we have our fights, but I'm not going to kill her because of that. If every couple did that, the world would be rid of humans. However, I suppose it is trying to rid itself of us right now." Dad had mumbled the last part, but I remember it clear as day.
"Why aren't you packed yet?" My mum had come in at that moment, looking at both of us, terror stuck on her face as she kept looking around, almost as if she was afraid someone would jump out.
"I'm f*cking trying woman, don't pester me. How about helping me out." My father had snapped at her.
"So, if mum's alive, does that mean you killed someone else?" I looked at them both in confusion as I got up to help grab some necessities.
"What the f*ck are you talking about Harley?" My mum had only spared me enough of a glance to look at me like I was an idiot.
"If no one's dead, then why are use panicking and packing everything?" I asked, wondering what other reason was good enough to send my parents into that panic mode. My parents were the typical laid-back Australians that just shrug everything off. Seeing them act so frantic had been enough to have my hairs standing on end and made me feel sick.
"Who said no one's dead? And on that note, who said no one's dying." My father had grunted, finally having his arms full and racing out to our hunting Ute.
"What does that mean? Are we in a hurry because a relative is dying?" I ask, grabbing the things mum throws into my arms and running out to our Ute.
"No." Was all my dad said as he grabbed everything out of my arms and loaded them tetra style into the Ute.
"Harley, hurry up and help me." Mum yelled as she'd thrown some bags out of the house, and I passed them up to dad.
"Do we have friends dying?" I asked dad as I handed him the bags.
"The whole world is dying, now shut the f*ck up for a minute." My dad yelled at me as he snatched the bags from my hands.
"What do you mean the world is dying?" I asked, but mum came out and pushed me towards the back seat, hurriedly getting in the front. When dad finished, he jumped in the driver's seat and took off, speeding down the dirt driveway.
"Can someone please tell me what the f*ck is happening?" I finally snapped, my terror reaching a peak as I hugged an old stuffed toy I'd had for years.
"Watch your f*cking language, young lady." Mum snapped at me, not even looking in my direction, keeping her eyes trained on everything outside of our car.
"Harley, we just need you to be quiet. We'll tell you everything soon, just please let us get out on the road." My dad said. I rolled my eyes and pull my headphones on, turning my music on and closing my eyes. How hard was it to spare 3 f*cking seconds to tell me what was going on.
We hit some bumps, and I was jostled around, opening my eyes in irritation. We were on the main road heading through town at the time, and I could see many other cars driving the same way as us. All of them loaded and all of them in a hurry. I screamed as I watch a car run over someone.
"Dad, we have to stop, someone just got run over." I yelled in horror. What horrified me more was that I watched the person who got run over, stand up again. "Wait, he shouldn't stand, that will make things worse. Dad, hurry and pull over." I yelled once again at my dad, yanking my headphones off.
"Harley, we need you to listen. We are not joking this time, okay?" My mum turned in her seat and faced me with the most serious look on her face and I nodded mutely, my voice deciding not to work in that circumstance. "We don't exactly know what is going on right now, but we think it is zombies." I laughed at my mum, but a hard slap to my cheek had me holding it and looking at her through teary eyes. I never forgot that slap.
"What the f*cking hell mum?" I gaped at her, but she just glared right back at me.
"I'm not f*cking kidding Harley. Look all around us. There are literal zombies everywhere. If they bite you, you become infected. Molly went to the hospital 2 weeks ago with an unknown illness, then started attacking the nurses. Those nurses became infected and bit other people. The only thing it could be is zombies." My mum had looked so panicked and terrified. I knew that she believed what she had been saying, but it was so absurd to me. I almost laughed again, but screamed when dad ran into someone, who got stuck on our windscreen.
There, I got a close-up view of what had been happening. The man we had hit was one of our local servo workers. He was always a grouch, but up for a talk whenever anyone walked into his servo. However, I could clearly remember what I had seen. What had happened to him. His skin was rotting, his flesh was torn, and I could even see bugs, especially maggots slowly crawling out. As he tries to bite the windscreen, I saw that he was missing teeth. I watched blood pour from his nose as he breaks it, but he didn't stop trying to bite it. To get to us.
His arms were in weird angles and when he couldn't bite through the windscreen, he started headbutting it. I was screaming and crying as I held my stuffed koala closer to my chest. His head was splitting open every time he headbutts the windscreen. Blood was pouring down our windscreen and I could even see his skull as I grab a sick bag we kept in the car and threw up in it. I was used to blood and things, since I went hunting, however watching someone harm themselves to his degree was disgusting and churned my stomach.
Dad suddenly slammed on the breaks, the man flying off it, then ran him over as we continued driving. The crunching beneath our car had me emptying the last of the contents in my stomach and my body was shaking. He flicked on the windshield wipers and turned on the sprayer, the blood slowly drained away. I was hugging my koala in a death grip by that point, and I no longer wanted to look outside, so I'd lain down.
The images of what I had seen were still implanted in my mind, replaying every second that I had seen outside the car. Zombies walking all over the street, in and out of shops. What I had seen right before lying down, was a zombie opened a door. Zombies can't do that. Since when could a zombie open a f*cking door? Weren't they supposed to just bang on the door? If zombies could open doors, then how the f*ck would we survive?
I curled in on myself, staying quiet as the car continued driving and just hugged my koala as the tears rolled down my face. I could hear screaming coming from the zombies. Were zombies supposed to have such human screams? No. This couldn't be true. Zombies were fake. Something some sick sucker made up, probably when he was drunk and saw a cannibal ritual of some sort. They couldn't be real.
I fell asleep but had nothing except nightmares, the zombies tormenting me even in my sleep. Their screams ringing in my ears, but I couldn't stop it. I prayed that when I woke up, it would all be some sick nightmare or prank. Unfortunately, it wasn't.