I don’t know what to say, other than I’m glad no one was around to see me flail my machete frantically through the air and scream like a baby as the zombies advanced. I mean, I was hoping to ease on into the zombie killing business, maybe killing one or two at most for awhile until I got used to it. But taking on five at a time? I can’t even fight one regular person let alone a horde of zombies.
But I guess my technique worked, because I closed my eyes and could feel the blade cut at rubbery flesh. I dared open one eye and saw the slice where the machete made contact. Thick, congealed blood oozed out of the wound slowly, brown and globular. The thick mort-flesh sloughed off of its face around the cut, smacking hard onto the ground.
Okay, something’s wrong, I thought. If it was a new zombie, it’s flesh wouldn’t be sloughing off yet. Had this person been dead for awhile?
My thoughts were interrupted as my stomach threatened to send up what remaining food I still had and I fought not only the zombies but myself as I backed away slowly. I felt lightheaded, the beginning signs of one of my famous “fake faints”, my stomach’s contents roiling; but I quickly forgot about the rancid blood as a zombie lurched my way.
It descended upon me, and I had no time to think about blood or the other gross things that the zombies left in their wake. All I had room to worry about was staying alive for the sake of my sister. I swallowed that nasty tasting puke spit and advanced.
I used the machete to carve out a large chunk of flesh, exposing muscle and tissue under the arm of one of my attackers. This did not deter the zombie, for it felt no pain and continued towards me.
I heard my sister run out of the door behind me, and I whipped my head around to see she was carrying our old box television. But once she saw the zombies she stopped and looked at me.
“Sam! Run away, they’re going to eat you!” she screamed, tears threatening to flood her eyes once more. But I had enough of crying for one day.
I turned and ran full force into the group of zombies, knocking them over but sending myself to the ground as well.
“Don’t worry about me Rachael!” I called, scrambling to get to my feet as the zombies clawed longingly at my jeans. “Focus on getting that door open.” I kicked one zombie square in the jaw and I heard a sickening snap as my foot pulled away. Ew.
Rachael hefted the television and, looking back once more towards me, hurled it at the window. The glass shattered, the little shards flying everywhere. The television landed on top of the corpse which used to be my mother, pinning her down to the seat.
Using the television as a shield, my sister reached into the car and pulled the unlock button. She opened the door and unbuckled my mom, releasing her from her harness.
But my dad beat her to it. Surprisingly fast, he climbed over my mom and snarled as he leapt to the ground. My sister screamed and backed away.
By this time, all of the zombies were up again and closing in. My sister and I ended up back to back, the horde on my side and my father on the other, my mom struggling to throw the television off all the while.
“Back up back up back up!” I screamed at Rachael, pushing her backwards as the zombies advanced, their hands grasping.
“Nooo!” she screamed, pushing right back as my parents lurched forward.
“I’ve got five on my side!” I cried.
“You’ve got a freaking machete!”
I looked down at the machete, realizing that I hadn’t been using it in the last few minutes, and raised it to begin fighting off the zombies once more. But just then I heard a sharp crack and one zombie went down, crumpled into a pile of rotting meat.
Then I saw a person who I never thought would be alive during the apocalypse; Cassandra.
Cassandra was our long time friend who we knew since she was seven. She lived just across the street from us.
She stood behind the pack of zombies clutching a large plank of wood, her knuckles white and her eyes wide in terror. Her light brown, shoulder-length hair was frizzed out and tangled, her eyes ringed by a sleepless night. She breathed heavily and lifted the plank once more.
The momentary distraction was enough to snap me out of my daze, and I continued cutting the zombies down.
Cassandra lifted the plank and brought it heavily down on a zombie, caving its head in a pile of shattered bone and grey matter. I smacked another zombie square in the head and brought it down like a bag of hammers. Struggling to pry the machete out of its head, my dad sneaked up behind me, ready to pounce.
But my sister tackled him just in time as I yanked the machete out my own zombie using my foot and consequently causing it's head to explode in a thousand purple-red chunks.
Bits of grey matter and blood clotted onto the blade, and I gagged as I wiped it on the torn clothes of the fallen zombie. Three zombies were dead for good, but four were left. My sister had my dad pinned to the ground, but I could tell that any minute he would break free as he viciously tried to bite her wrists.
That’s when I felt something hit my head. It was as if a lump of cold meat, maybe a nice-sized steak, smacked me right in the temple. I staggered, wheeling around to see that my mom had punched me right in the face.
Cassandra ran up beside me and clobbered mom-zombie, beating her until all that was left was a clump of mangled flesh.
But it was still alive. It pulsated and twitched, and fresh tears stung my eyes as I back away.
I wanted my mommy.
I cried out as I looked at what used to be my mom struggle to stand, a mass of broken limbs and torn flesh piled on the ground. I turned around and finally couldn’t hold myself any longer; I puked right there, my tears running down my face.
It happened so fast that I don’t really remember how we got into the car. All I can recall is Cassandra pushing me towards the car, screaming for Rachael. Rachael taking the wheel, Cassandra and I in the back seat.
My stomach lurched as my sister, who had never driven in her life, backed out of the parking spot going at least sixty miles an hour and slamming the break hard.
She frantically turned the wheel and floored the gas pedal. The car sprang forward and whipped around the corner, leaving the rest of the zombies in the dust.
I wiped the spittle off of my mouth and closed my eyes to calm my stomach. It didn’t help.
“You saved us Cassandra,” Rachael said after we got out of the neighborhood. My sister turned to go to the highway.
“Don’t go there,” I managed to say, the taste of bile rising in my throat. “We’ve got to go see if Madison is alright.”
Rachael wheeled the car around, spinning it faster than I would have liked, and turned onto Madison’s street.
“It’s nothing,” Cassandra answered, patting my back. “The same thing happened yesterday, only it was just my mom… dad didn’t come back home.”
Rachael drove for a few minutes before rounding a few corners and finally pulling into Madison’s driveway. Except instead of pulling into the driveway, she kind of skidded and slid to an abrupt halt on the front lawn, throwing huge clumps of sod in all directions.
Once she stopped and I sat up and really got a look of the house, I lost hope of ever seeing my best friend again.
The windows of her house were shattered, and of her parent’s three cars, two were broken into and all of their tires were slashed. There was blood on the driveway, and not far from it laid an unidentifiable corpse, ruined beyond recognition. And only after just one night. What would it be like in a week? A month?
I began to lose my cool once we stepped from the car. Tears fell from my face once more.
“It’s not fair,” I said. “First mom and dad and now my best friend…?”
At the sound of the car doors closing, something in the house stirred.
We all stopped as we heard shuffling coming from inside the house. We stood still, frozen and straining to make out the noise, when a dark figure passed the window. The jerking gait of the figure was enough to convince us immediately that it was a zombie.
I looked at Cassandra and Rachael and they nodded.
I crept towards the front door, raising my machete. The doorknob slowly turned and the door opened. Before I knew it I was screaming and running full force at the door, my machete high above my head. The door flew open and I heard a shrill scream come from inside, matching mine. Before the door could close, I wedged my body inside of it.
I saw a dirty face with a look of terror spread across it, eyes wide and mouth in the shape of an O. Zoooommmbbb— Oh. Wait a minute. Blonde hair, glasses askew, small mouth with lips pursed and eyebrows raised high on her forehead.
Madison Todd, my best friend since I was young, looked back at me as if I was crazy— yet a look of relief fell across her face as well. It was a weird combination of incredulousness and happiness that made her kind of look like a blow up doll.
I lowered my weapon and stepped out of the doorway, slowly backing up, trying to act like I hadn’t just almost maimed her face. Madison opened the door and walked into the light. Her leg looked as if it had been bleeding badly the night before, and I stared in horror at it.
“Sam?” Madison said. She looked to my sister. “Rachael? Cassandra?”
All I could look at was her leg, and my grip on the machete tightened. I wouldn’t want to do it, but if she had been bitten, if she was infected…
Madison noticed the wary look on my face and shook her head, laughing nervously. “No, I got that last night when the window shattered. It’s just from the glass,” she pointed to the window where long, crooked jagged pieces had been broken off.
“They broke in last night,” she went on, “and cornered us.” She frowned, turned around.
“Come out, stupid. It’s Sam.”
Savannah, Madison’s sister, appeared in the doorway just as frazzled as Madison was, her artificially-dyed red hair comically frizzed out, her glasses smudged with dirt. She was the same age as my sister and in fact was Rachael's best friend as well. She emerged and looked nervously around, reluctant to leave the relative safety of the house.
Madison had a brother as well. From context clues I concluded he and his parents weren’t doing very well these days. I was depressed beyond words, and also mildly disappointed. How were we going to survive without adults? I wasn't used to having to take care of anyone but myself— but, seeing as I was the oldest of the group, I saw a huge responsibility facing me.
I dropped the blade and hugged Madison, knowing full well the horror of loosing her parents. All the family I had left was my sister, and I knew that the death of her family was something that would scar her forever. I looked at Savannah and nodded knowingly. She tried to smile. It looked more like a grimace and she fidgeted with a stack of bracelets on her arm, eager to find safety.
Rachael shifted uneasily behind me, and we turned to look at her.
“I know it’s sad and all, but we really should be going, I think. I saw something moving down the street… could we hurry up and leave?”
“Leave where, Rachael?” I asked, gesturing to nowhere in particular. Already the zombie apocalypse had driven many to leave the area and go elsewhere— where I could not guess—but the rest that had stayed seemed to have died and become zombies themselves. It was likely that this was happening all over the country, and nowhere was safe. I was surprised at how deserted it already seemed out here.
“We could live with the Amish,” Madison suggested, trying to add light humor to the situation. It was a sort of running joke in our circle of friends that if any apocalyptic event happened in our lifetime then we'd go live with the Amish because, hey, Amish people are cool.
“Indubitably,” I agreed, knowing full well that we had no earthly idea where any Amish people lived but going with it nonetheless.
Madison cracked a small smile and said, “But I think I should grab some stuff before we leave. Then we can head out. Maybe we can wait this apocalypse out in the rural areas of Florida?”
I nodded as Madison and Savannah reentered the house. We followed her inside and found signs of struggle everywhere; the glass coffee table had been shattered, the couches seemed to have been clawed apart, and many of the nick-knacks and other miscellaneous items were strewn about. The wood floor was caked with a grimy filth that I could only identify as dried blood, and bits of splintered wood littered the enitre area.
Madison shuffled through the debris and disappeared into her room. I wandered into the kitchen, glancing at the shattered dishes everywhere, when I heard a splat.
I looked down to see a bit of indescribable pink stuff on the ground under my shoe, a red trail leading from it to around the counter, just out of sight. I peered over the counter and saw a lump underneath a reddened sheet and knew what was under it; I turned around before I could vomit again.
Madison reemerged from her room with a backpack slung over her shoulders and a new pair of clothes. Savannah stood close behind, a backpack of her own hanging loosely over one shoulder. Madison shoved her cellular device into her pocket and stopped in front of us.
“Sam, Amanda just called. She says she needs help. She’s trapped inside her house and there are zombies all around her neighborhood.”
I glanced at Rachael and Cassandra. They looked like I felt; scared as shit. But I wasn’t going to let Amanda die like that. She lived a few streets down, and we would need as many survivors as possible.
But the thought of facing more zombies…
A shrill growl came from outside, and all of us jumped.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, please,” Madison said.
"Indubitably," I replied with a sigh.
Indubitably.