It was a cold autumn morning, the roar of the wind was howling past me as I march toward the doors of the office. As I open the doors I am immediately greeted by an angry character as I was five minutes late. Every day here is like a nightmare, I have always wanted to quit and pursue a different career that doesn’t have me trapped in a cubicle daily. The smell of coffee filled through the air as I sit down at my desk, “It sure smells delicious but it doesn’t taste how you’d expect,” I thought. As I let out a defeated sigh I turn on my computer and opened my spreadsheet. As I start filling in some data I noticed that I have no my internet was knocked out, so I start to look for someone to ask about it. Strangely, though, I cannot find anyone, it’s as if they’ve all vanished. Maybe they want to a meeting and forgot to tell me, I thought. Although I felt that this might not be the case, and each theory that I had went on where everyone went kept racing through my head.
I decided to go walking about in an attempt to find someone, but alas, not a single soul in sight. As I reach the stairway a new smell started to arise, it was very musty like sulfur. I opened the door and to my surprise and horror I saw what looked to be my Coworker Jim on the floor missing half of his face. Many thoughts raced through my head but not a single one of them was to check to see if he was okay. Instead I bolted down the stairs and watched as the numbers went down: 14,13,12,11,10,9…but then something else came. It was another Coworker, I did not know his name though as he was pretty new. “Hey, do you know what’s going on? Where is everyone?” I asked him. There was no response, instead he made a strange gurgling sound. After a few seconds of disbelief he started to jump at me, trying to bite me. “What are you doing!?” I yelled as I tried to keep him away from me.
There was definitely something going on and I couldn’t stay at the office, so I kept pushing him as hard as I could until he fell down and continued my way down the stairs. As I made it to the bottom floor I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge, it was as if someone placed a desk with a copy machine on top of it in front of the door. I had to find another way out, but where? I kept thinking on ways to get out and one idea came to mind that could work, I could go the the first floor and go out of the window. I went to the first floor, and went to the first window that I could find. As I open the window I hear a multitude of screams and horns, there were bodies all over the street and cars wrecked into a building. There were people watching in horror as they watched their loved ones getting eaten by what looked to be deformed, dead, and walking human beings.
Chaos filled the streets, nobody was safe it was everyone for themself. There was no cell phone service or internet so it was very difficult to figure out what was going on. My only hope was to find a television, but I could not figure out where to find one, nowadays people just use their phones to check for news. I ventured onto the break room with hopes that there is a television in there. As I near halfway there I find bloodstains that follow into a conference room, I peek my head in and find 5 bodies of people who worked here. One of them had a pen sticking out of their skull as they were sitting in a chair, he had dark brown hair with blood all over his face. He was also wearing a black suit with a striped red and green tie, the others were scattered onto the floor covered in blood, one was missing his left eye, and another one had his entire face missing. I went on in, hoping that they wouldn’t try an attack me so I could find anything useful for my journey.
After finding nothing useful while looting the room, I continued my path to the break room. It took a long time, and I found a lot of bodies along the way but I finally made it, and to my joy there was a television. Unfortunately it was a really old CRT television and was unplugged but it looked like it could still work. I plugged the television in and pressed the power button on the TV and to my surprise there was absolute static. I looked around the TV and fumbled with buttons on the TV and finally I reached a station, WillanTown City News. What they were talking about sounded like it was straight out of a terribly made horror movie. They proceeded to say: “A new virus outbreak has surfaced and has put the city under quarantine. Experts advise everyone to stay indoors and keep weapons as to protect yourselves.” Well, I thought, I guess I should try to barricade myself inside.
My efforts to create a decent barricade have not been completely successful. In the end I decided to just move the tables in there in front of the door and place some objects on top of it. Once I finished the barricade I sat down and tried to relax. My time of relaxing did not last long as a loud roar rumbled outside of the break room. I immediately flicked the lights off, turned the television off, and got down on the floor in a dark shadowy area that nobody should be able to see me in. A few minutes passed and finally a gurgling sound got louder and louder as the figure approached. As it approached the window, I could tell who it was, it was someone I knew, Ashley, although something in my head told me to not approach or even make a sound. She was walking with a limp and her eyes looked dead. Then as a great miracle she started to limp on down the hall and wander off. Instead of flicking the lights back on I turned the television on and turned the volume down so it wouldn’t attract any more.
Quite some time has passed, it felt like an entire day. There are no windows in the break room or even a clock. Through the past few hours, I believe, I have heard many terrifying sounds from screaming to loud bangs. The news channel shut off not too long ago, now all it shows is static. Maybe it’s time that I get out and try to make it to my house, I need to get my family to safety if they are even still alive. Before I left I checked everywhere for something I could use to protect myself, I only found a small butter knife. I remove the barricade of tables and other crap as quietly as I could, being cautious as to not draw attention. I opened the door and continued on to the nearest first-floor windows, it wasn’t as chaotic this time although it was eerily quiet. There were vehicles everywhere: wrecked into buildings, wrecked into each other, there was even a huge trailer truck lodged halfway into the lobby of the office. On top of that there were bodies littered all over the streets and blood splattered in a ton of places, there were only a few of them shuffling around and even crawling.
It came time to try and jump down to the ground, luckily there was a trailer that I could jump onto, although, it was a bit of a fall. I jumped down and only suffered a slight pain that lasted a few seconds, however, I made it which is what I was more concerned about. I stayed onto the trailer so I could contemplate on what to do next, but my best idea was to just head for my car and hope there are no blockades. I jumped off the trailer onto the front of the cab and jumped off, bolting toward my car when out of nowhere I am tripped by a mangled being with no right eye and missing both of their legs. The being started screeching and trying to bite my face off, until I kicked until it released me from its grip. I continued on, this time, with more caution as to not trip or get grabbed by another.
A few moments later I finally reached my car, dodging about 4 more deformed beings. I went to grab my keys in my pocket but noticed that they weren’t there, I panicked shuffling everywhere for a place that my keys could be until I finally found it lying under the car. I finally get in the car and turn it on, hoping that I can make it to my house. I close the car door and start my venture onto my home, with the radio on with hopes that there would be some helpful information. A few minutes passed and every station just radiates static, I’ve had to drive past quite a few wrecks and had to dodge a few of them as well. The undead littered the roads, to which I’ve had to swerve out of the way of. After a few more minutes of dodging I am forced to stop because of a massive trailer truck blocking the road.
There is no possible way to drive around it as there are piles of cars in a pileup all over the road. The land next to the road is overrun by the undead so I decide that my only chance is to try and climb the wreckage and hope I can find a working vehicle. I get out of the car and run as fast as I can hoping that I can make it before the undead beings realize that I’m there. I reach the wreckage just as the zombies notice and start to run after me, in a quick thought I jumped up onto the hood of a car and start to climb through all the cars and trucks. I finally make it through but what I see as I look is depressing, piles of bodies and cars on fires. I could even see a family of 4 in a wrecked car, barely moving I could tell that they were one of them by the way they would gurgle like the one’s at the office. The driver noticed me and banged on the window with his limp arm, I knew I had to find shelter and a decent weapon if I wanted any chance of surviving this.
I look around the road with blood and bodies everywhere. I find a store with broken windows and the alarm blaring, as if it was recently raided. I enter the building, piles of litter everywhere. There is no food in sight, everything has been wiped clean. As I reach the employee door to the storage area, I am surprised by an undead that grabs me and tries to bite me. I kicked as hard as I could and to my surprise it worked, he stumbled onto his back and struggled the get back up. It took a bit of thought, but I decided to look behind a few boxes and grabbed a crowbar I found behind a group of 3 boxes and jam it into his head so he wouldn’t have to suffer.
As I look around for any resources I could use, I notice a shotgun under the store clerks desk. I grab it in hopes that I can find some ammunition to use it with. I check the slot and noticed that it still has a single unfired shell, maybe there is some more around. I stop and think about where a store clerk may hide some ammunition and I thought: what about his office? So I go towards the back and as I’m looking around I notice a locked door with no indication of what it could be. I tried as hard as I could to open the door but all my attempts proved to be futile. Then it dawned on me that I had a great tool that I put into an undead workers head.
I run back to the undead worker and pull the crowbar out of his head proceeding to run back to the door as fast as I can. I jam the crowbar in and pull and to my joy it opens, however, what I saw was very strange. Everything was out of order, papers everywhere, chairs on the ground, computer screen broken, and dirt everywhere. The computer hummed, but the monitor showed colors and a crack on the screen as if someone had stabbed it. There was no sign that anyone was near, yet, it felt very eerie. It was like someone hasn’t been in here for days, but then I looked under the desk and noticed a body. It was the store clerk, he somehow managed to stab himself in the head. As I stared I realized that he wasn’t moving like all of the others, had this happened before this chaos had occurred?
All I heard was the hum of the running computer, the city was quiet except for a few car alarms going off. After moments of thinking, I decided to resume my main quest of searching for ammunition. I look through all the bookshelves and find nothing, I didn’t find much until I checked the desk. Once I searched the desk I found 5 shells, 2 AA batteries, and a flashlight. I felt a bit of relief knowing that I had some means of protection, now I can survive the coming night.
After I found some viable resources, I prepared to spend the night in the store. There wasn’t much to make a comfortable bed, but with a few paper towels and some ripped clothing from the dead workers, I managed to make a small uncomfortable sleeping area. It wasn’t much, but it should get me through the night. Shortly after I finished building, I put the shotgun and crowbar down next to the badly made bed and went straight to bed.
As I was sleeping, I had a dream about becoming a dog. From what I could tell I was a stray in a typical city area with a lack of food, the main struggle in my dream was there wasn’t enough food for everyone and I had to defend myself from other hungry dogs. It felt like it went on for years until one day I met a nice friendly human who took me in, fed me, bathed me, and gave me a nice warm home. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that something was off, there was a strange disfigured man staring at me through the window. It was difficult to tell who it was through the curtain, but I could tell that it wasn’t a typical human with the way it walked and the muffled groan through the window.
I walked around the house to see if anyone was home, but there was nobody to be found. I realized shortly that there was dead silence as the figure disappeared from the window. This made me think that it was just something to do with some weird shadows, but, what came later disproved my theory. The groaning continued, but this time it came from the front door, except this time it was more violent with knocking sounds. It took a few minutes, but the figure managed to break the door down and limp in. I finally realized that this figure was a mangled human-being that looked to be dead, and soon after it grabbed me and I jolted awake.
After a few minutes of trying to process the nightmare that I had, I realized that there was actual banging and groaning. It was coming from the back door of the building, and I soon realized that it was time that I pack up and leave. I jumped out of my terribly made bed and grabbed my weapons. I realized that it would be a bit difficult to carry them together and a bit awkward. So once I gathered the rest of what I had, I walked to the front of the store where I can try and look for something to carry my items.
After a few minutes with no luck, I decided to head on out to look for something that can assist me with survival. As I walked out I was surprised to see the amount of destruction that had ensued after I went to sleep. The roofs of a lot of the buildings were collapsed, with some corners also destroyed. I also noticed a great deal of cars that were either wrecked, on fire, abandoned, or had dead bodies in them. The worst part through it all was the silence, there was nothing except for the sounds of destruction, not even a zombie was nearby.
I contemplated on where I wanted to go and after around 6 minutes I decided that I wanted to head straight on with the hopes of finding other survivors. It took around 23 minutes of walking to be able to find a decent store with the smallest amount of destruction, it was a store called “Parabulas” and sold office and school supplies. I made a sigh of relief, hoping that maybe I could get my hands on a backpack to store my weapons and other belongings. I tried to enter but noticed that the door was locked and had a closed sign on the other side which made me realize that this may be a bit harder than I had hoped. I looked around for a few minutes before deciding to break the door open with my crowbar. Once I had access to the store, I quickly looked around before finally settling on a tacky pink backpack with flowers on it. I was just glad to be able to finally have means of storage so I could travel more efficiently.
Once I was able to get all of my belongings into the backpack with the crowbar slightly sticking out, I headed out and kept on the same route as I was going. I kept on the path for a few hours until finally I could not walk anymore and was starving. I looked around for something to eat, but I couldn’t find a single thing except for the grass on the ground. I decided that it was time to start raiding nearby houses with hopes that I could find some decent food. After searching through 3 houses I managed to find 2 cereal boxes with one half empty, 3 apples, 1 banana, 4 strawberries, 24 bottles of water, 3 cans of beer, and a chocolate bar. With a sigh of relief I began packing what food I could whilst eating 2 of the strawberries and taking a drink from one of the water bottles. I wasn’t able to take much, but I got enough that I would be able to ration when it came to it. After relaxing a bit I decided that it was time to head back on the road with hopes that I can get back home.
I continued on my journey watching the destructive aftermath as I walk past destroyed buildings and vehicles. Within the long journey I had I haven’t seen a single living being. I continued on until it started to get dark outside, luckily I was out of the main city by then and in a suburban housing area so I could easily find some shelter and possibly some more supplies for the upcoming days.
Nightfall came quite quickly as if time was accelerating, however, I was dead wrong with that assumption. This night felt like the longest night of my life as I could not sleep and was bombarded by multiple zombies. As the sun went down, I wandered into a house after shattering the window with a large rock I found by the road. For a few minutes it was quiet and peaceful, and then I opened one of the bedroom doors on the first floor. 2 large zombies suddenly attacked me as I opened the door, from what I could see it was a man and a woman both with brown hair. The man was wearing only underwear while the woman was wearing a full teal nightgown. I tried to shut the door on them, but one of the zombies shoved their hand in the crack of the door making it impossible to shut. As I tried to fight them for the door they screeched very loudly like a banshee.
I tried to keep it as closed as possible, but it would appear that I wouldn’t be able to get a break without killing the zombies. After around half a minute I decided that I would jump off the door and run to the kitchen in hopes that I could grab one of the weapons I collected along the way. As I jumped, the door burst open with a loud BANG! The 2 zombies came scuttling towards me with dead expressions and loud moaning. I had to cut the corners so they wouldn’t be able to catch me and run as fast as I possibly could. I reached the kitchen after about a minute and a half of searching and to my surprise I was cornered with nowhere to go. I hurriedly took my backpack off and began searching for a great weapon for this moment.
It took a bit of thinking, but after a few seconds I decided to just use the shotgun I found at the store. I grabbed it and aimed at the man, hoping that I’d be able to gain some luck. As I locked onto his head I pulled the trigger and with a loud BANG! he was down. To my luck, it worked! He was down, however, It was the only loaded shell so I didn’t have enough ammo for the next one. In a panicked attempt, I grabbed my bag and began searching, but to my terrible luck the woman jumped onto me and by no surprise at all she was very strong. After a bit of struggling and almost getting bit, I was able to push her off and get her knocked onto the ground. She struggled a bit to get up which gave me enough time to grab some ammo and reload the shotgun, point it to her head, and pull the trigger. As I confirmed the death I put the shotgun and ammo back into the backpack and sat against a wall for quite some time hoping for some rest.
It was finally over, or so I thought, as I found that there were more zombies in this house. A few minutes later I heard a loud BANG. Curious, I went to check out the noise hoping that it wasn’t a threat. it appeared to come from the 2nd floor, so I slowly went up the creaky stairs as quietly as I could. I searched the 2nd floor but couldn’t find anything as I searched through each room until I reached 2 rooms, one of the rooms door was decorated with a pretty sign that said “Ally and Maria.” The other was just a plain white door with no decorations. I opened the plain looking door and to my horror I saw a very deformed young boy barely able to even get up, let alone chase after me. I quickly shut the door, accidentally slamming it generating a concerning amount of noise.
Maybe the other door is empty and that noise was just something falling? I opened the door and at first it was quiet, but then I noticed I was being stared at. I looked over towards the bunk bed and noticed 2 heavily deformed faces with no hair staring at me, and then without a chance to react, one of them started to scream like one of those “death whistles.” Without any thought I ran out and shut the door, however, one of them ran after me and I happen to shut it on their fingers, slicing them clean off.
I ran out of that house as fast as I could and looked for another place to stay for the night. As I looked around I tried processing what I had just said and experienced. “This has to be some twisted nightmare, what the hell was that!” I thought. After about 45 minutes of walking around I came across a house that looked like it had been abandoned for years. Maybe things would finally look up, maybe I can finally have a place to rest? Needless to say I broke the lock of the front door with my crowbar and went on inside. I realized that I needed to protect the door somehow as I broke the lock, so I looked around and found a large cabinet.
I pushed the cabinet in front of the door as best as I could and began to settle in for the night. After about another 30 minutes I was trying to sleep when I noticed some really loud sounds. I slightly looked out the window and saw what looked to be thousands of zombies aimlessly walking and running around, some eating each other, and others completely dead on the ground. Needless to say, I ran and hit as best as I could. After what felt like an eternity, the noises started to die down and I could finally get some rest.
This starts the first chapter for my Zombie Apocalypse story, eventually I plan on creating an entire book for this story. You’ll notice that there are quite a bit of changes to this story as the others were just my main drafts so I could eventually add them up, proofread, make changes, and finally publish altogether.