CHAPTER ONE: THE DEAD ARE...NOT DEAD
It had been a relatively peaceful day. I'd woken up and walked to the local family-owned coffee shop down the road, getting my usual black coffee with cinnamon and vanilla. Nothing seemed much out of the ordinary. I chatted with the waitress, June, while she was on her break. I bought a newspaper on the way out, reading it as I walked back to my house. Well...apartment.
It was a modest dwelling. A den, bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchen. Much smaller than my liking, but appropriate for my current price range. There wasn't much extra space; I'd already shoved my desk into the bedroom as it was, along with my bed, a single-person mattress resting on the floor, and a dresser.
When I got back inside, I flipped the television onto channel twelve, the local news. The forecast was good for a November day in the small town of Galeville, North Carolina. Supposed to be chilly and breezy, with clear skies. Then I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair, straining to hear the news. Nothing interesting much that I could tell. When I walked into my bedroom to get dressed for work, that's when things started to get strange.
Peering out the window, I could see that the sky was dark, even though the forecast said nothing of clouds. When I looked closer, I could see that the weather remained true. There were no clouds, the sky was simply gray. It was odd, but I shrugged it off and changed. Digging through the dresser, I pulled out loose khaki pants and a t-shirt, then pulled on my favorite hoodie. After that I grabbed my backpack from the hook by the bedroom door.
The simple bag was light brown leather, water resistant, and large enough to hold anything I might need. Attached to the straps were two gun holsters, holding my two handguns: a pure black Python Revolver, and a snowy white Colt M1911. Mostly, the bag was full of ammo, but it also had some non-perishable snacks, a few knives, a lockpick set, and a jar of coffee beans.
My job, or the unofficial title of it anyway, was somewhere along the lines of 'Professionally Justified Thief.' The police department pays me good money to basically break into suspects houses while they're gone to gather evidence. It's not easy...but personally, I find it fun.
When I walked back into the living room, things got weirder. The power suddenly flickered, then went out, although I couldn't think of a decent reason that it would. Sighing, I figured it was probably just a blown fuse in the breaker in the fuse box outside, and that the power company would fix it by time I was home.
By the time I walked outside, though, the entire world had already gone to hell.
There were no cars, for starters. Even for a fairly small town, the streets were usually busy, especially during morning work traffic. There were also no lights, anywhere, and that coupled with the dark gray sky made the entire place have an eerie feel to it. There weren't any people, no dogs barking, no birds chirping, nothing alive. I almost walked right back inside. But something kept me going.
I walked down to the police's office to check in, but no one was there. The cars were all parked though, so I knew they all weren't out on call.
"Okay, this...this is just bizarre," I mumbled to myself. "Hello?" I called out. "Sheriff Hawke? Officer Bluegrass? Anyone?" There was no answer but the rustling of a paper in the hallway, coming from the meeting room door.
I hopped over the desk, which was technically forbidden, but it didn't look like anyone was stopping me. I pulled out my Colt, wary of anything I wasn't sure of...and it's a good thing I did. It might've just saved my life.
Almost as soon as I rounded the corner, I was jumped upon by what I can only describe as a walking corpse. The skin was rotten, down to the bone in some places. The eyes were hollow and white, teeth and hair were missing, and it stank of death. Immediately I put the handgun to it's temple and fired a round. The creature fell, knocking me onto the floor and spattering my face with dark red blood. Disgusted, I pushed it off and wiped the blood from my skin with my sleeve, then stowed my gun into it's holster.
Although I wanted nothing more than to wretch and run back home, I forced my right foot to kick the corpse over and look and the nameplate on the old police uniform.
"Sh...Sheriff Hawke...?" I whispered, mortified.
Immediately I backed into the far wall with a loud thump...and that's when I heard them. Low, moaning growls, coming from inside the meeting room. I peeked the top of my head over the door frame just enough to get a look.
Standing inside were the rest of the police officers. Every single one. Officers Bluegrass, Petrenko, Lyon, Diamond, Johnson, Henry, Waters, and Deputy Colt. Even with their uniforms starting to mold, their skin nearly falling off in patches, and their faces bony and deformed, I could recognize all of them fairly easily.
"Holy shit..." I whispered to myself, pulling my Colt back out of it's place on my bag strap. I didn't plan on wasting eight to ten shots to kill them all, but I'd have rather been on the safe side. It appeared that none of them had noticed me, only heard the thump, but didn't know where it came from. They were all tumbling around the room, some dragging a dead leg or arm, pointlessly.
Carefully, I backed away, opened the back door as quietly as I could, and slipped outside. The cars were parked in a fenced in area out here, but the gate was oddly open. Maybe someone had tried to get in? I didn't know, but I knew I needed to get out of here. Trying a car door, it was locked, just as I figured. I didn't have the time to pick it and hot-wire the car. Those walking corpses could potentially come after me at any second.
Groaning, I figured my only option was to run in, grab the keys, and get the hell out.
Sneaking back through the door, I could see the Sheriff's body laying about six feet away. Being careful to make as little sound as possible, I dragged his body over to me, searching until I found his police car keys. There were several others, but I discarded them. Well, all but one.
The armory was close to the back door, past a locked, inch-and-a-half thick steel door. I tried every key, and of course, the last one I tried fit the lock. When I turned to open it, the lock clicked rather loudly, but I heard nothing from the other room and continued on.
Inside was a literal hoard of guns. Shoguns, sniper rifles, pistols, and ammo everywhere.
"I see no harm in...stocking up," I whispered, grinning but still wary.
I grabbed a simple six-round shotgun, and a ten round rifle with a sniper scope attached. Then I picked up as much ammo (for all of my guns) that I could carry, and ran back outside. I dumped the guns, ammo, and my bag in the back seat where they were locked up tight, and slid into the driver's side seat, turning the key in the ignition. The fairly new Impala-model police car started with a content rev of the engine and a low hum...but apparently, that was still loud enough.
Before I could even change gears, the zombies were outside, gaping maws open and hungry. It was disgusting; they seemed to almost leave a trail of filth and decaying skin and organs. I almost broke the gearshift, kicking it into drive so fast. The car was completely full on gas, which I silently thanked whoever for, and sped out of the gate as fast as I could. I knew a bigger town, Harrisburg, was only about an hour north, and so I figured that was the best place to travel.
"Town that big...gotta have some survivors, right?" I asked no one.
In reality, I no more wanted to go there than here. I'd just hoped I could find someone else, or get there and discover everything was all some bad dream.
No such luck.
Driving into Harrisburg was like walking into a cemetery for murderers. It was dark, creepy, and had such a heavy and morbid air around it that I almost wanted to go back to Galeville. I kept pushing though, until I hit a gas station about a mile into town.
More like a truck stop, actually, the Gyro Gas Station had a lot of various wares. Some clothes, knives, lighters and fuel, music, bags, and of course some snack foods and drinks, and beer. I nearly gagged as I walked inside, because the whole place had a strong aroma of cigarette smoke. But the rest of the store was encouraging. It looked as if some of the stuff had been picked over already, a good signs that perhaps someone else was alive. There was still a lot though, and I took the chance to stock up again. I took some non-perishable jerky, simple drinks that didn't need to be refrigerated, and lighter fuel, flint sticks, and wicks. I'd gotten my own lighter a while back; a simple Zippo but with a lovely, three-dimensional wolf design on the from that was from and old video game that I loved. I also took a larger backpack, tossing the supplies into it.
I was almost ready to walk out, but then I saw a broken glass case behind the cash register counter. It looked as if the case was meant to hold pocket knives, as there were several good sized ones sitting up on display. What really caught my eye, though, was a long, thin, almost dagger-looking knife as the very bottom. The blade was light silver and razor sharp, and the handle was simple, with no hilt, just a darker silver color with a lion's head carved into the end.
Without a question, I grabbed the blade and it's sheath and left.
I stopped about an hour later of driving up and down streets looking for people. The whole place was deserted and I was getting nowhere. I sighed and parked the police car at a gas station downtown. I got out with my bag and walked around a little. The previous gas station had looked like a few people had been there before me, but this one was pristine. "Damn it!" I yelled, not caring who or what might hear me. "Hello?!" I banged on the glass of the station store hard. The door's lock appeared to be broken and stuck in place. Rolling my eyes, I back up about ten feet, sprinted towards the door, and at the last second ducked into a somersault, crashing through the tough glass. Since it was thicker to prevent things like this from happening, it didn't shatter too bad, but still I felt the sharp cuts across my cheeks, forehead, and backs of my hands.
"Ow...not my best idea," I said, picking a few small shards out of the back of my left hand.
"Yeah, I'll say," came a voice from nowhere.
On instinct I pulled out my Colt and pointed it ahead.
"Who's there?!" I called, stepping forwards. "Show yourself!" After a few moments, a middle-aged man stepped forward from in the shadows, his hands up and eyes looking terrified.
"N-now don't shoot!" he spluttered, "I-I got a family back there!" I'd been an interrogator for almost a year once, and I could tell by his body language and the way he was talking and looking around that he wasn't lying. Immediately my Colt was back in it's resting place.
"Sorry," I said, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly, "I wasn't planning on shooting you. That's just kinda...instinctive, for now. You can put your hands down."
The man, who now appeared about forty, with slightly thinning brown hair, let out a large breath and lowered his arms. "So then you've seen them too? Those...things?" "If you're talking about the dead roaming the state, then yes," I replied, sitting on a nearby bench and wiping the blood off my hands and face.
"Not just the state, miss. Those things are all over the country. Saw one of the last news reports that was broadcast," he mumbles, gesturing to a small television behind the counter, "They said corpses were up and walking from New York to California. Everything's gone to shit."
I nodded, everything starting to make more sense. "But do they know why this is all happening? And where are the rest of the people?" I asked, curious.
"Said it's some kinda bioterrorism virus, turns you into a mutant if you get injected with it, or breathe in it. It's not just walking dead. They've got all kinds of mutations, some that are obese, some that look like grasshoppers, big flying insects, and all kinds of other crap. Most of the people are dead and gone around here, don't know about anywhere else. Anyone who's alive is holed up someplace safe with supplies. That's what me and my family are doing here." "Mhm," I said, putting the pieces together. "But if this is bioterrorism, where the hell is the BSAA? Shouldn't they be here?" "Miss, there's a whole country suffering from this thing. The BSAA doesn't have enough units to be everywhere at once. I'm hoping we can hold out until they roll through here," he tells me, walking towards the back of the store. "C'mon back here. We got a heater running."
I nodded and followed him, ducking under a banner of some sort. In the back there were three others sitting around an electric heater; a woman who looked a few years younger than the man, and two small children that were huddled together in a far oversized winter coat. Neither of them could have been older than 10.
He sat next to them, and I hesitantly took a seat as well, glancing around.
"I'm Phil, and this is my wife, Dana," he said, waving a hand towards the woman. She gave me a warm smile and a wave, which I returned. "And the kids are Thomas and Michael. Tom's the oldest." I nodded and waved at the small children, smiling slightly. The one that I think was Micheal gave a tiny smile, but appeared too cold to wave back.
"I'm sorry for ah...kinda breaking your door," I apologized. "Don't worry about it, miss..." he trailed off.
"Oh! Hannah, sorry."
"Well miss Hannah, we've got plenty of stuff in here to fix that. Probably would've broken anyway if those things decided to attack us," Phil said, shaking his head.
For the next hour or two, Phil, Dana, and I conversed about the states of things, and our plans. Me, not really having any, just mainly listened. Their plan was to hold out with their food and supplies until the BSAA came to sweep North Carolina. As I was listening, I gazed around the small store. There was certainly plenty of food and drinks, and so I wasn't too worried for them.
It had been nice to be able to sit down and talk with people for once in what had felt like ages...but, after a while, I forced myself to stand and get the kinks out of my back, fearing of overstaying my welcome.
"It's been real nice getting to meet you all, but I should probably get back on the road. I have some friends in a town close by, and I want to make sure that they're safe. Or find out if they're not."
Phil nodded his head and stood up next to me, walking back to the front of the store.
"Now don't go dying on us," he said jokingly, "Can't do that to some new friends, yeah?" I laughed, and he pats me on the shoulder. "You got enough food? We have some here if you need anything."
I shook my head, smiling. "I think I'm okay. I stopped at another gas station farther out of town and stocked up a little."
Phil nodded as I slipped back out of the hole in the door, carefully avoiding sharp edges. He waved and I returned the gesture as I slipped back into my police car, starting the engine and turning up the heater. In the short time since all this started, the temperature had dropper remarkably fast, even for November.
I sighed. "Well..." I mumbled to myself, "At least I know people can survive. Maybe that means I an find another, bigger group of survivors out there, and get some help. Or at least stick with them until the BSAA gets through."
The last glance I took at the gas station with Phil and his family was one of hope.