I'd been on holiday with my parents and my brother Jesse when it happened. We had a lodge out in the country where we'd often spend summers together, although less frequently now that both Jesse and I had moved out. I was 22, and Jesse 19, and my parents had decided that it was time for another family vacation to keep us close. In truth, I'd reveled in the opportunity to escape my tumultuous home life when I turned 18, but I'd have been lying if I said that I wasn't also secretly looking forward to being in that quiet, snow-covered lodge nestled amongst the trees once more. It was enough to make this trip bearable. My plane touched down onto Georgia soil after a grueling 9 hour flight from London, and I practically fell into my mother's arms, which she took as a cue to start crying. My parents had in fact been divorced since I was 14, but they agreed to keep up the family vacations in order to make it up to me and Jesse. The whole arrangement worked for me; two weeks without the 'step-monster' as I so childishly nicknamed my father's new partner, and in which I could relax entirely, surrounded only by my relatively laid back family. I could tell that my father was still upset with my decision to move to London in order to pursue my music career, but though I felt this underlying tension as he hugged me tightly, I could still feel the love there and that was enough to let me know that things were still okay between us. Smiling tiredly, I pulled away and hefted my backpack onto my shoulder.
"Let's go, I need to sleep in a comfortable bed for several hours." I groaned, and my parents laughed as they helped me take my luggage to where they had parked the car just outside the airport. The Atlanta climate was like a slap in the face after the consistent coolness of London air, and I was sweating before we even reached the vehicle. Thankfully, it was comparatively a much shorter journey from the airport in Atlanta to our lodge, and I was asleep for most of it anyway. I woke to Jesse shaking my shoulder excitedly.
"Becs! Wake up!" I grunted and stretched, batting his hand away as I did so.
"Fuck off Jesse." I mumbled groggily, opening my eyes slowly.
"Language, Beca." I heard my father call over his shoulder as he walked towards the house, suitcase in his arms, but I merely rolled my eyes. Jesse was still grinning at me from the open car door, and I unbuckled my seatbelt and finally relented, hugging him tightly.
"It's good to see you dude." I laughed. He nodded as he drew back, still grinning. When I finally stumbled into the lodge, I noticed that my mother had turned on the little TV in the kitchen, and was staring at it intently, bags of groceries sat forgotten on the counter where she had initially placed them after entering.
"What's on that's so interesting?" I asked, beginning to sort through the bags myself. She took a moment to answer.
"I don't know, hun, some kind of incident in New York… Some sort new disease I think. It's killed a lot of people already." Her tone betrayed her worry, and I paused in my actions.
"Well, we picked a good time to come out here, to the middle of nowhere then, huh." I joked, attempting to lighten the mood. She turned to me and smiled sadly, nodding. We packed away the rest of the groceries quickly after that, and she turned off the TV as we did so. Soon, the news update was forgotten as we all sat around the large oak table tucking into dinner.
"So how's college, Jesse?" My father asked, beaming proudly at his son who sat across from him. He was extremely glad that Jesse had chosen to attend college at all, especially as I had refused entirely, and not only that, but Jesse was studying medicine.
"It's great thanks dad. The course is really interesting and not too hard, and I've met a ton of cool people already." I smirked at him and chuckled as he blushed slightly, looking down at his plate. I may not have attended college myself, but I wasn't oblivious to the typical college life. My parents didn't notice this exchange however, and turned to me now.
"And how's things with you, Beca?" I tilted my head slightly, irritated by the tone of slight disappointment in my father's voice.
"Good thanks. I've got a decent apartment of my own now, and I'm making good connections. I've had a few good slots recently, I think things are picking up for me now." I was trying hard to make it as a DJ, which wasn't easy as I had quickly discovered. Still, I was doing fine on my part-time job at a clothing shop, and with what gigs I did manage to get. My parents nodded politely, turning back to Jesse to question him further about his first year of college as a med student. I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. Here was the family that I had come to resent, the one that always favoured Jesse, that never supported my decisions. Still, they were family, and there was no getting past that.
The next few days were spent in a similar relaxing, if slightly annoying, fashion. I spent a lot of time making mixes or simply sitting outdoors, enjoying the heat, and my father and Jesse would often go fishing down at the nearby lake. It was a week into the vacation that things really started to kick off. I was helping my mom in the kitchen, and we had the TV on in the background as we prepared vegetables for the stew we were making for dinner. I wasn't the best cook in the world, but I figured I might as well give my mom a hand as I had nothing better to do. There was a slight lull in our light conversation, and in that I heard a sentence that made me listen in properly to the news report that was currently showing on the television behind us.
"...The outbreak began in New York, and since then has spread rapidly to the surrounding states. We do not yet know the nature of the infection, only that those affected have become first extremely ill, and then in the second stage of the illness, violent, attacking anyone around them, even family and friends. We advise everyone to take extra sanitary precautions until we know more about how the disease spreads, and to stay indoors where possible. We will update you as soon as we know more." The news reporter moved on to another story, and I turned to my mother, seeing the same shock that I was feeling reflected in her face.
"It's spread already?" I murmured, and she nodded slowly. Just then, my father and Jesse came in through the back door, each carrying a bucket of fish and crabs.
"We've had a great day on the lake today, haven't we Jesse?" Dad said proudly, patting Jesse on the shoulder. He nodded, and they deposited the buckets beside the sink.
"Guys… there's some kind of mega-infection spreading across the country right now. It was just on the news…" I stammered, and they turned to me, confused expressions on their faces.
"Infection? What do you mean? Like flu?" Jesse queried, and I shook my head quickly.
"They don't know what it is. Apparently it makes you really ill at first and then you turn violent, attacking anyone around you. Including those close to you. They don't know how it spreads yet." Jesse looked bewildered and a little scared, but then my dad spoke up, his booming voice cutting through the tension in the room like an axe.
"There's no need to scaremonger, Beca. It's nothing more than another minor epidemic, probably something brought in by all those darn tourists. We'll be fine out here." I sighed, but I knew that he was probably right about us being safe out here. We were in the middle of nowhere after all, and not that close to New York. There was no point in worrying, and besides, we were meant to be on holiday. So, we forgot about it again. That is, until it turned up on our doorstep one morning, screeching and clawing and covered in blood. It came for us.
AN: I just want to address a couple of things; firstly, I know that there are a couple of similar fics to this floating around and I hope that nobody considers this plagiarism - as far as I'm aware this story is different to those that already exist, it just happens to be based around a similar theme, that of some sort of zombie apocalypse. Secondly, someone picked me up on the fact that I use British English in my writing rather than the American English that you might expect from a fic set in the US. This is because I am British, and I have tried to dull it down and use American spellings and names etc in this as much as possible, though I'm sure you can appreciate that it's not easy to convert completely so please forgive any errors etc, I do try my best. Thanks :)
