The Beginning of the End of the World
By Ty Hunt
"Dad?" Nothing. "Dad?" I asked once more as he walked towards me with milky eyes, pale skin, and his mouth soaked in blood. He reeked of blood and rotten meat. He lunged at me and tried to bite me. I ran outside and slammed the door shut before he could get to me. A blood stained truck pulled up as I closed the door. It was my brother. "Max get in." He said with a sound of panic in his voice. "Tony, something's wrong with Dad!" I jumped into the truck as the front door of the house exploded open and my dad came running at me. I closed the door to the truck and Tony drove out of the driveway a lot faster than usual and before I knew it we were out of the city and into the countryside.
"What is happening Tony? One minute I thought Dad was dead, the next he tried to eat me!" He sighed and said "The end of the world, and the dead have risen. You may think it is a joke, but at the lab we did some tests on one and they are confirmed to be zombies." Just as he says that, we see a girl that is running from the undead. "Tony we have to help her, if we don't, she will die"
Tony pulls up to her and says "Are you bit?" "No" she replies. "Get in if you plan on having a chance in survival against this." I open the door and she gets in next to me and closes it. After 15 mins, she looks up at me. I take a moment to examine our new guest. She is about my height, has long brown hair, hazel eyes, and light tan skin. She is in a white tee shirt that is covered by a sleek black leather jacket, and light blue jeans with small rips by her knees. "Hey, I'm Max Fisher" She looks up at me and says really softly "Hi Max, I'm Emma Jones" She smiles lightly and puts out her hand. It takes me a moment to register why she has her hand out then I realize what she means. I grasp her soft hand and me and her shake hands. "How old are you Emma?" She looks out the car window and replies in her soft voice "I am fifteen." She leans into her seat and looks back at me. "How old are you?" This time Emma sounded a little more confident. "Same as you"
After a little while we pull into a barn. "We are going to stay here for the night. I recommend grabbing some of the weapons in the trunk if anything goes wrong." We all get out of the truck and grab some gear then go into the barn. I put all the stuff down in a corner except for a pistol that I keep in my hand. I put the pistol into my belt and start to make a bed out of some of the straw that was still there. After I finished with making the beds, I plopped onto one of the beds and closed my eyes not knowing that Emma was walking towards me. She lays down next to me and nudges my shoulder. "Hey Max, I was wondering if I could sleep next to you. For some reason you make me feel safer." I nod and open my eyes and scoot over a little to put a little space between me and Emma. She smiles and takes off her jacket, and uses it as a pillow.
Tony walks up to us. "Hey, I'm going to go search for more survivors. Will you to be ok staying here?" I just nod. He gets into the truck and heads out. "So…. What do you want to do Emma?" She turns around so she is facing me. "I don't care what we do, but I kinda want to get to know you better." I take a moment to think about it. "Sure, but can you close your eyes so I can change into more comfortable clothes?" She smiles and closes her eyes. I get up and take off my shirt and put on a muscle shirt to replace it. I change out of my jeans and put on sweatpants and sit down on the bed. "You can open your eyes now Emma" She sits up, opens her eyes, and scoots next to me.
"So, want to play Truth or Dare Max?" Emma says after a moment. "Sure, I just want to do something that's not boring" She nods. "Ok Max, Truth or Dare?" I rationalize if she is going to make me embarrass myself or not. "I guess I will pick dare." Emma smiles and thinks for a second. "I dare you to tell me something most people didn't know about you." "Most people didn't know I was a black belt." She looked at me and stared. "You were a black belt?" I let out a small chuckle. "If I wasn't a black belt, would I be able to do this?" I get off the bed, sprint to the wall and kick off of it and do a triple backflip and land. Her jaw dropped in shock. "Damn, that's all I have to say. Damn." I walk back over to Emma. "Emma, Truth or Dare?" She takes a moment to think She did not respond verbally, but rather raised her index finger. "I think I hear something outside" she said with a small look of fear in her eyes. "It's probably just my brother getting back, I'll go let him in."
I walk over to the door and as soon as I turn the handle of the door, the door flies open, knocking me down. I look down at my arm, which is now bleeding from the impact of the steel door. "Hey Tony?! What that ness-" I look up at who I thought was Tony, but in his place was a whole lot worse. It was a group of 6 zombies, and they were looking at me with their dead and hungry eyes, and they were hungry for flesh.
I scrambled away from them as they shambled towards me. I grabbed for where I thought my pistol was, but found nothing. I cursed at myself in frustration for leaving the gun in my jeans. My eyes searched for anything I could potentially use as a weapon but all I could find was a broken chain, a wooden chair leg, and a old bible. I grabbed the chain and swung at the closest zombie, and hit it in the throat. It staggered back a couple of feet, then continued advancing at me. I tried swinging at it again but I missed. I threw the chain at the zombie, and grabbed the chair leg. As soon as I picked it up, a zombie grabbed my arm, and as it started to move its rotting teeth towards my arm, something tore threw its throat. I stared at the bizarre thing that poked through its neck. It was a stainless steel blade that was retracting from its neck. I shoved the zombie off of me and behind me was a man in a white lab coat, a blue tee shirt, and white jeans. It was Tony. And he was not alone.
I sighed in relief that I was going to survive another day as I put the chair leg down. "Hey Max, you ok?" I looked at the people behind him. "Yea, I'm fine. You got here just in time." I point at the strangers and ask "Who are you people?" Emma walks over next to me and looks at my arm. "Max? Are you ok? I heard some loud noises and I thought you were gone." I chuckle and say,"You think I can be killed that easily? You are talking to a black belt" She smiled and dragged me away to the main make-shift bedroom.
Emma closes the door, sits me down next to her on the bed, and examines me to make sure I wasn't bitten. I look at her and explain what happened. She let out a sigh of relief and said to me "Max, I knew I should have came with you. I-" she began, but before she could say anything, I leaned forward and kissed her. It was the wrong time, wrong place, and the wrong circumstances. There was nothing right in their world. Except that kiss.
Emma fell asleep on my chest. I stayed awake for a couple of hours, stroking her beautiful, long, soft brown hair. After that first kiss, there had been many others. I thought about what would have happened if the dead had never risen. If any of this would have happened. I looked down at her, and kissed her on the cheek and went to sleep with my arms wrapped around her beautiful body.
When I woke up noticed Emma was gone. "Emma?" I got up, put on my gray and black muscle shirt and my jeans that had my knife and pistol sheath. As I started to grab my double-edge, black dagger with a ribbed handle with a six-and-a-half-inch-long blade, I heard some screams. Then the gunshots began.
I ran outside with my dagger in hand, ready to fight. When I got outside there were 17 zombies, and they were going after my brother, Emma, and 4 others that were with Tony. I ran towards the group of zombies and stabbed 2 in the back of the head and cut 3 of their throats open. To be continued…..