Chapter~ The Beginning
I was twenty years old when the news first came about the outbreak. Everywhere, people were dying, then coming back and attacking other people, either decimating them , or turning them into monsters as well. It almost didn't seem real, but it was happening. Zombies were roaming the earth. Me and my family weren't idiots. My brothers watched enough T.V. to know all about zombies. But, it wasn't until my brother-in-law called me to tell me to get everyone together, and drive to his house and help him get mobilized that I realized, we might all die.
See, Michael was an NCO, level 5 Sergent in the army. It was him that taught me to protect myself and be prepared for anything. He had been waiting for this day for a long time. I got my stepdad, Paul, to driver over to Michael's house in his truck while I took the van. Despite all the original plans for the Dream Vacation, we had decided that it was safer to try to defend my house rather than his. We got to his house, jumped out and immediately went to work piling things in. MREs, cem-lights, medical supplies, food, fire-starting equipment, and a multitude of weapons and ammo. Me and him planned this out a fe wyears back, before I got knocked up by his brother and we moved out...not on the best of terms. But, with the end of the world around the corner, we forgave and forgot.
When we got back , we got everything set up. The kitchen/pantry would be storage. The two back rooms would be living areas. The only windows were high up and impossible for a zombie to climb and break. The rest of the windows had sheets or towels over them to keep light from escaping. The chickens were a little harder to deal with. We had some 40-odd chickens, most of which were hens, which were all laying. Unfortunately, we had to silence them, as the zombies wer attracted to sound. We dried most of the meat, keeping two hens for laying. We also had four dogs, two border collie mix, and two rat terrier mix. They were good dogs that knew when to be quiet and knew when to bite.
Of course, things can get hairy with twelve people living in two rooms. Eventually, my sweet littly baby girl, Dawn, only two and a half at the time, started having a temper tantrum right as a heard started through. They came at us like a strom, out of nowhere. We got out go-bags and gought our way to the cars.
Tom, my husband/baby daddy had been carrying Dawn when a zombie got hold of his leg...neither of them made it. Paul got caught as well. Momma was a wreck. My oldest younger brother Collin held her as she cried while I drove all night to get out of town. I couldn't take my eyes off the road, as the tears crawled their way down my face. There was nothing left for us to go back for in that small Mississippi town.
Michael worked fo rthe National Guard while state-side, and as NCO, had the keys to the weapons vault at his unit's station. Me and him were the only ones who had regular practice with guns, or any survival, for that matter. Along the way, we checked for anyone we may have known. But, wherever we went, no one we know before survived. For a while it seemed like we were the only ones. Eventually, though, we found another group...they tried to kill us. Over the next year or so, we lost a few pople, until it was just down to Collin, Michael, Momma, my second brother, Rob, Tammy, and me.