Extinct Chapter One
Golden sunlight bleed through tree branches as the land rose from the darkness of the night. In recent days, night time had taken on a new type of obscurity and despair. As sunlight crept through bent-up blinds, Kyle Copeland stirred in his bed. Stretching stiffly across his sheets, he let out a crescendo of a grunt before sighing heavily as he sat up on the edge of the bed. Kyle's dark black hair pointed awkwardly. A typical case of bedhead. He pushed his dark locks back out of his face and behind his ears. Body odor fragranced the room as clothes and other items lay scattered throughout the young man's bedroom. Some were stained red from battle, while others were brown from muck and grime. Next to the young mans bed, a black hunting knife stared back at him, dirt and filth consuming its blade. Dirtied, orange paracord wrapped it's handle loosely. Dulled by use, he truly wished it to be bright orange and free of all the things he had been forced to do with it. Kyle stood from his bedside and banged his head on the chain hanging from his out-of-commission ceiling fan. "Fuck" he cursed between gritted teeth.
If only he hadn't been so god damn tall. It had always been a talking point for his aunts and uncles at family gatherings, their cliché mantras replaying in his head. As annoying as it had been, he loved it, putting on a smile and giving the same shrug he always had to his families comments and sarcastic questions. Pulling on a pair of black jeans that looked like they belonged to a laborer, Kyle buttoned up his flannel and strapped on his dirty knife before buckling his belt into the second, frayed hole he had been forced to make. Malnutrition was starting to show its effects. Slouching back onto his mattress, he picked up a pair of nasty, worn-out Nike's and laced them up like a marathon runner on race day. Kyle closed his eyes. Taking a moment to himself before facing the day ahead of him. After a moment, he breathed heavily, sighed, and moved out into the hallway, closing his bedroom door behind him.
Floor boards creaked beneath his feet as Kyle reached to the door adjacent to his right side. He opened the door leaning in to see his brother, Tim, sitting up in bed with a water jug tucked tightly between his legs.
"Dude," Kyle got Tim's attention. "Get ready were leaving soon."
Tim pursed his lips over a mucked-up water bottle, sucking in and shrugging his shoulders in an attempt to hold in the drug. "O..K.." Tim spoke between tight breaths before smoke billowed weightlessly out the window, fits of coughs escaping his lungs.
Tim was a stoner without a doubt. Usually smoking all day, every day, he was a functioning pothead. Something their parents didn't like, but didn't usually put up against, especially as of late. Pot was an escape for Tim, as it had been before. Once blocking the ignorance and annoyance of his liberal, art school classmates, it now blocked the horror that lurked outside the safe confines of their home.
"You want one?" he asked Kyle with another loud cough.
Kyle hung from the doorway, holding himself up on the door knob. He shook his head in refusal. Tim nodded as Kyle walked out of his room, pulling the door tightly behind him to save the rest of the house from the oddly pleasant scent. Kyle had smoked before, usually everyday too but rock bottom was a place he feared. Never again. That was where a thick line laid between him and his brother. It was always time to get high in Tim's mind, even if they were about to head out into a horrifying reality. Kyle snarled his nose in a fit of annoyance.
"He's never gonna fucking get it." He whispered lowly.
Heading down the stairs, each step resonating as floor boards continued to creek, Kyle was met by the glint of light flooding into the main entrance of his home as the front door laid wide open. Startled, Kyle pulled out his knife and ran towards the door. Patio furniture lay overturned in front of the townhouse. The cobblestone stained gruesomely with blood, puss and bile. Only a few feet away, a man rummaged through the trunk of the Chevy Tahoe in the driveway. Kyles face relaxed with relief as his uncle continued rummaging through the truck. "Jesus Christ you scared me!" Kyle yelled at his uncle before tucking his knife away.
Kyle took in what was once his nice suburban neighborhood. Now, it remained eerily quiet. Cars left behind in driveways, townhouses left with their doors wide open and smacking in the wind. Their neighbors had escaped in fear, fled to the city of Philadelphia. The Copeland family would have left to if it wasn't for their father. Joe Copeland had leukemia. With such a disease on top of obesity and a horrible, horrible back, he had been forced to retire at the age of 50. Going on 3 years of 'freedom' he worked himself to the core to provide for his family in any way possible. Grocery store trips put him in bed for a day and a trip up and down the staircase warranted a victory screech of 'Nike!' and one of these days, the family feared that one last physical push would be the end of Joe Copeland.
Peering up from the bed of his mud and guts covered pickup, Harry Copeland glanced in all directions around him for danger. Kyle's uncle hated those… those things. Whatever you wanted to call them, thought they referred to them as biters. The dead had begun to rise again, craving the ripe taste of human flesh. The media made the whole situation worse in Kyle's opinion. Some said the sickness was airborne, others said it was contact with the dead that did it. No one knew what to believe. A small corpse of what once was friendly Miss Rosenblatt laid her hands on Kyle just two days ago. The poor old women at a chunk of skin missing from her right thigh. Talking to her did nothing. A swift homerun to her ribs only fazed her momentarily. After Harry put a bullet through her temple, Kyle hurled his previous meal up onto her corpse. Memories of her sweet neighborly smile overshadowed by her brain matter splattered across the cul-de-sac. This event was apocalyptic and the whole Copeland family knew that.
"Ha, sorry 'bout that." His uncle apologized with a laugh.
Harry angled his eyes up ever so slightly as he spoke to his nephew. The young man stood just a few inches taller than he did. He rubbed the grey scruff concealing his chin and itched a mosquito away from his neck. Heavy steps echoed against the shadowy, white walls as Harry stepped confidently from the patio, into the doorway and through the house. Sgt. Harry Copeland had always been an intimidating figure. His genes gave him his height, but the police force gave him his balls. Harry's thumb crept softly over the handle of his holstered Glock. Police issued. His cool-headedness and sharp aim had already saved his nephews life once.
Harry walked from the foyer straight down the narrow hallway leading to the back room of the house. In it, furniture had taken the form of barricades. The entertainment center which once did what is was meant to – entertain - now laid on its side in front of the sliding glass door. A shag, red corner piece of a sectional holding it in place. Sheets and blankets nailed securely across the windows, sunlight weakly bleeding through their fabrics. They didn't want to be seen. At the same time, it was as if they were put up so they didn't have to see.
An aged, coffee stained desk sat against the east wall of the back room. Tools once used for handy work now provided safety and protection for the family. Screwdrivers and metal baseball bats and a hatchet and several kitchen knives and other gardening equipment laid blood soaked and grimy, just like the masters that wielded them. Cleanliness was a thing of the past, and so soon too. It had been a week since the water systems stopped working. It was the last commodity to survive, outlasting electricity and cellphone reception.
With the two men in the back room, the floor boards announced someone else's descent down the stairs, just as they had for Kyle. That's mom. Kyle new for certain. Having lived in the same house all his life, he became accustomed to the creeks and noises of the structure. Knowing its voice as if it were a person. The creaks went silent, then quickly turned to dull thuds as Elizabeth Copeland entered the back room. She blinked anxiously, sighing as she approached the arsenal her son and brother-in-law stood in front of.
Elizabeth's short, salt and pepper hair laid askew from slumber as she gave a soft smile towards the two men examining the tools. Although she was smiling, Kyle saw the motherly fear behind his mother's eyes, as if he were 4 and it was the first day of preschool.
"Please, please, please be careful!" she pleaded with Kyle, eyebrows turning up towards the ceiling in concern.
"Oh, don't worry Liz we will be. Your kids are suited for this" Harry cut in instantly, complementing the way Kyle and Tim handled themselves in the midst of the dead. Both the alive, dead and the dead, dead. It was odd differentiating between different types of dead people, but that was the world they lived in at the moment.
"Okay…" she conceded shyly as Kyle hugged her and motioned for her to go back to bed.
"Tell Dad I said we'll be back soon." Kyle asked his mom to relay the message.
On her way back upstairs, Elizabeth passed by Tim who was on his way down. The two hugged and Elizabeth gave Tim the same motherly lecture she gave Kyle.
Tim was heard before he was seen. The same sound of socks hitting the hardwood surface of the hallway. He plopped himself on the couch, untying the knots he left in his boots the day before. Harry scrunched his nose in frustration as he picked up a philips-head screwdriver and walked past Tim without a word. He couldn't exactly arrest him for the drugs, and confrontation with his nephew was the last thing that Harry wanted. They all knew it wouldn't have mattered either way. Tim was as right as rain in his mind. Had Tim have been just some teenager to Harry, he would have let him know how he felt every day for the acts his nephew partook in. However, Family was all that was important to Harry and even though he was high, Tim handled himself well enough outside in the shit.
A sigh of frustration left Kyle's lungs as he picked up the same baseball bat he'd been using for the past two weeks. Blood soaked the entire top half of the once purely white bat which had laid unused since he was in the second grade. At that point in his childhood, Kyle had traded in his baseball bat for a choice pair of drum sticks. He choked up tightly on the bat and grabbed the hatchet sitting on the same table. The axe weighed awkwardly in his hand as he threw it to Tim's feet.
"You need to stop fuckin' smoking all the time." Kyle grunted towards Tim as he made his way towards the foyer at the front of the house, not waiting for a response.
"What the fuck?" was all Tim could muster in that moment.
What's it matter if I'm high I can function. Tim spent another 5 minutes untying and then retying his shoes. Then the next 10 minutes were spent gathering his shit together. The laziness that consumed him was uncanny to the others in the house. Kyle and Tim both grew up under the same household. Went to the same school. Had the same hobbies. The whole 9 yards. But Tim never seemed to understand the gravity of any situation, whether it was skipping class to get high or wasting time when dead people were walking around eating others.
After running up and down the stairs three more times to gather all of his essential items, Tim started piling his belongings into his book bag. What once held art textbooks now held a small amount of medical supplies, a few knives, paracord and 2 cans of corn for lunchtime. The munchies couldn't be suppressed by ice cream and Chipotle anymore, though thankfully, after being a stoner for so long, Tim's appetite remained similar to that of a bird.
The pothead approached the front door as Karen, his older sister, emerged from the basement. Her usual free-flowing brunette hair tied back into a ponytail. Similarly, her usual preppy, well-dressed self was clad in worn down jeans and a t-shirt.
"Hey, can I come with you guys?" she asked holding a screwdriver, white-knuckled with anxiety. With her backpack slung over her shoulder, Karen stood eagerly awaiting a response.
"I don't know if you should." Tim answered Karen honestly. "We don't want to bring too many people and besides we need more room for food."
The last part was an obvious lie to try and keep Karen from coming. As far as Tim was concerned, she shouldn't be running around outside. Her asthma would take over if and when they had to run. Because they ran every time they went outside.
"Come on," Karen begged "I need to go out and do this at some point so why not now?"
Tim sighed and looked down towards the ground in thought, oddly sharing the same mannerisms as Joe, Tim Karen and Kyle's father.
"Well…" Tim started still formulating his answer. "I guess you've got a point there. Come on."
In reality, Karen wasn't fit to go with the men. It just happened to be innate nature that some people were generally well-suited for certain tasks, while others weren't. Karen had been a straight-A student. Top of her class in both high school and college, she graduated with a double major in biology and chemistry. Her goal in life had always been to be the greatest musician of them all. She had mastered the violin throughout her lifetime. From the age of six all the way to her sophomore year of college. Life went on and when her father was diagnosed with leukemia, her education became extremely personal. The day she heard the news she dropped everything and immediately changed her major. It was the most honorable thing any of them had witnessed. She had been well on her way to saving her dad before the shit hit the fan. Now she trekked out into the unknown of an entirely different world, seeking to continue honoring her father.
The grimly familiar sight of the Whole Foods parking lot appeared within the families view. Cars, shopping carts, and bodies thrown around like the toys in a child's playroom. Being there the week before, Kyle, Tim and Harry recognized the new litter of bodies lying around an emaciated Prius. These people had come out into what, at first glance, seemed to be a friendly suburban neighborhood, but was actually a treacherous, apocalyptic deathtrap. Death around every corner and facing you head on at the same time. These people were once friends, families. And now they guarded the rest of the world from the very thing they sacrificed their lives to get. Everyone in the truck feared that, sooner or later, it was only a matter of time before one of them became a walking corpse or just a carcass of meat, fueling the fire of the world-wide catastrophe.
"Point out anything if you see it." Harry commanded his three companions. Under their father's orders, Harry was in charge. Harry was two years older than his little brother Joe, though Joe had always been deemed the leader, ever since they were kids. Joe had joined the football team his sophomore year overshadowing his brother as the team captain, who was a senior. Harry resented his brother for it among other things, but Joe was all the family he ever had. The two brothers would die for each other. A mirror image of Kyle and Tim who would do the same, though their bond was arguably closer.
Winding slowly through the parking lot, Harry attempted to dodge the bodies littering the blacktop. The occasional, bloody speed bump sending a high-pitched shriek from Karen's vocal chords, hand covering her mouth, agape with terror. Harry pulled through the parking lot and parked the Chevy Tahoe parallel to the Whole Foods grocery store. Kyle tapped anxiously on the handle of his bat as the car came to a slow halt. Tim's eyes dropped with exhaustion. 12 hours of sleep wasn't enough for him supposedly. Meanwhile, all the possibilities of what could happen inside that deathtrap flooded Karen's brain. She thought she was ready. Hell, she even knew back at the house. But in the exact moment the truck came to halt so did her heart beat, sending her panicking like a child on a rollercoaster ride.
To Kyle, two weeks ago felt like two years. The first time they visited this gold mine. Food and nourishment to last a small group of people a lifetime was fought for with the bare hands of frightened men and women. People clawed, bit, stabbed and shot one another. Kyle and Harry went for the first time together on the second day of the outbreak. The bodies surrounding them had once been fellow citizens they fought against for what was once the simplicity of a box of Frosted Flakes. Kyle and Harry managed to scrape together enough food for their household before bullets started echoing throughout the supermarket.
Fortunately for the four of them, the mob that Harry and Kyle faced before laid scattered and bloody across the pavement. Men, women, children and even a sweet golden retriever laid in morning dew with their innards spilled out over the curb snaking towards the vestibule at the front of the building. Kyle and Harry stepped out simultaneously, both peering anxiously around them for any dead men walking. Kyle nudged several dead bodies within their vicinity. Ironically checking if any of the bodies were biters playing dead.
Tim gripped the handle of the truck, taking his leave with a heavy sigh before he turned inwards again to the sight of his frightened sister. Karen remained catatonic inside the hatchback.
Tim called to her.
Karen heard her youngest brothers question, although she didn't make out what he said. Pins and needles consumed her, crawling underneath her skin. The sensation clambered slowly up her person, forming at the toes. It was only a matter of seconds from the moment the truck halted to now. That was all it took for the anxiety and panic to spread, just as the vile infection plaguing the world likely did.
Anxiety was a family trait. Some Copeland's suffered more than others. Set off by specific events, it was beyond unfortunate that Karen was set off by all the fucked up shit going on at the moment. But who could blame her?
Both Harry and Kyle watched as the groggy-faced young man verbally consoled his sister, who was still motionless in the back of the truck. The two men, whose garb made them look homeless, exchanged apprehensive glances. Kyle stepped forward, extending his arm with an open palm to keep his uncle where he was. Plopping through a puddle of fresh bile, Kyle carefully laid his hand on his twin brothers shoulder. Twin telepathy was something Kyle believed in as his brother did exactly what he wanted and walked away from the Tahoe.
A quick glance was enough for Kyle's personal decision to be set in stone.
"Well lock the doors. You don't have to come in."
A singular tear cascaded down Karen's ghostly white face, escaping past her glasses and pooling in the corner of her mouth. With a sniffle and a nod from his distressed older sister, Kyle shut the door swiftly and quietly.
"She doesn't need to be out here." Kyle whispered sincerely to his brother. He didn't completely agree with his own decision, but he wasn't going to force his sister to step in hell on earth. A swift gesture with his baseball bat towards the murder scene inside the stuffy vestibule put the three men back on track.
From the corridor, a slick trail of blood and other indistinguishable bodily fluids guided the three scavengers into the heart of a once slightly depressing grocery store. Islands of rotten fruit and vegetables spread out in front of them. Adjacent to the three were the scarcely filled aisles, twenty of them extending throughout the entirety of the store. The shop grew darker and darker as the light flooding in from the front windows faded towards the back.
"Okay hold up for a second." Kyle heard his uncle command behind him. Kyle held up in front of a table of rotten gala apples, though he kept his eyes fixed around every corner, searching for every possible surprise. Meanwhile, his brother did the same. Kyle might have disagreed with some of Tim's decisions, but he knew that his brother could handle himself. He had a moral compass just like Kyle, and was almost as paranoid as him.
As the three made cautious glances around what the natural light would let them see, they each pulled a light source from their respective bags. Kyle and his uncle each equipped themselves with Maglite's. Police issued with dense lead tops strong enough to cave in a skull, alive or 'dead'. Tim was stuck with an LED lantern you would likely find a preteen boy scout using, much to his own dismay.
They each turned on their lights simultaneously. Kyle painted the aisles with his light, the bright spot shaking as he tried to steady it with his hand. Harry did the same, keeping his beam firm. While Tim illuminated the area around them, the two with the Maglite's confirmed the area around them was clear of any unfriendly types. The familiar bodies reminded Kyle of those games he used to play as a kid. Find the differences in the pictures! They would look over each corpse around them, recalling whether it had been there before and whether they had checked it to surely be dead. It wasn't easy to recall on a moral level. Sure, Kyle could make out whether he had seen a body there before, that part was easy. The hard part of it all was the recalling.
"Alright." Harry broke the eerie silence with a whisper. "You guys good to go?" White knuckled, Harry gripped his translucent yellow screwdriver in his dominant hand with the flashlight still in his right. A slight jolt of adrenaline shot up Kyle's spine as his uncle spoke. "Yeah." Was all he could muster as he pumped himself up. With a nod and a few words of encouragement, Harry Copeland flanked off towards the left of the store, leaving his two nephews to search from the right.
The two young men felt a sense of safety under their uncle's supervision, which quickly faded when they were left alone together. Tim stepped off into the darkness before Kyle did. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was because they were twin brothers. The two 20-year-olds had always tried to prove themselves, though most of the time it seemed to turn into a quite competition between them. Kyle quickly followed closely behind his brother.
Merchandise was scattered throughout each of the aisles of the store as if a tornado had flown through. Posters, carts, baskets, cardboard cutouts screaming about hotdog sales for Memorial Day weekend. They all laid red and broken. Blood also stained the colorful tiled floor beneath Kyle and Tim's feet, dried from its existence.
Kyle and Tim quickly formed a process as Kyle ranted about 'working smarter not harder.' With a shopping cart at the front of the aisle, the twins cleared an aisle of any potential threats, then salvaged food from it together. They slowly filled the cart at the front of the store as they made their way through each aisle, gathering anything they could. Each of them dispatched a walker during the process, staining their already pungent clothing with more blood and bile.
Stale chips and sourdough pretzels from the first aisle and a plethora of fun-sized Snickers and Milkyway's from the second. "Hope they like potatoes and beans…" Tim whispered with a sense of disappointment in his voice as he piled in an armful of canned goods which were not his favorite. Kyle gripped a case of gourmet root beer from the fourth aisle and started lugging it back to the shopping cart as Tim shot past him in pursuit of a couple cans of Monster energy drinks.
"That shit was nasty when it was fresh." Kyle grinned with a sense of disgust at the thought of drinking the equivalent to a heart attack in a can. He quietly scolded his brother as Tim continued making his way towards the energy drinks he was so excited about. Before the full, clear image of the Monster logo could come into Tim's vision, his feet slipped out from under him, sending his battery-powered lantern smashing to the ground. The plastic chipped and shattered and as it hit the stained tile below, the light immediately went dull.
Kyle's heart dropped simultaneously as the light of his brother's lantern went dark. Had he been grabbed? Just fallen? Bitten? Every dark and fateful possibility zipped through Kyle's mind, racing over a mile a minute. As quickly as he could after a few moments of shock, Kyle jolted towards where his brother had spilled onto the floor. He sporadically painted his light around the end of the aisle, searching for his brother and anything else. A biter. Another person. Whatever the threat was.
After a moment of hesitation when he saw a body, Kyle aimed his light over Tim. Kyle's younger twin brother laid on the filthy tile in a puddle of bile and energy drinks that had splashed all over him. Kyle pursed his lips then smiled, exhaling with a PSSSSHHHH sound. Tim examined himself in pure disgust, lifting his hands in a gesture of 'What the fuck…'
Instinctively, Kyle shined his light past the end of the aisle. As they were standing at the edge of the aisle, a freezer was placed just about 10 feet from the end of the aisle. It's top exposed and containing rotten meats and tv-dinners. The first area of the freezer that Kyle shed light on, had a hand lying limply in front of it, its fingers twitching. Kyle quickly moved his light over, ignoring his brothers cussing and illuminated the entire figure.
Gruesome wounds and gashes covered the torso and extremities of a distressed young woman, looking directly into the light with the famous 1000-yard stare. Kyle gasped, stepping back instinctively as he continued shining his light on the woman in disbelief of the horror. She raised her hand slowly. "Help… Please!" She pleaded, silently between sobs. Kyle rushed to her side after quickly glancing around him for biters. "Shh, shh, shh." Kyle made the noise silently. "Keep quiet, you're gonna be…" Kyle's sentence trailed off as he noticed the bite marks she had. One on her left shoulder and the other on her left thigh. The young woman twitched in pain as she looked at Kyle through red and watery eyes. "P…p..p..pleeeeease!" she cried hesitantly.
Kyle knelt next to the infected woman in pure horror, his mouth agape as tears started to form in the corners of his eyes. The air seemed to escape his lungs as his eyes grew wider and wider, pointing fearfully at each wound the woman possessed. She leaned with her head back against the freezer, lying in an awkward position she did not dare move from. Sitting in a pool of her own blood, all she could do was cry in fear at the silence the proceeded Kyle's sentence. "Kill.. me!" the woman pleaded as she continued to sob. Snot and tears flowed down her face as she let it all go. With a swift motion, the woman creepily pulled a bag from behind her and slid it in front of Kyle.
An unsteady hand reached for the bag as Kyle's breathing began to quicken ever so slightly. His chest rose and fell with panic. His hand unzipped and reached into the bag, gripping the recognizable shape of a snub-nosed pistol. In the time it took Kyle to comfort the woman and understand her request, Tim regained his balance, wiping away the energy drink that soaked his face. The now wet and sticky Copeland brother looked on in horror at the mess in front of him. Though he felt obligated to join his brother, he stood still as a statue in a pool of green juice.
A quick hand yanked the pistol out of the knapsack, brandishing it carelessly. Believe it or not, being gamers came in handy for both the Copeland brothers. Call of Duty and Battlefield gave them years of playing with guns, though they were virtual in their nature. Nevertheless, Kyle found himself able to figure out the mechanics of the snub nose with ease, even under the immense pressure he currently found himself in. Sliding forward the notch protruding from the gun, the cylindrical magazine pulled out from the inner-workings. Six identical bullets filled the revolver to full capacity. A sweaty palm slapped the extended cylinder back into place.
The acquisition of the revolver gave Kyle a sense of relief. Up to this point in the new world gone mad, a metal baseball bat and a hunting knife had been the only thing that stood between him and a gruesome death. That and his strong will to live. At the same time, it seemed his initiation to this guns possession was to put down the women suffering before him.
Fear filled Kyle's body like water filled a sinking ship. He and Tim exchanged hesitant and horrified glances as Kyle panned around the store once more, as if to make sure no one else was looking. With his uncle completely out of his mind, the young man cocked back the pistol, loading and readying the chamber. With an unsure and shaky arm, Kyle raised the barrel to the woman's head as she continued to cry. Each sob more painful than the last. "I'm so sorry." Kyle muttered as a tear rolled down his cheek, pooling in the corner of his mouth. Each small increment of pressure applied to the trigger was a heartbeat heavy enough to feel like a heart-attack.
POP!