Chapter 1
The door to my room was thrown open suddenly and viciously. It slammed with a 'BANG' into the doorstop behind it. The pale yellow of my room's overhead light painfully assaulted my squinting eyes. I brought my hands up to massage my eyes for a second, before I attempted to blink the sleep away.
Standing in the now open door frame was my father, dressed fully in black athletic pants, a black sweat shirt, and black tennis shoes. His hair was also black, but with hints of grey showing in it. The hair was still slightly damp, indicating he'd been in a hurry to get dressed. I wondered what he needed to get dressed for in the middle of the night.
"We've got to leave. Freshen up and then pack only the necessities. We're leaving in forty minutes."
I groaned, only half awake. "Why? What's happening?" I asked groggily.
"The green flu. It's here."
With that he hurried off down the hall way, likely to continue packing whatever he thought it was necessary to bring. His words woke me up almost instantly.
The green flu was a mysterious outbreak, something we knew very little about. The government had ordered everyone to stock up on food and water, and to barricade themselves inside of their houses. My father didn't believe what they said. He was always paranoid about that sort of thing. But I agreed with him in this case. It was better to get away from the large populations of people.
I stumbled out of bed and over to my dresser, where I took out some fresh clothes. I then moved on to the bathroom.
I took a two minute shower, leaving the water on cold. It was invigorating, and helped me wake up. After that I stepped out and dried myself off before putting on my choice of clothing. I had chosen a simple pair of blue jeans, well worn and comfortable, as well as a white t-shirt and a zip up grey sweatshirt, which I tied around my waist.
I ran a hand through my inch-long brown hair and took a moment to look at myself in the mirror. I'm only seventeen years old. I'm just a little less than six feet, at about 150 pounds. I have green irises, and my hair was shaved in the military style buzz cut, although it'd grown out a little since the actual cut.
I offered a small prayer up to my God, and then left bathroom and returned to my room. My bed and dresser were up against the wall to the left, my desk with my computer was directly in front of me, and my closet door was off to my right. The floor was made up entirely of a worn but good looking wood.
I opened up the closet and took a backpack off the shelf at the top. It was a good backpack, and would hold everything I needed.
I placed my laptop computer and it's charger in the special segment designed for it, then zipped it up and proceeded to pack myself a few changes of clothes. I also threw in my iPod and cell phone, as well as their respective chargers, as well as a few other items.
Last but not least I threw in my blue tinted sunglasses. They weren't necessary, but I had paid a lot of money for them. I put on my pair of lightweight tennis shoes and threw the backpack over my shoulder. I was about to leave the room when another object caught my eye.
My small switchblade knife. I had gotten it on a vacation to Tennessee, as a souvenir. It had never been used before. I don't know what made me do it, but at the last second I grabbed it and jammed it down into my pocket, before switching off the light to my room and walking out of my room for what might very well be the last time.
I walked out of my room, shoes making a barely audible squeak on the wooden floor of the hallway. I turned left down and walked the five or six feet into our small kitchen. My mother was in there, packing a cooler full of food and drinks. She was in an outfit similar to mine, her fairly lengthy sandy colored hair held back in a ponytail behind her head. She looked up as she saw me.
"Dad wants you in the back bedroom."
I nodded and turned around, proceeding back down the hallway, passed my room and the bathroom, and into my parents' bedroom. Their floor was a greenish colored carpet, so I made very little sound as I walked across it. As I entered the door their bed was ahead of me and to the right, and the closet door was directly to my left. I heard my father moving around in there, so I knocked gently on the wooden door.
He opened it a moment later and ushered me inside. Two racks of clothes hung from either side of the small space, and he bent down and pulled out a medium sized silver safe. He did the combination as I waited, and looked up to me.
"I hope we don't need these, but we never know."
Out of the safe he took two handguns. One an older 357 magnum revolver, and the other a newer Beretta .40 caliber. He handed me the holstered revolver and a box of 30 bullets, as well as a plastic bag. He threw in the ammo for our other two guns as well. The Beretta and an M1 carbine he'd inherited from his father, or my grandfather.
"Go put this in the car."
I nodded "Okay."
I made my way back down the hallway, into the kitchen and around my mother, and to the front door. I walked out and down the three steps to our family vehicle. It was a 2006 green Ford Escape. The back hatch was already open and loaded with the cooler my mother had been loading earlier, as well as a couple bags of canned goods, and some suitcases which presumably held the things my mother and father had packed. I went around to the driver's side of the car and opened the back door. I placed my backpack inside as well as the bag which held the magnum and our ammunition. I noticed on the passenger side in the backseat were several half-gallon gas cans and another object that probably wouldn't help us one bit. I shrugged it off though, and went back inside.
My mother and father were running around frantically, closing and locking all the windows and turning off all the lights. I helped them finish it up, and we loaded our last few supplies before piling into the car. My father took the driver seat, and my mom took out a map of our decent sized city. The government, thinking it'd help stop the spread of the disease, had taken to blockading every entrance to the city, as well as setting up many checks on many of the major streets.
In the week before the infection had made it to us, we had passed our time by studying their every move. On the map we had marked every checkpoint they had made, so we knew just which streets to take. Unfortunately, that meant we'd probably have to deal with some crazy people.
With the infection people had gone crazy. They had taken to looting and stealing and shooting. We were probably one of the only families that had any gas left for our vehicle, so we would have to be extremely cautious.
As my father backed out of our driveway and out onto the street, we each took one last long look at the place that had been our home for nigh on my entire life. This was probably the last time we'd ever see it.
