Out of the Woods (The Walking Dead)
Black and White:
...Static...Static...Static...Static..."The emergency alert system has been activated..." Static... "The office of civil defense has issued the following message..."
...
"You can't be serious. Again?" Suzy rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, seriously." Her friend Lucy frowned and flopped on Suzy's bed, "He texted me last night that he's not sure if he sees a future and blah and blah. You know the rest."
"You know what then?" Suzy said, "If that's how he feels then you can do better. Tell him he can go fuck himself."
"Suzy!" Lucy almost laughed, "I can't say that. He'll probably change his mind by tomorrow."
Suzy's best friend Lucy showed up a half hour earlier to vent about issues with her boyfriend once again. She was pretty sure neither of them truly knew what they wanted, and that was why they were on and off for the past two and a half years.
"And what if he doesn't?" Suzy asked, "You can do better."
"Maybe I don't wanna do better." Lucy pouted, "Besides. Everyone we graduated high school with are all getting engaged or married already, or having babies. I don't need to get left behind in all that."
Just then, Suzy's ten-year-old niece appeared in the doorway.
"Aunt Suzy? The tv isn't working." She said with her small voice, "Mammy said she's trying to call my mom."
"Sure, Maggie." Suzy replied, "I'll be there in a minute."
Once Maggie left to go back to the living room of the apartment, Lucy and Suzy went back to their conversation.
"I think we're still young enough to not have to worry about any of that stuff right now." Suzy said, "Brian and I are just trying to save up money to get a place of our own. I think that's enough for right now."
"Yeah, but-"
Lucy was then interrupted by the sound of what seemed like a car crash from outside. They were only on the third floor, so the sound was loud enough to startle them. The two got up from Suzy's queen sized bed and rushed over to the window. They looked onto the street and indeed saw a three car pile up in the middle of the road. The last car immediately engulfed in flames, making the two gasp in shock.
"Oh my god." Lucy said in shock. She tucked some of her blonde hair behind her ear to see better, "How did that happen?"
"I don't know." Suzy shrugged. She looked around the area of the crash to see if anyone was calling for help and it didn't seem like anyone cared about it. Everyone outside was running, screaming, going into other buildings for cover as more cars began crashing into each other.
"What the hell?" Lucy said, "Everyone's losing their shit."
"Mom?" Suzy left the window to go look for her mom. She faintly heard her mom crying on the phone. She found her in the living room with Maggie. Suzy asked, "What's going on?"
"I don't know." Her mom, Nancy, said into the phone, "We'll keep her safe, okay? We'll find a way."
"What's happening?" Suzy asked again, feeling the anxiety in her chest starting to prickle.
"I lost the signal." Nancy inhaled deeply, dropping her phone onto the carpeted floor, "Susan, pack your stuff. We need to leave."
"Leave where?" Suzy asked, "What's happening?"
"I don't know." Nancy cried, running into the kitchen to start packing away whatever canned food they had in their pantry and bottles of water. "There's been some kind of outbreak. It's spreading faster than they can stop it."
"You mean that virus that was announced, what, a few days ago?" Suzy gasped, "I thought it was contained-"
The static on the tv glitched a few times before an automated broadcast took its place. Suzy watched it in confusion and horror. On the screen, she saw footage of people attacking and eating other people. She saw the National Guard shooting a whole crowd down with no hesitation. A lot of it looked similar to what she had seen outside her own window. There were people running and screaming, peoples cars crashing into other cars either from the panic, or because they died at the wheel. In the background, there was a voice repeating the same message.
"The emergency alert system has been activated. The office of civil defense has issued the following message.Normal broadcasting will cease immediately. This is a civil emergency. Please do not venture outside. Avoid anyone infected at all costs. Remain calm. Help is on the way. The emergency alert system has been activated. The office of civil defense has issued the following message. Normal broadcasting will cease immediately. This is a civil emergency-"
Suzy shut the tv off, not being able to watch anymore. When she did, a loud siren began blaring throughout the entire city.
"What the hell is happening?" Lucy ran out of Suzy's room. Suzy felt her chest closing up. For a moment, her mind was blank and she couldn't move. She could only hear the emergency siren. Lucy came up to her and began shaking her shoulders to get her to snap out of it.
"Suzy!" Suzy saw Lucy in front of her, but she was so out of it, she couldn't even hear Lucy saying her name. She took a few deep breaths to try getting her mind to think straight on what to do. Once she took a few more breaths, the fluttering in her chest ceased and her thoughts snapped back in.
"We need to go." Suzy said. She had Lucy let go so she could run back into her room to grab her small backpack and start shoving some of her clothes inside. Luckily, Maggie's stuff was already packed in her little duffle bag since she got her the other day for a weekend visit.
"Your sister is trying to get out of Buffalo, but the roads are already getting too backed up!" Nancy shouted from her own room next door, "I told her to try and meet us in Hoboken!"
"I-I need to get home." Lucy said, "My parents-"
"We'll go get them, okay?" Suzy rushed out of her room with her stuff. "Same with my sister and Brian. If we hurry, we can get them."
Lucy nodded, trying to keep her cool. Nancy grabbed both her own bag and Maggie's bag. Lucy decided to take the bag of food and water, while Suzy held onto her own stuff. The four of them ran out of the apartment, running into a bunch of other people also trying to run out of the building.
"Wait!" Suzy stopped, remembering something. She had forgotten something really important, "You guys go! I'll catch up!"
Suzy ran back to the apartment, shoving past others going the opposite direction. She found her apartment number and ran inside back to her room. She pulled a box out from under her bed and undid the latch. Inside, she pulled out the throwing knives her dad had given her when she turned twelve. It was the one thing they did together every day until his death when she was seventeen. They had been his until he gave them to her so he could get new ones for himself. She wrapped them around her belt then grabbed the hunting knife also in the box. She put that in the holster at her side then began rushing back out of the apartment. When she got to the living room, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of what was in front of her. It was a person like in the broadcast she had just seen. She recognized him as one of her neighbors from down the hall. He had a chunk of his neck taken out, but he was still walking towards her. How could that be?
"Get out!" She screamed, but he kept coming towards her anyway. He growled and snarled at her, his jaw chomping as he limped closer. She screamed again, "What's wrong with you? Stop! Get away from me!"
He didn't listen. When he got closer, she shoved him away by his chest then ran past him so she could get out the door. She closed the door on him, trapping him inside her apartment. She backed up, realizing he couldn't open the door himself. Looking to her right, she saw a whole bunch of people who looked the same as he did. They were all snarling and coming towards her. Terrified, she ran as fast as she could down the other end of the hall and down the stairs. She passed a few on the steps, but before they could take a bite out of her, she either shoved them down the steps, or slashed them with her hunting knife. She knew her and her moms car were parked outside instead of the parking garage, so she sprinted outside to see if they had made it to either vehicle.
"Suzy!" She heard Lucy shout from across the parking lot. Lucy, Nancy, and Maggie were surrounded by a bunch of those things, whatever they were. Not knowing what else to do, she took one of her throwing knives, aimed, then threw it at one of those thing's heads. It worked. It went down immediately, drawing the attention of the others to make them come towards her instead. She rushed over and used her hunting knife to stab the others in the chest, the neck, but none of those seemed to do anything to phase them. It seemed like only a headshot worked on killing them. That was when she realized these couldn't be people anymore. No person could take jabs like that un-phased. They were something else. They were monsters.
"Mom!" Suzy shouted once she got over to them, "Where's your car?"
"We tried getting in, but someone fought me for my keys." Nancy cried, "They took it."
"Do you have my keys?" Suzy asked, starting to panic.
"I do! Here." Lucy took Suzy's keys out of her pocket, "I grabbed them just in case."
"At least you did something right." Suzy said as an obvious comment towards her mother for allowing her keys to be taken by someone else.
They got to Suzy's black Hyundai Tucson and hopped in, Suzy in the drivers seat, Lucy in the passenger seat, then Nancy with Maggie in the backseat. Nancy got all the bags and tossed them behind her into the trunk. When Suzy started the car, a bunch of those monsters began crowding around the car. Nancy held Maggie tight in the back, making her look away so she didn't have to see the faces of those things. Suzy hit the button to lock all the doors at once so they were all safe before backing up out of the parking spot to drive off. She ended up hitting a few of them on the way out, but it didn't stop them from trying to follow the car.
"Lucy," Suzy said as she drove, swerving around the already crashed cars, "Use your phone to start calling whoever you can. Tell whoever answers to meet outside the city. It's too crowded and dangerous to go wandering around looking for others. The further away from the city the better. Tell them we'll meet in Hoboken."
"But, Suzy-" Lucy said, "What if they're trapped inside their house? My parents, Rory, what if they already didn't make it?"
"That's why I need you to try. We already got through to my sister. So call Rory and Brian and see if either of them can get your parents out. The city is getting overrun with those things so fast, I don't know what else can be done."
"Okay." Lucy nodded and took her phone out from her shorts pocket. She scrolled through her contacts to find her boyfriend Rory's name. She tried over and over again, but the dial kept saying a signal couldn't be reached. "It's not working. What do we do?"
"I'm still working on that part." Suzy sighed.
By the time they got to the Brooklyn Bridge, the traffic was so backed up they were stuck on the middle of the bridge for five straight hours. It got to the point where Suzy turned the car off after the first hour so she could save on the gas. Everyone was hungry and desperately had to use the bathroom. The only issue was they were stuck on the bridge with hundreds of other cars with no where else to go. Nancy reached in the back and gave everyone a bottle of water and a breakfast bar to hold them over. They only took small sips of the water to moisturize their mouths since they were already dying for the bathroom. None of them felt safe enough to get out of the car, afraid of someone else trying to swoop in and steal the little supplies they had or the car itself. Suzy made sure all of them stayed in the car with the doors locked when other people began getting out of their cars.
The entire time, Lucy kept trying to get anyone on the phone. No matter who she tried calling though, the same thing would happen each time. The line was dead and unable to reach any kind of signal.
"This is ridiculous." Lucy whined, "We can't even go back at this point. There's no signal, so even if any of them got out we can't know because we can't reach them."
"As long as we get out of the state, we'll be okay." Suzy assured her, "I'm sure they thought of the same thing and could be stuck on this bridge with us somewhere."
"I hope you're right." Lucy said, "Not to mention I've had to pee for the past two hours, so if we could get this moving that would be great."
"Just don't think about it." Suzy replied. She turned around to check on her mom and Maggie and saw Maggie thankfully fell asleep. The less she saw the better. It was too hard having to explain where her mom was and where they were going and why some people were going crazy eating other people. She didn't have an answer for any of those things.
A sudden sound in the distance made everyone's heads perk up. The sound was coming from the sky. What looked to be air force jets, the people on the bridge had no idea whether they should be cheering with joy or screaming in terror.
"They're going towards the city." Lucy said. She quickly began unlocking the passenger door so she could get out of the car.
"Wait, Lucy! It's not safe!" Suzy quickly got out the car to follow her. Lucy ran further down the bridge to see where the jets were going. When Suzy caught up with her, everyone got their answer. One by one, bombs were dropped onto the island of Manhattan, causing the bridge to rumble from the impact.
"Oh my god-" Lucy gasped. The two stared in terror at the sight. If there were any survivors still in the city, odds were they were taken out right then and there. Suzy saw Lucy's expression change from shock to defeated. Lucy dropped her cellphone onto the ground, rendering it useless. Slowly, she turned around to make her way back to Suzy's car.
"Lucy," Suzy followed her, "We don't know if any of them were still there. They could've-"
Lucy stopped to face her with an expression of disbelief.
"I don't think false hope is gonna help." Lucy frowned, "Come on. Traffic is finally moving."
Not knowing what else to say, Suzy followed her back to the car and she put the key in the ignition. They drove across the rest of the bridge in silence. The radio only played the same automated broadcast so they left that off too. Playing music wasn't something any of them were in the mood for. The sight of the bombing kept playing over and over again in Suzy's head as they left the state. If the military was being pushed to such measures, was there really any hope to simply go back to normal? Is there any way to come back from any of this? It didn't seem like an ordinary outbreak anymore. What she saw on the broadcasts...People dying and coming back to life to eat other people...It was some next level shit. It finally clicked in her mind. Everyone they knew was either dead, would be dead soon, or was going to come back as one of those things. This was it.
This was the end of the world...
After driving for hours, Suzy realized they no longer had any plan. She had no idea where they were going anymore. It seemed like no matter they went they were screwed. They were far from New York by now. There was no GPS or map, so she kept driving with the occasional aid from the street signs. When they passed through New Jersey, it was already in complete ruin like New York had been. She drove into Pennsylvania next. Philadelphia was in the same shape as Manhattan; overrun with the monsters. As they went further west into Pittsburgh, the land became so open and barren that they finally felt some form of safety. The downside was that Suzy's car couldn't go any further and ran out of gas.
"Did we see any places for gas nearby?" Suzy asked.
"No," Lucy replied, "What do we do now?"
"We can spend the rest of the day right here, use the car for shelter." Suzy nodded to herself.
"We're already getting low on water." Nancy spoke up from the backseat.
"I'm hungry." Maggie said.
"Okay." Suzy nodded again, "Then we can stretch out whatever's left. Doesn't seem like there's any of those biters around here for miles. But I think just in case, me and Lucy can take turns keeping an eye out."
"I can, too-"
"No." Suzy immediately shut her mother down, "You keep Maggie safe and make sure she doesn't wander off."
Nancy nodded, "You're right."
The four of them abandoned the car the next morning. They had hoped to finding another working car within a couple miles, but they weren't lucky on that end. Nancy wasn't wrong when she said their supplies, especially water was low. She wasn't sure how much more they could stretch out what they had. The conversations they had for the proceeding three days didn't spread further than questions and thoughts about things going back to how it used to be. Nancy kept trying to hold out hope the National Guard and Federal Government will just do their thing so this wouldn't last longer than maybe a month or less. Suzy wasted no time in explaining why that was such a stupid thing to hold out hope for. All of the big cities were bombed to high heaven, crowds of people were being shot down, all in a desperation to contain the spread of whatever sickness this was. However, there was no way those growling monsters were simply sick. She remembered them being able to take stabs to the chest, the stomach, the neck, all things a living person shouldn't be able to take. What living thing only goes down with a headshot? If it was a virus or something like that, did that mean there could be a cure? A vaccine? Was there even anyone left alive who would be able to find or make something like that?
"Hey, Suzy?" Lucy said, pulling Suzy from her thoughts, "Look."
Suzy stopped and looked up at the sign Lucy was pointing to. Welcome to Charleston, West Virginia.
"Another big city." Suzy sighed, "We should go around. It's not safe."
"There could be supplies." Nancy said, holding Maggie on her back.
"No!" Suzy snapped, "We're not gonna go waltz in and get mauled by those things! We go around!"
"Hang on," Lucy interrupted, "We really do need the supplies. We have no water, hardly any food. I'm sure if we're quick, we'll be okay."
Suzy sighed, "As long as we're quick."
The four of them tried to remain as quiet as possible as they entered the city. For the most part, it was really quiet. That was a good thing so far. It meant no roamers nearby. The city actually looked like it hadn't been bombed at all. Why was that? People definitely still left as fast as they could and ransacked the places that had food.
"Suzy, you see that sign right there? What it says?" Lucy said, walking towards the sign.
"Come to Charleston, West Virginia's refugee center." Maggie read the sign aloud, "We have food, water, guns, and first aid. All are welcome."
"You think it's still standing?" Lucy asked.
"There's only one way to find out." Suzy shrugged, "We'll follow the street signs and head straight there, no stopping."
And that's what they did. They pushed through, dodging any roamers along the way. When it was just one or two, it was pretty easy to avoid them. It was when there was a big group of them when it was truly a life or death situation. They found the big sign for the university, making them finally sigh in relief. Upon their arrival, they were met by someone dressed in an army uniform holding a sniper rifle.
"Hey there." The man smiled, "Y'all look like you've been through hell. You from around here?"
"No," Nancy answered him, "New York. We've been on the road for days."
"I can tell." The man said, "We're one of-if not-the last government refugee center still standing. Looks like you've made it just in time. Come on. I'll introduce you to everyone."
Suzy and the others followed the man down the street leading to the university campus. The ray of hope that sprouted through her was enough to finally make her feel safe. Perhaps it wasn't the end of the world. Perhaps this whole thing was a little hiccup and everything would go back to normal like her mom had said. Here they were in a place free from the undead and had plentiful supply of food, water, and a bed for each of them to sleep in. All they had to do was hold out here until the CDC could come up with a vaccine or something to stop this terrible outbreak. If they could do that, things would be back to normal before they knew it.
Only she was wrong. They were all wrong. There would be no sanctuary. There would be no cure. Just like the others, this place would soon meet the same awful fate. Nowhere was safe anymore, and little did she know what was about to come next...