When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw Jake. He was lying face down on the rug in Tyler's room. The position of his body told me something bad had happened. I put one foot in front of the other, making myself walk towards him. I stood over the body. Jake's stomach had been ripped open, his intestines spilled on the carpet. It didn't occur to me just then, but later it would. The rip in the guts was the same height as Tyler.

I didn't immediately know what to do. Jake was lying there, dead. I had just killed Tyler. A child! I killed a child! The gorge rose in my throat and I threw up all over Tyler's bedroom floor. I collapsed right there, narrowly avoiding my own mess while trying not to get too close to Jake's body.

I was stuck in that position, on all fours, vomiting everything up. Tears flowed from my eyes. I was so confused, scared. I didn't know what to do. When there wasn't anything left to come up, I sat back on my haunches, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I couldn't help but look at Jake's back. I knew I had seen worse things than this in the ER, but this was different. I knew Jake. Hell, I'd just had a meal with him! I thought of Tyler downstairs. Tyler, the bright, lively little boy who had shared his pancakes with me, who was just a normal kid and I had killed him! I started crying, hanging my head in my hands. I couldn't make any sense of this. I decided I needed to move, to get away from this awful mess. I crawled on my hands and knees, not trusting my legs to carry my weight. The house was silent, except for the television downstairs. The voices on it droned on in the background, unintelligently. I was just crawling through the door when something grabbed my foot.

Fear gripped me immediately. I looked back over my shoulder. Jake was moving! He had a hold of my shoe, trying to pull me closer to him.

"Jake?"

I couldn't believe it, this was a fucking miracle! He was still alive. A fraction of a second later, Jake tried to bite my foot. I grunted, trying to kick him away but he didn't let go of me.

"Jake! Let me go! What the hell is wrong with you!"

He didn't say anything. He made guttural noises that just didn't sound right. He sounded like he had the worst sinus infection in the world. I kept kicking at him, his hand, his face, trying to get away. My shoe slipped off into his hand, and I quickly crawled away. I got to the head of the stairs, getting ready to head down when Jake was on me again. Damn, he moved fast! He had left a trail of blood and intestines behind him. I kicked at him, kicked and kicked and kicked. He was trying to bite me! Kicking with my foot that still had a shoe on, I landed a really good kick to his head. I heard the awful crunching noise as his face caved in from the force of it. My adrenaline was pumping; I kept kicking until his head was a bloody mess. He didn't move any more.

I forgot where I was. I started backing up from the body, only to find myself falling backwards down the stairs. Everything went by in a blur, my mind not comprehending what was happening until it was too late. I tried to grab on the banister to stop myself, but my reflexes were all jumbled up.

I must have hit my head at some point during the fall. I woke up in the dark. No lights were on, but the television was still going. It was the only light I could see by. I could see the form of Tyler still by the couch in the living room. I was dazed, I rolled over, getting up on my hands and knees, shaking, trying to clear my head of the fog.

I crawled over to the doorway, using the wall to help myself stand up. Everything hurt, but I was pretty sure nothing was broken. I had a headache from hell, but I'd get over that. Memories came flooding in of what had happened earlier. I was in shock. I had just killed two people! I had to call 911. I was self-defense, wasn't it? I spotted the phone on the wall in the kitchen, unsteadily made my way towards it.

I dialed 911.

Busy signal.

I looked at the phone, not believing what I was hearing. How do you call 911 and get a busy signal?

I hung the phone up, picked it back up and hit Redial. Still a busy signal. Out of frustration, I slammed the receiver down. I kept slamming it down until the phone broke in my hands. I stared at the phone. I wasn't able to compute all this. I needed someone to tell me what was going on.

I walked back out to the living room, my strength slowly coming back to me. I stared at Tyler's body. I had to force myself to walk to the television. I watched the news report that was on. It seemed to be a repeat of the morning and afternoon reports. Previously fucking recorded.

It stayed that way. Between the recordings of the news and the stupid commercials blaring across the screen, I was going crazy. I needed to know what was happening!

I stalked back into the kitchen, going through the drawers, looking for a radio. A weather radio, whatever. Emergency broadcasts had to be going on. I found it in the bottom drawer next to the refrigerator. I turned it on, hearing the loud buzzing before the broadcast started. It was a local alert system, saying to get to the local schools, shelters had been set up with food, water, and such.

Shelters?

How long had I been out? It only felt like a few hours, at most.

I looked around. I didn't want to go to a shelter. My only thought was to get to my family. It'd be a long drive, but I'd rather be there. The only problem is my piece of shit car would never make it. Jake drove a big truck. The keys were hanging on the holder by the garage door. Would it be stealing? Jake was dead. Tyler was dead. As far as I knew, Robin was dead, too.

Screw it. But I needed to take supplies with me. My mind told me I needed to prepare for whatever lay between me and my family. I ran to the closet by the front door, making the mistake of looking through the curtains out towards the street. There were people moving around. They didn't move normally, they seemed to more or less stumble along. Their movements weren't right. It gave me a very creepy feeling, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

I opened the closet door, tearing my eyes away from the scene outside. Luckily, there were some large suitcases there. I grabbed two, and headed back to the kitchen. I grabbed food out of the pantry. I grabbed all the pancake mix and syrup I could find. Tyler's stories of pancakes stayed with me. I kept thinking to myself: More pancakes. Everything will be fine if I have more pancakes.

The thoughts kept repeating through my mind as I cleared the shelves into the suitcases. Leaving the suitcases in the kitchen by the garage door, I went back upstairs. I steeled myself for the sight of Jake's body, stepping over it. I walked to Jake and Robin's bedroom, headed for their dresser. Robin's t-shirts and jeans would work for me, we were roughly the same size. I grabbed what I could, stopping to pick up some hiking boots sitting in the corner. I headed back downstairs, shoved the clothes and shoes in the remaining space in the suitcases, and closed them up.

I grabbed the keys to Jake's truck, wheeled the suitcases into the garage, tossing them in the bed of the truck. I looked around the garage, the thought to protect myself taking over. Jake and Tyler had both come at me with all their might. Whatever had been wrong with them could be what was wrong with all those people outside. There was a hammer hanging on the wall. I grabbed it, along with the monkey wrench sitting on the work table. I tossed them into the cab of the truck, looking around for anything else useful. The garage door was closed, I checked to make sure the opener was in the truck. Luck was on my side, it was stuck to the dash of the truck.

I couldn't think of anything else I needed. Everything would be there when I reached my parents' house. I just knew it. My head was screaming to me. I jogged back into the house, up the stairs to Robin and Jake's bathroom. I raided the medicine cabinet. Grabbing a towel, dumping everything in the center of it – aspirin, band aids, alcohol, there were some antibiotics, too. I wrapped the towel up, slung it over my shoulder and dashed back to the truck. This I kept with me in the cab of the truck, just to save myself the time.

I jumped in the truck, turned the ignition. The engine roared to life. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the truck was an automatic. I never did learn how to drive a stick. I hit the button for the garage door, and it slowly began its rise. It made an awful noise, muffled only by the fact that the windows on the truck were shut.

Looking in the rearview mirror, none of those people were in the driveway. I backed up into the street. I didn't see all the people stop their meandering. I didn't see them start their way towards the truck. I was paying attention to the road, trying not to hit them or the other cars on the sides of the street. I hit the brakes, put the truck in drive, only to be shocked by the people coming at me. I sat there. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just hit them with the truck. They needed to move out of the way!

I honked the horn, but it didn't do the trick. If anything, it seemed to bring more of the people into the street. The first one started hitting the passenger window. I hit the auto-locks for the doors. I was not about to let one of the fuckers in the truck with me. I screamed from behind closed windows for them to move, but they just moved closer. Before I knew it, the truck was surrounded. The people were hitting the windows. They were acting strange. Their eyes were dead, like they weren't really seeing me or the truck. Their mouths were hanging open, black tongues and grey skin. Their behavior disturbed me. I did the only thing I could think of.

I closed my eyes and slammed down on the gas pedal.