2024: Zombies

2

I broke out into a smile even though we still had a little way to go, but the thought of being so close brought joy to me.

Another fifteen minutes or so, and we were just outside the gates to the place I called home.

I pulled out the plastic card from my wallet and waved it before the reader; I sighed in relief when it changed to green.

I pushed the smaller gate open, fearing that if we use the one for cars, it might let those things in.

‘’Yeah, what’s going on out there?’’ The security guard asked.

‘’I can’t explain it, but… zombies.’’

He laughed. ‘’A boy, I always knew you smoked that shit. Zombies aren’t real.’’

And I guess to prove his point, he opened the gate and stepped out.

The next thing I knew, he was pounced on by the man who bit that woman.

‘’Oh my God,’’ the girl covered her mouth.

And I knew we both had the same thought.

That thing had been following us all this time, maybe just waiting for us to get tired or slow down for the kill.

Only God knew what would have happened if I didn’t get the gate opened in time.

‘’Oh shit!’’ The security yelled after he was bitten.

The zombie was about to bite him again, but he hit it in the face with the palm of his hand and ran towards the gate. But the idiot had left his key card on the desk in the small alcove he called an office.

‘’Please, open the gate,’’ he begged.

The girl moved forward to do so, and I pulled her back.

‘’Remember what we agreed on, we have to save ourselves, and he is bitten. If we let him in, that one man can cause the death of all of us.’’

‘’Sorry,’’ she told him with tears running down her face.

‘’You little-‘’

He began to growl, snapping his teeth and before our eyes, he transformed into one of those hideous things.

His eyes became vacant, while the skin on his face seemed to have shrunken and withered. It was looking at a corpse who wanted nothing more than to rip my face off.

I don’t think I have ever been so happy for this man to not have his keycard with him. Who knew? He might try to use it.

Then a thought came to me, these two will never leave because they knew that us, fresh food is here.

So, I disabled the panels for the card reader. Now the only way inside was to put the code in.

Good thing only sixty-two people lived here, and the code was still only exclusive to a few people.

‘’Come on, my house is just around the corner. We can get cleaned up there and get some rest.’’

Maybe even stayed there until rescue came, I thought.

I was not surprised that no one was home, even though I half expected to see my sister or mother.

The first thing I did was connect my phone to the charger and tried to make a call, but there was no signal.

‘’Just great, leave it up to this crappy phone company to go dead at a time like this.’’

‘’I don’t know what you expected, that are a slow company to everything and thought turning off their service was doing good.’’

After saying all that, she looked around and scratched at her head.

‘’Who did you say you were again?’’

‘’Jeremy Gooding.’’

‘’Oh, so your parents are… them.’’

‘’Yes. Michelle Nivea and Larry Gooding.’’

‘’Wow, how come a rich kid like you were at a party like that.’’

I scoffed. ‘’I didn’t know that you had to have a certain standard to attend a party.’’

She laughed in my face. ‘’Come on, we both know how the uptown, downtown think works. You can go to any street party, house party or what not. But people like me can never attend those prestigious and lavish parties unless working as a bottle girl for the night.’’

I shook my head. ‘’Well, right now, there is no uptown and downtown thing. And I didn’t get your name.’’

‘’Chrisean Baker.’’

‘’Well Chrisean, we have to work together and be smart about everything if we won’t to survive. You see how those things are? We can’t be slow, sympathetic, or let our guard down.’’

‘’You are right, but let me try to call my mom. I need to know that she is at least ok.’’

She pressed send on the call button numerous times, but all her efforts failed to go through.

She sighed and threw the phone into a wall out of frustration.

‘’I guess the two major telecommunication providers are crappy.’’

‘’Lets get some sleep, it’s all most three am.’’

Chrisean nodded in agreement.

‘’Hey, how come this place is so empty? Shouldn’t people be trying to help?’’

‘’Well, most of the residents don’t even live here. They bought the house but only visit from overseas occasionally, and if anyone was home, they might be dead asleep and not know what was happening. That security, for example.’’

‘’Yeah, but they must have gotten the emergency signal.’’

‘’Not many people will take it seriously. I mean, I didn’t until I saw that video and even so, I was still in disbelief.’’

‘’How long do you think we can stay here?’’ Chrisean asked.

‘’Maybe until help comes.’’ I shrugged.

But what did I know? I majored in law; I had no idea if help would even come.

For all I know, all the bigger heads had saved themselves already and were safe and sound on some island.

The funny thing was, even though when can’t place any calls, I could still watch live videos on social media.

One specific one was showing people looting the popular Yong’s supermarket, which was in the center of the city.

The place was quickly turning into a battleground for survival, with people searching for food and supplies.

So, you could only imagine them hurting each other to get such.

It was sad to see humans coming to this. They had no care for the elderly or children, all thinking for themselves and hardly even their own family.

The person filming showed empty shelves, people fighting over the last toilet paper, just like in Covid. And worst of all, their fighting caused so much waste to what they needed the most, so some have to be searching through the scattered food for what was still good.

‘’Everybody is so desperate to find even the smallest can of food. It’s so sad guys,’’ the person said, showing more ravaged shelves.

As I watched on, there were muffled cries, and the person followed the sound to see a woman crying and hugging a dead child to her chest.

‘’This is all so sad,’’ Chrisean said.

It was a good thing I thought to come back home, not just after what happened at the party, but from campus. Else I would have been like those individuals now, it’s like there was no humanity left. And it wasn’t even a full three hours yet, but the place was still chaos.

In another live video, there were people trying to help each other.

‘’The tension in the air is so thick out here.’’

‘’I’m glad we are here; I don’t even want to think about what would happen to me if I was still outside. People are so selfish.’’

I didn’t know when I fell asleep, but I was awakened by the sounds of screaming.

‘’What’s that?’’ Chrisean asked.

I moved to my window and peaked out, then ducked down after seeing a zombie looking at me.

‘’Zombies.’’

‘’How did they get in?’’ Chrisean asked, and I could hear the panic in her voice.

‘’I don’t know.’’

Suddenly, the front door began to rattle.

‘’We aren’t safe here.’’

The glass door at the back of the house didn’t stand a chance.

At first I thought it was a zombie, but it was a man with a machete trying to find a place to hide.

‘’Instead of doing that, you could have asked us to open the door. Now you put us all in danger!’’ Chrisean yelled at the man.

And she was right, with the glass now shattered, that left us wide open for the undead to enter.

The man only looked back, and I could see that he wasn’t thinking at the time, just needed a safe place.

‘’How did they even get in? I made sure to dismantle the key reader so only those with the code could get in,’’ I said.

‘’Young man, you have to understand that some people want to see the world burn, and don’t care if they go down with it,’’ the man replied.

‘’I don’t understand,’’ Chrisean shook her head.

‘’I live just two houses down. I saw that the key reader was fucked, so I climbed over the fence and was glad that this place didn’t have those creatures roaming around, and just stood there watching them trying to get in.’’

There was a screech, and the man ducked down.

‘’Anyway, a bunch of us were outside, talking about our next move and wondering how long we could hold up here for when Mr. Henry opened the larger gate and just left it open, he even stood there for a zombie to bite him, and the place just went to shit after.’’

I always knew something was wrong with that man.

Chrisean let out a scream and was the first to room for the bedroom as two zombies entered the kitchen.

I froze up, not remembering how to move or fight.

I guess I have to thank my marbles for this man, because he swung his weapon at their heads and sent them rolling.

Then he turned on me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

‘’You can’t be too slow to this young man. Right now, it’s a fight for our lives! You either fight back or become one of those things.’’

I nodded, then shook my head to get over my shock.

‘’Now, go get your sister and let's get to somewhere safe.’’

I knocked on the door and told Chrisean that it was safe now and we needed to leave.

‘’Do you have bag packs? One’s big enough to bring a lot of things with us.’’

I needed and hurried to my brother’s room. Since he traveled so much, I knew he was bound to have plenty of bags like that. Then I froze up for the second time.