Outbreak

Chapter 1

Eric

I gaze lazily over the beautiful Canadian suburbs, the sun's morning rays casting over it. The buildings drift in and out of focus, and my eyelids start to droop. I yawn.

I'm barely awake - I've been on on the night watch all night, and I haven't slept for twenty-four hours.

I yawn and stand, not really concerned that I'm on the edge of a concrete roof three floors from the ground. You get used to taunting death after you've been trapped in an apocalypse that's lasted for what feels like eternity.

Five months and twenty days, I say in my head.

I stretch, my stiff joints cracking from sitting in the same position all night. Grabbing my katana and placing it in its sheath on my belt, I make for the ladder. It leads from a hole in the roof into the large attic of the house we live in. As I climb down, I peer between the wooden rungs of the makeshift ladder at the rest of our gang, three girls and five boys, who are just starting to wake up. Disheveled hair and bleary eyes show as they clamber out of their mattresses and quilts. A couple people acknowledge me with nods and smiles as they walk downstairs to the second floor, where we eat and plan.

"Morning Eric."

"Get some rest; you'll need it."

"See you at lunch."

I pass them, collapse into my mattress, and barely throw a quilt over me before I pass out in relief.

What a nightmare of a world.

Malachi

Eric was looking pretty wrecked this morning. At least the night was uneventful - an invasion would have made things a whole lot worse. I turn my head to see him collapse in his bed, asleep in a second. His quilt is half-thrown over him, and his shaggy brown hair forms a halo around his head on his pillow. I grin and turn back, walking down the narrow stairs behind my brother, Emmett. 

The first thing I do when I enter the kitchen is walk over to the door leading to the first floor while the others get breakfast, checking that the planks nailed across it are still tight, and the lock is still secure. 

Behind this door is a staircase, a messy living room with turned over furniture and trash everywhere, and then... hell. A horrific, desolate world, where the Earth-bitten will stop at nothing to bite and infect you. 

I join my friends in grabbing a bowl and pouring some dry, stale cereal.

I scrape back a wooden chair and set down my bowl. A girl with dark brown hair, Izzy, smiles grimly at me from across the table. 

The smile doesn't reach her eyes. Few things can make you smile that way these days.

"Another day, another nightmare," she says. I laugh and spoon some cereal into my mouth. 

Soon everyone except Eric, who's sort of our... leader, is gathered around the table. A blonde girl, Quinn, is bent over a sketchbook drawing a comic and another boy called Jason is making halfhearted conversation with his best friend Emmett. Another girl, Taylor, is reading a book, while Quinn's brother, Ezran, puts his curly brown hair into a ponytail. As soon as he's finished, he speaks.

"Alright everyone. After breakfast, Ivy you should check the traps and defense system are all active. Quinn, keep working on self-defense training with the others. And Emmett, keep studying the zombies. We're close; I know we are." 

Emmett immediately gets up,  and goes back upstairs to his laptop, leaving his food untouched. The past few weeks he's been obsessed with studying two zombies we brought in, trying to find a cure or a clue for where the source of the Earthbite came from.