Outbreak

Chapter 4

Ivy

As I look around the kitchen for food, I hear a scream from down the hallway. 

Quinn. 

Pulling out my magnum, I burst into the room to take in the sight of a zombie lunging towards Quinn. She dives across the double-bed and fires three shots at the zombie with a loud Bang! Bang! Bang! The zombie screeches in twisted pain, but it's half-alive thrashing body falls on top of Quinn, whose arms are shaking in fear. She screams again when it lands on her, punching it and trying to get it off of her. 

Eric, Emmett, Mal, and Ezran run into the room, and Ezran dives over the bed as well and pulls the zombie of of her. Emmett runs forward and jabs a needle into the zombie's neck, of all things. Why didn't he go with a gun, or a katana? But whatever that stuff was, it did the trick. It falls to the ground, dead or still breathing, I don't know or care. 

I run to Quinn, who's leaning against the wall, breathing hard. 

"Did it bite you?!" Ezran yells, crouching next to her. She exhales and shakes her head, and Ezran and I both breathe a sigh of relief. I turn to Emmett, nodding in the direction of the zombie.

"What did you do to that thing?" I ask curiously. He holds up an empty vial. 

"It was just a substance I've made. I tried it on the zombie I was studying, and it worked... for a second. It was lucid, but then it went crazy again. We should get rid of it straight away." I nod and start towards the zombie, but stop myself. 

"Emmett..." I say slowly. "Did this happen to it?" 

The zombie's flesh is a natural, browner colour. It's limbs are bent at natural angles now, and its skin isn't lumpy and deformed. It looks almost... human. 

Emmett gasps. "This... this isn't at all what..." He rushes forward and turns the human onto it's -- his -- back. 

It's a male, and he looks about sixteen. His hair is matted and black, and his clothes hang in tatters around his thin body. He's breathing, but barely. Blood soaks his chest. 

"Holy..." Eric whispers. "Quinn! Once you've recovered, get him medical attention!" He swirls around to look at Emmett. "What was in that medicine?" Emmett stands there, dumbfounded. "I... The same ingredients as before, but it got shaken up while we were running----" Eric claps him on the back with a grin. "We've never been so close. Thank you." Emmett, still in shock, smiles hesitantly back. 

In the last hours of the day, I carefully set traps around the outskirts of the house. Hidden blowguns armed with darts dipped in poison lie in crevices in the wall, and tripwires connected to blades lie stretched across the ground. No zombies are going to attack us tonight. 

Not on my watch.

Taylor

For the last light hours of the day, I've been exploring the house. The top floor is smaller, only one room full of storage boxes. A door leads onto the balcony, which is only a small leap away from the neighboring house's roof. This'll be convenient for crossing the suburbs undetected.

I walk into the living room, where the unconscious boy lies on a sofa. A bandage is wrapped tightly around his abdomen, where Quinn's bullets pierced him. It's past midnight, so while Ivy and Quinn are sleeping in the master bedroom, Mal and Emmett sleep on opposite ends of the other sofa, Jason and Eric curl up on separate armchairs, and Ezran sleeps on the floor (voluntarily, he was fine sleeping on a rug with a blanket.). 

Silently I grab my backpack and pad up the stairs quietly, trying to make as little noise as possible with my shoes - I've been assigned the night watch tonight. 

Sitting down on a wicker chair on the balcony, I breathe in the icy night air as my eyes sweep this unfamiliar area. I miss Australia. I miss my family. 

Tears fill my eyes. My life has been turned upside-down since the Outbreak.

It all started in Australia. The Earthbite was carried through mosquitoes in a container, on a plane to Atlanta. It was supposed be be studied, but it broke and the Outbreak began. Zombies were carried on unsuspecting planes to other countries, and soon the Earth-bitten roamed freely all over the world. 

Our group met all over Australia while trying to evade the zombies, and soon the whole of Australia, being the origin of the virus, was too unsafe a place to live. We sneaked onto a container ship with as much provisions as we could carry, and after a few attempts we learnt how to operate the massive vessel. 

Our group had four others before we reached America. My younger brother and sister, Jake and Emily, Mal's friend Freddy, and Ivy's older brother Charlie. My sister died when the Earthbite first broke out; we couldn't save her. Charlie and Freddy got trapped in a container, and it fell overboard... it was horrible. 

Then my brother Jake. He got bitten, but it was a small wound, so the effect was slow. We thought it might wear off so we hid it, but it got worse. He started to get weaker, acting stranger.Eric suspected something, so one night he walked in on me trying to fix the bite. I tried to stop him, pleaded with him, even tried to knock him out, but he was convinced that Jake was a danger to us all. 

So he shot him.

Jake died in my arms. 

After two weeks at sea, we finally reached America, and fought our way to Canada. Ontario was the safest place to live so far, so after another week of foraging we finally made a makeshift home here.

I still haven't spoken to Eric since; what he did was unforgivable.