Zombie Parade

Prologue

Annabeth POV

Day 0

Everything changed in a day.

Life as we knew it turned upside down. I'm not talking about a death of a family member or a car accident. Millions of people died on the first day before anyone could do anything about it.

At first, I didn't know what was happening. The news had mixed information, and it was hard to trust any radio or news station. 

It was complete chaos. 

Dad and Helen came home and locked the doors. They barricaded all the windows and doors, and we locked ourselves in our home. When I asked questions, even they didn't know how to answer. No one had any answers.

Matthew and Bobby cried a lot on the first day.

We were huddled in our dimly lit basement that night. Screams and groans were coming from outside, and it scared us all. They were scratching at the walls and banging at the doors. Their groans echoed around our home.

"Daddy, what's going on?" Matthew asked quietly.

"It's a virus," he whispered. "It's hard to explain what's going on because no one knows. We just need to be careful."

"Are we going to die?" Bobby asked next.

"No, sweetie. We're going to get through this. Nothing is going to happen to us as long as we stay inside and not let anyone or anything in," Helen said firmly.

Those words struck me deeply. I internalized them.

I fell asleep in the corner of the basement. We had dragged our mattresses into the basement for the time being. However, I knew that the basement was strategically a bad location. It only had one way in and out. That was not good.

The echoes and screams reverberated in my ears. The world was turning into hell.

Maybe, there aren't any fire rivers or monsters, but the dead were coming back to life. But, they're no longer the people we used to know. Zombies.

The world is filled with zombies now.

The apocalypse is upon us.

Day 16

We lost electricity after a week. Our food supply was dwindling, and the only source of human interaction besides our family was an old-time radio. Most of the radio channels were disconnected within a few weeks, but one lone ranger was still broadcasting.

His name was Leo Valdez.

Leo is never shy of words. He speaks for hours on the radio every day, and it's his salvation. According to his story, he's locked up in a vehicle garage by himself.

Talking on the radio gives him something to do. He was postulating all these theories on the origin of Virus Z. That's what people were calling it. It originated somewhere in South America and spread all around the world. My dad couldn't connect to any other radio station, so we listened to Leo for hours.

He's my age, and he's also goofy. 

He doesn't care about what he's saying because as far as he knew, no one was listening. Leo kept emphasizing that everyone could be zombies now.

I'd say about 85% of the planet were zombies already.

I saw my first zombie a few days ago. It was from the safety of my home. I was upstairs in my room when I decided to look out the window.

A big, fat zombie was slouching to the right as he walked through the street. Dark blood was oozing from the bites on his neck. According to Leo and previous radio stations, the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot or hit its brain.