Brave Tomorrow

How it Started

Tara's P.O.V

Ronnie leads us towards the parking lot, and with no hesitation we follow. My heart is hammering and random bits of information are floating into my head. A person dies every three seconds. The government is prepared for everything from a nuclear war to zombie chickens. Knock out the knees and then stab the head. I shove through crowds of screaming teenagers, my mind going a hundred miles per hour. What the hell is happening?!

Suddenly, a girl that I know by face and not name falls with a distraught scream. I start to reach out to help her up, but then several of those dead people are on top of the poor girl, muffling her strangled scream, ripping her arms off. I stare in frozen horror at the girl, and I feel my legs stiffen beneath me, unable to move. I try to run, but I can't. All I can do is stare at the creatures as they bite the girls flesh over and over. It's one of my greatest fears; watching someone die right before me and being powerless to save them. But then Lena is behind me, tugging my arm and jump-starting my legs to move.

I'm vaguely conscious of people with tattered clothes, blood encrusted hair, and hollow eyes following us, and in the minute it takes to run to the parking lot at the front of the school, I've seen enough dead people to be qualified as a funeral director. My heart is racing and I swivel around, making sure everyone is safe. Shane and Ben are standing off to the side, their mouths slightly turned in shock. Lena is staring at the crowd far away from us, her eyes wide. And Ronnie is pacing, a baseball bat in her hand. I feel weak, and there's a stitch in my side. My breath comes out in rasps, my stomach heaving.

And suddenly Lena speaks up, what little color she had left draining from her face.

"Where's... Claudia?!". Fuck. I knew we forgot someone. Ronnie brandishes her baseball bat like a sword and runs back into the way we came from. Without thinking, I follow her, tearing through mobs of dead people grabbing at me. And then I spot Claudia, sitting up in our tree, her legs flailing on the top of a branch. She looks panicky, a group of zombies trying to snatch her leg.

"Over there!" My voice comes out in a harsh shout, but I successfully get Ronnie's attention.

She raises her baseball bat and slams it into the nearest zombie, splattering dark blood everywhere. An unpleasant stench fills the air, but I could care less. My heart is racing, and I lean down to pick up the nearest weapon I could find; an abandoned tennis racket. I scan my surroundings. Dead are walking all around, chasing people who were split up from their groups, and some of them targeting the few people who managed to slip inside the school through the gym. I train my eyes back to the tree, where Ronnie is still slashing away at zombies, heaving her arms up and down.

I squint in the afternoon sunlight and spot several more dead closing in on Ronnie. I start to sweat profusely. Even if Ronnie could take out the ones after Claudia, that would still leave us horribly outnumbered. I take a deep breath. It's now or never. I sprint towards the closest zombie and watch it turn to me. I'm so close I can smell it's deathly breath. A stench like a mixture of rotten fruit and decaying flesh succumb over me, and the zombie grabs my arm. "It's fine", I think "I can handle this, it shouldn't be harder than chopping up fruit. It's not even a person anymore". And with that thought fresh in mind, I thrust out my tennis racket and use the metal rim of it to trip the zombie, who staggers before letting out a guttural sound, and sprawling on the dirt ground like a rag doll. I use the little amount of strength I have left to use the butt of the racket, digging it into the back of the zombies head. It stops struggling and goes limp, oozing blood over the now stained grass, and I stand up, astonished, a wave of dizziness sweeping over me. I just killed someone, I think, but that thought has to wait, because more dead are making their way towards us.

I look around for another weapon, but the grass is completely empty, anything once dropped there already picked up. I groan in disbelief, and hold out my tennis racket. It's broken, the metal strings that made up it's middle springing up out of it's place. Finding nothing else, I brandish it over my head, because it's better than nothing.

I start to move towards the nearest person, but I know that we're not going to make it against these odds. My heart beats so hard my chest burns, and fear blinds me. But then Lena, Shane, and Ben hop out from behind me, sprinting towards the ghastly creatures, and I feel a momentary stab of relief, before a shriek spills through the air and I feel something grab me from behind. Crap. I forgot about the zombies coming from behind me. I swivel around on instinct and use the handle of my racket to stab the ugly monster in the eye. I'm so focused on killing it that I almost don't notice I'm fighting against a young girl, even shorter than Lena. I'm betting she's maybe twelve, and I wonder how she got here, and who bit her. She has soft brown hair, and once ocean blue eyes, and a pang goes off against my chest, because I used to know someone who looked exactly like her. I manage to convince myself that she's still a zombie all the same, and I use all of my might to push her tiny body to the ground and stab her head. I immediately feel a wave of regret and sadness, but then somebody is shouting, giving orders.

"Run! Go, go, go!" And I see Shane shrieking at us to go, and Claudia looking disoriented.

But I do what he says, weaving through zombies and running past my friends because my feet are like lightning, and I'm angry, so angry at this whole fucking situation. I turn the corner and I'm the first to reach the abandoned parking lot, and it's right then that I notice the blaring alarms piercing through the air. Don't they know that that alarm is attracting the load of them?! I turn to look at my friends, as if to say what the hell are they doing?! But I never curse out loud. They're staring at me like I'm a ghost, and suddenly I'm confused.

I touch my cheek, and something watery comes off. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and plopping against my red arm, which was coated with blood. Nobody- not even Ronnie- had that much blood all over them, probably because they didn't have to get up close and personal with any of the "walking dead". I start to strongly suspect that my shirt is coated in the stuff, based on the weird looks they're giving me.

I swipe at my tears with the sleeve of my soaked shirt, and that's that. Ronnie mentions something about a 7-11 right across the street, and Shane pipes up with something about supplies and "fresh clothes". I watch the rest of them nod in agreement, but I'm not listening. I start to think about the events of the last ten minutes, and how the whole world turned to hell so quickly. And the images of my friends and me stabbing those things that were once people was terrifying. But I hold my head up high and try to rub some of the blood away. Claudia is trying to peel gum off her sandals, and there's no doubt in my mind she's thinking about Hector. Lena is just shrugging to whatever Shane says, her cocky attitude gone. When Shane agrees with Ronnie's idea to go to the 7-11, everyone follows looking weary and tired, as if we've all aged ten years in the past ten minutes. Even Ben, who is so often the one making jokes at immensely inappropriate times.

 The world spins around me and voices whisper inside my head. It isn't real. It isn't real, it isn't real... Nothing this terrible is real.

You know that saying that says we grow stronger through struggle? Looking down at my torn and blood stained t-shirt, I'm starting to wonder if it's true.