Mistakes Made

1 - Right at the beginning.

The memory is still fresh in my mind. The loud screams of people running for their lives. The burning buildings, the smell of rotten flesh and overturned cars. The bodies slumped onto the floor, lifeless. The infected and their low grumbling. I remember it all. The 1st of July 2030. Outbreak day.

I was 16 then, the average high school boy who loved video games and sports, no girlfriend of course. I ran track and placed 1st majority of the time. My parents loved that they had a son who was great both in school and on the track. We were the picture perfect family.

The day of the outbreak was when we decided to celebrate the silver medal I won from the track race I ran that same day. We went out to this laser tag place that had a food court next to it. My parents and I were on the same team. It was really fun watching my parents struggle to navigate through the dark, tripping over their own feet. We lost in the end. Badly. Like, right at the bottom of the list but we weren't bummed out. We had fun at the end of the day so we didn't really care.

On the drive back home, we sang our hearts out to our favourite song on the radio. You could feel the vibration of the music in your soul, just classic pop music your typical family would enjoy together. It was all moving smoothly, everybody was happy, then it was like a switch was flipped. The beginning of it all. The outbreak.

The ground shook as a loud explosion was heard in the distance. My father turned off the radio, glaring in the rearview mirror. "Jesus...", he said. I turned my head, astonished by the sight. The orange cloud lit up the sky, debris flying up into the air. It was a beautiful yet heart stopping sight. Suddenly my dad brought the car to an abrupt stop, causing me to turn my head back to the front of the car. "What the fuck?!", my dad exclaimed.

There were a bunch of people roaming the roads but you could see that these weren't ordinary people. Some had blood dripping from their clothes, some had missing limbs, some were eating the intestines from corpses scattered across the street. I felt sick to my stomach seeing it for the first time. "Should- Should we call the police?", my mother asked with a panicked tone. "And what exactly is the police gonna do? Arrest them? They look...", he trailed off as he put the car in reverse. "We need to get away from here. Now."

He quickly reversed the car then shifted it into sports mode. The car roared as we sped down the road, the city lights blurring into streaks as we passed by. "Where are we going?!', my mother asked with her still panicked voice. "Far away from the city. I've seen so many movies about the start of the apocalypse and we cannot afford to be in such a densely populated area." "Seriously, David?! This isn't some movie! We need to report what we saw to the police!" "And explain that how exactly? "Yes, hello. We just saw a bunch of zombies roaming the streets, some of them were literally eating one another so yeah. You might wanna come check this out". Do you understand how insane that sounds?!" "They will help us!" "Yeah, help admit us into a goddamn psych ward! We need to look out for ourselves right now!"

They went back and forth, trying to prove the other wrong. My father wasn't exactly keeping his eyes on the road. It was a habit for him to hold eye contact, especially when he was angry. The car kept speeding down the road, my father not paying attention to the oncoming horde of infected. "Dad! The road!". I practically screamed. He quickly turned his attention back to the road, swerving through the horde. A few of the infected were hit by the car, some staying on the windshield. As their eyes fixated on us, they began banging on the windshield, smashing the glass. The car kept swerving, the motion making me nauseous. The infected began clawing their way in. I heard my mother scream in agony as her throat was ripped out by the deadly bite of the infected.

Eventually the car hit something and overturned, rolling over like a barrel. I don't know how or how long I was unconscious for but I remember waking up sitting upside down, still hung up by the seatbelt. I felt so dizzy, so weak but I knew I couldn't stay there. I pull my arm up and unbuckle the seat, my body hitting the car roof with a thud. I crawled on the glass, desperately trying to get out of the car, but unfortunately for me a large shard stabbed into my leg, blood immediately oozing out. I yelped as it burned intensely. It was absolute hell but I pushed through it, grabbing hold of the window frame and pulling myself out of the wreck.