Kure

Prologue

Ten Minutes Before The Outbreak...
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"Samantha, sweety, it's time to go!" Mother shouts from downstairs.
"Hold up! I haven't even gotten dressed yet!" I yell back, hearing my mom give a heavy, frustrated sigh. I look back into my mirror and continue to put my brown, long, semi-curly hair into a messy bun. I originally wanted to straighten it today, but what the hell? Haven't had a bun in a while.
  It takes me a good three minutes of sorting through my different outfits to find my lovely Nike hoodie, Hollister sweatpants, and my trusty white converse. Going back to my desk, I find my fake nerdy glasses and put them on to make me look even more smart. Hey, boys are into nerdy girls these days. Not forgetting my perfume, I eventually stuff my books and such back into my backpack, along with a pack of gum, extra perfume, some tampons (you can never be too safe) and my headphones. That reminds me: where's my phone?
  I search around my room until I remember I left it in the bathroom. Going into my bathroom, I see my phone is vibrating quite a lot from the constant stream of texts and notifications I'm receiving:
Bro check this out...
Samantha omg...
Hey babe where r....
You have 15 new Instagram...
"Huh... I guess that filter really worked," I mumble to myself.
"Samantha, let's go!" My mom yells a bit louder then before, indicating its seriously time to go.
"Almost done mom," I reply, adding a few touch ups to my makeup and eyeliner. Finally satisfied with my look, I smile and nod before walking downstairs and into the kitchen.
  My mom turns to look at me, smiles and points to a poptart, and returns to her conference call she must be on.
"Uh huh... Yup.. Yes sir... No, Clarence, try again tomorrow... Actually we're up twenty-three percent in the last week, each stock worth fifty-five thousand. So I'd say we're doing pretty good, Heraldo."
  I quickly lose interest and devour my pop-tart in five bites. You have no clue how in love I am with Pop-tarts. 
  My brother, Carter, is deep in concentration trying to save the world from the evil space king or whatever.
  "Hey Carter, what's u-"
"Shhhhh! I need to lead my squadron into the eye of the Galactic council's storm of Nano Fighters!"
"Same." I reply, rolling my eyes.
"Ok guys, time to go. Carter, come on." My mom finally announces after she finishes her conference call.

  Out the door and onto the driveway, I look up at the sky to see two military helicopters fly overhead. It's a bit odd, but I don't take much notice.
Climbing into our Matte black Range Rover 2020, our automated holographic display boots up and begins to display the current temperature, pre-set route to Carter's middle school, and the m/ph of the car.
  "Pre-set twenty six" I announce for the car to respond too. As soon as it's done calibrating, my seat starts to recline and the cooling system kicks in, instantly cooling my seat down to a low sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
  Along with the Matte black outside of the car, the inside is polished mahogany accents along with black leather seats.
"Hey Samantha, did you hear about the supposed zombie outbreak in Africa?" Carter asks from the backseat as we pull out of our neighborhood.
"Nope, but I wouldn't trust the news so much. They exaggerate everything," I reply to my brother.
"Well this video looks pretty real..."
"Well when the zombie apocalypse comes knocking on our door, then come talk to me."

Ten minutes into the drive to Carter's school, I turn on the news on my side of the car windshield.
"Coming up next, has the African outbreak of the unknown virus spread to California? What local and federal officials are doing to make sure the virus doesn't spread, after these commercials," announces the women news castor.
"Oh shit..." my mom mutters to her self, taking one hand off the steering wheel to rub her stomach.
"What's wrong mom?" I ask. I take a good look at her and see that her eyes are beginning to become seriously bloodshot, and some of the skin on her forehead is beginning to peel. Her face is seriously pale, and her arms are beginning to shake.
"Mom, are you ok?" I ask again, genuinely worried now.
"I'm.... I'm fine Sam..." My mom says before going into a coughing fit. When she moves her hand away from her mouth, her entire palm is covered in blood.
"Dear god..." she says, before turning to me, "Samantha do I look ok?"
  I scream at the sight of the left side of her face which is pretty much all dead or rotting skin. Her eyes go big as she turns to the rear view mirror and begins to tear up.
"Oh Jesus oh god fuck fuck no no no!" She yells, beginning to hyperventilate, "Please lord oh lord oh god... oh... Sam-"
Before she could finish, her body slumps forward onto the steering wheel causing the car to loose control and veer dangerously close to another car passing by. I grab the steering wheel just in time, as a car beeps its horn in annoyance before it too begins to swerve uncontrollably. My mom begins to spasm uncontrollably, foaming out of the mouth. The shaking subsides back into complete stillness, before starting up again, this time she's growling and panting.
"Carter! HELP ME!" I yell, scaring Carter.
"The hell Samantha!" He screams, noticing our seemingly psychotic mother slumped onto the steering wheel, "Uh... Is mom ok...?"
"I don't kn-"
Before I could finish my sentence, a car slams into the drivers side of our car, causing us to flip onto the passenger side of the car, skidding on the highway. My head hits the window, creating a massive crack in the glass and a massive headache for me, causing me to black out for a second. Glass shards and other things fly through the air, cutting my skin over and over again. Airbags finally deploy, making my head slam back into the headrest. I black out once more. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the car slams into something hard and sways to a stop. I finally open my eyes, seeing nothing but white, and hearing nothing but a sharp ringing. My sight returns after a minute of heavy, panicked breathing.
"Car....Carter..?" I call out, voice raspy and on the verge of cutting out. I realize we're upside down as a drop of blood drips from my nose onto what used to be the roof of the car.
"Samantha..." a small whisper comes from the back seat.
  I sigh in relief. My brother isn't dead. Good. But before I can celebrate any longer, the breathing of my mother fills the car. It's not breathing really, but rather a very slow exhale.
"Mom..?" I slowly ask. Her response is a slow turn of her decaying, hairless head turning in my direction. It takes all my willpower not to scream at the sight of my mother's face.
Her entire left cheek is peeled off, revealing the muscles and teeth and jaw bones of her mouth. Her nose is pretty much gone aswell, except for a small portion of the right side of the cartilage. Both of her eye sockets have sunken in, and her forehead is pretty much entirely skull, besides a few patches of pale skin. A few stray hairs poke from her bloody head. An arm out stretches towards me, but stops short just an inch away from my face. A half of her middle finger is completely gone, nothing but the bones left. I scream until my voice cracks, only causing her to let out a hellish howl. She starts to wriggle around in her seat belt, desperately trying to free herself. I find the button to my seatbelt and un click myself from my seat, falling on my head before laying flat on the roof. Dark spots dominate my vision for a minute, before subsiding back into a slightly blurred vision.
"Ca- Carter, we need to lea-ve," I gulp heavily between words. I turn my attention to outside of our wrecked car, only to see hell breaking loose. Almost every car has either crashed or has been smashed by other cars. People are running around widely as they try to escape from the decaying bodies of once-living people. The zombies apparently have serious strength, because two rip a car door off and drag half of a body out of the car they've just vandalized. The seat belt is still stuck to the man's body as they rip it apart and feed on his limbs. I turn back to my mom who is inches away from my face, teeth bared. The stench of her is so overwhelming, my eyes begin to water. She (or it) lets out another hellish scream.
"Carter... D-don't m-m-move..."
"Sammy, shut up..."
Before my once-was mother rips me apart like those other creatures did to that poor man, it turns its head and screams again. I turn my head to look at the back windshield only to see a bloodied front of an eighteen wheeler coming straight for our car, stopping for nothing in its path. As it smashes into two other cars, easily shoving them to either side of the truck, I wait for the inevitable impact and fiery explosion of the two automobiles colliding.

But it never happens.