Fragile

Fragile

I awoke to the sound of my dog barking and scratching at the door. I shot out of bed and ran to the door, knowing that something was wrong. I opened the door and my tiny dog Gracie ran past me. I was overwhelmed by the disgusting smell of burning flesh.I walked downstairs calling out, "Mom, mom." There was no answer. The first strange thing that caught my eye was the fridge door lying open. Mom was always on my case about not closing the fridge door immediately, so this was very odd. Instead of the wonderful, golden pancakes that I'm normally served on Saturdays, I found my mother slumped over the oven with her hand charred. She had fallen in such a way that her arm fell across the stove's burner while it was on high. As I walked towards my mother, stricken with grief, I tripped over something lying on the floor.I gathered my senses, looked around and saw the woman. She was in her early thirties and roughly five foot six. Her mouth was bloody and gory. It was as if her whole body was decomposing. I looked her over and saw her head. Her skull had been smashed in by something. A small metal frying pan lay strewn beside her with blood on the bottom. This was all becoming too much and I blacked out, lying against my mother. The last thing that I remembered seeing was the small chunk gone from her leg.

Gracie was barking like mad and licking my face as I came round. I rose to my feet and looked towards her. She was barking at the plate glass door. A man looking similar to the woman that bit my mother was banging on the door and it looked as if the door was about to give.I picked up the frying pan and approached the door. "Gracie, sit, stay and shut up!" This was a command that I had taught her to keep her from driving dad insane. A tear shed from my eye as I thought about my dad and where he might be right now. Boy, could I do with him right now. I wiped the tear from my eye right as the abomination broke the door down in a deafening crash.The man shambled towards me in a dazed state and I swung my weapon. I underestimated the weight of the pan as it took me flying past him and he grabbed me. He pulled me close and I saw his rotten cracked teeth coming for my face. Pang! The frying pans edge went halfway through his neck before he let go.His yellowing, cracked nails dragging down my back as he fell was not a pleasing feeling. When his body hit the ground, I fell to my knees overwhelmed with guilt, Fear, sadness and most of all panic enveloped me. Then, I remembered about my nine year old, little sister. I was three years old when she was born. I had never let her down and I wasn't going to now. A high, blood-curdling scream hit me like a baseball bat. I spun around to see three of the things surrounding the tree my sister was hiding in. I was taking this all in when, boom, I was tackled from behind and my mom was on top of me gnashing her teeth like crazy. I had put the pan on the table next to me and could not reach my weapon. I must have been lying there, wrestling and grappling with my mother for about two seconds when a flash of black and white fur flew above me, knocking my mom off and it started tearing at her throat. The monster count below the tree had grown to eight and I did not think I could do anything about it. I ran out the front door and tore down the street towards my neighbour, Jason's house and broke the door down! "JASON JASON." There was no reply. I yelled and yelled until I opened the master bedroom door to find him aiming a small revolver right at me. I tried talking to him and he explained that the monsters had gotten his brother. I thought he was gonna fire the gun after I mentioned my mother was snatched too. "Now you don't wanna do this, Jason! Come on now, we're friends" His eyes widened and he pulled the trigger. Whatever people tell you about time slowing down is a lie, if anything time speeds up. The bullet flew past me and I turned to see a tall boy hit the floor. I heard another gunshot and turned to see that my friend sadly just could not handle the way the world was. I said a prayer, grabbed the gun and walked out.The gun was a small, forty-five calibre revolver with eight spots for bullets in it. Obviously, two were gone, as this was the weapon that my friend had taken his own life with. From that moment on, I swore to say a prayer every time I used this gun. Even in death, he saved my life, and hopefully many more times he'll save my life with what he left behind. I decided to name it, Jason's memory.I ran faster than I ever have down the street of our housing complex. My sister was gone and so were the zombies. On the way down the street, a monster came out of nowhere and I pulled the trigger. The gun had a lot of kickback and I screamed as she fell. The gun was going to take some getting used to.Scared, tired and small, I sat upstairs, curled up in a corner, and listened to the screams of the little sister I once protected from bullies. As I was sitting there, I realized something; mom and dad would not want me to die. If I died then all these people died for nothing. I tried to sleep because I was going to need some rest for what was going to happen tomorrow. My dreams were full of zombies and my family, I only slept for about an hour and a half. After I woke up I just planned what I was going to d. We had a tent in our backyard and I was planning to stay there since the back door was gone and to be honest I'd feel safer in the tent where I could see out and they couldn't see in. This was how we designed our tent flaps. We also soundproofed our tent. I grabbed all the food in our house, dog and human. Our house had a generator and from the tent I could connect to the internet. Thankfully, we had bought dog food in bulk because Gracie needed special food. I scowered the cupboards high and low trying to find non perishables but only came up with two tins of dried peas and one big bag of beans. I knew that I would also need water. In my search, I found a case of five litre, bottled water. There was a mini fridge and a microwave in the tent. I also looted the next three houses on the block. In the end, I had a years supply of food, water, dog food, and entertainment so I did not go insane. I had also come up with a katana, twenty-four rounds for Jason's Memory and a rifle with twelve bullets. There was a tv in the tent with a dvd player so I stole about fifty dvds and about thirty cds. It seemed like I was all set.The first day in the tent took a little getting used to; Cornflakes for breakfast, Campbells soup and bread for lunch and dinner, . Gracie was happy enough because I played with her and all her toys for hours.I was pondering the best course of action for long term. The plan right now was basically just to survive. I should probably go hunting as sometime as I've seen deer around here. Tomorrow, I'll probably loot some more houses. I feel the closest thing to these monsters would be zombies so that is what I've decided to call them.I woke up the next morning to look up and see Gracie peering out the window staring blankly at the street \. It was about six, as I'm still not sleeping very well with my dreams full of my sister's screams. I looked out the window and nearly choked on my breath because there were at least four zombies out there and just like that, now there were around thirty.