apocalypse

Chapter 1

dear dad,
when it hit, i wasn't ready. nobody was, really. it was like that surprise party you gave me once; for my seventh birthday. except no one was happy. the opposite, in fact. everyone was pretty fuckin' sad. and angry. and confused. and terrified. before, the government wouldn't shut up, whether it was disturbingly cheerful emails about the adopt a road program they were running, or the storm warnings they sent out to our phones, letting us know if it was going to hail. now, when we need them the most, they're deathly silent. the last time we saw any kind of officer or person of authority, it was the first day, when they came around to our houses to see if we had enough food for another two weeks, which was when they'd come back with more supplies and sustenance. it's been seven months. they still haven't come. i guess scarlett and i are doing okay, at least compared to the neighbours. you remember the wilsons, from next door? the family that had seven people, minimum, living in their house at once? yeah, well, when it hit, they had twelve people in that mansion. four died on the first day. two fathers, a mother and a kid. the day before, i saw the kid playing next door and waved. he just smiled at me. it was such a beautiful smile, dad. full of innocence and ignorance of the terrible things that were about to happen. i guess I must've looked like that too, at least for a sixteen-year-old. oh yeah, i'm sixteen now. thought you should know, since you're my dad and all. but it's not like you kept track when you were alive. i was thirteen when you threw those pills down your throat, then sat down and stared at a blank wall for the last thirty minutes of your life, until everything just faded into black. i was thirteen when they forced me into counselling sessions with Dr Johnston. i was thirteen when they asked me if i thought suicide was okay. i guess i did, at the time, cause you were my dad. you couldn't do anything wrong in my eyes. even then, i wasn't exactly sure what suicide was, really. i just knew that one minute you were here, and the next you were gone. i'm sixteen now. i don't think suicide is okay. it's definitely not fucking okay to leave your only daughter, also the daughter of your ex-wife, alone with your abusive ex-husband. i don't even know how you convinced yourself that it was even slightly the right thing to do. i'm really disappointed, dad. okay, not disappointed. i don't really know what i'm feeling. all these emotions are trying to get out but i don't know how to let them out. rage, hurt, sadness, fear. complete and utter fear. i'm scared they'll get in, hurt me, hurt scarlett, kill me, kill scarlett. our days are numbered, but i don't know where they finish. they're a cycle. get up, get dressed, eat a tiny fraction of a ration, check the barricades, talk to scarlett, check the barricades, open the window, check if they're outside, check the barricades, sleep, check the fucking barricades again. i can't stand it. i'm not sure 'bored' is the right word. it's a hundred times stronger than that. talking to scarlett is probably the highlight of my day, which is pretty sad because we do the same thing every day; we sit in the cafeteria and chat idly about what used to be. we talk about everything and nothing. relationships we never had, bad dates, betrayals, friends that we know that we've lost, friends that we hope that we haven't. we tried a sad attempt at truth or dare at the beginning. that fell flat on its face as soon as it started. we ran out of truth questions after three days, and the dares were hopeless because there's nothing to do here. before whatever you call this hit, this place used to be a school. it feels too big. there are too many openings, anyone could get in when we're sleeping, so i don't. i drink the foul-tasting coffee from the teachers' lounge and i stay up all night, watching for intruders. i don't know if i can do this anymore, dad. i don't want to have to end up like you. you didn't know who you were in the past, or who you were in the present. the future was completely out of the question. the cycle of your life goes through my mind when i write you another of these letters: born, educated, straight, re-educated, gay, educated again, straight, dead. i hate how it ends so abruptly, the finality that rings from that word. i know we all die anyway, but i'd rather it be from old age, or a heart attack. anything that isn't this.
i love you, dad.
heather

a tear drips onto my page, smudging the ink. i lean back, letting my breaths shudder in and out. i read and reread my words. some of them sound harsh, but it's not like i'm going to actually send the letter. i smile a little at the thought: walking out that door, saying hi to the neighbours, strolling to the post office and dropping my letter into a post box. it's ridiculous, really. i can't walk out that door, because the dead will eat me alive. i can't say hi to the neighbours, because most of them are dead and sound attracts the dead. i can't stroll to the post office because the dead are everywhere. i can't drop this letter into the post box, because there's no one left for it to go to.

scarlett calls me down to the ground floor in her small, high-pitched voice, which always means she's nervous. i trudge into the cafeteria. "what do you want?" i ask tiredly. she doesn't grin and call me a grumpy face like she usually does. instead, her little face is serious and slightly worried. my chest tightens when she gestures towards the barricades in front of the back door. "they moved," she says, like i haven't noticed. the entire barricade, the piles of desks and chairs we spent hours setting up, have moved an entire metre while scarlett slept and i wrote that letter to my dad. "how did we not notice? it must have made a huge racket," i ponder. scarlett's hands are trembling. "if they can do that and not make any noise, then imagine what they can do if they try their hardest! they could break through the whole barricade, heather!" scarlett's panicking now. her whole body is shaking, and i wonder if the reason she's so scared of these things, more scared than i am, is because she's seen one close up. maybe her family is dead because of them. i can't ask her. she's been pretty closed off lately, for a seven-year-old, so i've been doing most of the talking in our daily chat sessions. sometimes i think she's thinking the same depressing thoughts as my father. maybe she's just going to move the barricades one day, and climb out, only to be greeting by the hungry, bloody smiles of the dead outside. maybe she'll sneak into the nurse's office one day and chug down pill after pill after pill, like dad, and watch as her life fades away. i don't want her to leave me alone. she's too young to die.

"it's fine, scar," i murmur gently. she gives me a watery smile at the nickname. "we'll get out of here soon, okay?" her eyes widen at the prospect of going outside into the unknown. "but... won't we die anyway?" she whispers. my stomach churns at her desperate words. "tell me something, scar... would you rather die stuck in here, paralysed with fear while the dead outside knock down our barricades, or die outside, going down fighting?" i ask solemnly. her expression remains as dark as death. her next words break my heart a little. "neither." I find myself internally screaming at whoever did this to us. do they have a heart? how could they do this to a seven-year-old girl? she has her whole life ahead of her. she could have easily been one of the kids that were in the kindergarten. that was the first place the dead targeted. my eyes burn at the thought of those tiny children, climbing trees, playing with their friends, holding hands, and then the dead stumble into their playground, dark, soulless eyes searching for something to satiate their hunger. tearing their bony fingers into soft flesh, bloody teeth chomping down on tiny fingers as they scrabble against the ground in a sad attempt to get away. i blink away the terrifying images and give scarlett a hug before starting to shove the barricade back in place, adding a few tables and chairs here and there. i give scar a little wave, then head upstairs to lay on my makeshift bed and stare at the ceiling, and that's when i make up my mind. we need to get out of here.

A/N: Meh.