The Zombie Apocalypse (Zack Merrick/All Time Low)

Chapter 1

Nalah's POV

I'm one of those people that watch general horror films on a general basis, consisting of a variety of 'horror' routes. Vampires, werewolves, even zombies. Whenever I watch zombie horrors, I try to imagine if something like that would ever happen in the real world then laugh at my ridiculous thought, because something like that would never, ever happen. I never quite realised how wrong I was then. 

Tuesdays have always been bad days for me, I don't know why but, in all honesty, I didn't expect for it to be this bad. It was 9:30am and I had just woken up from a peaceful sleep and the warm, summer sun was streaming in through the closed blinds. I stretched and groaned, cracking my stiff limbs to waken up properly. I threw the covers off my bed and got up then headed to the mirror situated on top of my drawers, seeing as I hadn't gotten round to nailing it onto the wall. Procrastination.

I looked like an average young adult: red/strawberry blonde hair (not ginger, as I usually say), green eyes, pale skin, average skinny, not anorexic skinny and a few freckles on my cheeks. My hair is naturally straight so I put it into a loose, messy ponytail. I heard a muffled bang come from somewhere downstairs. Being a warped person, I automatically assumed that someone had entered the house. I laid down on the ground stomach first and reached under my bed, managing to grab my baseball bat. I pushed myself off the ground and moved to my bedroom door. I leaned against the wall and twisted the doorknob then slowly opened the door to avoid making any noises. 

I tip-toed down the stairs quietly, making sure to miss the step that squeaks when you apply too much pressure on it. I briskly turned the corner into the kitchen to find nothing out of place or unordinary. I raised my eyebrow in confusion, shrugged and just as I was about to drop the bat on top of the counter, a loud groan sounded behind me. I turned around sharply to see my neighbour with blood spurting out the side of his shoulder which had splattered all over his clothes and his eyes had now turned black.

"What the hell?" I said aloud as my neighbour slowly made his way towards me as his arms hung lazily by his side and  his jaw started snapping rather sharply. As he moved closer, he started to hiss and groan as his jaw started to snap even quicker. I braced myself and tensed my arms as I swung the bat which collided with the side of his head. A grunt escaped from his mouth as he staggered and fell rather clumsily to the ground. He continued to hiss at me from the ground and attempted to push himself up, failing to do so. I stepped backwards to move away from him as he started to shuffle around. I felt a grubby hand grab my ankle and looked down to see my neighbour had latched on as he tried to pull himself closer to me and proceeded to hiss loudly. I raised my bat again and hit him in the temples. I heard a sickening crack and saw that he had stopped moving and had let go of my ankle, his hand still in the shape as it was when he had a hold of my ankle. I hit him in the head a few more times until his temples had caved in, just to be on the safe side. I didn't want the risk of him getting up and trying to grab me again.

"How the hell did he get in?" I murmured to myself. I walked into the hallway and saw that the front door was wide open, swinging slowly on the top hinge. I approached it and decided to take a quick peek outside. Everything looked different compared to how it was yesterday. Before it was scenic, peaceful and now... it was the complete opposite. Neighbours cars had crashed into the lampposts or had collided with other cars. Blood ran down the streets and house doors and windows. Houses looked ransacked which indicated that either the families inside fled or things like my neighbour had gotten inside.  People were shuffling on the pavements and roads, hissing at the neighbours that were running away in the opposite direction. I saw Jay, a little boy that I babysit grab his dad's arm and bite into it, slowly ripping away a chunk of his arm as his father let out a blood-curling scream. 

"Holy shit." I said to myself as I watched the scene in front of me. My eyes widened as I realised: Are my parents and sisters okay? They weren't in the house when I woke up, or so I thought. Had they fled or had I not seen them yet? I quietly closed the door, as not to attract the attention of the people outside. I grabbed the baseball bat that I had dropped beside my dead neighbour and walked up the stairs, missing the creaking step. I entered my parents room first and saw that it was almost untouched except for their unmade bed. Strange, they must have been out doing grocery shopping this morning. I approached my older sisters room and twisted the doorknob, opening the door. She was standing in the middle of the room, her back to the door. She was swaying on her feet and her head hung limply.

"Em?" I used her nickname.

"Emma? Are you alright?" Her head jerked up as she heard my voice. She slowly turned around and I saw that her eyes were black and her stomach has a rather nasty looking wound on it. She grunted at me and started shuffling towards me. Tears rapidly started to build up in my eyes as I raised the bat. Even though we irritated each other endlessly, she was still my big sister. The one who taught me about school, boys and all of those girly things.

"Em? Are you in there at all?" I asked. Her grunts and groans in response indicated that she wasn't there anymore. I held my breath as I swung the bat down and cracked her head. She fell to the ground and continued to moan lowly. I forced the tears to not fall as I continued hitting her head with the bat. I let out a choked sob after hitting her three times, knowing that she was now dead. Her blonde hair flowed messily, her blue eyes gone, replaced with the never ending black abyss. I closed her eyes with my hand and looked around the room again. Had she been bitten by my neighbour? Or was it something else? These questions and queries kept running through my head as I scanned the room then heard a groan from the other side of the room, past my sister's bed. I turned on my heels to see my father getting off the ground, grunting and groaning.

"Dad? Are you bit?" His head turned and I saw that his eyes were now black.

"No, no, no." I cried. My dad couldn't be bit. It was bad enough that I had to kill my sister but not my dad. This was too much to handle. I changed my mind quickly as he lunged towards me and pushed me down to the ground. I yelped and started trying to push him off me. His jaw, the right side of it hanging off his face, was snapping at me and his arms were trying to grab my arm so he could bite into it. I squirmed under his body weight and tried but failed to shove him off me. I tried grabbing the bat that had been knocked away but failed. I grabbed his hair and brought his head close to mine. I built up energy and smacked our foreheads together. He was startled for a few seconds and I used this opportunity to shove him off me, relieved at the loss of dead weight that was on top of me. I smacked his head against my sisters chest of drawers and quickly got onto my feet. Grabbing the bat, I turned and swung the bat. I felt and heard it crack against my dad's skull and he fell to the ground.

"I'm sorry, dad." I whispered to myself as I smash my dad's head in. He starts gurgling then becomes silent after the fourth blow. I drop the bat and slide down against the wall, holding my head in my hands and attempting to keep the tears at bay. I just had to kill my sister and dad who had turned into what appeared to be cannibals. Had this happened to our town or the whole state? I walked downstairs, making sure not to be near the bodies in the house, into the living room and switched on the TV, which was on the News Channel. The news anchor turned her attention to the screen.

"To those that are still alive, stay indoors and prevent yourself from going outside. A contaminated sample of a deadly disease got out of government labs early this morning and has affected many. Those that are affected die from a burning fever due to being 'bitten' and come back as an undead creature. If you ever come across one of the undead, destroy the brain or remove the head. The number of deaths are reported to be in the thousands and this number will most likely increase. Stay hidden as much as you can and pray to god that we can survive this." Well, the world is fucked.