And Then There Were Zombies

Chapter One

Light streamed through the thin curtains and hit Isabelle in the eye. She groaned as she rolled over in bed, trying desperately to fall back to sleep. But it was no use thanks to the warm sunshine and a scream that sent shivers down Isabelle's spine. Rubbing her eyes Isabelle threw the covers off of her body, the cool air unwelcome on her warm skin.

Carefully drawing back her curtain Isabelle looked down on her neighbour's backyard. The yard had been lovingly tended to by Margaret Summers, a woman verging on the age of seventy six. The love for her garden showed in the healthy flower beds that always filled the air with an intoxicating fragrance. But what caught Isabelle's attention was the fact that she saw Mrs Summers' husband John chasing her across the yard and into their cream coloured house. Isabelle cringed. John Summers had always been an angry man and he tended to take that anger out on his wife.

Isabelle let her curtain fall from her hand and watched it slid effortlessly back into place. Turning her eyes from her curtains and to her bedside alarm clock she groaned when she saw the time, 6:37am.

"It's too early to be up," Isabelle moaned but nonetheless moved away from her bed and to her wardrobe knowing well that she wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep. Rubbing her eyes again she sifted through her clothes, eventually settling on a white tee with a cartoon bird on the front and snug fitting black jeans. Since the air felt cooler this morning she also pulled out a baggy navy hoodie and slipped it on over her head. Out of habit Isabelle also slipped a black hair tie around her left wrist for putting her hair up later on. She had plans to go out later on and didn't want her long black hair in the way.

Finally Isabelle left her room, stumbling tiredly down the stairs in search of food. Maybe I can get mum to cook me some of her famous blueberry pancakes, she licked her lips devilishly at the delicious thought. Her feet hit the wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs with a dull thud before pushing off again towards the kitchen.

Turning into the archway that led to the kitchen Isabelle halted with an open mouth. Annette Corbeau had always been a major clean freak so the sight of shattered plates on the ground was definitely unusual. As Isabelle's eyes traveled the kitchen further she was stunned to see that the fridge had been somehow knocked askew. But the thing that was most disturbing currently stained the wooden floors in the entryway into the living room.

"Blood?!" Isabelle choked, reeling back in horror. "Mum?!" Isabelle leaped over the sticky puddle of blood in desperate search of her mum. Something was definitely wrong and it wasn't just the puddle of blood giving Isabelle a bad feeling. She found her mum moments later sprawled out on the now not so white couch, desperately trying to staunch a gaping wound on her right shoulder with a tea towel. Annette Corbeau glanced up as her daughter gasped.

"Isabelle!" she obviously hadn't been expecting her nineteen year old daughter to walk in on such a horrible sight.

"What the hell happened?!" Isabelle demanded as she rushed to her mum's side. Her mum's heavy-looking eyes traveled behind her and fixed on something that Isabelle had obviously failed to see. Hesitantly she turned, reeling back in horror when her eyes found another pool of blood but this blood was different, dark and thick. Laying in the pool of blood was a slightly greyish hand which was poking out from behind the second couch in the living room.

"He broke into the house and attacked me," Mrs Corbeau swallowed heavily as she pressed the tea towel harder against the wound on her neck. "I-I think he was desperate, maybe a homeless man a-and I think he was sick!" She finally broke down into body raking sobs. "I tried to get him to stop, but he just bit me and--"

"He bit you?!" Isabelle exclaimed loudly, cutting off her mum.

"Yes..." Mrs Corbeau breathed, her head falling forward slightly before snapping back up again. "So I ran for the kitchen to grab a knife and..." This time she trailed off without an interruption from her daughter while her eyes found the blood pool behind Isabelle. Isabelle herself refused to look again. Suddenly Mrs Corbeau flinched, her handing falling from her neck and allowing dark blood to flow freely from the wound.