Is This The End Of Us? Or Just The Means To Start Again? (Jalex)

Is This The End Of Us? Or Just The Means To Start Again?

No one knows exactly how it started, one night we all went to bed and we woke up to the next morning to the dead walking the streets. Scientists tried to figure it out in the early stages, why it happen, how it happened and more importantly how to stop it. Nothing worked, the dead start to take over, not just killing people but turning them into monsters.... Well maybe not monsters but zombies.

Now I’m running, running from the zombies that took over my home and took my family. So now I’m running, a bag banging against my bag as I leg it through the streets. I have a rifle as well through I’ve never used it.

I’ve been running for so long now my legs are numb and there’s a stabbing pain in my chest every time I inhale. I need a place to rest, stopping and looking around me I’m in the middle of a highway; cars lay abandoned all over the roads as people tried to escape the oncoming end of the world. How many of them actually made it I’ll never know, I just try not to think about it too much. I survived by running, always on the move so they couldn’t find me. I’ve been on my own for a while now, my parents were taken and I had no choice but to carry on running. I don’t even know where I am anymore, all I know is I’m tired and hungry and I can see what looks like a Wall-Mart in the distance.

Keeping the rifle tight to my chest I start to make my way into the middle of the city. It’s silent; the only nose is my feet walking across the sidewalk and the sound of my heart in my ears. I get to the front doors of the store, it looks long abandoned with the glass so caked in dust I can barely see my reflection but I catch a glimpse of my hair sticking out wildly and falling into my eyes. I ignore my pale reflection and try to pry open the doors, no use. They’re held together by some magnetic lock no doubt, so stop robbers getting in from when we actually had a choice about robbing and surviving.  

My only choice to smash the glass door, but that would 1: crate a mass amount of nose that might attract any zombies nearby, 2: if they are zombies outside it would risk letting them in. But I’m so dam hungry, peering through the dirty windows I can see food on the shelves and I feel my stomach ache for food. Weighing up my options I decide to just breaking the fucking glass and get some food before I die of hunger. Taking a brick from the side of the road I throw it as hard as I can at the glass door but it just bounces off.

“Fuck it” I mutter under my breath. I think about firing a bullet at it but I can’t waste them in case of an attack. I stand there looking up at the building, it’s a huge place that would have fed my family 1000 times over so surely there’s another way in? I start to walk away, hoping for a back door or an open window. When I hear a nose, I snap around expecting to see someone or thing standing there but no it’s the doors. The doors are very slowly opening, loudly swinging open on their old hinges letting me inside.  I step in, looking around for a reason they opened maybe another person but the store is silent, just like the rest of the world.

The store is huge and empty, my footsteps echoing as I walk down the ales. Some food is obviously no use, the fresh things are rotten but the things in cans line the shelves enough to eat me for months.  I grab a can of hot dogs and using my dad’s own Swiss army knife I break it. After finishing off a few cans of food I put a few in my bag for safe keeping and start making my way through the store looking for anything else of use. I make it to the part of the store that sells music and cds, piles of dusty cds that no one’s looked at in months. I pick one up at random; it’s one for a band New Found Glory. I rub away the dust to read the names of the tracks, all the hard work that had gone into making this music and now it’s hear gathering dust in some city because the world has fallen apart. I’ve always loved music, it’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing but the world had to end instead. I still have my lyric books though, even after all this time I’ve made sure to keep them with me. Writing my emotions and feelings into them at night when I feel more alone than ever.

I’m so busy thinking I almost don’t hear it, the sound of a crash behind me. I quickly turn dropping the CD as it smashes on the ground. I keep staring behind me waiting for something to happen but nothing comes, I try to calm myself thinking maybe it was just something falling over but I know that’s not true. Nothing has moved in here for a long time why would that change now?

I stand there the only noise coming from my heavy breathing but the longer I stand there the more I realise nothing is coming. It could just have been an animal, a rat or something knocking into something. Taking one last deep breath I turn around to carry on walking but I come face to face with it. A zombie. It was tall, quite big with those horrible black eyes and dry blood around its mouth and face.

“Fuck” I hiss and run, as fast as I can to the other end of the store but I turn down another ale and there’s another one. A woman this time wearing what appears to be the shop’s uniform. To die in Wal-Mart how sad... I turn to run away from it only to have another one come up behind me trapping me in the ale.

“Shit” I mutter under my breath. Swinging the rifle over my shoulder I start to claim up the shelves until I’m standing on top looking at the zombies below me. I let out a sigh of relief until the woman nearest to me starts to claim too. Fuck they really must be hungry.

I run across the top of the shelves, jumping from one to next knowing I’m faster than them. I can see them now; they’re lots of them all coming through the still open doors.  Okay so I need to find an escape... Stuff room there’s got to be!

Making my way by jumping across one shelve to another I can see a door to a back room.

Looking around there doesn’t seem to be any zombies in this part of the store yet, but it won’t take them long to get here. I go to open the door but it doesn’t budge.

“Why did people have to lock things?” I ask myself. I try pushing myself against it but I’m not strong enough. I bang the door hopelessly with my fist, my bag hitting my back and the rifle digging into my shoulder. Wait rifle! Swinging it around again I hold it to my shoulder, trying to remember what my dad told me about how to fire it. I aim at the lock and close my eyes as I pull on the trigger. The noise and feel of it firing surprise me and I stumble back a few steps. But at least the door swings open.

Running inside I push it back behind me. Looking around the room it is the staff room with sofa and shit. I know the zombies will have heard the shot and will be coming so I push everything I can in front of the door and sit on the floor out of breath and energy.  The stuff in front of the door won’t keep them out forever, and by the looks of it they’re hungry. There’s no other door in to the room the only thing is a tiny window that I know I’d never fit through. Damn you Wal-Mart and your crappy staff rooms, now I’m going to die here. Is this really how my story ends? Alexander William Gaskarth, 19 years old and I’m going to die in fucking Wal-Mart because I was hungry? This is bullshit. I pull my legs up to my chest and start to cry softly, the only thing I could do now is fight my way out, but I know I don’t have enough bullets for all of them but at the end of it all I’m still a coward, a coward who can’t shot a zombie even when his parents lives depend on it... I start to cry harder, as I hear the noises outside the door. They know I’m here now it’s only a matter of time. I ignore the noises from outside and curl up on the floor, without nothing else to do I close my eyes and wait.

I feel something shake my shoulder, I try to ignore it but whatever it is it’s persistent.

“Hey please wake up” A voice? Zombies don’t talk so that means it’s a human... I blink my eyes open and turn over. Sure enough there’s someone standing there, a kid he can’t be far from my own age.

“Come on get up, we don’t have long” he says. I look at his long, lanky figure and almost black hair that’s had parts bleached blonde, but it’s only when he smiles I know why I know him.

“Jack” he stares at me in shock until realisation hits him.

“Alex?”