Life in an Apocalypse

Prologue

     There may have been a time where I was happy. Where all my friends and family were alive and well, and days passed by in idyllic bliss. During that time, I may have had dreams where I could raise a family I'd call my own or just live a life where I was free. I could see myself in a simple house with a happy family; sometimes I would envision having a family dog. All I felt during this was the pure bliss of a peaceful, normal life.

    How all my hopes and dreams came crashing down that day still boggles with my mind.

    It all started with nothing more than the local news reporting of a severe cough going around town. It seemed relatively harmless at first. People would get sick, go to see the doctors, get medicine, and go along their busy lives as usual. Then the symptoms changed. Those who had "the cough" began hacking up blood until all you could see was a bloody mess of what was once a living human being. They would cough so much that within moments of the first drops of blood the victims would be dead. That's how I saw my mother go. My father followed a few days later. Within the span of a week I found myself alone with no family, shunned and driven away by the town I once called home. Within those horrific days I searched for a new home, anything to act as a shelter. I eventually found a place to call my own; a nearby cave that was big enough for me to create a human-sized den. For many nights I had to break into my former house to slowly take back all of the things that belonged to my family. I had to become a thief to survive. A thief who stole from the community that once raised her. They never shunned her for who she loved, even when her own family outright rejected her. They convinced her parents to keep her as their daughter even though they were not the ones who personally raised her. They provided her with education, a place to play, friends to talk to, and a place to live in. Now that same community wished for her to be dead for something that she didn't do. 
    I no longer had the use of my family's utilities, so I made use of what I could. From watching the plumbers daily during supply runs, I learned how to tweak the water systems so I could access drinking water and create a makeshift outdoor bath with stones and old pipelines. I kept up with daily news by sneaking to my old house during the day and watching from time to time as I gathered supplies. I managed to take back clothes, a bed, pillows, light sources, leftover money from my parents, kitchen knives, and lighters within two months. After stealing a discarded bike from the town dumpster and fixing it back up, I rode to the next town over to grab extension cords to provide electricity to charge my phone and laptop computer. I began travelling from my cave to that town to grant Internet access for myself in order to stay connected without the use of television, which made my supply runs more efficient. I even managed to get a cooler and a charcoal grill by stealing from the people formerly known as my neighbors one night. Things went about like this for about four months. During those days I thought that things couldn't get any worse. 

    I just had to go and jinx my luck, didn't I?

    The Internet began to show signs of slowing down one day, but that wasn't my biggest problem. What bothered me more was that I knew there was a reason why it had to be slowing down. I made my way back to town and noticed two things right away: it was eerily quiet and the streets were empty. I felt vulnerable during this time, and immediately headed back to my cave. I returned wearing a belt I created carrying two kitchen knives for hunting. Taking out my knives, I cautiously looked around. All I found were splatters of blood at first; obvious signs of the sickness that took my family. Strange, I thought, everything was fine yesterday and now this. What on Earth is going on? I continued to look around and came across an intersection near the center of the town that gave me more answers. There appeared to be a major accident that took place; multiple cars had crashed into one another and everything in the area was engulfed in flames. Bodies of the crash victims were still there; they were either burning or they were strewn all over the place. I noticed that there were blood splatters on the windows of the damaged vehicles, which made me assume that the sickness may have been to blame. It wasn't until I came across the community park that I realized what had happened.
    
    I saw multiple bodies littered everywhere I looked. I came to the realization that each of the bodies I found were children that I recognized to be playing around at school when I was still apart of the community. What was worse was that they weren't killed by the sickness. I saw multiple wounds on each body, from slices and cuts to bullet wounds. Who or what could have done this, I wondered. I continued to search around town for more answers and ended up back at my old house. I was just about to go inside when I hear a click behind me. "Drop the knives, girlie, and turn around slowly," I heard a gruff male voice. There was nothing I could do but obey. I dropped my knives, put my hands above my head, and turned around slowly. I saw two men dressed in ragged clothes, both armed with pistols. They looked as if they had just survived the apocalypse. One of them took a step forward, gun still pointed at my face. "Good," he said, with the same gruff voice as before. "Now, tell me, where did you come from?" I remained silent. I had already lost so much; I wasn't ready to lose anymore. The man wouldn't have any of it. "Girl, you are gonna tell me or I'll-"
    
    "Damien! Chill out man! You'll scare her!" the other man called out, his voice more authoritative and careful. The man named Damien spat to the ground, eyes peeled on me. I tried my best to remain calm, hoping that this would just die down. 
    "Come on, Jack! Who cares?! We need more supplies if we're gonna survive, and this one's still alive!" Damien almost growled.
    "Look at her; she's young. We can probably use more people like her," the man named Jack retorted calmly. "We aren't gonna survive if all we do is kill nondiscriminatory-like. How about you put the gun down and let me handle this?"
    "And have us get tricked like the last brat we helped? Forget it! I could just pop her here and we can look for her base," Damien didn't let up, waving his gun towards me. I wasn't about to die from the hands of bandits. Not after all that stuff I already had to endure. So, I went for my knives and rushed at them. I managed to catch both men by surprise and lock Damien in a hold with one of my knives to his throat. "Hey whoa there, kid!" Jack cried out in surprise. Damien tried his best to keep silent, despite the fear that he showed from my surprise attack. I took in deep breaths to calm myself; it was a gamble, but it worked. 
    
    "Look, guys, I don't want any trouble," I spoke carefully, still quite shaken up from having a gun in my face. "I just want to know what on Earth is going on? Did you guys kill everyone in this town?" My question appeared to have taken them by surprise. Jack quickly shook his head. "No! You don't understand! It was self-defense we-"
    "Self-defense?! Against innocent children?!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They admitted to the murders of pretty much every child at the park and tried to justify it by saying it was in "self-defense"?! I pushed my knife a little closer to Damien's throat, which made him look even paler than he already was. 
    "Kid, just calm down here and lemme explain," Jack remained calm, still attempting to reason with me. I refused. I was already confused as to what was going on, I was nearly shot to death, and now this guy wants me to calm down? What a day that was.
    "Fine. Explain yourself. But I'm gonna stay like this so I don't risk getting shot again like how we all met," I finally said. Jack looked a bit more relieved, but Damien was ready to scream bloody murder. 

    "Kid, first I should ask: you know about the coughing, right?" Jack started off. I nodded. Obviously I would know about it. I lost my entire family to that. "Okay then, that makes things a little easier," he noted. "Anyway, it starts with a cough and that led to a massive fit where the victim would cough up blood until they died. But just a few days ago, something changed which probably affected your town to end up like it is." I looked on, even more confused than I already was. It didn't end with the bloody fit? Then what happened to everyone else, I thought. Jack noticed my confusion and continued.

    "Those who supposedly died from that came back to life," Jack went on. "And they began trying to bite others who were still alive. The disease that started the cough has long since gone, so the only way the symptoms can be passed now is through the walking dead."

    "And for what holy reason do I have to trust that everything you said is true?" I asked. "Nothing that you've told me makes any reasonable sense. Are you telling me that the TV Show 'The Walking Dead' actually came true?! Please, that sounds like a farce."

    "And it should," Jack replied. "I wish that's all it was. A total farce."

    Suddenly, out of nowhere, the three of us heard a deep guttural growl. It sounded human, but at the same time it was demonic. Fear began to engulf me about this new sound and I immediately let Damien free, who put up his pistol in haste. Jack had done the same, eyes scouting around trying to find the source of the noise. I heard the growl get louder on my right, and I turned to face it with my knives readied to fight. I saw a hedge of bushes rustling, and eventually something did emerge. It looked human but hunched over, and  the smell it emitted reminded me of decaying flesh. No doubt about it, I thought, this thing is a zombie. "Damien!" I heard Jack call out. A gunshot rang through the air, and within seconds, the walking corpse dropped motionless in front of me. Almost immediately, I rushed towards the corpse and stabbed my knife directly into its skull, fearing that if I didn't it would come back to kill me. Panting hard after what I just witnessed, I stumbled backwards with both knives still in my hands trying to process what just happened. Jack knelt beside me and said these words: "I meant what I said; I really did wish this was all a farce."

A/N: Now if you were just thrown into an apocalypse, what would be the first thing you would do? I'd quickly arm myself with a weapon, preferably a small knife or dagger.