It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Heat heat heat.

That's all that could be felt as Maxine walked through the tree covered woods that was next to a highway, or what she thought probably was a highway a great distance away. Her feet made slight indents into the green grass that covered parts of the ground that was exposed to sun, while the other parts were covered in loose, dark brown dirt.

She sighed as she hated the feel of the sticky heat, and swatted the mosquitos away from her face and arms. "Why couldn't these pesky things be the food," she muttered in annoyance as she slapped one on her arm.

She continued walking, scanning the area with vibrant blue eyes that never stopped moving in sight of anything that could be a threat. Luckily, it seemed that this area was deserted so she didn't need to use her daggers that were strapped to her belt. A while later she finally made it out of the woods and found a road, however she didn't know if this would be safe with no cover.

The road was long, but there were some buildings that looked like little gas stations and truck stops that Max hoped had some more food and supplies. A small smile appeared on her chapped lips as she gripped her dagger and went into the first building that appeared like a gas station. She opened the door and cringed as a bell rang signaling her arrival and she looked around the dark building, the only light source being the large windows.

Maxine first scanned the room, not daring having a spot unchecked in case one of those... things showed up and opened the back doors to reveal a disgusting bathroom and a back room for employees that was luckily empty. Once the area was scanned, she began to search for anything that could be a good source of food or water or just anything useful but avoiding the cockroach and probably shit covered bathroom.

The shelves were pretty much wiped clean except for the occasional magazine or empty box, but she tugged a random magazine in her bag for something to keep her mind off of things. She sighed as there was nothing in there for her to take of value and she headed to the next few buildings.

The other two were pretty much the same, but the third and final building was the largest with multiple shops and food courts for people who were traveling long distance and needed a break for food.

Max was hoping she was lucky enough for one of those shops to not be completely empty and had at least something, since she only had one and a half granola bars and a quarter of a water bottle worth of water. She entered the large building, biting the skin off her lip nervously as she felt a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

In both hands she held her two daggers and entered each room with caution, jumping back as she saw a thing in front of her. It's body standing tall as it used to be a man, but hunching forward so it was a bit shorter; around Max's height if not a few inches taller. She lunged forward and pushed the dagger into the side of its head, avoiding its hands and face.

She let out a slow breath as she pushed the body aside and kept looking around, finding three more in the other rooms. She had handled them before and learned that in numbers they were more dangerous than they were alone or separated. She found this out one of the first few days with her parents and brothers. Maxine shook her head as she refused to think about that and sighed as she had loose blonde hair fall in her face and she quickly tied it back up into a bun.

She hated how long her hair grew in the passed few months and she was just glad that she wore jeans to cover her legs from their gorilla texture. Well that's just what she thought they were like anyway.

Finally she checked all the rooms and began to look around once she decided it was safe enough. Max still kept her guard up however, but she at least knew she had some sort of safety for the moment. She scanned the different shelves and stopped when she felt something hit her shoe, a smile forming as she crouched down while putting away her daggers.

"Yes!" She exclaimed happily as she found a box under the shelf, using a bit of muscle to force it out from under the shelf. In the small box had about six or seven packages of beef jerky and even though they weren't much, she knew they were better than nothing. Now all she needed was water, and then she would be good for maybe the next week to week and a half.

She shoved the packages into her bag, them sitting on top of her other supplies that she's come to need, and some other things she had room for. She sighed softly and tugged the backpack back on her shoulders and headed out, frowning as she saw that it was still pretty early, maybe three to four PM.

Maxine then began to walk again, wiping at the sweat that gathered on her skin from the heat. She huffed as she honestly hated July, especially without air conditioning and it was worse since she had no shade.

She knew she most likely would have a sunburn as well, but she closed her eyes for a moment to ignore all the bad things to focus on the good things at the moment. For starters she had more food and it was meat for that matter, she was getting closer to Florida even though she was multiple states away, and she knew she was getting more accustomed to the horrendous scent of the rotting flesh, garbage, and body odor around her.

Max hummed softly to herself, thinking of the songs she once used to listen to and chuckled to herself as she hummed It's The End Of The World by R.E.M but she only knew the line "it's the end of the world as we know it" so she got tired of that quickly while she avoided the walking corpses that she would spot every now and then.

Before she knew it, it was getting dark and  it would be getting more dangerous with limited sight and that being the time when it cooled down and the things began to wander more. She sighed as she stopped at a car, noticing it being empty and looked around, feeling like this would be the safest spot for the moment and used her dagger to push open the lock, luckily not breaking it and getting in.

She sighed, taking out her flashlight and put it on the dim setting as the sun set so she could see what she was doing. She took out her water and took a sip, saving the rest for the other days as she couldn't find any water today, and she didn't know when she would get her next water supply. She then ate the rest of her half a granola bar and half a strip of jerky, her stomach cramping as it was mainly empty and begged for more food.

Max then laid down in the back seat, pulling her jacket that was around her waist to place it under her head as a pillow and took out the magazine, flipping through the pages quietly to get herself to relax and fall asleep.

She read some of the articles, although they obviously were no longer relevant as they were about the Kardashian's and other celebrities's scandals and gossip. The idea of that making her furrow her eyebrow in thought.

What happened to them? And the other celebrities as well? What also happened to the other people in other places? Other countries?

Maxine felt curious about this, knowing that maybe in another part of the world they could be absolutely fine or they could just no longer exist. For all she knew she was the last person alive, but she hoped not as she was still in search of her siblings and knew she had to meet up with them in Florida.

She jumped out of thought as she heard something thump against the car and let out a breath as she saw it was one of the things. It could probably smell her or something as it stayed there for a moment, but she was quiet long enough for them to walk away and get distracted.

With that she knew she should probably sleep and turned off her flashlight, knowing she needed to stay on the move and reach her goal.

To find St. Augustine Florida.