The Virus Within- Changing

Turned

I was in Roseville, CA when it happened. I was lucky. The smoke from Paradise had caused most of us to wear mouth covers, so when the airborne virus spread, most of the population didn't turn. My parents died in the initial turning. I was eight at the time. Our town built Campfire Stronghold, named in tribute to the wildfire that had saved our lives by creating a health hazard. After three waves, that Stronghold with the sane zombies, Ironwand or something like that, they had deposited the cure everywhere and we could now produce it. They still didn't find a cure to help insane zombies, though.

By wave six, we were flourishing. Sane zombies protected us from insane zombies, and in Campfire, we had three Nightstalkers. Nightstalkers were the third rank of the zombies. Regular zombies were the lowest, Runners were the second rank, Nightstalkers were the third rank, and Terrors were the fourth rank at the top of the zombies. Most places had at least a Runner. They had come to accept that the sane zombies were key to rebuilding the population. By wave seven, the airborne virus was almost gone. Then the Strongholds started populating quickly. By wave nine, the humans were thriving. By this time, I was eleven.

It started like any other day. I woke up at six, read an hour, ran two laps on the track, and ate breakfast while reading. Then I read until nine. Needless to say, I was a bookworm. At nine, I did my chores, fed and gave water to my cats, Cookie and Cream, and then read. I was training to go outside the fence to forage for food, so that day I walked to the front gates to a junior team expedition with Jake and Jack, other trainees and also my friends, and with our instructor, Dillon, a Nightstalker. We all had radios, bulletproof vests, thick clothing, one vial of cure, and metal baseball bats.

We would be looting my old neighborhood. We took a battered old Ford truck and Driver Dan. Fifteen minutes of singing Ninety-nine bottles of beer later, we were there. Dan drove down Camp Driveway at fifteen bottles of beer. Even though the signs were barely readable, I knew what it said. Dillon shushed us as we approached and went over the rules.

"Don't rush, knock on locked doors so you know there's a zombie, if you're cornered, call me on our radios." He stared at us with his gleaming red eyes.

"We know!" We all chorused. We split up into duos and headed our ways. I was with Jack, Jake was with Dillon. Jack and I took on my driveway. They headed to a close by area.

We started with the houses at the right. We found nothing. Nothing was at the next house either. Nothing at the next. It wasn't surprising. After three years, supplies had either been foraged, eaten, or rotted in these houses.

I knocked on the door.

"Anybody home?" I yelled. A moan answered.

"Can you please answer the door?" I swung my bat off my shoulders.

"Nobody?" Jack lifted his bat.

"Well, then, we'll have to come in a hard way." He smashed the metal bat into the window next to the house with a crack. I stepped up, careful not to touch any broken glass pieces, and reached my hand in. Then I grabbed for the doorknob, found it, turned it, and let us in.

Inside there was almost no furniture, and a fireplace with a peach wall color. Blood splatter was on the floor, and rotten fruit littered the ground. There was another groan.

I glanced at Jack. "I take upstairs." He nodded and started searching the living room for supplies. I walked around to the kitchen, where there was a creaky wooden set of stairs. I ran up until I came to a door where the groaning had come from. I held my bat at the ready and opened the door. A kid zombie appeared and lunged for me. I stepped back and smacked it in the head. It fell back, unconscious, and I looked inside the room. Nothing. It was filled with chewed on Legos and chess pieces. I used the bat to prod the kid back into his room. I remembered him. Mike.