Outlast

Kate Miller

"It's time for dinner, Kate. Come down quickly."

"Okay, mom," I call back. I shut off my computer and scurry out of my room and downstairs. Both parents and my sister, Ivy, are waiting for me at the table.

"Hey slowpoke," Ivy teases. I let her get away with it because she's younger.

I slide into the seat next to her, against the window, with mom and dad across from us.

"Kate?" Dad starts.

"I know."

We all put our hands together for only a moment before I hear glass breaking and feel cold digits grabbing me from behind. I scream, trying to shake off the prying fingers.

And they had Ivy.

I struggle out of it and fall out of my chair in my haste to escape, running behind Mom and Dad, and Ivy, who had just escaped. Lifeless limbs stick through the kitchen window, shards of glass dug into flesh and bone, pieces shattering with their every movement.

"What is that?" I can't help it. I whimper, my lips trembling, fighting back a sob with each breath.

"The gun." This is directed toward mom, who nods and makes for the stairs and their bedroom.

"Kate, Ivy, hide now." The stern voice was frightening, but the unknown and bloody creatures now chasing us were even more so. We run to our designated hiding place in our closet, the secret panel already removed, and dive into the compartment.

My mind flashes to our mother only moments earlier, carrying a handgun I didn't know we had, her face of fear and fury of equal strength. I shiver in the dark.

"What were those things, Ivy?"

"I don't know. I'm scared."

"So we just wait it out?" I swallow, and it sounds too loud in the silence.

"I don't know!" Ivy is crying, I can tell. I am too.

"Dad can handle them," I say, more to reassure myself than to calm her. "He was in the army."

Unintelligible shouts and screams I recognize to be my mother's drown out the rest of what I'm saying, and I hug my sister tight. A gunshot. Two. Three. And then nothing.

Ivy and I huddle together in our four-by-four space in the closet, tears streaming down our face, frightened to death.

After what could only be described as a torturous amount of nothingness, a stifled sob brings a reprieve. I don't know if it's mine or Ivy's. We're both a mess, waiting.

Terrified, I take a shaky breath and stutter in my attempt to wake the both of us from our trance.

"Ivy," I shake her softly, then harder. "Ivy, let's go. Come on. It's been long enough."

Roused from a state of fear, I feel Ivy shift beside me, and hear a murmured, "Okay."

I don't know what to expect, checking each room in turn. I'm definitely not prepared.

When we reach the kitchen, before I get a clear view, I see Ivy turn pale and lean heavily on the wall.

"What's wrong?" I manage.

On the now discolored tile lies the body of our mother, bloody and disfigured beyond recognition. Ivy sobs openly and I fight back the vomit climbing its way up my throat. The sight of a bullet hole in her skull proves my efforts meaningless, and I am sick all over the floor.

I cover my mouth with a previously clenched fist and support myself with the other hand, finally spotting an almost black red outside the door as I turn away from the carnage in the kitchen.

"Ivy," I cry softly, my throat raw, "It's dad."

"I don't want to look," she whispers.

"What could have done this?" I say, looking to Ivy, who looks back at me white-faced and wide-eyed.

"Ivy?" Only silence greets my question.

"Ivy? What's wrong?"

My sister shakily raises a finger and directs it behind me. Before I see what's frightened her, something grabs my shoulder and I scream, lashing out with my elbow. There is no noise or expression of pain to be heard, and Ivy falls in the direction of the gun, grasping for it.

I am locked in combat with my own father.

"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead," I stumble, shocked, repeating the same phrase as fact.

Scratches cover his face in an unsightly manner, blood oozing from deep cuts on his bare arms, the sleeves of his shirt torn to pieces, skin shredded in every visible place. There are gashes above his eyes.

I don't realize I've fallen until I'm crawling on my hands, not feeling the glass bits scattered on the ground, and there's the sound of the gun firing as the moving corpse follows me to the floor, still clawing.

"Shoot it again!"

Shrieking with fear, I push the body off me, but not before Ivy fires off another round that clips me on the arm holding it back. It fails me and I scream again, a loud, earsplitting noise probably heard for miles around, continuous until Ivy pulls dad off me and I finally take in that he's dead. Forever unmoving.

Broken sobs make their way into the still silence.

"It's the zombie apocalypse," comes a barely audible voice. I don't know if it's mine or Ivy's.

I'm still on the floor, covered in something warm and wet I don't want to acknowledge, when Ivy hands me the gun and pulls me to my feet. I feel so helpless.

A long, low creak makes its way into my mind, and slowly I remember we're walking meat.

Regaining a calm thought process I never knew I had, I grab Ivy and tug her away from our house.

"Where are we going, Kate?" She resists me. I just want to keep her safe.

"Stop it, Kate! Let's go back home."

We can't go home. There is no home.

The corpses standing around on the street start following us, and I can see more at the end of the street. If noise draws them, they definitely heard the call to dinner in the form of gunshots.

I pick up my pace in the hope that Ivy follows my lead. Luckily, we don't live in a big city, and there's plenty of wild we can hide out in for a while.

"We're going over there, Ivy. We'll be safe, okay? I'll keep you safe."

Ivy slows beside me. She stops.

"You're scaring me, Kate. Let's go back."

I keep walking. Ivy calls after me.

"Kate? Please."

No. No, no, no.

I hear her walking after me before she stops again.

"Kate..."

Her strangled voice, coupled by an unmistakable gurgling growl, makes me turn around, finally.

Boom. Boom.

Two shots fire before I hit where I aim, the head that is so commonly the weakness of a zombie.

You would think I'd get it on the first try at point blank, but I am shaking uncontrollably.

"Ivy."

I don't want to shoot her. I check the bullets in the magazine, trying to delay the inevitable. Three left. Enough to get me back to the house to grab anything I can.

I hold the bloody body of my sister as the life leaves her, kicking the other aside. Her blank gaze focuses on nothing as she slips from my arms.

I will survive.

I wipe the tears from my face, leaving a smear of crimson, and clutch the Sig Sauer our father taught us to use so many years ago.

For Ivy.