The Arising: Our Community

Chapter 17

ZABI
499 DAYS AGO

I woke up to a bright day. I rolled out of bed and chucked on my work shirt. I made a coffee and sat down on my couch. I grabbed the tv remote and turned the tv on. I switched to the news and sat back as I took a sip of my coffee. The breaking news alert went across the screen. It then turned to a reporter.

"I'm here in Victoria Square were the virus is being contained. The military are trying their best to keep all the people contained with this new deadly virus in a quarantined area" the reporter said.

"Do we have anything on how the virus occurred, or if there is a cure and what are the symptoms" The news anchor said.

"No, we have no knowledge of how the virus started, and of this moment there is no cure. But we do know that the virus can spread by an infected person biting or scratching you. We do know that when you have been bitten the virus spreads through out your body and in a matter of hours you die. Then your come back to life craving for human flesh. That is all we know as of now" the reporter stated.

"Is this virus something we should be worried about? Or should we trust in our military and police to contain these people?" The news anchor said.

"I think we should all have trust in our military and police, we have nothing to worry about. All of this will be finished within a few weeks and we will go back to going through our lives" The reporter said.

"How many exactly have the virus so far?" The news anchor said.

"Well we don't have an exact number but around abou......" the reporter said as a soldier form the military shouted out.

"The infected are coming!" The soldier yelled.

The reporter looked scared as the camera was dropped. The camera fell to the ground and pointed towards the groups of infected. They all had no expression on their face. They all looked like they had one goal, and that was to kill. The military started to shot at them as the screen went fuzzy. It then crossed over to the news anchor who looked very frightened. I turned the tv off and stood up. I quickly grabbed my phone and called my girlfriend Lyndi. She picked up.

"Hello! Did you see the news" I said.

"Yes. I was watching it just then. What's going on?" Lyndi said.

"I don't know but I'm coming up to your house" I said.

"What about Sam and Finn?" Lyndi asked.

"Oh yeah. I'll go get them as well. I'll see you soon" I said hanging up.

I grabbed all my things and ran outside to my car. I turned the key and started to drive heading towards the city. Finn was the closet. I drove out to Adelaide High School and parked out the front of it. I got out and ran to the front office.

"Hey, I'm here to collect Finn" I said.

A few minutes later he was walking through the doors with his bags. He walked with me to my car and we both got in.

"What's going on?" Finn asked.

"There's a virus going around. Just to be safe I'm gonna take you up to Lyndi's house" I said.

"What about Sam?" Finn asked.

I didn't answer and kept driving thinking if I should pick him up. I nodded my head.

"Forget him. We need to get out of here" I said.

"Yeah. I'm fine with that" Finn said holding his bag as I quickly took a turn to head all the way up to Tungkillo.

We got into the freeway. But as we got onto it there was a massive line of cars all stopped. All trying to get out of the city.

"Shit" I said backing up.

I turned off and went onto the other side of the road. I then went back into the freeway on the opposite side of the road. Cars were coming towards us at 100km/h. I dodged them all speeding past them all until we made it to Tungkillo. I parked outside Lyndi's house and got out of the car with Finn following close behind me. I walked up to her front door and knocked. The door opened and it was Mabel.

"Oh, hey you made it. Come in" Mabel said.

Finn and I both walked inside. I looked down the corridor towards Lyndi's room. I saw Lyndi walking down the corridor.

"Zabi! You made it!" Lyndi yelled running up to me.

I gave her a hug and she looked at Finn.

"Hey Finn. Where's Sam?" Lyndi asked.

"Um. He wasn't at Underdale. We checked it. We searched the school but we didn't find anything. Nobody was there. Not even teachers" I said.

"I wonder where he could be. Did you try his phone?" Lyndi asked.

"Yeah I did many times" I said.

I decided to let out a few fake tears, so Lyndi completely believed what I said.

"Oh Zabi. I'm sure he's alright" Lyndi said giving me a kiss and a hug.

We both let go and I looked around the room. I saw Frances and Mabel both sitting down on the couch looking at me, but as I looked at them they looked away, awkwardly. Finn didn't ever really meet Mabel and Frances. He's only meet them once before, Sam and the girls were closer. Sam really liked them. He was always very eager to go to their house and hang out with them. But now, he's probably dead. Which I'm not to sad about. He wasn't very nice to me. I mean yes I beat him sometimes, I called him names, I made his life a misery after his mum died. But that doesn't mean he can treat me like shit all the time right? I'm the good guy. He's just a dick.

"So do you want to talk about what's going on here?" Lyndi asked.

I heard the tv turn on.

"Let's watch the news. Maybe there will be more information about what's going on" I said.

Lyndi agreed and we all sat down. Lyndi, Mabel and I all on the couch and Finn and Frances both sitting on seperate recliners.

"So What are the actions everyone should do if they come across one of the infected?" The news anchor said.

"Well, it is said that a nice swing to the head killing the brain can do the trick. But stay indoors no matter what. Start to stockpile on food if you can, and ration it. This outbreak is going to last longer then we thought. There are heaps of them, and not to scare anyone but almost more then half of the military has been bitten or killed within the past six or so hours" the reporter said.