The Apocalypse: The First Year

Life As We Know It

Remember the italics are flashbacks. :) And if you enjoyed this chapter please vote.

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"Dad." I call out to my father as I shoot up in my bed.

"What's the matter honey?" He runs over to my side. I see both my mother and Glen sit up and rub their eyes sleepily as my dad rubs my back to calm me down.

"Bad dream." I tell him.

"Aw, honey. It's alright." He says and climbs in the bed next to me. "It's not real." He tells me. "It was just a dream."

"But it is real." I tell him. I had dream about the man I saw shot right in front of my eyes three days ago. They shot him and then they burned his body. But in my dream he didn't get shot, in my dream he turned into one of them...the dead.

"No one can get you, Spencer. You're safe." My dad says.

"But we're not. We don't know how the virus is contracted. We could already be infected and not know it." I say a bit hysterically.

"We know that the fever sets in." He says and places his hand to my forehead. "You feel pretty cool to me." I look up at him and he smiles.

"But those things..." I trail off. I hate talking about what I saw that night on the bridge leaving California. Those people...all those dead people...just...walking around.

"I promise to never let anything bad happen to you okay?" My father tells me as I lay my head down on his chest.

"Spencer?" Glen calls for me.

"I'm fine, Glen." I tell him and he nods sleepily before turning over and going back to sleep. Glen has always been very protective of me. I love him to death. We don't fight like normal brothers and sisters do, we genuinely care for each other.

"Are you okay to go back to sleep?" My dad asks me.

"Mhm." I nod and close my eyes.

"I love you, Spence." My dad whispers as sleep overcomes me.

-

"Run!" Tim yells as he comes out of a house we were scavenging. None of us hesitate to take off running. Behind us are from what I can see, about fifteen dead and they're chasing after us.

Wanting to eat us.

"We're not gonna make it back to camp, it's getting too dark." Carmen says.

"More walkers!" Glen yells and we see the group of about five headed towards us from another direction.

"Shit." Tim says as we cut through a row of houses.

"There's too many." Carmen says, as yet another pack heads towards us from a different direction.

"We're not gonna outrun all of them." I say, realizing how many are closing in on us.

"Follow me." Tim says as he cuts through an alley. We've run into problems like this before out on scavenges, but not this many walkers at once. We're outnumbered and we don't have nearly enough ammo to kill them all.

"Tim!" Glen calls to him when the pack of fifteen gets closer.

"In here." Tim says, running into a building and shutting and locking the door behind us.

"This isn't gonna hold them." Carmen says, placing her back up against door as Tim does the same.

"Spencer, Glen, find something to barricade the door with." Tim tells us.