Lions, Llamas, and Carnivors

Chapter 1

IN ENGLAND...

    Two former best friends on separate edges of the English country struggle to survive in complete solitude while their only company comes back to feed on their flesh and blood in a very literal sense.  Before they separated, the outbreak had just begun.  The younger of the two had just witnessed the other friend lose his brother because they had not been wise in their ways of living.  They weren't sure how to maintain the typical human functions safely while managing the growing army.  So, traumatized, young Daniel left his friend to say a final farewell to his parents.

     Having barely survived his journey, twenty-six year old Dan was ready to collapse into the safety of his parents' loving embrace as he finally stepped up their front deck to reach the door.  He smiled at the creak of floor from walking feet inside.

     Dan was over six feet tall and skinny like a lazy gamer starved for several days.  He had silky brown hobit hair, though he'd usually straightened it.  He had chocolate eyes that twinkled and danced like a child's on Christmas morning.  He was handsome and charming, boyishly.  He grew up in cities like Manchester and London, living a fabricated life.  Dan avoided basic survival in his location so he barely kew how to feed himself, let alone survive this situation.  Young Daniel wore his skinny jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a large backpack loaded with snacks and cereals, armed with a jagged metal pipe that someone handed him on his voyage there.

     Dan knocked on the door again, noticing the light from the window, apparent from the sunset.  He turned the handle slowly and opened it until the chain lock caught the door.  Daniel pressed his face against the open space until he was stuck, shouting for his mum.  There was a loud screech and he backed away as quickly as possible when his apocalyptic mother had jumped towards his face.  Young Daniel ran purely on the energy he gained on adrediline for a mile when he found the open door to an abandoned home.  He made sure there was no life in the flat before locking it up and curling into a ball, crying for hours.  Why didn't I stay with Phil?

     Many miles away, Philip lay on the couch of his boarded up flat, eating salty crisps.  He was worried for his friend, Daniel, but he was trying not to think about losing him along with everyone else he'd loved.  His brother had died just a few weeks earlier from the disease and his parents had no connection to their phones.  He was just not up to knowing how their fate conceived itself.  If Philip had believed in a God before the outbreak, he didn't now. 

     Philip of the Lester household lived in a flat held away from the ground in a tall building in London.  Once his brother, Martin, had eliminated all presence of the sickness, the height had masked his presence until nightfall when he was sure to allow no light to shed from the windows, though they don't give the effort to find him in the inner maze of the building.  Philip is thiry years old and of a small city in Britain.  Though of a small proximity, he was a city guy.  He'd spent many years in Manchester and London with small flats and no back yards.  The most physically straining thing he'd done so far in life was being bent in half by Cabaret girls at a radio festival, for which he was obligated to thnk Daniel for.  He'd played on computers all his life and made videos for the internet.  Never shot a gun, as in England it's illegal, nor braved much of the outdoors.  He didn't plan on it either.

     Philip, or Phil as he'd been called his entire life, looked out the widow, approximately the same time he suspected Dan to arrive safely at his parents where people loved him and fed him and kept him guarded.  He wished his parents had made it but his brother was near certain they had not, and he hadn't the heart to confirm it.  Phil imagined them rampaging through his parents' street violently, the thought angering him.