Brace Yourself

The Beginning

In the beginning, it was Jessie, her mom, her dad, and her little brother. It didn't take long though before she lost them amid the chaos that was Wave 1. She held out hope that they were still alive, still human, but that insipid little dream was dashed when they all tried to eat her in the appliance section of the town's Macy's. It was an eye-opening experience for Jessie, really. Taught her that in this day and age, there is no one to rely on but herself. And, hopefully, an orthodontist.

It had been weeks since Jessie'd seen a person who wasn't trying to eat her, so maybe it kind of moronic for her to hope to find a fucking med school grad. The chances of finding anyone were low, but Jessie was determined to have hope. She knew the zombies wouldn't call her metal mouth, but Jessie just couldn't stand the thought of having to live the rest of her life with the faint taste of iron in the back of her throat. Getting those idiotic braces off was her top priority, and she had a lead.

Jessie had heard of several small groups way down south, with doctors and medicine, where it was hot enough that the zombies would decay within hours. Even the Eeries can't make it in the 100-degree heat.

When the apocalypse first started, the zombies were your classic slow, stumbling mess, but later on, they became slightly more advanced. This happened 4 times before the zombies seemed to have maxed out all the stats. The zombies got progressively faster, stronger, and more intelligent wave by wave, so by Wave 5, they were the perfect killing machines. Luckily for Jessie, Wave 5 is also the smallest, so Eeries are pretty rare.

Jessie had categorized all the zombies, and called Wave 1's Stumblers, because that's all they ever do. They're actually pretty harmless, and mostly just eat wild animals. Wave 2's are just Stumblers, but slightly faster. Still not much of a threat, but if you were blind and deaf a Sinister could sneak up on you.

The third wave is slightly different. It's unknown what this sick version of evolution was thinking, but Wave 3's walk on all fours, hence the name Crawler. Wave 4's are the most human, and would probably more often be confused as such if it wasn't for the moans and wails they make. Jessie calls them Wailers. Eeries are the most dangerous, the ghostly silence that seems to follow them everywhere being the reason for their name. They're faster than your average human, and almost as intelligent.
***

Most of Jessie's time was spent sitting in the living room of her bunker -which was just a house with metal nailed on all the windows- on an old grandma chair that smelled like a wet dog, throwing a tennis ball against the wall or trying to get her braces out with a pair of rusty pliers. Boredom was something she'd grown quite used to, but it was painfully quiet tonight.

She abruptly realized she knew that silence, and didn't like it. Eeries sucked the sound out of the air like that one kid in grade school sucked the fun out of everything (fucking Rodger). Laughing at her own stupid analogy, Jessie grabbed her barbed-wire bat and walked around until she heard it. Scraping. It was a Crawler, and since she had heard the silence of an Eerie before, Jessie realized she was dealing with more than one zombie.

She heard a wail from somewhere behind her, and turned around quickly, realizing upwards of three zombies were getting closer, which wouldn't be so bad if on such zombie wasn't a freaking Eerie. Zombies usually stay in groups of the same Wave, but when they mix, it's even more dangerous. They seem to build off of each other's strengths, and you never know what to expect.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang as the sheet of metal on the window nearest to Jessie was hit from the outside. She flinched momentarily before gripping the spike-covered bat tighter and got ready to swing. She stood in front of the metal sheet as it was hit repeatedly, denting inwards more each time. When it finally flew off the window frame, Jessie got a good look at how many zombies there were, and cursed mentally. This wasn't just three or four zombies. It was an entire horde.