Chapter 1.3 - Still Here

I get up and stare at the door, hoping my youngest brother really is in there. I slowly turn the doorknob, and quietly push the door open. Then I see him, sitting on his bed playing with toy trucks and watching cartoons on his television. I let out a little chuckle. I must be insane to do that now, but he looks so happy and oblivious to everything that just happened right outside his room. I cannot hold it in and let out another chuckle. This time he hears me, and looks my way. “Hey Lucus,” I say to him.

He gets up, runs over to me for a hug, and yells, “Ace!”

I cannot think of anything to say back at first, so I just ask, “So how are you?”

His reply throws me off guard, as he starts asking questions right away. “What are you doing here? Where is everyone else? What was happening out there?”

I do not know how to answer any of the questions he keeps blurting out. I eventually tell him the only thing that comes to my mind, “it is pretty late already buddy, and past your bedtime. Let’s go ahead and go to sleep now, and we will talk more in the morning.”

“Okay,” Lucus says. He knows it is past his bedtime, and that it would be useless to argue. “Are you going to sleep too?”

“Not yet, but I’ll stay here until you fall asleep,” I answer back.

“Oh okay, goodnight,” Lucus says cheerfully.

“Goodnight, see you in the morning,” I say back to him with a smile as he settles into his bed and closes his eyes to sleep. I sit at the foot of his bed until I know he is completely asleep, which only takes a few minutes.

I leave Lucus’s room, and see Kristen’s dead body still lying in the hallway. This reminds me of the awful situation I am in, and the things I need to get done tonight so Lucus does not find out. I just do not know how he would handle this. After a bit of thought I realize Kristen has not turned into one of those monsters. I decide the first thing I need to do is to make sure the house is safe. I walk through the house checking every door and window to make sure they are shut and locked, and also I make sure there is nothing else in the house. When I get downstairs to check Joey’s bedroom, I figure out where the last gunshot Kristen heard came from.

I find Joey sat up against a wall in his bedroom with a gun in his hand and a bullet hole in the side of his head. He does not appear to be physically hurt in any way, but I guess anyone being forced to shoot their parents would be psychologically damaged beyond repair. Just seeing all my family in these gruesome conditions is enough to start questioning my mindset as well.

After making sure the house is secure I put my families’ dead bodies down in Joey’s room; I will have to deal with them tomorrow. I try to clean up some of the big spots of blood, but that will also need more work tomorrow. I think about calling the police or somebody, but after Kristen told me Mom could not get a hold of anyone, I figure I would not have any better luck.

I decide I should go upstairs in our living room to check the television, and see if I can find out if there is any news that can let me know what it was that happened tonight. Unfortunately all local or news channels are out, and the only channels still operating are useless advertisements or cartoon channels just like Lucus was watching earlier; which probably just run on an already programmed schedule. I get on my families’ desktop computer next, hoping for better results, and luckily the internet is still working perfectly fine. I start to search through every news website I can find, and quickly discover the horrors that have occurred throughout the world.

The information is pretty much the same on every news website. The whole disaster started that morning, while I was still in my college classes. Almost simultaneously, hundreds to thousands of reports from around the world claimed people started to attack and eat each other. By noon any densely populated area fell into chaos, and by the evening that chaos had spread to even the most rural areas. Thanks to my small apartment complex being isolated off of campus, and my families’ home being located miles outside of the next town over, I was able to remain as oblivious as Lucus to all this chaos for as long as I did. Even so, it is almost unbelievable this all happened in a day.

I try looking for any details that may explain how this could have happened and how to deal with it, but most of the news websites only tell people to stay inside and avoid any confrontation with others. They also do not say how it started; only that it is some unknown epidemic that should be resolved soon. When I search though some more questionable online blogs though, I find plenty additional information that may actually be more useful.

One of the theories I find, that makes the more sense than any of the others at least, talks about how this whole thing was one massive terrorist attack on the world that got way too out of control. Apparently according to this blog, the number of victims, the starting locations, and also the rate at which this epidemic spreads cannot be coincidental. The blog also contained information on the monsters specifically. The most important part is that all of these monsters are already dead. If they are not put down permanently, which the only way to do that is to destroy the brain, they will continue to kill other people to eat without hesitation, or remorse.

After I get off the computer, just for a little extra security, I make another sweep of the house to push all the heavy furniture against any doors and windows leading outside. I do this as quietly as possible so that I do not wake up Lucus, or worse, catch the attention of anything that may be lurking around outside. I decide to sleep in Lucus’s bedroom just as another precaution, since it will be bad if we are separated if something happens during the night. I drag the twin size mattress, along with its sheets, blanket, and pillow, from the guest room bedroom that I was originally supposed to be staying in, down the hallway, and lay the makeshift bed down on the floor next to Lucus’s bed.

I am too tired to take off any of my clothes, and about get into my makeshift bed until I remember how much nasty junk, which Lucus did not seem to notice, I am covered in. It is probably best for me to take them off, in order to not further spread it around my body and bed as I sleep. I make sure to keep the pistol in easy reach, and lay in my makeshift bed trying to calm down and relax enough to drift to sleep. This seems to be taking forever, but eventually the exhaustion from the day fully envelops me. My eyelids drop like a brick, and I am fast asleep within a second.

End Chapter 1 - It Happened