Prologue
I was 15 years old when my father rushed into my room in the middle of the night. He pulled me out of bed and told me to pack whatever I could fit in my school bag and to hurry.
I gathered my clothes and a couple of family pictures. I picked up my phone but for some reason, at that moment I knew I wouldn’t need it anymore so I laid it on my bed and walked out of my room.
I walked downstairs to see my mother and father running frantically through the kitchen grabbing everything they could.
“What’s going on?” I asked them. They never stopped packing.
“We have to go to your grandparents’ house,” My mother told me as she picked up a box off the counter and ran out of the house.
“Hurry!” My father yelled as he grabbed my arm and pulled me through the house. He pulled me out into the driveway and pushed me inside the car.
My parents got inside and we took off down the road. “What’s going on?” I asked my father, but he didn’t have to answer me.
I still remember that very moment when the screams and the headlights of the car hit one of our neighbors.
Mr. Potter or at least what was left of him. He was no longer the sweet older man who lived next to me for most of my life; he was one of those things you would see in a horror movie.
At the time I didn’t have a name for them, for the spooks. That’s what Mr. Potter had become, a creeper.
My father didn’t even slow down as he got closer, the closer he got the more I was able to see. Mr. Potter was covered in blood, probably his own and maybe others.
“Shut your eyes Reagan,” My mother told me trying to spare me what little horror she could. “No, she needs to see this,” My father yelled as he sped up.
The car collided with Mr. Potter before I could even process what was happening. Mr. Potter flew into the air, then onto the hood, and then he rolled onto the road behind us.
I don’t know if that’s when it all changed or if it was when my father came into my room, but at that moment I knew the world I lived in was gone forever.
We had been hearing about things like this in the news for weeks. My parents tried to hide it from me, to keep me in the dark, but everyone knew. It was like something out of The Walking Dead.
“Mom,” I called from the backseat. “What is it, Sweetie?” She asked me as she turned to look at me. “What about Jesse?”
“He’s meeting us at your grandparents’,” My mother told me. “You should get some sleep Reagan, it's a long drive to Montanna,” My father told me.
But how could I sleep? How could I sleep knowing my brother was alone? Knowing that the only plan we had was to get to a farm we hadn’t been to since my grandfather passed eight months ago. So I stayed awake.
I watched as we drove by hundreds of spooks and people, some I knew, some I didn’t either way it didn’t matter.
That night was five years ago. That was the night the world ended and this one began. We made it to the ranch that night. Me, my parents, my brother, and my brother’s best friend Jackson.
We have lived on my grandfather’s ranch, gathering supplies, growing crops, building walls and fences to keep those things out, and taking in a few people along the way.
In the last five years, we have lost people my parents included. After they passed people started to look to me and my brother for guidance, and that’s what led us to today.
