The Final Five

Trying to survive a zombie apocalypse was not on my bucket list.

It was a warm sunny Friday, in the middle of September. We were all sitting in our science class working on chemistry when a loud bang came from the classroom door. Next thing I knew, this, monster had attacked my chemistry teacher. The monster looked similar to human, yet the flesh of it was falling off of the bones. All you could hear were my classmates screams as the front row’s lives were taken, blood splattered across the floor and all over the windows, alongside bits of bitten off flesh everywhere.

Most of us were frozen with horror, as we just watched our classmates’ lives be torn from them. The rest of the class was running around the class desperately looking for an easy way out. I was located in the very back row, but that thing was going through row by row killing everyone in its path. It wasn’t going to take it very long to reach me.

I ran towards the opened window, I wasn’t sure what was going through my head trying to jump out the window of the second floor of my school, but it was better then being eaten.

“Newt!” Someone yelled.

I turned around and locked eyes with my best friend. Fear covered his entire face. The monster was getting closer by the second. As I looked down beside me, I stared down into the lifeless eyes from the girl who once sat in front of me. Now lying on the floor underneath out desks. I looked back down at the drop. It was two stories down. If I didn’t stick the landing into the bushes, I’d be landing straight into gravel. I looked back towards my best friend. That’s when I lost my footing. Falling backwards out of the window.

I tried to grasp at the window ceil, grabbing onto the corners. I attempted to pull myself back up. The palms of my hands became sweaty fast, and I lost grip. I fell straight down into the bushes below me. Once I landed, I felt a piercing pain shoot up my leg. I must have broken something, however I’m lucky I made that jump with just that. I forced myself up and ran as fast as I could manage to my house down the block. Piercing pain shooting up my leg with every step.

The streets were filled with zombies, or so they looked. Flesh falling off the bone, missing limbs, and almost a green tone to their skin. The streets were flooded in red blood. Bodies of what used to be living people had zombies piled on top of them. People trying to start their cars quickly drew attention to themselves. Giving me just the amount of time I needed to get by to my house. I knocked on the door as hard as I possibly could when my mother whipped it open and grabbed me by my shirt collar, pulling me inside. She then slammed the door behind me.

“Oh my god, you’re alive! I thought for sure the school was infested with them by now,” My mother cried.

My mother began rushing around the house as fast as possible, stuffing canned food and anything useful into a backpack. I hobbled upstairs up to my room and grabbed a jacket. It was a black puffy coat; just enough to keep me warm. Yet probably not enough to protect me from rain. I looked around my room one last time. This would most likely be the last time I got to look at this place. Even if I did see this place again, I doubt it would still be intact. It would probably be destroyed or covered in dust. I snatched a picture off my wall and stuffed it into my inside pocket and grabbed my father’s axe from the inside of my closet. My mother and I packed up the last items into the backpack and ran to the back door. As I stepped outside of the doorway, the moment my foot landed down the small curb from the door to the floor. My leg became heavy. I collapsed. Another shot of piercing pain went up my entire leg.

“Newt! Come on! We need to go!” My mother called from ahead.

I heard the banging from the front door, any second now they would break that thing down. There was no way I was going to manage to outrun them all in the state I was in. I looked in front of me to see my mother standing over top me. She lifted me up and shoved the backpack into my chest, grabbing my shoulders with tears streaming down her face.

“I’m going to buy you some time, you need to run, all the way through that forest, find somewhere safe,”

“Mom! Stop! Please!” I begged.

As I tried to grab for her wrist, she had walked away and locked the glass door behind her. The zombies broke down the front door and a group of them ran inside. I heard her high-pitched scream as I watched her lifeless body get dragged to the ground by the zombies. Blood splattered all over the door. What used to be transparent glass, was now smeared with blood as they ate at her. I turned around and began running as fast as I could. Ignoring the piercing pain from my leg. Not once did I look behind me. I kept running through the deep forest that was in my back yard. Tripping over all of the rocks and branches. Every tree felt as though it had something behind it. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Running through a forest had limited hiding places. I doubt I would have time to dig a hole or build anything before some zombie caught up to me. After running for a long time, I managed to discover a tree house. It was high enough that if I pulled up the ladder, the average zombie would not be able to climb up, unless it had some kind of spider-like abilities.

I climbed up the ladder and entered the treehouse. To my surprise it had a sleeping bag already, and a couple of cans of food. The room had no windows. The only source of light was through the big gapping space of which would normally have a door. However, the corners were useful for making sure the zombies did not spot you. I unpacked everything from my backpack and dropped down in the corner of it.

It didn’t take long until I figured out how to preserve the resources. I would eat on certain days, drink water on others. I wanted to avoid having to run to find more until I absolutely had too. The pain in my leg had gone away and now felt like it had healed. I managed to find bandages in one of the cupboards to wrap around it. So, all I could do is just hope I had bandaged it correctly.

There was no way of knowing just how much time had gone past. I kept track of it for a week until I gave up. My best guess is that it had been at least a month. Once in awhile there were loud bangs, and earthquakes. It was not just a zombie apocalypse like I had originally thought. There had to be all sorts of different monsters. However, being in the middle of a forest. There was not much to go off. All I could observe was the zombies that wondered past through the trees. What was odd was the fact that the regular body wouldn’t take long to decompose. They should be close to solid bone from a logical standpoint. Even then, there was no way there was enough people left to continuously feed them. Meaning there was no need of food. It almost seemed like a never-ending starvation.

Over time, I had figured out that the zombies have just the amount of speed as an average person. Certain groups were faster than others, some were slower. They also did not stop running. My guess was that it depended on how fast the person was when they were alive. They walk around the streets but the moment they see you, they can run at you until they get you. Without stopping. The idea of needing to take a breath did not affect them the way it did with humans.

Every single time I managed to get a little bit of sleep, the flashing images of my mothers death and my class getting eaten alive came to mind. How the desks became covered in blood in spilt seconds. I had been sitting next to my best friend, Jason. All I remember was the terrified look on his face as our classmates got eaten alive right in front of our eyes. I did not even try to save him. I left him there. To die along side them.

I rolled over in my sleeping bag in a cold sweat. When I felt the crinkle of paper in my pocket. I pulled it out and it had was a polaroid picture of Jason and me. Along with our group of friends. There was a group of five of us. We had all known each other since sixth grade. Jason, Adrian, Melody, Ellie, and me. I slipped out of the sleeping bag and walked over to the countertop. There I pinned the picture to the wall with a rusty nail off the floor and walked back to my sleeping bag to attempt to force myself to sleep.