We Are The Survivors

by Vanessa Marie

  He ignores me for a while seemingly thinking back to a time. His expression doesn’t tell me it’s a good time. “Yeah. One time. I went through a terrible event during which I blamed myself. I don’t want to talk about it. Point is don’t blame yourself. The only thing you can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again. Move on from what did happen.

  “You ask because you feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty. Honor your mom for what she was. Don’t think of her death, think of her life. People shouldn’t be remembered for how they die; they should be remembered for how they lived. Think of the memories of you and her. That’s why we have memories, little mementos of the people we loved and lost. Remember the good times.”

  Dave is right. He is a pretty smart guy. I’ll try not to blame myself.

  I spot a sign in a ditch to the right of the road we are driving. It is a white sign with black letters that spell Barn Goddess. I see the store directly across from the road. I point to the store “You want to go shop there?”

  “Getting an anniversary gift?” Dave teases.

  “We’ve only been dating for a few days.”

  “Teenagers have stupid anniversaries all the time. One week, two week anniversaries, it’s lame.”

  “I think it’s stupid too. I just figured we could stop and look if someone is there,” I say.

  “Does it matter if someone is there?” he asks.

  I make eye contact with him as he makes the turn. “It matters to me. You’ll just steal? That was somebody’s family business just a few days ago.”

  He drives down the street, “Chill out, it’s not like we can pay for it if it’s abandoned. There’s a car in the parking lot.”

  I see a purple car parked in the middle spot. Dave parks to the left of it.

  A man with long black hair opens the door. He scares me more than the prisoner that banged on Dave’s car the first day of the apocalypse. He is wearing a leather jacket, jeans and black boots. He has teal blue eyes that see right through you. The scariest part, he is aiming a black sniper rifle at us.

  Dave gets out of the car. He holds his hands up. “Please, don’t. We thought it was abandoned. Is it okay if we look around?”

  The guy lowers his gun. I sigh with relief. He motions for us to come in. How many times am I almost going to be shot?

  “You can come in,” he says while holding door open.

  Dave walks inside while I unbuckle my seatbelt. I get out seeing Oakland park the truck in the ditch by the store sign. I walk in the store. It’s cool the way it’s set up.

  You walk in and there are shelves on the left and right walls. A shelf sits beneath the window of each wall. There is a table in the middle of the room with two trees on each side of it. In the very back there are two showcases next to each other leaving a gap for one person to fit through.

  I look at the jewelry hanging off the trees. There is an arrowhead necklace that I think she would like. I walk over to the showcases near the end of the store. There is an assortment of crystal balls, crystal necklaces and wands in them. This is a metaphysical store.

  I’ve heard of witchcraft before. It’s a misunderstood practice like other religions. Witches work with nature and do spells for the good of people. They believe in karma and not causing anyone or anything harm. I did a report on it for class once.

  Reports. School. No use to this world now. I won’t write another essay, see another locker. When the world stopped along with hearts of millions of people so did everything else. I wonder if there will ever be normal again. There can never be a civilization like it was again, there can be a beginning. There are endings, with the endings come beginnings. That’s what I’ve always believed and will always believe.

  I see a blue goldstone pendant in the showcase. It’s a very dark blue stone with bright blue glitter specs in it. I feel like I have to get it.

  “What are you looking at?” a woman says.

  I stand straight. There is a woman on the other side of the showcase. She is very young. She has long black, curly hair and she is very skinny. Her hair is held back from her forehead with a purple scarf with fake silver coins sewn to it. She is wearing a grey long sleeve shirt that has lace hanging from underneath the sleeves and a long tight fitting skirt.

  “A blue goldstone pendant. What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Cassandra.”

  A girl my age comes out from the hallway in the back of the store. She has golden blonde hair that is past her shoulders and green eyes. She is holding a pink camouflage rifle. She is wearing a tan jacket over a blue T-shirt and jeans. I am surprised that she has a gun. I am also surprised that Cassandra has a daughter, she looks so young.

  “Can I have that necklace? You don’t have to give me it if you don’t want. I can trade. How’s shelter for one necklace?” I say.

  I hope they take me up on it. They seem nice.

  “Sounds good, too good,” the girl says.

  “Clarice, stop.” Cassandra puts her hand on her shoulder.

  “We’ll go,” a man says.

  The guy who opened the door walks behind the showcase. He puts his hand on Cassandra’s shoulder.

  “What? Craven, we can’t leave,” Cassandra says.

  “I’ll let you two talk.” I walk by the table where Dave is picking up crystals.

  They talk for a few minutes. I look at the crystals. I hear Cassandra say okay.

  “We’ll go with you for a little bit. We want to come back to town though. I’ll get the materials in Vegas and we’ll come back here and secure our house,” Craven announces.

  “Okay, we have power,” I say.

  “Excellent. Let’s get out of here.” He puts his gun strap on his shoulder and takes his keys from his pocket.

  Dave gets in the car. I get in the passenger’s seat. Dave waits for the family to get in their car. We head back to Las Vegas.

  I plan on spending the rest of the day with Rain. I’ll get to know the others better. One trip is enough to exhaust you with the dead out here. Maybe I’ll take a nap.

  At least we have generators. Hopefully the gas lasts long.

  I can’t believe I actually want to sleep. I rest my head on the door. I close my eyes. I haven’t been able to sleep. I spent the last few nights blaming myself or going through the event over and over until sunrise. I’m actually drifting to sleep. I took Dave’s advice. I can move on from my mom’s death.

  I promise to never let anyone else get hurt. I promise to always protect the ones I love, Rain most importantly.

  I wonder how the rest of the world is handling all this death and devastation. I don’t assume, I know that everywhere there are zombies but it would be nice to get contact from somewhere else in the world. What are people doing?

  CHAPTER SIX-SAVE THE WORLD

  Apocalypse: Day One

  May’s Story

  Kevin is sitting by my bed holding my hand. I took a nap waiting for results from the doctor who took blood samples. I sit up in bed. “The results, do they know what I have?”

  He wipes his glasses on his shirt and puts them back on. “They know you are sick. They don’t know what you have.”

  “How do they not know?” I ask.

  I have been in the hospital for weeks. My medical bills are unbelievable. They run these tests 24/7 and they don’t know what I have. I want to get treated and go home. “What the fuck? I spend weeks here just for them to tell me something I already know. I could die and they don’t know. I want to get out of here now!” I swing my legs over the right side of the bed.

  Kevin stands up and puts his hands on my knees to hold me there. “Stop. You can’t go home.”

  I go to speak and a coughing fit stops me. I cover my mouth with my hand. I don’t want to give this disease to him. I lay down. Putting my feet on the bed. The last cough hurts my throat so bad I can barely speak.

  My phone buzzes on the nightstand to my right. I grab it. I read a text from my son.

  Rain says there are people that ar
e getting sick in Las Vegas. There isn’t a good way to describe it but there are zombies everywhere.

  I show Kevin and he laughs with me. I think he plays too many video games. I shake my head at the phone. He won’t fool me. He texts me back.

  Mom! I’m not kidding please listen. Put on the news. I’m sure they have footage of this.

  I am more concerned after reading that text. I grab the clicker off the nightstand and turn the TV on. I put it on the news channel. The headline says ‘Cannibalistic Attacks in Las Vegas.’ They show footage from the news crew on top of a Casino parking garage. They zoom in on the street near the Strip.

  They show a man limping to a young girl. His clothes are torn and bloody. She is screaming at the sight of him. The man stumbles slowly to her while she is standing there in shock. He lunges on top of her and eats her. She screams from the pain of him eating her alive. The camera zooms out and the cameraman turns the camera so I, and the audience, can see his face.

  “My name is Greg. Guys I can’t stay here. That man on the street is not the only one. I saw a woman bite a guy and he died and woke up. From there he went on to eat others. People were screaming, there was so much screaming. People kept getting bit and dying and waking up. This is the only safe place we can find,” the cameraman says eyeing the city from his vantage point, “There has to be hundreds of them on the street. The newscaster, Wendy, was eaten. I’m not leaving. It’s effing crazy here. The military said they would evacuate but I haven’t seen anything. Guys, you got to get me out of here.”

  He watches the girl getting eaten with horror. The girl’s screams can be heard going on in the background. A whole group of them limp to the young guy. He adjusts his black baseball cap oblivious to the group of dead ones behind him. The newscasters shout at him to watch his back. They tell him to turn around about six times.

  “What? I’m having technical difficulties. I can’t hear you,” he says fiddling with his earpiece.

  The newscasters yell at him more. One of the Them, an overweight man with blood dripping from his mouth grabs Greg. He screams. The camera goes up and down. A flash of the man’s face. Blood on the camera. Greg is screaming. He is hitting the man with the camera, I realize. The man is falling with the camera suddenly. He must have been thrown off the roof. The camera lands on the ground showing Greg on the ground lifeless and blood spilling out of his head. Someone screams. I can’t tell if it came from the newscaster or a bystander where Greg is. There are zombies walking toward him slowly with the same limp all zombies seem to have. I wonder why they all walk like that. I watch the little girl who was getting eaten kneel by his body. Her face is as pale as the snow that falls here in the winter. Her eyes are a green color with flecks of red and blue in them. Her mouth opens to let an animal like growl escape. She starts eating the man.

  “What the hell was that? We have to find them,” I say reaching for my phone.

  I grab my phone off the nightstand and text my son.

  Gavin, stay there. If there is an evacuation go. Tell me where you guys are if they do evacuate. Dad and I will come find you guys.

  I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Kevin stands.

  “Stay here I’ll find out what’s going on.” He opens the door. My doctor, Dr. Smithson, walks in with a clipboard. His grey hair is parted in the middle.

  “Ah, you’re up. Did you see the news?” he says calmly.

  “Yeah, I need to go find my son. I have to get out of here.” I stand up with the I.V. still in my vein. The tube pulls at my wrist. I pinch the I.V. trying to pull it out.

  Doctor Smithson grabs my wrist stopping me. “Don’t do that. You have to stay here. The hospital is on lockdown. An infected patient is here and we are trying to analyze the disease she has. It’s spread by bites; the cause of this new disease has not been determined yet. You have to stay. We have reason to believe that you have the virus. Since we can’t diagnose your illness and we don’t know much about this new illness in Las Vegas, we think you might have it. You have the same symptoms. Your sweating, fever, throwing up, even your eyes are bloodshot like Them. The only thing is that it’s taking longer to kill you.” The doctor looks at the clipboard.

  “I want to see my son.” I pull my wrist from his grasp.

  He takes a pen from the chest pocket of his coat. “That’s not possible.”

  “Please, let me go. What’s one person?” I ask.

  He scribbles on his paper on his clipboard. “One person is a lot. We need everyone here.”

  It’s one person. Why won’t he let me go? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe he thinks I’ll infect people on the way there. Maybe it’s contained in other states or not even there. I can’t stay long. “How long will I have to stay here?” I ask.

  “A few days. We will make sure you don’t have it and you can go.” He is still staring at his clipboard.

  I can wait a few days. I hope my family can. I’m worried about my sister and my niece. If my sister is hurt I don’t know what I’ll do. I have to wait a few days to see them. That’s it. Just a few days. I can do that.

  If I do have the disease that turns people into those things are they going to keep me here? I could go crazy and kill one of them at any second. I could attack Kevin. There would be no one to protect our son but my sister and brother-in-law, if they are still alive. I know I will die but I might have enough time to see my son. I must get to him no matter what. I have to get to him even if that means I only get to say goodbye before I go.

  I lie on the bed. The doctor leaves without another word.

  I close my eyes. I’m tired from just standing up. Which has occurring often for a long time. I try to go back to sleep.

  I wake up with Kevin by my bed still. He is sleeping with his head on the hospital bed where my hand is. He wakes up when I do. Maybe it was a nightmare I had. I sit up. “I had this nightmare…”

  “It was real. The cannibals are real.” He lifts his head, then rubs his eyes.

  I hear a man yell. That yell is followed by screaming. I think for a second that the hospital got overrun. Kevin opens the door to see what is going on. There is a man outside my door standing with my doctor.

  A man who is way taller and bigger in size pushes my doctor. “You won’t get away with this. The world is ending but that doesn’t mean you can take other’s lives to fix it! I want to see my wife!”

  The doctor steps back. “I am doing what is necessary. I need people to experiment with. I’ve asked patients to donate blood if they are willing to give their lives to save others. They refused. I am doing this because no one else will. I will fix, even save this world. It is my duty as a medical professional to cure people,” Dr. Smithson says.

  “You don’t have to treat people as experiments to cure others. You need permission. What did you do with my wife! I went to her room, she wasn’t there!” the man yells grabbing the collar of his doctor’s coat.

  Dr. Smithson keeps a cool expression that makes me fearful for some reason. “She had to be an experiment. She might be patient zero. Another one of my patients could be but I need to know. She shouldn’t have refused. It would have made her capture easier. Now she will provide insight on how the body is affected by the disease.” The doctor smiles.

  “She has a right to say no along with the others you have locked up in the Morgue. I heard the nurse say that’s where they take the infected. I saw you take children, sick kids. Their parents were screaming for you to not take them. Tell me where my wife is!” The man punches the doctor in his face.

  Other people are screaming words I can’t understand.

  The doctor falls on his right side. The man kicks the doctor over and over asking the same question “Tell me where?”

  “Close the door now,” I whisper.

  Kevin does that. He locks the door. He kneels by my bed. He grabs my hand.

  “What is he doing?” I ask.

  “Where is that guy’s wife?”

  “I don’t know. We have
to leave here,” he says.

  Kevin grabs my bag of clothes in the closet. I open it up. I take off my hospital gown which was basically my prison jumpsuit for three weeks. I thought of this place as a prison because all I ever did was stay here in this room too weak to even stand. The food is the same I imagine. I feel restricted here.

  I used to be adventurous. My sister is the sweet and kind and caring one. I was the opposite, the adventurous dare devil kind. I would go bungee jumping, on helicopter rides, skydiving. I would do fun activities that give you a thrill rush. I am glad to get out of here for more than one reason.

  I pull out my I.V. which hurts like hell. I put on my green sweater, my winter coat and jeans. I pull up my hood. Getting out looking like this isn’t going to be easy. I’m prepared to make a run for it.

  I press my palm against my vein to stop the bleeding. Kevin opens the door. The doctor and the man are gone. There are blood stains on the floor. They must have gotten hurt badly.

  We walk to the elevators at the end of the hallway. I press the lobby button. The doors open into chaos. There are people bleeding out on gurneys by the nurse’s desk. They all have chunks of flesh bitten from them. Doctors are scrambling around patients. Hardly anyone notices since they are tending to people bleeding to death. They probably don’t even know that the doctor on the fifth floor is kidnapping people. It’s a blur of people screaming in pain, blood, people with deep gashes in them. I focus on the door at the end of the mess. A little guilt makes my stomach ache. I can’t help them, not now.