Chapter 2!

Sorry for the delay with this chapter. I've been trying to get used to my work schedule and editing during vacation pretty much didn't happen like I thought it would. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Update 8/21 7:00am: I'd like to thank you guys for being patient with the numerous grammatical errors in this draft. I'm terrible at catching them and I suspect there will be many more. The very first draft (before this all started) was written entirely in past tense and I'm terrible at catching a the verbs. So thank you for your kindness and patience.

Update 8/21 8:30am: Thanks to Anonymous, I was able to suss out some of the bad verbs and unclear parts of the story. Hopefully, Anonymous, I've fixed what you pointed out and it's more consistent. To everyone, like I said before, I'm awful at grammar and catching my mistakes so I appreciate everyone who has helped me with that. Once I start editing and posting stuff that was always written in the present tense, there should be a lot less verb confusion (if not equal amounts of terrible grammar).


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CHAPTER 2—MICHAEL CLARK



There’s a thud to my right. Some guy is frantically pounding on my passenger window. I see the fear in his eyes and I freeze, not knowing how to respond. All I can do is stare at him as he bleeds all over the side of my car from a gaping wound in his neck. He shouts muffled pleas until he gets tackled, taking my side mirror with him. Bastard.

While this first zombie chews on my new friend I take the opportunity to speed away. While backing up, I hit another zombie. Startled, I forget to stop and back straight into another car, pinning Zombie B. It snarls and struggles, reaching out towards me. As I drive away, I watch him hobble over to his friend on broken legs to join the feast, like he doesn’t even notice. Leaving them behind allows me a moment to breathe and for a second, everything seems like it might be okay.

Campus seems all but deserted. I keep checking my rearview mirror, thinking I’ll see the horde running after me. Unfortunately, while checking the mirror, I fail to notice the abandoned cars piled up in the middle of the road and barely manage to stop in time. Great. In front of me is a veritable parking lot of cars crashed up against each other, leading to the main road. I can imagine everyone running to their cars when the madness started, speeding towards the exits, traffic laws going out the windows. One driver fails to yield while turning and smashes into another. Someone going too fast can’t stop and smashes into them. More cars join the pile-up until the entire exit to the main road is blocked. Going to have to look for another way out...

It’s only a short while before a slight movement catches my attention. From the corner of my eye, I see figures on the roof of one of buildings waving their arms. Are they trying to get my attention? It crosses my mind to keep going, to drive straight home without stopping, to not take any chances, but the thought of other survivors makes me painfully curious. Curious enough, it would seem, to stop the car.

I curb the car and drive up the grassy hill towards the building. Admittedly, driving across the campus lawns is pretty exciting, though I guess it’s pretty typical me to only break the rules when I can’t get in trouble for it. I start towards the door of the building when I heard a groan behind me. I turned to see campus security limping towards me. Shit. Seems just my luck to get in trouble anyway. He edges slowly closer, pointing his one remaining finger lifelessly at my car awkwardly parked in the grass.

“Officer, I don’t know how to explain…” I begin, trying not to laugh too loudly. If you can’t laugh, what’s the point of living? The officer might not be able to appreciate the situation, but I wouldn’t deprive myself. “Really, there was no other parking and it’s not like there’s a si--…”

The guard starts running towards me. This time there’s no hesitation or clumsiness in my defense. In a flash, the sword is out and the guard is lying on the blood-stained grass, separated in half.

As his upper half crawls towards me, it hits me how quickly I’ve gone from being unsure if I could kill something to being able to do it without thinking. I figure that the first thing to change when everything hits the fan is people and their ability to change in order to survive. The crawling torso doesn’t frighten me anymore--this much has quickly changed too. It’s hardly a person anymore, I observe as it leaves a trail of innards on the grass in its pursuit of me, it’s just shaped like one.

I enter the lobby of the building officially known on campus as the Sorenson Student Union Building or the SUB (like the sandwich) if you’re in a hurry. The creepy bust of Sorenson, the university’s first president or something, watches me as I enter, forever guarding his namesake. Much like the common room of my dormitory, it looks as though everyone left in a hurry. Personal belongings of all sorts are scattered on the floors and chairs, as if the owners didn’t have time to grab anything at all. The building’s P.A. system crackles as it activates. A disembodied voice.

“Are you infected?”

I spin around, trying to find the source.

“I said, are you infected?”

“Um... No?” I say. “How would I know?”

“Have they bitten you?”

“No, no successful bites,” I tell him. There’s a pause.

“Are you a necrophiliac?”

“Wait, what?”

He laughs. “Just kidding.”

Some guy emerges from behind the information desk, holding a microphone.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” he says. “Sorry I couldn’t help myself.”

“Who are you?”

“Craig,” he says, climbing over the desk and extending a hand. We shake, his grip is weak and he never meets my eyes.

“I’m Mike,” I say.

“Well, Mike, it’s nice to make your acquaintance,” he says, already walking towards a pair of exit doors. “Follow me.”

“Nice sword,” Craig says as we climb the stairs towards the roof.

Craig and his friends on the roof make up the infamous “Medieval swordsmanship club” with some slight overlap with the membership of the campus fencing and D&D clubs. It’s a veritable nerd city. No one seems to notice as Craig walks me around, introducing me to the key players as most of the others are keeping themselves busy, sparring with fake swords and playing Dungeons and Dragons or keeping look out or taking part in a heated discussion on whether Jean Luc Picard or Captain Kirk would make a better zombie.

“This is our hold-out,” Craig explains. “We were having our weekly crisis preparedness meeting when the screaming started. We fought valiantly but had to regroup on the rooftop.”

“Valiantly, I’m sure.”

“You can’t save everyone,” Craig says. “We do what we can to survive.”

“How long have you been up here?”

“About an hour,” he says quickly. “But we are making preparations to move our base of operations to the food court... or Tommy’s mom’s house.”

“Right. So... where are they all now?”

“Who?”

“The Beatles,” I say. Craig stares blankly. “No, the zombies of course.”

“Oh. Uh... we don’t actually know. There was a large group milling about the lawn out front about forty-five minutes ago but they must have smelled something and ran off,” Craig says looking towards the lawn.

“You mean smelled someone.”

“Wait, have you actually killed one of them?” Craig says, his eyes on my clothes.

“Yeah… three.”

“Dude that is so freaking sweet!! Guys, guys come over here!”

“Wow that’s so awesome!” One says, taking my sword and examining it.

“Are we sure it’s even real blood? I’ve made more convincing blood than this,” another says scrutinizing the individual drops on my shirt.

“Yes, it’s real!” I snatch the sword back. “You guys haven’t actually been near one of those have you? I thought you guys fought valiantly before you had to retreat to the rooftops?”

“Well… actually…” Craig begins.

“Don’t even worry about it,” I tell him, looking directly in his eyes. “It’s pretty clear what’s going on up here. And GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME,” I yell at the ones still examining my clothing.

“Look,” Craig starts, “we need to get out of here. We have no food, no water. All we have is 4 real swords, 12 foam swords, and a lot of scared people. Can you help us?”

A general and his troops, green and scared. After all their training and preparation, they still have never faced anything real. Not like this. To be fair, until about an hour ago, I hadn’t really either. But I had only come here for some answers, to see if anyone knew what was going on. Or maybe just to know that someone else was dealing with this situation like I was. Either way, I’m not prepared to help anyone get out of here. Hell, I can barely help myself. Helping them means risking my ass, not to mention finding myself in a large, delicious group of people to any zombies that were hiding on campus.

“No,” I say.

“What? You have to help us!”

“Look, I don’t have to do anything. I’m not going to put myself on the menu just to get you guys to the next place you’ll get eaten at.”

“But…”

“End of discussion.” I turn towards the roof door. “I’m sorry. Good luck guys.” I start back to my car. When I get there, I looked towards the roof and I see Craig standing up there waving a sword. He gives a salute, a grave gesture, as if to say goodbye. But to whom, I wonder. A powerful gust of wind flies across the lawn. Another gust rolls in moments later, this time carrying the shrieks of the undead. They smell fresh meat.

Craig hears it to and jumps down off the edge of the roof and back towards his people, most likely to help barricade the doors. I sit there, my hand on the ignition, again facing the decision of whether or not to stay and help, or run away and save my own skin. The heads of the undead emerge from over the hill and I start to doubt that I could even make it back to Craig and his group if I started running now. I fire up the car and stop on the gas. The wheels spin frantically in the lawn. The horde is coming closer and closer and the sound of their screams and footsteps fill my ears, my heart is pounding and I can hardly concentrate. I try and take a moment to breathe, letting the gas out slowly. As soon as the wheels find themselves in the dirt, I take off. The group drives left, straight into the glass doors of the building, and crash into it like waves on rocks. The glas

s doors shortly give way and the zombies pile in. Through the windows I see them clambering up the stairwell towards the roof. For a moment there is nothing, no movement or noise. In the mirror, a body flies off the roof, sword in hand.

Oh God. The guilt washes over me the way the zombies took Craig and his friends. I told them I wouldn’t help them. What kind of person did that make me? I could have easily sentenced them to death.

No, it’s not my fault. I would have died with them. Does that make it okay though?

I stop thinking about what I’m doing and let my head swim in the “what if’s.” The thoughts of Craig and Jasmine make me realize that there are people—a lot of people—between me and my home. I don’t think I can live with myself if I ignore every cry for help just to save myself. What kind of coward would do that? I feel selfish. Moreover, I feel sick. My insides are twisting themselves in knots again and I can barely focus on the road.

A parked car practically materializes in front of me and I slam into it going God-knows-how-fast.

I float in and out of consciousness; the cry of the horde attracted by the crash is a dull hum somewhere in my head. It’s hard to tell if it’s getting closer or which direction it’s coming from. I can’t know how much time I have left. Then, I distinctly hear was the sound of the driver’s side door being forced open. There’s no screaming, but I feel them there. This is it. This is what my life has finally come to. All the years I put into doing… what? I’m not excited to die a spineless coward. These zombies are going rip me out of my mangled car to pass me around like a Thanksgiving turkey until I’m nothing but bone. Or maybe they won’t stop until there’s nothing left, as if I had never even existed.

Chapter 1 Part 2

Hello all--

I just want to thank most of you for reading the first part of this chapter and giving me some great feedback and proving to me that I'm terrible at grammar. As a friend put very eloquently, I've been staring at this piece so much that I'm probably just blind to the technical errors. For that, I apologize. Oh and I also admit I'm really bad with commas. Sorry for that too. I never paid attention during the grammar parts of high school English so sorry for party rocking or whatever. Anyways, thanks for reading though and for the general positivity that I've received. It's because of that that this little blog project is turning into everything I had hoped it would be: motivation to edit this colossal manuscript of mine and share it. I really appreciate you guys.

So without further ado, here is the part 2 of the second draft of my book.

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I dash through the cluster of dormitory buildings wondering if my home away from home is as safe as I hope it is. I barge in, sweating and out of breath, but uneaten. There are a few people in the common area studying, completely oblivious, and looking at me funny. I go for my door. Locked. I fumble for the keys. Only now, trying to aim for the keyhole, do I realize how much my hands are shaking. I throw open the door, slam it shut, and collapse on the floor. I take a moment to replay the events in my head. In the moments after I’m able to force my brain to rationalize the entire situation. It couldn’t have been what it looked like. The only reasonable explanation is a prank that went too far. It’ll be on YouTube in a couple of hours and in a few days we’ll forget it ever happened. It’s a calming thought until I peer through the blinds and see a girl being chased by a mostly-naked man with one arm. After considering various scenarios, there was only one that made sense.

Zombies. Honest to God. Zombies. The walking fucking dead. I can’t believe it. I saw that fat guy get eaten. Definitely not cool.

I can’t react with panic—that’ll get you killed. I have to just… calm down. Easy, right? Wrong. At the notion of zombies, my brain goes into overdrive, trying to condense everything I thought I knew about reality and the sheer scope of the situation. I get dizzy.

What’s a boy to do when things get out of control? Call Mom. I sit there in my room holding my phone. Wait, if something was really wrong, she would have called me first, right? She’ll usually make a daily call just to make sure I’ve had my vegetables. I press the quick-dial button for my house (programmed by her, of course). It rings once. Two more rings. Then two more. Then the answering machine.

“Hello, sorry we can’t come to the phone right now…” says my father. I can nearly hear my mom in the background scolding him for recording the message wrong. He’d never change it though. I almost laugh, but realize that there’s no reason for no one to be home.

“Hey guys… it’s me… I hope everyone is okay. I just want you to know I’m fine,” I say. “I have my phone so please call me when you get the chance… please. I love you guys.”

I hang up. There are any number of reasons why no one would pick up, but it’s impossible to ignore what I just witnessed. Naturally, I think about what could be going on at home… I’m sure they’re fine. They must be. Dad’s a tough guy. I just need to take care of myself for now. They’ll call. Maybe there’s nothing going on over there. Maybe. Maybe I could get to them? That seems like the right thing to do. Whatever I do, I have to get somewhere safe; anywhere but here.

First things first, a weapon. I take a quick look around and remember that my roommate keeps a samurai sword under his bed. He came back from the mall one day, took it out of its sheath, and pointed it at me.

“Why the hell did you buy a sword?” I said.

“I really don’t know,” he said.

And that was the end of that. I decide that circumstances being what they are, I’d have to borrow it and he’d have to forgive me. I think that if he were dead, this is what he would want. Or not. Doesn’t really matter, does it?

The weight of the sword is entirely towards the front of the blade, making it awkwardly heavy at first. I hold it out, straight in front of me, examining it, trying to determine if it’s real or not. No way of knowing for sure. It looks like it could do the job. It has to.

I’ve never killed anything before. But I feel like I could do it if circumstances permitted.

Right?

If I had to?

Maybe.

Okay, so I’m going home. For that, I need my car, which is clear across campus, which is full of zombies. Cool.

With sword in hand and a few essentials in a bag, I take the first measured steps towards home. I turn the knob as slowly as possible and pause to breathe before opening the door. I leap out into the hallway, striking  a ninja pose, ready to strike. The hallway seems lifeless. The common area is now abandoned, word-processor cursors on laptops blinking within half-finished words and books lying open on the tables. I stand there, still in my pose, feeling somewhat stupid, wondering if maybe I’m overreacting.

I move towards the door and wonder what kind of person I’d be if I didn’t offer to help anyone, especially those I lived with; I figure it’s the neighborly thing to do. “Hey I’m going to try and escape the flesh-eating zombies if you’d like to come. Maybe swing by Starbucks or get some pizza if you like.” Room 102, empty. 103, empty. 104, empty. I approach 105, the door ajar. I knock gently once. Twice. I look down the hall and consider moving on but something draws me inside. I can’t possibly imagine what…

I imagine Jasmine, the very attractive occupant of room 105 leaping out at me from the closet in a feral rage, clawing and biting at my succulent flesh. In a moment of hesitation, I would stare into her wild blue eyes, apologize, and then, in total self-defense, chop her head off. I’d pause for a moment before leaving her decapitated corpse and wonder what things would have been like if she had only given me a chance when I asked her to go out last weekend.

 Instead, I see a human-sized lump on her bed, covered by a yellow sheet. I creep towards her, unsure what to say, if anything. As I get closer, I hear a soft sobbing coming from underneath the sheet, so quiet that I can barely hear it over my own heartbeat. I’m frozen, not sure what to do. Girls and tears usually give me anxiety. I move backwards, clearing my throat at the door. No response. After a moment, I noiselessly close the door. “Jasmine Fitzpatrick,” the nameplate reads. Could zombies cry? I don’t know. Even if that was still her, what could I say or offer? I had no answers myself. I’m rationalizing again and before I can regret leaving someone behind, I leave the building, sword pointed forward.

I leave the dorm, heading back the main plaza and the other side of campus. Instead of the usual brick that makes up the main campus walkways, it’s the pools and streams of blood that give them their color now. It trails from the piles of bodies, many missing limbs and huge chunks of flesh. Most of the wounds are so fresh they glisten in the sun. Among these piles of bodies and textbooks, there doesn’t seem to be a living… or moving thing in sight. Among the blood-smeared faces are some familiar ones, people I’ve seen in classes or just in passing on our normal routes, their futures cut tragically short, on a college campus of all places.

I tiptoe around corpses, giving the bodies the widest berth I could manage, difficult as that is with the amount of mangled college students and professors strewn across the grounds. I hear screaming coming from the other end of the quad—the building I was in earlier. Class would have been getting out about now…

It’s a rookie mistake, spacing out in the middle of the carnage. Without warning or a moment to react, something pounces on me. I land flat on my back, the sword goes flying. I brace my hands against the shoulders of my attacker whose weight is completely on me, my heart beating wildly as adrenaline surges through me. He looks much worse than I could have ever imagined; half of the grey flesh on his face is torn away, his hair remaining only in patches on his mostly decayed scalp. His yellowing teeth have bits of flesh in between them; I can probably count the few he has left as gnashes them mere inches from my face. The smell is dreadful. It’s awful. It’s the dead lovechild of dreadful and awful. It invades my senses and stings my nose, my eyes water and now I can barely see him. The only thing keeping me aware is the feel of his body on me, a reminder of the danger. I manage to roll to my right and push him off me. He reorients himself for a second attack, I spot my sword. I clumsily unsheathe it and hold it straight out in front of me; any plan I had for its use now long gone. He charges forward, impaling himself on the sword. I brace him to keep him at length and wheel him around, noting how doesn’t even notice the fucking sword in his gut. I twist the sword out of his body, cutting him mostly in half. What’s left of his intestines spill out on the sidewalk and I take the pause to swing wide at his neck, hoping for the best. As his head rolls away from his body it continues to blink at me. Like a bug, I stomp, crushing it with a sickening crack.

As the adrenaline wears off, my knees shake and I fall to ground. I’m shaking all over again and it’s like my insides turn themselves into knots. I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up. I just fought for my life. I just killed something. The ground sways and surges beneath me.

Somehow, I hear a groan and I’m back to reality. A second zombie stumbles towards me. I swing wildly without technique or strategy. The sword makes contact, leaving a deep gash from chin to hip. He stumbles. I bury the blade in his head. The shock of the second kill isn’t nearly as bad but I quickly realize how tired the whole ordeal has made me. What are these things?

            A crash to my left. From out of the Lambda Omega Zeta Delta Alpha honor fraternity information booth crawls another undead monster. He stands and looks at me—a stare down—for what feels like ages, probably contemplating how he wants to eat me. “Legs first? Fingers?” he must be thinking. His undead muscles tense and before he can take off, I’m running as fast as my rubbery legs can carry me. I gain some ground on him and I hear a snap behind me. The zombie’s leg has broken but he’s still chasing me. As I’m considering running on a broken leg, I neglect to watch where I’m going and trip on a body. As the zombie gets closer, I swing my sword towards him, severing his legs. He continues the chase, crawling on his arms towards me. “It’s just a flesh wound!” I imagine him saying. I allow myself a chuckle and run off towards the parking lot.

I run until I reach the lot. Once more in relative safety, I start to cry. For several minutes, I just sit in my car and cry. I just can’t help it.