Hi, my name is Adam Williams. I was born in March 1992 in Lowell, Massachusetts, though I'm not sure that's important, but talking makes me feel comfortable, so I'll continue for just a bit longer. I was going to Boston, studying hard, being a good student, and all that stuff. Well, I was your average college student–er, no I take that back; I was your not-going-to-every-single-party-and-getting-drunk-and-laid college student. I have morales. It was how I was raised. So the other thing that makes me not your average college student is that I broke all the standing speed records in track. I like running, helps me think. Ever since 4th grade I was a good runner. It served me well, having good cardio.
It all began some months ago, I was sitting at my desk trying to study for the upcoming electronics test, but Jeremy, my roommate who is a motivated and esteemed individual who will go on to do great things for the world (... just kidding), was thumping around upstairs in his girlfriend Kitty's room (yep, that's right). I sighed in exasperation, scooched back my soon-to-die office chair, leaving my tome of computer circuitry on my little desk by the bunk bed I shared with ladies' man. I walked to the kitchenette which was filled with restaurant leftovers and Hungry Man meals. I was just about to have a beer Jeremy smuggled into our room when there was a thunderous banging on the door, like Sam down the hall with his shovel. I stuffed the Bud Light back into the contraband drawer in the fridge, and walked over to the door. I opened it to find my godfather, Victor Jonson himself standing before me; unshaven, wearing his staple brown turtle neck and Marines jacket... and wielding a pump-action shotgun. When I was growing up in South Lowell, Victor, my previously stated godfather and retired Vietnam War veteran, lived down the road. My dad was a hard working, white-color type a' guy, so, as you can imagine, rather busy. But because of his hard work, we lived in a sizable house and lived comfortably. Anyway, Victor taught me all kinds of things; I learned to shoot a variety of guns, we went camping and hiking, and all kinds of other related activities. Then at the end of the day he'd tell war stories (like the time he traveled the length of Vietnam on foot with only a fish and a machete, to deliver a package, only to be double-crossed by his employers. He killed a man with the fish.); he then put on either a flick from the 60s or a psychological thriller; grabbed a beer, and promptly fell a sleep on the couch. Those were good days.
"Victor, uh... hi! What's going on? With the gun?" I asked, rather confused and awkward.
"Take this machete, boy, and get inside." Victor shoved a machete (I wonder if it was the machete from the stories) into my uncertain hands, then pushed me inside the dorm, came in himself, closing the door quickly and locking it.
"It's happening, Adam, the pandemic to end everyone." he said, slowly turning to face me; his scars and wrinkles on his tanned skin sitting sharply on his face in the light of my desk lamp.
"Uhhh, what?" I stood, totally lost, the machete hanging loosely in my hands.
"Zombies, boy! Zombies! You can turn on the TV if ya' want, but they won't say anything important." he then walked over to the fridge, rummaging around until he found the beer stash. While he did this I took the remote, turning on the crappy, little TV on the dresser. I flipped through the channels 'til I found Fox News. A Barbie doll was the evening news anchor.
"... The CDC is telling people to stay indoors and to wash their hands and shower frequently. They say a virus might be coming through, they say, passed on from Chinese of Mexican emigrants or illegal aliens. The National Guard has already secured the Mexican border to prevent the further spread of this disease. If you think you have the listed symptoms, it is advised you check in with your local doctor. Thanks, Dave, now back to you for the weather."
"Told ya'." Victor said behind me, beer in hand. I sat on the sofa, lost in the swirling, confused tangle of my thoughts. I jump up, heart in my throat.
"I need to go back to Lowell to get my family!" Grabbing the keys to my Chevy, I ran for the door as Dave chatted calmly about the weather. Victor intercepted me, put an iron hand on my shoulder.
"Adam, your family is safe! You know that little vacation they were going on?" I nodded, trying to calm down, "I used up all my favors and pulled all the strings I could. Instead of goin' to Bermuda, the plane they got on is goin' to Russia. They'll be safe there: your father n' mother, and your sister too." I relaxed, slowly. "It's you I'm worried about, son." I looked up. Turning my head to get one last look at the TV, I saw that a special report was interrupting the normal broadcast. It was saying something about no more intercontinental flights, just for a few days, and New York was being secured and cleansed, seeing how it got hit hard by the virus.
"The hell-!?" I started to say when Victor grabbed my arm firmly, leading me out the door. I protested weakly.
"Leave your stuff, son, I've got enough packed up, just follow me will you!"
I complied, hurring down the hall after my godfather. Heads poked out of dorm rooms as we ran by; it appears others were watching the news. We ran out of the dorm building, across the green campus, to Victor's waiting hummer. He pushed me into the passenger seat, running over into the driver's. Squealing onto the highway, Victor, braking many traffic laws, was working is way out of Boston when he swore, breaking many laws of etiquette. A CDC health checkpoint was already erected in the highway; a horde of cars, the evening traffic, crammed around it. When did that get there? Victor swore again, turning sharply around, hitting several cars with his barricades, speeding off in the opposite direction, soldiers shouting at the people in the cars.
"Where the hell did the soldiers come from?"
"Oh, they've been preparing this for some time now."
"They've known about this?"
"They surmised." Victor shrugged as he ferociously turned the wheel, cursing the civil engineers of Boston for crappy roads.
I slumped into the dark leather of the passenger seat, my world collapsing around me. Looking back on it, that was the hardest part, those first few days. My comfortable college lifestyle, my world view crumbled like those buildings in demolition videos; with dust, debris, and violence. It's not a comfortable thing, paradigms being abruptly destroyed. My mouth hung open as I watched the city I loved so much slowly, a block at a time, become more and more disordered; small changes became evident to me, such as running people, heaps of garbage and debris, spun-out cars, and the noise. Screams and crashes filled the air, coming through the glass of the hummer to me.
"It's happening already, damn it!" Victor swore as he took us steadily south.
"Erm, so what's the plan?" I asked, quite timid, like my sister's rabbit, Bugs.
"We get the hell outta this city, go south to Plymouth. Extraction point there."
I poked my head up just enough to peak out of the window on my side. The western skyline; a bar graph of glass and steel, was engulfed in flames. Thick, black smoke soared above the skyscrapers as the dust of a million feet and a million cars swirled around their bases. In just twenty minutes, my whole freakin' world had fallen into chaos. I blubbered. Then I saw one. It was a man, or actually, used to be a man, clothed in torn reflective work vest, the yellow-white bones of his knees visible through the holes in his filthy pants, his skin a gray-green pallor; dark red gore, like cherry jam, filled his mouth, slopping onto his lacerated chest as his dead, white eyes focused distantly on us and his mouth dropped wider. Victor set his jaw, stepping down on the gas harder than he was. We hit the man-monster, it's ribcage splitting open on the barricade on the front of the car; it's legs were eaten up under the hungry rubber of the tires. A bump and jostle later and we left the thing behind. I had almost ruined my underpants. I expressed my need to relieve myself.
"Ergh, ok here's a gas station. Make it quick."
I hopped contentedly from the massive hummer, skipping the step and jumping right to the ground. I had just started to dash to the bathrooms, which were on the outside of the building, when Victor called out to me.
"Adam!" he barked. I turned, "don't forget the machete!" he tossed the machete out after me.
I caught it by the handle, my hand inches from the finely sharpened steel blade. I winced, glad my catching skills were what they were. I resumed my dash for the bathroom. I debated wether to go inside the store and get the key, or to just kick in the bathroom door, you know what with the collapse of society n' all, who needs keys? I kicked down the door, unleashing my confusion and... well, confusion on the lightweight door. I jarred my knee and ankle, but it was worth it for that satisfying burst of the door and bam as it hit the wall. I was fairly stupid back then. I happily strode in, discarded the blade on the maltreated sink, and proceeded to take care of my business. If I hadn't glanced up at the smudged mirror as I was finishing, the zombie would've had a free breakfast. As it went, I just happened to look as some 500 pound woman crept up on me. I whirled around, screaming like a girl I am embarrassed to say. The zombie stood in between me and my machete. I backed up against the tiled wall my hands slick with sweat, heart pounding in my chest. That red gory stuff slopped out of her mouth as she lumbered toward me, closing the distance in a hungry stride. I did the only thing that I could think of. Victor's lessons flooding back to me, I ducked the zombies' clawed hand and delivered a swift blow to her blubber-protected solar plexus. A sound like when you snap a wet stick after a heavy rain made me freeze. I had broken her plexus in one blow, and yet she didn't even flinch. That was just messed up. I dove under her outstretched arms, rolled across the floor, and jumped up by the sink counter. I almost had my fingers wrapped around the black rubber of the machete handle, when a hand, cold like ice water, clamped onto my upper arm, pulling me back. I cried out, sure that she would sink her broken teeth into my neck, and flailed my arms and fists about in the hope that I would stop this... thing. My fist met her face; I felt her nose shatter under my knuckle and I'm pretty sure I broke her jaw. A yellow tooth fell past my shoulder. I punched again and again; my knuckles aching as I heard wet snapping and cracking, red goo slopping to the ground. The door, which had swung back to cover the doorway, exploded off it's hinges, flying into the stalls with a crashing of twisting metal and cracking door. Victor stood, wreathed in the thin light from the cloudy sky in the doorway, his pump-action shotgun in his gnarled hands.
"Boy!" he roared, "get down!" his face was red, quite red.
I threw myself away from the hungry, dead woman; her face now resembling red Play-doh from my childhood. She took a shuffling step toward Victor, who cooly raised his gun. I covered my ears with my hands, but was to slow; with a crack, the shotgun fired; my ears ringing, leaving me deaf. The woman's head disappeared in a gooey red cloud, splattering the walls with the bright sticky stuff. A piece of pale, gray matter landed on my shoulder. I scrambled away from the corpse as quickly as possible, sweat pouring down my face, matting my hair; chest heaving, eyes on the monster that used to be human. She could have been anybody; a mother, a teacher, a nurse, anyone! I shove these thoughts to the back of my mind, grab my blade, and hurry after Victor back into the hummer. Screams and smoke filled the Boston skyline as we roared down the freeway. I swallow hard.
It all began some months ago, I was sitting at my desk trying to study for the upcoming electronics test, but Jeremy, my roommate who is a motivated and esteemed individual who will go on to do great things for the world (... just kidding), was thumping around upstairs in his girlfriend Kitty's room (yep, that's right). I sighed in exasperation, scooched back my soon-to-die office chair, leaving my tome of computer circuitry on my little desk by the bunk bed I shared with ladies' man. I walked to the kitchenette which was filled with restaurant leftovers and Hungry Man meals. I was just about to have a beer Jeremy smuggled into our room when there was a thunderous banging on the door, like Sam down the hall with his shovel. I stuffed the Bud Light back into the contraband drawer in the fridge, and walked over to the door. I opened it to find my godfather, Victor Jonson himself standing before me; unshaven, wearing his staple brown turtle neck and Marines jacket... and wielding a pump-action shotgun. When I was growing up in South Lowell, Victor, my previously stated godfather and retired Vietnam War veteran, lived down the road. My dad was a hard working, white-color type a' guy, so, as you can imagine, rather busy. But because of his hard work, we lived in a sizable house and lived comfortably. Anyway, Victor taught me all kinds of things; I learned to shoot a variety of guns, we went camping and hiking, and all kinds of other related activities. Then at the end of the day he'd tell war stories (like the time he traveled the length of Vietnam on foot with only a fish and a machete, to deliver a package, only to be double-crossed by his employers. He killed a man with the fish.); he then put on either a flick from the 60s or a psychological thriller; grabbed a beer, and promptly fell a sleep on the couch. Those were good days.
"Victor, uh... hi! What's going on? With the gun?" I asked, rather confused and awkward.
"Take this machete, boy, and get inside." Victor shoved a machete (I wonder if it was the machete from the stories) into my uncertain hands, then pushed me inside the dorm, came in himself, closing the door quickly and locking it.
"It's happening, Adam, the pandemic to end everyone." he said, slowly turning to face me; his scars and wrinkles on his tanned skin sitting sharply on his face in the light of my desk lamp.
"Uhhh, what?" I stood, totally lost, the machete hanging loosely in my hands.
"Zombies, boy! Zombies! You can turn on the TV if ya' want, but they won't say anything important." he then walked over to the fridge, rummaging around until he found the beer stash. While he did this I took the remote, turning on the crappy, little TV on the dresser. I flipped through the channels 'til I found Fox News. A Barbie doll was the evening news anchor.
"... The CDC is telling people to stay indoors and to wash their hands and shower frequently. They say a virus might be coming through, they say, passed on from Chinese of Mexican emigrants or illegal aliens. The National Guard has already secured the Mexican border to prevent the further spread of this disease. If you think you have the listed symptoms, it is advised you check in with your local doctor. Thanks, Dave, now back to you for the weather."
"Told ya'." Victor said behind me, beer in hand. I sat on the sofa, lost in the swirling, confused tangle of my thoughts. I jump up, heart in my throat.
"I need to go back to Lowell to get my family!" Grabbing the keys to my Chevy, I ran for the door as Dave chatted calmly about the weather. Victor intercepted me, put an iron hand on my shoulder.
"Adam, your family is safe! You know that little vacation they were going on?" I nodded, trying to calm down, "I used up all my favors and pulled all the strings I could. Instead of goin' to Bermuda, the plane they got on is goin' to Russia. They'll be safe there: your father n' mother, and your sister too." I relaxed, slowly. "It's you I'm worried about, son." I looked up. Turning my head to get one last look at the TV, I saw that a special report was interrupting the normal broadcast. It was saying something about no more intercontinental flights, just for a few days, and New York was being secured and cleansed, seeing how it got hit hard by the virus.
"The hell-!?" I started to say when Victor grabbed my arm firmly, leading me out the door. I protested weakly.
"Leave your stuff, son, I've got enough packed up, just follow me will you!"
I complied, hurring down the hall after my godfather. Heads poked out of dorm rooms as we ran by; it appears others were watching the news. We ran out of the dorm building, across the green campus, to Victor's waiting hummer. He pushed me into the passenger seat, running over into the driver's. Squealing onto the highway, Victor, braking many traffic laws, was working is way out of Boston when he swore, breaking many laws of etiquette. A CDC health checkpoint was already erected in the highway; a horde of cars, the evening traffic, crammed around it. When did that get there? Victor swore again, turning sharply around, hitting several cars with his barricades, speeding off in the opposite direction, soldiers shouting at the people in the cars.
"Where the hell did the soldiers come from?"
"Oh, they've been preparing this for some time now."
"They've known about this?"
"They surmised." Victor shrugged as he ferociously turned the wheel, cursing the civil engineers of Boston for crappy roads.
I slumped into the dark leather of the passenger seat, my world collapsing around me. Looking back on it, that was the hardest part, those first few days. My comfortable college lifestyle, my world view crumbled like those buildings in demolition videos; with dust, debris, and violence. It's not a comfortable thing, paradigms being abruptly destroyed. My mouth hung open as I watched the city I loved so much slowly, a block at a time, become more and more disordered; small changes became evident to me, such as running people, heaps of garbage and debris, spun-out cars, and the noise. Screams and crashes filled the air, coming through the glass of the hummer to me.
"It's happening already, damn it!" Victor swore as he took us steadily south.
"Erm, so what's the plan?" I asked, quite timid, like my sister's rabbit, Bugs.
"We get the hell outta this city, go south to Plymouth. Extraction point there."
I poked my head up just enough to peak out of the window on my side. The western skyline; a bar graph of glass and steel, was engulfed in flames. Thick, black smoke soared above the skyscrapers as the dust of a million feet and a million cars swirled around their bases. In just twenty minutes, my whole freakin' world had fallen into chaos. I blubbered. Then I saw one. It was a man, or actually, used to be a man, clothed in torn reflective work vest, the yellow-white bones of his knees visible through the holes in his filthy pants, his skin a gray-green pallor; dark red gore, like cherry jam, filled his mouth, slopping onto his lacerated chest as his dead, white eyes focused distantly on us and his mouth dropped wider. Victor set his jaw, stepping down on the gas harder than he was. We hit the man-monster, it's ribcage splitting open on the barricade on the front of the car; it's legs were eaten up under the hungry rubber of the tires. A bump and jostle later and we left the thing behind. I had almost ruined my underpants. I expressed my need to relieve myself.
"Ergh, ok here's a gas station. Make it quick."
I hopped contentedly from the massive hummer, skipping the step and jumping right to the ground. I had just started to dash to the bathrooms, which were on the outside of the building, when Victor called out to me.
"Adam!" he barked. I turned, "don't forget the machete!" he tossed the machete out after me.
I caught it by the handle, my hand inches from the finely sharpened steel blade. I winced, glad my catching skills were what they were. I resumed my dash for the bathroom. I debated wether to go inside the store and get the key, or to just kick in the bathroom door, you know what with the collapse of society n' all, who needs keys? I kicked down the door, unleashing my confusion and... well, confusion on the lightweight door. I jarred my knee and ankle, but it was worth it for that satisfying burst of the door and bam as it hit the wall. I was fairly stupid back then. I happily strode in, discarded the blade on the maltreated sink, and proceeded to take care of my business. If I hadn't glanced up at the smudged mirror as I was finishing, the zombie would've had a free breakfast. As it went, I just happened to look as some 500 pound woman crept up on me. I whirled around, screaming like a girl I am embarrassed to say. The zombie stood in between me and my machete. I backed up against the tiled wall my hands slick with sweat, heart pounding in my chest. That red gory stuff slopped out of her mouth as she lumbered toward me, closing the distance in a hungry stride. I did the only thing that I could think of. Victor's lessons flooding back to me, I ducked the zombies' clawed hand and delivered a swift blow to her blubber-protected solar plexus. A sound like when you snap a wet stick after a heavy rain made me freeze. I had broken her plexus in one blow, and yet she didn't even flinch. That was just messed up. I dove under her outstretched arms, rolled across the floor, and jumped up by the sink counter. I almost had my fingers wrapped around the black rubber of the machete handle, when a hand, cold like ice water, clamped onto my upper arm, pulling me back. I cried out, sure that she would sink her broken teeth into my neck, and flailed my arms and fists about in the hope that I would stop this... thing. My fist met her face; I felt her nose shatter under my knuckle and I'm pretty sure I broke her jaw. A yellow tooth fell past my shoulder. I punched again and again; my knuckles aching as I heard wet snapping and cracking, red goo slopping to the ground. The door, which had swung back to cover the doorway, exploded off it's hinges, flying into the stalls with a crashing of twisting metal and cracking door. Victor stood, wreathed in the thin light from the cloudy sky in the doorway, his pump-action shotgun in his gnarled hands.
"Boy!" he roared, "get down!" his face was red, quite red.
I threw myself away from the hungry, dead woman; her face now resembling red Play-doh from my childhood. She took a shuffling step toward Victor, who cooly raised his gun. I covered my ears with my hands, but was to slow; with a crack, the shotgun fired; my ears ringing, leaving me deaf. The woman's head disappeared in a gooey red cloud, splattering the walls with the bright sticky stuff. A piece of pale, gray matter landed on my shoulder. I scrambled away from the corpse as quickly as possible, sweat pouring down my face, matting my hair; chest heaving, eyes on the monster that used to be human. She could have been anybody; a mother, a teacher, a nurse, anyone! I shove these thoughts to the back of my mind, grab my blade, and hurry after Victor back into the hummer. Screams and smoke filled the Boston skyline as we roared down the freeway. I swallow hard.
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