The warm summer air carried a foul smell into the small campground as Max lifted his third piece of wood for splitting. He assumed it was some dead animal in the woods that he was downwind from. These last five days in the wilderness had been exactly what Max had needed, some time to get away from the busy city and all of its noise. But it wasn’t just the city he wanted to get away from, it was his life in general. His axe struck home again splintering the wood, part of him used this time chopping wood to let out some of the anger he had for his recent girlfriend who had been cheating on him with his best friend and ruining his life. A conflict of interest about “their” future brought her to it. Max was twenty-four and was not ready to settle down and start a family, in fact the thought of starting a family was always something that seemed forced by society to him. When it seemed he had enough firewood, Max grabbed his fishing rod and started off to the dock that fed into the lake the campsite was on.
A few hours of fishing would liven his spirit and give him something to eat tonight, with each cast he felt more at peace with the recent events in his life. Perhaps he was better off without her. Maybe his life was about to change. As the sun set Max did not know how right that statement was, everything would change in the morning.
Screams? Was he asleep? No, these screams came from outside his tent, from the campsite through the woods. Frantically he got himself dressed and rushed through the small path to the next campsite. As he got closer the screams got louder, and then they stopped as he came into the small clearing of the campsite.
The campsite was a total mess. Red stained the ground and the large tent in the center of the campsite had large red splash marks all over it. Approaching closer Max could hear a grunting sound from behind the tent. He stepped around the tent to witness the gore hidden behind it. A woman lay on her back, both of her legs appeared to have been shredded through a paper shredder. The meat just hung from the bone and the ground was a pool of blood. Max gasped in horror as he witnessed the woman, whom should have been dead, trying to get up with her torn limbs.
She groaned and let out a sickening scream as each time her broken and torn legs collapsed under her weight. He watched as the woman turned to look at him and groaned loudly again, now trying to get up faster, trying to make her way toward him. Max stepped back from the tent still in a state of shock and fled back to his campsite. Those groans filling his head as he ran. Getting back to his campsite he jumped into his car and sped down the winding mountain road toward the highway. It wasn’t until he was miles away from the park that what had happened finally sunk in. His hand thumbed through the radio dial frantically, till it hit the sound of a man’s voice that sounded as though it should be on sixty minutes. The dialogue would almost bore you if it were not for the dire things he was saying:
The following is a test of the emergency broadcasting system, a state of martial law has been declared by the president of the United States. Citizens are encouraged to stay within their homes and lock all doors and windows’. It seems groups of unidentified assailants have begun attacking and killing innocent people. Perpetrators will be fired upon with only a warning. Once again, stay within your homes, do not try to contact or reach any loved ones. If you are found on the street you will be arrested and detained. Reports are now coming in from around the globe this is not an isolated incident. Many reports of horrible acts of violence and....and cannibalism is flooding into our office. Do not come in contact with the assailants and do not try to reason with them. If you find yourself approached by said individuals flee and get within a secure area. Patrols and Aid stations are being set up along every major highway. We will report on this as long as we can stay tuned to this station and we will continue to operate on the emergency broadcasting system.
Max was speeding down the highway with his eyes glued to the radio as if there were a picture to go with the words. Some sort of terrorist attack perhaps? Five days, what could have happened in five days? Had the world fallen apart? With those questions still fresh in his mind Max’s eyes glanced above the steering wheel only to make out a humanoid shape which crashed into the hood of his car, smashing in the windshield and causing the car to spin out of control. He found himself hanging upside down with his cheek pressed hard against the roof of the car, his arm was twisted around his back. It was not broken but taken out of its socket and blood was running from a deep wound in his head. Flames beckoned in through the passenger side door and the heat and smoke was making his head dizzy. After a few moments of agony Max crawled his way through his side window across the broken glass to rest against the side of a guard rail. He took deep breaths as he coughed the fire from his lungs. His left arm dangled at his side, the joint clearly not in the socket.
Using the guard rail as a support column he braced himself and shifted all his weight onto his shoulder and used his free hand to jam the bone back into the socket with a disgusting crack. The scream of agony followed along with a string of obscenities. A shuffling sound from beyond the wreckage caught his ear. Painfully lifting his head Max could make out a human shape behind the smoke and his own dizziness. The figure lurched forward coming into clear view. It looked like a man, or at least it had been at one time. His right cheek was torn away giving clear view of his teeth. Teeth that moved up and down, sometimes chewing on the pieces of skin that hung down into his mouth. The left arm was missing and scores of human looking bite marks littered his body. The thing was so slow he thought as he kept his distance, how could anyone get attacked? Then getting a good look down the road, Max spotted the answer to his question. There was a mass of them, maybe about thirty or forty, all making their way down the road toward him.
Fear and adrenaline pumped through his body and he forced his legs to stand up and run down the highway. His face ached from the deep wound and his head felt dizzy from the loss of blood. The mobs of creatures behind him were not as far behind as he had wanted to put them but he had to stop. Max leaned against a road sign catching his breath. He looked up at the sign and saw that ?? (name of city here) was only three miles away. He was almost home. After an hour or two of walking Max could finally see the lights of the city. The long walk on the highway was uneventful except for the hordes of undead behind him making sure he didn’t rest too long. The only cars he had encountered were abandoned aside from several that were piled into a mass of metal along one side of the highway. None of those things lurked around, the mob behind him did not rest. He could hear their horrible moans even though he knew he had to be at least a half hour or more ahead of them.
Max walked into the edge of town being careful to stay to the shadows and listen for more of the creatures. He had just made the corner onto main street when he stopped as if hit by a wall. He stood there locked in his tracks as the scene before him sent him once again into shock. A city street that was usually busy with cars and shoppers stood empty. Lights flashed on and off, store windows were broken and glass was shattered all over the sidewalks. Cars sat everywhere crashed into poles, buildings and each other. Some of the cars still with their doors ajar as if the occupants had just vanished into thin air. His stomach began to feel weak as he searched for something that looked normal and alive. As he stood there in shock something even worse flashed in his mind. What about ?? (ex-girlfriend) and ?? (best friend). Even though he had been mad as hell at them only hours before the fear of something happening to them was more than he could bear. He struggled with all of his emotions at one time but pushed his body once more into a run and headed for home. Home to see if they were still alive or if his street and his closest companions looked like everything else .... dead yet still living.
Fear is not knowing what is going on around you. Terror is finding out.
