Memories

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:49:04 GMT

These are the pictures I carry around in my jacket pocket, along with my money, extra bullets, a shirt and three more pairs of undergarments.

It's all I have left of my old life.

Andrew

Marcy

At home in Maryland. Age 17.

Party time

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:18:30 GMT

While getting the supplies I needed, plus some much-needed food, I recieved an invitation to the "Winter Solstice" festival, hosted by Jason Cox. There was that name again. Alan had mentioned it before to me. Henry had seen it and looked very excited about the prospect of going and so had gotten a ticket of his own from the vendor. At least it was in the Red Light District where we were currently, so at least we wouldn't have to travel far to get to it.

I realised I didn't have anything fancy to wear and the invitation practically screamed "Formal wear". I found this one place and bought a slinky black dress, just fancy enough to wear to something like this, but still allowing for mobility should things get out of hand. Which is a possibility, given that Jason Cox is a vampire.

Hopefully, no zombies will make surprise appearances.

At the beginning of the outbreak, New York City

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:19:14 GMT

Lauryn got back to the apartment a little after five o'clock. She had just gotten out of her job at the jewelry store on the corner of 5th. It had been a hard day and she was looking forward to a shower and nice dinner with her brother, Andrew, and sister-in-law, Marcy. 'Maybe Marce will make lasagna,' the 19-year-old thought excitedly as she turned the key in the lock. She loved lasagna and no one made it quite like Marcy.

She entered the apartment, surprised to find the lights off and no sign of her brother or his wife. She closed and locked the door behind her and walked carefully over to the kitchen, fumbling for the light switch. She found it and flipped it up, the kitchen becoming illuminated. She squinted as her eyes got used to the light. Once she was acclimated, she took in the site before her.

The normally neat, pristinely white kitchen was in total disarray. Cupboards were open, one almost falling out of its base, some dishes on the floor were shattered and broken. What alarmed her the most was the traces of blood all around her. There was a lot of it on the floor and in the sink area. Bloody handprints decorated the countertops and the handle of the refrigerator. Lauryn walked farther into the destruction, the glass on the floor crunching under her boots. 'What the Christ happened here?' she thought, trying to make sense of it. She was about to come out of the kitchen when she saw the particularly large puddle of blood on the floor. She squatted down to get a better look at it. It was almost a foot in diameter and was dark red, almost purple, which made her eyebrows go up in shock. It still looked wet too, which meant that whoever's blood it was was probably still...

"Here," she whispered, standing up fast and putting a hand to her mouth. She looked at the puddle and saw a trail leading away from it, back further into the apartment, back into the bedrooms. A loud crash in the back nearly made her jump out of her skin. Lauryn felt her hands shaking with fear as she reached for a knife in the knife rack. Her fingers gripped wood and she slowly pulled the knife out of its resting place. She set her purse down on the counter, quietly, trying to not alert whoever was there to her prescence. She moved slowly, around the puddle and made her way back into the apartment.

She was grateful for the nightlights Andrew had put in the sockets in the hallway. His thinking was that if anyone needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, they wouldn't trip over anything on the floor. Lauryn was grateful for them because it meant she didn't have to turn on the hallway light. She heard another crash and jumped again, clutching the knife tighter. She passed her room and saw that the door was still closed from when she had left this morning. The wood had a handprint on it, and another was on the wall directly to the left of the door, leading down the hall. She realised that they led to her brother's room.

Lauryn walked to her brother's room and saw that the door was wide open, a small desk lamp barely illuminating the room. If she had thought the kitchen was bad, this was Armageddon. The large chest of drawers had been thrown to its side, the chair her brother sat in, writing for the 'New York Times' was in pieces on the floor, one of the legs through his laptop screen. She saw a huddled figure on the bed, almost covered by blankets. "Oh, my God," she muttered, running over to see who was there, still keeping the knife in her hand. She reached the bed and tentatively pulled the sheet back from the figure.

What she saw nearly tore her heart open. Andrew lay under the covers, his grey eyes glassy and strange looking. His skin was pasty and was marred by a trail of blood running from a small cut on the top of his head down his face. Tears started in her eyes when she realised that he was dead. Her brother was dead. She put her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. There was still the person, no, the sick psycho in her place to deal with. The one who had murdered her brother. 'Fuck!' she thought, livid at the same time she was crying. She turned around at hearing a creaking sounds, just in time to see the bathroom door swing open. Lauryn's face became set in a hard grimace. 'Let's see who this fucker is,' she thought, gripping the knife tighter, wiping the tears from her face. She'd be damned if he would see her cry.

She saw the person standing in the center of the doorway, but couldn't make out their face. "Who is it?" she yelled, projecting her voice to make it seem like she wasn't afraid, though in truth, she'd never been more petrified in her whole life. "Who's there?!" she yelled, waiting for them to come out and show themselves. The figure titled its head up at an odd angle when she spoke for the second time. It seemed to be regarding her, which sent a shiver down her spine. They began to walk forward, almost stumbling overthemselves. A few more steps and they were in the low light, allowing Lauryn to see the figure's face. It was her sister-in-law, Marcy. Or something that used to be Marcy. A large chunk of skin was taken out of her arm, shaped like a bite, blood still running down her arm and onto the floor. Bruises were all over her face, which Lauryn saw was the same shade as Andrew's. There was dried blood around Marcy's mouth and a lot of it on her shirt. She had a crazed look on her face as she continued to regard Lauryn, like she didn't recognise her.

"Marce?" Lauryn asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she came closer to the woman. She lifted her arm to touch Marcy's face. "Marce, what happened? What happened to Andrew?"

Marcy responded by growling and grabbing Lauryn's arm, attempting to bite her. Reacting on instinct, Lauryn brought the knife down into Marcy's neck, almost to the hilt. Marcy let out a howl of rage and pain and let Lauryn go, backing away from her. Lauryn held her arm to her chest, trying to make sense of this. "What the hell?" she asked, almost pleading for an answer. Marcy looked at her and snarled, her once pretty face now twisted and ugly. Screaming, she charged at Lauryn, who ducked to the side and fell onto the floor, trying to get away from this thing her sister-in-law had become. She felt around for anything she could use as a weapon and felt her hand grab wood, probably from the chair. She pulled the wood up and hoisted it into the air, just as Marcy charged her again, throwing herself at Lauryn.

Lauryn closed her eyes, waiting for the attack. She opened them and saw that Marcy was impaled on the piece of wood...through her heart. Lauryn gasped in surprise at what she had done. She looked up into Marcy's face and saw that she looked as surprised as Lauryn did. She leaned back, ripping the piece of wood out of Lauryn's hands, and fell backwards onto the rug, twitching slightly. Lauryn lay on the floor, breathing heavily, unsure as to what she had just seen. She stood up, keeping her eyes on Marcy. She watched in amazement as Marcy pushed herself up into a sitting position, despite the fact that her heart was impaled.

The word 'zombie' passed through Lauryn's mind. She was tempted to brush it off, but based on reports she'd been hearing within the last six months, and what she had just seen, she couldn't ignore it. A moaning coming from the bed startled her. She turned around to see Andrew rise up from the bed, his eyes wild and crazed. "Andy?" she said, pain seeping through her voice. She saw as he looked at her. Some part of him recognised her for the briefest instant, before it was replaced with something more animalistic. He snarled at her, a growl escaping his throat as he started to move towards her.

Lauryn wasted no time in picking herself off of the floor and running out of the room, just missing being grabbed by Marcy, who was beginning to recover herself, despite the knife in her neck and the wood in her chest. Lauryn ran to her room and slammed the door, locking it behind her. She heard and felt Andrew pounding and pushing on the door, trying to get into her room and kill her. Kill her. She had no doubt he wanted to do that. Whatever part of him that was Andrew was now permanently dead, replaced by the "virus" now taking over his body.

'You're going to have to kill him,' a voice in her mind whispered, filling her with pain and sadness unlike anything she'd ever felt. 'If you don't, they'll kill you.' She knew it was true. They didn't even recognise her anymore. Lauryn stepped away from the door as another hit collided with it, this time splintering part of the wood. She knew they would get in, it was a certainty at this point. 'How do I stop a zombie?' she thought. If the movies were right, you had to destroy the brain. She looked around her room, trying to find something to use that would do the job. She had to be quick about it. She looked for a few more seconds before opening her desk drawer and finding the Beretta she had bought for herself when she had first moved in with Andrew and Marcy. She had heard bad things about New York and had wanted to be prepared. She had ended up not needing it, but she had kept it nonetheless.

Thanking God for this good fortune, she picked the gun up and after making sure it was loaded, turned around to face the door, just as Marcy burst through, blood dripping out of her mouth. Without a second thought, Lauryn squeezed the trigger two times, watching as the bullets took part of Marcy's face and head off, splattering blood onto the wall. She fell to the ground with a hollow 'thud' and did not rise again. Lauryn looked up at the door, not seeing Andrew. Taking a deep shuddering breath, she walked out into the hallway, very very slowly. Out of the corner of her right eye, she saw movement. She turned and fired, hitting Andrew in the throat. He stumbled backwards but didn't fall, to her dismay. Though she had learned how to use firearms from her father when she became a teenager, and had become quite good at using them, she had never used them in combat. Especially not in any situation like this.

She didn't have anymore time to think as he leaped at her and took her to the ground, knocking the gun out of her hand. It took all of her strength to keep him from ripping her skin to pieces. Grimacing, she pushed hard and knocked him off of her, to the side, just enough for her to pick up the Beretta. He looked up at her and she fired right into his face, over and over again, until the gun was empty and all she heard was it clicking.

Lauryn was breathing hard and shaking, the full weight of everything that had just happened hitting her hard. She dropped the gun out of her hand and began sobbing, loud and uncontrollably. She covered her face and continued crying, almost screaming in agony and pain. She lay on the floor for many hours, just crying, not knowing what else to do.

There was nothing she could do.

It was the turning point...and there was no going back...

You can't escape what makes you tragic

Memories

Party time

At the beginning of the outbreak, New York City