Desolate

It was amazing how the world went from happy and full of life to gloomy and empty in just a few weeks. It seemed like the entire human race had vanished off the face of the earth, and without explanation.

“Jordan, I’m telling you, this radiation is what killed off the entire world!” Cody exclaimed, pointing at the car radio, which had a droning voice going on and on about some nuclear plant that was miles from here.

“Cody, don’t be stupid, radiation can’t effect this many people at once,” she scoffed as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass window of the car, trying to drown out Cody’s voice by listening to the heavy fat raindrops pound against the car’s roof.

“If you don’t believe in this radiation then tell me why we’re randomly going to your parents’ house?” he asked, tapping on the steering wheel with his index finger. Jordan threw herself back against her seat and folded her arms across her chest.

“What’s with all the questions?!” she snapped. Cody gave her a satisfied smirk as he pulled up the driveway of the little white house that belonged to Jordan’s parents. She grabbed her umbrella and opened the car door.

“Wait for me!” Cody called as he began getting out of the car almost as slow as a snail. Jordan ignored him and made her way to the door. She noticed that the door was wide open. She slowly walked up the stairs of the porch, closing her umbrella as she did so.

“I thought you didn’t believe in all this stupid radiation!” Cody mocked. Jordan smacked him with her umbrella and shushed him, “would you be quiet?!”

Cody cleared his throat and wiped the wet spot Jordan’s umbrella left on his arm as he followed her into the house. She patted down the wall next to the door, trying to find the light switch. When she found it, she pushed it up, revealing total disaster. The couches had fallen on their backs, with blood stains all over them. Broken glass was scattered along the wooden floors. She looked at her hand that had touched the wall, which she realized was wet with blood.

“What the hell happened in here?” Cody said softly. Jordan breathed deeply, trying not to think the worst. She slowly made her way across the living room, the glass on the floor crunching beneath her boots.

“Mom…Dad?” she whimpered. She heard a growl coming from the computer room. Her and Cody exchanged looks as she walked towards the computer room, keeping a tight grip on her umbrella. Not that her umbrella was much of a weapon. But at this point, it was all she had.

When she reached the door, her mother was laying in the corner of the room over a pool of her blood. The right side of her neck was completely gone. She stared at Jordan and cocked her head to the side slowly. This woman wasn’t her mother anymore. She growled again and lunged at Jordan. She was almost frozen but reacted at the last minute and hit her on the side of the head with her umbrella.

“Cody!” Jordan yelled, turning to see a horrifying scene. Her father had a hold of Cody, pulling the skin off his neck, which caused his blood to run profusely down the left side of his body.

“Jordan, don’t just sit there! Go!” Cody yelled, as he began to pale and the rest of his life drained out of him. Jordan ran down the hallway and into the living room, through the living room. She stood at the porch, staring at the empty street in front of her. She felt so hopeless. Cody had the car keys; she had no way to get out of here. Everything had fallen apart in a mere twenty, maybe thirty seconds.

She heard footsteps and instead of running, she turned around to see Cody coming towards her at a rapid speed. He tackled her to the ground and headed for her neck. He was stronger than he was before and it was taking everything in her to push him up. Her umbrella had fallen out of her reach and she knew this was the end. She was ready to give up and die, when a bullet came and got him on the side of his head. Blood splattered her face as his head practically exploded. She pushed his limp body off of her and sat up to see where the bullet came from.

She saw a girl’s head poking out of the window of a black van. She was down the street, yet she hit Cody without flaw. Jordan pushed her wet hair back and stood up as the van came closer and closer to her. She stared at the driver of the van, still amazed by what she’d done, when she rolled her eyes and gestured for her to get in.

“Are you going to stand there and stare at me or are you going to get in?” she snapped. Jordan looked back at her parents’ house and she felt like her heart had literally broken.

“Hey! If you’re not in this van in the next two seconds, I’m leaving you here!” the girl said again. Jordan sighed heavily and ran through the back doors of the van.

The girl wasn’t alone. In the back of the van with Jordan, there were two girls sitting there, staring at her. Jordan gave them a small smile before she closed the doors of the van. Jordan sat alone in the very back, hugging her legs to her body. One of the girls stood up and brought her a blanket.

“You must be freezing, standing in the rain and all,” she said softly, wrapping the blanket around her. Jordan nodded politely and bundled herself tightly in the blanket.

“Do any of you know how this happened?” she asked softly. One girl, who had slightly poofy curly hair, moved her head, as if surprised that Jordan had a voice.

“It was some explosion at a nuclear plant,” she said, shrugging a shoulder.

“Now everyone is eating each other and it’s one big mess,” the driver of the van grumbled. The girl who gave Jordan the blanket rolled her eyes at the driver and looked back at Jordan.

“So, what’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Jordan,” she replied softly. She gestured to the curly haired girl and smiled.

“She’s Dylan,” she said. She pointed to the other girl who was sitting next to the driver, “She’s Alex and the nice girl driving is Charlie.”

She pointed to herself and gave Jordan a big grin, “I’m Bianca. It’s nice to meet you Jordan.”

“So who was the weirdo attacking you?” Charlie asked.

“A friend.” Jordan said softly. That was a complete lie. Cody wasn’t much of a friend for Jordan. In fact, he really annoyed her. But Jordan had just washed her car and didn’t want to take it out in the rain. She looked at her hands that were wet with Cody’s blood from when she was trying to fight him off. She hated herself for being so selfish and stupid.

“That’s terrible Jordan. I’m so sorry,” Bianca said softly. Jordan sighed and smiled softly.

“So where did you guys come from?” she asked.

“I was a waitress at this diner and a herd of them tore through the place…” Bianca explained, rubbing off the blood that had caked on her face. Jordan looked up and down Bianca’s body. Almost every inch of her body was covered in blood. If Carrie had made a remake, Bianca could’ve been the lead.

“I used to work at an old folks’ home. You should’ve seen that…” Dylan said, shuddering at the thought. Dylan’s uniform, that on any other day would be white, but now was a dark red color.

Bianca and Jordan leaned over and looked at Charlie, who looked at them through the rearview mirror.

“What?” she said coldly.

“Where did you and Alex come from?” Bianca asked. Charlie sighed and looked back at the road.

“Alex, myself and another friend of ours were vacationing in this hotel, we were going to see some band play and those things just came at us. So we ran, but our friend…” Charlie’s voice trailed off.

“She was attacked?” Jordan said softly.

“No…she fell down the stairs on the way out,” Charlie said, “I’m sure after she fell she was attacked, but I wouldn’t know,”

“You didn’t even go back to help her?!” Jordan barked as she stood up and let the blanket fall to her feet.

“Under different circumstances I would have. But right now…there isn’t room for sympathy…or sadness, or anything else.” Charlie muttered in a low voice.

“If you didn’t have sympathy, you wouldn’t have picked up Bianca or Dylan or me,” Jordan retorted.

“That sounds like a challenge,” Charlie grumbled as the van began to slow down. Bianca looked up at Jordan with desperate eyes. Jordan wanted so badly to say something, but she couldn’t. It wouldn’t just be her to pay the price, Bianca and Dylan would be screwed too.

“So where are we going?” she asked as she sat down next to Bianca, folding her arms across her chest.

“We’re meeting other people,” Dylan replied softly.

“Yeah, they apparently found this amazing place that’s up in the mountains. Those things won’t even know we’re there,” Bianca added cheerfully.

“But we’re making stops on the way and getting supplies, which is why we’re meeting these other people,” Alex said, turning around to look at Jordan, which was the first time she’d heard Alex or seen Alex’s face.

“Who are these other people?” Jordan asked. Through the rearview mirror, she saw Charlie roll her eyes, like Jordan’s questions were irritating.

“These four guys that we rescued,” Bianca answered. Jordan nodded and turned around to look out the back windows. Jordan remembered these streets. She walked those streets every day for school. They used to be so full of life and now it was like a ghost town. Jordan grabbed the blanket and wrapped herself in it again. She tried to calm herself by listening to the heavy rainfall, but the rain was slowly getting lighter and lighter until it stopped.

She’d seen it firsthand and yet, she still couldn’t believe it.