The Aftermath

“Get up.” Ryant’s voice was gruff and tangled.

Liquid mangled and soaked the floor, running against my hands and clothes. Electricity and other things popped in the distance. Screams could be heard from outside and glass chipping away as well.

I tried to lift my back, tears escaping my eyes. “I can’t move!”

Ryant seemed only to be inches away, but the darkness was overpowering.

Something like screams could be heard, desperate frantic screams trying to dig through things.

“We’re down here! We’re down here!” Ryant shrieked.

Something sharp was jabbing me in the leg and I was breathing hard. Claustrophobia was dripping into me.

“I can’t move! I can’t MOVE!” I yanked my shoulders from side to side, hearing things shift and moan. “Get me the hell out of here!”

Something large moved from above and clear air rushed in.

“Oh God, Jasmine. I’m so sorry.” Alex’s voice came down as he tried to pull my arms up.

“Don’t move! I can’t move my leg!” I shouted at him. “God damn! What the hell did you guys do?!”

Lion could be heard not too far away, moving things.

“We heard the news that an attack from those things were coming, even saw it on the news. It was pretty messed up-“

“Is she okay?” Ashley could be heard shouting.

Alex turned back and I was feeling sick from all the smells hitting me. “Yeah, she’s fine! I think her legs are trapped under some things! I need you and Kyle to help! Lion’s getting Ryant out!”

“Can you answer my question?!”

Alex sighed. “Okay, we were rushing over here. You weren’t answering your phone-“

“That’s because I forgot it at Ryant’s house!” I snapped and he moved something large away, straining his muscles.

“Then, we rushed over here, but there were all these people running around in the roads. We almost got into about four car crashes. Then, this lady jumped in the way and we swerve to avoid her...”

And their car had crashed into the store we were in.

Alex grunted again as he moved something away that was rather large.

“Oh, thank God.” I wiggled my way through the store’s wreckage and Alex helped to my feet. My sneakers trembled against the shelves moving pieces.

Now I saw the full impact as we climbed out the store.

The car crashed through the door, throwing glass and cinder and cement in Ryant and mine’s direction. Lion’s car was scratched and had all sorts of metal bent in. Shelves were toppled over and electrical sparks moving. If Ryant had not pulled us out the way, we would have more than certainly been crushed to death by the store’s collapsed wall.

“We’re going to get arrested.” Ashley muttered.

Kyle opened a bag of Cheetos and was munching away. Ryant stood by his father and Alex stood next to me.

“What the hell do we do now?” Kyle said. “We don’t even have a car to drive. Are we going to walk back to your house?”

The sky was dark and the night was more than evident now.

“Do we just leave? I mean, I still have my dad and uncle. Kyle has Cece and what about Rodney?”” I said. “We can’t just abandon everyone.”

Ryant rolled his eyes at Rodney’s mention.

“Do you think everyone’s heard about it though?” Ashley said. “The virus is coming back.”

A woman went running by, clutching her purse. Blood was running down her shirt and she was screaming.

“They attacked the gas station! They attacked the gas station!”

Then a billowing ball of red flew into the air, combusting against the stars and car alarms went off.

“Do you need help?!” Alex ran over to her. “Are you bitten?”

The woman stopped. She was wearing scrubs. She had to be a nurse. Her face went deathly pale. “Yes, but it was regular person. They’d been scratched though. Do I have the virus?”

Everyone turned to Lion and grimness crossed his face. “It’d probably be safe for you to…”

The woman was already walking away, sobbing.

“What do we do now?” I asked. Alex’s arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me in tighter to him.

“We go back to my house and we wait for news. We have to board up everything-“

“What about Cece and my parents?!”

“My dad? Uncle Trevor?!”

Lion glared to all of us. “We go back now. We’re not going to make any stupid choices and get anyone killed, understand?”

Kyle rolled his eyes and snatched up more food from the floor.

Ashley came over, rubbing my back and soothing me. Alex was gone, bashing in a car window as more smoke from the nearby gas station singed in the air.

“It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

That’s what she told me, but I knew she was crying too.

Lion and Alex climbed into the front seat. Ashley, Ryant, Kyle and I moved in the van’s backseat.

“Lock the doors. Those things are coming.” Lion ordered. He cut the engine on and the screeches were all the more heard from behind.

I turned to see a mob of people or rather, zombies chasing from down the street. Our van’s tires tore into the black cement, sending smoke into the air. The speed ramped up into 60’s.

“Keep driving!” Ashley shouted. We cut a hard right corner and with no seatbelts, we all went smacking into one another.

A figure jumped out onto the road and it hit the van with a loud thump.

“You hit that man!” Ryant blared.

“He was one of those things!” Lion shouted back.

The car sped and moved into the darkness.

People were running out of buildings, things were burning, fire hydrants were slammed open from car crashes, and bodies left their dead state from blood drenched pools.

And it was all crashing down on, every single piece of it. The world we’d known, loved, and hated before was changing. It was filling with lies and coffins were only the dead could escape. Nothing would ever be the same.

“Watch out for that truck!” Alex ordered.

Lion yanked the steering wheel to the left and the right of side of van scraped an overturned truck.

“We’ll be on our street in a few minutes and there’s no telling what’ll happen so be ready!”

Everyone took Lion’s orders to heart. We were barreling down a long stretch of street surrounded by plain fields of grass. Mobs upon mobs of people could be seen yards behind us, just chasing.

Even if people had known that the virus had another outbreak, none of them were experienced enough to fight it. Most of the world wasn’t experienced enough to fight it. Now, it was an epidemic.

Then, a car came swerving into our lane, their headlights drowning out the night road. Lion span the steering wheel. Alex’s shouts couldn’t be heard against the roaring rubber.

The van flipped over the road’s edge. Glass popping and metal sawing in half. I was thrown face first ahead. Ashley head buckled into a window and Ryant was the only one screaming.

“We have to get out! Gas! Gas! I smell gas! They’re gonna come for us!”

The van had turned over on its right side and my heart slamming against my chest. Glass rained down as Ryant’s hands tore into the window above us.

“Alex! ALEX!” I screamed. No one was responding. “We need to get out the car now!”

Kyle was climbing through to the front seat and Ashley helped me out the car next. My feet dug into the smashed in door and I jumped into the soft grass.

“They’re awake! Just shaken up!” Kyle informed. “Lion, Alex, get up!”

“Oh my God.” Ashley gaped.

And those things were running from the bottom the street for us. I slammed my hand against the undercarriage of the car. “WE’VE GOTTA GET MOVING NOW!”

Smoke started to bellow from the car’s engine and Kyle was screaming for us to help him. It was a task of labor to get Lion and Alex out the car in one piece.

Lion was covered in a layer of sweat and had a cut to the side of his head. Alex leaned heavily into my shoulder with regular moans moving from his lips.

“Come on, Alex. You can do this.” I encouraged.

We were making slow progress. The zombies seemed occupied with the overturned car of drunk drivers that had helped run us off the road. It took us a few minutes to clear the road and get into the residential area.

The undead screams and burning wreckage of the cars were behind us.

What was ahead? I had absolutely no idea.