The End
Chapter One.
I am dreaming. And even though I know that I'm dreaming, I'm scared to death. I wish that I could wake myself up, like I could when I was having a bad dream when I was a kid, but I can't. I'm stuck in this surreal world that is no longer just a setting to nightmares and horror films, but which has quickly become my real, waking life. I wish Sean were here, like how he always comes when I yell for him in real life. But he doesn't come. He never comes when I'm asleep. I am alone.
As the zombies converge on my house, I tell Joey and Louisa to go upstairs. They do as they're told, throwing worried looks in my direction as they climb the stairs. Soon my siblings are out of sight and I go from locked window to locked window, watching as my old neighbors walk slowly up to the house. I peek through the peephole in the door, which is also locked, only to be startled by a grotesque, rotting face staring back at me.
"I'm dreaming," I whisper to myself as I take a step back. "It's only a dream. They can't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. I am dreaming."
In my dreams, the zombies are strong. Much stronger than they are real life, which is only as strong as they were when they were human. In my dreams they're as strong as the Incredible Hulk, breaking through my door and my windows with ease. They're quick, and smart. They can run and they can climb stairs. They know how to use doorknobs.
I can hear them banging on the door and I can see them walking up to the windows. I am surrounded. There is no way out for me. If Sean were here, he would save me. He was in the military when he was younger. He knows how to use a gun better than Dad and Jack and Joey combined. They only hunt animals. Sean knows how to hunt humans; even the ones who used to be his friends.
The lock breaks and the door swings inward, revealing a mob of the undead. I am grateful for being immune to the airborne disease, but know that the moment they get me, when their teeth dig into my skin and bones and their saliva mixes with my blood, I'm done. I will become one of them and someone will have to shoot me in the head.
I try to back up, but my feet are stuck to the carpet. My legs won't move. This is what always happens. Sometimes they go straight for me, but other times they go right past me, climbing the stairs to get to the sweet young flesh of my siblings. Today they walk right up to me, stare at me as if they're contemplating what to do with me. As if their brains were actually functioning enough to give them a choice in the matter.
Just as I'm feeling the tight pinching dream-pain of their jaws clamping down on my body, I can also feel hands on my real body, on my arms and my shoulders and my face, trying to wake me up. I'm probably thrashing and calling out, yelling for someone to help me. Yelling for Joey and Louisa to stay upstairs, to keep the door locked. Yelling for Mom and Dad, telling them that I'm sorry I couldn't keep their babies safe.
In reality, I'm yelling for Sean. I know this because when I wake up, he is the person sitting on the side of my bed. His hands are wiping the sticky, sweat-drenched hair from my face and the tears from my cheeks. He whispers for me to be quiet, to calm down, that it's okay. It was only a dream. He asks me who it was this time. Joey or Louisa?
I shake my head. "Neither," I say, and my voice is rough, cracking from all of the yelling I must have been doing. I don't have to finish my sentence for him to know who they got this time.
He pulls me to his chest, cradling me in his arms as if I were a toddler, and continues whispering to me, even though I have stopped yelling and my tears are drying on my face and I am covered in dank sweat. Sean holds me for I don't know how long. Maybe it's only a few minutes, or maybe it's an hour. But finally my breathing is regular and my sweat has cooled and evaporated from my body. He puts me back down on my bed so that I'm leaning against the headboard and kisses me on my lips.
I don't have to say the words "thank you" in order for him to know that I'm grateful he came. Ever increasingly my early morning shrieks have been to him, not my mother or my father, or even one of my younger siblings. No longer can my family comfort me, not when in my dreams they all die because of me.
Before leaving my bedroom, Sean turns back to me. He smiles and says, "You need a hair cut, Beth," then continues to the hallway and downstairs, more than likely to the kitchen, where I know Dad is sitting at the table drinking coffee with Jack. Where they've been sitting since five a.m. coming up with the day's plans.
Soon Joey will wake up and saunter downstairs in his pajamas. He'll sit in the chair between Dad and Jack and fill a mug with some coffee, though he confided in me once that he hates the taste. He also told me that when the older men go out to survey the neighborhood before Mom, Louisa, and I get up, he adds milk and sugar in his mug. Joey is a little boy who had to grow up too fast, who, instead of chasing girls and going out with friends, has to go out with his father and his father's friends and get food and supplies to keep his family safe.
About an hour later there is a knock on my open door, breaking me from my thoughts. I look up from the foot of my bed to see my mother leaning against the doorframe. She is dressed in a nice, loose dress and her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. She smiles at me.
"I'm going to start breakfast. Will you wake your sister for me?"
In response, I throw my blankets from my body. They land on the other side of my bed, the side that was too empty for my liking last night. I heave my legs over the edge of my bed and smile brightly at Mom, like always, even though I would much rather stay in bed all day. She leaves my doorway and heads downstairs.
I walk over to my dresser and find a pair of shorts. It's June and our air conditioner hardly ever works. I pull the dirty shorts I wore to bed down my too thin legs and replace them with the denim ones I've pulled from the drawer. The pajama shorts stay littered on the floor. I'll probably wear them again tonight. The old t-shirt that I'm wearing used to be Sean's. It goes down to my mid-thighs and smells like sweat and body odor. I strip myself of it, too, and head to the closet. The first shirt I see is one that my grandma got me before the infection hit. It has a floral design on it and fits me better now than it did then, even if it is a bit baggy. I pull it from its hanger, but before I'm able to put it on there is a cough from the hallway outside my room.
Standing only a few feet from my door is Jack. He's staring at my naked torso with an odd mixture of hate and longing. I'm glad that I've taken to sleeping with a bra underneath my nightshirts when Sean is in his own room. Jack smirks at me and makes a rude gesture in my direction. I flip him off, which only makes him laugh. But he turns away and goes off to find my dad. I'll probably get a talking to about being rude to our guests when he sees me next, which won't be until dinner, I'm guessing.
The purple and blue shirt sits loosely over my chest and stomach, coming down almost to the bottom of the zipper on my shorts. We have food, lots of it; from the supermarket and the boys' hunting trips. I simply choose not to eat it.
Down the hall from my room, past Joey's but before Sean's, is Louisa's bedroom. It looks a lot like mine, only instead of a queen-sized bed, which I got for my fifteenth birthday, she has a twin. Our bedding, white cotton with a lace overthrow, is the same. She sleeps with two pillows under her head and one behind her, at her back, and a teddy bear clutched to her chest. Just like me. Only lately, more often than not, instead of a pillow at my back I have a man.
Louisa looks like Mom. She has her blonde hair, which is getting very long and is cascading onto the bedding beside her. They even sleep the same way: curled up on their side, knees almost to their chest. Through everything that's happened over the last year, I think that Louisa has handled it the best, out of us kids. She has not had a single breakdown that I know of. She didn't even cry when we explained to her that Grandma and Gramps got infected. Besides Dad, she is strongest of us all.
I walk over to the side of Louisa's bed and sit in the crook between her knees and chest. My hand goes to her hair and I whisper to her. "Lou, time to get up," I say. "Come on, Lou Lou."
She opens her eyes and yawns. She smiles at me. "Good morning, Elizabeth."
I smile back. "Good morning, Louisa."
"Mom's making breakfast?"
"Yes. Get dressed and come downstairs." I get up and start walking to the door.
With a sudden burst of energy that seeming all 11-year-olds have, Lou jumps out of her bed and runs to her dresser, where her clothes have already been set out. She has always been more organized than me. She comes to the door and begins to close it so that she can get dressed, but before shutting me out completely, she grins and says, "Elizabeth, you need a hair cut."
As the zombies converge on my house, I tell Joey and Louisa to go upstairs. They do as they're told, throwing worried looks in my direction as they climb the stairs. Soon my siblings are out of sight and I go from locked window to locked window, watching as my old neighbors walk slowly up to the house. I peek through the peephole in the door, which is also locked, only to be startled by a grotesque, rotting face staring back at me.
"I'm dreaming," I whisper to myself as I take a step back. "It's only a dream. They can't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. I am dreaming."
In my dreams, the zombies are strong. Much stronger than they are real life, which is only as strong as they were when they were human. In my dreams they're as strong as the Incredible Hulk, breaking through my door and my windows with ease. They're quick, and smart. They can run and they can climb stairs. They know how to use doorknobs.
I can hear them banging on the door and I can see them walking up to the windows. I am surrounded. There is no way out for me. If Sean were here, he would save me. He was in the military when he was younger. He knows how to use a gun better than Dad and Jack and Joey combined. They only hunt animals. Sean knows how to hunt humans; even the ones who used to be his friends.
The lock breaks and the door swings inward, revealing a mob of the undead. I am grateful for being immune to the airborne disease, but know that the moment they get me, when their teeth dig into my skin and bones and their saliva mixes with my blood, I'm done. I will become one of them and someone will have to shoot me in the head.
I try to back up, but my feet are stuck to the carpet. My legs won't move. This is what always happens. Sometimes they go straight for me, but other times they go right past me, climbing the stairs to get to the sweet young flesh of my siblings. Today they walk right up to me, stare at me as if they're contemplating what to do with me. As if their brains were actually functioning enough to give them a choice in the matter.
Just as I'm feeling the tight pinching dream-pain of their jaws clamping down on my body, I can also feel hands on my real body, on my arms and my shoulders and my face, trying to wake me up. I'm probably thrashing and calling out, yelling for someone to help me. Yelling for Joey and Louisa to stay upstairs, to keep the door locked. Yelling for Mom and Dad, telling them that I'm sorry I couldn't keep their babies safe.
In reality, I'm yelling for Sean. I know this because when I wake up, he is the person sitting on the side of my bed. His hands are wiping the sticky, sweat-drenched hair from my face and the tears from my cheeks. He whispers for me to be quiet, to calm down, that it's okay. It was only a dream. He asks me who it was this time. Joey or Louisa?
I shake my head. "Neither," I say, and my voice is rough, cracking from all of the yelling I must have been doing. I don't have to finish my sentence for him to know who they got this time.
He pulls me to his chest, cradling me in his arms as if I were a toddler, and continues whispering to me, even though I have stopped yelling and my tears are drying on my face and I am covered in dank sweat. Sean holds me for I don't know how long. Maybe it's only a few minutes, or maybe it's an hour. But finally my breathing is regular and my sweat has cooled and evaporated from my body. He puts me back down on my bed so that I'm leaning against the headboard and kisses me on my lips.
I don't have to say the words "thank you" in order for him to know that I'm grateful he came. Ever increasingly my early morning shrieks have been to him, not my mother or my father, or even one of my younger siblings. No longer can my family comfort me, not when in my dreams they all die because of me.
Before leaving my bedroom, Sean turns back to me. He smiles and says, "You need a hair cut, Beth," then continues to the hallway and downstairs, more than likely to the kitchen, where I know Dad is sitting at the table drinking coffee with Jack. Where they've been sitting since five a.m. coming up with the day's plans.
Soon Joey will wake up and saunter downstairs in his pajamas. He'll sit in the chair between Dad and Jack and fill a mug with some coffee, though he confided in me once that he hates the taste. He also told me that when the older men go out to survey the neighborhood before Mom, Louisa, and I get up, he adds milk and sugar in his mug. Joey is a little boy who had to grow up too fast, who, instead of chasing girls and going out with friends, has to go out with his father and his father's friends and get food and supplies to keep his family safe.
About an hour later there is a knock on my open door, breaking me from my thoughts. I look up from the foot of my bed to see my mother leaning against the doorframe. She is dressed in a nice, loose dress and her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. She smiles at me.
"I'm going to start breakfast. Will you wake your sister for me?"
In response, I throw my blankets from my body. They land on the other side of my bed, the side that was too empty for my liking last night. I heave my legs over the edge of my bed and smile brightly at Mom, like always, even though I would much rather stay in bed all day. She leaves my doorway and heads downstairs.
I walk over to my dresser and find a pair of shorts. It's June and our air conditioner hardly ever works. I pull the dirty shorts I wore to bed down my too thin legs and replace them with the denim ones I've pulled from the drawer. The pajama shorts stay littered on the floor. I'll probably wear them again tonight. The old t-shirt that I'm wearing used to be Sean's. It goes down to my mid-thighs and smells like sweat and body odor. I strip myself of it, too, and head to the closet. The first shirt I see is one that my grandma got me before the infection hit. It has a floral design on it and fits me better now than it did then, even if it is a bit baggy. I pull it from its hanger, but before I'm able to put it on there is a cough from the hallway outside my room.
Standing only a few feet from my door is Jack. He's staring at my naked torso with an odd mixture of hate and longing. I'm glad that I've taken to sleeping with a bra underneath my nightshirts when Sean is in his own room. Jack smirks at me and makes a rude gesture in my direction. I flip him off, which only makes him laugh. But he turns away and goes off to find my dad. I'll probably get a talking to about being rude to our guests when he sees me next, which won't be until dinner, I'm guessing.
The purple and blue shirt sits loosely over my chest and stomach, coming down almost to the bottom of the zipper on my shorts. We have food, lots of it; from the supermarket and the boys' hunting trips. I simply choose not to eat it.
Down the hall from my room, past Joey's but before Sean's, is Louisa's bedroom. It looks a lot like mine, only instead of a queen-sized bed, which I got for my fifteenth birthday, she has a twin. Our bedding, white cotton with a lace overthrow, is the same. She sleeps with two pillows under her head and one behind her, at her back, and a teddy bear clutched to her chest. Just like me. Only lately, more often than not, instead of a pillow at my back I have a man.
Louisa looks like Mom. She has her blonde hair, which is getting very long and is cascading onto the bedding beside her. They even sleep the same way: curled up on their side, knees almost to their chest. Through everything that's happened over the last year, I think that Louisa has handled it the best, out of us kids. She has not had a single breakdown that I know of. She didn't even cry when we explained to her that Grandma and Gramps got infected. Besides Dad, she is strongest of us all.
I walk over to the side of Louisa's bed and sit in the crook between her knees and chest. My hand goes to her hair and I whisper to her. "Lou, time to get up," I say. "Come on, Lou Lou."
She opens her eyes and yawns. She smiles at me. "Good morning, Elizabeth."
I smile back. "Good morning, Louisa."
"Mom's making breakfast?"
"Yes. Get dressed and come downstairs." I get up and start walking to the door.
With a sudden burst of energy that seeming all 11-year-olds have, Lou jumps out of her bed and runs to her dresser, where her clothes have already been set out. She has always been more organized than me. She comes to the door and begins to close it so that she can get dressed, but before shutting me out completely, she grins and says, "Elizabeth, you need a hair cut."