Before the Storm

There were three sick people, all wearing uniforms that indicated they once worked for the convenience store we were in. All three of them had their mouths open, teeth barred and ready to take a bite out of one or both of them. Zack came up behind me, clearly stunned at what he was seeing in front of him.

"Help us!" Madisen shouted. Her father pushing away at one of the males that had gotten up closer to him than he wanted.

Zack grabbed the pocket knife out of my hand that he had given me before we came in and opened it up, exposing the blade and letting the light shine down onto it. He ran up to one of the sick people and grabbed hold of his shoulder, keeping him steady so that he could jam the blade as deep as he could into the sick man's skull.

The sound of the blade breaking through flesh and bone was sickening, and it made my stomach churn. I hadn't eaten anything in quite some time, so I knew that even if I did end up getting sick, nothing but water would end up coming out. The man fell to the floor with a thud, his body completely lifeless.

One of the sick people was making her way towards Madisen, who was screaming and backing up against one of the shelves that would normally have held more products to be placed out onto the shelves in the store for sale. She had no weapon, and had no way of defending herself.

Mr. Barnes, seeing what was happening to his daughter, kicked at the walker who was coming towards him and knocked him away a few feet and headed over towards Madisen to try and help her out. Zack headed over towards her as well, leaving me behind to be overall defenseless if something were to happen.

The fluorescent lights overhead began to flicker on and off, making it a bit more difficult to see what was going on around us. The two remaining sick people were growling and snarling, stumbling towards us with their eyes set upon the four of us, ready and waiting to kill. I wished that I wouldn't have been left here without a weapon to use. I hated feeling like I was useless, and I needed to help Madisen.

Mr. Barnes grabbed hold of the woman who was quickly advancing on his daughter and pulled her away, wheeling her around to face him. Her eyes were wild when she saw him, and almost as if she had completely forgotten Madisen, she then started lashing out towards him, gripping onto his forearms and biceps, tearing her fingernails into his flesh.

Zack came up and jammed the knife into her temple, causing her to fall to the floor as well. Blood splattered out from her wound before she fell and sprayed all across Madisen's t-shirt, some even going higher and getting on her neck and in her hair. She screamed out in disgust, holding her arms out that were also covered in the dark liquid and looking over herself.

I looked around me at anything else I could use to help; Any kind of sharp or blunt object would do just fine. There was only one more sick person that needed to be taken care of, and I actually wanted to do something instead of stand by idly.

My eyes landed on the fire extinguisher that was strapped up onto the wall. I ran over to it and tore it down, gripping it in my hands and running over to the last man. He was very close to Mr. Barnes by now, and I felt my breath hitch in my throat with anticipation. I felt like I was moving much slower than everything else around me. Like I was in a dream and running towards something as fast as I could possibly go, but not moving anymore than an inch at a time.

Zack wheeled around in the cramped store room and was ready to stab the last one in the head, but was caught off guard at the sight of the sick man sinking his teeth deep into Mr. Barnes' neck and taking a huge chunk of flesh out of him.

I screamed as I came up next to him, bashing the fire extinguisher against the man's head and knocking him down to the floor, but not killing him. Zack jumped on top of him and stabbed the man in the head over and over again. The blood was splattering all over the place with each critical blow that Zack was delivering.

Mr. Barnes was yelling out in pain, gripping at his neck as the thick blood ran down over his hands, onto his forearms and down onto the floor. I ran over next to him along with Madisen, who had tears streaming down her face and was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Daddy! Oh my God ..." She cried, running up to him and also placing her hand over his that was partially covering the wound. "Why didn't you shoot?!"

He was stammering, shaking so much from the already vast amount of blood that he had lost and barely able to even catch a good breath. He slumped over onto Madisen's shoulder and I wrapped his arm around my shoulder as well, bracing him even more as the two of us walked him out of the store room and into the main part of the building.

His weight was overwhelming and before long, we had to lay him down onto the floor in front of the front counter where the cash registers were. All three of us were covered in his blood, and it didn't look like there was any way we could stop it.

"Zack, go out to the car and get the first aid kit!" I demanded once he had come out from the back room. He nodded, not saying a word and just did what I told him to. I may not have been good at killing, but this was something that I could have come in use for. After all, I did want to be a doctor.

"I couldn't ..." Mr. Barnes choked out. Blood was beginning to fill up in his throat. "I couldn't."

"Help me roll him over." I said, and Madisen helped me roll him over onto his side so that the immense amount of blood would drip out onto the floor, rather than stay in the back of his throat.

Zack came running back in just then, handing me the first aid kit and crouching down next to me. I opened up the box and grabbed a roll of gauze, some alcohol pads, and a needle and thread, as I already knew he would be needing stitches to close the wound.

"N - No! Don't bother." Mr. Barnes protested.

"Daddy, she's going to help you!" Madisen sobbed. She placed her hand onto his bicep and rubbed up and down.

"You know it's no use." He forced, looking right into her eyes.

"You can't give up, Mr. Barnes. I'm going to make you all better again." I said, my mouth becoming dry and a lump forming in my throat from the sudden pressure I had been placed under.

"Anything I can do?" Zack asked, wanting to help in some way.

I handed him the first aid kit and told him to keep the supplies as sanitary and clean as he could, while keeping the clamps and sutures at the ready in case I needed either of them. I was about to rip open a couple packets of alcohol pads to begin wiping away some of the blood, but Mr. Barnes stopped me again.

"Jaycee, there's nothing you can do about this now. I've been bitten. You can't stop it." His voice was getting weaker by the second. So much so that I could barely even understand him now.

Madisen's head hung low, knowing that her father was right. According to what they had told me, once you were bitten, there was no going back. Once you were bitten or scratched, which he had been both, that was when you "turned". I didn't know about the whole "turning" part, but I did know without a doubt, Mr. Barnes was dying.

"What should we do?" She asked him, her voice quivering and slightly more high pitched than it normally was.

He was quiet for a few seconds. His breathing was so shallow that if it wasn't for him reaching up and grasping hold of Madisen's hand that was on his arm, I would have thought he already died.

"Leave."

Madisen shook her head back and forth, more and more tears coming out of her eyes, some even falling off her cheeks and splashing down onto her jeans. "I can't."

"You can ... You have to."

I sat there feeling defeated. I desperately wanted to help him, to make him better again. But he was so convinced that he was going to die and come back; That there was no use in helping him and to not waste what medical supplies that we had. I couldn't help someone who didn't want to be helped, and that pissed me off to no end.

Zack sat beside me, his head wandering around the store and looking at anything that wasn't the sight in front of us. I sat back so that I was sitting on my calves and sighed, putting all the medical supplies back into the first aid kit and closing it back up.

"I love you, Dad." Madisen whimpered. She leaned down and kissed her dad's temple, holding his hand tightly in hers.

Not even a few moments later, I heard his breathing completely stop, and everything was quiet. Madisen's cries only got louder when she also came to the realization that her dad had just passed away right in front of her. I picked myself up from the floor and walked around to the other side of his body, holding my hand out to help her up as well.

"C'mon Mad, we should go." I said quietly. I put my hand on her back and attempted to usher her out of the building and out to the car, but she resisted my push and shrugged me off.

"We can't leave yet." She protested.

"Why the hell not?" Zack asked, walking back over to the supplies we had dropped earlier and began picking up the bags.

"We have to wait for him to turn, so we can put him down." She said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"What does she mean by "turn", Jay?" Zack asked in mild annoyance. I realized then that I hadn't yet told him about it like I said I would earlier.

"They think that once this sickness kills you, you come back to life as a zombie or somethin'." I said, getting right to the point.

Zack scoffed and chuckled, just like how I wanted to when Madisen had first told me about it. I didn't really expect a different reaction from him, because the whole idea of it was just flat out bizarre. Zombies weren't real!

"You've gotta be kiddin' me, right?" He began, looking over at a still crying Madisen. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life."

I saw the look on her face wash over with offense and I could tell she was becoming even more upset than she was before. "I'm serious! I've seen it, damn it!"

"She says she saw her Mom change after she was bitten." I said, revealing more of what she had told me on the high way.

"I think you're both crazy. Now come on, we need to go. Who knows how many of those things heard us in here." He said, turning on his heel to walk outside.

"You guys can go if you want. I'm staying here." Madisen announced. She crouched down next to her father's body and sat Indian style, reaching her hand out and pushing some of his brown hair behind his ear.

"Fine with me. Come on, Jay." Zack said, still walking towards the exit.

"What is wrong with you?!" I yelled over at him, causing me to stop. "Why are you being such a fucking asshole? This isn't normally like you."

"If she wants to stay here and get herself killed because of somethin' she thinks is true, then I'm not gonna stop her! She's choosing to stay here rather than come with us." He yelled back at me. All I really wanted to do right now was reach out and slap some sense into him.

"She just lost her Dad, for fuck's sake! You'd think you could be a little bit more compassionate." I shot back.

"Jaycee, he's not going to "turn"." He spat, putting up air quotes. "Zombies don't exist! He's dead, and he's not coming back! Now we need to leave, before any more of those things come here." He turned again to walk out, but the sound of wheezing caught his ear and he turned back around, facing Mr. Barnes.

Madisen's eyes widened and she looked over at her father, who was suddenly reanimating from his expired state. His arms and legs twitched back to life, and he picked his head up from the ground, looking only at his daughter.

She picked herself up from the ground quickly as he reached for her, growling and snapping at her like all of the other sick people had done before. My own eyes widened, as I'm sure Zack's did as well. I couldn't believe what was happening in front of me. He was dead, I knew he was! He wasn't breathing and had been like that for the past ten minutes!

Madisen ran around his body and over towards Zack, and Mr. Barnes rolled over, following her with his yellowed, dull eyes until the saw Zack and I standing there, looking back at him in horror.

I was shaking. I wanted to run, to get as far away from this place as I possibly could. But no matter how much I willed myself to move, my legs wouldn't listen. Zack pulled the pocket knife out of his pocket and opened it up again, being the only one to step forward and put him down, just like he had done with the rest of them.

"It took almost three hours for this to happen to my Mom," Madisen mumbled after his lifeless body fell back down to the floor. "This time it happened in mere minutes."

"There's no possible way that could've happened." Zack said, more to himself than either one of us.

Madisen looked over at him and glared daggers into the back of his head, before looking over at me and giving me the same look. "Now do you believe me?"

I looked down onto the ground at his body laying at my feet, and Zack walked over and grabbed the hand gun that Mr. Barnes had previously had, clicking the safety on and shoving it into the waist band of his jeans.

I must have been in a dream; A nightmare. There was no other possible way to explain Madisen's dad dying and then coming back to life. Unless, it really was true that this sickness was turning people into mindless cannibals. I guess the old saying must be true; Seeing is believing. And I've gotta say, I just turned into a believer.