Day 1

A Chapter by DarkHunter

Day 1

Well, I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion.

I'm on the top of a 30 story high apartment building. I only have three days worth of food and water. Everyone thinks I'm dead, and I'm surrounded by zombies.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

The infection started in China. A small town in the west, rural and not well-known. A thirteen-year-old boy had apparently gone mad and had bitten two of the villagers. The boy has since been locked up and chained in a small, wooden room in the back of the town doctor's clinic. The doctor had also been bit while trying to restrain him, and he was lying in bed, running a high fever when the doctor from a large city came to investigate.

As the doctor walked into the rather small but packed town center, he immediately heard the sounds of scratching and moaning. As he neared the door, the villagers warned him away, telling him that he was cursed. The doctor wrote them off as being superstitious, but still cautiously walked into the room. There, he saw the boy, arms and legs shackled to the wall, moaning and moving crazily. He slowly moved forward, and tried to draw a blood sample. The needle slid into the skin, but then suddenly, the boy unleashed another furious bout of fighting, and the needle broke. The doctor forced his arm to the wall, and tried to take another one. This time, he did draw out a sample, but all that came out was a black sludge.

At this moment, screams came from the lobby outside. The doctor quickly ran out and saw that the town doctor was up from the bed. He had a crazy look in his eyes, not unlike the boy's. The town doctor unleashed a hellish moan and bit into the man next to him. He screamed and fell to the floor, taking the zombie with him. For a few seconds, there were only the sounds of flesh tearing and the unfortunate man's screams for help.

A shot rang out, and the zombie fell back. But by that time, the savaged man was beyond help. His stomach was ripped and his intestines spilled onto the floor, covering the floor with a deep scarlet. Still, the doctor went to examine him. What he didn't know was that the bullet didn't kill the town doctor. He stood back up and pounced onto the doctor examining the dead man. More screams, more gunshots, more chaos, more blood spilled.

When the Chinese Health Organization went to the village, all they saw was a burned out town. When they checked for survivors, all they found were zombies, though they didn't know it at the time. They forced them into trollies and sent them back to the city hospital. Before long, all the nurses and doctors and staff of the hospital were infected. Because of the Chinese Government's refusal to quarantine the cities that were infected, and to stop all air and sea travel, it didn't take long for the virus to spread to other countries. Now, almost every countries has it, and the survivors are fighting for their lives. But for all they know, it is a losing battle.

At least, that's what the after-action report I read about the beginning of the zombie apocalypse told me, now I'm just writing it down again.

America hasn't been much better off then any other country. Despite our best efforts, most of the major cities are now filled with hordes of zombies numbering up to the millions. I was one of the few who survived the initial panic and had found my way into an army base. They welcomed me in with open arms. I was a sergeant a decade ago.

Ever since the undead overtook New York, we've been sending helicopters to fly over the infested area and check for survivors. I've always thought that this was a stupid thing to do, that no one could have survived the siege, that even if there were living people, it would be too dangerous to pick them up. Finally, after protest after protest, the heads at base decided to stop all surveys over the city. This was supposed to be the last fly-by, and of course, I was on it.

We were doing just fine until the helicopter decided to throw a tantrum. After watching the pilot fumble with the controls, we suddenly dived down towards the ground. I have never been more sure that I was about to die. But just as suddenly, we stopped again. The pilot and I both let out a huge sigh of relief.

That's when the engine caught fire.

I heard an explosion, and the left wall of the bird was ripped away by the force and got blown away by the wind, leaving a huge hole behind.

"Mayday! Mayday!" the pilot yelled into the radio. I pulled his arm and called over the roar of the wind. "No use. We have to go." He nodded and took one of the parachutes hanging on the wall, I did the same. Another explosion, and the rotors stopped turning entirely.

"As the helicopter started hurtling towards the ground, we both jumped off the dying bird. As soon as I was completely clear of the helicopter, I opened my parachute. I wanted to be able to control my landing spot, since, well, there were goddamned zombies down there.

I saw an empty spot in the distance and aimed for it, all the way thinking that if I missed, I was a floating care pack for the ravenous monsters on the ground. A bright light caught my eye and I looked down. The burning helicopter had kamikazed right into a gas station. I saw a air dancer get launched hundreds of feet into the air. It hung there for a couple of moments, as if it was reaching for the sky, before falling back into the fiery hell below.

I floated slowly down to the roof of the apartment and landed safely. Looking back, I spotted the pilot. He wasn't so lucky. A cross-breeze blew him off-course and into the center of the mobs of undead that had heard the explosion and had closed in on his position. Even though I was 30 stories above, I could still see him get brutally devoured alive. An ear-piercing scream rang through the air for about a minute before slowly dying out. I saw in the distance, my pilot lying on the ground, stomach ripped apart, intestines splayed across the concrete sidewalk, and still trying to crawl away from the shambling monsters, leaving his lower body behind. I haven't looked back there since.

This was the final fly-over that the base was going to send over, thanks to my many protests. I have about 3 days worth of food and water. All that I have for a weapon is a machete. I have no way of communicating with the outside word, and I'm 30 stories from the ground, which is flooded by a sea of undead.

So yeah, I'm fucked.

next chapter

© 2015 DarkHunter

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Reviews

ReedWrite

Sweet! Great start. I want to read more...and that is always the goal of a first chapter. Capture the attention of your reader...make them hungry for more. A couple suggestions:
1) Use paragraph indents. If you want to publish this at some point, editors will want that...so might as well write it that way. Indent first line of each paragraph. That is a visual help for readers in following the story, especially if it gets action-packed and fast-paced.
2) There are a few tense issues (past vs present), but those are an easy fix.
3) You usually want to identify your main protagonist by name somewhere in the first chapter. Earlier is better than later. Some writers will give a brief clue as to who they are and what their role is...I am guessing your protagonist is military? I say that based on this line: That's what the after-action report
After-action report usually pertains to a military mission, correct? You want to hook your reader into your main protagonist early on...that's your leverage to make them connect emotionally. Get us 'into' him...and part of that is giving us a name.
Keep in mind, I too am a budding author...but I have spent many years in workshops. Both my brother and father are/were published authors, as well, so I've gotten some lessons through them, too. My brother is involved in US4Warriors, out of SD, CA...and they have just started a publishing company that will focus on publishing Vets' books. I hope to be working with that endeavor down the road, as the company gets going...if it takes off, that is...lol. At any rate, there are publishers out there that want this kind of book...and if nothing else, publish as I did, through Amazon.com. Sorry to ramble...lol. I enjoyed this first chapter. Keep writing.

Posted 8 Years Ago

Vincent Savoretti

This was great, your last activity is from three months ago, may I ask what happened? If you're not writing anymore, I've gotta say you should get back into it I'm serious. There are best sellers people like you and I could write circles around.