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As we had driven through the town things seemed normal for the most part. There were not many people around but that was normal considering most everyone in the town was at work or school. Most people who lived in the town didn’t work there, they worked in the city that was about a mile or two away. The town itself had very few businesses a bank, a store and a hand full of restaurants and one factory that made dog food.

As we drove on to main street we got our first indications that whatever had happened at the school was happening everywhere. The first thing we noticed turning on to Main Street was a truck crashed through the front of the bank. There were more crashed cars as we drove down the street but there was no sign of any people or “zombies” as Mathew called them. None of us talked as we drove through the town we were all shocked by what we were seeing and what we had already seen. There was nothing strange once we had got out of the town. When we got to my house no one was home but we all went in. “Why do we have to stay at your place anyway.” Mathew complained as we walked in the door.

“Because it’s that farthest from town.” I replied.

“Yeah Mathew we should be safe here.” Said Mitchell.

“Whatever as long as you have food I’m starving.” said Mathew as we walked into my kitchen. He opened the fridge and started looking through it. There was a small T.V. in the kitchen that my mom would watch while she was cooking. I turned it on and changed the channel to the news to see what was going on.

“More news on the strange attacks in central Ohio.” said the reporter. “It seems the governor has declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. Were still not sure what exactly is happening there. But, we have Tim Clark on location in Newark Ohio to give us an update. Tim what’s going on there?” The scene on the TV changed to show a reporter standing in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Newark. Newark was the nearest city to the town where I went to school.

“Hey look I know that place.” Said Mathew.

“Yeah we all do shut up I want to hear what he’s saying.” I said.

“The city is in complete chaos!” The reporter yelled. “The dead are rising and eating the living. It’s like the end of the world!” A lot of people suddenly ran past the camera from behind the reporter.

“Run!” someone screamed suddenly a reporter was attacked he screamed as a small girl threw him to the ground. The camera man dropped the camera and it and you could see the girl biting into the reporter as he tried to push her away then the screen when blank. When it turned back to the reporter in the studio she was just staring with a blank look all the blood had drained from her face and she was crying. Then they cut to a commercial.

“S**t this must be happening all over Ohio.” Mitchell said turning away from the TV.

“Great.” Mathew said with a sigh. “What the Hell are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.” I answered “Let’s wait and see if my parents come home in the mean time we can get something to eat.” My parents had not been shopping in a few days so there wasn’t much to eat in the house. Mathew had a sandwich, Mitchell a piece of cake left over from my dad’s birthday and I had a can of soup. After I finished eating I left the others and went down into the basement. My dad kept our gun safe in the basement we had quite a few guns mostly shotguns for deer hunting. I wasn’t an extremely enthusiastic hunter but it was a good excuse to take a few days off school. I figured that it would be a good idea to have a few guns out in case any of the “zombies” made it out this far. The gun I hunted with was a Winchester 16 gage that my grandpa had given me when I was 10. I got that out as well as my dad’s 12 gage, a single shot 20 gage that had been my first gun and a Lugar pistol my great uncle had brought back from World War 2.

I brought all the guns upstairs and laid them out on the kitchen table. “Are we going to war?” Mitchell asked looking at all the guns.

“No but I think that we should be ready to defend ourselves against any of Mathews so called zombies.”

“They are Zombies!” said Mathew insistently. “You’ve seen what’s happening on the news how can you even try to deny it. “

“I think Mathews right.” Mitchell said turning to me. “I don’t like it much but those things do fit the zombie description.”

“Alright their zombies then.” I finally agreed. “But I still think we should be ready to defend ourselves. I’ll take my gun, Mitchell you take dad’s 12 gage, and Mathew you take the 20 gage.”

“Why do I get the 20 gage?” Mathew complained.

“Because I don’t trust you with a gun.” I said

“Damn it!”

“Look Mathew I don’t really trust you with a gun either.” Mitchell said. Mathew stomped angrily out of the room giving us the finger as he left and, I heard the TV in the living room turn on. “He’ll get over it.”

“Yeah” I sighed. I went back down stairs and brought up all of the ammunition for the guns which I sat on the table next to them. After I had taken care of the ammunition, Mitchell and I walked into the living room Mathew was sitting on the couch staring at a blank TV.

“Why aren’t you watching anything?” I said looking at the blank TV.

“I was all the channels went like this.” said Mathew looking up. For the first time the magnitude of what was happening hit all of us. It’s was strange that after all we had seen something as simple as the TV going out would make the reality of the situation sink in. Mitchell who had always been the most emotional of us sat down in the rocking chair and put his head in his hands it took me a few minutes to realize he was crying. Mathew and I looked at each other feeling awkward neither of us were exactly the kind of people you would want to attempt to comfort you. “Mitchell.” Said Mathew standing and walking over to stand beside the rocking chair. “It’s ok well make it.”

“It’s not that.” Mitchell gasped not looking up. “we’ve seen people die today people we knew and I have no idea where my parents are of if their alive. I just have no idea what the f**k is happening.”

“Well be ok man.” I said hoping he couldn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice. Mathew and I soon gave up on our feeble attempts to comfort Mitchell. Mathew and I left Mitchell in the living room went into the kitchen. We weren’t trying to be heartless or unsympathetic it was just uncomfortable to be with Mitchell while he cried. I can’t speak for Mathew but as for myself being in the same room with Mitchell while he was crying made me feel like I was crashing a funeral. I also can’t speak for Mathew as to why he was not as upset about not knowing where his parents were like Mitchell. As for myself it wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents because I did. It was just that where ever they were was there was nothing I could do for them. At this point I had to think about who I could help, my two friends and myself.

After awhile Mathew and I returned to the living room to find that Mitchell had fallen asleep crying in the chair. Tears still glistened on his face as he quietly snored. Mathew and I decided to go to bed I told him to sleep on the couch and I went to my bed. The next day I woke up around 11 and went out to the kitchen Mitchell was up he was cooking and the kitchen smelled like bacon. I decided not to mention his crying. “Is Mathew up yet?”

“No he’s still asleep. I found some bacon and eggs in the fridge.”

“Ah so you’re our kitchen lady now.” I said jokingly.

“Don’t get used to it… So what’s our plan for today?”

“I think we’ll just hang around here for now were probably pretty safe here and we have enough food for probably two weeks.”

“Ok that sounds good.” When Mitchell finished cooking we woke Mathew up and ate. After eating we couldn’t decide what to do so we started playing Risk. We had the radio on in the background to cover up the awkward silence while we played. None of us were in a very talkative mood. Around 5:00 as we were staring our second game the radio suddenly stopped working. I got up to see what was wrong with it and discovered the power was out.

“Where’d the music go!”

“The powers out Mathew.”

“Damn it.” Mathew threw the die he was holding down on the game board scattering all the little pieces.

“What the Hell Mathew I was winning!” I yelled

“Screw the game Dennis we don’t have power what the Hell are we going to do when it gets dark.”

“What are you afraid of the dark Mathew?”

“No Dennis, I’m not scared it’s just...”

“Your scared Mathew just admit it were all scared even Dennis.”

“Look Mathew it will be ok I have a ton of flashlights lying around the house and mom has candles everywhere.”

“How are we supposed to cook?”

“We have a gas stove Mathew we and light it with matches.” I answered. This shut Mathew up on the subject of the power for a while and we continued our game after attempting to put all the pieces back in their places. That night we ate soup for dinner and spent the rest of the night sitting around candles reminiscing on better times. Around 9:00 we went to sleep.

The next few days passed in much the same way. We ate through most of the food in the fridge within the first few days before it could go bad. We spent most of our time playing various board games and having random conversations. We had been at my house for about a week with no news from the outside world and no sight of a zombie. When we finally ran into trouble or rather trouble stumbled into us. My kitchen had A glass door in that led out on to a small porch. For the last few weeks we had been throwing all of our uneaten food of the back of the porch not thinking it might attract something.

The night before we had gone to bed later than usual so I slept in. Around 12:00 I was awakened by Mitchell. “Dennis, Dennis there’s a zombie outside.”

“What?” I sat up in bed rubbing my eyes still confused from sleep. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a zombie in the backyard.”

“Ok lets go.” I got up and walked out of my room and into the kitchen Mitchell followed. Mathew was standing by the door looking out at the zombie. When I got a good look at the zombie I realized that I knew who it was. The zombie was Mr. Johnson one of our neighbors. He was standing next to the spot where we had been throwing out our food. In one of his hands was a rotten piece of meat Mitchell had thrown out the night before. As we watched he took a bite from it juice dripped from the rotten meat down his chin and on to his dirt stained shirt.

“Hey dumb a*s.” Mathew yelled at the zombie and started knocking on the glass.

“Mathew stop!” I yelled but it was to late Mr. Johnson had heard him. He looked up at the door and climbed on to the porch. Mathew moved away from the door.

“S**t.” Mathew whispered under his breath. “ Don’t move maybe he won’t see us.”

“He’s looking at us dumbass.” I whispered. Mr. Johnson put his hand on the glass door and slid them along the smooth surface. He couldn’t understand what was blocking him from us. He began groaning and hitting the door trying to get to us.

“Let’s just kill it.” Mathew said all of a sudden and he reached for the twenty gage sitting on the kitchen table.

“Mathew no!” Mitchell and I yelled in unison. Mathew didn’t listen he raised the gun and shot the glass exploded as the bullet passed through it and missed Mr. Johnson completely. Mathew tried to shoot again not realizing his gun was no longer loaded. Mr. Johnson started to break through what was left of the glass. “S**t it’s getting in.” Mathew yelled. “Do something!” I moved over to the kitchen table grabbing the Lugar which my father always kept loaded. I pointed it at Mr. Johnson and prepared to shoot but I couldn’t make myself pull the trigger. As I stood there the gun pointed at his head memories flashed through my mind. I had known Mr. Johnson for years I had mowed his yard during the summers for years. He would pay me twenty dollars and his wife would make lunch for me when I was finished. I couldn’t do it I couldn’t shoot him even though he was going to kill us. Then there was a shoot beside me a piece of Mr. Johnson’s head

blew off blood flew out splattering the ceiling as Mr. Johnson crumpled backwards. I turned to see Mitchell standing next to me holding the twelve gage.

“How did that get loaded?” I asked to break the stunned silence after the shoot.

“I loaded all of them when we saw it out there.” said Mitchell steeping towards the body of Mr. Johnson to take a closer look.

“Why did you hesitate?” Mathew demanded giving me an angry look. “That thing could have killed us.”

“I knew him he was a friend of my families.” My voice shook slightly as I answered and I was starting to feel dizzy. “I’m going to go sit down.” I staggered out of the kitchen into the living room and fell into the nearest chair. Mitchell and Mathew followed me into the room.

“What should we do now?” asked Mitchell

“I don’t know.” I answered slowly it’s not exactly safe here anymore is it they’ll be able to get in through that door.”

“Should we go back to town.” suggested Mathew. “We could stay in one of our houses and we might be able to find more food, were running low here anyway.”

“The town probably isn’t safe.” Mitchell said “there’ll be a lot more of them in the town.”

“But we can’t stay here.” said Mathew.

“I agree with Mathew.” I said finally. “We can’t stay here forever anyway we’ll be out of food in a few days.”

“If that’s what you both want to do than I’m good with it.”

“Thanks Mitchell.” I said “We might as well get going then I’ll go get my keys can you guys grab the guns and ammo we should take them with us.” Mitchell and Mathew walked into the kitchen and I went into my room and grabbed my keys. I met them in the hall in and helped them carry everything out to my car. Just as we finished loading up everything and were getting in to the car there was a horrible shrieking noise. We looked towards it to see about 15 zombies stumbling out of the woods behind my house. We jumped in the car I started it and we drove away. If we hadn’t decided to leave when we did those zombies probably would have caught us off guard.

“How the hell did they find us?” Matthew demanded from the back seat.

“They probably heard the gunshots.” I answered.

“Well have to be careful when we shoot then.” said Mitchell.