ZOMBIE BOOKS

no one saw me crawl back in the house and flee out the back.  I swung wide to get a view of the scene.  The van was riddled, and the men were pushing bodies out of their seats and into the driveway.  They picked the van clean, searched the house, and then burned the property.  I watched from a nearby hill as the remains of my family were consumed by the flames that laid my home to waste.
I had no food.  No weapons.  No shelter.  And no family.
I was alone.
◊◊◊
“They’ll never reach here, Steven.”
Amy wanted to believe her mother, but as she looked into her father’s eyes, she knew he had the same doubt.
“Molly,” he sighed, “it’s not worth the risk.”
They had been debating this topic for the past three days.  It’s all her parents talked about, and with the reports of attacks now in Utah their conversations had become more heated.
“The outbreak is spreading,” her father continued, “and they are failing to contain it.”
“This is not a war zone, Steven,” Molly snapped.
The Air Force veteran stood from his seat at the table, and began to walk from the room before stopping short.  Something was eating him.   Amy could see it.  He turned to look his wife in the eye when he finally let it out.  “Yes it is, Molly.  You’re just too scared to see it.”  His voice was collected and even, without hostility, but there was an undercurrent of hostility that was undeniable.  “Pack your bags.  If it’s not in the trailer by breakfast, it gets left behind.”  The retired captain closed his eyes and rubbed his thumb into his throbbing temple while his wife stewed, insulted and furious.  “Entire families are dying in the wake of this out break, and I’ll be damned if my family is one of them.  Kids?”  Amy and her two brothers looked to their father in stunned silence over their dinner plates.  “You’ll pack your own bags.  One for clothes, and one for personal items.  Only what you need.  Only what you can carry on your own.”  Molly’s huffing did little to dissuade the father.  He continued unfazed, “If it won’t keep you alive, leave it.”
“Daddy?” Amy asked, voice sounding small and weak.
“Pumpkin?” the man replied.
“Are we going to die?”
As if to accuse the man of unfairly distressing their daughter, Molly gestures at Amy and wags an irritated expression at him.  He chooses to ignore his wife’s actions and kneels before his middle child.  He wraps his arms around her and draws her in close.   He can feel the dampness of her fresh tears and a gentle shiver through his shirt as he embraces his little girl.  “You’re fifteen,” he begins, “but I am going to have to start asking you to act beyond your years.  You’ll need to be brave for your family; for me.”  He draws back so he can look her in the eye, but at the sight of her quivering lip he pulls her in tightly once more.  “Yes,” he whispers.  “We will die.”   The girl begins to sob openly into her father’s shoulder.  “But,” he interjects, “but but but. If we work together, and all pitch-in, we are going to live a lot longer.”  Amy squeezes the man as tightly as her shaking arms can manage.  “I will see you through this.  All of us,” he promises.
First it was the younger brother who came over and wrapped his arms around his sister and father.  Then the older brother.  As if to abandon her stubbornness and as a way of apologizing, Molly wrapped her arms around her family and kissed her husband on the cheek.
After a few moments, the man stood up from his family’s embrace and said simply, “Pack your things.”
◊◊◊
Before my family was murdered, I had spent days hiding out with my family in our home.  I had no idea how bad it had become in Cheney.  Men roamed in packs, searching homes and stealing food.  Police were present, but did not confront the groups or try to stop them.  Apparently they felt that their presence would be enough to dissuade the gangs from killing while they plundered.  This simple concept was met with mixed results.
Alone and unarmed, I was easy pickings if caught in the open.  I stayed low and out of the way as I searched for cover.  Without television or Internet, I had no way of knowing how close the outbreak was, but I wouldn’t have to wait long.
On my second day on the run, the town began to ring with the song of gunfire.  Zombies had entered the city, hungry and desperate from their march up the I-90 corridor.  Dozens of the dead were seen stomping down the main drags of the city, busting in doors and climbing through windows in a desperate play for food.  Some were shot enough to slow them down, but bullets proved to be a poor zombie deterrent.  A good shotgun was the only readily available firearm that could slow a zombie.  Most didn’t use a shotgun though, and in a deadly blunder they followed Hollywood’s advice and tried the single shot to the brain.  Most missed.  Those whose aim proved true were horrified to find that their efforts were useless.  They fired and fired their weapons as the zombies entered the houses and decimated everyone inside.  Those who were not completely consumed rose as a zombie and continued the spread of the virus.  Worse, those who were only bitten but made it out alive were forced to ride the transformation in real-time as their minds disintegrated and their bodies began to operate from some unknown power.
You can always tell the zombies that aren’t quite done turning.  They’re the ones with someone’s arm in their mouth and a tear in their eye.
In hours, the city was a zombie hotbed.  There seemed to be no place to get away from the zombie hordes.  I resolved to find a route out of town and make my way to the