April 5, 2069

0012 MST (Mountain Standard Time)

Outskirts of Hermosillo, Mexico

La Mansión Del Rey (The King’s Mansion)

Luke Miller’s Point of View

Death. The Deathstalker Scorpions massacred our latest group of recruits. It was six years since we decided to take shelter in an abandoned mansion for the night. I was twelve years old when it happened. My guardian, Veronica Shinka, and I quickly escaped towards the hallway that led to the safe room. Sadly, it and the mansion were filled with friends and foes alike, but the ones that surrounded us were no longer human. Death claimed their lives, only to give them a new, horrific, second one as an undead. They suffered the inevitable fate of reanimation and became zombies; the devilish creatures that rule this world with no empathy for life!

“Luke, stay close to me!” Veronica yelled out in urgency.

She was hell-bent on annihilating the monsters that stood in our way, as she effortlessly wiped out the immediate threats one by one.

Like the rest of the world, there was no electricity here, and the darkness only added to the overwhelming advantage the undead had over us. We could barely see the threat in front of us, but I got a close enough look at it when one grabbed my arm and took a big bite out of my skin. It felt like time slowed down when it happened. The closeup of the shithead’s bright, blood-red eyes forcibly reminded me of the rest of their disgusting features. Their decayed, dehydrated, and wrinkled skin, deadly rotten teeth, and noxious scent they give off are beyond terrifying. I was powerless as I watched it growl and feed on my arm as it attempted to satisfy its insatiable appetite. Soon a sharp pain that burned like hell erupted across my wound, resuming, and rapidly advancing the timer. I knew what the pain meant. I was bitten and would die soon.

“Luke, stay still!” Veronica screamed.

She pointed the gun at me and then…

fired.

One clean shot through the head ended its life for good. A loud thump is what I heard as its corpse hit the ground.

“Luke don’t fall behind! We’re almost there!” Veronica ordered in distress.

I was surprisingly calm and followed Veronica’s directions. I knew better than to continue to think about the bite because reaching the safe room was the immediate priority, Mom and Veronica taught me well. I just had to continue evading the undead and stay directly behind her as she cleared a path in the dark corridor. Luckily, zombies are slow, at least these ones were. We made it to the safe room about thirties seconds later, but then another zombie appeared out of the darkness and grabbed Veronica.

‘Click. Click.’

An empty clip; a rare and seemingly fatal mistake.

“Shit!” she panicked with a terrified look on her face.

I watched helplessly as the zombie took a big bite out of her skin, followed by her traumatic scream of anguish. We were infected, meaning we would both die soon.

I had no gun, I had to leave it behind when Veronica dragged me out of bed and alerted me of our persistent pursuer’s presence. My marksmanship was nowhere near hers, especially in the dark, so… I doubt I could’ve prevented our fate.

Her loud cries of pain, the sound of distant gunfire, and seeing several faint red eyes throughout the darkness, eventually snapped me out of my panicked state. I rushed to Veronica’s free left arm and quickly gave her my survival knife. She grabbed it and plunged it into the temple of the zombie. A soft squish noise is all I heard, followed by the cold thump of its corpse. Veronica quickly recovered and scrambled to open the large, silver door.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

*

We wasted no time with the locks, but we both knew we were just delaying the inevitable. The safe room was filled with eight different colored candle lanterns, allowing us the gift of visibility. Our haven was the size of a large bedroom, and a sizeable, unpacked sleeping bag was on the floor of the top left corner of the room. There were numerous amounts of essential supplies neatly scattered about. The thick, sturdy walls and the solid steel door reinforced the notion that nobody could break in there.

Unfortunately, we were in the middle of the mansion, which meant we had no way of seeing what was happening outside. If the enemy knew where we were hiding, they would’ve forced us out with tear gas or set the mansion ablaze. Taking hostages would’ve been another effective tactic, but I doubt negotiation ever crossed their minds.

Their goal was, undoubtedly, Veronica Shinka. Her zombie kill ratio is minuscule to the number of enemies she’s made, that I know of. But she’s been taking care of me since my mom died and I’ll always follow her no matter what. The fact that they didn’t set the mansion on fire meant they wanted to make her suffer by their own hands. The Deathstalkers pursued us for years, but… they just vanished after this. What… happened?

Neither the zombies nor the Deathstalkers were even the most prominent threat at the time. The safe room wasn’t really “safe”. It was more of a way to collect our thoughts and think about the most critical and dangerous facts.

A million thoughts ran through my mind all at once and I was about to panic, before remembering my teachings. “Focus on the most important task at hand.” I assumed it was escaping without dying, but with so much chaos outside and our bites, that goal seemed impossible. I failed to think of anything useful and instead looked at Veronica to see what she was doing. It was the first time I got to see her clearly that night. An Asian woman in her late thirties. She had long dark black hair with small braids on the left side, bangs that partially covered her brown eyes, and a look of deep concern on her face as she concentrated on crafting an orizuru, an origami goose from a small piece of paper. She was wearing a black tank top, blue jeans and was carrying her enigmatic small black purse.

There was a mirror that allowed me to take a quick glance at myself. Messy black afro, black skin, brown eyes, dirty white t-shirt, and blue jeans. The reemerging burning sensation on my arm forced me to inspect my wound out of fear. A chunk of my skin was gone, blood was oozing out and it was the sharpest pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I hoped that a doctor would’ve been able to save me, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I was special.

Getting bit was…is a death sentence. I should’ve died in less than twelve hours and became the very thing I hate the most. All they do is eat, people and animals; living, dying, or dead; it doesn’t matter to them. The fucks don’t even need to eat to survive! They just eat and eat with a seemingly endless appetite. It’s a cruel fate that all of humanity shares upon death, and nobody can stop it.

“Veronica, what are we going to do?” 

The gunfire was becoming more rapid and the growling was decreasing, but she didn’t say a word. She just looked at me with a blank look on her face before inspecting her own wound. She seemed deep in thought for a few minutes before reaching into her purse and taking out two small metal containers, the size of a lipstick tube.

I quietly watched as she pulled out two syringes from the containers. One was filled with a red liquid, and the other filled with a blue liquid. Just what the hell were they and why didn’t I say anything?! I just continued to watch as she put the red syringe back into her container in her purse. Next, she injected the blue colored syringe into the wrist of her infected arm. Then she let out a deep sigh of relief and looked relaxed for just a split second before returning to that concerned look of hers.

She silently walked towards me as she brought out the red syringe again. I had so many questions, but I was too scared to ask. I couldn’t control my breathing, and my heart felt like it was going to explode! 

“There’s no time to explain, but this will keep you safe and get us out of here,” she vaguely explained in haste.

There it was again, that cold glare in her eyes as she knelt to match my height. Death was approaching us from inside and outside the room, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. My mind raced with crazy thoughts. Am I going to be shot to death first? Burned alive? Will I turn before Veronica? Will we have to kill each other to prevent the turning? Is it too late to cut off our arm to stop the infection? Will I live to see Olympus and the other kingdoms? If only I didn’t get bit, and if only I had my gun to protect Veronica from getting bit, then at least one of us would survive!

I couldn’t move, and I felt hot and cold at the same time. Nerves?  Or were these the things that happen to us before certain death? Yet, I somehow maintained eye contact with her. She seemed so calm yet, so worried. So smart and amazing, but so cold and mysterious.

“Luke, I’m so sorry about this,” she apologized in guilt.

Veronica injected the red syringe into the wrist of my infected arm, and then…