It's been three days since the outbreak happened. There's been no "all clear" call from anyone. I've stayed inside like the last warnings. I've drawn the curtains closed, and I don't dare turn the TV or radio up too loud. They responded to sound. Maybe smell. Sight, obviously.
I turned on the TV in my bedroom and switched to Triple-N. It was about the exclusion zone, which I was unfortunately trapped inside of. The government was confirming "no fatalities from the infection." What a crock of... Yeah, that. Protests were being held outside of the zone, demanding that they be let in or questioning why phones and internet have no signal inside and around the zone. I switched the channel to Turbo. They were interviewing some celebrity I'd never heard of. They shared a moment of concern for people like me inside the zone, and then on to the damn movie she was in and how she prepared for the nude scenes. I felt insulted. I turned off the TV went downstairs to the kitchen.
I lived alone, and some of my neighbors asked me why I paid so much for my big house when I live alone. I like the space. I made breakfast out of perishables, sausage patties and toast. I decided to go outside for the first time. Of course, it wasn't safe out, so I needed a weapon. I didn't feel quite safe enough with a knife, but I decided to make a little knife holster out of some Velcro straps and strapped one to my thigh. I grabbed a frying pan. Heavy cast-iron, would no-doubt put a hurtin' on one the infected if I had to fight one.
I went back upstairs and peeked out all of the windows for a few seconds and decided on which neighbors to visit. I ran back downstairs and peeked out the front door window before I opened it slowly. Everything looked clear so far, so I first checked the perimeter around my house. No infected on my property (at least, not at the time), so I went next door. I knocked on the door several times, and then went around back, peeking into each window as I went. A good way to get myself shot. I thought.
The door to the tool shed in the back yard was open. "Hello?" I called. And so came my first encounter with one of the infected. He shambled towards me, blood covering his face and neck. The clothes he wore bore some blood stains as well. But then I noticed the most horrifying thing about him. He had a bullet wound in the center of his neck. He should be dead. No, he was dead. A zombie. I inched towards him as he shambled towards me. He let out a sick hiss as he opened his mouth and put his arms out. I let one hand off my frying pan and pushed his arms to the side and hooked my leg behind the zombie's and swept it out from under him. I slammed my frying pan into his head. The blow should have instantly pacified a normal person, further reinforcing my assumption that he really was undead. I hit him again, but the blow was poorly aimed and I hit him in the jaw. I knocked some teeth out and he had no reaction. I hit him again, this time his skull caved in and his arms stopped grabbing at me.
The first zombie I ever killed was one of my neighbors. I knelt next to the corpse for a few seconds as the knowledge sank in. Then a new concern came over me. His wife. I found the back door unlocked. I set the frying pan on the porch and drew my knife before creeping in. I went room to room, not speaking a word. In the dining room, my neighbor lay dead. Blood was spattered against the artwork, and a bullet shell was on the floor. Her arm had a bloody bite mark on one arm and a pistol in her other hand. There was an exit wound in the back of her head. She shot herself after being bitten. I almost threw up right there. I went upstairs. Room by room I went, checking every door. There were no others in the house.
Something had temporarily numbed me. I took a pillow case and loaded it with medical supplies from the bathroom cabinet. In the downstairs closet, there were a few winter jackets which I decided I'd come back for after grabbing all the food I could. One cupboard had a hammer and several boxes of nails. I made a mental note of them and kept taking food and water. I unlocked the front door and took my bag of loot. Oh God. "Loot." Three days into this thing and I was looting! But what if that was life now? What if, to keep on living, I had to kill and loot? I'm a wildlife ecologist. All life must adapt or die. Adapt to survive. I thought. So that was it. I was going to stop being a civilized member of a society that seemed to have stopped existing in the exclusion zone.
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