Column Rising: Earthbound

It all happened so fast, the first thing was that my dad told us that the outbreak was his fault. My sister had just turned 14, I was 15 at the time, and he told us that we were going to have to fight eventually. The year is 2039 now and I get to fight now. I’m so happy that I get a gun.
I’ve seen the Column, they’re ugly creatures. Mutated and disgusting, they walk with a sway unless they smell prey, in which case they run in a sprinting fashion. Most are deformed in the face so much that you can’t tell who they were in life, which is good so we don’t have to worry about remorse if it was someone we knew.
My alarm rings, and I know that it’s time for the R.A.Z.O.R. meeting and I’m a part of that so I’ll be going. The meeting is about location. Stacy passes out the glee colored green envelopes with the meeting agenda contained and the meeting subject printed in bold black letters on the front of the envelope.
Awkwardly it reads “LOCATION, LOCATION. LOCATION!”
I hold back a very big snicker and smirk. I raise my hand, as is custom for meetings.
“Yeah, who printed these?” I ask with the sarcastic tone that I’m so well known for. If not for that question I’m certain that no one would have looked at me so seriously.
“Okay, never mind.” I whispered.
“This meeting is very important,” said Mr. Calf(John), “we need to find a suitable place to hide. Suggestions?”
A dull murmur of voices began to whisper to one another and eventually I raised my hand. Having heard several suggestions, and having the most sway with the rest of the council, being the son of the God Masque.
“I heard someone say ‘Underground’” I spoke.
Another member stood and said, “ I agree it would be more cost efficient too.” It would after all, because the heating and cooling is all done by the ground that surrounds the building.
“All in favor,” said Mr. Calf, the acting chairman. Almost immediately everyone raised their hands, and it was decided. The humans of earth were now, truly, Earthbound.
We started at lunch moving our massive caravan to the south-west, towards Texas and the dessert. Along the way we picked up any and all survivors we came by. By this time we knew enough about the virus to know that it wasn’t airborne, and never could be. We weren’t sure how but that’s how it was. I was in the 3rd armored group, we had acquired tanks from several abandoned military bases. Each armor group had 3 tanks, a left flank guard, a right flank guard, and a centermen or lead tank. I was in the left flank guard and we didn’t see much action when we got to the desert we encountered some resistance and fended them off easily. It was a very small group of maybe 10-20 Column. When we were certain we began digging.
“Kid!” yelled Calf.
“What?!” I replied.
“Your dad’s awake!”