Z-Day

Chapter 11

The Beginning2

It’s been 16 years, 16 years since that life changing day for everyone. How have we lasted so long, how has the human race lasted so long? I remember that day so clearly, chaos, depression, death, but maybe I should start at the beginning.3

August 18th, 20114

It was like any other day, it began by me waking up to the beautiful face of my Fiancee Jessica Hollikar. I rolled over and hit the buzzing alarm clock on the nightstand next to our bed. It was 6:00 am on that fall Thursday morning. 5

“Morning baby,” Jessica mumbled as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, “How’d you sleep?”6

“Great…” I smiled and turned to look into her eyes, “I always sleep great when I’m sleeping next to you.”7

“Suck up,” She laughed. I leaned over and kissed her, it was time to go to work. My name is Nate Terman; I work for an engineering firm in Dallas Texas. I slowly made my way into the bathroom to take a shower. I don’t know what it was about showers but for as long as I can remember showers have always woke me up when I’m tired. As I came out of the bathroom in just a towel Jess was sitting at the edge of the bed waiting for me.8

“Mm,” She smiled, “Sexy!” I threw a wink her way and went over to the dresser to grab my clothes. I quickly put on my work clothes and headed downstairs to our kitchen for some breakfast. As I walked over to the pantry to grab a box of cereal I hit the power button on the small TV we had in the kitchen.9

“This is a special report,” The man said on the news, “I don’t really know how to explain it, but there are reports coming in from all over of people dying from bites from other humans.” I stopped for a second then turned to the TV with a confused look on my face.10

“No,” I whispered, “This can’t be happening,” my cell phone began to vibrate in my pocket and I fidgeted with it before I opened it.11

“Nate!” It was me buddy Ryan Decker, he didn’t even give me a chance to say hello. 12

“Are you watching the news?”13

“Yeah, I just saw the report, you don’t think…” I stuttered.14

“Yes I do,” he quickly responded, “I haven’t heard of any cases yet but I’m sure it will happen, get your things and get back to Lincoln as quickly as possible.” Lincoln, NE our place for refuge if this was to ever happen, and it is.15

“Okay, Abel?” I asked.16

“Yep, I’ll call the others you just concentrate on getting back safely, see you there.” He hung up.17

“Jess!” I yelled as I sprinted up the stairs. I ran into the closet and threw my suitcase onto the bed and began to throw clothes into it frantically.18

“Baby, what is it?” She said as she came out of the bathroom.19

“It’s happening, I just watched the news, and Ryan called we are heading to Abel.” I explained.20

“Are you sure?” She asked, “How do you know.”21

“Because,” I turned to her, “there are reports of people biting other people and those people dying.” 22

“Any reports of those people,”23

“No not yet,” I quickly said. “Just please trust me and get your things, quickly.” She ran to the closet and grabbed her suitcase, and started to throw things into it. After an hour of packing and grabbing our weapons from the shed, pistols shotguns rifles, we loaded everything up in our jeep and headed out.24

I flipped open my phone and hit talk, after ringing a couple times Ryan picked up, “Hey man we just left,” I said.25

“Good,” He replied, “I just got to Abel, “Jack and Bruce are with me.”26

“Okay the drive is about 10 hours, but we will try to cut that down as much as possible.” I explained.27

“Good, just get here.” He said, “Later” I heard a click and I hung up.28

“Nate,” Jessica said with a sad tone.29

“Yeah?” I glanced over to her.30

“I’m scared.” She whimpered and leaned over and grabbed my arm.31

“It’s going to be okay,” I kissed her forehead, “I promise.” I reached over and flicked on the news and just more of the same stuff came over the radio, death. We drove for hours and hours and we just kept seeing the same things, people dying. As we pulled into Lincoln, NE we saw so many cars leaving the city, students trying to get home to be with their families.We maneuvered between cars and hysteric people to pull up to the entrance of the Abel Dormitories.32

“Ryan!” I turned as I got out of the jeep, it was Jack Cruz.33

“Hey man!” I yelled, “Glad you made it.”34

“You too,” he gave me and Jess a hug, “We are all set up on the 7th floor, we figure its high enough for us to be safe, and high enough for us to be able to get down and get supplies safely.”35

“Good idea,” I grabbed my bags from the back of the jeep. “Here grab some things.” He grabbed a few of the bags and we made our way through the crowd of people and up the stairs to the 7th floor.36

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