A zombie story: Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon when a bloodied Mitsubishi adventure pulled into the Himontagon Hill road. The vehicle looked like it was hastily armored: steel plates were bolted on over the wheels, a hastily-made bulbar fronted the bumpers, a screen mesh welded over the car windows, and on the top was a bolted on baggage compartment.

Despite the modifications however, the vehicle looked like it had suffered damage: the bull-bar was dented in places, the car suffered a cracked window, and it was scratched and dented all over. The car limped on up to the top of the hill.

Inside the vehicle, 5 guys were singing like they won the lottery. Well, in this infested world, they might as well have.

“Van, I told you, we’d get out safe right?!” The driver laughed victoriously.

“Yeah, you did, Luke. Holy crap, I can’t believe we made it!” Ervan answered, incredulous.

“Fuck, I know right?” Jay Arr answered.

“I told you, trust me. And we got out, right?” Daryl sounded.

“Holy fuck, I really couldn’t believe it!” The last guy in the group, Carlos, replied. They had just scored a decent supply of food and water that would last their whole group a good 3 months. He pumped his fist in the air. “YES! That indeed was extremely lucky!”

The vehicle, despite being dented, scratched, and cracked, seemed to run well. The group drove up to the top of the hill and parked inside an old abandoned house. There was an old water tank on its side, and its roof looked like it had been recently patched up. Inside the house were two girls, and one other guy. They got out to meet the boys, who had just arrived.

“Hey Jeb, how’s it going?” Luke asked as he got out of the vehicle. He took one sad look at the battered car and sighed. “Man, she’s seen better days. I’m gonna miss it a lot.”

“Well you asked for a zombie apocalypse. You got yourself a zombie apocalypse.” Jay Arr laughed grimly.

“Well it’s been 2 months, 3 weeks and 5 days since the CoVID-19 evolved into a brain – attacking parasite… which was quick, even for viral standards.”

The CoVID-19 had easily infected everyone in the world, and in just a span of 8 months, evolved into a brain-attacking virus that caused anyone who got it to be deranged, angry, and constantly hungry, and crazy. True to the zombie – apocalypse stories, the only way to kill them was to cut off their head, or smash their brains. The government worked hard to find a cure… but only ended up with a vaccine, which they hastily distributed. By then it was too late. 70% of the entire world’s population had turned into zombies – or were killed by them.

The Visayas Regions in the Philippines were luckier. Due to the islands being apart, not a lot of people had turned into zombies then; most of the zombie outbreaks were focused on the urban areas. Half the police had already been infected, and most of the military were stationed in their bases; meaning by the time the military got to the city, most of the population were already dead/undead.

And of course, Luke and his friends were not in the city when the outbreak happened; they were out camping. Three days out on the hills and they returned to a bloodied chaos. Naturally, the group were scared shitless; especially since they had no idea that the virus would’ve evolved so quickly. After the first hit (Which was nowhere near the city), they tuned to the radio just in time to hear that the whole city had just been attacked by a horde of zombies coming in from the beaches.

Which was just fine by them. They stopped just beyond the outskirts to see the smoke and destruction coming from the city. There was nothing they could do. What could they have done? Luckily for them, facebook was still online, so it was a simple matter of finding out who was still alive and where they would meet.

Luke opened up the back of the car and surveyed the day’s collection.

“Well, good news is, we found a lot of stuff like food, wood, gas, and some clothes… but our car… well…” Luke scratched his head.

“Lighten up bro,” Jay Arr said, patting him on the back. “We can always find another car.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t be too sentimental.” They gathered up the stuff and headed inside. The house they found had been abandoned sometime before, so the roof was leaky, and inside was cold and weathered, but the group had fixed up most of the damage, and added a few enforcements in case zombies wander in close by.

Carlos surveyed the landscape with a telescope they had looted from the hardware store. “I don’t think we should be going to the city anytime soon.” He commented. Already the orange sky was turning purple, but the smoke and fire from the city had not yet been put out yet.

“Any news from the radio?” Luke asked. The radio stations had become the most valuable asset in these trying times, especially since the internet and other phone sites were expected to come down soon.

“I’ll try turning it on.” Klaudine answered, and ran back inside the house.

“How goes our weapons?” Luke asked. They had scavenged a few construction supplies, and even managed to score a fire axe in one of their trips, but they had no luck on finding any guns.

“Never mind that, are we really willing to kill?” Jeb asked. He shivered. “I don’t want to kill anyone I know.”

Zombies. They’ve watched a hundred movies, read a thousand comic books, but were they really prepared?

“We’ll get there, when we get there.” Luke answered. “Speaking of people we know…” he took a look at the boys who were busying themselves with the supplies. “Any update from your own parents, guys?”

Luke’s mom was okay. She was working with the UN in Cebu when the virus evolved into what it became. She called up Luke, and told him to go camping for a few days in case the virus would worsen. It was because of her early warning that their friends had survived the initial zombie outbreak. Jay Arr hadn’t spoken to his mom in weeks now, and they had barely saved Ervan from being eaten from his own folks. Jeb’s family was safe in a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, and were supposedly heading to a safe island, but Carlos, Trish, and Klaudine’s parents hadn’t been heard from since the outbreak.

“Still no… But, I don’t think they’ll be in any danger, and in any case, we should make sure we’re safe ourselves. It’s the least we can do in case they’re still alive. In the meantime… let’s try to make sure we can survive this apocalypse in the long run.”

“Bro, bro!” Carlos came running over. “I just heard from the radio, they’re cutting power off to the city grid by Thursday… they say they won’t be able to sustain the consumption anymore.”

“Goddamn.” Luke replied. “We need to look for more sources of power here.” He gave himself a few seconds to think. “Alright, if I remember correctly, we passed a solar panel shop on the way here back in the town of Baclayon.”

“Yeah, yeah, a small red shop with what seemed to be broken windows, right?” Carlos replied. “We should take a look there and see if it’s alright.”

Ervan stopped them “Bros, the sun is setting.” He said. “An hour more or so and it would be dark. The Draugrs will wake up. Maybe we should reschedule the trip for tomorrow.”

Luke and Carlos stopped. The Draugrs were what they called the more dangerous of the zombies. They were mutated beyond recognition; the more obvious features were spinal bones which had been mutated by the virus, which caused them to grow quickly and outwardly, forming spikes on their backs. Their arm bones grew, turning them into sharp and dangerous claws. Their skin grew hard and flaky, and their feet became inflamed stumps, forcing them to traverse on all fours. The creatures were terrifyingly fast and scary; it was hard to believe they were human in the first place. Despite the mutations, the Draugrs were super sensitive to strong sources of ultraviolet light, forcing them to hide from the sun, and coming out only at night to feed. The group had only heard about them in online sites, but the media had been desperate in keeping news about these monsters quiet.

“Yeah. We better get back inside.” Klaudine nudged at the group. “All that talk about monsters is creeping me out.” She tugged at the boys. “You should back up the car to the entrance now, Lukey” She pouted. Easily spooked, it was understandable for her to be scared of the murderous Draugrs.

“Look, you’ll be fine.” Luke smiled. “We’ll be fine.” He turned and called out to the other boys and finished up transferring the day’s goods inside the house and parked the car inside. The sun had set, and everyone had settled inside. Jeb walked around the fence, making sure that the gates were locked. The zombies were fast and seemed to have a lot of endurance, but that was about it; they didn’t know how to climb up walls, but even so, the group was in the process of building a taller wall using bamboo poles covered in car grease. Jay Arr, ever so quiet and observant was assigned to cooking duty. With the virus’ sudden mutation, most of the population in Bohol had turned into zombies over a few days, so there was very little to no time for the rest of the surviving populace to panic buy, as crowded malls suddenly became the most dangerous place to be in.

Dinner was deep fried pork belly and some leftover fried chicken. It was going to be the last non-canned meat they were going to eat in the foreseeable future. The freezer, which had been full of stores of pork, chicken and fish had finally run out. Most of the vegetables they had brought at the start of the apocalypse had wilted, and whatever had survived had been turned over to Trish and Klaudine, who were making an small garden plot at the back.

Everyone ate quickly and silently. Weeks into the apocalypse and they still have not gotten used to being chased by crazed, murdering mutants.

“Well, that was delicious!” Ervan burped. It had been a while since they had a huge meal like that, mostly to finish up the last remaining stocks, and the fact that they won’t have to worry about food for a while.

“Let’s see, there’s eight of us… and…” Klaudine counted the cans of food the boys had brought. “… 15… 20… 225. Yeah, two hundred and twenty-five canned foods for today’s hall. That’s an additional 18 and a half days of food supply for us. Congratulations guys, we’ve finally reached 2 months’ worth of meals.”

“We’re still going back tomorrow” Daryl told her. “We had to leave behind a sack of rice back at that store – it’s enough to last us months too.”

“Yeah, but first… Sleep.” Luke laid down on the floor and closed his eyes. It had been a long day.

Carlos and Jay Arr yawned and positioned themselves next to him. “True that, I had to do most of the carrying too” Jay Arr said. “Fuck, even my arms hurt.”

Luke chuckled “And you’re the biggest in our group too.” He replied.

Ervan had already fallen asleep in the couch. One by one, everyone took sleeping positions close to each other. If one of them had been infected, they would all rather die together then kill one of their own.

“Good night guys.” Trish and Jeb called out. As the only couple in the group, they had a separate room to themselves

“Goodnight” everyone answered back.

The night was a moonless, starless, dark night.