War, Love and Timetravel

Out Surge

The sunlight chafed my eyes so much I could no longer sleep, I woke the next morning and nothing felt right when I did. There wasn’t a single sound due to how infrequently quiet the house was, never had it been this quiet this late in the morning, I listened in carefully for little Sophie jumping and playing around the house and heard nothing, mum on the other hand was always trying to get the family together for breakfast but she too was absent, and Mary? Well she was just an awfully loud individual, she spoke a lot for no justifiable reason but even Mary’s voice couldn’t be perceived. Worried, I stood up from the bed and made my way downstairs, “Sophie….” I called out but there was no answer, “Mum, Dad, Mary?” I continued, checking every room in the house but still no answer, not even a single person in sight; I walked out the front door and was scared half to death when they all jumped out from the left corner of the house, “Happy New Year!” they all chorused holding up large Happy New Year banners, “what the hell guys? You scared the living crap out of me” I said reluctantly as they moved closer to hug me, “we thought you had a pretty rough night yesterday and we didn’t get a chance to wish you a happy new year, so we’re saying from our hearts, welcome to the year 2022 bud” dad said giving me a light grip on the shoulder, “hey you guys should come inside, our new year presents are waiting” mum said eagerly hurrying inside with dad and Mary but Sophie wasn’t too quick to go in with them, she had a troubled look on her face, so I stooped down a little and asked, “what’s wrong Sophie?”  Her head was lowered and she was impassively looking downwards, “the strange man from last night” she said, “yeah, I remember him, did he say something to you?” I asked curiously, she paused for a moment, put her hand into her little jean pocket and brought out a watch, “he gave me this watch and he told me to give it to you when no one was looking” she said handing the watch over to me, so I collected it from her and carefully examined it, learning quickly that it was made of steel also having a long thin tube sticking into the side. I looked at the face of the watch and I could see a section that marked ‘time’ which was set to 10:37am and a second section for ‘date’ which was set to December 31st 2021 and on another section were a set of numbers of which I couldn’t quite understand their meaning, “Did he tell you why he gave you the watch?” I asked Sophie, but she stared back at me as though she was mute and deaf, “Hey” Mum called out to us from the front door which she stood, “what are you guys still doing outside? We’re already opening the presents” she added, I slid the watch into my pocket, skeptical of mum’s reaction if she saw the item and headed inside with Sophie.  A few minutes into opening up the presents we heard car alarms going off one after another in the neighborhood, “that’s odd” mum said, “I’ll go check it out, you guys keep doing what you’re doing” dad said getting up and moving outside. Then I began opening my presents and there were four different gifts from mum, dad, Mary and even Sophie got me a present, how did I fail to return the favor? I thought to myself, I was just about saying thank you, as well as an apology to each and every one of them when dad came running into the house quivering, he immediately locked the front door behind him, “everyone upstairs now!” he yelled, his voice was horrifyingly shaky, “dad, what’s going on?” Mary asked as clearly we were all frightened but dad was too terrified by whatever he noticed outside to respond to us, he immediately hurried over to carry Sophie and took her upstairs quickly, then in that moment there was loud banging on the door coming repeatedly, I could hear the screams coming from outside; they sounded of anger and pain. It was unbearable, but mum, Mary and I didn’t wait to find out, we quickly hurried upstairs to find cover with dad in Mary’s room, “dad what’s going on? What did you see?” I asked him feeling confused and frightened, “shhh, do not make a sound” he whispered to all of us covering Sophie’s mouth with his hand, I heard the door break down in the living room below and Sophie unable to handle the tension began crying out loud, despite having her mouth covered she managed to make a lot of noise, whomever or whatever was downstairs quickly began ascending the staircase the moment Sophie began crying , “we won’t last up here” dad said, handing Sophie over to me, “If I say run, you all should head to the garage as fast as you can” he said getting up from the floor, he shattered the window and pulled out a piece of broken glass, then I heard the fast approaching sound stop immediately, I looked towards the door and saw a human head poking into the room and staring at us, about five inches above the ground, there was blood all over its face, its eyes were blood red and its skin was pale, it waited there dead still for five seconds before screaming and crawling quickly into the room with only both of its hands while both legs were being dragged across the floor like that of a lizard with two legs and one tail. “Run! Go to the garage now!, I’ll meet you there, hurry!” dad said charging at the beast with the piece of glass in his hand, we all sprang up and ran for our lives, I could hear movements coming from the living room and kitchen as we ran downstairs, plates were being broken, things were being destroyed, another one exactly like the one we just saw came crawling upstairs to us, “climb the rail!, don’t let it touch you!” I yelled to mum and Mary in front of me, we climbed the rail and managed to escape that particular one but on getting to the living room there were more of them, about fifteen of them stopped right in there tracks for five seconds staring at us while we ran before chasing after us vigorously. We quickly opened the garage door, mum got into the driver’s seat while I and Mary got in the back, she drove out the garage and waited at the front door for dad, “common God damn it where is he?” she said feeling terrified. The screamers began crawling on the car and banging their heads furiously against the wind shield trying to claw their way in, the longer we waited the more they came, they were rushing in from all angles and it now started to seem like they could flip the car over, “mum we have to go!” I said to her impatiently, “common dad, common!” Mary said in a whisper and in that moment dad slowly walked out the front door, but there were three of the beasts holding him, one had its teeth buried in his neck, the bunch of screamers on our car backed out to rush dad when they saw him, “no, no” mum whispered but at this point we all knew it was too late, we took one long last look at dad in tears, his eyes were watery and he stared right back at us as he fell to his knees, they mercilessly began tearing him apart, “mum…..” I said drawing her attention, but she was too heartbroken to do anything, so I stretched my arm out into the front seat and unto the gas pedal, then pushed it so we began moving, we were all devastated, mum couldn’t stop herself from crying, I held unto the pedal for as long as I could, that is; until we got out of sight before mum slowly regained her self, “what do we do now?” Mary asked confounded, but there was no answer, the streets were hectic, bodies littered on the floor, cars and houses were burning, screamers were everywhere and those who didn’t turn were being eaten alive.

“The police station” mum said while driving, “mum look around, do you think there’s law and order at this point anymore?” I replied unpleasantly, “what do you think caused people to become this way?” Mary asked curiously and we all just looked at ourselves clueless, no one had a clue as to what caused the outbreak, “mum, look” Mary called her attention pointing towards the police station as we drove past, and mum was blanked out so badly she lost track of where she was going; now the police station was completely over run by screamers, most of them wore police uniforms, it was a huge disappointment, things were starting to look hopeless, “we should head outside the state, see what’s happening elsewhere” mum said stepping unto the gas pedal. For hours we were on the road, the tension had calmed down a little in the car because little Sophie had stopped crying and fallen asleep finally, the car came to a stop gradually but also suddenly, so I got curious, turning my attention away from Sophie and back unto the road only to see that we were on a bridge, on the right a few meters ahead of us was a sign that read ‘Welcome To Lesfield’ which was the name of our city so that meant we were at the city border, “bad news kids we’re out of gas” mum blurted out, “what?!” I and Mary exclaimed, I sat up right and took a look out the back of the car and there were a few screamers laying on the floor and looking right in our direction waiting. “Mum we have to move” I said in a whisper, “I’m trying, this seat belt won’t come off” she muttered, trying as hard as she could to unfasten the seat belt, immediately I started hearing screams, I looked back again and I could see them swarming quickly towards the car, I reached for mums seat belt and tried my best to unfasten it but to no avail, “Francis stop, listen to me, you have to take your sisters and leave, promise me you’ll take care of them” she said desolately as tears came rolling down her cheeks, “no mum please I can’t leave you, please don’t make me leave you here no” I muffled struggling with the seat belt, “Francis we don’t have a choice we have to go now” Mary said anxiously, I left the seat belt and looked into mum’s eyes for a few seconds then I hugged her with tears now rolling down my cheeks as well, Sophie came in to hug mum and so did Mary, “I love you” we all said in a chorus crying profusely, “I love you too kids now you have to go” she hastily said, sobbing I carried Sophie, opened the door and ran out only looking back for a second there was already an infected a few feet away from the car, and it dove unto Mary pushing her to the ground, I rushed back over and kicked the beast off her body, helping her back up to her feet with one hand, then we ran quickly into the woods. I stopped to look back and saw mum intentionally open her door so the beasts would focus on her and not follow after us, my heart was broken knowing I had lost both parents in a single day.

I and Mary stopped briefly to catch our breaths when we were clear, the good news was there seemed to be no screamers for miles around us, but the bad news was; we were in the middle of nowhere, we were lost and we didn’t know where we came from nor where we were supposed to go, now I tried tracing our footprints back a little to determine the direction we came from and the direction we ought to take, “we seemed to have come from this direction” I said pointing backwards from whence we came, “but still we could have been running in circles, right now we don’t have much time to prove anything so I’m just gonna assume that it’s a straight line back” I said pausing to look at Mary, and she was paying no attention to what I was saying because she was too busy crying, “hey! Get it together Mary!” I reprimanded, “They were my parents too okay? So if you….” I tried finishing the statement before having an instant gale of sadness fill my heart and I started crying with her as well, Mary moved closer to me and embraced me with Sophie still in my arms. “If you really want to survive” I whispered slowly, “you have to get your head right because if we die here, then they died for no reason, so please promise me you’ll survive Mary” I begged her, she let go of me and looked me in the eyes, then wiped my tears and said, “I promise I’ll survive” and I nodded slowly, “alright” I said and wiped her tears afterwards, “we should head left. If I’m right that should take us out of Lesfield” I added starting the trail, “where’s mummy and daddy?” little Sophie asked curiously after being quiet for an unusually long time, “mummy and daddy are in a better place now sweetie” I replied stroking her hair gently, “am I going to see them again?” she asked seeming bothered, “of course you will Sophie but I’ll need you to be quiet for me okay? We can’t let those bad things know where we are” I said to her then she calmly placed her head on my shoulder, and after a few hours of walking we spotted a cabin up ahead, it was indeed the best thing that happened to us that day, because it was now getting dark and we needed somewhere to stay for the night, we hurried over to enter but my instincts heaved in, “wait” I said to Mary and handed Sophie over to her, I moved in alone, “hello?” I called out terrified, “we come in peace, we just need a place to stay for the night” I continued but there was no answer, the living room was clean and clear and it didn’t quite seem like anyone had been around for a while, but I still made sure all rooms were checked thoroughly until I got to the bedroom and found a pistol laying on the bed, dazed but wasn’t too surprised, I picked the gun up to check if it was loaded and it was, I quickly hid it in the back of my trousers because I knew it would definitely come in handy, then I went back to the front door, “it’s all clear you can come in now” I said to Mary having no intention of telling her about the gun I’d just found, “I’m starving, please tell me there’s something to eat in this cabin” Mary said, laying on the couch, “ah, it’s so comfortable, I could definitely get used to this” she said seeming relieved, I made my way to the kitchen cabinet to check for food, and to my greatest surprise there were tin foods stacked up in the shelves, I opened up a few without hesitation and immediately began eating, the intense terror we just experienced had taken my mind off my starvation, “hey Sophie are you hungry?” I asked Sophie who was sitting on the couch, “of course she’s hungry, bring that food over here and let’s eat, you glutton” Mary commanded, I picked up a few cans, took them to the couch and we all ate till nightfall before we were satisfied. Sophie was the first to fall asleep, I picked her up gently from the couch and placed her on the bed in the room covering her with a blanket. “So brave” I whispered to her while she slept, then kissed her forehead, “I promise I’ll never let anything bad happen to you Sophie” I professed softly and left the room shutting the door behind me, “we have a problem” Mary said from the couch where she sat, “what problem?” I asked curiously, then she stood up and walked over to the kitchen sink, trying to turn on the tap but there was no water supply, “well okay no water supply, it’s okay don’t panic, first thing tomorrow morning I’ll go check around for a stream or something, I’m sure I’ll find fresh water” I said feeling hopeful, “I mean look on the bright side, there’s enough food in here to last us about a week or two” I added, Mary walked back to the couch and collapsed on it, she looked very exhausted, I moved over and placed my hand on her forehead to feel her temperature and it was incredibly high, “hey are you feeling okay?” I asked seeming very concerned, “yeah I guess so” she replied softly, laying her head on the couch’s arm rest, slowly drifting into sleep, now seeing she had fallen asleep I got a blanket to cover her and went to sleep on the second couch.

At midnight, I woke up to the sounds of things breaking in the living room which I laid, I raised my head up to see that the lamp had been destroyed, the television was shattered and a couple of other things were broken, worst of all Mary was no longer on the couch, so I got scared, the sounds were coming from the kitchen. I slowly got up and walked over then took a quick look in to find Mary on the ground holding herself up with both hands, her eyes were blood red and she was staring dead into my eyes, “Mary, what are you doing? Why are you laying on the floor like that?” I asked feeling frightened but she didn’t reply, she tilted her head and I heard her neck crack, she quietly climbed the wall and unto the ceiling, hanging and facing upwards for a while before rotating her head backwards so much that she was looking at me but her body was facing the ceiling, I was shaking while my heart was racing, she screamed then dropped to the ground and charged at me instantly crawling aggressively towards me, I backed out scared and unable to run, the unseen furniture behind me caused me to trip and fall to the ground, “Mary stop” I pleaded laying with my back against the floor, but she kept on coming, screaming loudly and shaking her head vigorously, “stop Mary please” I continued pleading as I pulled out the gun hidden in my jeans. I aimed it at her and tears came flowing down my cheeks. She dived towards me and impulsively I pulled the trigger, blowing her head wide open.