Chapter Two: Silence

It took a while for the truth of the outbreak to be known throughout the world. Once the top government agencies started to figure out the real reasons behind the sudden uprising in cannibalistic murders everything started to quiet down oddly quickly but only for a short time. The government tried to keep everything under the rug while they attempted to solve the problem without alerting anyone to the situation. The big cities started to fall first. New York City, Las Vagas and Los Angeles were swarming with news reporters from all over the country. The government instructed everyone to head into the major cities immediately. Having large amounts of people in one place allowed the government to provide aid and protection to everyone at once.

They were not prepared. People were infected and were already inside the big cities. They were able to protect the citizens from the infected trying to get into the city but they were soon over run by the infected from within the city. Chaos erupted, news stations first attempted to censor outgoing broadcasts. The terrorist attacks during 9/11 are the first things that came to mind. Everyone was on the news story but they all said the same things while at the same time saying nothing at all. Home videos on the internet started to surface and there were too many in too short a time to be taken down in time. Millions of people all over the world watched as people recorded the infected attacking and killing people in the streets of these protected big cities from their balconies. Police were in lines gunning down rioting civilians, people were breaking into stores and looting and prison breaks were at an all time high. It was almost as if the entire world had come an end.

Loud static filled the room and Ashley nearly jumped out of her skin. She had been writing in front of her bedroom television that had been tuned into a local news station. Atlanta was still deemed a safe area and there were reports of a refugee center that was taking in any survivors. All of the large news stations with headquarters in the larger U.S. cities had already gone black. She quickly turned it off and looked around the room slowly. She had spent most of her time in the upstairs portion of the house, making as little noise as possible. There were a few infected people wandering the streets but so far none had tried coming anywhere near the house to her knowledge. From her third floor balcony she was able to able watch them from a distance.

They seemed to wander around aimlessly and stick to around the place where they died. She recognized some of them as neighbors she had been introduced to at social gatherings her father held when she was younger. They didn't seem to go to far from where they had been attacked, the farthest they seemed to get was outside of their homes. She had stood on her balcony for what seemed like hours without being seen. They seemed to be attracted by sound only but she wasn't about to go walking out in the middle of the street to test the theory. She could stay in the house for several months if she needed too. There was enough food and water to last her for a very long time as long as she didn't have anyone else to feed and the generators in the basement were made to last. However, it was not a long term plan. She had watched a group break into one of the nearby houses just the day before. It was only a matter of time before they tried to make their way into her own home.

Ashley shut the laptop she had been writing on and checked her diamond cuff watch she had been given for her fifteenth birthday, 8:19 a.m. She hadn't gotten much sleep the last few days and her natural sleep cycle was all out of synch. She rubbed her eyes slowly and made her way to the bathroom. She was going to have a long day ahead of her. She pulled out a pad of paper from her desk on the way to her bathroom and began to write down a list of things she was going to have to get from the house if she was heading into Atlanta. The last thing she remembered hearing on the news before she had begun writing in the middle of the night was a refugee center being set up and encouraging everyone to come into the city.

Atlanta had started its broadcasts long after the countries larger cities had already been taken over by people who were infected. They ensured that they were medically checking all those who entered the refugee center and that no one that was infected was being allowed inside to ensure the safety of all incoming citizens. They would not make the same mistakes that the other cities had made.

Grab Ice Packs and food carriers from the kitchen, take some food from the basement freezers

Pack clothes and personal valuables

Get the guns and ammo from the gun cabinet

Blankets and pillows from the bedroom

Go through the cabinets and pick out non-perishables

Batteries, lighters, and water

Syphon gas from the basement generators

Camson whined as he trotted into the room. Both of her dogs; Camson her husky and Samba her Corgi puppy has been trapped inside of the house for the past week. They had always been outdoor dogs with the large backyard being their play ground their entire lives it was strange for them to trapped inside of the house. At first they seemed to just assumed it was just Ashley forgetting to let them out. She was only around for a few weeks every six months and they were not used to her being the only person in the house. When she started scolding them for whining they began to understand that they were not allowed to go outside. After a few days they had started noticing that something was wrong and they stayed upstairs.

"No Camson. I can;t let you outside." Camson bowed his head and walked over towards the corner and squatted and Ashley screamed. "Alright alright!" He trotted downstairs and Ashley quickly followed him to the sliding glass door. She opened the door slowly and he darted outside to find a quiet corner to take care of his business. Ashley looked around quickly, the brown fence surrounding the property and everything seemed to be extremely quiet. If she didn;t know any better she might have forgotten for a moment that the world seemed to be going to hell. Ashley shut the sliding glass door and returned upstairs. If she was going to a refugee center then she was going to be around lower and middle class people and there could be thousands of [people all in one place. It could be days before she had another shower and it might not even be a warm one. If she was going to be cramped into a cage with a hundred other people she was at least going to get as clean as possible before doing so. She would have to remember to withdraw cash from the ATM before leaving the city. Paying off a lonely soldier for a hot shower couldn;t be too difficult.

She shut the lights off and closed and locked the doors. Ever since she was a little girl she had taken it upon herself to lock the door while showering. Wet and naked made it extremely difficult to defend yourself against an assailant. Drunken bodies slamming against the door and slurred shouting filled her ears as she removed her clothing and turned on the hot water. The entire world was dead to her the moment she shut the blurred glass door.

"Stupid bitch." A small blonde was knocked into a china cabinet, one of the glass door cracked and the other opened and deposited some of it's content onto the young girls head. Priceless china crashed around her, cutting into her back and bruising her shoulders. A towering suit marched towards the door on the opposite side of the room and slammed it shut. The wind from the slamming door blew a single paper off of the nearby table. A math test with a large blue B at the top floated softly to the ground with her tears. Ashley pushed the door open as the water ran cold and she quickly wrapped a towel around herself and wiped the steam off the mirror. She wrapped her long white blonde hair into another towel and wiped the water off the scars on her shoulders. A loud cry made her jump out of her skin as she was brought back into the world of the living. She dropped the towel onto the ground as she ran towards the door. As her feet hit the tiles the water still dripping off of her from her shower caused her to fall, her forehead hit the edge of the door handle and she crashed to the floor and the world faded to black.

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