Chapter 1-Where it all begins.

A ripping sound echoed around the room as I pulled the x-acto knife down the duct tape. I peeled the tape off of the cutting board and was about to lay it onto another piece, sticky sides together when I heard my mother scream in the living room. I jumped at the sound and the tape that was going to be a bill fold for my dad was now just a sticky mess around my hand. I was cutting the tape off of my hand as I walked down the hallway through the kitchen and into the living room. "Mom?" I called but I didn't see her. I heard her yell my name, her voice laced with pain. I followed it to her bedroom where she was sitting on her bed holding a blood soaked towel to her upper arm.

"Oh my god Mom, What happened?"

"I heard a noise at the door so I answered it. She bit me." The hand that was holding the towel was shaking.

"Why did you do that? The news said to stay indoors." I started freaking out on her. I didn't mean to, but I had never been good in emergency situations. "Where's dad? Shouldn't he be in from work by now?" The news blasted on the TV in the living room telling people that the outbreak has gotten worse and that people needed to start evacuating to Atlanta. "Mom where is dad? What if he got bit too?" I practically yelled at her. None of what was happening made since to me. How could getting bit make people turn cannibal and what was going to happen now that my mother had been bitten? Our neighbor said that she saw her husband die then come back to life as a crazy person. It was the first we had heard of the virus before things started getting out of control. Was my mother going to die?

"Bay, calm down. Breathe. We will wait a little bit longer and if your dad isn't home by then we will head to Atlanta. Go pack some clothes. I'll be okay." Mom always had a way of calming me with her words. It was kind of ridiculous that I still lived with my parents at twenty, but it was cheaper to stay with them than it was to live in a apartment all by myself.

I went to my room and started throwing clothes into a backpack. I was grabbing my tooth brush out of the zebra print cup in my bathroom when I heard the gun shot. Somehow I managed to not trip over my own feet as I ran to my parents room only to see my mother lying on their bed. There was blood everywhere, splattered across the wall, the headboard, and on the bed where it seeped from the hole in her head, and soaked the sheets. "No!" I ran to her side and shook her. "Mom! Mom? No no no no." I buried my head in her stomach and cried. It was all I could do. I couldn't make myself move from her side. I shouldn't have left her after she got bit. I should have just waited with her for dad to come home, but I was just doing what she told me to. I managed to lift up my head and noticed a piece of paper that she usually wrote her shopping lists on laying beside her and I picked it up.

Bay, I love you and I love your dad. Please forgive me for what I did, but I just couldn't convince myself that there is a cure for this. If there were one they wouldn't be evacuating people to some holding facility. They'd be curing them. You are going to need to protect yourself, so if your dad doesn't come back I want you to take one of his guns and go to Atlanta. I know you don't know what bullet goes with what gun, but you are a smart girl and your father taught you gun safety so I know you can figure it out. Both of you stay safe. I love y'all. See you on the other side some day.

-mom

The note was clutched in my fist as I paced the room. Leave it to mom to write a note before something like this. She always thought ahead, so I didn't understand why she opened the door for a walker. She had always kept me level headed when something bad happened. I needed her and now she was gone. I kicked the wall not knowing what I was really angry about.

"Oh my god." My father's voice startled me and I spun to face the door. He was standing in the doorway still in his orange work Nomex, with a bloody tire iron in his hand.

"She uh… she got bit." Those were the only words I could get out of my mouth. I had never seen my dad cry until then. He slowly walked over to my mother's body and brushed her straight, blood streaked chestnut brown hair out of her face. A fresh batch of tears fell down my cheeks as I watch my father, the strongest man I knew physically and emotionally, cry over my mother's dead body. I didn't know how long we had been in the room, but tears were still falling down my face when dad finally sat up and wiped the tears from his face. The sadness that had previously been there had been replaced by anger as he stood from his place on his knees by the bed and went into the closet. He emerged with the big bag that contained his hunting knives then walked over to the bed, plucked the pistol from my mother's cold hand and placed it into mine. I stared at it in horror before I followed him into the living room. He stood at the gun cabinet shoving every gun he had into the bag along with his stash of ammo. My eyes slid from him to stare at the gun in my hand again. Why had he given this thing to me? He knew I didn't know how to use it.

My dad walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Look at me." His voice was a contradiction to the hard look that possessed his scruffy face. "We're gonna be okay, I promise." My father somehow understood that he was going to have to step up and be the one to keep me grounded. "We're gonna make a run for old red, if one of those people get close to ya don't be afraid to shoot 'em."

"But I don't even know how to use this thing." I mumbled and he took the gun from me and flicked a switch on the side.

"Red means it's ready to shoot, then just aim and fire." He made it sound so simple. I stuck my cell phone into my back pack then slung it over my shoulder before my dad put his hand on the doorknob and looked at me. "Ya ready?" I nodded terrified of what I was going to find on the other side, and he slung it open. We ran towards his red '91 Chevy work truck and he hopped into the driver's seat. I was right behind him and went to open the passenger door but I spun around feeling a hand on my shoulder. I gasped when I realized who it was. The Gray haired woman, that was snarling and biting at my face as I held her off of me with my forearm, was my once sweet as could be grandmother that lived next to us. I screamed as I struggled to hold her back. "Come on!" I heard my dad yell at me and I gave her a hard shove and she fell to the ground. I jumped into the opened passenger door and slipped on my seat belt as my dad stomped on the gas making the tires squeal.

I looked over at my dad who was looking intently out of the windshield as he drove. Tears rolled down my cheeks when I thought of the blood splattered shell of my cannibal turned grandmother. But I knew now who the she was that bit my mother, why my mother opened the door. She saw my grandmother on the other side and thought she could help her. "Dad, grandma…"

"I know. I'm sorry you had to see that." He didn't even look at me. "Let's just see if we can get to Atlanta." I pulled my cell out of my bag and tried to text the one friend that I still had from high school, but she never did respond. I guess I would never know if she made it or not…