Zero Blood

Zero Blood

Volume 1

Part One:

Safe Haven

Episode 1

"The Virus"

I peer over the edge of my apartment balcony, looking down at the town in chaos. My home town, Chatham was in complete madness down below me. People were running wild, it was one or the other though. You were either running from something, or you were the something. My apartment room was too high up to see what the people looked like down there, but I knew they were scared. Chatham was a town in Canada. I wondered if it was like this everywhere. My daughter, Kayla turned on the television. There were news reporters talking about the end of the world. I didn't believe it. Yeah sure, it was complete madness down there. People were being chased by other crazy people. But I don't think it was the end of the world, hell no. It must just be a virus or something that is causing mayhem, it will be solved in a couple weeks tops. If my daughter and I stay up here, we will be safe. It will all be fine, people were actually trying to flee the country, which was stupid. I walked over and shut off the television, all the news does is scare Kayla. She is only five, she can't watch this stuff.

"Daddy I'm scared." she said.

"It's fine, it's just a small problem. It will be solved in a couple days." I said.

"They are saying there are monsters, people that died, and who came back to life. Then they kill you!"

"Kayla, stop. It's fine." I said.

"Fine, but what are we going to do?"

"Wait up here, nothing else to do really."

I sat down on my bed and picked up a picture, it was a family photo. It was me, my wife Samantha, and my daughter Kayla. Samantha died a long time ago, she was kidnapped, never to be seen again. They never caught the killer. They never found her, so she was never confirmed dead. But it's pretty obvious. Three years ago, when Kayla was only two, Samantha died. We were broke down in an old ghost town while on a family trip. We stopped and got out to look for anyone to help us. We found an old gas station, we thought nobody was there. When we went in, I was hit over the head and I blacked out. I woke back up, all of my stuff was gone. I was robbed of everything I had. Kayla was unharmed, which was good. It didn't change what they did to Samantha. I looked around the ghost town, everyone was gone. Even our car was gone. Samantha was missing. I looked for her for weeks, I never found anything. We got the police to lead a whole manhunt, but since I was knocked out, I never saw the men. I couldn't help telling what they looked like.

Now this, people are calling it a zombie apocalypse. It's ridiculous. How stupid are people? One little outbreak of crazy people or whatever, and people think the dead are coming back to life. They aren't dead, people probably just broke out of a mental asylum or something.

There was then pounding on the door, it shook the whole room it was so strong. Kayla screamed and ran behind me. I grabbed a pair of scissors from my desk and waited. After a couple of pounds, the door broke open. There was a crazy person, he was bloody, but he didn't look like a normal person. His veins glowed red, you could see every single vein in his body, The crazy man had bloodshot eyes and pale white skin. He screamed and charged for me, I grabbed him and pushed him onto the ground. I kept pushing Kayla back, I can't let her get hurt. She kept on screaming and crying for her life. The crazy person kept screaming, I didn't even know how they got up here, we were high up in the apartment building. I didn't want to kill this person either, but if I had to, I will.

"Just stop, nobody has to get hurt." I said.

The crazy person couldn't talk or something, it just screamed again and tackled me onto the ground. My pair of scissors flew out of my hand and slid across the room. Kayla was frozen in shock, she kept crying and hiding in the corner. The crazy person grabbed my neck and started choking me.

I grabbed it's hand to try to get it to stop choking me, but it wasn't working. I thought I was about to die, I couldn't breathe and I could swear my face was turning blue. That's when there was a bang, the crazy person's head exploded and blood shot all up across the window, the hand loosened on my neck, and the crazy person fell to the ground and stopped moving. It was dead. I got up, gasping for air. I looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway. He had a gun, I was about to thank him, but then he pointed it at me.

"Who are you?" he asked me.

"Jeff Jones." I answered, my voice was shaking.

"No, I meant are you one of the stranglers?"

"Stranglers? No! I promise." I said.

He smiled, and put the gun in his pocket.

"Alright, you can never be too sure these days, come with me. It's not safe in the city."

I looked over at Kayla, she was shaking, she ran over and grabbed onto my arm. She was scared, and I didn't know if I trusted this guy yet.

"Why would we leave? It's just a small outbreak, I don't think fleeing my home will do anything. This will all be over with in a couple days, weeks at the most." I said.

The man laughed, then said.

"Are you serious? Have you not been watching the news? These people are dead! There is some weird virus going around, it will get you sick, you die, and come back to life as a monster. I don't know much else yet, but the military is even struggling. Ever wonder why they aren't here saving you right now? They can't, this virus has hit hard, everywhere. Cities are not safe, I have a country home. If you want to come. There are people there, ever since this thing hit, I have been gathering survivors up."

"Fine." I agreed, his explanation was very convincing. I decided if I want Kayla to be safe, I might as well listen to what he's saying.

He ran out the door and Kayla and I followed. The hallways were empty, everyone had left. I guess I was the only idiot that decided to stay, maybe this virus was worse than I thought it was.

"Stay close Kayla." I ordered.

She nodded and held my hand so we didn't get separated. We took the stairs down, the elevators would be too risky taking. They could stop, and we could be trapped, or stranglers could be in them. We were on the fifth floor, so we took five flights of stairs down. We walked to the front door, I could finally see the chaos. Crazy people were running wild everywhere, I saw one poor man running for his life. He was tackled onto the ground, and the crazy people all surrounded him, and beat him to death. Choked him, and punched him, and kicked him. Once they were done, they left him. I saw the man again, he was mangled. He was lying on the ground, blood coming out of him everywhere, and limbs bent the wrong ways. I covered Kayla's eyes. I even teared up myself, this was insane.

"My car is not too far from here, it's down a couple blocks. Once I open these doors, you run." he said, the man then handed me a gun.

"Only use that if you absolutely have to."

"I never caught your name." I said.

"Patrick."

He then kicked open the doors and we ran. It felt like everything was going in slow motion, I was running right behind Patrick, Kayla's hand still holding mine. We passed so many dead people, and so many stranglers. I looked behind me and saw about ten stranglers running behind us. Fast.

"They're chasing us!" I yelled to Patrick.

"I know! Keep running!"

I looked behind me again, they were closer this time. These stranglers were a lot faster than me. It was only a matter of time until the caught me, and I ended up like that other man we saw back there. I could see Patrick's car from here, it was only a block or so away. I could see it in the distance. Kayla wasn't fast enough, I scooped her up in my arms and made a run for it. This definitely slowed me down, I looked behind me once more, they were so close I could feel them panting on me. Breathing heavily as they tried to kill me. I braced myself, I was never going to make it to Patrick's car in time. It was over for me. Then when nothing happened, I got confused, I stopped running and looked behind me. They were gone. Then I knew why, I saw another group of people. A family running for their lives, the stranglers had lost interest in me and ran after those poor people. The stranglers tackled all of them to the ground and beat the whole family to death. I wanted to help, but there was no way I could.

"Come on!" Patrick yelled, "Car is right up here!"

I nodded and ran after Patrick, we were almost there. I crossed a few streets, and before we knew it. We were standing by his car. That was extremely close. I really don't know how much longer we are going to survive because of how fast these stranglers are. I opened the back of the car and buckled Kayla up inside of it. I handed him his gun back.

"No," Patrick said, "Keep it, you'll need it."

I got in the passenger seat and Patrick drove. We then sped off, out of town.

"So Jeff is it?" Patrick asked me.

"Yes."

"Don't worry, you're safe now. We have tons of food at my house, before this all started, I had a party. People brought food and now we're loaded on it. I have four other people back at the house."

"A-are there any kids there?" Kayla asked from the back, sniffling.

"No, sorry about that. But, there is this one woman that is really good with kids. I'm sure you'll be great friends with her." Patrick responded.

"Oh, ok."

Kayla was strong, she had been through more than any five year old girl ever should be. More than even a man like me should go through. There was nothing like this, dead people coming back to life, trying to kill everyone.

"So what's your story?" he asked me.

"Nothing really, we were just hiding out in the apartment." I answered.

"No, I meant before this went down."

"Still nothing, we were just normal people, doing normal things."

"But then mom died." Kayla blurted out.

I sighed, and kept looking out the window, hoping Patrick would just let this subject go.

"I'm sorry." Patrick said, "I never had a wife, but I did have a good friend, He was like a brother to me. We hung out all the time. His name was Barry. One day, we went on this fishing trip, now we were younger at this time. So being the stupid teenagers we were, we decided to try going spear fishing since normal fishing is just too boring. We went in the water, but it was really deep. The current was really strong that day, and we were fishing in a very popular lake known for undertows. Barry drowned that day."

"I'm sorry about your loss." I said.

"They never found the body, which is why I will never admit he is dead. If he was dead they would have found his body by now."

Patrick had a similar story to mine, they never found Samantha's body either. I always thought talking about Samantha's disappearance was bad, but I am feeling closer to Patrick already. I feel like I need to tell him everything about Samantha, so I did. I told him that she was kidnapped by these people, never to be seen again. Shortly after, we pulled into Patrick's house. We were finally here after a good one hour car ride. This was good though, at least that's what Patrick said. Being further away from the towns is better. It's harder to catch the virus. I got out of the car and I walked beside Kayla to Patrick's house. He opened the door and we walked in. Patrick walked behind us, there was a long hallway, and I was starting to doubt him. I was about to turn back when I heard laughter. Friendly laughter coming from the kitchen ahead. I walked closer and saw four people, two woman and two men. They were cooking something, it looked like supper. They all saw me and welcomed me. I looked back at Patrick and he smiled, he wasn't a bad guy.

Later that night, we sat down for supper and ate soup and bread. We didn't eat too much becaue Patrick wanted to save as much food as we could, which was a smart idea. If this virus thing goes on a little bit too long, we'll need to be stocked with food. Patrick said the food supply should last us about three weeks. Then we'll have to go find some more if this thing isn't sorted out by then. Which it will be, so I don't think we have to worry. The military can handle it. Everyone introduced themselves to me and Kayla, and we got to know everyone a bit better. A man walked up to me, he looked a bit younger than I was, maybe in his early thirties. I was forty one. He wore a baseball cap, jeans, and another baseball shirt. I could tell he was a sports fan. He had brown, short curly hair. He shook my hand.

"I'm Mark, nice to meet you." he said.

"Jeff, Jeff Jones." I replied.

He then shook Kayla's hand.

"How are you?" he asked her.

Kayla was shy, she nodded, but then ran and hid behind me. Mark chuckled a little bit. Then the next person came to greet me, it was another young woman, around the age of Mark.

"I'm Sabrina." she said.

"This is the one that's good with kids." Patrick added.

Sabrina was very fit, she looked like a jogger. She had a pretty face, like Samantha. She had long brown hair and was wearing jogging pants and a sweatshirt.

"Hi, are you Kayla?" Sabrina asked my daughter.

She nodded.

"Want to be my friend?"

Kayla nodded again, she then sat beside her and they visited, making Kayla feel a lot more at home, I smiled. This world isn't over. The news is wrong.