Endings &
Beginnings
My name is Lindsey Taylor, and
this is my story. It all started in the bank, I always hated formal settings. I
was in my element laughing with friends, or just sitting with my family. But
waiting in line at a bank? Trying to seem professional? Not my style. And the
people here seemed so different than people outside. Is that weird? The
customer service people were friendly enough, but wore that all-to-familiar
expression of fake interest and stress. The customers didn’t acknowledge each
other’s existence. There was a tense atmosphere, judging anyone that held the
line up or took too long at the counter. “Stress” and “Tense” are sort of the
key words for this story.
Finally I got to the counter, and
the bored man behind the glass called someone down from upstairs to help me, we
went up to his office on the second floor. There were a few small offices up
here, but only a few were for customers, we passed one and I saw a woman
sitting back in her chair with her feet on the desk. Judging from the combat
boots and leather jacket I doubted she was the banker. We made eye contact. I
jumped forward slightly, almost bumping into the man I was following, something
about her stare unsettled me. Not like she was judging me, more like she
already had a long time ago. And she was unimpressed. She was, in a word,
intense. I don’t like being judged, or studied, or even talked about, I guess
that’s why professional settings like this make me uncomfortable. Too many
opportunities to mess up and embarrass myself. We sat and got to business on
the boring bank stuff. He was nice and did most of the talking, so that made me
calm down a bit. But I was still sitting like a rock in my chair. Not making
any movement as if it would show what a bundle of nerves and neuroses I was.
A man burst into the room,
sweating profusely through his suit, making us both jump. He told us what we’d
heard on the radio: that people were, changing. That anyone who’d had the
recent flu vaccine would eventually become a zombie. I’d seen a few people
getting sick, even some I knew, but hadn’t really taken note of it. Nor did I
see it as the start of the apocalypse. Zombies. Crazy right? I wouldn’t have
believed him except for how panicked he looked, and by the noises that were
coming from outside. Screams crashes, cars honking. In a word: chaos. I
panicked, I reached for my phone to call my parents, but they weren’t
answering, neither was anyone else I called. I needed to get out of here, I
needed to find them. The man who had filled us in had long left, and the banker
that was helping me was also calling the people he cared about. With the same
result. I got up to leave, but was stopped by the woman I’d seen before. She
rushed into the room and closed the door, I tried to push past her but she
pushed me against the wall with her hand over my mouth.
Everything moved so quickly.
There were dead on the lower floors, trapping us up here. Eventually the sounds
of chaos outside quietened, but we could still hear the groans of the dead, as
well as the occasional scream or crash. The woman remained calm through it all.
She said her name was Jacobs, now that I had met her she didn’t make me feel so
uncomfortable, she had an air of confidence when she spoke that made me admire
her, and trust her. After two days of rationing we had eaten all the food on
this floor, we had been lucky that we had access to that much. Jacobs spent all
of her time staring out the window, assessing, figuring out what we should do
next. But the banker, Ian, was getting impatient, and hungry.
On the third day he made a break
for the stairs. He ran past us and pulled open the door, alerting the two
zombies that were waiting near the stairs. I ran to pull him back but he pushed
me away and I fell against the wall. He only made it halfway down when he saw
that the dead had grown in number, and after a few days of hunting and feasting
they were a horrifying sight. He scrambled back up, falling in the process. He
had almost made it back when one of the dead caught his leg. But I had caught
his hand. I was struggling to pull him back, but they were too strong, others
had reached him and bit into his leg, causing him to scream out. “Please!” he pleaded,
“don’t let go!”
“I won’t!” I yelled back, but I
was starting to be pulled into the stairwell, and the dead had started to
notice me too.
Suddenly a broken chair leg came
crashing down on Ian’s arm, he yelped and let go, and I fell back into the room
as the door swung closed. Jacobs. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled,
climbing to my feet
“Me? What’s wrong with you?” She
replied angrily, “you were about to risk your life, and mine, for a man who was already infected! Are you really so
stupid?”
“No, I guess I’m just human,” I
retorted venomously. I moved away, not wanting to hear the sounds that were
coming from the ground floor. The respect and trust I had found in her was
broken and replaced with betrayal and fear. If she truly cared so little for
others how could I ever trust her again?
Another day went by, and things
were starting to get desperate, no food, no real protection from the dead
pounding at the door, and no comfort. I had stayed away from Jacobs, only
vaguely aware of her constant post at the window. But as midday came on our
fourth day here she came and sat down next to me. “I won’t say I’m sorry,” she
began, but her tone wasn’t harsh, or even commanding like it was before, “you
have to understand that everything has changed now. We can’t be the same people
we were before”
“So what, we can’t be human, we
can’t care about other people?” I asked, part of what I said was genuine, but
another part just wanted to hurt her
“No, but we have to be prepared
to sacrifice our ethics, to break our moral code if we have any hope of
surviving,” she turned to me and I saw in her eyes all of the emotion that I
hadn’t before, “that guy will not be the last person that we will lose, but we
have to be ready to let them go. Even people we care about”
“I find it hard to believe you
care about anybody”
“I care about you.”
I stared at her, lost for words,
I didn’t understand. She swallowed and got up, her eyes hardening again after a
moment of weakness. “I have a way to escape,” she said, her commanding tone returning.
And despite my previous concerns I felt a bit of trust in her. And something
else too, although I wouldn’t admit it until later. “But I need your help.”
Just before sunset we were ready. I threw a desk chair through a window on the
east side. Immediately after she threw one through a window on the west side,
followed by another, then I joined her and together we threw heavier objects. A
desk, the fridge, a table. After a few minutes we could see that it was
working, the dead were flocking to the commotion on the west side, and had
completely forgotten about the east side. Using curtains tied into rope we made
it to the ground, and quietly we walked away.
There was a small convenience
store nearby where we stocked up, using make-shift bags made out of our jackets.
Plastic bags wouldn’t help with stealth. We couldn’t be professional entirely
though, after two days of starving we could help but dig in to a few tempting
bags of chips, and some bread, and some chocolate. And god knows what else. But
this made us sloppy, and as Jacobs checked out what was behind the counter I
went to the toilet, and walked straight into one of the dead. In panic I fell
back, knocking over a stand and screaming in the process. The dead was on top
of me in moments, and I used every last bit of strength I had to stop it. This
was it, it had to be, I didn’t have the strength to push it off, at least
without letting it bite me first. And deep down I knew that Jacobs had left the
store, left me behind. She had all but told me she would. It was weird but in
those moments, when the horrifying corpse was attacking me, all I could think
about were the past four days.
I heard a gunshot, and the dead
corpse was thrown to the side, and I was intact. It was Jacobs, and although
the hand holding the gun was straight and stable, her face was a wreck. I
climbed up and ran to her, and she dropped the gun and grabbed me, holding me
close. I pulled back, “I thought you were going to leave me,” I almost cried
“I-I,” she stuttered, I’d never
heard her voice even waiver before, “I couldn’t,” she looked at the gun before
putting it on a shelf, “I found it behind the counter, and then I heard you,
and-and I”
I couldn’t control myself, I
kissed her. And it was… fantastic. It might have been spurred on from the
adrenaline but I knew I’d wanted to for a long time. After some indescribably
long moments she pulled away slightly and smiled, “we need to get you some
boots Lindsey”
I laughed, “was that a lesbian
joke, Jacobs?”
She laughed back, “no, I just
don’t think those heels have served you very well. And call me Allison.”
The next few days were surprisingly
peaceful, and almost… pleasant. Nothing seemed to phase us as long as we were
together. I was seeing new sides of her every day, she was so much more than
the scary woman I had seen in the bank. And from the way she looked at me I
could tell that I was so much more than the insecure girl I thought I was. I
had found through her that I could be strong. And even happy, despite the state
of things. At first Allison had brought me trust, then fear, and now strength.
But above all, love.
We were picked up after a week by
two huge trucks, their trailers full of survivors. They had survived this long,
but they weren’t very organised, nor did they have any plan or leadership. Allison
soon found herself their leader. Two weeks later there were five trucks, and
several smaller vehicles. And I had found myself on a scouting team. Allison
hadn’t liked that, but she respected the person I had grown into, and while she
was my leader, and my girlfriend, I wouldn’t be a burden anymore. On anyone. The
outbreak might have been the end of the world, but for me it was just the
beginning, for my new identity, my new life. And for me and Allison.
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