Your truck is surrounded by an army of zombies. Hundreds of them. You sit there wondering if this is finally it.
Before you can even react, Claire slams the gas. You brace yourself for impact. But here's the thing.
The most dangerous part of your first day in the zombie apocalypse hasn't even started yet. Let's go back and see how you got here. You're on your way to work.
You're half awake. Coffee in the cup holder. same route you've driven a thousand times.
Then an ambulance blows through a red light, then a second one, then a third. All heading the same direction. A car is flipped on the road.
There's no cops anywhere, no fire trucks, just the car sitting upside down. You keep driving. You shouldn't have kept driving.
You get to your job. Half the parking lot is empty. The cars that are here are parked crooked, pulled in fast, doors not fully shut.
The people inside look scared. Nobody's working. Everyone's on their phone and half the calls aren't connecting.
Your boss locks the front doors and tells everyone to sit tight. Says it's a chemical spill. Says the authorities have it handled.
He's lying. You can tell because his hands are shaking and he won't look anyone in the eye. Then the power cuts.
Emergency lights kick on. Someone in the back office starts coughing. Wet, violent coughing.
Your coworker goes to check on them. You hear a scream. Then nothing.
Then footsteps that sound wrong. Your boss says, "Nobody opened that door. " But someone opens the door.
Three of you make it out a side exit. You, a woman named Claire who grabbed a fire extinguisher and a guy named Marcus who's wounded on his arm. He says it's from broken glass.
You want to believe him. Clare has a truck. You get in.
She drives away from downtown. The highway is already gridlocked. A minivan is sitting in the middle lane with both airbags deployed and nobody inside.
Clare swerves off onto a back road. You pass a neighborhood, front doors wide open, sprinklers still running on a perfect lawn, and in the middle of the culde-sac, a woman on her knees over a body eating. She looks up at the truck, hungry, like she recognizes what you are.
Marcus throws up. You notice his arm is turning gray. You stop at a store to grab supplies.
Claire goes inside. You stay with Marcus. He's just sitting there quiet for the first time since the coffee.
Then he tells you the truth. It wasn't glass. Someone bit him.
One of the zombies from the back office latched onto his arm before he could get to the exit. He thought it would be fine. Thought maybe it was just a person losing their mind.
Not a thing, not a disease. He's crying, asking you not to tell Claire. Says he feels okay.
He doesn't look okay. His veins are darkening under his skin. The bite mark is swelling in the skin around it has gone a grayish purple that doesn't belong on a living person.
You now have a decision and zero good options. She sees his arm. She doesn't scream.
She raises the fire extinguisher and says, "Get out of my truck. " Marcus begs. You're standing between them.
Marcus lunges at Clare. Not in a zombie way, just desperate, panicking, a human. They struggle.
You grab him and throw him off. He hits the gravel hard, looks up at you with tears streaming down his face. I have a kid, man.
I have a kid. Claire gets in the truck and starts the engine. You have about 5 seconds to decide if you leave Marcus on the side of the road or not.
You get in the truck. Marcus is screaming your name as you pull away. That sound doesn't leave your head for the rest of the day.
Claire's been driving with purpose this whole time. She wasn't wandering. She has a destination.
a survivalist compound her ex-boyfriend built in the hills. Solar power, wellwater, fenced perimeter, six months of food storage. One problem, she hasn't spoken to him in 2 years, and the breakup was bad.
But there's a worse problem. She says he's the kind of guy who prepared for this, which means he's also the kind of guy who might not open the gate. You pull up to a property surrounded by a 10-ft fence with razor wire, cameras on the posts, a generator humming.
A man steps out onto the porch with a baseball bat, calm, not scared at all. He's been waiting for this day his entire life, and he looks almost happy about it. His name is Dale.
He looks at Clare, then looks at you, then looks at the truck. Claire, you always said I was crazy. He asks you both to step out of the truck.
He wants you to show him your arms and legs. He inspects you both from the other side of the fence, carefully, making sure neither of you have gotten bitten or scratched. That's when he sees it.
A scratch from your cat on your left arm. You notice as soon as he sees it and start trying to explain, but it's no good. He opens the gate for Claire.
Then he makes a deal with you. You're sitting outside that fence for the next 15 minutes. If the scratch doesn't change colors, he'll let you in.
Of course, Clare promising him that you were telling the truth certainly helped. His eyes don't leave you for the entire 15 minutes. Finally, he opens the gate once again.
But the way he looks at you makes it clear. This is for Claire, not you. This place is stocked.
Canned goods, floor to ceiling, rain barrels, a medical station, a radio picking up chatter from other survivors, and even a greenhouse. Dale gives you the tour like a real estate agent, proud of every detail. He built this over 8 years.
He's been ready. He says the words, "I told everyone" about four times in 10 minutes. Two other people are already here.
A woman named Sasha, Dale's current girlfriend, and a quiet older man named Paul, who Dale says showed up this morning with a bag of medical supplies and earned his spot. Dale is generous with supplies, but everything has a condition. He runs this place.
Sasha watches Clare like a hawk. Clare doesn't notice or pretends not to. Dale keeps finding excuses to talk to Clare alone.
You catch him touching her arm while explaining the water filtration system. Clare pulls away. Sasha sees the whole thing.
You've survived zombies, a highway, and a dying man. And now the most dangerous thing in your life is a love triangle. You're listening to the radio, mostly static and panic, but one signal is clear.
A man claiming to be military says there's an evacuation point 40 m south. Helicopters, safe zone, and it's governmentr run. You bring it to the group.
Dale shuts it down immediately. Says it's a trap. Says the government caused this.
Sasha sides with Dale. Paul says nothing. You notice Paul hasn't actually given an opinion on anything all day.
Dale announces the rules. No one leaves without group consensus. Anyone bitten gets put outside the fence.
No exceptions, no votes, no discussion. Clare argues. Dale cuts her off.
You came to my house. You eat my food. You follow my rule.
Sasha pulls you aside while Dale is doing a perimeter check. She's been quiet all day, but the look on her face says she's been hiding something for hours, and it's about to come out. She tells you something that changes everything.
Dale's been talking to the evacuation point on the radio since before you even arrived. He knows it's real. Military, the helicopters, 40 m south.
He confirmed it himself this morning. He asked for coordinates. He got them and wrote them down on a notepad he keeps in the radio room.
He told the group it was a trap because if everyone leaves, he's alone. The compound he spent 8 years building becomes meaningless. Every dollar he spent instead of saving.
Every relationship he burned because they called him paranoid. Every weekend he poured concrete and stacked cans instead of living a normal life. all for a bunker that nobody needs.
Dale isn't keeping people here because he thinks it's safer. He's keeping people here because without an audience, he built all of this for nothing. Claire tells you she's leaving for the evacuation point at sundown with or without you.
She says Dale is more dangerous than anything outside the fence. Paul overhears. He walks up and says, "I know where he put your truck keys.
" Sasha says she'll distract Dale at dinner. Keep him talking. Keep his back to the door.
You have four people and one plant, and you have 3 hours to pull it off. Dale cooked dinner. Canned chili, rice, and hot sauce.
He's talking about long-term plans, crops, patrol shifts, building something real. Sasha laughs at his jokes and keeps refilling his cup. You excuse yourself for the bathroom.
The keys are under Dale's bed in a lock box. The combination is his birthday. Sasha gave you that.
You grab the truck keys and a flashlight. You take slow steps back through the hallway. Then the front door slams.
He's standing in the yard. Baseball bat in his hands wrapped in razor wire. Homemade.
The kind of thing a man builds when he's been fantasizing about the end of the world for eight years. He's not yelling. He's looking at you, then Claire, then Sasha.
The Sasha part breaks something in his face. You, too. He puts himself between you and the truck.
He taps the bat against his palm. Says, "Nobody is leaving. He'll slash the tires.
Smash the engine block. He built this place and he's not watching it become meaningless. Claire steps forward.
Dale, you built a bunker, not a prison. You can tell he's not going to change his mind, so you take the opportunity. While he's focused on Clare, you spring forward and tackle him.
The bat flies from his hands. Dale pushes you off of him, and now you're facing each other. After a moment of intense staring, you both charge and the fight is on.
It's over. Dale is still alive, but he knows it's over. Everyone does.
You take the gate opener from his pocket and press the button. The gate opens, and you throw the opener back at him. You, Claire, Sasha, and Paul, one truck 40 miles south to an evacuation point.
Nobody talks for the first mile. The compound shrinks in the rear view mirror. Dale is closing the gate.
Alone in a compound built for 12. 8 years of preparation, and the only thing he wasn't ready for was people choosing to leave. Claire drives.
There's no signs of life in any direction. Then Paul taps your shoulder from the back seat and points right. A field open farmland and crossing it a herd of zombies.
Hundreds of them. You can hear them from inside the truck with the windows up. Claire doesn't speed up.
She doesn't slow down. She just keeps the truck steady and quiet and prays the road doesn't curve toward the field. It curves toward the field.
The road bends right directly toward the herd. Clare kills the engine and the lights. If you can stay quiet enough, maybe the herd will just pass.
One of them stops walking, turns its head toward the road. Then a second one does. You're sitting there with no engine and no headlights and four people basically holding their breath.
A straggler zombie steps onto the road ahead. Just one, but it starts walking towards the car. Clare turns the car on, slams her foot on the gas, and drills the zombie.
There was no other choice. The thud is loud. 30 zombie heads turn.
Clare keeps her foot on the gas. They don't run fast, but they don't need to. For one, they're all around you.
Some are in the road behind. Some are in the road ahead. Secondly, the road is crumbling.
Potholes, debris, an overturned semi blocking half the lane. Clare is swerving at 50 mph in the dark. The semi-truck isn't empty.
Its cargo doors are open and things are crawling out of it. Claire cuts left across a ditch through someone's yard. She takes out a mailbox, hits a back road, and guns it south.
The rear view goes dark. You lost them for now. Spray painted on a highway overpass.
It says evac 5 miles. It's real. Military trucks parked in rows.
Flood lights turning the whole area white as daylight. A fenced perimeter with actual soldiers holding actual weapons. People in lines.
Civilians. Families. A few cops still in uniform.
A medication with stretchers. Helicopters warming up on a field behind the main camp. The rotors are already spinning.
For the first time all day, you see something that looks like it's working. A soldier approaches your truck with a flashlight, checks you one at a time, arms, neck, legs, looking for bites. You all pass.
You all board a helicopter. Clare sits across from you. Paul is in the corner writing names on a scrap of paper.
his partner, his patients, people he wants someone to remember if he doesn't make it far enough to remember them himself. The helicopter lifts off. From up here, the fires look small.
Orange dots scattered across black. The dark patches where cities used to glow look like holes punched in a map. And the herds, you can see them now for what they really are.
Thousands of zombies moving across open land this morning. You had a commute, a parking spot, a boss who lied about a chemical spill. Now you have nothing except the fact that you're still breathing and there's people you left behind who aren't.
You survived day one. Now you just have to do it again and again and again for the rest of your life.
