Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the most gruesome zombie of all?

Just a sampling of something I'm working on. I haven't truly gone over and edited it. Just minor error correction. There could be plot points that don't make sense, blah blah writer talk, writer talk. I got the idea from watching "High School of the Dead." There was one part of the opening that really stuck with me and that was the missing person's flyer that you see for all of a half second. I thought about the aftermath and what the people who were left behind and the loved ones they were searching for. I guess this is the start. Enjoy.

 

Prologue

                I think it was all the missing persons flyers posted over every surface that scared me the most. Not the blood, not the screams, not the panic. Blood and gore were something I could deal with and I was fortuitous enough to be born with the ability to keep my head in any situation, courtesy of panic drills given by my father. I had been raised on a healthy diet of zombie and other miscellaneous horror flicks and literature.

                 But the fact that so many people were missed by those who had survived, who were still trying to survive, left me  speechless and shaking. It was the faces of the missing, not the dead, that had me screaming myself awake at night. The sound of endlessly flapping paper echoing inside my head.

                I was one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived. Most of my family survived, thanks to my overly paranoid father and a well-timed family reunion. Even after everything I had done and seen, I had maintained my humanity, unlike many others. You bear witness to humanity at its worst in times of panic and chaos.

                But I guess it’s understandable that people lose themselves when those that should be dead, don’t stay dead.

Chapter 1

                “Bea? Bea, wake up.”

                I moan angrily and roll over to glare at my older brother.

                “What?” I growl and take pleasure that my brother flinches at my tone.

                “Emergency meeting,” he says, hooking his thumbs in his faded jeans’ belt loops.

                “Seriously?” I ask, sitting up to stare at my wristwatch. “It’s 3:30 in the morning, Tucker!”

                Tuck shrugs.

                “Dad’s orders.”

                “Dammit,” I mutter, moving to haul myself out of bed. “I have watch at five.”

                He grimaces.

                “Me too, but I think it’s important.”

                I studied my brother for a minute. His sandy brown hair, so different from my curly black hair, was messy, dirty, and too long and his hazel-green eyes were bloodshot with bruise colored circles under them. He looked exhausted. But then again, I’m sure we all did.

                “Come on, Bea. Dad’ll be pissed if you don’t move it.”

                “I’m up,” I say, throwing a sweatshirt over the tank top I wore to bed and pulling on a pair of jeans since I had been sleeping in just the tank and my panties. Tucker flushed and looked away.

“Jeez, Beatrice!” he steams. “I’m right here.”

                I give him an exasperated look as I follow him down the hallway.

                “Don’t be so prude,” I snap. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

                “You’re my sister!” he says heatedly, his neck and ears turning red with embarrassment and annoyance. “It’s not the same! You could at least sleep with some shorts on.”

                “Oh, please,” I scoff. “At least I don’t sleep naked.”

                Tuck turns even redder, much to my amusement.

                “That was once! And you shouldn’t have just walked into my room!”

                “Is that why you lock your door now?” I ask with a smirk, antagonizing him to the fullest extent.

                “At least Mama and Dad didn’t walk in on me half-naked, straddling a boy!” he cries, whirling around to face me, anger sparking in his eyes.

                “Asshole!” I snap, pushing hard him into the wall. “You’re a jerk and I hate you!”

                “What is going on?” comes a thundering voice from down the hall.

                “Uh oh.”

                Tuck and I freeze. Crap. A large, muscular man with a crew cut rounds the corner to glare at us, his eyes bright with annoyance.

                “Uh, hey, Dad,” I manage to squeak, subtly reaching for Tuck’s hand. Our father isn’t mean, just intimidating with his size, military haircut, deep, booming voice, and what seems like one hundred pounds of muscle. My brother squeezes my hand gently, like we hadn’t just fought.

                Our father stares us down with stern green eyes, the only part besides stubbornness that I inherited from him. I am almost a carbon copy of my mother.

                “Disagreement, sir,” Tucker says, hands going sweaty against my palms.

                “Now is not the time for petty arguments, Tucker. Save your anger for Them, not each other. You’re not children anymore. You’re 26 and 22, act like it. Do you understand me, Beatrice? Tucker?”

                “Yes, Dad,” we murmur, chastised and sorry for our actions.

                His gaze softens.

                “I know this is hard, guys, and I know you have watch at five, but just bear with me.”

                My brother and I nod. We follow him into the dining room, where the rest of, or at least most of the family is gathered. My mother’s youngest brother, Luis, smirks at my brother and I. He obviously heard Tuck’s and my argument. I glare at him and quickly flip him the middle finger, which, of course, my mother catches. She frowns and shakes her head at me, her short, curly black hair falling into her face. After much negotiating, I settle myself between Tuck and my younger cousin, Annalise, on our faded loveseat and focus my attention on my father.

                “What do you think is going on?” whispers Annalise in my ear, her red hair tickling my cheek.

                I shrug as my father clears his throat. Whatever conversations that had been going on stop immediately.

                “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called an emergency meeting this early,” Dad says, glancing around the room at what was left of our family.

“Dios mio, Mac, it’s almost four in the morning,” Luis grumbles. “You bet we want to know why you woke us up.”

                My mother gives her brother a withering look as she moves to stand next to my father. She looks even more petite standing next to his bulk.

                “Callate,” she says sharply in her slightly accented voice. “You know Francis wouldn’t wake you up for no reason.”

                Luis shuts up, especially after my ancient abuelita smacks him on the head. He sinks down in his chair, sulking at the reprimand. I fought the urge to cackle at his well-deserved battery.

                “And here I thought we were the brats,” I mutter to Tucker, making him snort.

                “The sooner I tell you what I need to tell you, the sooner you can get back to sleep,” my father reminds everyone. “Now, there hasn’t been a breach, but one of Them is hanging around the perimeter. It’s beginning to attract others.”

                A collective shudder ran through the room.

                “Normally, I’d say leave it, it’ll wander away on its own, but for some reason, that’s not the case. The barrier is strong, but if too many pile up, they’ll put too much pressure on the fence and it could collapse in some sections.”

                “So what’s the issue?” I ask, wondering what he’s really skirting around.

                My father hesitates. Well that wasn’t a good sign.

                “It’s someone we know,” he says softly, taking my mother’s hand. His gaze finds mine.

                “It’s someone I know,” I whisper, but loudly enough for everyone to hear. I can see it in the way he looks at me.

                Tucker squeezes my knee gently while Annalise gives me a half hug. The rest of the family stares at me with a mixture of pity and sympathy.

                “We think they were on their way here when they got bitten, and for some reason, continued on to a familiar place,” Dad explains. “It’s unusual, but not unheard of.”

                “Who is it?” I ask, shaking off my cousin and brother’s touch, and stand.

                “Miha, let your father take care of–“ my mother begins, but I cut her off.

                “No. If I know them, I’m finishing it,” I say forcefully. “Now, who is it?”

                Instead of answering my question, my father beckons me forward and places a large hand on my shoulder.

                “I’ll show you,” he says softly, and Tuck stands up.

                “I’m going too,” he snaps at our father, and gives me a look that dares me to argue.

                “Fine,” Dad huffs. “The rest of you are dismissed. Keep an eye out along the fence. We can’t have Them pressing against it, weakening it. If they approach, shoot Them, if you have the shot. Head shots only, don’t waste my bullets. Silencers on. We’ll burn Them later today.

When patrolling, make sure the fence doesn’t have any holes cut in it and keep an eye out for squatters and refugees. They may have been bitten and are in the middle of changing. Take no chances. If you aren’t sure, shoot them.”

With our fearless leader’s final words, everyone disperses, Annalise giving me a worried look. I shake my head at her and she bites her lip, but heads back to the bedroom she shares with her little sister.

My father looks down at me with steady green eyes.

“Go get your pistol,” he says and glances at my brother. “You too, Tucker. Might as well go on watch early.”

Tuck and I move up the stairs, swiftly returning to our rooms to grab the guns our father gave us for our tenth birthdays, respectively. I stroke of .45 caliber pistol lovingly before holstering it at my waist and grabbing an extra box of ammunition.

I had been excited when my father handed me the gun when I turned ten. I was so jealous of Tucker when he had gotten his. Mine was nickel plated and hand etched by my father. Even though it wasn’t the most practical gun to use now, it was the one gun I kept on me at all times.

I rejoin my parents downstairs, a determined look on my face, or at least I hope it was. My brother was already down there, his rifle slung across his back and the shotgun he used for emergencies at his side. His Berretta was already in a shoulder holster, and his Colt pistol on his hip.

“That’s all you’re taking?” Tuck asks, an annoyed look on his face.

I placed a hand over the pistol defensively.

“Unlike you, I don’t keep an armory in my bedroom,” I sneer gracelessly. “My rifle and other handgun are in the closet.”

My brother opens his mouth to reply, but my mother gets there first.

“Aye, dios mio! Don’t you two ever stop? You are driving Papa and me crazy!” she cries.

“Lociento, Mama,” I say, a blush pinking my tan complexion.

“Maria, they’ve been like this since this morning,” Dad grumbles. “I thought I told you two to knock it off?”

“Sorry, sir,” Tucker says, looking down at his feet. “We’re just cranky.”

“Well get uncranky, especially you, Beatrice,” my mother snaps while shoving warm buns into our hands. “You have a job to do.”

“Are you ready to go?” Dad asks, shouldering his own sniper rifle.

“Let’s get it over with,” I grouse after retrieving my other guns. I take a big bite out of my mother’s homemade sausage buns to try and settle my stomach.

Tucker and I follow my father out of the house and down our extremely long driveway, Dad carrying a large flashlight to light the way. We have a fairly large farm with at least fifteen acres of land, all of it surrounded by a ten-foot fence topped with razor wire.

My father, a fairly successful journalist and novelist, was extremely paranoid at times and had the fence installed a few weeks after we had moved in. I think becoming a New York Times best-selling author unexpectedly and suddenly gaining overly obsessed fans had freaked him out a little. Tucker and I also believe that much of his paranoia stems from our grandda. He had been heavily involved in the Irish Republican Army in his early twenties and several attempts had been made on his life before he fled to America. As far as I knew, Grandda slept with a gun under his pillow until the day he died, just in case he was attacked again. But he died alone, liver ravaged by years of alcohol abuse.

Tucker and I were used to Dad’s panic drills because he had been schooling us in them since we could walk. He also taught us to hunt using both guns and bows, to survive in the wilderness, garden, and other life-saving skills. For many years, we thought this was normal until our friends at school had informed us otherwise. They all thought my father was crazy. The two of us are grateful now for everything he taught us because it helped us survive when many of the people who mocked him didn’t.

For once, Dad’s paranoia and years of stockpiling weapons, food, and hundreds of other necessities paid off. After all hell had broken loose, Dad had been beyond calm and prepared as he padlocked the front gate and turned on the electricity (which he had added without telling anyone) to prevent any panicked people from climbing or cutting the fence to get in.

But he did let people into our ‘complex,’ as he sometimes called it, until someone tried to sneak in a family member that had been bitten and infected, which resulted in one of my mother’s cousins being bitten. After my father killed both my mother’s cousin and the infected ‘guest,’ he apologetically escorted anyone who wasn’t family off the property, giving each family a gun and a box of ammo. We don’t keep the electricity constantly running, so we routinely find the fence cut in sections and sometimes find refugees hiding in our woods or one of Them lumbering around our fields and pastures.

Sometimes I think that my father would be completely cracked if it weren’t for my mother, a first generation Columbian-American from Florida and fledgling interior designer. She was the one that kept him the most grounded. She always needed to take care of someone, so she and my father were a perfect match. Plus, they were unbelievably crazy about each other. My abuelo was not happy that my mother wanted to marry an occasionally mentally unstable man. What made it worse was that my father was Irish, not Columbian. Abuelita reminded her husband that her father hadn’t liked him either and that he should trust his daughter. But she also warned my mother how difficult life could be with someone who was highly paranoid at times. My mother hadn’t cared and my parents had been married for almost thirty years.

“Hey, Bea,” Tucker whispered as we continue to tromp down the driveway.

“What?” I ask, startled out of my thoughts, keeping my eyes on the bouncing light that was my father’s flashlight, leading the way.

“Who do you think it is?” he asks and I can hear the uncertainty in his voice. He’s not sure if this is a good question to ask me.

I sigh, somewhat annoyed with my brother’s question.

“I don’t know, Tucker,” I say, slowing my pace to walk next to him. “I know a lot of different people that survived.”

“Well, it had to be someone who really wanted to see you if they risked coming out on a bad day,” Tuck pointed out.

“To be honest, I really don’t want to know who it is.”

“Then why did you tell Mama and Dad that you’d take care of it?” he asks incredulously.

“Because I don’t need to be babied my entire life,” I snap, my grip tightening on my rifle. “Everyone seems to forget that I was out there right after everything happened! I watched friends die!”

Tuck is silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I had forgotten. It seems like we’ve been living like this for years.  I can’t believe it’s been almost two years.”

“Yeah,” I echo quietly, before noticing that the flashlight has stopped bobbing up and down in front of us.

I can hear the gates rattling and shaking as the shell of someone I knew walks repeatedly into the gate, I’m sure plucking at it with withered hands. The loud moans send a shiver down my spine, and I instinctively step closer to Tucker.

I can barely make out my father’s face in the slowly approaching dawn light, but I can tell his expression is serious.

“Beatrice, are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” he asks, tone indicating he heard what I said to my brother.

I’m grateful that the darkness covers my blush of embarrassment. I shouldn’t be so weak.

“If you can’t do this, tell me now and Tucker and I will take care of it.”

“No, I want to do it,” I say, mouth dry and voice low, but determined.

“Okay,” my father says, handing me his handgun, silencer already screwed on. “I’m going to turn on the flood light.”

I hear a click and artificial light illuminates everything. I see It standing at the front gate and my heart breaks. I step closer until I’m only a foot away, staring into the familiar broken face.

“Bea,” Tuck warns.

I ignore him.

“Finn,” I whisper to the creature trying to stick its hands through the chain-link fence to grab me.

The fence’s sharp edges slice into Finn’s puckered flesh and thick, blackish blood oozes out. His white leather motorcycle jacket is splashed with gore and I see the bite mark on his shoulder through the torn cloth, festering and pus-filled. His once beautiful blue eyes are clouded over with death and he makes horrible, rasping moans, desperate to get at me.

“Oh my God, it’s Finn,” I hear my brother say. “Bea, let me do it.”

“No!” I say forcefully, causing the former Finn to struggle against the fence harder, moans cutting through the early morning air.

I raise the gun and place the barrel directly against the thing’s bruised and battered forehead.

“No, I’m doing it.”

I swallow hard as my finger tightens on the gun, Finn reaching for me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and pull the trigger.

Finn’s head snaps back with the force of the blast and the back of his head explodes in a mess of shattered bone, congealed, brackish blood, and dark gray brain matter. His body falls to the ground in a heap, blood slowly leaking onto the driveway pavement. I exhale shakily, wondering how I was going to make it through watch without this weighing heavily on my mind. I jump when I feel Tucker’s hand rest on my shoulder.

“Hey, Bea, are you okay?” he asks, prying Dad’s gun from my death grip, and touching my cheek. “You’re crying.”

“What?” I ask, voice wavering slightly. I put a trembling hand up to my cheek and feel wetness.

“You’re crying,” he repeats.

“Oh,” I say, surprised. I clear my throat and hitch my shoulders, trying to regain my composure. “I’m fine. Let’s go relieve Patti and Andy from watch duty.”

I turn away from the grisly sight at the foot of the gate and start towards the one of guard towers my father built when the world went insane, which is a few hundred yards away. Tucker grabs my arm.

“Don’t you want to talk about this?” he asks, glancing at my father and giving him an imploring look.

My father stays silent and just watches me. I’m assuming he’s making sure I don’t snap. I stare back at him defiantly and wipe away the remnants of my tears. Yanking my arm from Tuck’s grip, I glare at my brother.

“I said I was fine. I just want to go on watch duty and be done with it.”

“Beatrice,” my father says voice low and concerned.

I turn my gaze back to my father’s reluctantly. He’s giving me a calculating look that informs me he’s considering pulling me from watch.

“Don’t,” I say, knowing that he would get my meaning.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

I nod.

“I’ll talk to Aunt Pamela when I get off of watch,” I promise.

He just grunts, and then turns to trudge the long way back up the driveway. Tucker observes me with suspicion. I sneer at him and he makes a face.

“You shouldn’t go on watch after what just happened,” he says, walking me to the guard tower. “You know you shouldn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say brusquely. “It’ll keep me from thinking about it.”

“No it won’t,” Tucker argues. “You know this watch is the most uneventful. You’ll just think about it more.”

“Tuck,” I sigh, holding out an arm to slow him. “I understand that you’re concerned, but this isn’t the first time I’ve had to kill a friend.”

“I understand that,” he says softly. “But Finn was more than a friend. I know you didn’t like to let on that you guys were meeting secretly, but I’m not stupid. Mama and Dad may like to pretend it wasn’t happening, but you guys took huge risks to make something work. Those risks got Finn killed.”

I feel a tear slip down my cheek again, guilt flooding my body. I had gotten Finn killed.

“I know that,” I say thickly, pausing at the base of the ladder on the tower. “But we wanted something that was real. Something we could hold on to. Something that we could say, ‘Hey, we have something real in all of this shit.’ Something that mattered at the end of the day.”

“What about the family? That’s something that matters.”

“I wanted someone to call my own,” I snap. “Something other than a room and a gun. Something other than this broken world. I wanted someone who would love me, despite this craphole life we’re stuck with right now.”

I push away from Tuck and start climbing the ladder.

“I’m done talking about this,” I say with finality and disappear before my brother can say anything more.