Hannah
It’s a quarter to nine and so much has happened in the last hour.

The little girl who had been brought in by her mother, the little girl who had bitten her mother in the ambulance… she had only gotten worse after she had been sedated and cuffed to the hospital bed. Her name is Rachel Miller and she’s only six years old. Her mother phoned an ambulance when she found her daughter on the floor of her own bedroom, unable to move the lower half of her body, crying that she couldn’t feel any part of her body, and once they were in the ambulance they discovered that she also had a very slow heart rate.

The little girl is in a coma while her mother cries by her bedside. Nobody has yet figured out what’s wrong with her… what virus she seemed to have contracted that did this to her, but they’re still running tests on her to find out.

According to Mrs Miller, Rachel had been ill from 8am this morning and had been unable to attend school today. By 1pm she had a fever of 102 but had chills, she couldn’t remember a thing that had happened that day, she vomited and complained of sore joints so Mrs Miller had given her enough painkillers to put her to sleep for a little while because she needed rest and after that she found her on the floor, unable to stand or move her legs at all.

I’d fixed up Mrs Miller’s wound that she received in the ambulance and given her a painkiller but it didn’t seem to be doing anything, she was in pain and her whole forearm was discoloured around the wound, but the wound seemed to be clotting enough to stop her from bleeding out.

I had enough time to take a break before going back up onto the ward to check on Jimmy.

I made my way into the break room and found it void of any other people, so I slowly closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it and let out a long, shaky sigh and closed my eyes. I was feeling the complete opposite of relief and I needed to keep myself together and a quick fifteen minute break was sure to do the trick.

I crossed the room and poured myself a cup of coffee and brought the cup to my lips and took a sip, pleasantly surprised to find that the coffee was fresh. I walked over to one of the little couches in the corner, grabbing my phone from my bag on my way over. I unlocked my phone and found a random-as-always text from Erin and one from Jamie telling me that we were out of his favourite soda and asking me to pick some up on my way home. I smiled, shook my head and hit the ‘Call’ button next to his name and held my phone to my ear and took another drink of coffee.

“Hey,” Jamie answered the phone after a few rings.

“Hey, Kiddo,” I smiled into the phone “How’s the horror movie marathon going?” I asked.

“Four movies in,” He told me proudly.

“How many times have you jumped and how many times did you hide between the couch cushions?”

“… I haven’t been keeping count,” He admitted hesitantly and I gasped loudly “No, no, no,” He whined.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I laughed “You know what happens when we fail to keep count, we have to watch the movies all over again!”

“No-o-o,” He whined while still laughing.

Ever since I introduced Jamie to the wonderful world of horror movies, we’ve been keeping
score of how many times we jump and/or hide away, and we count it up for the whole month and whoever has the lowest number for each option wins and the loser has to cook them a dinner of their choice.

“Yes!” I laughed “What movie are you onto now, anyway?” I asked.

“Cabin In The Woods,” He answered.

“Boo,” I groaned “That movie isn’t even scary,”

“Not for you, you’ve seen it a thousand times,” He laughed.

“Exactly,” I chuckled “I watch it as a casual movie because it’s so not scary,”

“Whatever, I’m a kid, leave me alone,”

“So, you’re alright?” I asked, finally turning into concerned older sister.

“I’m fine,” He told me confidently “And if I’m not fine, I’ll call Erin – or the hospital if it’s serious
and I need you to come home right away,”

“Good boy,” I cooed patronizingly “Alright, go back to your boring movie,”

“Go back to work,”

“I’m going,”

“Me too,”

“I love you,”

I smiled gently and closed my eyes.

“… I love you too, Kiddo,”

“Bye,”

“Bye,”

I ended the call and placed my phone down on the little table in front of me and took a long drink
of my coffee. The peaceful silence in the break room was horribly interrupted by my pager beeping loudly. I tugged it off of my waistband and looked at it, immediately jumping into action when I saw the code for Sudden Cardiopulmonary Arrest and the number of Rachel Miller’s hospital room on the screen.

The one thing they told me when I was being trained in nursing about cardiac arrest that applies to every single patient; we have six minutes to save their life and the longer we take to get to them the less time we have to actually save them.

That’s what was running through my head as I sprinted down corridors and climbed staircases two steps at a time. The longer I took to get to this little girl, the less time I would have to save her.
~~~~
Erin
Friday night is date night, and this week’s date night just so happens to have fallen on
Halloween.

Kevin and I were curled up on the sofa together with our dog, Jackson, lying next to us being protective as ever. We had already eaten takeout Chinese food and watched Halloween and
Friday The 13th and Kevin had just put on The Conjuring. Things were just starting to get interesting when Jackson stood up from where he had been lying and padded across the living room, into the kitchen and over to the back patio doors and started to growl. When he growled, Kevin and I looked over our shoulders at him and noticed that he was looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“I think he needs to go outside,” Kevin said with a yawn.

“I got it,” I sighed, pushing myself off of the sofa before walking over to the dog and opening the back door for him, but he didn’t move, he just stared out into the yard “Go on Jack, go do what you gotta do,” I spoke to the dog.

He didn’t move, so with a sigh I closed the door back over and walked across the kitchen to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water and leaned against the counter while taking a drink and watched the dog. I always get a little on edge when he does something like this because of the whole ‘always trust your dog’ thing, so I decided just to watch him for a few minutes.

Suddenly, he started barking loudly, making me jump and rush over to him to see what he was barking at. It was dark out so I couldn’t see exactly, but there seemed to be a person standing in our back yard. I reached over and turned on the porch light and the whole yard lit up and I could see clearly that there definitely was someone standing in our back yard, our neighbour,
Frank Williams. He wasn’t doing anything; he wasn’t moving… he was just standing there staring at the house with his head cocked to the side.

Slowly, I slid the door open and stepped outside.

“Frank?!” I called out “Frank, are you alright?”

His body twitched and jerked around for a moment before he dropped his head back, looked up at the sky and let out the most horrifying, almost animalistic scream I have ever heard and charged at the house at an inhumane speed and I was frozen in place. When he was about halfway to the house I felt myself being pulled backwards by the hem of my t-shirt and shoved away from the door.

“Get to the basement!” Kevin yelled at me. I didn’t question what he was telling me, I just grabbed Jackson by his collar and pulled him with me into the hall, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Frank tackle Kevin onto the floor. I opened the basement door under the stairs and clambered down the stairs and huddled myself up in the furthest corner of the basement, somewhat hiding myself in the shadows in case Frank came down here looking for me if he'd hurt Kevin. Jackson was growling and standing at full alert, ready to charge at any threat that might come down into the basement for us, but I was trying to keep him quiet while I listened to the commotion coming from the kitchen above us.

After a few minutes everything fell silent, and I heard slightly staggered footsteps on the floor right outside the basement door, then the door opened and the basement lit up slightly from the light in the hallway before the whole room lit up when the light was flicked on.

“Erin?” Kevin asked “E, are you down here?”

“I’m here,” I announced with a sigh of relief, finally coming out from the shadows and standing at the bottom of the stairs. I watched as Kevin locked the basement door behind him and stumbled down the stairs “What happened?” I asked.

“The bastard bit me,” He winced, tugging down the neckline of his t-shirt to show me his shoulder where there was a nasty bite “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him, but I think he might be sick,”

“Should we phone an ambulance?” I asked, leaning in a bit closer to get a better look at Kevin’s wound.

“Do you have your cell phone on you?” He asked.

“No,” I sighed “It’s in the living room,”

“Well I knocked him unconscious,” He started “He’s still in the kitchen, I’ll go back up and-“

“No,” I cut him off “I’ll go up there, I’ll get my phone and the first aid kit so that we can clean you up while we’re down here and I’ll be back in a minute, alright?”

“Alright,” He sighed “But be careful, okay? He’s dangerous,”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised, walking around him and starting up the stairs “I’ll be right back,”

I climbed the stairs and let myself back out of the basement and into the hallway. I stood perfectly still and held my breath for a moment and listened to the silence that filled the house. I tried to look into the kitchen, but when I saw Frank’s feet around the wall from where he was still lying on the floor, I hurried in the opposite direction down the hall and into the living room through the other archway by the front door and hurriedly grabbed my cell phone. I needed the first aid kit, but there was no way that I was going into the kitchen for the one that we keep in there, so I was going to have to go for the one in the bathroom up the stairs.

I rushed up the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could and darted down the hallway to the bathroom where I’d made sure to stash a first aid kit. I opened the mirrored medicine cabinet and moved aside all of the pill bottles and tubes of creams that I’d placed in front of it and grabbed it before closing the cabinet again.

“Found you,” I smirked at the little green box in my hand.

I turned to leave the room and froze when I heard some sort of groan from the kitchen. Shit. Was Frank awake again?

I stayed still and listened as closely as I could, trying to work out what he was doing and it sounded like he was just sort of… stumbling around the kitchen. If he was still in the kitchen then I could most likely make it back into the basement without him spotting me and potentially killing me before I could get to safety and call the cops.

I left the bathroom and walked back across the landing, silently praising myself for wearing socks that were luckily silencing my steps that I took. Once I reached the top of the stairs, I gripped the first aid kit tighter in my hand and made sure that my phone was securely in my pocket before I made my decent. Halfway down the stairs I leaned over the railing a little so that
I could look down the hallway and make sure that it was clear for me to make a quick dash to the basement door again, and luckily for me Frank hadn’t yet made his way out into the hall and it sounded to me like he was still in the kitchen but I couldn’t see him.

“You can do this,” I whispered to myself “Your life is not in danger, your neighbour did not bite your fiancé, you’re going to be fine…”

I took one last deep breath and hurried down the last few stairs and slid around the railing and started sprinting down the hall, but again, I froze, when Frank stumbled into the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway. Great. I’m stuck at one end of the hallway, Frank is standing at the other and the door to the basement is halfway between the two of us.

Something didn’t look right about him… he really did look sick.

Slowly, I reached to my left, to the coatrack and grabbed an umbrella from the basket next to it and prepared myself to use it as a weapon if I needed to. Again, just like when he was out in the backyard, Frank threw his head backwards and let out a horrifying scream and I took that as my opportunity to run, but the second after I started running down the hallway, he did too. I reached the door before he did and threw it open so that it hit him and threw him off balance for a second so that I could get through it, but the second I was through the door, I felt Frank grab the back of my t-shirt and pull me backward.

I turned around with the umbrella in both hands and used it to block him by pushing it against his neck, and tried to push him away from me, but he was just snapping at me like he was trying to bite me.

“Kevin!” I yelled out “Kevin, help me!”

Kevin came charging up the basement stairs as fast as he could and kicked Frank right in the stomach with such force that he was sent flying backwards across the hall and into the wall opposite the basement door. He was like a rag doll and it felt like everything had gone into slow motion as he smacked against the wall, hit the back of his head and… exploded everywhere.
Before I had the chance to process what had just happened, Kevin pulled me back down the basement stairs and over to our old sofa that had been set up in a little seating area on the left hand side of the basement.

“What the fuck just happened?” I asked, completely panicked and freaked out “His… h-his fucking head just exploded all over our wall!”

“I don’t know what happened, E…” He muttered, leaning down the back of the old TV that he had set up down here “But this is killing me, there’d better be painkillers in that box,” He chuckled, obviously trying to keep things light as he came back up from behind the TV.

“Here,” I handed him the first aid kit “Make a start on cleaning yourself up while I call 911,”

“I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket and unlocked it. I saw that Hannah had replied to my
text and Jamie had even dropped me one wishing me a happy Halloween, but I ignored the texts and dialled ‘911’ before bringing the phone up to my ear.

I was met by an annoying beeping through the phone telling me that all of the lines were busy.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned, hitting the ‘call’ button again but the phone just continued to beep loudly.

“Give me a hand with this first, and then try again,” Kevin grunted.

He had completely removed his blood stained shirt so that I could get to the wound easier, and I felt sick to my stomach at the sight of it. All around the bite mark was a horrible colour that was totally not normal and the blood was already clotting and just dripping out every second tooth mark in tiny little droplets.

“This doesn’t look right,” I sighed as I began cleaning it “Why the fuck did he bite you?”

“Beats me,”
~~~~
I got Kevin all cleaned up and tried calling 911 for another thirty minutes but there was no way that I was going to be getting through to anyone, but now I didn’t just need the cops, I needed an ambulance for Kevin because something was really, really wrong with him.

“Screw it,” I muttered, dialling the number for the emergency room.

“Travis County Hospital; Emergency Room, how can I help you?”
I immediately recognized the voice as Hannah. She sounded stressed and out of breath.

“Hannah?” I asked.

“Erin?” She asked back with a chuckle, but then she fell silent for a moment “Why are you calling…?” She asked hesitantly, almost like she didn’t want to know.

“I can’t get through to the emergency services, but I really need the cops and an ambulance,” I told her.

“Why?” She asked “What happened?”

“Frank, our neighbour, he was sick-“ my breath hitched involuntarily in my throat “He came into the house and he – he bit Kevin and then he tried to attack me, but Kevin kicked him off of me and he hit the wall and his freaking head exploded all over the hallway and we’ve locked ourselves in the basement but Kevin isn’t holding up so well,”

“Shit,” She cursed under her breath “Can you list all of his symptoms?” She asked.

“Symptoms?” I asked, confused “Symptoms for what?”

“We don’t know yet,” She told me honestly “We have doctors working on it, but it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but we have a list of symptoms, so if you tell me what’s wrong with Kevin I’ll be able to tell you what you have to do,”

“Well he was bitten on the shoulder and he says that he’s in a lot of pain, his wound is a really disgusting colour and it’s already starting to clot and he’s starting to get warm, he’s sweating but it’s absolutely freezing down here,”

“Get out,” She said without missing a beat.

“What?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

“Get out of the basement and get away from Kevin, leave him down there and lock the door behind you,”

“If you think I’m going to leave him when he needs me then you’re absolutely crazy,” I told her.

“I know that you don’t want to leave him,” She sighed “But if you want to live then you have to stay away from him and get the hell out of there!”

“If this is some sort of horrible prank, it isn’t funny,” I informed her.

“It’s not a prank,” She insisted “Put me on speakerphone so that I can speak to you both,”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on loudspeaker.

“Alright, you’re on,” I told her.

“I have to make this quick,” She started “But a few hours ago we had a little girl come into the emergency room, the paramedics were wheeling her through and she was strapped down to the gurney because she wouldn’t stop thrashing around, and her mother was following behind her, but she was bleeding…” She took a breath “I managed to pull the mother away for a few minutes so that I could fix her up, and it turns out that her daughter had bitten her arm in the ambulance when she started lashing out all of a sudden,”

“Where are you going with this?” Kevin asked.

“The little girl was sick, she was sick this morning and couldn’t go to school, and every few hours she got worse and eventually she lost the use of her legs and that’s when her mother called for an ambulance,” She said “After she was admitted to the ward she slipped into a coma, and then she went into cardiac arrest and… there was nothing we could do for her – we lost her,”

“Shit,” I sighed, knowing that Hannah isn’t so good with dealing with death at work.

“It didn’t end there,” She added “The mother is starting to show symptoms of whatever it was that her daughter had…”
~~~~
Hannah
“So you’re saying that Frank had whatever that little girl had, and because he bit me I’m going to get it, too?” Kevin asked me through the phone.

“I don’t know for sure,” I sighed, rubbing my free hand over my face “But the whole emergency room is filling up with sick people who all seem to be at different stages of this virus and they’ve all either contracted it or they were bitten by someone that they know,”

“Should I bring Kevin in?” Erin asked.

“No,” I told her “I told you what to do already, bringing him in here isn’t going to make any difference,”

“What did you tell her to do?” Kevin asked.

“She needs to get out of the basement and lock you in it,” I answered.

“Why?” He asked.

“Because if you have this virus then the chances are that you’re going to bite Erin and give it to
her when you start to lose it… if she locks you in the basement then she saves herself and if you don’t have the virus we can keep you in there until someone who knows what they’re doing can come down and get you,”

There was a moment of silence.

“Erin, get out of here,” Kevin said sadly.

“No!” She yelled at him “There is no way I’m leaving you down here,”

“I have to make sure that you’re going to be okay,” He sighed “If I don’t have the virus then I’ll see you real soon, but if I do you can’t be around me,”

I was listening to them when my pager started going off, but it wasn’t something I had seen before, it was an emergency down in the morgue…

“You guys, I have to go,” I said quickly into the phone “Erin, get the fuck out of there, I’ll call you back soon,”

I hung up the phone and dialled the number for the morgue and waited a moment while it rang, waiting for someone down there to pick up the phone.

“Hello?” Someone asked hurriedly, panic in their voice, and I could hear loud screaming in the background.

“You paged me?” I asked “What the hell is going on down there?”

“They’re coming back,” He whispered, his voice shaking violently “That little girl, the first to die
in here from that virus, she came back!”

Everything stopped, my eyes widened and my jaw dropped as I heard whoever I was talking to on the phone scream bloody murder and that’s when everything started moving again but only in slow motion. My eyes landed on a man who was lying on the floor, surrounded by other patients and other hospital staff who seemed to be trying to get his heart going again, but screaming suddenly filled the emergency room as he sat up and sunk his teeth into his daughter’s neck and tore a huge chunk of flesh out of her.

This wasn’t happening. No fucking way was the real fucking zombie apocalypse happening.
No.

I took off running from the reception and down the hall and back into the break room, I grabbed my bag and my cell phone and left again, running through the hospital and down to the elevators that would take me down to the staff parking garage.

“Hannah!” Someone yelled from down the corridor. I looked up and saw the whole of Avenged Sevenfold running towards me and Larry was leading them down the corridor.

“You guys have to get out of here!” I almost screamed at them “Please, everyone’s going ape
shit,”

“We know,” Larry told me “I can’t get these guys out of here,” He told me.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to get out of here and try to get home to my family, but these guys need to get as far away from here as possible, so they’re your responsibility now,”

“You’re fucking kidding!” Brian yelled at him “There’s no way I’m trusting her to keep me safe,”

“Then keep yourself safe,” I spat at him “I don’t fucking want you as my responsibility, I have a brother I have to get home to!”

“Hannah,” Larry whispered, dragging me away from the band so that they couldn’t hear him
“Take this,” He insisted, pulling a huge wad of cash from his pocket and stuffed it into my hands
“Get them out of here, use this for whatever you need; gas, clothes, food, shelter, whatever, and if the day comes and you get them back to me then I’ll give you double that and then some,”

I knew that there was no point arguing with the man, and the longer I stayed here talking this over the longer I was leaving Jamie home alone and Erin was still going to be with Kevin.

“Alright,”
~~~~
Jamie
I was finished with my movies and about to get ready for bed, but when I turned off the DVD player the TV came on and there was something on the news about an emergency broadcast. I sat myself back down on the sofa and watched whatever it was.

I was watching it and with every second I was starting to panic more and more. This had to be some horrible Halloween prank that they were playing on us, right?
I jumped when my cell phone started to ring, but I answered it quickly without checking the
caller I.D

“Hello?” I answered the phone.

“Jamie!” Hannah almost yelled, breathless, into the phone “Jamie, pack a bag and stay inside the house, don’t let anyone in until I come home, alright?”

“It’s not a prank, is it?” I asked her.

“No…” She sighed “It’s really happening, so I need you to-ah!”

She screamed and I heard something hitting metal in the background.

“What do I do?” She asked.

“Just run him over,” Someone answered her in the background, followed by the sound of
Hannah’s van moving again.

“Jamie, I’ll be home in ten minutes and I’m bringing Avenged Sevenfold with me. Call Erin and tell her that we’re coming for her,” Before I could say anything else she hung up the phone and I quickly called Erin.

“Jamie?” She answered the phone, her voice shaking and I heard her sniffing “Jamie, are you there?”

“I’m here,” I confirmed “E, Hannah’s on her way home from the hospital now and we’re going to come and get you, alright?”

“Alright,” She cried.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.

“One of them got Kevin,” She sobbed “Hannah told me to lock him in the basement and I did, but I can hear him losing it down there,”

“Pack your stuff, E.” I told her softly “We’ll be there soon,”

Notes

Another somewhat long chapter, but this STILL isn't the end of the intro, the next chapter will contain what happens next and then possibly a time skip (Just pre-warning because I know that some people don't like time skipping)

Thank you guys so much for all of your wonderful comments that you have left already and I look forward to more! (:
Enjoy!

~ LMV