Will at the Prom

Will Tyrell Cure log Day 1 March 20th

This was supposed to be one of the most important days in my high school career. The day's date was planned by Jordan, and Arnie. We played laser tag as early as the place would open and some of the guys came back to Arnie’s place, to play video games and hang out while the girls all went to Beka’s place to do makeup and hair for hours. After that we met up, took prom pictures and went to dinner. We didn’t want to shell out a hundred bucks each for a fancy restaurant, so my parents spent all day decorating and making the house fancy enough to match the formal dance setting. As we were eating my dad came in, looking at his phone. I knew something was wrong because the color had left his face and bald head.

“Is everything alright dad?” He took a deep breath in and out before responding.

“I know this is an important day in high school and its supposed to be formal and all but…” I didn’t realize but he had the remote in his hand and he turned on the T.V. and clicked it to the news. The reporter was silent for a second with a screen behind her showing what looked like a riot, tear gas was everywhere, people were running and screaming, some police in gas masks were running about trying to control the situation.

“It appears that there is an unknown gas leak in several major cities across the city, with more reports of gas leaks in more and more cities, spreading across the entire city in a matter of minutes. At this rate the entire eastern seaboard will be covered in approximately forty minutes and the entire country in a few hours.” The camera cut to the scene behind her, the camera man running around the mob of people and eventually being surrounded by the gas, he stopped running and fell on the ground destroying the camera, but not the microphone. The news channel decided to continue playing the audio from the camera, first it was panicked screams of people presumably as the fog enveloped the city the panicked screams calmed down a bit. Then turning into blood curdling screams, an animalistic roar. A crushing noise indicated that someone or something had killed the microphone in the camera. The news cut back to the reporter, dumbfounded on what she just saw and heard she didn’t speak or move. Out of the corner of the camera I could start to make out white fog seeping into the reporting stage. You could hear the stage crew falling over and choking on the gas. The camera man must have zoomed the camera on his way down, filling the screen with the reporter's face. She looked straight ahead with an intense Kubick stare, we could see her eye’s get progressively more bloodshot and her pupils grow completely taking out the blue in her eyes. She jumped over the desk on all fours and screamed, expelling all the air from her lungs, she ran into the camera knocking it over. The lens cracked, but still showing an image from the reporting stage. The image filled with white fog. We all looked at each other in silence. Dad simply looked at his phone frantically, typing and trying to figure out what was going on. He nodded and ran to the basement. I ran after him.

“What’s going on?!? WHAT are you DOING?!?” He started grabbing different chemical bottles and metals mixing them together. Dad was a pharmacist and loved chemistry to the point where he would perform his own fun chemistry experiments, so seeing him mixing chemicals wasn’t that unusual. He was frantically mixing, stirring, and cooking chemical solutions. I grabbed his shoulder pulling him away from the table.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he went back to the table, not looking away as he talked.

“The Gas… I think I can make a cure and give it to all of us before that gas gets to us.” He never stopped working as the conversation continued.

“Do you wanna help me?” he said as he filled a syringe up with the compound.

“Oh, yeah sure.” I responded and frantically grabbed the other test tubes and syringes.

“100 Milliliters” he had moved onto the other syringes. Once we finished we ran upstairs. I ran into the room and looked at my prom group not knowing how to explain to them what just happened.

“Dad, has the cure, we just need to inject this and we have a better chance of it not affecting us.” They just stared at me, I tried to convince them.

“You guys saw the news and we know something is up, so please just trust us on this.” They looked at each other, not super excited about the idea.

“Is it gonna be safe to inject or will it do anything to us if it’s nothing?” Beka asked. I looked at dad hoping he could answer.

“I’m a pharmacist in a compound pharmacy, we make prescription drugs from scratch for people who are allergic to inactive ingredients in normal drugs. I make drugs in pill, chewable, and shots from scratch, and safely. Trust me these are safe.” He said it with such sternness that nobody doubted him.

“Might as well.” Hux said as he started rolling up his sleeve. Dad went around giving everyone a shot, including mom and little Ava. We didn’t know what to do but just wait, so we continued to talk about what we just saw rewinding and watching clips from it again and again until the power shut off. As soon as it shut off the room was dead silent. I started to smell rotten eggs, with a hint of mint, and pineapple? We ran outside looking down the street to see a wall of white fog rolling towards us as fast as the cars on the street until it enveloped the house and us. The fog made it hard to breathe, replacing the oxygen in the air with itself. I started to feel myself slowly drowning in the gas. Soon I watched everyone else start passing out then myself with a couple people still conscious. When I woke up the fog had already started to dissipate making visibility still hard but able to see across a room. Zach was still on his way out and Hux was already waking up, meaning I was only out for a few seconds. I ran over to mom and dad who were also still conscious. As I put my hand on their shoulders I asked

“Are you guys alright?” They both looked at me, their skin pale, eyes bloodshot and their pupils shut out the color in their eyes. Dad screamed in my face, spit flew into my face as he screamed so loud it hurt my ears. He jumped on top of me, pinning me on the ground. He screamed at me again, and started to bite at me. I tried to hold him back but he seemed impossibly strong. I heard a loud bang and he stopped attacking me and slumped down on top of me. I heard another bang and another body hit the floor. I pushed dad off, blood shooting out of his brain. I turned around to see Hux holding a gun. I was struggling to breathe as hux put his gun back in his jacket pocket. Looking right at me he said.

“Welcome to the zombie apocalypse.”

“Are you serious? Are you just okay with this? How can you know? You just shot my PARENTS!” I ran and brought him to the ground. I couldn’t control myself and only knew that he killed my family. Everyone else was waking up and tried to break us up.

“What happened?” Beka asked. Hux stood up, brushed off his tux and responded calmly.

“It's the zombie Apocalypse, Will's dad was right about the vaccine. It didn’t work on his parents for whatever reason, they attacked him and I handled it.” He walked towards the front of the house.

“That's all you have to say? You just shot and killed his parents, at least say sorry!” Beka yelled back at him. He had made it to the front room and was peeking out the window. He sighed and looked right at me.

“Will, I’m sorry.” He continued to go from window to window checking outside, I can’t imagine he could see anything past the porch. Beka started to have a panic attack as she looked at the bodies.

“What do we do? How can this happen? Why weren’t they immune?” She mumbled to herself as she paced back and forth as she started to cry. Ava started to wake up, I ran over to her.

“Heyheyhey, you’re okay.” She started to look around seeing the fog in the room, I stood between her and mom and dad.

“Does anyone else have a gun or know where we can get more close by?” Hux asked as he came back into the room.

“Guns?” Ava asked as she looked and got a glimpse of Mom on the floor. She immediately started crying. Ken rushed over and picked her up, taking her away so she couldn't see them.

“Is it actually a zombie apocalypse? What if you are wrong? You just jumped to that thought?.” Arnie started to ask Hux

“All I know is that Will’s parents looked different and they attacked him. Call it what you want to.”

“How do we know that you are even right? What if you are lying about that?”

“Why the Fuck would I lie, so I can kill Will’s Parents?” Something came over me, they were arguing and nobody seemed to care that I still had my dad’s blood and brain matter on me.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP! YES THEY ATTACKED ME, NONE OF US KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON SO…” I paused for a second thinking over our options.

“Lets go find out.” Hux looked at me and nodded. He started walking out of the house, taking everyone with us that could, leaving Beka, Ava, Ken and a still passed out Zach in the house. We walked out into the front yard and the world was silent. The electricity was out, cars had stopped and animals had stopped making noises. Across the street all of the cows had also fallen over and passed out. There was a car that had run off the road. There was a person in the driver's seat rocking back and forth. We walked up to the car, when we got about ten feet away it suddenly looked right at us. It screamed as loud as it could and ripped the seat belt with its bare hands. It jumped out of the rolled down car window. Hux pulled his gun and shot it through the head, killing it instantly.

“Believe me now?” He asked Arnie. From around the city dozens of the screams echoed around us.

“Follow me!” Arnie yelled. We ran even farther away from home than we already were. Once we got to a house a few houses away from mine. Arnie grabbed a rock and threw it into a window. We all dived in, Hux stayed just inside the window frame, with his gun out.

“I used to go shooting with these guys and I know the gun safe combination.” Arnie said, pulling us into a hallway. He ran to a closet and opened it to reveal that the closet was filled with a giant safe. He started turning the dial and pulled it open. They didn’t have anything crazy for a small town family. A few AR’s, Shotguns, Pistols, and hunting Rifles. Everyone except maybe Hannah has shot a gun so I felt confident as soon as I knew we were armed. We loaded the guns and took some extra ammo. We ran back to hux and looked out of the window, two dozen of the zombies were walking around the dead one.

“They don’t look like zombies, they just look like people. In movies they usually look different and rotted” Hannah said after a few seconds of looking at them.

“They have paler skin and different eyes. When you look one in the eye, you can tell, It's almost as if they don’t have a soul. You look in their eyes and you can tell, they are empty inside.”

“So they aren’t Zombies, since they haven’t died. They are… Empties.” Arnie nodded as he said Empties.

“Let's just get back home.” I said, everyone nodded and hux took the lead, unlocking the front door and running out of the door. Taking his AR-15 and taking out most of the Empties with scary accurate precision. His parents were both in the military marines and air force. He goes shooting every week and hunting as much as he can, he's prepared and I knew I wanted to be with him for the rest of this. We ran back home. Zach had woken up and was moving mom and dad’s bodies. Ken had calmed down Ava and Beka.

“We got some guns. Be on the lookout for them. They have bloodshot eyes, large pupils, and pale skin. This is a small town in Rural Utah so there’s easily more guns than people in this city. I think me, Arnie, Jeremy, and Jordan should go out and get more weapons while everyone else holds down this house. It’s one of the biggest in the city so this house will be the most comfortable with as many people as we have. Anyone disagree?” Hux asked the room. No one said a word. They all left us in the house, me and Cass getting Ar’s and everyone else getting a pistol. They took the truck and drove off. I felt defenseless and calm at the same time finally able to realize what had just happened. Within the last hour or so my parents died, the Apocalypse started and I killed at least one Emptie that used to be a person, someone who used to be my neighbor. The Empties weren’t dead, maybe in a few days or weeks someone will come up with a way to reverse it and turn them back, but my parents will still be gone. I kept trying to be comforted by the thought that everyone else is also going through the same thing. In the back of my mind I knew I had it worse. Ken walked up with Ava who hugged me. I also had to watch over my twelve year old sister while everyone else only had to worry about themselves. Ken hugged me.

“It's okay we’ll get through this, if you need anyone, feel free to talk to me okay?” I nodded. Every half hour or so they would come back from the truck drop off supplies and leave for a different part of town. We could hear almost constant gunshots when they were gone. Each time they came back confirming that we were the only humans that the fog hadn’t affected. I started to feel better as time went on and gained confidence that I could get through this. I carried guns and supplies down to the basement when I saw three syringes still on dad’s work bench, full of the solution that dad injected us with. I started to think ‘Maybe I Could be able to use this solution to switch an Emptie back over to a human?’ The thought about how to get and inject one properly as we stayed home and boarded the windows. They came back at around 8 they brought back some night vision goggles that someone probably used for night hunting. With the sun going down, we decided to continue tomorrow and hunker down for the night. Hux had a little speech before bed.

“What we learned from going out is 1. As far as we are aware, we are the only survivors. 2. The Empties can run fast, and are strong. If they are alive they will continue to attack. 3. The jury is still out on animals, birds seem to be normal but pets, and mammal farm animals seem to just be knocked out. Most likely through panic and loss of oxygen from the fog. With that we should try to hold out for the night and get some sleep even if it is a few minutes, we should take turns keeping watch in teams of two. Some people here have never shot a gun before and others are more experienced, so naturally each pair will have one of each. Any questions?” There was a long pause before I had to ask.

“How are you holding up this well?” Hux has shown no grief since it started just a few hours ago. While everyone else cried and had panic attacks questioning if this was actually happening or not. Hux handled everything else so professionally. He had to be panicking or hurting inside, he has to know that his family is likely dead too.

“I’m doing fine, but everyone else might not be. I am going to take my first watch, who wants to join me?”

“I will.” I said, Hux nodded

“Alright, Goodnight everybody.” He walked off towards the stairs. Beka, seemingly dissatisfied with how Hux handled the group, stood up and had her own speal.

“Okay, Ken, you are the best chef of us all and are looking forward to culinary school, go through the kitchen and pantry to see if any food is still good to eat or if the fog messed with the food. There's no power, Arnie, Zach, and Jeremy, see if you can get the power on or at the very least get the fireplace going. Everyone else, find a place to sleep, there’s four bedrooms, couches and some air mattresses. Plenty of room for everyone, get some sleep if you can.” Everyone nodded and went off to different parts of the house. To do whatever they were told to do. I walked up stairs to join Hux who was already opening the windows to look outside. Everyone did their jobs and after an hour or so the food was deemed safe and the fireplace went. Once everyone was asleep, I felt comfortable talking to hux.

“Do you want to know why I wanted to stand watch with you?” Hux just looked at me clearly not thinking that there was a specific reason.

“I need a favor… we need to try injecting the leftover vaccine into one of them and see if it can change them back.”

“There’s extra?”

“Yeah, just three test tubes.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to do. The hard part would be to make sure that no other Empties would come when we get one. We don’t have silencers on any of our guns, one gunshot and any nearby will come running.”

“How many do you think are left? You were out for hours and there aren't that many people in Bear River.”

“I bet that since we are the only ones shooting guns, Empties from neighboring towns are coming in.”

“I don’t think so, gunshots only go a few miles.”

“They seem to be almost superhuman in strength, so I bet they can hear better and farther than us.”

“I don’t think so, they still have human anatomy. No matter what the virus is, it can’t change their anatomy so it can’t be that much better.”

“They are stronger and faster than humans, how do you explain that?” He had me stumped for a second.

“Uhhh, Umm… Ahh. A. Adrenaline. The virus has control of their brain, both conscious and unconscious. They might be able to manually control their adrenal glands making them stronger, and faster than people.”

“That makes sense. So if that's true, there might not be many left in the city, there isn’t much around here within gunshot distance.”

“We might have to go hunting for one then.” He nodded. We got up and left our guns by the window. We woke up Cass and Hannah and got them ready to watch the house. We told them we needed to get some more guns out of Hux’s house. Hux got in the truck driver's seat. I got in the passenger's seat and we drove off. As we drove half a mile to his house there were dozens of dead Empties lining the streets. They clearly almost killed off the whole town. We dove to his house, and went inside. I covered him and he walked around the house as he collected hidden revolvers.

“You didn’t get these earlier?”

“Nope, everything that has gone on I forgot about these. Dad has them for self defense, so we never really talk about them, so it was in the back of my mind.”

“Okay, then. What's our plan for finding one of the surviving Empties?”

“We could drive into the city and find one on the outskirts of the town.”

“Alright” We started driving to the next town. Eventually we saw a group of them. They saw us and started chasing us. I climbed out the back window into the truck bed and started laying down fire.

“Try to just injure one, we can try to change it after it's wounded.” Hux yelled out the window. As I shot bullet after bullet the group started to get thinner, dropping more and more. Four remained in the group I aimed and took out three with headshots. One remaining hux stopped the truck, ran out and shot his revolver at both its kneecaps, dropping him to the ground.

“Alright, let's tie him down in the bed and take him back to the house and try to turn him back.” Hux looked at me appalled.

“You don’t have the serum with you?” I realized that probably would have been a better idea.

“No” He just stared at me, clearly upset that I didn’t bring it. After a few seconds of quiet we heard roars from the city. We turned and saw hundreds of Empties running towards us and the truck, a few blocks away. We lifted the Emptie in and drove off as I tied him down. Once tied down I layed down as much fire as I could. We got to the house and I jumped out running inside. I screamed at everyone.

“Everyone up NOW WE NEED HELP!” Everyone ran out and got into the truck driving in circles around the block to keep them from the house. Me and Jeremy took out the Emptie and carried him inside tying him down to the table. I injected the serum.

“Is he tied down good enough that he won’t get out?” I asked.

“There’s no way he can break it.”

“Alright, let's go out and help them take out the rest of them.” We ran upstairs and as they drove by I jumped in the truck, Jeremy ran to the shed. After a few circles around I started to smell gasoline. We turned off main street and Zach lit a flare and tossed it on the street. The entire street blew up lighting the rest of the hoard on fire. We drove back to the house. We got off the truck, and saw Jeremy walking back with multiple empty tanks of gas. He got back and high fived Zach.

“When it was our turn to watch we were gonna set some traps. See how cool that was!” We walked down into the basement and the Emptie was still an Emptie. After more than double the time between when we were injected and when we were exposed to the fog, the serum has proven ineffective. I am keeping this log to record our survival and hopefully look back for clues, I will instruct my fellow survivors to do the same. End of Log I