My sister and I missed the worst of it. We lived with our mother at the time, in a small ranch house, in an unremarkable neighborhood. One that was tree-lined and the kids played outside in the summer.

Our neighbor Troy was different. He kept to himself, only once did I remember speaking with him before it happened. Our mother occasionally said hello, and I remember Lauren selling lemonade to him sometime before our Dad died. He was a tall man, and I remember him smiling when this little girl handed him a cup of warm lemonade. But that was one of the few times I saw him.

That changed during the event. It happened two weeks after my 16th birthday, and four days later I would have left for football camp. But, it would never happen.

It started with a television broadcast. I remembered the sound of the voice announcing that a new disease was spreading with rapid growth and unheard-of side effects, how the public was advised to stay indoors until further notice. I remember the air raid sirens.

“Mom…did you see this?” I said.

My mother walked into the room from the kitchen, still holding the plate she was drying.

“What’s the matter?” Her eyes when the realization hit her. “This is some kind of joke right, Tim? Did you do this?”

As she said this the unmistakable sound of two helicopters roared overhead.

“Do you think I did that too?”

“Where’s Lauren?” she asked.

“I think she’s down the street at Amanda’s”

“Call her and tell her to get home now,” she said.

“It says for people to stay put,” I said.

“Just shut up and go call your sister,” she said, “I’m going to call your grandparents to see if they’ve heard anything.”

I pulled out my cell phone but there wasn’t a signal, but I tried making a call anyway and waited while not getting a signal.

My mother came back into the room, “Did you get anything?”

“No.”

“I’m going down there,” she said.

“I’ll go,” I said “It’s just a block away. Stay here and lock the door.”

I got up from the couch and was out the door before my mom could say anything. Outside, People running into houses, cars flying down the road, and it reminded me of the vacation I spent in Florida right before a hurricane. It had the same sense of general unease, but this felt different.

Perhaps it was the confusion or the lack of information but I hurried to Waller’s house, about a block from our house.

While I was outside, the helicopter hovered overhead. This time it was playing a message over a loudspeaker, “Please remain calm, Please Stay Indoors until otherwise advised” and it kept repeating, over and over. I broke into a jog, trying to get to Lauren.

The Wright’s house was larger than ours, and it took several more steps to cross the front yard. I was out of breath by the time I arrived on their front porch, alternating between ringing the doorbell knocking on the door.

I stood there listening to the sirens for what seemed like too long when the door finally opened. My twin sister Lauren opened the door.

She saw my exasperated state “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong? Haven’t you heard what was going on?” I said.

“No we were in the basement,” she said.

“You didn’t see the T.V.?” I asked.

“They don’t have a T.V.” until this situation happened this would have been one of the strangest things I had ever heard.

“Never mind,” I said grabbing her by the arm “we need to go now.”

We hurried back to the house. The entire time I thought I smelled something burning, something foul, and I thought I heard faded screams over the sirens and helicopters.

“What’s going one?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. You didn’t hear anything about this?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “we were listening to music and then the Internet went out and Amanda’s dad got called to the hospital.”

“Did he say something?” I asked.

“No,” she said and we walked in silence back to our house.

Our mom was watching the same emergency broadcast that was on when I left. She stared at the television, eyes unblinking and a paper towel crunched in a fist. Her eyes were red around the edges. It took her a minute to realize that we were home.

“Anything changed?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “They just keep repeating the same thing over and over.”

I don’t remember how long we sat there staring at that stupid television waiting for something to change. Suddenly, the television went blank only to come back with just a snowy picture. Imperceptible sounds escaped the box and I tried to turn it up. It seemed to be a fractured news broadcast. We could hardly hear it over the static:

Bob…Bob…Bob, can you hear us? Bob?….

Oh my god, they’re attacking.

Bob is that you?

I swear to god I thought they were dead. Oh sh*t, they’re biting people. Is anyone out there?

Bob! Bob! We can hear you.

They’re coming. Oh god, they’re coming for us. We are at the hospital. The National Guard arrived. The infected are attacking, oh god, god it horrible, the Sacred Memorial Hospital has been overrun. Emergency staff is evacuating the premises. Oh god, they’re trying to get out but the National Guard has barricaded the hospital. They’re not letting anyone in or out…Oh god, they aren’t stopping.

Bob can you hear us.

No, you can’t do that.

Can’t do what Bob?

The helicopters are approaching. They seem to be carrying something. The National Guard is pushing people back. Oh dear god, they just dropped something on the hospital. It’s burning.

They bombed the hospital?

Oh, they can’t do that.

Bob…Bob.. if you can hear us get back to the station.

They’re still coming. Now they’re coming from outside the hospital. They’re everywhere…They’re…

Bob?….Bob?

If you can hear this. That was the last recording from a field team at Sacred Memorial Hospital recorded approximately one hour ago. At last reported, several pockets of the infection are breaking out all over town. The infected are extremely dangerous and contact must be avoided. The President has declared a National State of Emergency. Repeat Quarantine is absolutely vital. If possible…

The sound cut out after that.

“What was that?” my mom said. No one had an answer.

“Isn’t that where Amanda’s dad worked?” I asked.

Lauren was crying, but between sobs, she was saying Amanda’s name. She got up, “I have to tell her,” she said.

“What?” I said, “You’re not going anywhere. Didn’t you hear what they said? The infection is breaking out all over the city.”

“But Amanda’s dad. They don’t know”

“It’s too late now,” I said. She tried to get to the door but I grabbed her. “No,” I said firmer, “No one is going anywhere.”

It was getting late, and no one really knew what to do. In some futile move to remain proactive, I locked all the doors and windows and closed all of the curtains.

We were sitting in the living room, but I noticed that all of the lights were still on. “I think we should keep the lights off,” I said.

“Are we just going to sit here in the dark?” Lauren said.

“Yes. We can’t let people know we’re here.”

I was too anxious to sleep and busied myself by periodically checking the windows for any signs of disturbance. Without the television or Internet, the house was so quiet that I could hear some of what was happening outside. I cracked one of the windows in the kitchen and wasn’t prepared for what I heard.

There were sporadic cracks that reminded me of firecrackers but I assumed that’s what gunfire sounded like. At the time the only experience I had with a firearm was my grandfather’s .22 pistol we kept at their cabin. This sounded heavier like a video game. And the screams, the screams were the worst part.

“What’s going on?” Lauren asked. I didn’t hear her enter the kitchen.

“Nothing,” I said while I shut the window.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I…” I said searching for something that wouldn’t be as depressing as the truth, “I don’t know. I think we should try to get some sleep. Maybe it will get better in the morning. You heard the guy on T.V. the National Guard is there. I’m sure everything will be okay. They know what to do.”

We didn’t even go to our bedrooms that night. The three of us slept in the living room, trying to pretend everything was okay. I wasn’t sure if Lauren or my mom ever fell asleep, and I knew that sleep would never come so returned to my security sweeps, and tried to appear like I knew what I was doing, or at least remember any one of the million lectures my father gave me about operational security.

I opened the window at regular intervals, and I could swear that the gunfire was getting closer but I didn’t want to worry anyone. Satisfied that I had fooled myself and my family into thinking we were safe, I sat in a recliner watching the dead T.V.

Screams and gunfire woke us that morning. It was close, much closer than what we heard last night. I opened the front door, my mouth hanging open as I stared at the surreal scene before me. Men and women, both in uniform and not, were at the far end of our subdivision and engaged in combat, hiding behind cars shooting into a crowd of people, and a large congregation was walking towards the soldiers and did not appear to be stopping.

I saw neighbors, people I knew, outside on their front lawn, holding hunting rifles and pistols to aid in the attack. All around us people ran, most of them trying to cover their mouths and noses, some even had white masks like people in hospitals wore.

One of our neighbors running through the lawns, and he was in the middle of our yard when I called out to him but he kept running. I could hear people screaming, cries of shock and anguish and utter confusion filled the air. People kept yelling, “They’re alive. They’re alive.” Now people were leaving their homes as the conflict progressed down the street.

I ran back into the house trying to find the car keys, “We need to leave,” I said, “We need to leave now.” My mother and sister were still watching the commotion outside when I grabbed both of them by the shoulders, “Now,” I said a final time.

“Where are we going to go?” my mom asked.

“It doesn’t matter just get the keys,” I said.

We were on our way to the car when my mom paused to lock the front door, “Are you kidding me, Jesus Christ mom just get in the freaking car mom.”

The gravity of the situation finally registered with her and she left the front door. I was getting into the car when our neighbor Troy came outside.

“You’re not going to get anywhere,” he said, “All the main roads are blocked. All the highways are blocked. We’re stuck.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Just come with me,” he said. I looked at my mother and between the two of us, we didn’t have a lot of options. We left the car in the driveway and headed into Troy’s house.

Troy hurried us inside his house, and I realized that in all the years I have lived next to him I had never been in his house. However, I quickly found out that Troy did not live in a normal home; he lived in a fortress. He locked the door behind us, and that was one of the many security precautions evident in his home. He placed a large steel bar over the door, and went back to checking the windows; each one had its own bars covering the glass.

From outside, I never knew that all of these measures existed. While I admired the strength of the fortification, Troy went from window to window checking his locks. It was at this time that I noticed Troy was not wearing typical clothes, he wore dark fatigues, and a tactical vest, similar to what my dad wore and it contained several items stuffed into the many pockets. He also carried a gun in a holster on his hip.

“You seem prepared,” I said.

I didn’t think he heard me, but then he said, “This is kind of a hobby of mine. I like to be ready.”

“How did you know about the streets being blocked?” Lauren asked.

He held up a small radio, “I’m old school.”

The three of us didn’t know what to do, and Troy was preoccupied with what was happening outside.

“I don’t think they are going to be able to hold them off for long. This is going to get ugly.” Troy said.

My mother finally spoke, “Troy do you know what’s happening?”

Troy closed the drapes, and turned back towards us, “I listened to the shortwave all last night. The outbreak is happening all over the world, France, Russia, Brazil, China, all of ’em are getting hit bad. Hospitals are closing all over the world. The weird thing is what they say happens.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“They keep saying that it looks like people are dead but some get back up and attacking people,” Troy said.

“Are you talking about?” I asked.

Before I could finish Troy said, “Yeah man, I’m talking about zombies.”

I didn’t believe at first, I knew what was happening outside, but he was crazy. He couldn’t possibly be right. Zombies.

The gunfire was getting louder; screams got louder; the chaos was getting closer.

And everything went quiet.

Troy’s brow furrowed and went back to the window. My mother and Lauren followed while I tried to see through the side window. I pulled the blackout curtain back, letting in some of the early morning light, watching the carnage outside, but I could not see any evidence of the soldiers and police officers that had been, until that moment, shooting at the mass of bodies coming down through our subdivision. Instead, I could see people dressed in every type of uniform running in the opposite direction.

“Their backup must not have come,” Troy said. I couldn’t be sure if he was saying it to anyone in particular.

“Why wouldn’t reinforcements come?” my sister asked, her voice throughout the morning was getting higher, and I could tell she was close to losing it.

“There’s just too many of them,” Troy said “it’s all over. There’s only so many soldiers and police. Who prepares for something like this?”

My sister kept staring out the window, nothing, not one muscle moved, and she stood frozen trying to make some sense of the situation.

Troy lightly took her by the shoulder, steering her away from the window, and took her to the couch. “Keep her away from the windows,” he said to my mother.

Troy and I stayed at the window, peeking out of a small sliver of pulled back curtain. If asked I do not believe I will ever be able to describe the scene that took place outside our window. In the street I grew up playing baseball in the streets, I now watched monsters roam forward like some haphazard army. The few that tried to defend their homes tried to get back in their houses but the noise of the gunshots and screams of the survivors drew them. For every scream or closing door, I could see a group break off from the herd and pursue the new victims.

There were bloody mounds covered in the uniforms of soldiers, and in the soft morning light, I watched my neighbors chased and caught by the horde. They didn’t move fast but there were so many it didn’t matter, and the nature of the subdivision forced them to roam up the street in one large group. They going into homes.

“Are we safe here?” I asked Troy.

“It seems like they are attracted to sound,” he said, “as long as we’re quiet we should be okay. If they do come, we’ll go to the basement it’s reinforced.”

True to Troy’s observations, when they neared Troy’s house, they mostly left it alone. Even though I was in the house and at least thirty feet from the nearest one, I kept holding my breath. One, two, three, at one point it was useless to count.

One of them turned towards the house, Troy pulled the gun from the holster. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I watched it take a couple steps towards the door, but it turned back to the group.

Troy slipped the gun back into the holster, “That was close,” he said.

They continued down the road, the slow menagerie of destruction flowing through the subdivision, an army of bodies, an army that so far proved too much for the living to fight. A small group walking towards our house. One managed to get to the front door, after having left it wide open, and two more occupied themselves on our front porch, the rest succeeded in becoming the ugliest lawn ornaments ever conceived.

They moved in slow, lumbering strides, most of them covered in blood. There was a police officer, who had fallen in his escape and was shuffling backward, the reports of his service pistol and his shouts were all I could hear. Soon, he ran out of ammunition, the gun clicking. He fumbled the gun while trying to reload it, but they were on him. I kept trying to look away, and Troy closed the curtains, filling the room with darkness.

“Oh my god,” I said quietly. Suddenly I felt ill, the room spun and I started vomiting. Troy grabbed a wastebasket, and I could feel his hand on my back.

He kept saying, “It’s okay.”

I didn’t return to the window, instead, I sat on the couch with Lauren and my mother, trying to make sense of what happened. Lauren was crying with her head on my mother’s lap.

“What are we going to do Troy?’ my mother asked, “What the heck are we going to do?”

“We should be okay here for a while and I got supplies in the basement,” he said, “We can try and wait it out, see if someone comes for the survivors.”

We spent the night on the couch. Troy stayed awake the whole night, silently moving through the house checking for any signs of them. I ended up staring at the ceiling for most of the nocturnal hours, not having the stomach to look outside anymore. I wasn’t sure if my mother or Lauren slept but they were quiet all night long.

The morning didn’t bring any relief, and I never fell asleep, never had the chance to hope this was some kind of sick nightmare. Troy brought us into the kitchen, where we ate bars that tasted like cardboard and leather out of brown packages.

“They don’t taste good but they’ll keep you going,” he said. Lauren excused herself to the bathroom, “Don’t flush,” Troy said, “We don’t want any extra noise.”

While we sat in the kitchen, something crossed my mind, and I didn’t know if it was appropriate to ask, but it was bugging me through the night, “Why did you help us?”

Troy stopped eating. I noticed him look at my mother and saw a subtle nod.

“I was in your father’s unit in Afghanistan, Tim. When I got out I had some problems. He helped me, got me a job, and helped me buy this house. I owe him one and I promised to look after you guys. I didn’t know it would be something like this, but I had to help, for Captain.”

I looked at my mother and she nodded.

“Good enough?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “Well thanks, I don’t want to think about what might have happened.”

Troy continued eating, but my mother looked worried, “Where’s Lauren?” she asked.

We heard her yell out, “Amanda!” She opening the front door. Troy dropped the bar he was eating, running towards the door to try and keep her inside, drawing the gun from his belt and he tossed me a crowbar.

“Use this if you have to,” he said and we ran to get her. Outside the safety of Troy’s house, I stepped into a dream world. There weren’t as many as yesterday. The horde spread out over the neighborhood, each one occupying its own area, but I realized what made Lauren go outside.

She was running towards a girl in a white t-shirt and jeans that walked along the edge of Troy’s driveway, making a long careless path at the edge of the road. Lauren kept running, shouting her name. The others were starting to notice, changing their routes towards Lauren.

I made it to Lauren first, the girl that had once been Amanda was moving towards her. Her skin was pale, her eyes glazed over, blood dribbled down her chin. She was no longer human. They were surrounding us now.

“Amanda?” Lauren asked.

The body made not one hint of recognition instead it lunged at her. I stepped in front of my sister, using the crowbar to push Amanda away. Lauren reached for her again but I took her by the arm and tried to turn her towards the house, but now they were moving in around us, closing us in.

There was a Bang, and one went down and Troy raising a pistol and taking aim at another one. Bang, Bang, Bang, they were falling one by one, and Troy made a path for us. I pulled Lauren to the house with Troy covering us, with more of the infected coming towards us, drawn by the sound of the gunfire.

I was struck by lack of noise, just soft moans, and shuffling, punctuated by Troy’s gun reports.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

It was all I heard until I got closer to the porch, and my mother and I were able to get Lauren in the house. Now, there were so many I couldn’t count them. They were drawn from all over, coming out of houses and from behind cars, like they were multiplying. Troy kept firing until his gun ran out and he pulled another pistol from the small of his back, this one smaller than the previous, and he backed up to the stairs, taking slow, carefully aimed shots.

It made sense now that he had been in combat, nothing rattled him, and he kept firing to take out as many as he could. But, this gun was smaller and emptied even quicker than the first. He was forced to retreat into the house.

“Close the door! Close the Door!” he was yelling as he ran into the house, and I was able to bar the door just as the infected reached it. The door groaned under the combined weight behind.

“That door’s not going to hold,” Troy said, “follow me.” He picked up another gun that was on the living room table and we followed through the house ending up at a large metal door. Troy pulled it open, “Get in.” Behind the door was a staircase leading to what I assumed was the basement, and we followed to another large metallic metal door. It opened with a resounding click, while Troy locked the door at the top of the stairs behind us. This door didn’t make use of a deadbolt but instead had three parallel steel bars that would keep it in place.

“Turn on the lights,” Troy said.

I did so and realized that we were not in a normal basement. We were in a damn bunker.