It’s been two weeks since this whole thing started.

There was an oil tanker accident. It was all over the news. Everyone thought it was just another spill. There were plenty of volunteers, people wanting to help the poor defenseless animals. Within hours of the tanker accident, it started happening. The animals had gone crazy; they were scratching and biting the clean up volunteers. They said that it was an adverse effect to whatever was in that tanker.

Rescue workers were still trying to get the crew out of the ship. They could hear screaming inside, screams to help, and open the doors, but that’s when it wall went to hell. As soon as they cut the door out.

There was 6 minutes of broadcast before it went silent. 6 minutes of screaming and agony. The ship crew attacked the rescue workers like rabid baboons. Breaking bones and tearing flesh. These people on the shore weren’t fairing any better. Those that had been attacked by animals were attacking everyone else. It was worse than any warzone report, it was sheer brutality, and yet, the broadcast still went on for 6 minutes. 6 minutes and then blank faces. Nobody could explain what was happening. They tried to continue with regular news, the economy, the weather, a cute human interest story, but they couldn’t make us unsee what we saw.

I tried to continue with my regular existence but every time I switched on the news or walked by a news stand it was there. This big mystery. They had some explanations, some kind of infection, brain parasites, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the infection we were afraid of, it was them.
4 days after the initial report, a state of emergency was raised, and yet, we’d all seen this before. Every zombie movie ever, the same, people didn’t know who to trust, they were stockpiling food, and weapons. Some tried to flee but it seemed the movies were right, they didn’t make it. 3 days later they arrived in my town.

I expected moans, shuffling corpses, dismemberment, but there where the movies lied. They ran through the streets, screaming. I remember running to my front door as fast as I could, locking, barricading, doing anything I could to make sure it would stay shut, and then I headed for the window on the second story where I could see the carnage. They were unstoppable. They were aware.

A group of them made their way through a building across the street. They jumped straight through plate glass windows. Even the shards slicing though them made no difference, they just kept coming. My barricade wasn’t going to hold. I rushed around my home, grabbing supplies and jamming them into the most secure room of the house. I went back for one last look across the street, and I wish I hadn’t. In a second story window, my face met one of theirs. They knew where I was. I quickly dashed into the room and locked the door.

I don’t have any kind of panic room, or a secure basement, so the safest place I could think of was my bathroom. No windows, one door with a lock, and I had filled my sink and bathtub full of water so I could stay for a while If needed. I sat there, in the dark room with the distant screams in my ears.

I began to feel like I may have over-reacted; it had been 2 hours and no sign of them. It actually got quieter and I thought they had moved on. Maybe I could leave the room, get to the kitchen. Grab more food to wait it out. A crash came from the front door, then sound of someone running full force into the door and knocking down the barrier behind it. There were a couple more crashes before I knew they were inside. Suddenly, rapid footsteps moving around the house, a couple screams and then a bang on the wall beside me. My eyes were open to their widest, even in the pitch black of the darkness of the room. There was another bang and another. They knew I was there and they knew I was scared.

This was the zombie nightmare I had been expecting from the start. I had nowhere to run, and there was only so much time before they would break in. I sat with my back to the door, hoping my extra weight would make it harder for them to get in, but then it got worse.
“Why don’t you open the door?” said a voice on the opposite side of the door. No screams, or moans, just a quiet whispery voice, and then more of them.

“We’ve come for you.”
“You’ll be happier if you open the door”
“It’s not so bad…”

The whispering voices, became a cacophony of noise trying to persuade me, to break me, to fool me. I had heard that the moaning of zombies would drive people insane, but this was worse, a siren call. I sat in the darkness and hoped and prayed that they’d get bored, but they don’t get bored, and they don’t leave. I managed to use the mirror to peek under the door, only to be greeted by horrible unblinking eyes, blood smeared faces, screams and more horrible whispers. That was two days ago…

I don’t know what to do anymore… maybe it won’t be so bad…