Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

No rescue in sight. No news signal or any announcement from the government.

The only human activity from the outside was the occasional sound of a helicopter. But even that stopped after one of the helicopters crashed.

It was just a few streets across from our apartment, with thousands, no, millions of zombies gathered around the entire block.

Even as the building was on fire, they just stood still nearby. It was almost as if they were waiting for a free food delivery.

We even noticed some of the zombies were starting to mutate right on the open street. One growing as big as an actual car in just a matter of minutes.

By the time the rain extinguished the fire, the zombie had finally dispersed to who knows where. But that was no longer our biggest concern.

A new, no. Old concerns that had reared their ugly head again.

Food and water were running thin. Even though we had gathered a lot from the 2nd floor, most of them were beginning to rot.

We only had enough for a week. We realized that if we wait too long, we will be sitting ducks inside this apartment.

After taking two days to clear the 1st floor, we began to draft the craziest, if not the greatest, escape plan of all time.

When I said crazy, it was the definition of gambling like a madman. It was a one-time trick that gave us no escape if anything went wrong.

The plan needed one person to stay behind at the apartment, catching all the zombies' attention with a massive explosion and fire.

Everyone else was going just to make a run for it, sneaking through the back entrance with spare bikes from the 1st floor's dead owners.

How are we planning to make the giant explosion and bring the entire building under fire, you may ask?

It's actually simple. We just detached every single propane tank from the apartment and put them right against the front door.

Now, to put the actual plan in motion, we took an entire day to gather all the propane tanks to the front.

Then we took another day to make sure all the fuses we made worked and the bikes functioned fully. But then we run into the biggest problem with our plan.

Who was going to stay behind? It had to be someone who was fast enough to catch up to the rest on the bikes.

It was going to be the riskiest job anyone could take. A job that perfectly fits only one person in this household.

Me!

No one else (other than Jieqiong) could have known how to set up an emergency fuse other than me if the first one failed.

Not to mention, I was the 2nd strongest in the family. And I had combat experience against zombies in case one managed to sneak in.

After a short argument with my mom and dad, they eventually backed down and accepted my decision.

The day of the plan soon came.

We all packed up the remaining food and water into Dad's backpack and went down to the 1st floor.

With all four of them sitting on their bike, checking the back entrance was fully cleared, I lit up the first propane tank.

Bang!

One of the support pillars near the entrance began to crack. A nearby chair immediately caught on fire, triggering the fire alarm.

"Go! Go! Go!" As I yelled, the four of them went.

I could hear the sounds of zombie howls, all coming straight from the front entrance as I ran to the next fuse.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. The match lit on fire. Slowly bringing it to the straw fuse before bolting to the back.

Bang!

The second explosion goes off, instantly collapsing the other support pillar on the right. The zombies' growl was now even louder.

Only a thin wall prevented me from seeing what was on the other side. But I didn't dare to peek my head around the window.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

This time it wasn't the explosion—rather, the sounds of someone banging on the metal door.

"One more minute," I told myself as I tightly held onto the box of matches.

After what felt like forever, I finally pulled out the next match and scratched it. Lighting up the next fuse as I ran as far back as I could.

With my eyes closed, I waited for the explosion. But after twenty seconds of waiting, the explosion never came.

The third fuse had failed!

In the most critical time. With no time to set up another fuse, I immediately ran back to the front entrance.

My heart kept pounding as the zombies kept on pounding on the door, its hinges barely holding together.

I dragged the last two propane tanks together. I had to pray that the explosion of one propane tank was enough to set off the other.

One more scratch, and the match lit up.

The fuse was on fire as I ran to my bike. I had no time left, as a loud hinge pop could be heard through the lobby.

All I could remember was me praying to god that the back entrance had no zombies. And it seemed to have answered my prayer.

The entire back alley was emptied. No zombies in sight as I biked out of the alleyway and into the main street.

Just right around the corner, I could see floods of black dots right at the apartment I just blew up with, with even more in the distance.

I immediately biked the hardest I had ever done. The wheels were even smoking at some point as I just kept biking forward.

Unfortunately, this was where my luck ran out. Two zombies were idling right at the park entrance of my escape route.

The original plan of meeting up with my parent in the woods was blocked. But the other streets had even more zombies nearby.

With only a pocket knife, there was no way for me to fight them. I just had to yolo it... Or I ditched my bike.

It was exactly what I did. I threw my bike aside and climbed past the short park fences, skipping the entrance completely.

Now on foot, I just kept walking down the dirt path, hoping the rest of the road had no humans come to a closed-off park before they turned into a zombie.

This time, my luck finally prevailed again. No zombies the whole way through as I reached the wood at the very end.

My parent were standing there, waiting for me with their bikes. They wondered where my bike went, and I wonder how they made it past the zombie at the entrance.

It turned out the zombies weren't there when they first went. So I really was just that unlucky.

After telling them I ditched my bike, I was forced to be on the same bike as my younger sister, having her sit in the back as Dad rode his bike in the front.

We were now out of the city center. But we weren't safe yet. There was still a long way to go—twenty-three kilometers to be exact.

The journey back to my parents' old hometown, Cha'an Village.

---

All the food we had was completely rotten from the heat, and the water had completely run out.

We were starting to feel thirsty as the hot sun set on the horizon. But we had finally reached the countryside.

The first thing we encountered was the sheer number of barricades—wooden spikes all over the road.

Even as the dirt path was washed away by rain a few days ago, a faint smell of coppery, metallic smell was in the air.

It was clear there were some sort of corpses, but they had all been taken away. No one was in sight as we navigated around the spikes.

Only past the spike did I hear some traces of human activity.

A bawk.

The sound of a chicken, soon followed by a quiet moo in the distance. More sounds of animals soothe our minds as we continued forward.

Cabbages and endless fields of crops take every last bit of sunlight above the dirt—an unlimited food source right before our eyes.

Air that smells fresh, unlike the crowded city filled with cars. An escape from the outside's cruel, cruel world.

We had finally reached our final destination, at least that's what I had imagined as we saw a concrete wall in the distance.

A wall that separates the dirt path in half, blocking them from entering the village. We tried to yell, but no one responded.

After just standing there and considering whether we should try to walk around the wall through the grass field below, a middle-aged man finally came up.

It was my dad's cousin out of all people. A man whom I haven't seen since my sister and I moved into the city as children.

He quickly came down and opened the door for us. His face was full of excitement as he gave my dad a warm hug.