PRE-ARKLAY

We used to live in a small town outside Portland, Oregon. No one ever recognizes it though, so whenever anyone asks, we always just say Portland. It’s easier that way and in some strange way it helps me forget the loss. Our neighbors, friends, family… some got out, most didn’t. — If I’m being honest, I’m not sure how we’ve survived this long. My sister and I, Scarlet, we’re not exactly built for this life. Our specific set of skills has no real purpose or use in this new world, but we’ve managed by what I’m certain has to be pure luck. It’s not that we’re incapable of taking care of ourselves, I was a bartender and had to fend off the advances of drunken invalids for the past 4 years, but that’s different. No amount of zombie movies, video games or horny, drunk bastards could have prepared us for the way of the world now.
<div id="d4p-bbp-quote-19802">

I’d say I’m fairly smart, I have more common sense than the average American, though I’m purely basing that off bias and my interactions with most of the people throughout my lifetime. So, when our town fell to the outbreak and our parents were lost to the sickness, or whatever this shit is… I knew we had to get out. We have family in southern California… or we did. Who knows where they are now or if they’re still alive. Since the phones went down across the nation, it’s hard to know where anyone is anymore. Still, they were our best chance of survival, or so it would seem at the time when we had little else left for us in Portland and we packed up what we thought we’d need then headed south.

My sister Scarlet is married to a man named Taien. I never held much stock in the notion of marriage myself, but she found her ‘soulmate’ and I’m happy for them both. He’s got a sister named Dunia who I consider as a sister just as much as Scarlet. We’re a lot a like, Dunia and I. The brash, tell it like it is types and when we’re together most people aren’t sure whether or not to laugh or run. It’s certainly made our trip south more interesting, even though the circumstances aren’t exactly ideal, I couldn’t think of three other people I’d rather have with me during the end of the world. Ehh, well except maybe Ian Somerhalder, but there’s not a lot of time for eye-candy when you’re running for your life.

We were about four hours into our southward trip when, collectively, we all decided it was time for a bathroom break and to stretch our legs from being in the car so long. The traffic on the roads was a nightmare; flooded with cars trying to flee wherever they were coming from and some of them even abandoned. We pulled off at a truck stop along the highway, only a couple other cars there. Not many people wanted to stop when they knew what was behind them: death and chaos. — Everyone was searching for a safe haven, though I knew there wasn’t going to be one. If my love of horror films and apocalyptic video games taught me anything, it was that. No where was safe and everyone was on a timer. Perhaps that made me heartless or pessimistic, but I knew I wasn’t going to survive very long in this new reality and it was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to my sister, Taien and Dunia too.

Killing the engine, our small motley crew ducked out of the car, carefully checking our surroundings before we bee-lined it to the nearest bathroom. Well, they did… I stayed behind with the car to make sure no one tried to break in. Baseball bat in hand, just in case. — We didn’t have much in the way of weapons to begin with. Only a crowbar from my trunk, an axe and baseball bat from our parents garage, a couple kitchen knives and then a pistol and a shotgun we were able to steal from my parents neighbors who had died during the outbreak. I didn’t know the first thing about shooting a gun and opted to not get myself killed any sooner than was necessary, nor was I mentally prepared enough to be at a point where stabbing a person to death was an ok solution, so baseball bat it was. I wasn’t afraid to beat the hell out of someone if shit went down, but I wasn’t a murderer by any means and today was not the day I was planning to start.

Up to this point, I hadn’t had to kill anyone, walking dead or otherwise. We left our parents in that state, none of us able to bring ourselves to finish them off. I sometimes regret it now, wishing that I’d been more brave, but no one wants to see their parents like that. I know I didn’t and I know that I couldn’t have done it even if I’d wanted to at the time. What happened next though would change me and my entire outlook for the rest of my life, however short it would be. Stumbling around the side of the car was a boy who couldn’t have been over 12 years old, blood dripping from his mouth like he’d just found out the taste of human flesh was a new delicacy. That was my first clue. — I didn’t hear or see him until he was just on the other side of the trunk from where I was leaning up against my dark blue 2006 Toyota Corolla, but the moment I turned and looked into his dead eyes I knew what he was and I just stood frozen. It seemed that at that moment he saw me too and his steps quickened, moving around the trunk and heading right for me. He was only a child and I’d not yet had the displeasure of seeing one so young. Every part of my body was telling me to run, but it was one of those train wreck situations where you just stop and stare and can’t look away. Arms outstretched and mouth agape, quiet, hungry moans emitting from the small boy only a foot away now. — I suppose the closeness of him caused me to snap out of it and instinct had me raise my bat and swing, but… then I kept swinging. The first one knocked him to the ground, the next seven are what killed him. What ‘really’ killed him, I should say.

I guess I was screaming with each swing, because Scarlet, Taien and Dunia had run out of the bathroom and were standing there behind me with looks of shock, fear and horror on their faces when I finally turned to look at them. I can only imagine my face shared some of those same qualities when my eyes met theirs, but we never really talked about that day afterwards, so I guess I’ll never know. — Somehow we got back in the car, I sat in the back this time with Dunia while Taien drove and Scarlet rode in the passenger seat. If rationality had anything to do with our decision to leave instantly after that situation, it was because we knew if that kid was there his parents were surely somewhere nearby and had most likely come from one of the vehicles in the parking lot. Everything after the moment I ended that childs life though, no matter how dead he’d been before, was a complete blur and all I know is that the next time our car stopped we were in California at a place called Arklay Island. I’m not sure what caused us to stop there, I never thought to ask, nor did I really care. All I know is that we’ve been there ever since.

</div>