I woke up. The light was peering through the windows into my eyes. All was quiet. I was hoping that everything was back to normal. I got up and looked out the window. Some officers were burning the bodies of some zombies…and one body that belonged to a police officer. I ran outside towards them.

The smell was awful. Burning flesh, especially that of dead flesh, is not a good smell.

"Is that police officer…Officer Johansen?" I asked, worried.

"No, kid, don't worry. Officer Johansen is fine," one officer replied.

I ran back in to find Officer Johansen standing at the front of the building with an assault rifle in his hands, looking out a window.

"Officer Johansen?"

"What's up, kid?"

"What happened last night?"

He turned to me and said, "If you mean this Apocalypse, or whatever you'd like to call it, has ended…I'm sorry to tell you that it has only just begun. Last night we switched off guard duty. You would have known if any fights began because you would have heard gunshots. One officer was killed, though, because he was on guard duty on the ground and went to the bushes over there to take a leak, and got attacked. He saw what happened to the young lady Suzanne yesterday, and stabbed the zombie in the head, then did the same to himself."

"Is anything any better as opposed to yesterday though?" I asked.

"Actually, it's gotten worse. Here, follow me," he said as he motioned to a room down the hallway.

In the room was a television. We sat and watched. It was a news channel with a report.

"Yesterday, millions of people from all over the world were killed in an attack from the undead. We still do not know where they came from but we do know that they will only die if the brain is destroyed, the head is removed, or the entire body is destroyed. We advise everyone to stay indoors, and if you have weapons, use them," said the woman on the TV.

"Our most recent news about this current event is a massive Rebellion force being formed in almost every city in every state here in the United States. Other countries around the globe are following us in this strategy for survival. The Rebellions consist of everyday people, who are old enough to fire a weapon, and have gone through a background check. Most people do not wish to join such Rebellions, and now people are beginning to be drafted. The Rebellions are being supplied by the U.S. government. Soldiers are the commanders in each unit to maintain order amongst the Rebels, and to ensure none use their weapons against the living, or show signs of insanity or breakdowns. When one city is clean of the undead, half of the town's Rebellion force will move to the towns nearby to help. More news on this later today," she finished.

Officer Johansen turned off the TV, "I don't know too much about giving civilians weapons, but I guess we need to, or else we'll never end this nightmare."

"I agree. I just hope that the civilians don't go and do something stupid, like turn on the rest of the people in their squads," I said.

"Yeah, that may be the only problem. Perhaps it won't happen," said Officer Johansen.

"Besides, if a lot of people don't defend themselves, with these Rebellion squads being the best way to do that, then they would be killed and turned into more zombies, making the situation worse," I commented.

"That's probably what the officials were thinking when they made this decision," said Officer Johansen.

I went into the bathroom. When I was done I took a look in the mirror. I noticed a splotch of blood on my hoodie, so I took it off. The sight of the blood made me remember the horrible events of the previous day, and for a second I was lost in my mind, going through the entire day again. The zombies, the two girls being killed, watching Kaitlin ride away in a bus, how I don't know where she is and how I want to. I want – I need – to see her again. I must find out where she went. I will not stop until I do.

I walked out into the hallway and walked up to Officer Johansen.

"Could you please drive me to my house? I want to see if my family is ok," I asked him.

"I wondered when you were going to ask this," he replied, "come on Sean, let's go."

He called to an officer and told him we were leaving. He removed his handgun and then walked out the door. I followed. His car wasn't too far away, but we took precautions walking to it. We crouched low and looked around to see if the area was clear. We saw no zombies, so we got into the car.

It was about noon at the time. When we pulled out of the station's parking lot, Officer Johansen turned on the radio. We listened as we drove.

"Since about two in the morning today, these zombies, if you will, have been leaving the streets, for the most part, and going into nearby buildings. Houses and stores alike have been occupied by these undead monsters. This strange behavior doesn't quite make sense to us yet. A group of scientists in Seattle are conducting experiments to learn more about these zombies, and right now they're studying this new type of behavior. More news later today," said the person on the radio.

We were now in the heart of downtown, and I was telling Officer Johansen where to turn to get to my house. Looking around I saw horrible sights. Every I looked I saw dead zombies, their heads splattered all over the ground. I only saw a few zombies walking around, all by themselves. Looking in the windows of some stores, I saw zombies walking around inside. Some stores must have been locked down, because the doors were closed and the windows had been bashed in. One particular sight was a man sitting against a pole, all of his guts ripped out and a huge pool of blood surrounding him. He had a look of utter despair on his face. As we drove past, he lifted his head and looked, and raised a hand. I wondered if he had any recollection of his life as a human.

A few more miles and terrible sights and we were in my suburb. We drove past a park that I like to go to with my friends, and I saw a little girl, about four years old, dead on her pink tricycle, with blood drenching her clothes. Officer Johansen slowed the car to take a look. I swear I saw her hand move, and I swear he did too, and that's why he sped up.

"So, which number is your house?" he asked.

"363," I told him.

We pulled up to my house. There were no cars in the driveway, but it's just me, my mom and dad, and my little sister, so I was sure my dad's car and my car were just in the garage. I knew for a fact that my mom's car was in the shop. We parked on the street and walked up to the house. The front door was open.

"That isn't good," said Officer Johansen.

We walked inside, Officer Johansen in front of me with his handgun, ready to shoot any zombies that may have been in the house. We proceeded with caution as we checked every room. The living room, the kitchen, the family room, the bathroom, the closets; every room was checked. We went upstairs and checked the bedrooms as well. A few things were tossed about but there was no one there.

"They must have gotten away, Sean," said Officer Johansen.

"We have three cars: my dad's car, which he takes to work in the morning, my mom's car, which she takes to work in the morning, and my car, which I take to school. Yesterday my mom needed my car for work because hers was in the shop, so I had to take the bus. My mom gets home around 2:00 because she has an hour of break, which she uses to come home and eat lunch, then she goes back to work at 3:00. My dad owns his own business, so he comes home a lot during the day, and is always home before I get home from school. Both cars should be in the garage then, because they were both home when the attack began," I told him.

"Alright, then let's go check the garage to see if they fled the city," he said.

We walked up to the garage door. Officer Johansen, with his handgun out, went in front of me and opened the door.

"Oh my god…" he said. This heavy feeling suddenly came onto me.

I took a look inside. My dad's car, which is a white van, was the one nearest the doorway we were standing in. The driver side door was open, with someone's leg hanging out, blood dripping down into a puddle of blood on the garage floor. I slowly walked up to the car, and Officer Johansen followed. I looked inside. My mom was lying on her back on the driver's seat. Her mouth was open as if in a scream, and she had my little sister Jessica in her arms. My mom's chest had literally been ripped open, her heart and lungs missing. Blood was all over her clothes and coming out of her mouth. The back of Jessica's head had been chewed open, and I could see her brain, which had chunks bitten out of it. With tears in my eyes, I turned the other way and puked. Officer Johansen was staring in awe at my family's corpses.

"What was that?" asked Officer Johansen. I looked up, confused because I didn't know what he was talking about, "that sound. Do you hear it? Like a whimper or something."

I stood up and walked over towards him, wiping my mouth off on my sleeve. Officer Johansen peaked into the back of the van, so I looked as well. We found my dad sitting in the corner in the back, blood on his shirt, yet it wasn't his blood.

"Get out of here…NOW!" my father yelled.

"Hold on there, Mr. Boady!" began Officer Johansen.

"I said GET OUT!" my father yelled back, as he threw one of the kitchen knives. Officer Johansen jumped back and pushed me out of the way, and the knife just barely missed his face, "I don't want any of those…THINGS anywhere near me! I don't want to go the same way my family did!"

"Hey, we aren't zombies!" Officer Johansen called to him as we walked to the back of the van and opened up one of the doors.

My dad jumped up and turned around, "you get away from me! I don't trust you!"

"Dad…it's me! Sean!" I said to him.

"Sean…it's all over…the world is coming to an end, soon we will all be dead! Just like our family," he said.

"Don't say that! There's still a chance for us!" I yelled.

"No Sean, there isn't! Can't you see? We're DOOMED! Now close that door so I can lock it and hide from those…those ZOMBIES! You saw them! You have seen everyone! Killed in the worst of ways, and so slowly! So painful! Just like Janet and Jessica! My wife and kid…brutally slaughtered right before my eyes! I don't want to be-"

He was cut short as my mom, now reanimated, came up behind my dad and bit his neck. Blood rolled down onto his shirt. He let out a loud scream and fell to his knees. Jessica, reanimated as well, came up and bit my father's side, making him scream louder.

"Kill me! KILL ME!" my father screamed. Officer Johansen raised his handgun and shot my father in the forehead. His blood and brains splattered all over the inside of the van. Officer Johansen then shot my mother and my sister, and they both fell to the floor of the van, my sister slowly slipping out, where she fell and hit the garage floor hard. Blood trickled out of the van.

The sight was too much for me. My family was dead, right before my eyes. I passed out and fell backwards, and I could hear Officer Johansen yell my name.

When I was passed out, I was dreaming about waking up and finding out that it was all a dream, and that I had simply fallen asleep in Algebra class. When I woke up, however, it was not so. Same Apocalyptic world, same dead family, same lonely kid holding on to his only hope left: seeing the one he loved just one more time.