Apocalypse: 1st Dawn

My name is Oliver Graves, I used to be one of the last five people on earth. This is the story of how I died in this apocalyptic wasteland I used to call home.

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It was Thursday, November 6, 2025. I was driving, blasting Nirvana over the radio as I patiently waited for the car in front of me to speed up, what I wasn’t expecting was for them to take off. When they were around the corner my radio cut out and then shut off, fog rolled in eerily like one of those cheap fog machines our theatre program uses for their shows.

I was confused but kept on driving, when I got into town it looked so broken down and destroyed. It was like it had been abandoned for years on end, but everyone had been here yesterday. What could have happened over the span of one day that caused this? I shook my head and pulled over to Joel’s pawn shop.

All the windows were shattered and the door was open, it looked abandoned. I got out of my truck and walked cautiously into the store, the glass crunching under the rubber soles of my shoes. I looked around, there was blood dried on the floor in large spots. It concerned me, but I had a feeling it wasn’t just a normal act of violence…it seemed like something more animalistic.

“Joel,” I called out, no response. “Are you there?”

I heard nothing other than the sound of my breathing and the howling wind outside. It had picked up a bit since I got into town. I hopped over the counter and grabbed a shotgun off of the rack and some ammo. Whatever caused this might have been human, it might not have been. There was no telling, but I wanted to be prepared.

I grabbed a hunting knife out of one of the cases. Better safe than sorry I always tell myself. I walked out of the shop and went to my truck. I set the gun in the passenger seat and put the knife in my pocket. I started the truck up and headed out of town. My first mistake? Going to the city.

Once I got to the borders of the city I saw hundreds, maybe even thousands dead. Each body had at least two gunshots to the chest. However, they didn’t look human, they looked like the fucked up versions of humans, mutants…zombies. It reminded me of The Walking Dead movies. I hated those movies, it scared the daylights out of me as a kid, now I’m 17 and it still scares me. The decaying bodies should have warned me not to go in, clearly not.

I drove further into the city, it was quiet, eerily quiet. I then noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye when…WHAM!! Someone slams into the door of my passenger side, I was shocked to see an actual zombie banging on the door. I floored the gas pedal and took off, the zombie running after my truck until it basically multiplied its numbers. It drew in other zombies until there was a horde of about 30 zombies following me. Just to add onto my bad luck, my truck ran out of gas and it slowed to a stop.

The zombies crowded around my truck, banging on the glass and trying to get in. I grabbed the shotgun and started shooting, reloading when I needed to until one of the undead broke my window and grabbed my arm. I had also run out of bullets and was now attempting to kick the zombie off of me. This worked and it launched about ten feet back, even I was shocked. That was when the gunshots started, the zombies that I hadn’t killed yet were shot down.

Once the shots stopped I peeked out of the window, I saw two men standing in the alleyway, one with a shotgun and one with a pistol. I hadn’t realized that I had three gashes on my wrist until my wrist started stinging, and then it hurt a lot. I sat back in the seat of my truck, praying they’d leave me alone and just go away. My hopes were crushed when they started heading towards my truck. I cussed under my breath and just sat back, holding the cloth of my shirt on my wrist tightly so it’d hopefully stop bleeding.

“Are you okay kid,” The man with the shotgun asked as he cautiously approached.

I didn’t feel like responding, I didn’t know if they were friendly or hostile.

He sighed. “We won’t hurt you unless you give us a reason to.”

I thought for a second. “I’m fine, just cut my wrist is all..” I knew damn well that it was more than a cut, it was more like a gash.

“You sure,” the other guy questioned.

I sighed and just tried to keep pressure on my wrist. “If you insist on knowing, that zombie I kicked slashed my wrist open. So I have no clue if I’m ‘okay’ right now.”

“Damn,” the guy with the pistol muttered. “How bad?”

“Bad enough I probably need stitches,” I mumbled.

“What’s your name kid,” he asked.

“Oliver,” I told them. “What about you two?”

“I’m Zach,” The guy with the pistol said.

“I’m Matteo,” the one with the shotgun answered.

I reached over to my glovebox and rummaged through it to see if my first aid kit was still in there. To my surprise, it was. I grabbed it and took out the gauze wrap and started wrapping my wrist as tightly as I could without it cutting off circulation or hurting. It didn’t exactly work well and I cursed under my breath. Zach walked over to the driver side of the truck.

“Do you need help with that,” he asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know anything about first aid,” I muttered.

He chuckled and I opened the driver side door, he took my arm and started wrapping my wrist with the gauze. It stayed silent almost the whole time he was patching me up. Matteo kept watch to keep the zombies, which he insisted on calling ‘crawlers’ or ‘infected’, away from us.

“You know, you can come with us back to the base,” Zach said after a few minutes.

“The others might like a new person.”

“Others,” I questioned. "There’s more people?”

“Only two, but they’ll enjoy the company,” he said.

“Alright,” I muttered.

I got out of the truck after he finished wrapping up my wrist and went around to the backseat, opening the door and grabbing my bookbag. I emptied it and put the stuff that was necessary in it such as the first aid kit, my two hoodies I had back there and a lighter. I slung the bag over my shoulder and grabbed the shotgun from the seat. I then would follow them to their base, when we got inside Zach led me into their living room and introduced me to a woman named Kate and another girl named Marissa.

Zach showed me the room I would be sleeping in, which was his, but there was a separate cott they had that I could sleep on. The rest of the day we got to know each other, turns out I fit in rather well with them. Matteo handed me a radio and explained that we communicate with these when we split up going anywhere.

“We’ll be going out tomorrow to get supplies for the buildings on the east side of town,” Matteo mentioned, “So, rest up.”

I nodded and we all headed to our rooms.

||||||||||Next Day||||||||||

Kate walked around waking everyone up. I put my jacket on and attached the radio to my belt. I put my sneakers on and walked out of the room. Once we had all eaten and were ready we headed out into the city. The first five buildings were easy until we got to the sixth, a five story building. Enough floors that each of us got one floor, so we finally had to split up.

Matteo explained which floor each of us got, and of course I got the top floor. We split up, but for this building we got a 30 minute time limit and then we’d have to meet back up on the ground floor. Everything was going smoothly until I opened a door and a zombie lunged at me. I moved out of the way just in time for it to not get me. I heard the shuffling of many, MANY other zombies and didn’t want to stick around to find out how many there were. I dashed into the room and locked it, putting my back to the door and grabbing my radio.

“Did anyone else run into zombies,” I asked frantically.

“No,” everyone responded.

“Yeah, I know why,” I said. “It’s because they’re all on my floor.”

“We’re coming,” Zach said immediately.

“I hope you have enough-” I started saying until one of the infected quite literally punched through the door and grabbed my shoulder.

The zombie somehow managed to break the door more and stick it’s head through, biting down on my shoulder. I dropped my radio and yelled out in pain. I then elbowed the zombie in the face, making it let me go. There was a stinging sensation as the blood soaked into my jacket. Matteo yelled something inaudible over the radio as I moved away from the door, then I heard the sound of gunshots in the hallway.

They were muffled, so either my hearing was failing me or it was just a part of the shock. I slouched against the wall and slid down, sitting on the floor with my back against the wall. This wasn’t what I had planned. I didn’t want to die. The door flew open and I glanced over. Matteo took one look at me and told Kate and Marissa to wait outside. Zach walked in and Matteo shut the door behind him, they exchanged nervous looks and then Zach hesitantly took a step towards me.

“Oliver,” he said softly, like he was talking to a little kid. “You’re going to be okay, hear me?”

“Promise…” I muttered. “Promise you’ll kill me.”

He looked shocked, but knew he would have to if I had been infected. “Oliver-”

“Say it,” I said, cutting him off. “Say you’ll kill me…at least to protect them.”

He looked upset. “I promise…”

We just sat there for about ten minutes, Matteo and Zach talked about what they were going to do and I just sat there, occasionally zoning out. Until I just stopped…I felt like I blacked out, and all of a sudden my body moved, my consciousness did not. I myself stayed still, but my body lunged at Zach. He didn’t move out of the way like I thought he would have, so Matteo pushed Zach back and away.

My infected version ended up biting Matteo, who took a second, but still turned on Zach. He shot, killing both of us with only two bullets. I looked over and saw a ghastly apparition of Matteo, he looked over at me and I knew…this was the end. We were dead, and this was how it ended for us…I guess this was goodbye.

(THE END!! I can’t believe I actually finished this…)