The alarm went off.  The man rolled out of bed, stretched, and then flopped down right back on the bed.  Ugh, he thought.  I just don’t feel like work today.  On a Saturday, too.  The problem was, he never felt like work.  He pretty much had the most boring job in the world: He was cashier at Mackwells, a large food and drug store in Las Vegas.  All he did was type instructions into a machine and take money from people.  He forced himself out of bed again, took a shower, and got into his blue-and-black uniform, pinning his name tag to his shirt.  Alex Williams.  He missed his wife.  Without her, nothing seemed right anymore.  Five years hadn’t changed the fact that in that car crash, he had survived and she hadn’t.  Moving on, he checked on his fifteen-year-old son on his way out the door.  Then he started out.  Better a bad job than no job.

            On Alex’s lunch break, the alarm suddenly went off.  Alex rushed out of the staff room only to get pushed back in by a flood of frightened people.  He fell hard, hearing his head crack against the ground.  The last thing he remembered before falling unconscious was pain.

            He remembered.  Five years had passed, but it still seemed like yesterday.  He and his wife and ten-year-old son were driving home after a Friday-night outing to In-n-Out.  Back then, things had been normal.  But that one night had changed everything.  A drunk driver, driving the wrong way on the freeway, was coming directly at them.  Alex tried to jerk the steering wheel to swerve out of the way, but too late.  The truck slammed directly into the right side of the small car.  The side with his wife and child.

            Hours later, he had woken up in the hospital.  Disoriented, he tried to pull himself out of bed, but no luck.  His body still hurt too much.  He vaguely noticed that his left arm was in a heavy cast, along with his right leg.  A nurse walked in with a sad look on her face, which suddenly turned to surprise as she noticed that Alex was awake.

“Didn’t expect you to be awake so soon, Mr. Williams.”

“Never mind me.  What about Katherine?  And Hunter?  Are they okay?”  The sad look came back to the nurse’s face.

“Your son, Hunter, is still in a coma.  However, his condition seems to be stabilizing.  Your wife…” She took a deep breath.

“Your wife is in critical condition.  We think there might be serious internal bleeding in addition to brain trauma.”  Life was over.

She died the next day.

            Alex felt like he was floating to the surface of a deep lake.  As he got closer, the pain in his head increased to the point where it was almost unbearable.  Then he got to the top, and he found himself still on the floor of the staff room.  There was a big change in it, though.  It was almost completely destroyed.  The tables where lying everywhere, with the chairs, in pieces, lying by them.  And the red stain on the carpet… Alex hoped everything was fine.

            Alex got unsteadily to his feet, head still throbbing, and started walking towards the main store.  It was in a similar condition to the staff room.  Shelves had been knocked down, and the merchandise was lying everywhere.  Stopping at the medicine aisle to get some aspirin for his aching head, he started looking through the building to maybe find someone who could tell him what had happened.  At the bread aisle, he was startled by a small noise that had come from underneath a small pile of bread that had fallen from the shelves.  Digging through the pile, he found a small boy.  Pulling him out and attempting to comfort him, he became aware of the fact that the boy kept repeating two words.

“They’re here, they’re here, they’re here…”

            It was all he could get out of the young child for a long while.  When he finally calmed down, Alex proceeded to question him.

“What happened here?  It looks like a bomb went off.”

“Zombies”, the child whispered.  “Zombies.”

Alex felt his blood run cold.

            Hours later, he and Peter, the boy he had found, were rushing towards Alex’s home to see if Alex’s son had made it home or not.  It was a small hope, but Alex was counting on it.  He had trust that Hunter could take care of himself, as he was uncommonly large and strong for his young age of fifteen.  If something had happened to him, though, Alex would never be able to forgive himself.

            Alex had yet to actually see a zombie, which made him wonder if they were real or just an imagined threat on the part of his six-year-old companion.  As they pulled into a parking spot near Alex’s apartment, he suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen another car going anywhere.  In fact, he hadn’t seen another human being for hours, other than Peter.  That was strange.  It was, after all, Las Vegas, Sin City.  The streets where never empty.  He pulled a key out of his pocket and carefully opened the door.

“Hunter?” he called.  “Hunter, I need to talk to you.”

No response.  He was probably out screwing around with his best friend, Rob.  Not the best time to go out, Hunter.  Alex tried calling Hunter’s phone, but there was no service.  Strange.  It was going to take a long time to find his son.  Panic was starting to set in.  Suddenly, he heard a scream from Peter.  Turning quickly, he saw something that made him almost do the same.  Standing in the doorway of the apartment was a tall figure dressed in black.  He pulled peter behind him, determined to protect the young boy at all costs.  Then the man in the door spoke.

“Dad?  Are you okay?”

            Switching on the light, it was revealed that the man in the door was, in fact, his son.  Taller than Alex and a good deal stronger, the teenager wrapped his father in a huge bear hug.  Rob walked in just behind him.  Rob and Hunter were physically much different from each other.  Rob was short and thin, while Hunter was large and strong.  However, they both had great personalities, and Rob was a really hard worker, as was Hunter.

            “I was so worried, Dad.  There were things on the news everywhere, until the TV networks shut down a few hours ago.  I tried calling you, but the phone network is down, too.  Where have you been?”

            Alex pulled out of Hunter’s arms and looked at the face of his son, looked at the scar going down from his right cheek down to his chin, the only remnant of the car crash that had changed their lives forever.

            “I was knocked out,” said Alex.  “I woke up a while ago, then found Peter here hiding in the store.  He said something about zombies.  Do you know anything about that?”

            Hunter’s face went dark.  He then explained how zombies had, indeed, invaded Las Vegas.  He and Rob had been playing football with two of their friends, Aiden and Grant, when they had been attacked by several of them. 

            “We don’t know what happened to Aiden, but we’re pretty sure that Grant got out ok.  That was when I tried to call you, but we didn’t have service.  We got to Rob’s house, tried calling again, then turned on the news to see if it was happening anywhere else.  The White House is under attack.  Las Vegas has been practically overrun with them.  Then the cable went out, and we decided to try checking on our apartment.  I was hoping to catch you here.”

            “Well, you found me.  If these really are zombies, what can we do to stop them?”

            Nobody had an idea.

***

            Two years had passed since the day it had started so long ago.  Zombies had invaded, killing everything in their path.  Alex was sitting with Peter, now eight, in the same room where it had started for him so long ago.  The staff room of Mackwells, now in ruins.  The food in the building had long since been eaten, both by the zombies and survivors of the apocalypse.  Alex and the two teenagers had been taking turns watching Pete, one person staying behind while the others had gone looking for new sources of food.  But food was running out.  They didn’t know how long they could make the supply sustain them, but it was going fast.  They were planning on making their way to Area 51, just to see what was there.  In fact, they were hoping that there were people there, just waiting to be saved.

            “We’re back,” he heard Hunter call from somewhere in the store.  “We found more food, and we found a football, too.”  Their last football had popped a while ago.  It was how they spent their time in this desolate place now.

            “Ready for tonight, Dad?  We fixed the car up.  Should get us to Area 51.”

            “Never been more excited in my life,” replied Alex.

            In reality, though, he had this strange feeling that the mission would go wrong.  Terribly.  It would break up the monotony of everyday life, though, so he was all game.  But still…. Something just felt… off.

***

            The car hit a bump in the road, bouncing its occupants around inside of it.  Alex was driving, with Hunter in the passenger seat and Rob and Peter taking up the back.  The feeling still hadn’t left Alex, which made him scared of what was coming next.  They had each taken a metal baseball bat with them, just in case of an attack.  Alex carried a large sledgehammer and a crowbar with him as well.  If they were going to even try getting in the doors, they needed to break them down. 

            As they pulled up next to the main gates, they noticed that they were open.  That can’t be good, thought Alex.  They drove through anyways.  Making their way to the main complex, Alex pulled the car to a stop.  Before getting out, he went over the plan

            “Rob, you stay with Peter and make sure that he doesn’t get hurt by anything.  Hunter, I’ll need your help breaking through the doors.  Let’s go break this place apart!”

            They got out and started walking towards the building.  But they didn’t have to break any doors open.  They had obviously already been forced out.  Odd.  They walked in anyways.  The power was out, so they relied on their flashlights to illuminate the hallway they were in.  The hallway ended in a large room.  As they were searching through it, Alex tripped on something like a large stick.  Shining his flashlight on it, he realized that it was a skeleton.  Anyone here had obviously been dead a long time.  Shining his flashlight around the room, he located a large work desk.  He walked closer, and found a handwritten note on the desk.  He read it aloud.

            If anyone reads this, then you are probably living right now in an apocalypse.  Good job surviving this long.  The simple truth is, I am responsible for that.  My name is Doctor Garret Miller.  We started work on a treatment for cancer, only to find that it severely mutated the recipients of the medicine.  We were able to counter-act these mutations through a separate injection, but we didn’t count on one thing.  We were careless enough to drop a sample of the presumed “cure” down the sink of a lab.  This has apparently infected the water system, then mutated into an airborne virus.  There may be a cure for those infected, though.

            We have created a rocket that is full of the counter-acting serum.  In theory, when the rocket explodes, it should disperse the serum across a wide enough area that it cures the people already infected.  I am writing this as zombies are trying to break into this laboratory.  I welcome death with open arms, because I am the one who created this monstrosity.  There is a detonator in the drawer of this desk.  If that doesn’t work, you can also launch the rocket by hand.  Be careful though, as this could result in the loss of your life.

            I wish you luck.

            Alex opened the drawer, and as promised, there was a detonator.  Along with it, there was a map to the launch site.  Strangely, it was inside the building.  The ceiling must open up enough to let the missile through.  They started running towards the location.  As they ran, however, they heard an unhuman scream.  Alex’s blood ran cold.  That sound had become familiar to him, now that he had lived like this for two years.  The zombies had come for them.  They doubled their pace, Peter riding on Rob’s back.  They reached the site, and Alex pressed the button.

            Nothing happened.

            It’s been sitting around for almost three years, Alex, what else did you expect?

            Alex was surprised by another scream, and then they flooded into the room.  Zombies.  They moved inhumanly fast, and they were pale, with some missing limbs.  Alex couldn’t think of a more horrifying sight.  Hunter smashed one’s head with his baseball bat, knocking the head clean off.  There was no blood, though.  It was unnatural.  Alex remembered what the note had said.   You can also launch the rocket by hand.  Be careful though, as this could result in the loss of your life.  He noticed a sign on a door that said Emergency Exit.  A plan formed in his head.

            “Rob, Hunter, take Peter and get back to the car!  Hunter, here are the keys.  Just take them and run.  Don’t look back.  Just in case I don’t make it out, I want you to know that I will be seeing your mother again.  Don’t look back!”

            He saw the shock and pain in his son’s eyes.  But he nodded.  Alex took the moment in to look at his son’s face one more time.  The scar, the strength, the love for his friend, his father, and the boy on Rob’s back.  Then he left.  But he looked back one more time, meeting his father’s eyes.  He had blue eyes.  Just like his mother.  Then all three of them ran out the Emergency door.  Alex took a deep breath, then burst into motion.  He got the hammer off of his back, swinging it at whatever came his way.  He got to the missile and opened the control panel next to it.  He was grabbed from behind and pulled back, but with one final surge, he jumped forward and hit the button.  He heard a loud whoosh, then everything went black.

            Hunter was driving the car back towards his home, tears running down his face.  I want you to know that I will be seeing your mother again.  Don’t look back!  The fireball that rose from the ruins of the building.  He knew his father was with his mother.  And suddenly he stopped crying.  It still hurt, but his father had died so he could live a normal life again.  It was like that movie I Am Legend.  The world would start fresh, and he would be a part of it.  He stopped the car and got out, looking to the building in the distance.

            “Love you, Dad.