NORA SINZE "DAY 1"

Nora Sinze, 19
Salt Lake City, Utah

I remember when the riots started to happen…I remember thinking, what a bunch of idiots but really not paying all that much attention to it all. I figured, it’s not happening here where I live…so, why should I really care.

I was wrong…I needed to care because it wasn’t long before these random riots were popping up in more than one city. It almost seemed like the rioters were some kind of herd of wild beasts spreading its madness across the States…and slowly making their way to my backyard.

I woke up one morning and I heard a commotion coming from downstairs. I quickly get up…I don’t even bother throwing on my robe. The noise gets louder as I make my way down the stairs. I pass my 13 year old brother, who’s standing at the bottom…I see my mom and dad yelling through the patio door. 

“What’s going on?", I yell. My mom looks back at me and tells me to stay where I am but my curiosity takes over and I slowly make my way over to my parents.

My dad is shouting; “Get the fuck outta my yard…I’m calling the police!” “What is she doing to Max?” my mom frantically asks my dad. (Max is our dog)

Max? I say out loud…and quickly rush to the glass door.

I quickly see a woman kneeling above my dog, tearing at his skin, pulling his flesh off his body and eating him.

I scream; “Oh my God…she’s eating Max!”  My dad glances over at me and tells me to get the phone. It takes me a second for my brain to register but it quickly hits me when my dad lets out a loud and urgent yell, “Now!”

After the initial startle, I quickly run to the kitchen and grab the phone off the wall. (yes we still had a landline)…as I turn to run back, I see my dad with a baseball bat in his hand and my mom trying to stop him from going outside.

“Dad, what are you doing?” I yell. “Dad!”

He turns to me and yells back, “Call the police Nora!” he looks back at my mom and tells her to lock the door as he steps out onto the patio. My mom looking like a nervous wreck reluctantly agrees to do what my dad says. I begin dialing 911 as I quickly make my way back to my parents.

My dad takes one last look at us and turns the knob and opens the patio door. My mom shuts the door behind him but the sound of the door slamming shut also got the crazy woman’s attention. She looks up from Max’s torn up corpse. Her face bloodied and her hair everywhere like a wild woman…and her eyes…her eyes…they had no color.

Her eyes looked...dead.

She stayed crouched over my dog but her eyes are fixed on my dad as he slowly begins to walk toward her, with the bat tightly gripped in his hands.

The crazed woman looking like a rabid animal protecting her food; snarls at my dad, showing off her decaying dead flesh filled teeth.

“Oh my God.” My dad says as he stops dead in his tracks. “Wha--” before my dad could finish what he was about to say; the woman jumps to her feet and begins to run toward my dad as she lets out this horrific yell.

“Dad!” “Jonathan!” both my mother and I yell in unison with fear clearly in our voices.

The woman grabs my dad before he had a chance to swing the bat and pulls him down to the ground...as they both hit the ground hard, the crazy woman quickly lunges for my dad's throat and tries to bite him. She growls and snarls as her mouth comes chomping and snapping down as my dad tries to push her away but she doesn't let go, holding him tightly.

"Dad!", I scream. Almost in a frantic, I scream again..."Dad...no, dad!"


My mom, without thinking of her own safety but that of her husband of 22 years; quickly slides the glass door open, cracking the glass as it hits the doorframe. “Shut it!” My mother yells at me as she runs out onto the patio; grabbing a gardening hoe out of a planter on the ground, yelling; “Get away from him, you bitch!” Wow, my mom is freak’n Sigourney Weaver…I think to myself with what I have to admit is a bit of amazement that my 5’5, boney little Mormon of a mom is a crazy woman not to be reckoned with.

The crazy woman turns away from my dad, looking at my mother running towards them and snarls as my mom swings the hoe, catching the woman in the mouth and ripping through her cheek.
My mom swings again and again, coming down on her shoulder and her neck. The crazed woman loosens her grip on my dad and quickly pushes her enough to kick her off him.

My dad stumbles up onto his feet and gives my mom a half-assed hug as they notice the crazed woman get up off the ground too. My dad reaches for the hoe in my mom’s hand. “I got it babe” he says to my mom as she loosens her tight grip on the handle.

As my dad turns toward the woman with hoe in hand, my mom quickly picks up the baseball bat and stands by his side…the Bishop and the President of the Relief Society stand ready to do battle…”Don’t fuck with a Mormon.” I mumble to myself as I slide the now broken glass door closed.

I quickly turn back to my brother to tell him that mom and dad are about to kick ass but as turn, I see the front door open and my brother is nowhere in sight.

“Kyle?” I call out but he doesn’t respond back.  I suddenly get a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

“Kyle!” I yell out, hoping for a response this time but nothing.

I take a glance out the glass door at my parents…they’re wailing on that woman like a piñata but instead of candy, it’s blood and body parts flying out of her.
 
“Sick.” I say with what I’m sure was a disgust expression on my face.

I turn back to the front door and reluctantly, begin my slow dreadful walk to what I fear is a nightmare in the making.


As I reach the front door, I can hear a slight whimper along with the sound of what best describes...mud...someone stomping in mud.


I reach the door and slowly stick my head out.


Oh my God! Oh my God! I yell as I see what sounded like mud was actually my brother being torn apart by our neighbors...they are eating him...they are eating him alive!


Before I could do anything or even react...apparently  my scream caught their attention; I tried to back away but it was too late. They were on top of me. Oh God! They're trying to bite me! 


Mom! Dad! I yell out but the back door is closed and they couldn't hear me.


I scream out again, but this time in pain...one of them bit my leg.


I'm trying to get away...I'm kicking and punching but they go unfazed...Aauughh!! I yell out again as another one bites my wrist...and another...and another. Oh God...they are eating me. I can hear myself scream but I no longer feel my body...as if I'm not in my body anymore. I hear the blood gurgle in my throat as I gasp for air...I'm dying. I'm being eaten alive and I'm dying.


Yeah...this bites.


*** The End ***

Dr. Hooper (Day 1)

DR. Sydney Hooper, 36

Syracuse, New York

I like to consider myself a sensible man…logical and definitely educated but what I’ve seen today doesn’t make sense…it shouldn’t be happening, there’s no way it could happen other than in a George Romero movie…this doesn’t happen in real life.

My nightmare started…

I was on my way to the “HAPPY HILLS RETIREMENT HOME” in Buffalo…where I volunteer my time to the senior community there. I try to do that as often as I can…at least once a week. I feel seniors are getting the short end of the stick from cuts in their health care to their Social Security income, which they already had it tough for years now; all in the name of preserving America’s way of living comfortably…I ask, which part of America and which Americans are benefiting from taking away from the meek.   

Sorry, I digressed but I feel strongly on how we treat our elderly…we say we care but we, as a society, ignore them and many are considered as a nuisance to their own families. I actually find it ironic that the beginning of the end of humanity and civilization started with a senior citizen. Perhaps it’s God’s way of granting revenge to the elderly on humanity, who gave them the shaft…yes I know I’m being very cynical but it does say in the bible; “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

Ok, I’ll get of my senior soapbox now…where was I? Oh yes…

I was on my way to the HAPPY HILLS RETIREMENT HOME when I get a call from a nurse at ST. Joseph’S Hospital, where I’m a resident physician. She says that I am needed at the hospital stat. Apparently there was some kind of accident on the Amtrak Platform at the Regional Transportation Center and to add salt to the wounds, a small riot ensued by several commuters…why people react in that way, I’ll never understand but unfortunately I honestly believe we are reverting back to our primeval state of mind…our animalistic urge to cause harm to one another and apparently that’s exactly what happened on that platform because from what the nurse said; there were several injured as well as a few death.

“God Bless America”

After I called the HAPPY HILLS RETIREMENT HOME; I make my way to the hospital where I see 4 ambulances parked in front of the emergency doors and with nurses along with the paramedics helping the incoming patients into the ER.

I quickly park my car and make my way up to the hospital. As I approach the ambulances, I notice blood all over the ground…a lot of blood. You would think seeing blood on the ground, in front of the ER would be a normal sight but not this amount of blood…and not seeing someone attending to this, is definitely not the norm…and I knew right then that today would not be a typical day in the “Life of Riley” (That was an old show staring Jackie Gleason)

As I walk in through the ER doors…I’m instantly hit with the thought; it’s a warzone…a complete madhouse in here. Crying and screaming echo through the ER with people on beds and stretchers bleeding from wounds that are so horrific, even for me and I’ve seen a lot of shit that would curl your stomach…it’s bad…really bad in here.

“What the hell am I walking into” I mumble to myself.

I quickly grab a nurse as she walks past me. “Nurse, what’s going on…all this from the platform accident?” I asked. She quickly responds with a bit of controlled anxiety in her tone; “Dr. Hooper…uh, no…no, this is now coming in from all around town.” “Sorry Doctor but I need to go” The nurse says as she pulls away from me.

I watch her run down the hallway and disappear around the corner.

I look back at the mayhem that’s happening in front of me…I pause for a moment, not really sure where to begin but I just knew I had to get in there and before I even realized it; my jacket was off, my sleeves rolled up to my elbows and I was knee high in carnage.

I’m not sure if I could even truly describe what I see but just imagine…men, women and children crying…yelling and moaning from the pain that they are in. There is so much suffering from all around me.

A child…around the age of 7 has his nose chewed off and his left eye is gone. A woman screaming on a gurney, holding in her intestines with her right hand as her other hand hangs on with only skin. A man sitting in a wheelchair with a blood-soaked towel to his ear or where his ear used to be; that man lost his two boys as his mother killed them both and began to eat their bodies…I pray to God that those kids weren’t alive when she started to eat them…what horror…and these stories go on and on.

I know I don’t hold humanity in high regards as a society but I would never wish this on anyone…well, ok…maybe my ex-wife but knowing my luck, she’ll probably out live God.

Henrietta (Day 1)

Henrietta Thompson, 80

Buffalo, New York  

I liked to say I lived a long and happy fun filled life…well, that’s until my daughter felt that I might be to much of a bother for her and her precious husband to take care of; so, she put me into the “HAPPY HILLS RETIREMENT HOME”…hmph, if I sound a little on the bitter side…I’m not…I’m very bitter. Sometimes I almost wish they never started me on the “LAZARIUM” pills. It might’ve been better if I couldn’t remember all that I do or what they do…and Jack…I really miss you. (Jack was my husband of 48 years)

“Hi Henrietta…how are you doing today?” Nurse Johnson says to me as she walks into my room.

Startled, I quickly turn away from the window and turn to Nurse Johnson.

“Oh my…”, I say as I let out one of those  embarrassing laughs . “Did I startle you Mrs. Thompson?” She asks.

I move over to my bed; “just a little.” I say with a smile.

“I’m sorry sweetie…I didn’t mean to do that…but it’s time for your meds.” Says Nurse Johnson as she casually makes her way to the counter and plops down her little plastic container that houses those itsy bitsy teeny weeny purple capsules of life that I swear are a God send…and a curse.

I’m sure my smile can be seen from miles away, with just the thought of taking my “LAZARIUM”… I can almost imagine what a person hooked on some kind of illegal drugs would do or feel for their next “fix”…(I learned that lingo on Law and Order…Jack and I used to watch that show together. Sorry…I digressed)…they want to stop but can’t…almost the way I feel…but with less guilt.

I sit on my bed…waiting patiently for my “LAZARIUM”...like a dog waiting for a nice meaty bone.

“Ok, Mrs. Thompson…” the Nurse says as she turns toward me with the pills in a small paper cup.  “Hear you go.”

“Thank you” I say, trying to hold back the drool. (not seriously but sure felt like it though)

I take my pills then hand Nurse Johnson the paper cup.

“Is the Doctor still coming to see me today?” I ask.

“Actually Dr. Hooper was called into the Hospital today…apparently there was some kind of accident downtown and a lot of people were hurt…and from what I heard, a lot of deaths too.” Nurse Johnson tells me. “Oh my…that’s terrible.”  I replied…but before I could even say more; both Nurse Johnson and I are frightened by the horrific sounds of screaming and yelling coming from out in the hallway.

Nurse Johnson rushes to the doorway. She stands motionless…almost in complete shutdown.

I quickly jump to my feet; “What is it, Nurse Johnson?” I yell out.

Nurse Johnson turns back to me with fear in her eyes…I’ve never seen such fear in someone’s face before.

“Oh dear God, what is it child?” I ask but before she could say anything; someone swooped by the door, pulling her away.

I jump with fear…nearly wetting myself (embarrassing, I know… but true).

I hear Nurse Johnson’s screams as the join the many others.

Oh God, what is going on out there? I think to myself.

I see another nurse running past my door followed by…um, it…well…it looked like Mr. Edwards…but he passed away early this morning. It couldn’t have been him.

Scared but none the less, I decided to take a look out the door…I felt the need to know what’s happening.

I slowly walk toward the door…as I reach the entrance to my little room that I call home; I peek out the door and see horrible…horrible things…oh God…I-I almost cannot believe what I am seeing.

I see my friends…the people I live with and eat with and…and laugh with…they are attacking the staff. They are attacking and…and no, no…no…they…they are eating them.

“Oh God…what the hell is going on here? God almighty…what is going on?” I say quietly to myself but unfortunately not quite enough. Several of my friends…well, what were my friends, look in my direction and with a horrific sounding yell by one of them, almost as if it were a bugle letting out the call to charge because by golly, they all came running towards me…with arthritis, heart problems, fibromyalgia and whatever else was plaguing these old pokes before right now, sure isn’t slowing them down.

I try to run in the other direction but not watching where I am going, I trip over Nurse Johnson’s half eaten body.

I couldn’t get up fast enough…they all surround me…the pain…oh God the pain. They are biting me! They are tearing at my flesh! My screams are now just sounds of gargling blood that’s filling up in my mouth and throat…what a way to go…the last thought that goes through my head as they rip out my innards was…I really hate my daughter.

Henrietta Thompson…deceased

  

Michael (Day 1)

Michael Sanders, 36

Syracuse, New York

My mother was living with Alzheimer’s for the past 6 years before the drug "LAZARIUM" was prescribed to her. I could swear it was the best thing for her and the family. Those pills were a miracle…not long after she started taking them she was running around, shopping, gardening, playing with the grandkids and telling her wonderful stories that I so very missed…my mother was alive again.

Almost a full year had passed since my mother started taking "LAZARIUM" and she was doing so great that we (my brother’s family and mine) decided that it would be a wonderful thing to celebrate her 68^th birthday on Fisher Island. With all that my mother has been through the past 6 years, she deserves a week that she’ll never forget.

On the weekend before we were to leave, I took the kids (Connor, 13 and Jacob, 8) to pick up my mother…as we pulled up, I instantly felt that something wasn’t right. My mother loves the sunlight to shine in through the windows and she always opens the curtains first thing in the morning…it’s now 1 o’clock in the afternoon and the curtains are still closed.

I park the truck in the driveway and I tell my kids to wait in the cab.

I walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell…I wait a few seconds then I ring it again. A minute or so passes and still no answer.

She knew we were coming over to pick her up…now I’m starting to really worry.

I turn to walk back to the truck to get my keys; I have a spare key to the front door.

I get to the truck and reach for the keys that are hanging in the ignition.

“Did Grandma leave?” my son asks with a confused look on his face. “I don’t know yet but wait here till I come get you both” I say to my kids as I back out of the cab and close the door.

I quickly make my way back to the front door.

I slide the key in the lock and turn…I look back at the kids to make sure they are okay, they were and I turned back to the door and turn the knob.

I open the door and as I begin to walk into the house, I call out; “Mother…its Michael…hello” But I hear nothing.

I walk further into the house; I head toward the living room and still nothing. So, I call out again…”Mother.” I’m starting to get a little worried; “Mother…where are you?” I call again but louder.  

As I pass the hall leading to the bedrooms, I notice a stepstool on the ground, laying on its side and a broken glass frame. “Mother…mom!” I yell out. I rush down the hall; I figured she must’ve fallen and probably was lying somewhere hurt.

I quickly look in the bedrooms, still calling out for my mother but I hear nothing other than my own heart pounding through my chest.

I stand quietly for a moment at the entrance to my mother’s room. Then suddenly I hear what no parent ever wants to hear…the sound of my kids screaming from the truck. I’ll never forget those nightmarish screams…and the shot of fear that went down my spine.

I quickly run back down the hall and toward the living room and out the door.

My children’s screams grow louder as I fly down the walkway toward the truck.

As I reach the driveway…I am over-whelmed by intense fear as the sounds of my kids screaming, stops.

“Connor…Jacob!” I scream as I fling the truck door open…and my own personal horror is realized right before my eyes. “Oh God! Mother! Oh God…my God!” I scream as I see my mother on top of my kids…her grandchildren…tearing at their flesh and eating them.

With one of my son’s intestines in her hand, she quickly turns to me with blood dripping from her face and her eyes free of color...and her neck wobbled as if it were broken or not attached to her skull.

She looked like a wild animal…or worse...something out of a horror movie.

Before I could do or say anything else she quickly lunges at me and we both fall to the cold cement driveway.

She bites me on the shoulder but her tooth doesn’t make it past my shirt. She tries again but I hold her off.

I notice a crowed starting to gather…the neighbors coming out to see what was all the commotion but like most people, they don’t want to get involved, especially what they see before them. Not sure I would either.

I yell out to the gawkers, “Help me! Help…me!”

My mother gets ahold of my ear and clamps down on it…I scream as she rips my earlobe off and blood shoots out onto the ground.

Oh my God…are those people really going to just stand there and watch my mother eat me alive…what the fuck!

“Help Me, God damn it…Help me!” I yell out in one last attempt to get anyone to help…but humanity doesn’t live on this block.

As I look up at my 68 year old mother, who just spit out my chewed up ear back down on my face along with blood and saliva…she lets out a sinister growl…her breath, so foul…I felt my gag reflex about to give but the fight to keep my mother from taking another bite outta me, took over and I used every last bit of strength that I had and I pushed her up as far as I could while yelling at her; “Mother! Get…the…fuck…off…me!”

I worked my legs under her and slowly prop my feet to her stomach and I trust my legs out, sending my little old gray-haired mother flying up and over the hood of my truck.

She lands hard with a loud thud on the cement floor.

I jump to my feet but I stumble and almost fall back down to the ground.

I try to regain my stability by leaning on the bed of my truck.

I quickly throw my hand over the hole where my ear used to be as I’m hit with a surge of pain that shoots from head down my spine and to my feet…damn it hurts like a son-of-a bitch. “Fuck” I say to myself.

 I glance around the crowd as I see some of my mother’s neighbors on their cell phones…(which I’m assuming are calling the police)…and others are filming this madness. Insensitivity and technology go hand in hand.

My eyesight are slightly blurred but I do see a rather large man walking quickly in my direction…holding a baseball bat tightly in his hand. At least one person is coming to help; I think to myself.

I look away from the crowd and the large bat-man crossing the street and I focus on the horrific sight of my two boys lying motionless on the seat of my truck.

I cannot even begin to describe the pain that I’m feeling right now…and not that from my ear but that of my heart being torn from my chest. My boys are dead…Oh God…they’re dead.

I begin to weep.

I can hear the sirens in the distance but getting closer...late like always but welcomed, non the less.

Before I realize that the large bat-man made his way across the street and to my mother’s driveway; he yells out; “Hey motherfucker!”

With tears rolling down my cheeks and blood pouring down the side of my face…and my son’s torn up bodies spread all over the seat and this fat ass jerk-off actually thinks I’m the bad guy.

“Come pick on someone who can actually defend themselves…instead of a little old lady!” He yells, as he raises the bat and grips it with both hands.

I look at him with astonishment that this Guido is seriously going to beat me with a baseball bat without really knowing what the hell is going on…what a dick.

I throw my hands up to shield myself from the incoming headache that this large man is about to inflict on me…but before he could swing the bat down on my head, my mother lunges out from behind the truck and latches her $15,000.00 dentures into the fat man’s rather large neck. He drops the bat and begins to scream as he tries to pull my mother off him but she’s on him like a tick on a dog.

My mother shifts her head from side to side then pulls her head back, tearing out the man’s throat.

I can hear the screams now coming from the crowd as the fat man falls to the ground and his blood squirting out like a garden hose turned on full…it was a mess.

I grab the bat and make my way over to my mother as she continues to feed on the fat man’s twitching body.

I grip the bat tightly.

My eyes filled with tears, my breath shallow and my broken heart beating fast.

I raise the bat.

“I’m sorry mom” I say softly, and…I swing the bat down on my mother.

The bat hits my mother on the back but she barely reacts…she just continues to tear at the fat man’s body.

I swing again…and again…and again. She gets up from the body and turns to me. Her face is covered in blood and bits of flesh that’s not her own. That is not my mother anymore. My mother is dead and this thing in front of me is…is j-just a shell…a soulless shell of what was once a wonderful woman.

I raise the bat again. “Alright…let’s get this over with.” I mumble to myself…then I yell out; “C’mon!”

She lets out that menacing screeching again and rushes at me like a wild bull charging a matador.

I swing the bat once more as hard as I can and it connects with her head and she falls to the ground. I step over her body and preparing to swing again but she stopped moving…I wait a few seconds (which felt like minutes)…but my mother lays motionless.

My mother is dead…again.

                                                     (End of Day 1)