A loud crash downstairs woke me up with a jolt. I shot up out of bed quicker than I ever had. Something felt wrong. Before I started to panic I told myself I had to calm down. Maybe I was hearing things or maybe I had a nightmare. From my room I could hear someone was making their way downstairs. John was probably on his way to the kitchen to begin making breakfast for everyone and I paid what I had heard or thought I heard no mind. I began to try to go back to bed because I was up way earlier than usual. Just as I laid my head down on my pillow, I heard another crash as well as some other muffled, unrecognizable noise and I began to feel more uneasy than I did earlier. I raced to change out of my pajamas and into normal clothes. John being the oldest at the orphanage was like the older brother all of us needed but could never have. If something happened to him, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he was gone. I put my slippers on and began to look for anything I could use as a weapon. Before long I stopped searching and just tried to calm down. Maybe I was overreacting a bit and there’s no danger at all. It could just be Sterling being clumsy. After all, it wouldn’t be uncommon for him to be. After I calmed myself, I opened my door and started walking down the stairs. I got about half way down the stairs when I heard John talking to someone.

“...forget all about this.” John had said. 

I didn’t get there early enough to hear all of what John said but I assumed she was trying to convince Ms. Kelly not to punish Sterling for making such a racket so early in the morning. I didn’t think much of it but just in case I waited on the stairs for a little bit just so I didn’t have to see her. I didn’t want her to yell at me for being up so early. I was probably there for a good five minutes just waiting for her to leave. It wasn’t until I heard something slam against the floor that I started to wonder what was going on and started walking towards the kitchen again. There was an audible thud that came from the kitchen followed by a heavy object hitting the floor. I had almost reached the door when I heard a long screech-like groan. I peeked into the kitchen only to see John standing over a body with a hammer like tool in his right hand. Behind him was another body. I wasn’t sure of who it was because John was blocking it but the room was covered in blood. What happened here? What was John doing? What were those noises I heard? Just then the body John was standing over lept at his feet and he began beating it over the head with the hammer thing in his hand. I turned away from the door frame after the first hit and hid behind the wall. There were continuous squishy thuds for a little bit but then suddenly, they just stopped. I looked back into the kitchen to see John kneeling in front of the person he just beat and probably killed. He was crying.

“I’m sorry Sterling. I didn’t mean it. Please forgive me...Please forgive me…”

It couldn’t be. There is no way that was Sterling. He would never do anything to harm Sterling because keeping him safe meant more to John than anything. I covered my mouth and began to move towards the grief stricken John. As I was moving towards him, I finally got a good look of the body that was behind him. It was Ms. Kelly. She was covered in blood and her midsection had been exposed and not in a good way. Her organs were exposed. I could see her liver, her intestines, everything. However, her stomach was gone. I had to look away before I threw up all over the place. Had John done this to her? No, that’s not possible. He could never nor would he ever do something like that. However, something caught my eye shortly after I looked away. I was almost all the way to John when Ms. Kelly began to move. But, that was just as impossible as John doing any of whatever had happened in this room. She stood up and started to walk towards John.

“John! Behind you!” I shouted

Without even opening his eyes he picked up the weapon he had earlier and uppercutted Ms. Kelly with it. She immediately fell back down to the ground in the sitting position that she had been in before. He looked down at her and began to beat her over the head the same way he did to the other body. Something was different about him though. I don’t think he was fully in control or even aware of what he was doing. John was angry, screaming with each hit that landed on her head. Blood began to cover the wall behind her and I think that it had started to cover John. I started to move towards him again. With each couple of steps I took I called out his name. Each time I called he ignored me and continued to lay into Ms. Kelly. I didn’t understand any of what was going on but I needed to get John back. I was almost to him when I had enough of him ignoring me. I had started to cry just as he had been earlier.

“John!” I shouted. “Wake up!”

He turned around visibly angry and not in control at all. He began to walk towards me with his weapon raised over his head. I think he was about to swing at me. Why can’t he hear me? I began to move backwards but he was gradually speeding up. He had gotten up to a running pace and started to chase me around the kitchen. Luckily it was only for a little bit because he slipped in a puddle, hit his head on the ground and remained face down. Scared and in tears I walked back over to him and tried to turn him over. After a little bit of work I turned him over and saw what had happened to him. There was a large mark on his forehead where there was no blood but instead a large red circle. The rest of his face was covered in blood and his clothes were soaked in it. Tears were still coming from his eyes. I walked over to the sink and grabbed the cloth rag that was usually by it and wet it with water. I walked back over to him and started cleaning off his face. I didn’t stop crying for a while. The room reeked of death and I knew I had to get his face cleaned so we could get out before anyone else stumbled on this room. I quickly finished and dragged him out of the room. Before I closed the door I grabbed an icepack from the freezer and left the room. On the way out I shut the door and locked it. I set the ice pack on John’s head and sat down in front of the door and waited for him to get up.

Soon everything started coming back. It wasn’t long before I realized before the pain and aching began. My head was pounding and I could hear my own heartbeat. With each beat of my heart a pound of pain hit me like a truck. What happened to me? My arm was in so much pain. It felt like it ripped to shreds from the inside out. My eyes were heavy and I couldn’t get them open. Besides the pounding in my head there was something really cold on my forehead. Breathing hurt way more than I’ve ever felt before. With every breath, the pain caused me to cough as I exhaled. Using my left arm I tried to sit myself up by slowly inching my way into a sitting position, gritting my teeth in pain the whole time. The ice pack hit the floor with a loud thud. I didn’t open my eyes until I was sitting all the way up. When I did, I was extremely dizzy and everything was spinning. I felt like my stomach had become its own separate piece of me and wanted to escape. I took a second to look around for a wall to sit up against for support. To my right, not far from where I was, the unlit fireplace seemed like it was empty. Not like empty as though there was nothing in it but as though there could be nothing there ever again. All the joyous memories, how few there were, had disappeared from my memory. 

I propped myself up against the side of it facing the furniture and set my head against the stone. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself and ease the pain that followed. I slowed my breathing in hopes that the pain in my chest would end. And then it hit me. Everything I saw came back in a huge wave. My feelings of despair and hate and anger all hit me like a freight train. I couldn’t help it. The pain disappeared and I broke down in tears and sadness. I opened my eyes again and looked around in hopes no one saw what was going on with me. I looked towards the kitchen door and saw a familiar face. Then it hit me. Why was I in the living room? Who pulled me out here? What did they see? What is going on inside the kitchen now? My vision cleared fully and I figured out who it was. It was Jessica. Had she pulled me from the kitchen? What did she see me do? What did I do? I had to ask her.

“Jess?” I groaned

“Hey John. You okay now?” She replied

“I guess so. What happened?”

“I don't know. I walked in on you…” Her voice trailed off. There was something she wasn’t telling me.

“What did I do?”

“When I walked in and you were hitting Sterling on the head. You were really laying into him. I don’t know why you were doing it but afterwards you were just sitting there, crying. When I tried to talk to you, you didn’t listen. Then Ms. Kelly, she shouldn’t have been able to but she started moving. I tried to get you to move but instead you turned around and hit her too. You hit her so much though that if I had seen her before I wouldn’t have known it was her. Then you tried to attack me. You chased me for a bit but out of nowhere you slipped and hit your head. What happened in there? Why did you attack them?”

“I didn’t attack Sterling. He attacked Ms. Kelly and he did something to her. I came down and he was eating her stomach. I tried to talk to him but I didn’t realize that he was whatever he had become. Not until he attacked me. He knocked me to the ground and while on the ground, I found the meat tenderizer. Next thing I know, I lost control and then everything faded away.”

She gave me a worried look and I started to cry more. I had to look away from her. I can’t believe I attacked her. What would have happened had I caught her? What have I done? What do we tell the others? Where do we go from here? Things just got a lot harder for us. Could this have happened everywhere? I had to be sure. 

“Jessica help me up please? I have to see something.” I asked her

“What do you need to see?” She asked me confused.

“Just help me to a window please.”

She came over and helped me to my feet. I put my arm over her shoulder and nearly had to carry me to the window. I opened the curtain of the window in the living room and peered into the streets. They were in chaos. There were multiple sets of crashed cars in the streets. Doors were open and smoke was spewing from some of the car engines. People were scattered. Some I think had to be the creatures that Sterling and Ms. Kelly had become. Those creatures were chasing people that I figured were still alive. In some places, those creatures had already begun eating people. Blood and body parts were all over the streets. It was almost unbearable. Suddenly, army troops began coming down the streets shooting every moving thing in sight. Some were outside of the Humvee and some were inside of it. One soldier was up on the gun in the Humvee shooting what the soldiers missed. Yet somehow, they were no match for the creatures. Gradually, more and more started storming the streets until they were overrun with sprinting creatures. Hundreds of them flooded the streets and they overwhelmed the soldiers, killing all of them. We needed to get ready for what was ahead of us, whatever it will be. I turned to Jessica who was seeing everything I have. She was horrified and visible sick to her stomach.

“Jess, go lock every door that leads outside please.” I asked. She didn’t respond. “Jessica.”

“Yeah, yeah I’ll go do that.” She replied.

I think she had started to cry. I know this is going to be very hard on us. No one would know what to do in this kind of a situation but we don’t have a choice but to figure it out. But whatever happens, we’ll figure it out together. I made my way to the bathroom in hopes of finding some headache medicine. I opened up the mirror cabinet and grabbed some Tylenol. I could never remember how much I’m supposed to take so I read the back. I then poured some into my hand, popped them into my mouth and bent down to take a drink from the faucet. When I came back up, I looked in the mirror and saw Jessica standing in the doorway, tears still flowing. 

“Are all of the doors locked?” I asked her

“Yes they are.” She replied, teary eyed. “What do we do now?”

“We go wake the others.”