Z-Day: Book 1 First Burnz
By Courtney Calderbank and Kate Leonard
Copyright 2015 Book Sisters
Table Of Contents
Part 1 - How This All Starts
Part 2 - Settling In
Part 3 - Moving On (And Coming Back)
Part 4 - Puppies!
Part 5 - A Cure... Maybe?
Part 6 - Life In The Library
Part 7 - Farming And The End
Chapter 1
Z-Day. Strange name for a strange day. Almost makes it sound like a game. But trust me; it’s far from it. It’s nothing like CoD Zombies, or the Walking Dead for that matter, except for the Zombies, of course. Huh. Zombies. More like mutants. Bald, stupid, mutants, who are hungry for humans.
I’m only just surviving at the moment, and you can believe me when I say it isn’t easy. Easy? It’s real life for me now, but for you it’s like being thrust into The Last of Us or something. Terrifying. But it’s been a year since the first Z-Day, the day when this all started, so I think we’re doing ok. The Zombies haven’t stopped coming yet, or anything like that, and other dangers have presented themselves, but we’re surviving, and that is all that matters.
I’m writing this as a recount of that first year, as a reminder of how this Apocalyptic World all started. Of how the first ever Z-Day began.
On that fateful morning, I met Courtney at her house as usual to walk to school. Little did we know that we would be taking quite a different route, and that school would be cancelled for quite a long time!
The first thing we noticed was the smell. It stank! Well, to be honest, rotten flesh didn’t tend to smell very nice at all, as we were going to find out, especially when it was walking around trying to eat people. In fact, I actually thought that the smell might kill me before the Zombies! Of course, this was all before I saw an actual Zombie, as I very swiftly changed my mind about what would kill me first after one look at these undead menaces.
First off, we hauled up in a corner shop called Thorougoods, absolutely terrified of the things outside. After taking out our first Zombie with a pen through the eyes and a brick to the head, Courtney and I relaxed with some Tizer and two Mars Bars, discussing our plans. This was when we met Daniella.
A loud banging, sobbing, and screams of ‘Let me in! For God’s sake, let me in!’ alerted us to her presence. We had barricaded the door with some wood we smashed from some crates in the back room, so quickly took away the wood and let a mess of red eyes, hair, skin and bones into the tiny shop. This was Daniella.
By now, you probably want a description of the three people you have heard about so far: me, Courtney and Daniella. I’m called Kate, I have short black hair and bright green eyes, like grass, and I am quite tall. I wore my school uniform, a bit tattered and covered in blood by then, but it still showed the royal blue colour and the lion symbol. I suppose I was the brains of the group, however, whatever I gained in intelligence I lacked in charisma and social skills.
Courtney had long, light brown, hair, and beautiful hazel eyes, and was just taller than me. She was the quickest of all of us, very agile, and the most skilled, I think. She always had a plan, a way to get resources, and she always looked out for us. I suppose she was kind of like our group leader, and it worked out because she was very charismatic, and others were willing to work with her, though she had a terrible temper if riled up, or if someone tried to harm (In any way, shape, or form) anyone she was protective of.
Then there was Daniella, long, slightly curly, blond hair, and blue eyes. She was quick to tears, showed loads of compassion for everyone, but was slightly clumsy. However, this just added to her likeable nature and overall friendliness.
Although, saying that, there’s clumsy, like Daniella, and then there’s damn right careless, as you shall find out. And in the Zombie Apocalypse (Courtney doesn’t like me calling it this, so DO NOT TELL HER!), you can be clumsy, but you cannot be careless, and I can’t stress that enough.
Anyway, back to Daniella. She had come in sobbing her heart out, and explained to us that she had been walking to school with her friend Leah when this whole mess happened.
Leah had just been walking, nattering away happily, when one of those ‘things’ nabbed her by the neck and sunk its disgusting teeth into her skin! Daniella had tried to help, but by then Leah was as good as dead, and other living bits of rotting flesh were attracted to her crying. She had sped off, flying down the road and seeing our faces in the shop window, which was also barricaded with wood. Recognizing us, she had come and banged on the door, and so the story ended.
Courtney and I were both deeply saddened by Leah’s death, as we had been friends, but it opened us up to the true nature of a Z-Day, and the tragedy it left behind it. Danger, pain, suffering and death. Brutal death.
We both tried to comfort Daniella, whilst giving her a drink and some biscuits to eat. Her tears had ceased to fall, giving us some chance of saving her wet and messy hair, and persuaded her to tie it up in a sort of bun, close to her head so she wouldn’t get grabbed. Courtney did mine, well, as much of it as she could, since it was quite short, as I was, and still am, rubbish with styling hair, and anything girly, and then her own.
Courtney informed us that staying in the same place for a long time would be a fatal mistake, and that we should probably get on the move. Her confidence seemed to rub off on us, as we started gathering supplies in our school bags, tipping out anything that wasn’t needed (School books, pencil cases, homework, etc.) and adding in food we did need.
But we didn’t just take chocolate, pop and biscuits (Like idiots would). We took proper food as well, such as tins and bottles of water, in case we got to a house and had chance to cook. We also took some fruits and vegetables, as we didn’t want to survive the Zombies but die of an unbalanced and unhealthy diet!
We also got quite a few boxes of matches, as we didn’t know if electricity, heating, and, most importantly, the internet, would still be working. Probably not. Our bags were quite heavy, so we had also filled our blazer pockets to the brim with the essentials, and emptied them of pens, dinner money and more homework.
Just then, a loud banging on the door interrupted our hushed conversation, followed by moans, then a crashing as our barricade was pulled down! One Zombie stumbled in, before, in a split second, a pencil was grabbed by Daniella and hurled into its eye. Her improvised projectile hit the bull’s eye, or, more accurately, the Zombie’s eye, and sank into its head. It must’ve pierced the brain, as it promptly fell over and failed to move a limb.
“Out! Out the back!” Courtney yelled, grabbing her bag and rushing us through the storeroom and out the back door.
Our instincts told us to get to school, so we did, dodging the Zombies carefully and making sure to not get bit. I mean, we all know what happens when you get bitten by a Zombie. You get turned. And although those ‘things’, as Daniella said, were not totally like the Zombies in games, it was, and still is, very probable that they were similar.
They are all bald, as I deducted, from Daniella’s description of Leah, that all hair and most clothes are seared from the body (That means burnt, by the way. Go and get a dictionary if you don’t believe me) during transformation, as the Zombies have a very high body temperature. Maybe this is what’s keeping them alive! After the body temperature increased, the skin changed to keep intact. It hardened, first becoming a chalky white, then changing to a yellow, growing darker as the heat grew hotter. Finally, when they were fully changed, the skin would be a hard, greyish black colour, as if it were charred. Usually, they were also covered in blood and some scraps of clothing, which adde
d to their freaky, petrifying look.
This skin could not usually be pierced by a normal knife, and if it was it would not do much damage, except maybe slow them down. You needed to do the real damage to their heads and faces, and the eyes were a direct route to the brain. When the brain was destroyed, the Zombie would very promptly die again.