April: Six forty-five in the morning. Middlebury, Vermont.

“Mom!” I repeat as I shake my mother from her heavy sleep.

“Oh I’m so sorry April, what time is it?” She quickly sits up.

“Almost seven, we’re gonna be late.”

She pulls me close and kisses my cheek, “Have a good day honey, I’ll see you next Monday. Have fun at your dad’s.”

I just nod my head, my dad is dating a lady with other kids, he spends more time with them than me and gets to see them whenever he wants. Visiting him recently hasn’t been fun. His other kids are little tyrants, a three-year-old, eight-year-old, and the worst, a fifteen-year-old girl. She definitely makes fun of me behind my back.

“April!” Jacob yells from downstairs.

I pick up my backpack from the end of my mom’s bed and run down the stairs.

“You don’t have to wake her up every morning.” He says while we walk out the door.

“What if she dies while I’m at school and I didn’t get to say good-”

“You’re so paranoid!” He scolds. Jacob takes a breath in, “Nothing is going to happen to her.”

“The moment you take off that hood and mom finds out you shaved your hair she’s going to go batshit on you.” He rolls his eyes.

“Your hair is shaved, and so is Liam’s and everyone else's.”

“Liam is probably shooting people from an airplane right now. Besides, you’re a girl, girl’s don’t have bald heads! Even the ones in the military and MMA have them in buns, except for dykes.”

“It’s just hair, I like this better.”

“I hope you don’t plan on taking that hoodie off for a year or two.”

April: Four eighteen in the afternoon. Middlebury, Vermont.

My feet are planted on the sidewalk outside the school. Jacob turns around, visibly annoyed, “We have to go.”

“I hate her and her stupid kids, I can just stay at Mary’s house over the weekend.”

“Dad would tell mom.”

“Give me your phone!”

He reaches into his cup holder pocket and takes out the big, crusty, phone that my mom used in college, and tosses it at me.

“You’ll break it if you throw it around,” I say.

“It’s a brick, even if you tried, that thing won’t ever break.”

I go through his contacts, looking for my mother, “Ooh who’s Bella?”

“The therapist I hired for you.” He says jokingly. “Are you gonna call her or what?”

“What’s wrong?” My mom asks through the phone.

“I don’t feel good and I don’t want to get the little kids sick, can I stay home this weekend?”

“April, we talked about this.”

“Please momma.”

“This weekend. You’re going next time.”

“Thank you so much,” I say.

Jacob laughs, “I’ll make sure to tell Makenzie you have a lesbian crush on her.”

“I hate you even more than I hate that bitch.” I pinch his wrist with my nails.

“Jeez, language.”

He leans in to hug me, “Goodbye or whatever, you know, in case I die.”

“Bye, Jacob.”

“Don’t die at mom’s!” He shouts walking away.

That became the last thing I heard him say.

Mary runs out of the front doors and almost into me, “Did you see it?”

“See what?”

“Online!”

“I can’t have a phone until I’m thirteen. You know that.”

“Just look.” She says out of breath, shoving her phone in my face.

“Dead coming back to life? That has to be a prank.” I say.

“No, it isn’t. There’s video proof and lots of articles. They said it started in Europe and is moving down from Canada to America.”

“Why? Are you scared?” I push her to the side, softly.

“Who wouldn’t be, this could be the end of the world, April.”

That’s when the realization flooded over me.

Ria: Ten twenty-two. Bedford, New Hampshire.

“It’s so cold for March,” Sophie says.

We walk around the track with our class every morning, no matter how cold or hot or rainy. Our school’s oddly strict about health.

“Yeah, I swear the hill had snow on it last week.” I glance over to the big hill at the edge of the parking lot, there’s a man waving at me with both his arms. Now that I’ve noticed him I can hear something too, “Help! Please help me!” Sounds like he’s dying.

I tap Sophie’s shoulder, she turns around. I nod my head towards the guy.

“Holy crap, what is that?”

“What?!” I squint my eyes, which doesn’t really help. A lady with blood all over her crawls towards him and grabs his legs, she bites him and he’s pulled down.

“Ms. Francis!” I yell.

“Are you okay Ria?”

“That man.” I point at the hill.

Ms. Francis says, “Let’s go inside, just look away.”

“How terrible.” She murmurs.

The rest of the day I thought about that man and what happened but my day still went on as normal. Classes, lunch, more classes. It was only when it was time for basketball practice after school that something weird occurred again.

Every Wednesday after school I stay for basketball practice, of course, other people stay after school too, detention kids, teachers, students that are failing. Who would supervise us if no one else stayed? The downside is that most kids left, they went on their buses or their parents picked them up or they walked, maybe even biked, but ninety percent of the school was safe and sound at home. If an emergency were to happen not as many people would care.

I waited in my classroom until it was time for practice, however, I had no one to talk to, Sophie went home, Eli and Logan were in the gym on cleaning duty and my other friends were in different classrooms.

Sophie: Three fifty-one. Bedford, New Hampshire.

“Darcy, I saw something so weird at school today. A man got EATEN by someone.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t be going to that practice. All sorts of dangers now.”

Jack comes out of the kitchen with a bowl of pasta, “Oh yeah I heard there were actual cannibals running loose, like some sort of disease.”

“Sophie, that must’ve been traumatic, I’m sorry sweetie,” Calvin says. The man cares more about me than my own blood, which says a lot.

“Will my friends be okay?”

“I’m sure they’ll be just dandy,” Jack whispers.

“Shut up. Darcy, it’s all your fault I don’t know jack shit about anything going on in the real world.”

“Hey, calm down, please. That’s no way to speak to your mother.” Calvin says.

I rush to my room and turn on the small tv mounted to my wall that used to sit on the wardrobe in Jack’s room until he got a bigger one.

So many of the news channels are running twenty-four-seven, I turn one of them on, it’s talking about my school going on a lockdown.

Eli: Four in the afternoon. Bedford, New Hampshire.

“There’s no way he actually likes her,” Logan says as he shoots a basketball and misses.

“You’re starting to sound like her actually.”

“I sound like Julia?... Did you take something?” I ask.

“She’s insecure as fuck.”

“But takes it out on every girl he talks to.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird how no one’s come to practice yet? not even coach. What time is it?” I ask.

“Time for you to get a watch.”

“Fuck you. Seriously you don’t have your phone?”

“Nope. Left it at home. What about you?”

“In my backpack.”

I walk up to the gym door, as I open it someone runs by, I quickly close it. It’s a man, he starts scratching at the door, his eyes are white like those of a blind man and his veins stand out almost more than the blood on his clothes.

“Fuck! I think that’s a school shooter.” I blurt out even though that ‘shooter’ looked unhuman.

“Really?” Logan walks over.

“He looked like a monster though, it looked like he didn’t understand what was going on either.”

“We gotta get outta here.”

“There’s no windows in the gym, dumbass.”

“Through the doors. Which way did he go?”

“Down the hall, to the sixth-grade classrooms.”

An announcement goes off, “Dear students and faculty, please follow emergency lockdown procedures and stay where you are until the school is proven safe to leave.”

Logan ignores the announcement and opens the door. What good would staying put do anyway?

We dash down the hall and knock on a classroom door, a girl opens it, “Hurry.”

It’s just her and two other students in the room.

“Where’s your teacher?”

She points at the open window.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I called my parents and they said to stay here, they can pick you up too if you want.”

“No, we’re good,” Logan says.

I look through the window in the door, a few classrooms down I can see Ally peeking out through the window. I’ve only talked to her a few times because of Zander but she seems like a nice girl, maybe a little dumb, but nice.

Zander: Four sixteen. Bedford, New Hampshire.

“Ally’s in the classroom across from us, we can make it.”

“You asshole. You just like her.”

“Julianna!” Mrs. Dalton shouts.

“We could die any moment, I’ll be lucky if I can survive until you can go down to the office and write up my detention slip.”

“She’s my friend, shouldn’t we stick together in this situation?” I ask.

“Maybe with Logan, Dante, or Eli but sure as hell not with her.”

Mrs. Dalton walks over and sits down at an empty desk next to us, “You are to stay put.”

“Fine, Julia, have it your way.”

I exit the classroom, when Ally sees me she immediately opens the door and hugs me, “I saw other people! Logan and Eli in Mr. Collin's room.”

I look at the back at the classroom where I can see Ria sitting down, she holds up her hand and smiles. Julia opens the door then slams it shut, “Fuck Mrs. Dalton, the old hag needs a viagra.”

“Let’s go with Eli and Logan,” I say.

Nitro: Six in the afternoon. Elmira, New York.

“How long’s she been out like this?” Serafina asks. We stand over my mom, Marissa, passed out on the kitchen floor next to a pile of some clear substance that could be anything.

“Two hours, but she’ll wake up eventually.”

“Why wait? You’ve seen what’s out there. Do you want to say goodbye or something?”

“No, I don’t owe her anything.” I reach into mom’s purse on the kitchen counter and take her wallet. Serafina and I planned on stealing our parent’s money and putting it together for tickets to a colder, higher-up state, somewhere like that would be safe.

“You wanna take anything?” She asks.

“You have that picture we took?”

“Yeah, I was gonna bring it with me.” She pulls out the picture of us we took at her house about four days ago. “Go ahead.” She smiles.

I take the photo and lean it against the teapot on the stove next to the note I wrote earlier that says, ‘Don't look for me. I'm not coming back.’

“You love her,” Serafina says.

“And you love your dad.”

“I must really hate you.” She raises her eyebrows, smiling.

“So this is it?” I ask.

“You wanna take a shot to celebrate our future homelessness?”

“Nah, best not to end up like that.”