"Ahhhh," I yawned loudly as I awoke from a deep slumber. Half-conscious, I remained seated up in bed for somewhile before removing the blanket from my small frame and opening the curtains just to immediately close them again when the blazing light made me grimace.
"It's way too sunny today"
With horribly disheveled hair and clothing, I walked down to the first floor of my house to make some toast for breakfast. On the staircase, I noticed how silent it was. Mom and dad have already probably left for work, I thought.
As I sat down on the dining table, fidgeting with my phone with my left hand and taking the bread to my mouth with my right, the loud distinct ringtone resonated throughout my house. It was from Greg. The moment I picked up the call, I could hear how flustered he was, almost to the point of being incapable of speaking. He was stuttering and slurring words as he breathed heavily.
"Tanner," he choked out through multiple heavy breaths, "w-we messed up."
"What?" I asked, mystified.
"I don't have time to explain. Turn on the television and I'll send you the situation around my house."
"Ummm, ok," I said, sounding unconvinced and hung up.
Although I wasn't sure what he was talking about, I did what I was told and instantly regretted it. On the television, there were videos of horribly disfigured humans, shuffling around. Their faces were distorted with twisted mouths, grey countenances and eyes that were gouged out. The way they walked was inhuman. They were stiff. It was obvious that rigor mortis was setting in yet they were faster and much more tentative than biology would allow. On the screen, one of those humans, no, they were no longer human, one of those "things" attacked an ordinary naive person who stepped out of their vehicle. He was torn apart. I gasped as I watched the man scream in horror while one of those things wearing a black suit ripped through his stomach and feast on his intestines. The man's screams were ear-piercing. Not being able to take it anymore, I hurriedly slammed the remote control's power button and threw it across the room as the adrenaline and fear slowly spread through my body.
At first, I was in denial. Th-that must have been a show or something, I thought, hugging myself in an attempt to calm down the chills. "Maybe that was a rerun of the train to Busan" but that was a stupid thought. I tried to convince myself that there's no way what I saw was real but the evidence on the screen was irrefutable. I was the one that caused this. The road the undead was roaming was the one near the Suvarnabhumi airport and three of the zombies on screen were ones I recognize. They were the black-suited businessmen we saw yesterday. We caused this…Greg was right all along…
Ding! As the realization slowly crept in, Greg sent me an image through Line. It was difficult to make out the image but I could tell that it was taken through the peephole. I could see ten, no, maybe even more figures standing in front of his door. They were all disfigured with blood stains on their mouth and clothes. Greg was surrounded! But how about me and how about my parents who were outside right now? Am I surrounded and are they dead?
As if on cue, bang!! Bang!!!. The front door was about to fly off its hinges as a blunt object struck against it. Intuitively, I ran up the stairs towards my bedroom and rushed inside. Trembling, I locked the door and grabbed a baseball bat that was lying against the wardrobe. According to MatPat from film theory, it's the best weapon against a horde of the undead so I'm practically betting my life on a random guy on the internet who makes ridiculous theory videos.
Boom! With a deafening crash, the door gave way and fell to the ground followed by the sound of footsteps slowly approaching.
Repeating various profanities under my breath and mentally kicking myself for inadvertently killing a bunch of people since I was too stubborn to listen to Greg, I placed myself a few centimetres from the door and got into a swinging stance.
Ok, if I die, I'm bringing some of you ugly motherfrickers down with me.
The door knob rattled for some while but then fell silent.
From outside my bedroom door, a voice floated into my ears. A terribly familiar voice.