-Somewhere during the beginning of the outbreak-
On her way to ballet class, Rena noticed that there were three traffic accidents. One of them were right near her home, one of them was at the halfway mark on her walk to class, and one of them was just a block from the building she danced in. She also noticed that it seemed eerily quiet, despite the accidents and nobody seemed to be in the cars or around. Rena figured rescue had already came and gone, but it was strange that they had not blocked off the areas where the cars crashed. There was blood and glass all over the pavement. Why hadn’t the police blocked it off? She wondered if the cleaning crew would have it cleared before her class ended.
Accidents happened, so she tried not to think on it too much, but could not help but feel sorry for the people in the cars. How many of them had died? Had they suffered any pain before dying or did their death come quickly? If there had been any casualties, she hoped they had been instant.
She could not stand the idea of pain and suffering. Rena had enough of it in her life and did not want to see it around her anymore. Even though she had been three at the time, she still vividly recalled the way her mother and father were brutally stabbed and shot by two burglars who had broken into their home. That memory would always be with her. The last thing her parents did before dying was to hide her in the closet the moment they heard someone breaking in through the front window.
The burglars had seemed surprised to find her parents home. Rena watched through the slats on the closet door as the male intruder reacted as if by instinct, grabbing a knife out of his belt and thrusting it into her father’s stomach. Her mom had looked at the closet, knowing Rena could see them, her eyes begged her to not make a sound, so she had forced herself not to cry as she watched the female burglar pull out a gun and shoot her mom once in the chest and twice in her lower stomach. By the fate of God, Rena had not been discovered as they robbed the house.
When they left, Rena left the closet and called 911 as she had been taught to do in case of emergency.
Rena shook away the old memory and walked into the dance studio. She frowned when she noticed only a handful of people had shown up. That was odd. Her classmates were all very serious about their work and almost never missed a day.
“Did you notice anything strange today?” Rena asked her dance partner. He looked over at her as he was doing his warm up stretches. She watched as he turned to face her. “I mean I’ve never seen the place so deserted and I saw 3 traffic accidents on the way, but could not find anyone around, no one blocked the areas off, either.”
“I think a lot of people are out with the flu,” he answered.
The next event was a blur to Rena. There was screaming and people were running around. She saw someone laying on the floor, gurgling up blood and someone… some person was biting her dance partner’s throat. Her first thought was really ridiculous. “Vampires.” But she did not believe in things like that.
Rena did not even remember how she got to point A to point B. One minute she was doing warm ups and the next everything was in chaos. It was as if the whole town suddenly woke up and were going crazy.
She took a deep breath and told herself to calm down.
“Remember mom and dad,” she whispered to herself. ‘I need to be calm and collected like I was during their murder. I need to keep my head.’
She dodged the person… creature that had been attacking her dance partner and started to take action. She needed to get out of here and somewhere safe. She grabbed her backpack that had all her dance supplies, water and energy food and also grabbed a pile of clothing. They weren’t hers, but their owner was now….
Rena looked over to where her partner was twitching on the floor. He was dead but starting move! How did that even make sense? She stuffed everything into her backpack, but managed to pull his jeans on over her leotards. Still wearing her pointe ballet shoes, she ran out the door.
It was like the world had turned into the set of a horror movie. People who looked dead were shambling about, making groaning noises and if they got close to someone who was not dead, they attacked. Luckily, they were really slow, so Rena was able to dodge them. She passed the maintenance shed and grabbed a shovel, just in case she needed a weapon.
“It’s just like in all the movies… but how in the world can something like this happen so fast? How long has it been going on?” She murmured to herself as she carefully walked the streets back to her home. Once she got there, Rena was not sure what her next step would be.
She hadn’t expected her adoptive parents to be home, but even so Rena felt a spark of sadness digging into her lower stomach. They were most likely gone if the outside world was any indication. Her mother had a bad limp from a skiing accident and could not even run very fast and her father was considered obese. Fate would not be on their sides. Even though they were her adoptive parents, she loved them dearly; Mona and Chase Richard had been there for her in her hardest time and helped her cope with her emotions. They were the ones who made her start learning various forms of dance. Mona had said being active was a good way to help channel her feelings. It had worked too. Of course, she was still sad, and she had nightmares all the time, but now she was making friends, dancing every chance she got and doing stuff with her life.
At least she had been. What now?
Rena looked around their two story home. All in all, it was decent. Not too fancy, but not too shabby either. She locked the doors and pushed the plush couch in front of it for added protection while she went through the living room, making sure she was really alone and there was no horrible surprises waiting for her. The living room was clear.
Squeezing the shovel in her hands, she started for the kitchen and her parents bedroom. Clear. Bathrooms. Clear. Upstairs. Her bedroom. Clear. Dance studio. Clear.
“Well, the house is clear. But how long will this last?” If those things were what she thought they were…
“I am not going to say the Z word.” She shook her head. Rena sighed. There was no doubt about it, for some reason, the dead were really coming back.
First things first, she needed to prepare. She went around the house, found her camping backpack, and put all her most needed supplies inside, including her all her ballet slippers and pointe shoes. The undead be damned, she would still be a dancer. She went to the kitchen and put in a can opener, some canned goods that could be ate cold, bottles of water, her dance energy snacks, and food that didn’t need to be in a fridge. She stuffed it until it weighed quite a lot, but being a dancer, she was really strong and was able to put it on her back, no problem.
She put on one of her dad’s old work bets; the ones he used back before he gained all his weight. In the belt, she put two flashlights, extra batteries, her dad’s old hunting knife, a larger butcher knife. With a cringe, she even added her dad’s old hunting rifle, his handgun and extra rounds of bullets. Rena hated guns, hated hunting in general, but knew that she would need to eventually use them if she wanted to survive.
And she wanted to survive!
-Several months into the outbreak, small town of Karn(Fictional) in California-
From the high vantage point in the tree, Rena could see a whole lot going on around her in the small forested town. She put a hand over her eyes and did a sweep over the little area. It was not hard to see everything because the town was almost too small to be considered a town. There was a convenience store on one side of town, next to that was a sheriff's office and what looked like a school building. On the other side of town, there was a row of houses on either side of the street. Just below her, there was a strange dressed girl, she looked like a sex toy the way the slinky blue material stuck to her body in all the right places. It was not the type of clothing for the world they were in. Rena could not judge though. She still wore her ballet pointe shoes and a pair of leotards. They were more comfortable and made it a lot easier to move around in a graceful way the undead could not match.
Across from the blue sex toy girl at the convenience store, there was a huge commotion. She could see a young man who looked frantic and what looked like three women running around the store as they were being pursued by the biters.
"Damn," Rena whispered. She looked on the other side of town, near the row of houses and witnessed as a large group of undead were closing in on a small group of alive people. Rena sucked in her break as one of the people, a Hispanic woman pulled away from the rest and got herself surrounded. When she put a gun into her mouth, Rena closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable sound of it going off.
She would jump down and help them, but knew that if she tried anything, she may just make things worse. One person was already dead and it did not look very good for the others. Rena watched as a man pulled a woman into a house, after kicking the door in. They both collided into an aging man; after that she saw no more, because the door was shut.
Rena looked back to the convenience store, watching as a lady came dragging a little girl out the front door. The child was crying about someone being inside and trapped. A dog appeared by Blue's side below Rena's tree. He was growling at an undead that had found it's way behind the girl, though the woman seemed unaware. Rena sucked in her breath, not wanting a death happen so close to her, especially when she could help, though it would put herself at risk, too.
Despite the camping backpack over her shoulders, she was still able to jump down from the tree as gracefully as a cat, landing behind Blue girl and the undead that was about to grab her. Rena grabbed her shovel that she had hidden behind the tree and slammed it on the corpse's head.
"Duck," she hissed, hitting the undead again and again, until it finally went down.
