Prologue

Hope. Hope is fuel. Fuel for action, thought. Fuel for the capability to live. We keep going. We keep moving and fighting. Living. Why? Because we have hope. This is us: human beings living on hope, because we have nothing else. When the world ends, it's what we live for, fight for, and die for. When there is nothing but ourselves and others to live for, hope keeps us together. Losing hope is losing the will to be alive and to keep going.

I am hopeful. I hope for better days when I can go somewhere alone and unarmed. I hope for a time when I am not constantly afraid for my life or the life of others. For a world where the walking dead is again just a made up movie, book, or television show plot. For a time where I can fulfill dreams I had before the apocalypse that shattered them.

All we can do is hope.

Chapter 1

My name is Ashly Stone. Before this all began, I was just another random high school senior shooting for scholarships and doing the best I can to be on top of everything. I worked semi-hard in class, doing all my work to the extent where I made all A's, but never hard enough where I was an overachiever. I had a bright future ahead of me.

Then this happened: an awful virus hospitalized many people all over the world. The number of people in the hallways at school, on the street, or anywhere for that matter, dwindled until half the population was either in the local hospital or being transported to a nearby one, because frankly there wasn't enough room. Eventually, hospitals simply ran out of beds and hallway space to stuff people. They set up clinics where they could find volunteered space and kept the dreadfully sick people there.

The awful part about this virus is that there were no survivors. Everyone who got it died. Nobody knows how it was spread, but there were theories. The first was that it was contagious like a cold. People began carrying around baby wipes and hand sanitizer everywhere. Then, a scientist on the news suggested it was airborne. Of course everyone donned filter masks at that point.

Everyone freaked out because scientists were just as clueless as they were. They performed test after test after test, still without any idea of what the virus was or how to fix it. The whole epidemic craze lasted about 3 days.

Then, everywhere, the dead walked. They shuffled their way out of the morgue like their heart never stopped beating. And they were hungry. Not for a good cheeseburger or some potato chips, but human flesh. The morgue workers were the first to go, and then nurses and doctors and other patients. A lot of people escaped and called the cops, scared out of their minds. The SWAT team came, the CDC, the CSI, the FBI, the bomb squad for heaven's sake. They quarantined the whole building, keeping the dead-but-somehow-still-alive flesh-eaters inside.

Of course the media was all over it. They called them zombies, which seems completely silly, but that's what they are, really. Zombies. The people reacted to this accordingly. They boarded up their houses, fled to abandoned cabins in the woods (those were the smart ones), and rioted. The riots were outside the various quarantined hospitals, demanding the zombies be exterminated. The officials were brain-farting, because there were also a ton of people who didn't want the zombies killed. The zombies were of course still people, and maybe there could be a cure. It was unlikely, but the problem of what to do remained for 4 days.

Then a mistake was made. The order was given in the United States to kill the zombies, cause y'know, we're apparently heartless. Or survivalists, but whatever. Squads of men carrying guns obliviously ran into the hospitals. A lot of the zombies were gunned down, but I think they underestimated the number of zombies, or the strength, or something, because the soldiers were eaten. The dead walked into the cities with nothing to stop them but a few brave surviving officers. They may be slow, but they were relentless suckers.

Within a week the whole country was infected. Stores closed the day the zombies escaped, and so did everything else. People ran to their families. Somehow, infected (stupid) people flew over seas and it wasn't long, maybe a month, before everywhere else in the world was filled with insatiable zombies.

Where was I in all this? In a small town in Kansas, scared to death. When the virus started, I lost a lot of friends to it, so the days following were ones of mourning. Then, as the zombies escaped from the clinic in my tiny hometown, I ran. It was all I knew to do. I got in my car and drove. My mom had been at work and I drove there first. She was a lawyer in a tiny law firm in a tiny town in a tiny building located on a tiny intersection. I found her. She was dead. I couldn't even cry until I was 5 miles away and speeding like crazy towards my best friend's house, leaving behind the intersection slowly becoming filled with zombies.

When I found her, she was thankfully alive. Zombies crowded around her house. I was so distraught, so scared, so angry, that I drove my car right into her living room and she, crying with relief and scaredness, climbed into my car and I shot out of there. Julie and I drove forever before we actually spoke. I hadn't realized it really, but I had driven onto the interstate going north. I had blocked out everything on that drive. The scenes, everything. I knew what it would be. Wrongness. Dead people walking and eating people. Burning buildings and dead bodies, ripped apart. I focused on the yellow lines, and that's it, for the longest time.

Now, we are still driving. It has been exactly 2 hours since the zombies escaped and started eating and infecting other people. My car is almost out of gas. "We need gas." These were the first words I spoke to Julie today. They sounded croaky and awful.

Julie looked over at me, her eyes red from crying. From that look I knew her family hadn't survived. Her brother and mother had gotten the virus at the beginning. I didn't dare ask what happened to her father. "Okay," she said quietly. I reached over and squeezed her arm. To reassure her or myself, I'm not sure. I need to know she's alive, and here, with me. Not dead. Not a zombie. She is real. Knowing it gave me the strength I needed to pull off the interstate and into a gas station. To stop gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles were white, and to stop driving forever and ever.

Amazingly, I was able to use my credit card to get gas. Thank God for automatic gas pumps. I looked around while Julie stayed in the car. The place was completely deserted from what I could see, except a couple abandoned cars, a Camaro and some other car I don't know the name of. No cars passed on the interstate and no people moved around in the town I could see from here. I was nervous and jumpy, afraid a zombie would appear. Then my stomach growled, and I realized I was utterly starving. Leaving the gas nozzle hanging on the side of my car, I opened the driver's side door and looked at my best friend. "You hungry?"

She just shook her head, and I slowly closed the door and walked hesitantly toward the small store at the gas station. Normally when we were together we couldn't shut up, we talked nonstop about whatever. I could confide in her anything, which was why she was my best friend. Now, it was different. We had both suffered terrible losses in this tragedy. There wasn't much to say. Nothing much we could bring ourselves to say.

I pulled the door open and the little bell rang, making me jump five feet in the air. After I calmed down, I forced myself to walk into the store. No one was in here, of course. It was quite eerie to see the various items neatly stacked on the shelves and the cash register still running and the lights still on, but no one was here at all. The door wasn't even locked. Maybe the person working at the time ran to their loved ones. I would have, that's for sure. Who cares about work when the world is ending?

Cautiously, I walked to an aisle containing candy bars and muffins and pop tarts and nutrition bars and pretty much everything you can think of. I grabbed a classic brown sugar cinnamon pop tart and then walked to the freezers at the back (which were also still on) and grabbed two Mountain Dews. Thinking ahead, I decided to grab a plastic bag from behind the counter and stuff it with food and a few drinks, along with whatever else we might need. I didn't know how long we'd be driving or to where for that matter, but we would need sustenance. Feeling slightly guilty about not paying, I began to exit the little store.

My heart along with my movement stopped when a door at the back squeaked open. I even held my breath. The door was to my back and I couldn't see what or who came out, but it didn't matter. I was having a mini heart attack all the same. All I could think was that it was a zombie and it was going to eat me now. It was going to tear me to shreds and maybe then I would become a zombie, too. Emotionless, hungry, without pain or feeling. I almost welcomed it. I had lost so many people dear to me. I didn't want the pain anymore.

Then I heard a voice. A male voice, speaking. Not the moaning or gurgling of a zombie, but a voice. I was way too scared to comprehend what the voice said, but it gave me the ability to turn around. It was a man. Maybe a few years older than me, like twenty or twenty-one, standing there, pointing a gun at me. "What?" I squeaked, eyes wide.

He lowered his gun. "I said, hello."

"Hi." Feeling like I was about to faint, I set my supplies on the floor and simply sat down where I was.

The man walked over to me and squatted down. He had long-ish dark brown hair that fell almost to his shoulders and swept over his eyes. Built like a swimmer, lean and a little muscular, way taller than me. But it was hard to tell with him squatting and me sitting. "You okay?" He asked.

He stood and offered a hand, pulling me up when I took it. "I think," I replied. "This is just... a little overwhelming."

He laughed bitterly. "Indeed, it is." It was a little comforting to be near him. Who knows why. I just felt better. Maybe it was the concern he showed for me.

We stood there just looking at each other for at least a whole 2 minutes before one of us talked. It was me. "Why are you holed up in a gas station?"

The man laughed for real this time. "I just ran. I ended up here. I planned to stay here until I figured out what to do." He looked at me with golden-brown eyes. "What are you doing?"

I began to speak, but stopped. What am I doing? I have no plan of action, nothing. "I don't know," I answered honestly. I pointed at my SUV. "My best friend is in my car. We were driving to no where in particular. Just away."

He stared at me for a few seconds, and the nodded. "I understand." He picked up the plastic bag and handed it to me.

"Thanks." I half-smiled at him. He smiled back in full. I made a split-second decision. "Do you want to come with us?" I don't know what made me ask, some unseen force. Maybe it was because he made me feel better, or maybe it was because he would be a lot of help with that gun of his. The latter of which I noticed had been stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Yes," he answered quickly, then blushed, "I mean- I... I don't even know your name."

Realizing this was true, I held out my hand and said, "Ashly Stone."

He shook it. "Gabe Foreman."

I hadn't thought about it before, but the only goal I have in life now is survive. I realize the more people in a group the more chances of staying alive. I need Gabe as much as he needs me. "So how about it?"

Gabe let go of my hand, a thoughtful expression on his handsome face. "Yes," he said. "I'll go."

We walked together out of the store and towards my car. Through the whole exchange I had managed to forget about my losses (my mother, my friends, my life even) and it suddenly hit me again as we got to the SUV. I managed to compose myself before I started crying. I opened the door to the back seat, threw the plastic bag in, and Gabe climbed in on the other side. I thought Julie would freak out, but I saw she was asleep. I climbed in behind the wheel and shook her awake. "Julie." She slowly opened her eyes, and I saw they filled with disappointment. She must want to go back to whatever dream she was having.

"This is Gabe," I told her and pointed at the guy in the back seat. She turned around, surprise clear in her expression.

"Alright," she said slowly. She shook his hand when he offered. "Julie."

Gabe nodded at her with a small smile, "Nice to meet you."

She looked at me, confusion on her face, and I said, "He's going to come with us. If I'm right, he has no where else to go." I looked at Gabe and he nodded.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Julie asked. The sleep seemed to have done her good. She was a bit more upbeat, like usual.

I cranked the car and put in drive, pulling out of the gas station, looking both ways down the road only out of habit. "I have no idea," I replied grimly.