Day 1: Steve

You’re at school, you plan on staying late, and you have a test in the morning; you and a bunch of people from class planned on pulling an all-nighter in the library (it’s finals week so it is open 24 hours a day). It is around 4 p.m. and you just came out of a final not a half hour ago.  In the middle of the library is a T.V. area where students can go to relax and take their minds off studying. You sit down pull out one of your red bull’s and start drinking it. Your friend Charlie has the T.V. remote and is flipping through the channels.

“Hey Charles slow down I want to see what was on CNN”

“Alright bra CNN it is” Charlie says as he changes the channel again.

“So how did you do on your chem. final? I think I aced it.” Charlie said.

“Dude if you aced that then I got 200%, besides neither of us did as-well as Ryan did; I bet he got a 100 no doubt.”

“Yeah you’re probably right, but do you………..”

“Holy Shit look!”

“Steve what?” Charlie looks at you in confusion.

“Do you see that Charlie? That’s Downtown Detroit!”

“Wow it looks like it is on a total lock down, what do you think happened?” Charlie says.

“I don’t know, but it seems pretty serious……look at the ticker. Do you see what it says?” both you and Charlie read from the news ticker at the bottom “Local news: 10 car pileup on the Freemont bridge, dozens injured, no deaths reported yet“.

“Shit Charles flip the station over to local news”.

Charlie flips the station to channel 2 local news. The emergency broadcast channel is on. Charlie changes the channel to channel 4 news. It too is on the emergency broadcast channel. He tries channel 7, finally he gets a reporter on the screen. You can tell that the reporter is standing far away from what it looks like to be the Freemont bridge, and there seems to be a lot of smoke coming up from that area. You’d guess the reporter is about a half mile away. He is talking about how around 15 minutes ago a large accident happened on the bridge, and that police, paramedics, and fire crews have rushed to the scene.

“As you can see behind me, the smoke from the massive accident on the Freemont, now the police department issued an order for all news crews to be at least a half mile away from the bridge incase its structural integrity has been compromised. I have received word that they have started to pull people out from the wreckage, and they expect to have the scene cleaned up by 6 p.m. for the rush-hour commuters.”

“Shit I hope Matt got home okay. I should give him a call on his cell.”

You call Matt’s cell. He picks up and tells you everything he saw on channel 2 news before it cut out. He also tells you that a man attacked him in the apartment and jumped through the front window. Matt says what he thinks is going on, and that he is going to board up the front window and then go down the street to see if Zach is okay. You tell Matt that he is getting too freaked out, and to calm down. You say to him go see Zach and then to give you a call. You then hang up your phone.

“Is Matt okay?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah, I think so. He said some homeless dude attacked him inside the apartment. I don’t know though, he was talking about a riot or a epidemic or something. I told him he was playing his zombie games too much and that it is now confusing his mind.”

“Shit that is probably true, well I hope his mind is okay for our History exam on Friday” Charlie says with a smirk on his face. “So you wanna go join the group upstairs and get back to studying?”

“Tell the guys that I’ll be up in a minute, I want to watch this some more.”

“Okay dude, don’t get to glued to it, I need you to help me pass that test we got coming up”.

You are 100% fixated on the T.V. As you are watching what is happening you see more and more policeman, fire-crews, and paramedics driving past through the camera’s shot. You’re very curious about what is happening. A sick twisted thought pops into your head from what Matt was saying. You play this out in your head:

“We are reporting over 1,000 dead. Crews of police officers, and firefighters join in helping stop the riot from happening. But it seemed too much for them to push back. The police chief has given orders for riot control to come down and gas the place.”

You watch people trying to climb buildings, cars, street signs. There are people  throwing glass bottles, and balls of fire. You see people breaking into glass store fronts, and walking out with huge T.V.’s and other expensive appliances.  Cars are on fire, stores have caught flame, and you hear screaming, and car alarms. You see the side of the Freemont bridge in the background. You can tell the little black dots falling from it are people. Closer to the cameraman you can see people being chased, you can see people fighting each other, and there are people on the ground, still and lifeless. It looks like a huge mess, it is total chaos.

Time passes while you watch the same thing for a while. Then the riot teams come in to break up the crowd and calm them down. You know they are out-numbered, and will be over-run. They know it, you know it. The new reporter says it too “This seems too big of a situation for the riot teams to control, I think they should just call in the National Guard and let them kill everyone.” You can’t believe the reporter just said that, but you agree and laugh at the remark. “Oh wait, I think I see Army helicopters flying over-head. Men are getting out I think. Yes I can see men getting out on the sides of the choppers, and it looks like they are throwing rappelling ropes down, and will begin their assault on the group of rioters.” When the soldiers touch ground they start setting up their positions, and then they open fire into the crowd.  A stray bullet flies through the reporters head, and the T.V. screen is covered in brain matter and blood. You stopped paying attention though. You knew once the Army opened fire into the crowd what they were doing. Once they opened fire you knew exactly what was going on. They’re not rioters, but they’re zombies!

“YO! STEVE! WAKE UP DUDE!” Charlie yells at you from across the room. “Dude have you been asleep this whole time?”

“What time is it Charles? Have I been out long?”

“You must’ve dude,  It’s almost 7 and we have been studying without you for just over an hour.”

“Okay dude I’m coming up now.” As you walk up the stairs you take one look back at the T.V. and see black choppers flying across the screen.