They Who Have Left

August 11th 2013 12:15 AM

“RUN!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

They were right behind us, the whole lot of them.We’ve been trying to escape for a few days now. Me and my three friends Doran, Sean, and Elias were trying to get out of the city ever since we learned the truth. It started out great. A utopian society, some of us called it. Some of us were scared, and others, the ones we didn’t talk to or about, pretended like it was some sort of dream or illusion. We called them The Braindead. But they weren’t the problem. They came later. You probably seem confused. Let me start at the beginning.

August 8th 2013 8:25 AM

My eyes shot open. The room was dark. I got up and hit the lights. They slowly lit up the room showing my friends all asleep. Doran was on the floor. He is about five nine, his hair long enough to put in ponytail and a blond streak in the front a completely different color than the rest of his dark brown hair. Sean was asleep on one of the leather reclining chairs. The tallest of the group reaching about six three, brown hair, and wears glasses. The last of them is Elias. He was in one of the other chairs. He’s also about five eleven, long brown hair, and the oldest of the group.

I turned on the projector and blasted the volume to wake them up. It did. They all got up moaning, wondering what time it was.

“It’s 8:30,” I explained. “We have about four hours until your parents have to pick you guys up so I wanted us to get up as early as possible.”

“Ok, so what’s for breakfast?” Sean asked as he got out of the chair.

“I don’t know. I’ll go ask my dad,” I replied.

I walked upstairs to go find my dad. I went into his room, but he wasn’t in there and neither was my mom. I then walked downstairs and found my friends already on the XBox. I told them that my parents must have gone out, so we’ll just have cereal. We all walked upstairs and got food, just a simple breakfast, then we decided to go back to playing XBox. While my friends went back to the movie room I opened the door to the garage to see if my parents left separately or together but what I found was even stranger. Both of their cars were still in the garage. They didn’t drive to wherever they went to.

I decided to call them but both of their phones were in the kitchen. I called my aunt. She also didn’t answer. I shrugged it off and figured they would come home later. I joined my friends for some video games.

August 8th 2013 2:00 PM

Before we realized it, it was two o’clock, and no one’s parents had come to pick them up. We then all agreed that something weird was going on and decided to do some reconnaissance like any teenage gamer would, so we went on Facebook. It seemed like everyone had the same problem. No one knew where their parents were or what to do about it. At first it was panic, then, the idea that started it all. No one can remember who posted it, seeing how they probably deleted it after everything went south, but it only said these words.

“LETS PARTY!”

August 9th 2013 12:00 Noon

One by one kids starting going out of control. Running into stores, taking whatever they wanted. There was no order. But nobody cared, not even me at the time. My friends and I just stayed at my house. There was enough food for now but it was going to run out soon.

My friends and I then discussed what we were going to do next.

“I think we should go find our parents,” I said with the most serious voice I could muster. I thought they would laugh seeing how good a time we were all having, but instead they all looked at me and nodded.

“Yeah, I agree,” Sean said with a grin.

“Same here,” exclaimed Doran and Elias at the same time.

We packed up getting as much non-perishable food as possible.

“We should sleep here for the night then head out tomorrow,” Elias suggested. We all looked at each other and nodded. We would leave at dawn.

August 10th 2013 8:45 AM

Okay, so we didn’t leave at dawn, but we’re teenagers. We get up late. We ate a quick breakfast and left.

“Where should we head first?” Sean asked.

“Well, I was thinking we would go to Boston, but it would take about a half a day to walk there, then I thought, there’s no more laws so...”

I lifted up the keys to my mom’s van, a 2002 Honda Odyssey. We all got in. None of us knew how to drive, even Elias who could have been in driving school for about a year now if he wanted to, so I took the wheel. I opened the garage. It felt weird driving at first, but I got the hang of it. It was pretty easy seeing how no one was on the street. As we drove out of Salem, we saw many kids just sitting on the ground, looking like they haven’t eaten in days. They had a dead look in their eyes. The Braindead.

There were many empty cars on the road. I had to keep changing lanes to get by. It took us about two and a half hours to get to Boston, and not a dent was made on the car, I might add. We drove around the city and saw more Braindeads but no adults or suspicious buildings. We drove around for a few more hours then stopped at a hotel. We went inside. Doran looked behind the counter and found the key cards for the rooms. We took one for a suite on the top floor. We headed up to the room. When we got to the floor we took a look around. No one.

“Good thing no one’s here,” Sean said with a relieved sigh.

We found the room, and the key opened it up. We went inside and locked the door, deadbolt and all. We then discussed our plan.

“I think the best thing we can do is head for Washington DC. Maybe the president or FBI are there and can shelter us.”

“Maybe,” Sean said. “Or maybe they disappeared too. I believe the best option is to find a source of power and just try to survive.”

Doran then interjected with his statement. “Sean, your plan sounds great, but this is the kind of adventure we have always wanted. If we can find the adults, we’ll be known throughout history.”

“I guess,” Sean said with uncertainty in his voice.

“Elias, do you have an opinion?” I asked him.

“Meh.” That’s all we got out of him.

“Why don’t we just to sleep for now and think about it in the morning?”

August 10th 11:35 PM

There was a loud thud from outside. The noise woke us all up.

“What was that!?” Doran yelled from the living room.

“I don’t know but it sounded like someone’s out in the hallway,” I said as Sean and Elias came into the room. Then there was knock on the door. Someone knew we were there.

“Hey, open up. I know someone's in there. I saw you yesterday.”

We all looked at each other. His voice sounded frightened. I went up to the door and opened it.

A guy came crashing through the doorway. He was about my height and had jet black hair.

“Hey, I’m David.”

We all looked at each other, having what seemed to be a telepathic conversation. We decided to let him stay with us.

“So what’s so bad that you needed to us to open the door?” I asked David. “The Adults are back, but they seem strange. All they do is groan and walk in a straight line. They are all heading towards one area north of here.”

We looked at him, then we went in our rooms, changed into better clothes, grabbed our stuff, and headed down the elevator towards the outside.

August 11th 2013 12:10 AM

We got outside. The adults were there, but just like David said, they weren’t looking for their children. They were just walking. They kept on walking, not stopping for anything. They would walk right into trash barrels and cars. It took one of them about a minute to open a push gate. They were all mindless zombies. They looked the same but acted like they had no brains and couldn’t see.

“Sean, Doran, Elias, David, we gotta follow them to find out where they’re heading, and figure out what happened to them.”

We started for the car but as we were running one of us hit a can with their foot. The sound reverberated throughout the street making a noise that reached the zombified adults. They all turned. Then they started running towards us. We ran. The car was about thirty feet away. We wanted to park it far so no one would know we had one. The adults were getting closer, then I heard someone fall behind me. It was Doran. I went back for him I helped him off the ground and looked at his hands, just a scrape and no blood.

“Now, Doran, I have something to tell you. RUN!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. They were right behind us, the whole lot of them. We sprinted to catch up to the group. We may have made it too, but a sharp pain shot through my leg, and I couldn’t speak. Doran just kept on running like I told him to. I was able to help my friend escape but I couldn’t save myself.

August 20th 2013

“That was the last thing that happened before I woke up here, now can I please leave this room?”

“That was a great story. And it’s exactly how it happened.” The voice came from an intercom in the room. It sounded familiar, too. A door opened and a few people came in.

“Doran, Sean, Elias, and David! Oh I’m so happy to see you guys again.”

“When we realized you got left behind we decided to go back and get you. Luckily David here has his license and knew how to drive or we may have never found you,” Sean told me as David smiled.

“Yeah, and we just wanted to make sure you were still you, so that’s why we had you recite the story of what happened those last few days,” Doran said.

“We decided to go back home but there were adults and kids everywhere. Then we thought where would no kid ever think to go if there was no rules. So we drove straight here to Salem High School. There’s plenty of food in the cafeteria to last us a few weeks, so we’ll make this our base camp for now.”

“Great thinking. You guys are so awesome. I am so glad you’re alright. So what about the adult situation?”

“We don’t have any new information on the case, we’ve been focusing our time into seeing you were alright,” Elias told me.

“Okay, then lets see what we can find out. Together as friends.”