Waiting for the Worst to Come

By Olive Caruso

Trigger Warning: mentions of blood, suicide, and death

Tears have made my vision blurry. 

It isn’t helping me with my dizziness. 

I’ve always been afraid of heights, no matter how low. I could be one foot above the surface of the Earth, and I’d be worried about falling. 

I’m on my school’s roof. The building is two stories high. I think I’m thirty, or maybe forty feet from the ground. It’s hard to tell. Heights this high are so scary to me. 

But zombies are even more terrifying. 

Luckily there aren’t any around at the moment. 

I peered over the edge. Am I high enough? 

I plan to jump off the roof. I know I’m not making it out of this horror story alive, I just don’t want to become one of the undead. I’ve been afraid of zombies a lot longer than I’ve been afraid of heights. I’m just worried that I’m not going to die on impact, and instead I’ll attract a zombie with the noise. And I’ll be eaten alive. 

I inhale sharply and take a step back. If I dive headfirst, surely the collision will end me quickly– even from this height. 

I step up onto the edge of the roof. There is no point in being scared. I’m already living in a nightmare. I tell myself. 

Just do it. 

And before I let myself think any more, 

I dive. 

And I twist in the air. 

And I hit the ground. 

And I am still here. 

But I can’t move. 

My body, up to my neck, landed on the concrete sidewalk. 

And my head landed second, on the grass. 

I can’t feel anything. 

I can’t get up. 

I can’t run. 

Oh god. 

I can’t move. 

All I can do 

is lay here. 

And wait. 

It’s been a few minutes. I don’t feel like crying anymore. Maybe it’s because of how unreal this all feels. 

Nothing has found me so far. 

I can’t turn my head to see though, so maybe I’m wrong. 

It’s been a few more minutes. 

I’m thinking about yesterday. 

When this all started. 

I was skipping sixth period. My school has single-user bathrooms, and after fifth I just went into one and locked the door. I don’t skip class often, just when I really need to. And that day I needed to. I had gotten into a big argument with a friend, and she was in my sixth period class. I was planning to find her after school and fix things with her then, but in the meantime, I didn’t want to see her and make things worse. 

It was maybe twenty minutes after the class bell rang that I heard a scream. I thought someone was just being annoying in the hall. Being loud to get attention. 

A few seconds later I heard multiple screams. I thought maybe there was an intruder in the building. 

I made sure the bathroom door was locked. 

Then more people were shouting and screaming. 

It sounded louder than one of my school’s football games, and there were some pretty passionate kids at those. 

I pulled out my phone to call 911. 

But 911 was busy. That was when a nauseating worry started to settle in. So, I decided to just stay in the bathroom and wait. 

One hour later, I was still in that restroom. The screaming had died down, but there were still some weird noises I could hear. I hadn’t checked what it was, since I didn’t want to draw whatever was out there’s attention to myself. I still didn’t know if there was an intruder or not. I had tried to message my parents, but they didn’t respond. I was getting really scared. 

My phone vibrated in my hand. 

It was a Public Safety Message. 

A QUARANTINE WARNING has been issued for Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and all states East of them. An unidentified illness like rabies is RAPIDLY spreading throughout the mid and upper South Atlantic region. All citizens are strongly urged to avoid any contact with individuals who are infected. If someone you know is having difficulty breathing, has had an unusual change in behavior, difficulty swallowing, nausea, and has made contact with an infected person, they are likely experiencing early symptoms, and you should isolate them immediately. Infected individuals are being reported as behaving violently to any non-infected person. 

I read that and had one word on my mind. 

Zombies. 

And then I remembered my family. My mom and dad both worked in different counties. Who weren't responding to my texts. Were they still alive? 

And my little sister. 

Who was eight and had asthma. 

Who couldn’t run without having a coughing fit after. 

And cried loudly when she was scared. 

If the zombies had already made their way to the elementary school, then there was no way she survived. 

That was the first time I cried since it started. Silently, with my hands holding my mouth shut as to not let the sobs escape. 

That night I sat on the cold, hard bathroom floor. I ate a granola bar and drank a juice box from my backpack to prevent my stomach from growling. I could still hear rustling in the halls if I pressed my ear against the door. I had received a second Public Safety Message not long ago, now announcing that the whole country was to go into lockdown. My parents still hadn’t responded. I checked my socials at one point, hoping to get something useful. Maybe to see if anyone I knew was alive. I found some shakily recorded videos of the infected. 

They were zombies. Cloudy-eyed and drooling, with bloody bite marks and a slow, dragging walk. 

Then my phone died. It had been broken for a while and would very suddenly lose all the battery. I didn’t have a charger on me. 

I thought about my options that night. I wanted to go find my family, but I knew that I would get lost trying to find my parents’ offices, and for my sister… 

I was simply afraid to find my sister. 

Because I knew she was dead. 

My parents were probably dead, too. They both worked in populated areas and weren’t the most physically active people. 

That was when I got the idea. 

I knew that I didn’t have what it took to survive, and I didn’t want to survive. Not when my family probably didn’t. 

I needed to find a way to die. 

And that was what led me to the roof. 

The bathroom had a small window. Through it, I could see a nearby wing of my high school. And there was a ladder on that wing. I knew that the hallway I was in had a door next to the staircase at the end of it. If I could get out of that door, I could run over to the ladder and climb it. There wouldn’t be zombies up there, right? I thought. I don’t think zombies can climb ladders. 

Once I got up the ladder, I could… 

Yeah. 

That would work. 

I waited until the sun rose to go through with my idea. I wanted to be able to see clearly. 

I decided to leave my stuff in the bathroom; it wasn’t like I was going to use it. 

I crept over to the door and listened. I didn’t hear anything. 

I slowly turned the lock and opened the door a crack. I didn’t see anything. 

I opened the door the rest of the way, grimacing at the slight creak it made. 

Then I stuck my head out. 

There was blood. 

And ripped bodies. 

And one zombie. 

Looking at me. 

Hailey. I forgot her last name, but she was in my AP Bio class. We spoke a few times. She was nice. 

Now she’s a zombie. 

And she only has one leg. 

She slowly tried to drag herself towards me. 

I walked past her. 

And then I ran down the hallway as quietly as I could. 

There were two zombies in the grassy area between the wing I was in and the wing I was running to. One was a guy who I remember being in my eighth-grade history class. Will. He was loud. I didn’t recognize the other zombie. 

There were more bodies on the ground. I got blood on my shoes. 

I made it onto the ladder and climbed up. 

Luckily, there were no zombies up there. 

After that I walked across the roof for a while, looking for concrete ground, and an area with the least zombies. Eventually I did it. 

And now I am here. 

On the ground. 

Trapped, and waiting to be found. 

I feel another cry rising in my throat. 

I… 

I didn’t even try to survive. 

I didn’t try to find my family. 

And I didn’t die. 

I'm sorry, Mom. 

I’m sorry, Dad. 

And I’m sorry Anna, my innocent, tiny sister. 

I hear something shuffle towards me.