Prologue
Liv
I never used to watch horror movies. Now I'm living in one.
You might think surviving a zombie apocalypse came about through sheer luck or because I latched onto a group of big, bad men to keep me safe, but that wasn't how it happened. It was all thanks to the careful plotting and planning I did in the early stages—and the fact that I'd never believed in the concept that ignorance is bliss. How could anyone be happynotknowing important details that had the power to change the course of their life? These days, it only had the potential to make you dead.
Years ago, I paid close attention to how people reacted to each Covid variant as it spread across the globe. The first wave brought panic and chaos. Face masks, restrictions, lockdowns.Millionsof tragic deaths.
The second wave generated less concern and more complacency. We’d been through the worst and survived, so there was nothing more to fear, right?
The third wave? We were almost back to normal, and no one seemed too affected by the fear the media worked so hard to generate. Everybody just went through the motions and trusted it would all turn out fine. And it did.
Thanks to global warming, three years later a 50,000-year-old cluster of microbes previously trapped in a glacier escaped into the atmosphere. When those microbes became infectious pathogens,I didn’t even see the initial rush for toilet paper that came when COVID-19 first hit the news.
No panic. No fear.
Nothing other than a handful of people rolling their eyes and saying, "Here we go again. It's alwayssomething."
That complete lack of reaction sparked the first inklings of concern for me, but I couldn't pinpoint why because everything just seemed sonormal. A quiet hum of fear vibrated inside me for days, and since it showed no signs of letting up, it seemed like something that deserved my attention. So, while everyone else talked about their plans for the weekend or complained about money, schedules, relationships, and kids, I maxed out my credit card stockpiling survival supplies—then applied for more cards and maxed those out, too.
I bought long-life food pouches, water-purifying drink bottles, a bowie knife and holster, a camp stove with gas canisters. The list went on. And on. It became my hobby, a project that kept me focused and took my mind off the virus. I researched as much as I could about growing food, tying knots, performing emergency first aid, and more, just in case the Internet went down, and I no longer had access to that endless source of information.
Part of me hoped I’d overreacted, that I’d just be left with a major case of embarrassment and some hefty credit card bills, because at least that would mean life had continued as normal.
But then the worst possible thing happened.
My fears were realised.
Widespread,catastrophicdevastation across the entire planet in less than twelve months.
Scientists coined it the Ultimus virus and for reasons no one could explain, some of us were immune. At first, it was airborne and produced symptoms like those of Covid, but they were amplified to an alarming new level, and most who caught the illness just couldn't survive it.
When people died in the beginning, they were buried in the usual way and their families mourned their losses. All perfectly, tragically normal—until the numbers climbed so high that hospitals and funeral homes couldn't cope anymore. When it reached that point, it became clear we were dealing with something so much worse than anything we'd endured before.
By then, I had all my supplies, and I began spending most of my time at home.
The second wave followed soon after the first, and the virus mutated into something terrifying that none of us had ever seen outside of movies and television shows. When the fever hit, there was a ninety-five percent chance it resulted in violent convulsions and death. Only death didn’t mean ceasing to exist.
Sure, your soul disappeared—if you believed in such things anymore—but once the convulsions ended and hearts stopped pumping, bodies startedreanimating.They were almost as mobile as they had been before; slower, less coordinated, and limited in their abilities, but most definitely still moving.
The airborne version dissipated not too long after that, and the only way to catch it was through bodily fluids, namely a bite. Anactualbite from another human being.
I'd always found the concept of life and death morphing into one to be oddly fascinating, but the reality of having someone with blank, bloodshot eyes and a slack mouth coming after you and trying to rip into your flesh? Not so much fun.
And although some were lucky enough to survive the original airborne version of the Ultimus virus, not a single person had outlived a bite. Once those teeth got a hold of you and the virus entered your bloodstream, it was over. Sometimes within hours, sometimes days. Either way, you knew you were a goner, so it was best to isolate yourself from your loved ones—if there were any left.
Even now, two years after society had crumbled and the last of modern conveniences like electricity, gas, and water shut off for good, seeing the dead lumbering around the streets could still throw me.
But I adapted. You needed to be flexible if you wanted to survive in this new, savage world.
And I truly wanted to make a life for myself. A future.
So few people had been given that privilege that it had never once occurred to me to throw the opportunity away.
One
Liv
