This story comes to you from my 10-year-old brother. It’s longer than 1,000 words, but I decided not to give him a hard time over that because, well, it’s pretty awesome! 
—–
I was running to class because I was late for a test, I guess Friday the thirteenth luck had kicked in.
When I got to class, my best friend Bill said, “Happy thirteenth birthday!” and punched me ten times before the teacher caught him.
I told Bill at lunch that he was coming home with me after PE. As we got into my Mom’s car, she said that my Dad had a friend over and that I should say, “Hi” and be nice. My Dad is friends with this guy named Anders—he is cool, he told me he is a bow hunter and lives in a cabin in the dark forest just outside the city.
On Saturday morning, I went down for breakfast and Bill had a horrified look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He turned on the TV in the kitchen and there were reports of a weird virus that had hit Goldenrod City.
“That’s where we live!” I said.
He took me to the window and these people that were dull grey and had bite marks on their arms were eating my Dad and Mom, who also had pale grey skin and bloody marks.
All of a sudden, an arrow hit a zombie’s head, and I heard a crack, and another one hit my Mom. One hit the other Zombie. I went to the balcony and Anders asked, “Do you know a safe spot?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“The school!” Bill blurted out.
We found the keys to my Mom’s car.
“We need more help, and we have to save whoever we can,” Anders said as we drove off.
* * *
As we sped through he streets of Goldenrod City, we saw Elizabeth being chased by her parents, that were zombified like mine.
I opened the back door and she clambered in just before two arrows smashed into the zombies, crippling one. The other arrow missed. Elizabeth started to cry.
Soon, my Mom’s car was filled with random people. Then I remembered crazy old Joe would be at the school, but it was too late—we were already there.
Quickly, we rushed into the school and blocked all the doors with desks, books, and chairs. We needed to get food, so Anders and I went to go get food from the lunch room. We heard a noise. I was so scared, I almost jumped out of my pants. I wasn’t scared of zombies, I was scared of the madman in the school. When we got to the lunch room, we found a police man lying on the ground.
“Run. He’s here,” he said in his last moments.
The killer jumped on me. Anders punched him and shot at him with an arrow, and the madman scampered away. I got back on my feet and grabbed the basket of food from the cold kitchen floor. I bolted to the door while Anders was getting kitchen knives and forks. I told him to hurry up before charging through the lunchroom door.
I saw Bill making a pencil crossbow, and it worked, because a pencil darted past my face.
“Sorry! I thought you were a zombie!” Bill apologized.
“Why?” I asked.
“We found a side entrance,” he said. “Jake and I fought off the zombies. Jake bashed in their skulls, we put them outside and blocked the door.”
“OK. Well, I need to get to the gym,” I said.
We got Anders and Jake and headed to the gym.
* * *
By the time we got to the gym, a couple zombies were chasing us. They trapped us in the gym and Anders locked the door. The glass doors broke open. I took the fencing swords that were kept in the back of the gym, and I pulled off the rubber tip and ran the blade through one of the zombies.
Bill also got a sword. I jabbed my sword into a zombie’s leg, and it fell to the ground. Bill was being chased by two zombies. I didn’t see Jake anywhere, but when I turned around, I saw the same zombie that I crippled earlier grab my foot. I jabbed my sword in its head.
Bill turned and saw that Jake was killing the zombies that were chasing him. Bill jabbed a sword into a zombie with a knife stuck in his arm. Bill kept trying to kill the zombie, so he called out, “Nathaniel! Nathaniel, help!”
I rushed over and cut the zombie’s head off. Its head was still snapping.
“That was all of them,” Anders said.
We got a cart and loaded it with tools from the gym, and bolted back to the school. We pushed the cart through the doors. Elizabeth blocked the door, and Jake started to cry.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, but he just kept on weeping.
* * *
That night, I could not sleep. I heard the constant moaning from outside the building, but I found Elizabeth looking out the window.
I went over and asked, “Are you OK?”
She looked at me and asked, “How are you not sad about your parents being dead?”
“I am…I was just holding it in so I don’t bring more chaos to the world,” I said.
When I went to bed, the moans were nothing compared to Bill’s snoring.
The next morning, Anders made a small breakfast for everyone. We couldn’t find Jake, but we found a madman, so Anders shot him with an arrow. Then I asked Anders how he never runs out.
“My brother was a wizard,” he said. “He enchanted my bow.”
I went to the teacher’s lounge and turned on the radio. The news said the reason of the zombie virus in Goldenrod City was that some scientists were working on a project by mixing various chemicals and they created this virus. I told everyone that a nuke was going to hit the city in a week.
“There’s a bus outside!” Jake said.
“By the time we get to it, we’ll all be dead!” someone else said.
“We have to try!” Anders said.
We all got dressed in fencing gear and took the tips off our swords.
* * *
Crash!
“The barricades!” Anders said.
Twenty survivors charged into the sea of zombies just stabbing and jabbing. I got trampled by five zombies. I woke up and looked around. The zombies were dead or gone. I went into the school, looking for survivors. I headed to the kitchen and found an electric knife. It was battery powered.
I heard clambering in the back. I turned around and stabbed the zombie in the chest, and pulled the trigger. It went clean through the cold, grey, raspy skin, and the zombie fell down in two pieces. I went back outside and put the knife in my belt. I found my sword, but it was broken. I heard moaning and found Anders.
“I was bitten,” he said. “By a crawler, on the leg.”
He showed me the where the bite was.
I took the knife, covered his mouth, and cut the bitten leg off. My hand muffled the scream, so it would not attract any zombies. After he stopped, I took my hand off his mouth. It was followed by many insults and a long sob. I quickly bandaged the wound with toilet paper and tape.
“At least you didn’t become one of those freaks out there,” I said.
“Most of the survivors are dead, but some got away. Bill was traumatized, and since Jake was the tallest, he had to drive the bus.”
“Why did you stay?” I asked Anders.
“Because you are the closest thing I have to a son,” he said.
I found a blue car and broke the window, unlocked the door, and put Anders in the passenger seat. I hotwired the car and closed the door, locked it, and raced through the streets, smashing into about ten zombies. The car’s window was covered with blood. An arm went through the broken window. I cut it off and the zombie went crashing to the floor and scraping on the floor.
By the time we got ten miles out of the city, we ran out of gas. I grabbed Anders and supported him with one hand, the other carrying the mechanical knife. We walked for hours, then I heard a sound. I ran toward it to see what it was. It was the bus.
I knocked on the door. Suddenly, a rock flew by my head and smashed into the bus. I grabbed the rock and threw it back into the woods. I heard a groan and Jake popped out of the bush. I held the knife in front of me.
“You threw a rock at me!” Jake yelled.
As the bus door opened, I heard a loud cheer. They shouted and screamed, but it smelled horrible.
“Sorry,” said someone named John.
BOOM!
I looked behind me. I put Anders on a seat and ran outside and saw a large mushroom cloud come from the city and I heard the zombie moans turn to silence.
An hour passed, and I heard a moan far away. I knew this would happen again. A rescue helicopter came. Eight survivors in two helicopters. They bandaged up Anders when we got to the hospital.
* * *
Ten years have passed since the Infection. I went to visit Bill in the mental institute.
“Are you Nathaniel?” the nurse asked.
“Yes…” I said.
When I got to Bill’s room, he was mumbling like a madman, his walls were covered with pictures of zombies.
I heard a familiar sound from the room next door. A moan.
I heard screams from the first floor.
“I’m sorry,” I told Bill.
I got to the elevator, and while I was in the metal box, I thought, I just left my best friend for dead. I ran back up the stairs and jabbed my car keys into a zombie’s head. I found Bill with a chair. He yelled at me, and I jumped down a flight of stairs and sped away with Bill.
We escaped, but I never saw my true best friend, Anders, because he gave his life to blow up the city again.
But for the rest of my life, the surviving zombies have followed me, and I have never been able to get away.
