Chaos

By Paul Turner

When in a government-created apocalypse, people do crazy things.
When best friends Paul, Brendan and Arthur suddenly find themselves in this chaotic, dangerous and out-of-their-control situation, anything can happen; anyone can break under pressure. With only the help of Paul’s parents Nadia and Ron, will this group of people survive the zombie apocalypse? Or will someone turn into a monster with the stress of the new life?
And in the midst of the chaos, can you trust strangers in this dystopia?
Who will live… who will die?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387588930

Book preview

Chaos

Chaos

Paul Turner

Dedication

I would like to thank many people for helping me in the making of this book. The two people I would like to thank first are my parents, Nadia Turner and Ron Turner. Thank you for pushing me to write this book throughout those years and thank you for supporting me every step of the way! Thank you to Brendan Boyd, Sveta Boyd, Joel Boyd, Sasha Boyd, Arthur Kim, Sveta Alikova, Nastya Kim and Alexei Kim for being great friends and for letting me have you in the book as main characters! Thank you Natasha Dikunova-Zipalova for the amazing cover illustrations for the book! Thank you to my family and friends, specifically Brenda Lowder and Alia Bayaman for proofreading and supporting the book!

And to you, the reader, thank you for buying my novel and supporting young writers!

June 28, 2019 9:33 A.M.

What do you guys want to do? I ask my friends Brendan and Arthur, who are spending a few days at my house, since school is out.

I have no idea, Paul, replies Brendan. He is fifteen years old and the oldest out of the three of us. Brendan sits there, with his messy, dyed hair and his lean frame. His dark eyes dart over to me; he shrugs his muscular shoulders and goes back to watching TV.

Hmmm, anything you want to do, Arthur? I say, glancing in his direction. He has a stocky body and black hair. He is bigger than me and Brendan, even though he is almost two years younger than us. He is like our little brother, and you can tell he is still young, with a baby round face and glasses. All three of us have a Korean parent and a Caucasian parent. Many people assume that we are brothers or at least cousins; we are always together and look alike. The weirdest thing about our families is that the Korean parents are not from Korea, they were born and raised in the former Soviet Union and they all speak Russian. Brendan, Arthur and I look like white kids with a lot of Asian in us.

All of a sudden, an alarm that sounds like an Amber Alert goes off. What's that? I ask, sounding a bit annoyed.

Nobody answers, so I go and check my phone. I just want to turn off the stupid alarm. When I pick it up, I glance at the message and swipe to turn the blaring alarm off. Then my brain processes the message.

What the heck? I say, dumbfounded.

What's wrong? asks Arthur in a worried tone.

I turn to them and say Brendan, where's your phone?

It’s upstairs, why? he answers immediately.

We all run upstairs, and I find his phone and the alarm is going off, but on silent mode. This has got to be a prank, right? Some psycho probably wanting to scare everybody, thinking it is funny. I look at the message and turn around slowly, showing my friends the message on the phone: ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES ARE OUT! RUN! NOT A DRILL! Their eyes widen, and their mouths drop.

Is it real? both ask at the same time.

Probably not, but we can look on the news just to be sure, you never know if something like this could be real.

June 28, 2019 9:45 A.M.

We look at the news and after about three minutes, the reporter is cut off and a video of the first zombies is shown.

Here are the first of the zombies. These are flesh-eating monsters, and they are spreading rapidly! Run and hide, everybody!

The video goes back to drone footage of the zombies running, biting and eating people, luckily without audio. I feel sick. I turn around, so I don’t have to watch it. I can’t believe it. Zombies, like real, actual zombies. We sit there in a trance-like state, trying to process everything we just saw. We are all thinking the same thing, it can’t be real, but at the same time, what if it is? I make up my mind, better safe than sorry. I am the first one to recover. Go, guys! Get supplies, food! I bark orders at the two of them.

They scramble up; get their backpacks and start stuffing anything remotely useful they can get their hands on into the bags: canned goods, water, chargers, knives and anything else in their sight. Then my next thought- where are Mom and Dad? I quickly search around the house and finally find them watching a movie in their room, oblivious to everything.

Mom, Dad! Zombies! Let’s get the guns, Dad! I'm yelling at them now.

Son, you know zombies aren't real, my dad tries to reason calmly, with a hint of a smile.

Well, come downstairs and I'll show you the news! I counter.

They glance at each other, Dad rolls his eyes and they both get up lazily. I run downstairs to check the T.V. When we come downstairs, Brendan and Arthur are watching the news. The zombies originated in Washington State, one of the farthest states from us, since we live in Georgia. The zombie virus has already spread five hundred fifty miles in the hour it took to locate where they are coming from.

Ok, the news went over everything, but how did they break out? Brendan asks.

After about five minutes of rambling, the news station finally receives information from the government. Apparently, the Army was working on a biological warfare weapon, a virus of mass destruction that was supposed to make people ‘crazy’ to hopefully kill off their fellow soldiers. The virus was also designed to make anyone infected have an intense craving for meat, any meat, but especially human flesh and blood. During transportation from the lab to the test site, one of the highly experimental vials broke, which infected the truck driver, who was transporting it. Then, the epidemic spread quickly to the nearby town…

So, I say, doing quick math in my head while looking at the small wall map. If it spreads about five hundred fifty miles in one hour, we have about four hours until the zombie virus reaches us, since we are about twenty-five hundred miles away from Washington State. I look over at Dad. Ok, well? Let's get the guns, Dad, I say, almost demanding it.

I'm still not sure if I believe this whole ‘zombies are out’ thing, Dad says, frowning while his hand strokes his grayish beard.

Yeah, me too, it just sounds made up to me. Maybe it’s just a joke, but we can do more research, Mom agrees with Dad.

It's better to be safe than sorry, I say matter-of-factly.

Ok, Paul, if it makes you feel better, we will get ready just in case Dad says, sighing.

June 28, 2019 2:01 PM

Almost three and a half hours later, emergency sirens go off.

I told you! I yell over the blaring sirens.

My dad goes over gun safety again, how to load, shoot, clean the gun, and when to shoot. I run over to the back door and let my golden doodle dog, Dover, inside. I love him almost as much as my parents, with his curly golden and white fur and his playfulness.

We need to call the police or the government again or something, says Brendan, clearly stressed out over the sirens.

Mom states smartly, I’ve already tried, 911 isn’t going to help us any time soon. All they told me to do was to stay inside and maybe block the doors and windows. I also called the F.B.I. and they were so overwhelmed with callers that they just sent me back to their website which wasn’t much help. It says that the government is already trying to quarantine major cities. Also, the President gave an order to evacuate heavily populated areas first. She looks over on the laptop, "oh, and scientists are currently testing the prototype antidote on captured zombies, but no real progress yet so, we’ll probably be stuck here for a while.

Ok, so we know now that we are really on our own here, at least for a while, maybe a few days. Does everyone have a backpack with their stuff in it? my mom asks.

Yes everyone says at once.

Ok, but please make sure, we don't have time to go looking through the house for any gear you left. She shakes her head and her straight brown hair follows the movement: This is absolutely crazy, this is unbelievable…

I look through my backpack, like everyone else does. I have: thirteen very heavy cans of food, five water bottles, the only hatchet in the group and probably the most useful weapon, extra ammo, extra set of clothes, nylon rope, small first aid kit, duct tape, and my favorite gun to shoot, my M16.

Everyone else has basically the same things in their bags, but different weapons. Dad has his M16, exact same as mine, just with a few extra modular components, an extra-large camping knife, and his 44 Magnum pistol. Mom has my 257-bolt action rifle and her Taurus 40 caliber pistol. She has not shot her pistol in a long time, but in the past Mom has always been a good shot. Arthur has my lightweight 20-gauge shotgun plus a nice throwing knife that he loves. Brendan has a .22 rifle and a cool machete with a nylon case, which can be attached to a belt.

We watch the news again hoping to get some kind of instructions from the government, but nothing helpful is given. The news periodically shows the Canadian development and how it is spreading up north. All available military personnel are working