Every month a group of writers meet in Laguna Beach and we share our stories. It's called Dime Stories and the only rule is that you keep your piece to three minutes or under. Here is the piece I wrote and read last Sunday. I hope you enjoy it!
I can hear them banging on the door below. I know it’s only hours before
the defenses break and we are overrun. There is no possible hope of escape. One
look out the windows will confirm this. They are outside in legions, in hordes
that extend as far as the eye can see.
I’m only writing this now so if anyone does survive, if there is a
chance this will ever come to an end, that they— that you will know the truth.
When it happened there was no warning, no time to prepare there was only
time to react or die. They came in the middle of the night, by the thousands.
They were in houses, hospitals, schools before anyone had time to blink.
When a disaster like this strikes everyone says to get out of the city.
They say the woods or mountains are safer. They say these locations are less
inhabited and easier to stay alive in. This would have been great advice if
EVERYONE hadn’t decided to do the exact same thing.
Freeways, highways, back roads all grinded to a standstill within hours.
There were too many cars on the roads and soon those cars would become metal
coffins. This enemy-- this plague is not fast, but it is relentless.
News stations stopped transmitting a few days into the disaster and
radios a few more days after that. I can’t blame them. I would want to go home
and die with my loved ones as well.
A few pockets of survivors managed to avoid the slaughter on the roads
and instead opted to stay and barricade themselves in the city. This seemed to
work for a few years but eventually we destroyed ourselves. The self-depraved
sinful nature of man would not be quieted even in a time like this.
Soon gangs formed, warlords, clans call them whatever you want. Power
hungry men thought it was their time to rise from the ashes and establish their
reign on this shadow of a world we should have shared.
The living killed the living and we were divided. We weakened one
another to the point that we were unable to defend ourselves from the true
enemy. The enemy we should have been fighting together the whole time.
Now only a few of us remain and very soon we will all be gone, victims
of our own greed and stupidity.
But if you are reading this that means that you have survived. It means
that there is still hope left for this world. Learn from our mistakes and work
together with the remaining survivors. Hold on to what you know is right and
never lose hope.
It is only because of hope that I am able to write this letter when I
know I have but hours to live. Remember who your enemy is, remember what they
are and have no remorse as you kill them. Whatever you call them; zombies,
walkers, the dead they are not alive and they will have no mercy on you as a
member of the living.
