First Draft Chapter 1

Once again, another problem arose with the destruction of the human race, who would have thought? Our self demise brings forth the greatest of threats. As I was tending to our garden in the back of our main conference building, I heard a massive explosion come from the east wall. I looked up with fear glistening in my eyes; a slight static started emitting from the radio on my belt. Jeremy was radioing out, yelling that the propane tanks had ruptured, causing a chain reaction. I immediately ran over to the watchtower near the center of camp, grabbed my belongings, and went to gather as many of the others as possible. That's when they began to invade. Like bees swarming their hive, they rushed in. I started my way towards the safe house when I encountered one of them. I was amazed to see well I will get to that later.

Earlier that morning, I received a radio call from Darwin saying that our tanks were acting weird, something with the pressure, I guess. I told him to keep a close eye on them and report anything that seemed out of the ordinary. So I did what I would usually do during my mornings. I checked on Lisa, our medical doctor, to see if she needed any new supplies or anything else. Next up was checking on our guards, one in each of our five towers. There was a tower on each corner of the complex, and one in the middle.

Then on to our gardens which sit behind the main conference building. Our people grow a variety of food from potatoes to carrots to corn, and yes, even watermelon. We also have livestock that mainly consists of cows, pigs, and sheep, as well as four horses. The horses are the only way I can manage the colony as well. Without them, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere fast enough. (In the beginning, we had gas but that has become a precise resource now). Our community just hit 258 people yesterday, Logan, one of our supply runners/scout's brought in a whole family from about 15 klicks to the north of us.

Right after that is when I went and started inspecting the gardens, at about the same time that they began to swarm the place. So at that point, I began to look back on the life I once had. It was much simpler than this. I started to remember the "Good Times" in life before the apocalypse. To a time when all I used to worry about was my grades in high school and what others were doing in their daily lives.

It all started on the 9th of November, a Monday, I think, I was sitting at home watching Fox 4 when I saw this story about a new virus being discovered in the Western Antarctic Ice Sheets by a group of Indian Scientists. I thought it might have been one of those things that nobody would worry about, but man was I wrong. A few days had come and gone, and nothing had happened here, so I figured we were in the clear. Wilson, one of the significant assholes in school, went over to Bangladesh for a vacation with his family. God, I was so glad not to see him for two weeks. If only the rest of his friends disappeared for that long, I would like to imagine it was heaven, but with more tranquility. Later that day, Sara, my best friend, walked up to me and asked

"Hey, Lucas, did you see the new episode of America's Got Talent last night?". Every time I see her, I think back to myself, of the times when my mom would babysit us. I remember how we used to cause so much trouble together. I replied with,

"No, sorry, Spanish has been killing my G.P.A lately, and if my mother finds out about it, I'm a dead man." She offered to tutor me, and of course, I hesitated but came through and said,

"That would be amazing; I'll have my mother make us some mini pizzas for a snack." (I mean who doesn't love mini pizzas)? School went on, as usual, that day; met my science club buddies during study hall, Wilson who was supposed to be gone but for some reason was at school, threatened me with his usual BS, Today he shouted out at me with a somewhat idiotic remark,

"Hey, Perez, what did your mother stop by for, was it to deliver you the good stuff? If so, could you spare some, I had a bit of a rough night if you know what I mean."

After that, Owen, one of my science club buddies, busted his ass on the stairs. I just couldn't help but laugh, and of course, I was the only one to go and help pick up his things. I feel bad for Owen; he doesn't have the best life a guy could ask for, but he sure does make the best of it. (Once in 8th grade, his dad came to the school drunk and was dragged out of the cafeteria for vomiting all over the place.) That night we would all meet at my house and talk with him, trying to make him feel a little bit less embarrassed about the whole ordeal. I had never heard him laugh so hard in my life before that night.

Next on the list was Mr. Miller's class, Precalculus. I hate that class with a passion. The thing I hate the most about it is the fact that Brian, sorry, Mr. Miller. I call him that just to piss him off every once in a while. My major problem with him is that he only directs his teachings to the smartest ones in the class. That means I am always left in the dirt, so I have to go to his class after school three times a week just to stay afloat. The only thing keeping me in that class is Vanessa. She is easily the hottest girl in school. I just can't help but stare at her every day, guess that makes me a perv, but I don't care. I mean, how can you not look at her.

It's rumored she and Wilson did the "activities" in the locker room last year. I'm not going to go any further into detail with that, better to leave it up to the imagination instead. I am so glad we never had any presentations in that class. (It would have showcased my awkwardness on a silver platter).

After getting out of Hell for an hour, I went straight to Wildlife Biology, my favorite class, with my favorite teacher, Mr. Watson. Some people call him by his first name Aron, but for the most part, I just stay with Watson. Mr. Watson always knew how to connect with us science club guys; we still had the most refreshing conversations (well to us at least). Like this one time, we were discussing whether to build a seed ship and fly it to another habitable planet or build a Dyson Sphere around the Sun. I would go with the Dyson Sphere route because you would just have to create a small mining and manufacturing company on Mercury and build giant mirrors to harvest the Sun's energy. It was one of the best days in that class except for the fact that Jordan, one of the other science club guys in the group, freaked out and insisted that we build a seed ship and send it Proxima Centauri: that guy has a couple of common sense issues.

Finally, my last class of the day was Spanish II with Senora Garcia. I do hate this class but not as much as Brian's; sorry did it again. Like you saw earlier, this class is killing my G.P.A, but I make the most out of it. The course is mostly girls, and I have to say, sometimes it's pretty sweet. The best days are when we have a fiesta because we have food, drinks, and get the whole class period off just to sit around and talk; too bad none of my science club buddies were in that class.

After Spanish, I would head home to get ready for work or get in line at the Elementary School to pick up my two brothers. Some days the line wouldn't move for over 30 minutes. But those days meant that I didn't have to work, and I have to go home right after and relax for the rest of the night. Unless it's a Monday, on Mondays I have scouts and since I am an Eagle Scout, I "get" to help the younger boys advance to become an Eagle (just like me), I will go further into detail with that later.

The days I have to work can be fun, depending on who I get to close with. Oh yeah, and my job title is a Drug Dealer except I am a legal drug dealer, I have a license to prove it. I work for a pharmacy, and when I get to work, I have to deliver medication all around the town to people who need it. I have my favorite patients, basically the ones who give me tips or those who aren't assholes to me every time. I especially hate the people who blame everything on me when I barely know how to pronounce the drug half the time. I officially know how to pronounce eight medications now after almost two years of working there.

Now three years into the apocalypse, medications are pretty scarce. One wrong thing, and it can spark a whole chain reaction. Well anyway, let's go on to my tutoring session with Sara now, shall we?

After getting off work at 7:00 that night, I got in my car and started the parking lot. I rolled down my windows and turned up the music. There is just something about the wind blowing in your face with your favorite music blaring out the window that makes you feel alive and free. God do I miss that, I mean we can work in the areas we have cleared, but it's still pretty rare.

Once I got home, I had to text Sara to let her know that I was back. I went ahead and pre-

heated the oven for the mini pizzas then snuck past my mom and dad so that they didn't know that Sara was coming over. Sara pulled up about 10 minutes later with all of her school stuff. Also, by the way, just in case I never mentioned it, I may or may not have some small feelings for her. I like her, but I don't want to ruin our friendship, so I have kept to myself for a very long time.

Anyways, when she walked through my front door, my mom immediately greeted her, and of course, my dad just has to give me the look of:

"Come on, son; you like her, just be you and see what happens." Every time I see that look, I imagine my dad just sitting with me at the end of my bed waiting to give me the "talk," and trust me, I'm trying to avoid that at all costs. I am sure you felt that way too at some point or another.

We both went up to my room and sat down in my bean bag chairs. God, those things were freaking comfy. I sure do miss those damn things. Sorry, I'm easily distracted if you can't tell. She pulled out her Spanish book and notes, and we began to study. After a while, I went to put the mini pizzas in the oven only to find that they had already been put in and finished. So instead of waiting, we just began eating. As we were packing up, she said:

"Just let me know if you need any more help, and I will be right over." Then as we were exiting my room,

"Your dad makes some of the weirdest facial expressions," she said. I just replied with, "yeah, I know, I just learned to get used to it."

That was how that night went, trapped like a hamster running around his wheel, just trying to figure out a way to tell her how I feel without ruining everything. She was about to get in her car when I said:

"Hey, would you like to see a movie this weekend?" I immediately thought to myself, "oh wow, Lucas, you may have just jeopardized your whole social life." Then all of a sudden she replied with:

"I would love to, how about this Friday at 8, I'll just meet you there". In my mind, all I was saying over and over again was, "please don't let this just be a friend thing, please don't let this just be a friend thing." So after that whole experience, I went back inside feeling like the luckiest man on the planet.

Of course, I couldn't tell my parents because they would flip out and never stop bothering me about the details of what just happened. I went straight upstairs, got on Snapchat, and bragged to my science buddies on our group chat about what just went down in MY DRIVEWAY. I hope those last couple of words were in capital letters. I didn't know if you noticed, but I am pretty excited. All of the guys gave me shit like, no fucking way dude, and holy shit excellent score bro!

That next day was Wednesday, meaning we have our "Science Club" meeting at 6:45 in the morning. I put that in quotations because we don't do anything except plan fun activities for the next weekend or our monthly Game Night and sometimes an actual scientific debate. Well, that morning, we discussed our Game Night for that month, and I told them I would just meet them at Jim's (another science dude, yes three down, two more people to introduce later) house after my movie "date" with Sara. We also discussed if we could pull Europa out of Jupiter's orbit and slam it into Mars to make the planet habitable again.

That was quite an interesting conversation, and guess who went all Tasmanian devil on the whole ordeal. You guessed it, Jordan. Jordan was like:

"You idiot, do you know how dangerous that is. That would require more force than humans can create." At that moment, I had never exploded so much during an argument. I gave my mathematical answer, and I may or may not have made the whole thing up, so that pissed him off when I told him that later day.

On my way to Spanish that day I remembered that Wilson (was supposed to be gone), I had such a fantastic day that I forgot that the person I almost hate the most was back. This day could honestly have only been a little bit better, and then it already was. My mother called and said, we have fish sticks with macaroni and cheese, but I had to work, so that kind of ruined it, so I dealt with that.

Thursday went on, as usual, nothing too big for me to remember. The day of my big day is a bit of a different story. I woke up about 10 minutes later than usual, and for some reason, I still remember that. Once I got to school, Wilson found out about my date and gave me all the shit about it.

"About damn time, Lucas, just a shame that it was you," Wilson said. For the sake of my writing this, I am going to say that I was about 5 seconds away from knocking his ass on the floor. I saw Sara that morning walking to English and kept on repeating to myself, please don't let this just be a friend thing, please don't let this just be a friend thing.

I was getting to walk out of school that day until Owen stopped me and wished me good luck on my date. As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw Owen trying to get his car to start (For the record Owen had a 1999 Black Mazda MX-5 Miata which isn't the most reliable car on the planet) but it wouldn't start up, so I offered him a ride home. He came and picked it up later that night.

Well, it was 7:30, and I had a date to attend, or at least I hope it's a date. I left my house promptly at 7:30, which gave me more than enough time to get to the theater, buy both of our tickets without her knowing, and wait for her in the lobby for us to get our seats. I have to say I am not into chick flicks, but it is what she wanted to watch, so I learned to suck it up. I slowly moved my hand over to her, and she interlocked with mine. At that moment, I knew my dream finally came true. After the movie, we slowly walked to her car and made small talk. She laughed; I laughed; it was all too perfect like a dream come true.

I was about to walk off and walk towards my car, but Sara grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, and then went in for it. I think she was more into me than I was into her. Still, though, not going to complain about the situation.

I went home that night feeling like a free man no matter what Wilson or anyone else thought about it. After my date, I went over to Jim's house to meet with the other guys for Game Night. We usually stay up all night playing card games, Xbox, PlayStation, and the Nintendo switch; those are the best nights of my life sometimes. The guys are like brothers to me; I share things with them that I would never share with anyone else. And of course, they tell me their stuff as well. If we are going, to be honest, I forget some things, and I do feel wrong about that. I trust those guys with my life; if that doesn't show you how much they mean to me, then I don't know what does or could.

That particular game night, though, we all shared some of our deepest and most inner thoughts; if some of those were things that got out, we would all strangle that person. But we all had fun. Typical Rob fell asleep a couple of hours in as he would quite often. That man could sleep through anything if he wanted to, by the way, he is a foreign exchange student from Sweden, and he is pretty legit.

The next day was Saturday, the best day of the week unless dad is gone to the fire department. In that case, we usually stay home with mom, who, most of the time, doesn't like to go anywhere and would rather sit at home on the couch and play Candy Crush ALL DAY LONG! And once again, I hope those words were in capital letters, but if Dad isn't home, then Mom usually fixes some pretty good dinners like Salisbury steaks and rolls or something with macaroni. Sometimes those days can be a little fun, and if dad is home, that means we get to go to the city or do something that's not mind-numbing.

Then Sunday, the holiest of all days. My family goes to First Baptist Church, which is located on the northeastern end of town (Keep that in mind, it might be important later). We get up and go to Sunday school at 9:45 right after that we have our church service at 11:00, then we usually go to El Camino right after that. I prefer Pizza Glen myself, but they don't open until 4:00 pm on Sundays. And we never get to go there anyway as a family because it's not where dad wants to go, so we eat at El Camino twice a week instead. Sorry, I'm ranting. I'm very good at that sort of thing.

I would like to think that Sara and I are a thing now, but I'm not sure. I do feel a more reliable connection between us now rather than before, we sat with each other at lunch, before I sat with my science buddies. She has been a bit under the weather lately, so I have been a little bit more comforting than usual. Hopefully, that won't backfire on me. Nothing else was getting my attention more than her; work was going pretty good, well, at least for the most part.

My boss, Malcolm, decided it was a good idea to put dash cams in the car so he could track our speed, acceleration, and braking habits. I guess that was important to him for some odd reason; I try not to question that man, he can be quite strange. If you pay enough attention to the pharmacy, sometimes you can see Malcolm standing at the drive-thru window just staring out the window. It can be a little unsettling and disturbing, but as I said, I don't question it.

During this time, I remember that people were freaking out because Wilson had been planning on going live on Youtube that night. I was walking down the hallway that day to get to precalculus, and on my way, I saw Dawson, a redneck sort of kid I occasionally talk to, heading my way looking very determined. He approached me with a very menacing look on his face. He asked me if I was going to watch Wilson's live footage. He asked ME of all people to approach in the hallway; it just had to be me. I barely know this man, he couldn't hold an intellectual conversation for more than a couple of seconds.

Throughout the day, all I heard was:

"Are you going to watch Wilson tonight," "Bro you better watch, this is going to be sick as shit." But then Sara walked down the hallway with the biggest smile on her face. Before she reached me, Wilson stepped out in front of her and said,

"Hey, why the fuck would you go out with that sack of shit you call a boyfriend?" he said, knowing full well that I could hear him. That's when I practically ran down the hall towards Wilson, and for the first time in my life, I was going to stand up to him. I got right up in his face, just to back right down and walk away, but that did not stop him from yelling his other smart ass remarks at me while I was walking away.

Word had spread throughout the school that Wilson wanted to fight me, and I can tell you this, send me a card to the address 1028 N 2nd Street (that would be the address to the hospital). Well, the only good thing to come out of that was one of the popular kids thought that I was cool because I stood up to Wilson. He then invited me to his party that Saturday. So now, instead of sitting at home playing Skyrim, I was going to my first high school party.

Now, if you are going to learn anything about me, let it be this, I am a serious planner. Everything has to be set in stone before anything happens. So I had two days to prepare for this party.