Outlast: Only the Beginning

****IF YOU READ OUTLAST: A PROLOGUE, FORGET ABOUT IT. I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT HOW I WANTED TO WRITE THIS. BUT IF YOU HAVEN'T, THEN IGNORE THIS NOTICE. AND ENJOY! COMMENTS AND CRITIQUES ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED! :]****

“Come on, we need to leave. Now,” my father urged as he opened the front door.
He was home from work too early. And the tone of his voice was different—scared.

“Honey, what’s going on?” my mother asked, standing next to my older brother, Joseph and I in the living room.

“We need to get out of here!” he yelled, with terror in his voice.
He rushed into the bedroom, and reached beneath his bed to grab his two rifles.

“Morris, what’s wrong? What’s going on? Why do you have your guns?” my mother cried as he walked towards us, handing Joseph a rifle.

Dad didn’t say anything, but walked over to her and stared. For a moment, he didn’t blink.

My mom stared back and then whispered softly, “What the hell is going on, Morris?”

“There are th-these things out there, Lynn. And they’re—” he stopped suddenly.

He was too terrified to say whatever it was he saw. The look on his face told us it wasn’t good.

“What?” my brother Joseph asked.

Dad looked over at him and said, “These things are. . . .eating people.”

Mom gasped and I didn’t comprehend what he meant.

“Cool!” Joseph yelled in delight.

“What the fuck are they, giant lizards or something?” he added, smiling over at me.

He must’ve thought I’d laugh at that, but I didn’t. I was scared and confused.

“Are they some animal, Dad?” I finally asked.

“No, Anne,” he said, looking over at me now. “It’s people.”

Joseph suddenly burst into a laughter of disbelief.

“Are you fucking serious?” he yelled. “People?”

Dad was suddenly angry.

“Yes, people, Joseph! People! I know what I saw, alright? If you don’t believe me, you turn on that goddamn television and watch the news. I know what I saw,” he screamed, his voice cracking.

Mom quickly went across the living room and turned the television on.

“What channel?” she asked quickly, afraid Dad was going to yell again. He never yelled.

“Channel two or something,” he said quietly, sighing, and running his hands through his hair to get his cool back.

As soon as Mom turned to that channel, there was yelling coming from the reporter as she saw what was happening.

“. . .are these things! People are getting attacked, getting killed and then coming back to life again! Many people are in the emergency room as of right now with bite marks the size of our fists. Me and my crew are in a safe place on the roof of a ten story apartment building overlooking the city. We managed to escape the deadly streets. This is bad. Very bad. Whatever is going on down there, I hope it can be stopped. Uh, . . . Hold on. . . . . . .”

The reporter looked away from the camera and furrowed her brow as she put her finger against the ear piece in her ear and listened.

Her eyebrows raised as she faced the camera once more.

“Ok, according to other news stations in our neighboring states and the rest of the country, they’re also having the same situation happening. . . . It seems that no one knows what is the cause of all this.

A man began screaming from the top of his lungs and the camera man jerked the camera away from the reporter, and zoomed in on the street below them. The man who was screaming had a large woman biting his left arm as he struggled to get away from her. He couldn’t and even more of those things were going to feast off him. It was gruesome.

Mom quickly turned the television off. “I can’t watch anymore. . . .” she said, disgusted.

“Now do you believe me, Joseph?” Dad asked, with a smirk on his face.

Joseph’s jaw gaping, he nodded his head and gripped the rifle in his hands.

“We need to go,” Dad said, walking towards the kitchen and rummaged through the pantry.

“Anne, I need you to get a backpack so we can put some food and water in it,” he said hastily.

I nodded my head.
Was this really happening? I thought. It has to be a nightmare. Please let me wake up any minute. Please.

I grabbed my school backpack and dumped everything out of it. I had homework to do, but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

Walking back out to the kitchen, I heard my mom asking my dad, “Morris, don’t you think it’s safer just to stay here? We can hide in the attic or something. Board all the windows up.”

I handed my dad the backpack.

“No, Lynn. It’s better if we just stay on the move. We don’t have time to board the windows up. Those things are in the city and any minute they’re going to be here. They know how to break windows, Lynn. I was in the office when one of them got in. I just made it out of there in time too. . . .You have to go through with me on this,” he said softly, gently placing his hands on her shoulders.

She looked away from him and then asked, “What about the kids? I am not losing our children to one of them things.”

“Lynnette, it’s alright. I’ve got a rifle, Joseph’s got a rifle. We’ll be okay, I promise,” he smiled reassuringly, and began placing water and food in my backpack.

I looked over at Joseph, who was standing in front of a window in the living room. His rifle was clutched close to his chest as he peered outside into the afternoon daylight.

I had never seen an eighteen-year-old so scared before in my life.
Joseph had a tough exterior and he rarely showed any type of sadness or fear until now.

“Dad!” he suddenly yelled, making me jump. “Come here!”

My father handed me my backpack as he walked out of the kitchen and to the living room.

The backpack was heavy as I put the cushioned straps around my shoulders and walked towards Joseph and my dad.

“I think one of those things are in Mr. Waterburg’s yard,” Joseph said quietly, squinting his eyes as he peered across the street .

“Shit, are you sure?” Dad asked, standing closer to the window.

I joined up along side of them and looked across the street as well.

“I think so,” Joseph said slowly.

Mr. Waterburg’s large red-brick two story house stared back at us. The green luscious prize-winning lawn surrounded it. And a man with brown hair and yellow t-shirt was standing there with his back to us. He wasn’t moving at all, and his khaki cargo shorts had blood on the back of them.

“What is he doing?” I whispered. No one answered me.

Suddenly, a gun shot from an upstairs window of Waterburg’s house went off.

The three of us hit the floor, taking cover as the sound of the shot echoed loudly throughout the street.

“What was that?” Mom asked, frightened. She walked over and peered out the window.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!” she started yelling. “That man has no head!”

I looked and the man in the yellow shirt was on the ground, twitching and headless.

“Fuck! That’s awesome! I never knew that old man had such a good shot,” Joseph yelled in delight once more.

“That’s weird. On the news, those things never went down when you shot them in the chest or the leg. The head seems to be the best spot,” my father said, ignoring Joseph’s stupid comment.

“So, we gotta shoot them in the head? This is so fucking cool!” Joseph exclaimed.
Suddenly he wasn’t so scared anymore.

“Joseph, I’d appreciate it if you stop using that language in front of you sister,” Mom said annoyed.

“Ma, she’s sixteen,” he said, arguing with her.

“Yeah, and I hear it all around me at school, Mom,” I said, taking Joseph’s side for once.

Mom scolded me slightly, but then brushed it off.

“I think we should seriously go now, guys,” Dad said, interrupting us. “I see more of them coming.”

We walked out the front door as my father and brother aimed their guns, pointing in every direction and making sure we were safe.

Mr. Waterburg ran out of his house and past the headless body and said, “Where are you going? Can I come with?”

He took out his own rifle and Dad spotted it.

“We’re getting out of here. We don’t know where we’re going yet, but you can come along,” he said, still clutching his gun and staying along side of Joseph.

“You got enough bullets?” my dad asked a few minutes later.

Mr. Waterburg nodded his head.

“I have more in my pockets,” he said, as his wrinkly, pale hand patted his pants pocket.

Walking further down the street, I was paranoid. I kept looking all around me, terrified that those things were going to come at us unexpectedly. But it seemed safe so far.

We then heard screaming coming from a man in a house not too far away. A few moments later, a woman ran out to the middle of the street in hair curlers and a nightgown, her neck was bleeding profusely and she looked crazed.

She was terrifying.

“Get ready!” my dad said, as I hid behind him.

“I’ve been ready,” Joseph said, aiming his gun as the woman ran closer.