Valerie was about to speak up when her Chief beat her to it, "We need you here... I don't know how much longer we can fight them off.".
Her heart dropped to the ground.
Through the static sound, a scream from the other side of the glass window in her living room caught her attention.
She walked up to the window right behind her television. Her eyes widened at the horror she saw unravel outside. People were getting chased. Attacked.
Artull was also on the outskirts of Liß. Her stomach began turning the more she dwelled on the possibility of the attacks reaching her home town.
"Detective..." her boss's voice pulled her out of her trance. "Are you still there?".
"Yes, sir..." Valerie responded. She took a deep breath and voiced her final sentence to her Chief, regardless of the pressure she felt against her chest. "I am on my way." And with that, she hung up the call.
Before putting her phone away, Valerie checked the time. Almost midnight.
Looking down at her television, she grabbed the remote controller before surfing through the different channels to see which worked. However, only the ones showing content from a month and beyond ago were still operative. None of the news channels were in operation.
Looking back out the window, she noticed the situation ramping up. It wasn't until a black silhouette planted itself against the window of Valerie's living room that she jumped and made her way up the stairs and into her room.
There, hidden within her night table, she retrieved her pistol and inside a bag in her wardrobe, she got a few boxes of ammo.
Moments later, she heard the shattering of glass. Someone managed to make their way into her home.
Standing up, she quietly entered the hallway before moving down the steps.
Valerie ensured she had her gun on aim, in front of her.
Reaching the laminated, wooden floor of the downstairs hallway, she made her way toward the kitchen.
It wasn't until she entered the kitchen and turned past the open door that she noticed a body on the ground. At first, it didn't move. So, Valerie decided to approach it.
However, with a mere growl, it slowly began to lift its head until it looked at Valerie.
It was there that Valerie was once again greeted by that cold gaze that made her spine tingle. It brought back memories of the day before when she had her first encounter with such creatures.
Out of nowhere, the monster lunged for her, managing to grab Valerie by the ankle of her right foot. However, just as it was about to dig its teeth into the flesh of Valerie's leg, she shot the creature, bursting its head open as it fell back limp to the ground.
A foul smell flooded her kitchen, engulfing her. She could only assume that it was from the decapitated, rotting corpse that lay on her floor.
Her stomach slowly began to turn and she knew she had to get out of there, and fast.
The will she felt to get out only grew more as she heard a loud shout. Looking through the broken glass of her sliding door, her gaze was met by another creature, alike, that tried to reach into Valerie's backyard by climbing the wooden fence.
With a loud thump, the creature - the zombie - did just that.
Not wanting to see anymore, Valerie slowly began to back up, entering her hallway.
She knew her keys, both from her home and her car, were on the fire mantle in her living room. So going there, she collected them before quickly inserting the right key into the keyhole of her main door.
But before she managed to unlock and open the door, two loud shots, from the next-door house, rippled through the unsettled air of Valerie's hallway. The Johnsons.
'Shit...' Valerie thought to herself as she proceeded to open the door.
Just as she expected, chaos was what awaited her. People were still being chased as screams and cries for help echoed through the cold air.
Valerie descended the cement steps and onto her driveway. Just as she was about to enter her car, a loud explosion sounded through the air, painting a slight, orange hue across Valerie's complexion.
She widened her eyes as her gaze was fixated on the orange plumb of smoke a flames that ascended the earth.
Another explosion ensued seconds later, followed by two more. What seemed like a missile flew over Valerie's house, coming into contact with the ground and making was to a final eruption of flames and smoke before three fighter jets, one behind the other, zoomed their way across the disturbed, night sky.
'What the fuck...'. Valerie swallowed down the lump that began growing in her throat. Unease filled her stomach, as did it weigh down on her chest.
Quickly going into her car, she powered it up before backing out and driving off. The road was filled with civilians, civilians chased by even more zombies.
Placing her phone on the phone holder in her car, she tried to dial her friend, Lisa. However, the call wasn't able to proceed. The signal was gone.
"Shit..." Valerie muttered under her breath as she sped her way onto the main road. Ahead of her was a big fire. The cause of it was a truck, which was on its side. And the closer she got to it, that was when she realised that it was a fuel truck.
A few cars crashed into it and blocked the road. It was the way she needed to go, a quicker way to get to the station. However, on the roundabout, a little before the crash site, she turned onto another road. A road that was to get her to the other side of town.
It took her 10, agonising minutes of driving in the dark to reach the lights of her town. However, Valerie noticed that something wasn't right.
A glow of orange spread across the gap of trees that her eyes managed to reach. She gulped as she continued driving ahead.
Plumbs of smoke caught her eye as they grew in the number of columns that reached up into the clouds and further into the sky. Each shaded a light different colour of orange it reflected.
Reaching the main road of the town, that was where she confirmed what she feared the most. The town, the buildings and cars crashed into them. Corpses lying around, in flames. Everything was a blaze of fire. It was slowly becoming obvious to her, the further she drove down the road of her home town, that it was no longer a place she could call home.
The civilians, some of whom were left alive, she saw them smashing into the windows of closed shops, taking things out of them and running away.
And then, entering the street she knew of since childhood, now it was unrecognisable. She had to read the name of the street to know.
Another roadblock, a few meters ahead, caused her to halt her vehicle in place. Taking her phone and stepping out of her car, the heat from the fire around her engulfed her like a summer heatwave. Her skin began to tingle ever so slightly as a result of it as it slowly became harder to breathe. She knew she had to get a move on.
So, backtracking a little bit, by foot, she came across an alleyway. However, with it being small, she knew her car couldn't fit inside.
Not that it mattered. A crackle from the burning building next to her caught her attention as a few chunks of it fell onto the road and, consequently, right onto her car.
Due to the debris being on fire, the fuel left in her car ignited and set off another, loud explosion.
She let out a mere, helpless sigh as she felt like she was stuck in a nightmare. She was alone, or so it seemed like it.
Regardless of how Nelly made her feel, Valerie felt her throat squeeze with slight regret. 'I should have said yes... by now I'd be long gone...'.
Turning around, she made her way into the darkened alleyway. She knew that the station wasn't too far away.
Making her way across to another road, it seemed to have less debris of broken down buildings and burning cars, so she proceeded to walk down the sidewalk.
She kept her steps light as she had her pistol in her hands. Her eyes scanned her surroundings and in no time, she reached the entrance of a small park.
She knew a shortcut that she could take to reach the station, it was faster than making her way up, back to the main road before meandering through who knows how many more closed roads before reaching the police station.
Doing just that, entering the small park, the serenity of it made her back shiver ever so slightly. The fire hadn't spread to the trees that patterned the park grounds, with the swings and slides left unbothered, gently swaying in the mere breeze.
A few bodies here and there remained laid on the floor. She wasn't willing to find out whether they were alive... or dead. Or somewhere in between.
Valerie continued, taking the path to her right when the walkway she was on split ways.
She hadn't noticed until she saw something fell in front of her. It was a flake of ash. However, to her, it looked like a flake of snow.
Looking above, she was met with a clearance. No tree limited her view to the stars that shimmered in the sky. However, it didn't last long as clouds of precipitation slowly made their way across the Artull sky.
Valerie reached a long wall of fences which she walked down by until she found a gate. It was jammed. She tried opening it three times, however, only after kicking the gate did she manage to bust it open.
Looking around her to see that no one followed her, she proceeded through.
Reaching another, shorter alleyway which had a one-way road, she proceeded through and reached a street perpendicular to it. It had a road that bit wider than the one she just walked on.
Turning left, she walked up the street and right ahead, she saw the police station.
A mere two-minute walk later, she reached the cemented steps of the station. Climbing up them, she reached the entrance. A double-door made from glass. However, now it was all shattered. Ruined.
Valerie's stomach dropped as her heart paused a beat. She looked inside the darkened and bloodied reception of the station.
Bodies upon bodies littered the floor before her.