Flick.
What struck him, at first, was the quiet. The silence was deafening, as if he had been flown to outer space, where his senses would be properly deprived. He looked around again, at the desolate road, the abandoned fields, the windmill that vehemently refused to turn. But it was the charred remains of a one-story ranch nestled at the center of the property which dominated his vision.
Flick.
He stared down at the lighter gripped in his hand. His initials stared back: A.P.. Anthony Parker — the latter, the same name painted in clean white letters across his mailbox. This was his grandparents' house. This was the reason he had come back from Seattle. His grandfather had been Tony's idol since he was a kid. He even had his old revolver, now holstered at the hip. In many ways, Tony was lucky. He had brought the pistol, along with the fixed blade he bought on his frequent trips north, to show his ninety year old grandfather. He never could have known how useful they'd become. His mind raced, as he recalled in vivid detail how he got there in the first place. Tony remembered the plane landing at Jonesboro Municipal — how airport authorities attempted to control the situation, the doors locked, airport security armed and alert. But they were all doomed from the beginning. There was a man, on the same plane as Tony's. He was sick. Tony thought nothing of it; none of them did, until it was too late. Until, a day into the lockdown, he woke with a hollow look in his eyes. A look of pure, emotionless animalism. And then he ripped the throat out of a nearby lady. And then an older man who moved a little too close out of confusion. None of the guards were around, none of the passengers had any clue what to do. That was when Tony grabbed his bag, and ran. He kept running, and didn't stop until he cleared city limits. And then he began to walk. Lake City was by no means far, but it felt like an eternity to him. He began to lose focus, to get into the rhythm of the walk, and it nearly cost him his life. Tony noticed the man when he was under twenty feet away. It wasn't a man, though. It was one of them. Tony dropped his bag, frantically fishing for his gun, his knife, anything that would keep him breathing. He clutched the hilt of the fixed blade as the walker closed in and made a lunge for him. Tony leaped backwards out of fear, and then — in a moment of miraculous strength — he composed himself, tightened his grip on the knife, and thrust the knife upwards through the thing's jaw, into its brain.
That was his first kill. Standing there, seeing the house his family owned for generations burned to embers, Tony knew it would not be the last. He looked down again at the lighter, his eyes beginning to cloud with tears. He had made it from the airport to Lake City, but when he came upon the house, the silence, he knew there was a problem. He crept toward the door, prepared for the worst, for monsters like the man at the airport, the thing on the road. But the door swung open, and all he found were bodies. His grandparents. He saw his grandmother first, lying motionless on the couch in the family room. Her skin had a sickeningly pale greenish hue, and a bullet hole penetrated her forehead. Even still, she looked.. Peaceful. The other body was sprawled atop the hardwood floor a few feet away. Tony moved closer to his grandfather, searching for any sign of familiarity between the man he once was and this sack of rotting meat, but he could not. The body had been mutilated beyond the point of recognition, and the entire head had been caved in with a blunt object of some sort. It didn't matter, anyway. His grandparents were dead. Tony left the family room, turned on the gas stove, and left through the door for the last time. All it took was a makeshift incendiary using an old rag, a bottle, and gasoline from the garage, and the ancient house erupted.
Tony felt a tear slide past his nose, as he finally found the strength to turn away from the charred remains of the house. His granddad's truck was gone: stolen, most likely. It was to be expected, considering the circumstances and how man kept it outside in the driveway at all times. He had already searched the standalone garage, though, and found an old Harley Davidson. His grandfather loved anything with an engine — more than likely, he had bought the bike cheap and made fixing it up his pass-time. Tony found the keys easily, filled the tank with the nearby can, and started the engine in two turns. Granddad Russell had done a damn fine job, he thought to himself pensively, before pressing down on the pedal, and taking off back toward Jonesboro.
