Jalen Tsang, Period 7, 5/22/23

Creativity & Fiction

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , USA

Rueben Carver lives in a small apartment with his newly wedded wife. He seems eager to speak with me when I greet him at the door.

I was only ten when it all started. I was in the living room watching tv when my parents came bursting through the front door. They ran around the house taking anything important before they finally grabbed me and got in the car. We drove for 30 mins before we arrived at the town hall and my parents told me to get out .We lived in a small town in New Jersey and the whole town decided to take shelter at the town hall. 

Once we got there my parents told me to go play with the other kids and meanwhile the adults boarded up the windows and doors. Soon after I heard some moans and as time went on the moans got louder. A few hours passed and I eventually asked my mom when we were going home. She said “Oh we’re not going home tonight. We’re having a sleepover.” That night we had spaghetti for dinner. 

The next morning I once again asked when we were going home and my mom admitted that we were going to stay a few nights. I complained for a bit before calming down. Although the moaning didn’t stop, it wasn't that bad of a situation. I was with my parents and I got to play with my friends whenever I wanted. We had grilled cheese that night.

Day after day my mom and I would have the same conversation, until a few days later I accepted that we would have to stay at the town hall for a while. That same night we didn’t have anything to eat. The next morning I woke up to the adults arguing. My dad noticed and put me back to sleep. The next day was the same. We didn’t eat and the adults argued.

Two days later the arguing had stopped. Apparently they had sent people to find food. That night we had stew. It was a meat I had never tasted before, but I was starving and didn’t care what it was. The next day we had the same meat. The day after we ate nothing and the arguing started again.

The next day we had that meat again, but it tasted slightly different and the portion was smaller. We ate that meat for three days. Then we starved again and the arguing restarted. This went on for a month. By then the arguing had been replaced by a weekly vote and we had stopped starving. They had also banned all children from the basement which had begun to stink.

The votes were to decide who would go out and hunt and since no one could get back in, there had to be a vote each week. I have always wondered how they got people out though. Everything was still boarded up and the moans never stopped which means the zombies never left. I guess they must have had some secret passage.

Week after week they would send people to go hunt and they would always succeed. We ate meat everyday and since there were less people each week the portion sizes slowly increased. This went on for years until we were finally saved by the army. At that point more than half the people had left to hunt including my dad.

After we got saved I went searching for my dad, but my mom didn’t seem to have any home. I eventually gave up and now I’m here. I do have a question though. What kind of meat do you think it was?

What kind of meat?

I’ve been trying to figure out what they were hunting. Before then I had never had any meat like that and even now I’m still trying to figure it out. What do you think? Deer? Bear? Maybe it was like dog meat or something. Maybe it’s an animal I don’t know about. It had to be an animal right? It had to be.