For almost every person in the world, the zombie apocalypse started differently. For some, it started with waking up from a coma, to find the world had changed almost overnight. For others, it started gradually. First they heard rumors, then they heard facts, and soon they were being evacuated from their homes. In many cases a grandparent or sickly family member had died during the night, and had woken the house with the screams of one of their own being eaten by someone who used to be family. In regards for everybody's first experience in the zombie apocalypse, each instance was just a tiny bit different. For Alice Marchese, it was catastrophic. 25 year old Alice Marchese had been giving her 16-month old son a bath in the kitchen sink when the zombie apocalypse started for her. And by started, she meant Betty from next door slammed into the kitchen window and made a valiant attempt to eat her through the glass.

Alice started violently, and barely managed to keep Devon from slipping out of her hands and onto the floor. She stared incredulously, almost blankly at the women who used to bring her over for tea during her pregnancy, only looking away when Devon started to wail. For the moment, she chose to desperately ignore the reanimated corpse clawing at the window in favor of wrapping her screaming child in a towel, but it wasn't easy. Only when Devon was finally dressed in a yellow one-sie and sucking contentedly on his thumb, did she finally bring herself to glance up and take a look at the woman she considered a third mother. It was a good thing that she had made sure to keep Devon's attention away from the window, and now had his head cradled to her chest.

Betty's throat was gone. That was the first thing Alice noticed, the second being that Betty's beautiful white hair had been dyed red with her own blood, some of it darker than the rest. The top half of her baby blue dress, once beautiful, was covered in mud, blood, and bite marks. Her teeth grinned red and horrible and brokenly from a mouth without lips, and her once blue eyes stared back at her, milky grey. Alice couldn't hold back her scream, only realizing her mistake when Betty started throwing herself even harder against Alice's window, her wrist smashing heavily on the glass with a brutal cracking sound. She didn't even seem to notice. Devon, somehow knowing in that toddler way of his that something was terribly wrong despite not being able to see what it was, decided to broadcast his distress to the world with a few high, needy whines.

Alice distantly heard her child's cries, and managed to bring her attention back to the toddler confusedly looking up at her with his soulful green eyes. His curly black hair tickled her arm, the freckles on his buttoned nose crinkling together as he smiled hesitantly, apparently deciding all was right with the world once his mother was looking at him. His pearly white teeth grinned at her from strawberry lips which were set into naturally tanned skin, just like her own. And all of a sudden, Alice knew.

She knew that this would be happening all over the world, and that they wouldn't make it through this. It wouldn't be like the movies or the books, where everyone bands together to form a new civilization that eradicates all the zombies. No, in the real world, people would be fighting each other, not the zombies. They wouldn't all band together as one group to fight off the undead; they would be banding together in separate groups to fight the other humans. They would fight each other for food, land, medicine, and so many other things that people took for granted. Things like safety. And that was what would keep her son alive. She would wait a couple of weeks until the initial chaos and fear died down, and then she would make her way out into the world with only her son for company. She would find a small group, one that didn't draw too much attention but wasn't too weak, and she would make it her home; she would make it her son's home. No matter what she had to do to make it happen.

Betty banged on the window again, but this time Alice didn't jump. Instead, she smiled shakily at the toddler tugging on the buttons of her flannel, and walked him into his room. Devon sat in his crib without complaint for once, and cheerfully held up his prized stuffed unicorn, clearly meaning for her to take it. She shook her head a little and pushed his hand back gently, letting out a tearful huff of laughter at his pouting face. " Mama's sorry, my little one in infinity, but I might get it all dirty. How 'bout you keep it for now, and give it to me later. How's that sound, darling?" Devon smiled cheerfully once again and began to play, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Alice quietly slipped out of Devon's room and into her own, taking a long look at the picture of her pregnant with Devon, feet resting on Betty's lap as she was given a foot rub. Her head was thrown back, laughing at the ticklish feeling while Betty grinned savagely, obviously knowing what she was doing. Taking a deep breath, Alice laid the picture frame face down and went to her closet. She reached for a shoe box on the top shelf, and carefully brought it down. She placed it on the bed and reached inside, pulling out a sleek looking revolver. Taking a deep breath, she checked to make sure the bullets were inside and the safety was off.

Walking into the kitchen, she tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans and slid open the window, leaning back as Betty's head slipped inside. She put the gun against Betty's forehead, took another breath, and studied her one last time. Closing her eyes, she pulled the trigger and immediately went to tend to her screaming toddler, the child startled by the sound. Only when Devon was calmed down and asleep did she go into the kitchen to scrub the blood off the windowsill and sink.

2 months later

Alice took one more look around her house, making sure everything was sealed as well as it could be. She gently picked up Devon from the entryway floor, hiked her bag up over her shoulder, and walked outside to her car, never looking back. It was time to go and find a new family for herself and her son. If only she knew how important that new family would become.