There was no way to tell how long she was out.
Zoe's eyes opened slowly and she blinked to bring her dark world into focus. Something was wrong and she opened her mouth and drew a deep, quick breath. Her body still ached and felt strange but her head was not hurting so badly. She found her last memories replaying in her mind and realized she was still in the storage shed. Slowly pushing herself up, she looked around her and realized she almost had to force herself to breathe, though she did not feel that half panicked urge to do so. With those memories still replaying in her thoughts, she sat quietly and listened for a while, afraid to attract the attention of the gray people who had broken into the house and attacked her and her family.
Long moments later, she pushed herself up again. Her legs shook a little and seemed difficult to control, her steps were forced and her muscles seemed to spasm when she tried to use them. She did not know to notice this unusual difficulty in walking and braced herself on the riding mower as she made her way around it with the sack in one hand and the teddy bear in the other.
Ever so slowly, she opened the door to the shed and peered out, looking one way and then the other, and finally stepping outside. Turning fully, she closed the shed door and gave a tug to make sure it was shut securely, then she looked to the now quiet house. The sun was still up and the house was very quiet within. Looking down at her watch, she saw that it was not quite six o'clock, and this confused her. She had fallen asleep after six. With her imagination feeding her confusion, she simply looked toward the house again and tried to go that way, stumbling a couple of times as she found her legs hard to control, and both of them feeling asleep. Unable to feel her feet, she did her best and finally reached the back door, reaching for it with the same hand that held the pillow case.
Regardless of what had happened or what day it was, it was time for her to take her medicine, so she entered the house and made her way to the kitchen, finding it a mess.
She stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked around her, taking mental inventory of everything that was out of place, the unattended dishes still in the sink and the food that was still out. The knife block was overturned and two knives were missing, one the big butcher knife. The little breakfast table in the middle of the spacious kitchen was also strewn with items that did not belong there and her thoughts shifted in that instant. Setting the bear and the pillow case on a clear spot on the table, she scanned the kitchen once more before she reached into the bag and removed two prescription bottles, shaking a pill from each into her hand, then she froze as she looked down at her hand, then the other.
Her skin was gray.
Panic surged into her and she backed up a step, and then another. She looked to the sink and her thoughts shifted back to what she had to do. Striding that way, she opened the cabinet door, selected a glass, then she walked over to the refrigerator and held the glass under the water dispenser, filling it about half way, then she popped the pills into her mouth and chased them with all of the water in the glass.
Now her ritual came into full swing. It was Wednesday and her turn to clean the kitchen. She had not eaten yet, but she needed to get the mess cleaned up.
In short order she was done. The dishwasher was loaded and running, everything had been put away and she was wiping down the last of the cabinets. With all of this done, she hung the towel up where it went and looked around her. She was feeling hungry, but her gray skin distracted her again and she looked down to her hands, her arms, down at her legs. Lifting her shirt, she looked at her belly and saw it was gray as well, then she turned her puzzled eyes across the kitchen. Reasoning this out was way beyond her and she would not even try, instead turning to the doorway that would lead into the living room.
Entering the room, she found it a mess as well. Chairs and the coffee table were overturned and lamps and vases were broken. She could see the front door from where she was, smashed in and knocked from two of its three hinges, barely hanging upright from the bottom hinge.
Looking around her again, she called in a meek voice, "Mommy?"
No answer.
Surely they would not have left without her, but that terrifying thought sent a little surge of panic through her cold, half numb body and she drew quick, fearful breaths as she called again, "Mommy?" She looked to the hallway across the living room and walked that way with unsteady steps, her voice more of a little girl's as she said, "Mommy, I'm all gray. What do I do?"
Hearing the creak of a door opening at the other end of the dark hall, she stopped and her eyes widened as she called, "Daddy? Steve? Is anyone home?"
She strode forward with awkward, hesitant steps, her eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hall, the door to her parent's bedroom.
"Mommy?" she called.
Slowly, the door opened. It had been forced open the day before and was cracked and the hinges creaked. There was a light on in the room somewhere, one that looked like it was shining up from the floor.
Zoe stopped, her eyes fixed on the creaking door.
A hand reached from the inside and gray fingers grasped the edge of the door, gray fingers with black fingernails.
A breath shrieked into the girl and she took a step back, her eyes somehow widening further as the door opened fully to reveal a large man in a dress shirt that was stained rusty black and red all down the front. His black trousers were tattered and torn and he was missing a shoe, though he did not seem to notice as his hollow eyes fixed on Zoe. His pupils reflected yellow. The corneas of his eyes, the colored parts, were a pale color, gray or blue. Something had run out of his mouth, something black or very dark red and that's what seemed to stain his shirt. Even from down the hall she could tell that he smelled of death and she felt her heart start to pound within her chest as he moaned that undead moan and staggered toward her.
In a blind flight, she turned and ran to the kitchen again, grabbed the pillow case and teddy bear and darted out the back door, freezing just outside as she saw two more zombies, a thin man and woman, already there, and both turned toward her.
Her next realization was a blind sprint through the house, out the front and down the sidewalk. They lived on a street that seemed crowded with houses, all of which had very small front yards with small, young trees out front. Cars were parked along the sides of the road and a few others had crashed into some of them. A delivery truck had run through a yard across the street and into the house there.
Knowing to stay on the sidewalk, she ran to the end of the block, stopping to look around her. There were people moving slowly about down the street toward the highway. She had always been able to hear the traffic on the highway, but today it was eerily silent. The people she saw milling about moved in clumsy, jerky ways that did not seem natural, and squinting slightly to see them better, she realized that all of them wore tattered, dirty clothing and their skin was gray.