A Game of Firsts (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) by Carrie Ryan

A GAME OF FIRSTS
    Introduction
One night, my husband and I were driving home from dinner when we came upon a man stumbling down the middle of a street in our neighborhood. There was nothing particularly scary about him, he just appeared to be drunk but otherwise fine, so we carefully made our way around him and continued to our house a few blocks away.
We joked about how the way he’d been staggering along made him look like a zombie and it wasn’t until we’d pulled into the driveway that one of us pointed out, “You know, that’s why we’d be screwed in an actual zombie apocalypse. Because we’d see the first zombie, just assume he was drunk, and by the time we figured it out, we’d be too late.”
Which is exactly what happens to Julie and Danny in “A Game of Firsts.”
This story originally appeared in the anthology, “The First Time,” which is a collection of short stories all written by 2009 Debutantes – authors whose young adult books debuted in 2009. Unsurprisingly, the theme was “firsts,” which I think can be especially poignant when facing the end of the world (or at least the end of the world as you’ve known it).
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    W E COULD’VE LEFT THE city—there was probably still time after we saw the first one. The problem was, we didn’t realize it was the first one, not really. We’d been driving home after a late night out and there’d been this guy wandering down the middle of the road, stumbling like he was drunk.
    “How funny would it be if that dude was a zombie?” my brother Danny had said as we swerved around him, honking.
    We laughed.
    Once home, Danny nipped us each a shot of Tequila from our parents’ liquor cabinet. They were out of town for the weekend and we were taking advantage of it – breaking rules like staying out past curfew and watching loud movies late into the night. When we finally fell into our separate beds we left our alarm clocks untouched, intending to sleep late into Sunday morning.
    By then, of course, it was mayhem. Already there were accidents on both of the interstates out of town, the back roads clogged so thick that people just left their cars where they idled, hoping to make it farther on foot.
    Danny sat on the edge of the couch, his face pale as he rubbed a hand over his eyes. On TV, the newscasters became more desperate while in the distance we heard an unending stream of sirens.
    We knew it was only a matter of time before we heard something else. Moaning and shattering glass. Screaming and gunshots.
    “When are Mom and Dad supposed to be home?” It was probably the twentieth time I’d asked this question, but to give him credit my brother didn’t hesitate to give me the same answer: “Their flight was supposed to get in at ten.”
    By that time it was already noon, and the airport was shut down. We’d called both our parents’ cells a dozen times, leaving frantic messages when we were sent straight to voice mail. We stared at our phones and willed them to ring, but all we heard was the silence of desperation.
    “ T HE FIRST TIME I kissed a boy was behind the gymnasium during a football game and it took us thirty minutes of standing close before one of us had the courage to lean in,” I say.
    Danny pours more wine into my cup. When gathering supplies on that first night we’d brought up all the bottles from the basement as an afterthought because it seemed like a smart thing to do while the world was falling apart around us. Since then the number of bottles has dwindled and what’s left has been turned sour by the heat. But that doesn’t stop us drinking. It sits heavy and warm in my stomach, curling my tongue as I swallow until my skin starts to buzz.
    He laughs. “Who was it?”
    I feel my cheeks burn as I mumble my brother’s friend’s name. “Germaine.”
    Danny just laughs and laughs and laughs, and for a moment we forget there are other sounds to be worried about.
    A LL DURING THAT FIRST afternoon we argued while the