It was when the snow melted for spring to come through, the weirdness of what they called the “jiibay”. The day they started appearing I was in the city of Saskatoon living life in a crappy apartment called the “Royal Towers”, about thirty floors high and packed in like rat people. I am Hunter Northlight, about six foot one, with brown eyes, black hair, and an Indigenous look. Honestly, I spent a lot of time in the gym, but nothing prepared me for what was coming.

I remember looking out the window of my third-floor apartment. I had been on the internet all night playing a video game. Now it was time to drink some coffee and read the usual social media posts. I headed to the local forums and saw massive posts of reanimated dead for the third day in a row. Thankfully the skeptics kept everyone in denial, that all was peaceful and fine on the television. Despite the reports of the National Guard being deployed in major cities on the forums, the local news still showed a lady crushing grapes and falling or just weather.

“Weird…” Hunter thought to himself as he continued to look through the posts of people posting about being attacked. The sounds of sirens were constant this morning as he put some music on his headphones. He logged into the discord, many were away or offline except for a few.

“Hey bros, anyone for some gaming?” Hunter talked into the mic.

“Most of the servers are down for many of the video games. I think those posts we were talking about are starting to spread very fast.” His friend said, but suddenly he started hearing a struggle and yelling to get off the internet and to pack his bags from his friend’s family.

Hunter was a bit worried now as he heard his friend’s parents yell at him to hurry over the mic. Hunter looked through the posts again realizing something might be going on for real now. When he tried to call his family or friends the line was either busy or told it was dead.

“I should probably leave to the Indian reservation now… I said I’d help with the ceremony there along with the event.” Hunter thought. He had a huge moving truck full of food, water, and clothing that was to be handed out today. He grabbed his bag and headed out the door into the hallway where he saw a man slumped over and bloody handprints all over the walls. There was screaming coming from all over the apartments, but Hunter thought it was as usual maybe just a bit rowdier than usual.

That’s when the slumped-over man jumped up and lunged at Hunter.

“The heck?!” Hunter yelled and dodged the homeless-looking man. The homeless man was wearing a bloody dark green trench coat and a black toque. When Hunter looked at his face his eyes were bloodshot and bleeding. The homeless man gnashed his teeth and started running towards Hunter again. Hunter ran to the exit and got into the stairwell quickly. The homeless man continually banged against the exit door. Hunter inspected him and yelled “Get some help you crazy fuck!” through the small door’s window.

Hunter walked with his duffel bag to the bottom floor, which was eerily quiet. He went out back and hopped in the moving truck. He noticed billows of smoke everywhere and constant siren sounds.

“Best go to the Indian reservation. Maybe there is something to the news of reanimated corpses and random attacks…” Hunter thought while turning on the radio. The song playing was some pop song and he drove off onto the highway. About five hours to the Indian reservation.