«BBC»
11/14/25
[SPECIAL REPORT]
HEADLINES
[Man rescued from Pacific after a full year surviving on a raft.]
[Tokyo celebrates Japanese research spacecraft completing full orbit above Mars.]
[Australian Open set to commence in January]
['’Enemy bioweapons programs are becoming a real threat’’ US Secretary of Defense]
[Drug addict attacking police shot 4 times by NYPD before death]
[Crowds flock to the beach during historic heatwave]
«12/1/25»
The sound of powerful roaring fighter engines shook the entirety of my car as two combat jets flew low over the highway, it drew my attention away from the road for a split second as I attempted to keep my eye on the pair of aircraft as they rocketed off into the distance towards the bright sun which was somewhat obscured by all the smoke filling the air. It was hot, 53 degrees Celcius. In fact it was the hottest heatwave in the countries history, not that anyone gave a rats ass about that now. The highway was absolute chaos, you’d honestly be better walking on foot to get away from the city were it not for the blistering heat, the sides of the road were full of people attempting to flee, some were carrying their kids, some dragging suitcases. With the heat of miles and miles of running car engines and burning asphalt it really made you wonder what they were thinking.
There was no movement on the highway, traffic was blocked up for god knows how long, and semi-trailers, cars, and police cars were all lined up waiting to move an inch. The incessant beeping of horns was damn annoying, so I turned up my radio and listened to the news.
'’We are asking that civilians avoid taking the main highways due to catastrophic congestion.’’
Yeah yeah, I tuned in to the next station
'’The roads are currently so full that military personnel are unable to move to-‘’
Then to the next station
'’And yes Genevieve even with the immense firepower brought on by Joint Strike Fighters it seems that they are continuing to head further up the highwa-‘’
I cut the radio off, even with everything happening the media still felt the need to keep reporting on every little detail.
I wiped beads of sweat off my face, it was so goddamn hot even with the AC at full ball. I looked out the windshield, the traffic jam began to move ever so slightly, I lurched my car forward but came to an abrupt stop as the Toyota in front of me stopped. A breakdown, a man exited the driver’s seat and walked towards my car.
'’Hey dude, can you lend me a hand!’’
I attempted to open my door but my car was boxed in from the left by a Landcruiser and from the right by a semi truck.
'’No can do!’’ I yelled to him
The guy shook his head in disapproval and swore under his breath, walking back to his car.
I noticed the sound of helicopter blades to the right of my car, I tried to see past the truck but to no avail so I opened up the skyroof and took a look above. I was instantly hit by the heat, it almost hurt to be outside. I looked up and saw a military chopper, an AH-64 gunship flying slowly over, its gun pointing in the distance behind my car. A loudspeaker mounted to the side of the helicopter came to life
'’Remain in your vehicles! Lock all doors and follow all instructions given by emergency services and military personnel in order to remain safe.’’
The chopper began a left-hand turn, right over my head, the downdraft blew dust everywhere, it then flew down the highway towards the south. I hopped back into my seat and closed the sunroof, wiping sweat from my face. The beeping was getting worse, people were panicking. My car shook with the thunder of distant explosions coming from the south down the highway. The car to the left of me let out a beep and I turned my head towards it, the Landcruiser had a pissed-off-looking mid-40s guy in it with a young lad, maybe 8 in the booster seat in the rear of the car. I undid the window and yelled to him,
'’Hey! You realize that beeping isn’t doing shit right?’’
He smiled,
'’Sorry mate, Ashy here wanted me to beep the horn.’’
I let out a chuckle and looked at the nervous-looking kid in the backseat of the car.
'’Where are you heading?’’ I asked, the man replied ‘‘I’m taking him to Seaworld.’’
The kid in the back smiled, I nodded at the man, understanding he was just trying to keep the kid calm. The man looked down and pulled something up from under his seat, he sat up and showed me his revolver ‘‘Can never be too careful.’’ I heard sporadic gunfire in the distance, ‘‘Better close up then’’ I said. I nodded and rolled my window back up to keep the heat out. Another explosion, closer this time shook the car. I flinched and looked behind me to see a large rising column of smoke and fire about 50 cars back. Drivers began to panic, and a car ran into mine from behind attempting to get away, the semi to the right of me began to move forward at full speed, crushing a car in front of it before flipping over onto its side into a ditch. Like a domino effect more and more cars began to move, I moved to the right in the free space the semi-trailer left me and began accelerating before coming to a dead stop to avoid hitting a bus in front of me.
'’Fuck!’’ I yelled out loud.
The gunfire and explosions only got louder and louder, suddenly about 8 cars back a huge explosion rocked the earth. A fuel tanker blew up, spewing fire everywhere. Smoke immediately obscured everything around me and my ears rang and I turned on the air conditioning recyling to stop the smoke from getting in. As the smoke cleared I looked behind me in my rearview mirror and saw a man in construction overalls missing an arm slowly limping towards my car in between the blown-to-hell burning tanker and an equally blown-to-hell Prius, however upon looking closer it was evident he wasn’t a normal person anymore. He had foam dripping from his mouth and had his jaw hanging wide open in this fucked up expression, best way to describe it was a wide smile… Even then it was too uncanny to be considered a smile, this was the first time I saw one of the zombies. The dad from the landcruiser next to me rolled down his window and began firing at the creature with his revolver, it took him a solid 3 shots to hit the thing and I watched as it hit the ground, almost immediately continuing to crawl forward. He fired another 3 with the final landing in the thing’s head, killing it. He nodded at me and I nodded back.
I looked forward and saw heavily armed soldiers with rifles jogging through the traffic. A loudspeaker blared a few cars in front of me, the voice was panicked
'’For fucks sake for your own safety stop moving your vehicles, We need to get troops through!’’
'’Idiots’’ I thought, they were blocking off the military from stopping the zombies. The soldiers went from car to car yelling at people to stop moving, they entered a single-file line and squeezed in between a truck and an SUV.
The next few seconds were a haze, I heard a horn and watched as a truck came from behind and rammed through lines of traffic, 3 of the soldiers were run over by the behemoth, and one was thrown a few meters into the windscreen of a car and one managed to dodge the thing in time. The truck braked and stopped, the driver exited the cab with a zombie latched onto him like a backpack, biting at his neck.
The one remaining soldier fired a burst at them, killing both. I heard an agonizing scream from the soldier who hit the windshield of the car, his arm was poking out at a strange angle. The remaining soldier ran over to help his comrade before being dived on by a zombie from behind, he was torn into by the zombie at the leg and began violently spasming on the floor, he threw up blood and bile and began screaming, and within seconds foam began pouring from his mouth and he banged his fists onto the ground screaming, he rolled around on the ground and attempted to reach for his pistol, he aimed it at his own head but the other zombie promptly bit at his hand, the soldier screamed and gagged foam. After about 5 seconds the soldier and the other zombie stood up, both had that same horrifying expression, that fucking grin… Almost instinctively they sprinted towards the soldier on the windshield. They tore into him, snarling as the guy screamed in pain. His neck was ripped apart and he died there, he was lucky.
More soldiers moved in, zombies were in between every car now, the troops put some down but they quickly replenished their numbers by breaking through cars’ windows and infecting the people inside. Cars still tried to move, and soldiers began firing on anybody whose car moved in order to avoid being crushed. I looked around in horror at the chaos going on around me. I heard a scream to the left of my car… To the right of the LandCruiser on my left was a zombie violently smashing its head on the rear window. The kid was screaming and the guy was firing rounds into the thing in a panicked state. It took four rounds for him to finally put the thing down, but another only took its place, breaking the window. It pounced towards the kid and the man shot a round into the zombie, killing it.
The kid screamed as the body of the zombie layed to the right of him. The man began loading more rounds into his revolver but the car had drawn a crowd. They begun attempting to get in from all sides. I looked away but then heard the pitter-patter of automatic machinegun fire. I looked back and saw a pile of dead zombies, soldiers ran forwards towards his car, yelling all sorts of military jargon.
One, the team leader spoke into his radio.
'’Command this is Delta 3 overpass in grid 425766 has fallen, I repeat the overpass has fallen and we need extraction for the battalion and civies, over!’’
The soldiers approached his car and mine and the team leader yelled ‘‘EVERYONE GET OUT, MOVE NORTH TOWARDS OUR DEFENSE LINE, YOU’RE SAFE THERE!’’ I scooched to the left seat and opened the door which felt like opening an oven too close to your face. The soldiers began moving down the road, firing their rifles in between the clutter of vehicles which was like a maze, eventually disappearing into the cars. Landcruiser guy got out of his car and opened the door to pull his kid out, suddenly the corpse in the backseat with the kid bit onto his arm, he yelped and the kid screamed. The guy grabbed his revolver and zeroed the thing in the head. The man stood there for a moment and looked at his son, he then screamed and kicked the car. He turned and looked at me.
'’FUCK!’’
He knelt to the ground, shaking, coughing up foam.
'’THE AMMOS IN THE CENTRE CONSOLE, PLEASE LOOK AFTER HIM.’’
The kid screamed and screamed,
'’DADDY!’’
The man crawled to the front of the car, out of view of the child. He violently spasmed. He let out a scream and raised the barrel of the revolver up to his chin and pulled the trigger, blasting a hole through his head and sending brain matter all over the front of the car.
I felt strange, numb even; so much adrenaline rushed through my brain that I didn’t even have a second thought about running up to the man and prying the hot revolver from his dead hands. I ran to the back of the car, undid the seatbelt of the kid and put him in my left arm with the revolver in my right hand. He screamed and scratched at my face.
'’WHERE’S MY DAD’’
He began attempting to gouge my eyes. I yelled in the heat of the moment.
'’SHUT UP!’’
The kid quieted down, shocked by my words.
I felt something warm and wet hit my foot. An injured zombie missing both its legs and arms with half a jaw attempted to bite at my ankle. I pointed my revolver at the thing and pulled the trigger, it felt tight and nothing came out of the barrel. I panicked, pulling the trigger twice in quick secession, firing the revolver into its head, killing it. The kid screamed and covered his ears.
'’You’re going to be okay!’’ I said to him.
I exhaled ‘‘I’ll keep you safe…’’
Ahead of me was a very recently abandoned semi-trailer, it had a grain tank and a ladder up the back for quick access to the roof, the slightly obese owner was running north away from the truck, I looked behind me and saw something moving in a black sedan about 4 cars back. Two zombies who must have turned inside of their cars bashed at the windows, staring at me and the kid with a huge smile on their faces awaiting their next meal. They bashed their heads against the front window and it gave up under their weight, they began running towards me. I made a run for the semi-truck, I reached the ladder and helped the kid up onto it.
'’Get up there!’’ I yelled.
I turned around and they were only about two cars back. One of them was military with a helmet and body armor, the other was an older-looking woman in a dress. I raised my pistol and aimed towards the woman, my first shot missed and the pair only got closer. I fired two more rounds hitting both in her chest and killing her. The soldier was close now, I unloaded a round into his chest and he stumbled, the body armor taking most of the force of the round. I unloaded another bullet which penetrated his armor sending him onto the ground, but he kept crawling towards me. I was also now out of ammo, I begun climbing up the ladder. I reached the top and the thing screamed below me, it let out a moan and stared up at me with that horrifying look on it’s face, pissed off it couldn’t get its next meal. I took a closer look at him, it was the team leader from before, I felt saddened seeing one of the men who saved my life in such a state.
I turned around and saw the kid, he grabbed my hand and I held it tightly. Chaos was everywhere, jets flew overheard, tracers whizzed across the sky, gunships fired their payloads in the distance, and artillery shells rocked the ground kilometers away in grand barrages. I looked north on the highway and it was chaos, vehicles seemed to go on forever on the highway. But I noticed something, sandbags, guns, tanks, and soldiers about 200 cars north managing a checkpoint. But on the way there it seemed like there were plenty of people, zombies tearing into people, soldiers engaged in firefights with civilian looters, there’d be no guarantee of getting through but it was better than waiting here to await certain death. I heard a radio crackle, beneath the truck. The zombie soldier from before still had his radio. I let go of the kid’s hand
'’Stay here’’ I said, he nodded.
I looked down at the zombie, still clawing at the ladder, and listened in.
'’Bravo 23 to command we are pinned down, requesting SITREP ASAP, OVER!’’
'’Bravo 23 this is command, Operation firestorm is a go, the AO needs to be evacuated by 1600 before the air force begins dropping heavy ordnance on the highway of death, godspeed, over.’’
'’Copy that, Bravo 23 out!’’
I had no idea what any of that military jargon meant, but I gathered that it meant the military is going to flatten this entire area by 4 ‘oclock and I needed to get out of here in 1 hour. I also gathered that considering the military has coined this area the highway of death that I am in a pretty fucking bad situation here.
My biggest issue was my lack of ammunition, however, I remembered what the Landcruiser guy said.
'’AMMOS IN THE CENTRE CONSOLE’’
I looked towards his car, it was surrounded by four zombies feasting on a dead soldier and there were surely many more in the maze of cars. I turned to the kid behind me.
'’Son, I need you to be brave for me, okay?’’ He nodded.
'’I need you to wait in this truck for me. I promise you I will be back and we’ll get you home.’’
He began tearing up.
'’Where’s my dad?’’ He asked, sobbing.
'’He’s…’’ I looked at the teary-eyed kid, my heart sunk ‘‘He’s gone to SeaWorld mate, we’re gonna meet him there after this. You see, your dad and I are best friends and he told me to protect you no matter what, and I’ll tell you what. I am a tough big and strong guy, those fuc-…” I hesitated “Bad guys down there will be too scared to even look your way.’’ I faked a smile. The kid nodded, wiping his tears. I opened up one of the grain access tubes on top of the truck, inside was pitch black but safe from any zombies. It had an access ladder leading into the grain tube.
'’Climb down, and I’ll be back before you know it.’’