

Dead Beginnings

Volume 1

Lonnie Lands

Text Copyright © 2015 by Alex Apostol

writeralexapostol.com

Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by Alex Apostol

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of Alex Apostol.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

For my zombie lovers
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Dead Beginnings Volume 2: Lee Hickey

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(COMING SOON)

### I

A young man with wheat-colored hair cut in military fashion looked out the passenger window of an old Ford truck with the Chicago skyline shrinking in the side mirror. The run-down houses of the south side whizzed by in a blur of dingy brick and shabby rooftops as the truck merged onto the I-90. It stopped at a toll booth and the man's father shoved a few crumpled dollar bills at the woman in the window before taking off again, grumbling something inaudible under his breath.

Welcome to

INDIANA

Crossroads of America

"I just can't fucking believe you got kicked out of the Army, boy," Lonnie Lands heard his father clearly that time. "The Army! How do you even do that? I thought they were happy to take any retard who signed up."

Lonnie Lands continued to glare out the window, though his ears started to burn a bright red. He tried his best to block out the condescending words of his ignorant redneck father, but in all his twenty-two years he had never been able to fully accomplish the task. He took a deep breath in through his nose and closed his eyes.

"They said you were tossed 'cause you clocked some nigger? That true?"

Lonnie finally turned to Buddy Lands, a weather-beaten, thin man in a worn-in White Sox cap that covered his graying hair and an Allman Brothers t-shirt. There was a bulge in his lower lip that stuck out like a tumor.

"Don't call him that," Lonnie spat.

"Sorry, your highness, oh Prince of politically correctness and shit. I heard you called him worse than that and then some, but whatever you say, son. Was that Afro-American your friend or somethin'?" Buddy Lands let his beady eyes drift from the road. He gave a wheezing laugh as he grit his yellowing teeth flecked with tobacco. "Well?"

Lonnie furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes, which shot daggers at the one man in the world he abhorred beyond all recognition. "Yeah, something like that, so knock it off."

"Oh, we got a tough guy here!" Buddy laughed louder, burrowing deeper into his son's nerves. The excitement made him hack into his hand where he caught sopping chunks of dip. He wiped it of on his shirt and continued on like nothing happened. "Mr. Tough Guy got somethin' to say?"

Lonnie seethed. His body sat as close to the passenger door as he could manage away from Buddy, Bud, the Bastard Dad from Hell.

"OK tough guy, why don't you tell me what he did to make you go bat-shit crazy enough to throw away the only shot you had at somethin'? What is that little filly you tricked into agreeing to marry you gonna say when she finds out her fiancé is nothin' but a dead-beat, broke, asshole with nothin' to offer? Five days. You couldn't wait five fucking days till you graduated that joke of a fucking boot camp? Boy, I thought I raised you smarter than that."

Lonnie turned to stare Buddy Lands in the eye. His thin lips curled up into a smirk. "You didn't raise me at all, Bud."

Without warning, he was knocked in the side of the head with a clenched fist that felt like a rock.

"What did you say to me, boy?!"

The blue truck swerved, causing the car next to them to honk wildly as the driver thrust up her middle finger. The tires squealed as Buddy tried to right himself again. He gripped the steering wheel and turned around to catch another glimpse of the woman he felt was in the wrong. "Stupid bitch."

Bright stars danced around Lonnie's vision as he swayed slightly in his seat. He didn't turn to look at Buddy. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, he watched the cows disappear behind them as they exited the highway by the local Bass Pro Shop.

"What the fuck is your deal? You act like you have some sorta skills you're hidin' from me that'll enable you to take care of your fucking self for once, like you have anything else you can do 'sides runnin' in circles like a greyhound and shootin' A-rabs. What in the Sam hell were you thinkin'?" Buddy kept his eyes trained on his stocky, thick-headed son as he merged the sputtering truck onto the scenic route of highway twelve.

Lonnie Lands pursed his lips and kept silent.

Buddy shook his head, worked the crank to roll down his window, and spat the wad of dip from his mouth. It caught the wind and hit the side of the truck, bursting into moist clumps.

"You better get yourself straight, boy, 'cause shit like this can't happen again. I won't have it. You'll be outta the house faster than you can say "hoo-ah".

Lonnie wished he could remember exactly what happened three and a half weeks ago with recruit Jenkins, but the incident was a hazy, bloody blur. It started off like any other Sunday morning in boot camp. Mail had just arrived. Lonnie had been waiting four weeks to receive something from his fiancée, Amy and it was his lucky day. She'd finally written back. He clutched her letter in his stubby fingers as he searched the barracks room for a solitary place to sit and read it. Behind a row of bunk beds was as solitary as it got. Three other young men were spread out there as well.

Lonnie sat down facing the row of windows, his back leaning against the metal fame of the bed. His hands shook slightly as he unfolded the lined, wrinkled paper. There was the exhilarating feeling of his stomach dropping when he saw the familiar scribbles of Amy's girlish handwriting. He couldn't control the smile that tugged at his lips, pulling all the way up to his light blue eyes till they crinkled in the corners. He held the paper in both hands tightly as excitement churned in his stomach and rose through his throat.

Dear Lonnie,

I've found someone else, someone who'll be there for me instead of halfway across the world. Please don't write me or contact me again. I think it's best if we just move on.

Amy Harding

The letter shook in Lonnie's hands. His jaw clenched together and his teeth ground back and forth. Sharp, small breaths of air burst from his nostrils. His eyes dart back and forth as he reread it over and over again.

How could she do that to him? It had been her idea that he join the Army in the first place, so he could take care of her when they were finally a family. They'd been together since the beginning of high school. Eight long years he'd given her, his best years, and that was how she repaid him? By fucking some other random guy and telling him about it in a letter just before graduation?

A hand slapped Lonnie on the shoulder, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from her words. DeShawn Jenkins plopped down next to Lonnie on the warm tile floor and chuckled. His smile reached all the way up to his eyes where there were permanent crow's feet.

Jenkins had thirteen years on Lands, having joined the Army at the very last possible minute, just months before his thirty-sixth birthday and cut-off age of enlistment. Out of fear and having no better options, he shipped out of Cleveland, Ohio the same day Lonnie left O'Hare airport in Chicago, both arriving at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia together.

The two had bonded in the first few days with talk of their "old ladies" and comparisons over who had the worst dad. Jenkin won that one when he told the story of his old man whipping him with a leather belt when he was six-years-old because he ate the last Oreo in the house. He still had the wide scars across his smooth, dark back.

"What you readin', man?" Jenkins laughed as he jostled Lonnie's shoulder playfully with his own. "Finally get that letter from your girl you been whining about for weeks?" He snatched the paper from Lonnie's shaky fingers, which clenched into fists. "Anything dirty? My old lady hasn't even tried to send me one picture yet with—"

Before DeShawn Jenkins could finish, Lonnie lunged full-force and landed on top of him with all his muscular weight. His mind fogged over and his fists moved as if they had minds of their own. He saw nothing but red as he pounded away on any tender flesh he could find. Jenkins yelled and tried to block the shots, but they came from every angle. His nose busted, spraying the front of Lonnie's green t-shirt in a fountain of bright red blood. Lonnie didn't remember doing any of that, but that's what they said had happened.

Since his mother died when he was twelve he'd undergone serious rage blackouts, something he didn't bother to mention to his recruiter when he signed up. The first time it happened, a classmate of his teased him about why his mother killed herself. He ended up in the hospital with a broken nose and three fractured ribs. No matter how hard he tried to fight it over the years, it snuck up on him like a cheetah on a gazelle. He vowed to learn to control his rage. He wouldn't allow himself to be consumed by the darkness. Ten years after that very first blackout, he was still in the same place, no further along in learning how to stop what he couldn't get a handle on.

He let his head rest against the cool glass of the passenger window as the truck roared loudly down the two lane highway.

### II

Lonnie Lands tossed his green Army issued bag onto the floor of his room and slammed the door shut. He heard his father's voice grumbling through the thin walls, his heavy boots stomping on his way to the kitchen, and then the unmistakable pop and fizz of a fresh can of beer being opened. Lonnie closed his thin eyes and took a deep breath, something he'd done several times on the way home.

When he opened them again his gaze fell on the wall his single bed was pushed up against. Various pictures of Amy and him, happy and smiling, stared back. His breathing sped up as he let each photo seep deeper into his heart—the time he and Amy went camping with their friends and the two went midnight skinny dipping in the lake, the one where Amy allowed him to do an impromptu photoshoot with her standing in the bed of Buddy's pickup truck in nothing but short shorts and a hot pink bikini top, the torn photograph of the two kissing that was taped back together after their first breakup and makeup, and their second and their third. Each one was like a punch to the gut. The muscles in his arms quivered and tensed the longer he let his eyes linger on the woman who had ripped his heart from his chest and tore it in two.

Lonnie threw himself onto the bed and grabbed at the memories of his failed relationship with the ferocity of a wounded animal fighting for survival. His heart beat rapidly. His ears throbbed from the blood rushing through his body. His crazed eyes focused solely on the dark green wall until it was clear of every last heart-wrenching reminder that he was once again alone in his life. It was the same feeling he had at his mother's funeral when Buddy wouldn't even look at him.

When there was nothing left to tear down, he let his knees buckle beneath him. He crumpled to the bed with a bounce, tiny pieces of photographs flared up around him and settled back down on the soft surface like a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be put back together. With his wide head in his shaking hands and his deep breaths flaring his nostrils, Lonnie gave in to all the feelings that coursed through his heaving, aching chest. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, but before a single drop could cascade down his rounded cheeks he shook his head and sniffed them back.

"Stupid bitch," he said low and gruff as he shoved himself up off the bed. "Two can play this game."

He snatched up his bag and rifled through it until he felt a small rectangular device clutched in his hand. He texted the one person who would understand what he was going through—the one person who'd seen him and Amy at their best and their worst and had always been in his corner during their four years at Chesterton high school together—his best friend, Ralph Sherman.

Don't know if ur back in town from ur Navy bullshit, but I wanna go get drunk tonite. U in?

He hit send and exhaled the breath he'd been holding. The two had lost touch after graduation. Ralph left for basic training with the Navy after one last wild summer at Lake Michigan, leaving Lonnie behind to continue on with their childish ways. Late nights out around the bonfire with whatever redneck group Amy hung around with at the time had Lonnie convinced he was living the life. He had a good girl by his side, was constantly surrounded by drunken people doing stupid shit that made him laugh. Living to the fullest was what Amy had called it. That was, until two weeks before Lonnie's twenty-second birthday.

It was three in the morning on a Saturday night. He was driving Amy home in the beat-up Pontiac he bought from some guy on Craigslist for twelve hundred bucks. There wasn't a single light on the backroads they took home, no moon in the sky, the stars blotted out by the looming black clouds. They were trying to make their way back to the trailer Amy had recently rented in a park between Chesterton and Valparaiso, a part of town that had seen better days.

The car swerved back and forth, crossing over the yellow line of the two lane road. There wasn't another car in sight, no headlights to briefly light the path laid out in front of them. More often than not, Lonnie's eyes lingered on the low neckline of Amy's white tank top, her breasts shoved together and pushed upward by her leopard print bra. Her warm cleavage beckoned to him like a siren waiting on a jagged rock in the middle of the ocean.

The impact of the right front side of the car smashing into the four foot wooden fence post jarred both of them forward. Lonnie heard the shrill cry of his fiancée next to him as his head propelled into the steering wheel, no air bag to cushion the blow.

He woke up three minutes later with a searing pain in his left temple and dried blood on his face. Amy was squatted next to the passenger side door, pants down around her ankles, the most horrible sounds coming from her that Lonnie had ever heard as she rid her body of the alcohol and greasy food she'd had earlier that night. He let his head rest back down on the steering wheel and stared over Amy's head at the corn stalks swaying in the breeze. Nothing about that night was how he wanted to live his life.

Ralph Sherman texted Lonnie back immediately, a small picture of the sandy-haired, young-faced boy he knew from high school popped up by his response.

Ralph Sherman

Sure, I could use a drink. Just have to ask the wife first. She wanted me to watch the baby while she spent some time with her mother, but she can do that anytime.

The wife? A baby? What the fuck? Lonnie glared down at his phone, his eyebrows pulled together. Where did Ralph Sherman find himself a wife and when the hell did they have a baby? It really had been a long time since they spoke.

In the back of Lonnie's mind, a rising burn of jealousy stoked the fire of his rage again. If Amy hadn't gone and fucked some other guy he could be the one with a wife and baby by his side. If she hadn't abandoned him, got him kicked out of Army, and ruined his entire life he might have someday had what Ralph Sherman had. But, because of Amy and her inability to keep her legs shut, there was a wall between Lonnie and Ralph he wasn't sure he would be able to break through. Ralph was the married one and Lonnie was branded the single friend. No wife in her early twenties would be thrilled when her husband asked to go get drunk with his "single friend".

Lonnie huffed through his nose and tossed the phone down on the bed. He peeled off the worn-in green t-shirt with his name stenciled in the bottom corner to reveal mounds of muscles in his arms and back, inked with black tattoos.

He opened the dresser drawer and grabbed the first shirt he saw—a white band t-shirt from a Florida Georgia Line concert he went to with Ralph during that infamous last summer together as best buds.

"Hey, Buddy!" Lonnie yelled in the baritone voice he unconsciously used when talking to his father. "I'm gonna need to use your truck tonight!" He opened the door to his bedroom and passed through the kitchen, grabbing a beer on his way to the living room in the front of the small, two bedroom house.

Buddy Lands grunted, his eyes fixated on the box television set. He absentmindedly gulped the beer from the can in his hand as he watched a half fuzzy screen.

Lonnie cracked open his own and sipped at the bubbles near the opening. His foot kicked at the small pile of empty cans lying on the brown shag carpet. Buddy's head snapped at the sound, his dull eyes already red-rimmed and drooping.

"What the hell are you making all that noise for, boy? Can't a man get some peace and quiet when his shows are on?"

There was the distinct soft sound of the VCR turning the wheels of the tape inside. Lonnie let out a gruff laugh. An old episode of Sons of Anarchy was barely visible on the washed out picture of the outdated set. Meanwhile, Buddy's old Harley sat rusted out in the backyard for the last decade. Ironic. Lazy piece of shit.

"I said I'm borrowing your truck tonight since you're not gonna need it."

Buddy's head slowly drifted to face forward again as he let out a phlegmy chuckle. He coughed and spat the yellow wad caught in his throat out into an empty can in his lap. "How do you know I don't got a hot date?"

"Because you haven't had a hot date in ten years."

Something twitched inside Buddy's face, causing his wrinkled eyes to squeeze together and his lips to purse for the briefest of moments. "Whose fault is that, ya li'l shit?" he mumbled under his breath.

Lonnie's muscles clenched tightly together as he straightened his back and sat rigid against the discolored, sagging couch. His fists clenched until he heard the metallic clanking of the can in his hand crumbling under the pressure. One long, slow, deep breath and he released the tension in him.

He couldn't lose control again.

His breathing steadied and he felt his body slacken to rest against the smooshed couch cushion.

Buddy's eyes flickered back and forth between the TV and his son, the faintest hint of a smile twitched at the corners of his thin lips.

Lonnie stood up, threw his head back to drink the can dry, and then tossed it into the pile on the floor with a hollow clink. "Good question, old man. Whose fault is it?"

Buddy pretended he hadn't heard him. There was no way he was sober enough to peel himself out of the oversized arm chair to teach a lesson.

Lonnie shook his wide head as he stalked off to the door and slammed it behind him. Halfway to the truck parked in the torn up grass, he stopped. The keys jingled from his fingers as he turned his face up to the sun and let the warmth dissipate any lingering hatred he felt for the man claiming to be his father inside. Several times he'd demanded a paternity test only to get cracked across the face with an arthritic, but solid fist. Those memories passed through his mind and then flittered away on the rays of the sun.

Deep breath in, exhale out.

He couldn't lose control again.

He could not lose control again.

### III

Lonnie Lands hopped down from the old Ford and glared up at the apartment building the GPS on his phone had lead him to. The lower half was a mixture of light colored stones and the upper half a cream siding. It looked brand spanking new.

The windows were massive, floor to ceiling he bet, and the landscaping was immaculate with large shrubs to hide all the air conditioning units and mature trees to provide the perfect amount of shade over each picnic table strategically placed around the grounds. The patios were small. That was the only negative thing Lonnie could come up with as he gawked with his neck craned upward. There was always a negative to everything.

Dunes Ridge was nicer than any place Lonnie had ever lived, and that included the double wide trailer his father rented for the first five years of his life. It'd been practically brand new. Only one other tenant had lived in it before and there were no weird stains on the carpet—at least not at first. Buddy's lack of respect for anything besides himself had turned their nicest home into a pit of beer cans, fast food wrappers, and cigarette butts. Everything Buddy touched turned to shit it seemed.

Lonnie headed up the stairs to apartment 622 on the second floor. When he knocked a young woman opened the door, her youthful face temporarily wrinkled across her forehead and in the corner of her eyes. Lonnie took her in with a judgmental glower and came to the conclusion that his buddy, Ralph Sherman, could have done better. Back in the day he'd seen him pull way better tail than the girl in front of him. Amy was a thousand times prettier than the new Mrs. Sherman.

"You must be Lonnie," she said, her lips twitching upward in a contrived smile. In her arms was a curly blond-haired girl clinging close to her mother's chest, sucking her thumb.

Lonnie wasn't good at guessing children's ages, but she looked to still be under a year old, unless she was just small and anorexic-looking like her mother. Sally's jutted cheek bones and thin arms and legs made Lonnie's nose wrinkle ever so slightly as he eyed her.

"Yeah, that's me," was all he said.

Sally stepped aside and let him in. "Ralph's in the bathroom. He'll be out in a min."

Lonnie stopped short after only taking a few steps inside and scanned the white-walled apartment with narrowed eyes. Family portraits from the local JC Penney littered the walls, held snugly in place by frames with inspirational sayings painted on them. The room was a blended haze of beiges and creams, the decorative pillows the only hint of personality in the place, and that included the woman with her back to Lonnie in the kitchen. The soft carpet was freshly vacuumed, the lines revealing Sally's routine pattern of compulsive cleaning. There were Better Home & Garden magazines strategically placed on the coffee table.

"Jeez," Lonnie exhaled with a sneer, both his hands rested on his hips.

"Excuse me?" Sally asked from the kitchen where she mixed a bottle of formula.

"Ralph really sold out, didn't he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Her brow was furrowed heavy over her almond-shaped, green eyes. When she turned to look at him her long, thin hair flowed over her shoulder and right into her daughter's hands, who tugged hard. "Ouch!" Sally pulled her hair from the grip of the tiny baby's fingers.

Lonnie thought Sally's hair was tacky. It was way too long, like most girls who wanted to rebel against the rigidity of military life once they were out, despite its scraggly quality. She was a natural brunette, but she had so many fat chunks of blond and red highlights running through it that it was hard to tell what was original on her. Amy's hair was a beautiful chestnut brown. The only thing that ever lightened her hair were the natural rays of the hot summer sun from days spent out on the lake with Lonnie and their friends. He felt a twinge in his stomach as he realized he missed those day and he'd never have them again.

"You do this place up like this yourself?" he asked, ignoring her question.

Sally laid her daughter down in the infant swing in front of the large living room window and set it to rock gently. The little girl reached her hands out and took the bottle from her mother.

"Yes, I did," Ralph's wife said with a smile that suggested immense pride.

Lonnie scoffed again under his breath. "I can tell."

"OK, what's your deal? If you've got something to say, then say it."

"Just wonderin' how you got Ralph to settle. You can't be that good in bed."

Sally opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her face was scrunched together in disgust, animosity shooting out at Lonnie from her narrowed eyes. Before she could come up with something clever to say back, Ralph came into the room with a wide grin on his face.

"Lonnie!" He gave his friend a one-armed hug and a slap on the back. "How's it going?"

"Can't complain." Lonnie ignored Sally completely even though she continued to glare at him. "You ready to go?"

"One second. I'll meet you outside," Ralph said as he opened the coat closet by the front door and pulled out his camo printed work boots.

Lonnie stepped out into the hallway to leave Ralph and Sally alone. Best case scenario, he would get an earful from Ralph once he came out. Worst case, his friend would stay home and Lonnie would be alone again. He could tell from looking at Sally that she was the type of girl who wouldn't bat an eye at breaking up a friendship that dated back before she ever knew her husband. He waited by the door and listened in on his fate for the evening.

"All right, I'm gonna go," Ralph said, still smiling and oblivious. "I'll probably be home late, but I'll have my phone in case you need me."

"Hon, about Lonnie..." Sally wasn't sure how to tell her husband what happened. She was worried he'd think she was causing an argument to get him to stay home because she secretly didn't want him to go. That was only half the truth.

"He's great, isn't he?" Ralph slammed his foot down into his boot.

"Not really. He's actually kind of an asshole."

Ralph stood up and looked at his wife, trying to decide whether she was mad at him or not for something his friend said. He knew Lonnie could be a tough pill to swallow sometimes, but he thought his old friend would have been on good behavior, at least in front of the family. "What'd he say?"

"Just...things. I don't think he likes me very much." She turned around to wipe the counters down with a Lysol wipe. It was easier than looking her husband in the eyes while she tried to explain what a jerk his friend was to her without coming right out and saying it.

Ralph had been good to Sally in the nine months since the baby was born. He always helped with her mother in the apartment downstairs when she couldn't and watched the baby whenever she needed some time to herself—to shower or clean or whatever she needed to get done. He encouraged her to go out with friends even though she never felt comfortable leaving her baby and always declined. He'd barely gone out himself because he didn't want to make her upset by leaving her home alone.

She knew it wouldn't be like that forever. Eventually things would change. They had to. This was her chance to prove to Ralph and herself that she was OK with that change. She looked over the counter at her husband, her green eyes turned upward, her lips parted in defeated silence.

"I'll talk to him," Ralph said. He walked over to Sally and put his hands gently on her shoulders. "He doesn't know when he's being a dick." He smiled down at her and kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back later. Call me if you need me."

In the depths of Sally's conscience she had hoped Ralph would cancel his night out with Lonnie and stay home with her. "Where are you guys going?" she asked with a feeble attempt to hide her growing bitterness.

"He wants to go downtown or something, some club. I can't remember the name. I'll text it to you when I know."

"OK, love you," she called after him. She couldn't help wondering if he really would text her when he knew the name or if once he was out that door he would forget about her all together.

"Love you too!"

Lonnie scrambled away from the door and leaned against the opposite wall next to apartment 624 just as Ralph appeared.

"Ready?" he asked as he placed a camo baseball hat over his unruly sandy hair.

"Let's do this!"

Lonnie Lands clapped his hands together and let a widespread grin take over his entire face, crinkling the corners of his piercing blue eyes. He could already feel the pain of Amy fading away—her brilliant brown eyes that caught the glint of the sun when she smiled, her thick, beautiful hair that fell over her shoulders when she leaned forward and laughed with her entire body, her soft voice that whispered in his ear as her hand ran up his inner thigh.

Dammit. There was no escaping her. Not while her lips were the last to touch his, her hands the last to tug his hair, her body the last warmth he felt from another human being.

"So, we just going to chill at some bar, watch the game or something? Cubs versus Sox. Should be a good one."

"I've got a better idea," Lonnie said as he hopped into his father's truck. "You're gonna be my wingman."

Ralph looked across the bench seat as the engine roared to life, his heavy brow furrowed.

"Let's get me some tonight!" Lonnie bellowed.

"What about Amy, man?" Ralph shifted in his seat, but didn't look any less confused. "Look, if you two had a fight or something, don't go doing something you'll regret later. You love each other, I know you do." The look in Ralph's doe eyes pleaded with Lonnie, not wanting to hear that the couple he'd idolized all throughout high school had finally parted ways.

"Things change, brother." Lonnie gripped the steering wheel as one last vision of Amy's face flashed through his mind. "Things change."

### IV

Lonnie Lands returned to consciousness with his face pressed down into a flat pillow. He groaned as he turned over. His entire body ached, his mouth felt like it was full of mothballs, and his hearing was muffled. His eyelids unclenched, allowing one eye to peek out at the annoyingly bright world around him.

He reached over and patted next to him, feeling nothing but wrinkled sheets and a wadded up blanket. He was in his own bed, alone. The memories of the night before were locked away somewhere in the recesses of his still drunken mind.

He sat up slowly and rubbed his face with both his hands. The sounds of someone throwing things outside his door reached his temporarily defective ears.

He shook his head and winced when a wave of pain built up in his right temple, his cranium on the verge of explosion. As he squeezed his eyes shut he thought death would be a sweet release from the Hell he was stuck in. He slapped himself as hard as he could across the face. The sting across his cheek scattered the suicidal inklings in his brain until they were nowhere to be found.

A crash echoed throughout the small house and penetrated the thin wooden door to Lonnie's room. It didn't startled him in the least. He was used to his father getting drunk at all hours of the day. Those benders usually ended in one of three ways—with Buddy passed out in his chair quietly, with a physical challenge from the old man over something stupid and trivial, or if his dad felt like his odds against Lonnie weren't good but the alcoholic rage was burning too high to contain, Buddy would throw things around until sufficient damage was done to the shit hole they begrudgingly called home. With the sounds that penetrated Lonnie's ears and went straight to his aching brain, he bet it was the latter of the three. The last thing he wanted to deal with hung over was a drunken asshole.

He laid back down with his back to the wall. His face landed on something small, rough, and wrinkled. He propped himself up on one elbow and snatched up a crumbled bar napkin from his pillow. Scribbled across it in black ink was the name Rowan Brady with a phone number underneath.

The flood gates opened and Lonnie began to remember the last half of his night out with Ralph Sherman, the beginning of the night lost forever, a black smudge on his memories. He remembered going to a pool hall with Ralph after the first bar they went to turned out to be a gay bar. The two were barely talking and when they did it was forced and awkward, mostly about the good old days of high school.

Fed up with working so hard to rekindle their friendship, Lonnie invited some other guys to play a round of pool with them. One of those men was a construction worker in his early thirties named Rowan Brady. Lonnie remembered his train of thought as with a guy that good looking as my wingman, I'm bound to gather enough hot pussy to last me a lifetime. Obviously he'd been wrong.

He squeezed the napkin in his hand until it was a crumpled mess.

The door to his bedroom burst open and slammed against the wall, interrupting his self-loathing. Lonnie jumped and the bed springs squeaked under the pressure.

"Get your shit and let's go, boy!" Buddy Lands yelled. His eyes were wide with panic as his hands tugged at what thinning hair he had left.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Get out of my room."

"Shit's hit the fan! People are going crazy and we need to get out of here now!"

Lonnie didn't move from his bed. His narrow blue eyes scrutinized his father as he tried to figure out just how drunk he was.

Buddy was frozen in the doorway as his chest heaved with deep, wheezing breaths. Aside from the messed up hair, there were no other familiar signs of drunken disarray—his shirt wasn't stained, there was no alcohol on his chin, his eyes weren't glassed over, he didn't sway or lose his balance.

There was something about the look in his eyes that made Lonnie reconsider. It was the same look he had when they found Loretta Lands in a bathtub full of her own blood, wrists slashed beyond repair. Buddy wasn't drunk—he was terrified.

"Where are we going? What's happening?" Lonnie asked as he shot up from the bed and snatched up his Army bag. Fortunately, he hadn't taken the time to unpack.

"It's all over the news. People attackin' each other, killin' each other, eatin' each other. It's a goddamn fucking mess! We need to get to the Michigan cabin before we're stuck here." With that, Buddy Lands turned, walked away, and swiped his truck keys from the kitchen counter.

Lonnie had to jog to reach the truck before Buddy took off without him. He'd never seen his father move so fast before. He snatched the keys from the frantic man's hand and hopped into the driver's side.

Before Buddy could say anything, Lonnie said, "Get in and let's go. I can get us there faster!"

It was only a fraction of a second that Buddy Lands stood there, internally debating whether he should drag the boy out of the truck or ride along as a passenger. With a sigh he walked around the front end and climbed in.

The rusty Ford came to a roaring start. Dirt and gravel kicked up behind it as it putted from the driveway and onto the road.

"I just have to make a quick stop first."

"What the hell do you mean you have to make a stop? You better keep this truck movin', boy, or so help me God—"

"I have to go get Amy, you miserable son of a bitch!" Lonnie's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were pure white. His entire face had turned a deep shade of red and his blue eyes pierced through Buddy's like sharpened icicles.

"Thought you two were finito," Buddy grumbled as the immediate panic died down in him. He steadied his shaky legs with his arthritic hands.

"We are, but if things are as bat-shit crazy as you say they are, then that doesn't matter. I don't want her to get hurt or die just because we broke up." Lonnie's face returned to its naturally tanned pallor. He gave his hands two quick shakes before returning them to the wheel.

"I'd say good riddance to the bitch, but you're drivin'."

Lonnie took a deep, slow breath and counted to ten in his head. It was best not to respond. If he did, Buddy would sting him again and then there'd be no controlling himself. Instead, he focused on the winding road ahead of him as he pulled into the trailer park where he last saw Amy Harding.

He parked and then took off with the keys to leave Buddy sitting with his hands in his lap. He took her porch steps two at a time. The door was cracked open. Inside it was dark and silent.

### V

The house smelled like stale sweat, sex, and something else, something underlying and pungent. It made Lonnie sick to his stomach as he imagined Amy humping guy after guy, not giving their relationship a second thought as she desecrated what they once had. Would he find her in there, naked and twisted together with someone else?

The blinds were drawn crooked in the living room. The pink wallpapered walls were void of any photographic memories they'd shared together. On the floor there were several frames with their backs open and pictures of Amy with her girlfriends scattered around.

Lonnie walked further into the trailer, stepping on a frame and breaking the glass with a soft crack as he headed to the bedroom in the back. It was like they'd never dated at all, never shared with each other, never even knew each other—at least that was what it would look like to anyone else. There was no evidence of him anywhere, like he meant absolutely nothing to her.

When he got close enough to her bedroom door, which was left halfway open, he heard the undeniable faint groan of a man. Lonnie's hands started to shake in fists at his side. His shoulder muscles tensed upward, threatening to swallow his neck entirely.

He had to do it. He had to go in there and face whatever Amy was doing behind that door and tell her that whatever was happening outside was bigger than them and she needed to come with him.

He shook out his hands and bounced on the balls of his feet. He heard the muffled honk of the truck horn outside as Buddy laid into it. It was now or never. The door was thrown back as Lonnie burst through it, but he didn't make it far. The sight of what lay in the bed in front of him stopped him cold.

A man lay on the Queen bed with his eyes closed and mouth open. With everything but her head covered by a silky black sheet, Amy sat between his legs with her hands on either side of his hips. Her head was lowered to his groin. The wet, smacking sounds that filled the room made Lonnie's stomach lurch upward.

"How could you, Ame? How? Why?"

Slowly her head stopped its repetitive motion and raised up from the man's lower half. All Lonnie could see was a waterfall of chestnut brown hair and bare shoulders. There were fingernail scratches across the middle of her back, the deep red blood dried on her pale white skin.

She turned to face the man she had once promised to spend eternity with and looked at him with empty marbleized eyes. Thick blood covered her mouth and dripped down her chin. Her hands and knees were smeared with it from the pool she sat in.

Lonnie's mouth opened, but no sound dared to escape. His eyes flickered from Amy, covered in gore, to the man on the bed. There was a bloody gaping hole where his pelvis and inner thighs used to be, his manhood obliterated beyond belief. Amy turned her exposed, red body slowly as she moved her legs awkwardly to the ground.

"Amy?" Lonnie spoke reassuringly. "Amy, it's OK. I'm going to help you, babe. I can help you...please...let me help you."

She snarled as she stood up, her entire front drenched in the blood of the deceased man on the bed. It was the same body Lonnie had caressed with his own hands countless times, but something was different, aside from the carnage it was covered in. Her shoulders slumped forward and sagged, her legs stood akimbo like a newborn deer attempting to walk, and her skin looked sickly and gray.

Lonnie raised a hand to cover his mouth and his eyes welled with tears. Amy drew closer. She reached an arm out to Lonnie. He closed his eyes and let the tears fall down his rounded cheeks. He felt the cold, soft brush of fingers on his face.

"Outta the way, son!"

Buddy exploded through the doorway with an AR-15 Assault Rifle in his hands, the one he kept tucked under the bench seat.

"NO!" Lonnie reached out for the barrel of the rifle as he was shoved aside, but it was too late.

The blast to Amy's stomach knocked her off her feet. For a calming moment she lie still on the plush carpet. Then her eyes widened as she growled and used her hands to push herself up again.

"What the Sam hell kinda shit is this?" Buddy whispered to himself.

Amy opened her mouth and let out a hissing shriek that made the hair on Lonnie's arms stand on end. He stared at what should have been a fatal shot to her abdomen as it leaked out a slow stream of thick black ooze and bile. There was no way what he saw was possible, no way she could have lived through that.

Hope fluttered in the depths of his nauseated stomach. It was a second chance. He could still fix whatever happened to her to make her do something so vile. She could still come back and then they could fix whatever was broken between them too.

A slew of gunshots burst out from the rifle and Buddy jarred back from the kick. Glass shattered in the windows and drywall shot out like shrapnel. Amy's body danced around like a broken puppet until one of the bullets caught her right between the eyes.

The rest happened in slow motion. Lonnie's eyes locked onto hers. He could have sworn her beautiful, brown, completely human eyes met his with tears in them before she fell to the ground and lay closed forever. He heaved great breaths that rattled his cheeks. He could barely see through the river of tears that poured from his eyes.

"Got her! I got the devil-bitch!" Buddy exclaimed with the rifle rested in both his hands. "Goddammit, son, you just can't keep a woman alive, can you?" He laughed and shifted the gun so it rested against his shoulder like toy soldier.

Lonnie's brain didn't register a single word his father said. His hearing was dulled by the rage that built up inside him. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Amy's bloodied, bullet-ridden body. All hope was gone. There was no piecing back together what they once had. Amy was dead and Buddy had killed her.

Buddy.

His own father.

He slowly tore his eyes away from the still body on the floor to look at the man responsible. Fire burned behind his cool, blue eyes.

"First your mother, now this poor girl? What is it with you? You got a lady curse on you or something, boy?"

"I didn't kill mom! You did!" Lonnie snapped as his muscles shook with rage. "You're the reason she's dead!"

"What the hell did you say to me, boy?" Buddy turned on Lonnie and took a few sauntering steps toward him. "Your mother, God rest her soul, did what she did because she couldn't handle you anymore. With all the trouble you went and got yourself into she thought she was some terrible mother, the poor woman, and she could deal with it."

"That's a fucking lie and you know it," Lonnie growled as his vision shook. His face deepened to a terrifying shade of crimson. "Both their lives are on you! My mother couldn't take being married to a selfish, abusive prick and saw no way out but to do what she did!" His surroundings started to vibrate with anger. "You killed mom and now you've killed Amy! The only woman I've ever loved! We were going to get married, start a family together, and you fucking killed that!"

"I think little Miss already decided you were too big of a pussy to be the father of her little rugrats. Looks like she was trying to make babies with that fella over there before, y'know, she ate his dick, so to say," Buddy sneered and chuckled as he shifted the rifle to his other shoulder.

Lonnie took a deep breath as he glared, his expansive chest rising and falling slowly. His teeth clenched together until his jaw hurt. His breathing started to quicken without his control. There was a disturbing grinding noise coming from the inside of his mouth.

Buddy didn't seem to notice the edge Lonnie teetered on. With one last detrimental statement, he gave his son a nice, big shove into the black void he'd been trying so desperately to avoid. "You were a shit son and you would have been a shit father too, so consider what I just did a favor."

The weather-beaten man's gruff voice resonated in his head like a distant echo as Lonnie faded away again, down into the recesses of his mind.

He had to hold on.

He couldn't lose control again.

But before he could grasp the last bit of his consciousness, it slipped away from him and everything went black.

### VI

When Lonnie came to, he was lying on his back on the floor. He opened his eyes slowly and then squeezed them shut again when an unbearable pain streaked across his forehead. What the hell happened? He forced them open and craned his neck as he sat up to look around the room, the stabbing in his head the last thing on his mind as the events started to piece themselves back together.

The last thing he remembered was Amy gunned down by his no-good, son of a bitch father. He remembered her face as she fell to the ground. It had been contorted with wild and ravenous hunger, but the eyes had still been hers.

The woman he loved had still been in there when Buddy Lands mercilessly pulled the trigger and ended her life. She was gone forever. Lonnie wiped his face with the back of his hand at the tears on his cheeks. Blood replaced the clear wetness and streaked across his skin, but he didn't notice. He looked over at Amy's motionless, ravaged body.

Her skin was sickly pale with a greenish-gray tinge. Her chest, shoulders, and head were riddled with bullet holes, coated over with a tar-like ooze that seeped out slowly. Her red stained mouth hung open. Empty, glazed over eyes stared up at the ceiling. They were the eyes of a creature with no feelings, no thoughts, and no desires other than to rip apart flesh and eat it.

But that couldn't be right. Lonnie swore he'd seen her eyes as he'd always seen them—big, bright, and beautiful, full of love and life. The ones he glared into now were old and decrepit, as if cataracts had taken over and snuffed out the shimmer he once loved to get lost in.

It was all too much to bear. His chest tightened and threatened to cut him off from oxygen completely. As he gasped like a fish out of water, each intake of air wheezing in his lungs, he turned away from Amy, unable to look at her any longer.

Whatever lie on the floor next to him, with its legs and arms flailed awkwardly, was not the Amy he knew. It was a monster. It wasn't meant to live. It was a good thing Buddy had done what he did.

He turned and noticed a second body sprawled out on the floor by the door. The face was unrecognizable, smashed in to oblivion and drenched in blood. The only way Lonnie knew it was Buddy Lands was from the Alabama t-shirt he wore. They'd gone to that concert together six months after the death of his mother. It was the first time he saw his father smile after she committed suicide.

"Buddy?" Lonnie said as he scooted over to the man's side and knelt over him. "Fuck. What'd I do?" Tears mixed with the blood smeared across his face and ran down his neck, staining the neckline of his white tank top. "What did I do?" He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the ceiling. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, even though he knew it wouldn't do him any good. It was too late.

The sound of something dragging along the carpet filled the room, but Lonnie was too distressed to turn and look. The body of the man Amy had fed on dragged its wrecked lower half as it made its way slowly to where Lonnie sat. Its jaws opened and closed silently in anticipation of its first feeding. The closer it got, the more excited it became. Small gurgles and groans escaped its cracked white lips.

Lonnie's head snapped up to stare the undead thing in the face just as its hands closed around his ankle. He tried to scramble away, kicking his leg out to shake it loose, but the grip was too strong. Its teeth chomped the air as it pulled him closer. Lonnie thrust his free boot-clad foot into the thing's jaw, wrenching it sideways, loose and unhinged, but its fingers remained grasped firmly on his wide ankle. He kicked again and again, not letting up until its head was caved in and his leg was finally free from the unrelenting grasp.

Propped up on his elbows, Lonnie tried to catch his breath as he stared at the dead man at his feet. What was going on? What kind of illness was this? Questions flooded his head, but no answers followed. He was jerked from his thoughts when another hand grabbed his upper arm.

Buddy was writhing on the ground, his hand grasping for his son desperately. The only noise he could make with his smashed in mouth and nose was a bloodied gargle. There were no cheek bones left, no mouth or nose or eyes to distinguish. The only thing still intact was his cranium. How was it even possible that he was still alive? It defied all logic.

The gargles became more urgent as Buddy yanked on Lonnie's arm again. The young man was pulled to the ground by the forceful grip his father had on him. He'd been on the receiving end of Buddy's hand before, but it'd never felt so strong. What he felt in that moment was inhuman.

"Fuck, no!" Lonnie yelled as he tried to pull Buddy's cold, hard fingers from him. The bones creaked as each one was pried from his warm flesh.

Once he was free, Lonnie snatched up the rifle. He used the butt to bash in his monstrous father's skull until it was a pile of red mush and broken bones. Each time the gun came down, Lonnie let out a sound he never wanted to hear again. It was a mixture of a pathetic whimper and a disheartening cry. It was pathetic.

When the body stopped gyrating in feeble attempts to seize the only living thing left in the room, Lonnie threw the gun aside. He sat on his knees and looked at the mess that was once his father, the man who gave him life and helped bring him into the world.

He tried to work up the same flow of tears he'd shed for Amy, tried to muster up the overwhelming feelings of loss and regret again, but he couldn't.

He stood and wiped the fluids from his nose and mouth, not realizing he was only wiping more of his father's blood across his face with his stained knuckles. Unlike before when he was a sad, lost, heart-broken mess over losing the love of his life, his chest now rose slowly and deeply. He glared down at Buddy Lands and spat on the beaten, disfigured face.

"Rot in hell, you stupid, no good, son of a bitch."

### VII

The rusted out blue Ford roared down highway twelve. The tires hummed and the body clanked as it sped as far away from the trailer park as it could get. Buddy's loaded AR-15 sat on the passenger side of the bench seat, Lonnie on the other with both hands clenched around the wheel.

His emotions were a jumbled mess. He wanted to cry, laugh, scream, cheer all at the same time. Amy was gone. The horror of her death would plague him forever and somewhere deep down would always be the urge to weep for that loss. Buddy, on the other hand, no matter how brutal his death came, was a burden lifted from Lonnie's shoulders. He'd always said when his father died it would be a relief for him. No one ever believed it would be true, but it was. He felt free for the first time in his life, and that was both uplifting and sad.

From the tree lines on either side of the road dozens of ravaged people shambled aimlessly around, their mouths red with blood, their clothes stained and torn, and their arms reaching for any living thing stupid enough to get close to them.

One of the females reached out for a living, breathing, teenage girl in red track pants and a Chesterton Indian's t-shirt who ran by at full speed, just inches from the strong, dead hands. Its fingers grazed the tips of her long brown hair as she disappeared into the woods, leaving the undead woman to snap her ragged jaws at the hot air, lost over where her meal had run off to.

For a split second, the straight sheet of chestnut hair flowing behind the petite figure made Lonnie's heart ache. She looked just like Amy from the back. She always was a good runner, but mostly from the cops.

What happened to the world overnight? How could things have changed so quickly? When Lonnie went to bed everything had been normal—a drunken normal, but still relatively normal. People weren't trying to eat each other or tear each other apart with their bare hands. Was the disease, or whatever it was, airborne? If so, then it was too late for him. He was already a dead man. But if it was a blood disease or a virus spread by fluids, then there was still a chance for him. The question was did he want it? Did he want to live? Did the gut-wrenching sadness over Amy surpass the joyous freedom in losing Buddy?

A line of cars were stopped several feet in front as he tried to turn off Dune's highway twelve and onto IN-49. He hadn't been thinking about where he was going as he drove, but he realized, as he hit the breaks, that he'd been heading the same way they used to drive to the Michigan cabin.

He could still go. The key was on the ring with the truck's. It would be the safest place for Lonnie to hide out, far away from anyone or anything else. He could ride the mess out for the week or two it took for the government to clean everything up and get it back to normal.

"Come on, asshole! Get that piece of shit movin'!" he yelled as he leaned out the open window and threw his hands up. He laid on the horn.

Instead of pulling himself back inside he remained frozen, hanging halfway out the rusty metal truck. He hadn't been able to see from behind the steering wheel facing the rear end of the line of cars, but at that angle the horrible view of what blocked traffic was laid out before him.

### VIII

A construction crew had half the road closed off with orange cones and a slow traffic sign. That would have been enough to give any of the desperate drivers in line a bad case of road rage, but there was a more pressing issue at hand, one that came from the shadows of the lush green trees that lined the side of the road.

Dozens of bodies stumbled out, one after another, like a group of drunks at closing time. There was no end to the rows of undead it seemed. Their sites were trained on the exposed workers scrambling in the middle of the road, unsure what was going on, who the people were, and if they were in any sort of danger.

Some of the men didn't wait around to help their fellow laborers. They hopped in whatever vehicle they could get to and took off in the opposite direction, leaving a few misfortunate souls trapped to receive a slow, painful, miserable death. The three left behind huddled together on the yellow line, their backs to each other to see from every angle.

Lonnie watched as the drooling zombies surrounded the crewmen who had nothing to defend themselves with aside from a sign attached to a metal rod. The man holding it swung out in front of him as the group converged from all sides. A tall male with a portly belly torn open and hollowed out swiped back at the sign and almost knocked it from the man's hands.

Eight cars back, Lonnie squinted his eyes to try to make out the faces of the orange vested men on the road. It was a small town and likely he went to high school with one of them or it was the dad of somebody he knew. When his eyes roved over one, he stopped scanning.

He was incredibly tall, his brown hair styled with mousse to look like a California wave, and had tan muscles that tightened as he gripped the rod of the traffic sign. It was Rowan Brady, the guy he'd met the night before in his drunken haze, the one who left his number for Lonnie on a bar napkin.

If he didn't do something quick, Lonnie was going to have to watch his new friend be ripped apart by the cold, dead hands of those things that inched their way closer. There was also the possibility that if he tried to help, he would also face the same gruesome death. Another one of the things reached the men and tried to get a grasp around anyone's neck as it was shoved backwards over and over again.

Before his brain had time to process, Lonnie stepped on the gas and jerked the wheel to the left. He bypassed the other cars and hit the orange cones as he sped down the road toward the group of cowering men. A tall, fat male clad in overalls and a camo hat with half his face clawed, the flesh hanging loosely from his cheeks, stopped and turned to the truck just in time to see it plow over him, sending him high into the air. When he hit the pavement the back of his head cracked open and leaked thick black cerebral fluid over the hot pavement.

Another one stepped in the path of the Ford and suffered a similar fate, though the blonde female clung to the front end of the bumper for several seconds before it slipped and was crushed by the weight of the truck. Its pulverized insides remained stuck in the grooves of the rubber tires as they spun wildly.

Lonnie let out a whooping cheer and grinned like a madman as he ran zombies down left and right. "Take that fuckers! Woo! Yeah! How'd that feel?" He pulled up alongside the crewmen and leaned over to throw open the passenger door. "Get in! Hurry up!"

"Lonnie? Man, am I happy to see you!" Rowan Brady yelled as his lips turned upward in hopeful relief.

He climbed in and scooted all the way to the middle to leave room for one more crewmember in the cab. A muscular Latino man with a goatee reached his hand for the seat to pull himself in, but something had ahold of his leg. He yelled out as the thing took a chunk of his calf and ripped the flesh and muscle away with its teeth. A thick spurt of blood shot out from the wound and drenched the thing's face and chest as it chewed thoroughly.

"Torres! I got you, brother!" Rowan leaned over and reached out to the wounded man, but couldn't get a grip on his sweaty hand.

"Don't leave me!" the man yelled out, his voice breaking off in anguish as two more of the undead joined to feast on his legs, pulling him further down to the ground and away from Rowan's hands.

The cry was unbearable to listen to. Lonnie's insides twisted up into a pretzel knot until he could barely take in a breath. How long could someone live while they were being ripped apart and eaten alive? One minute? Two minutes? Ten minutes? He felt nauseated just thinking about it.

One of the things pulled itself up and sunk its teeth into the tender part of the man's shoulder where it met his neck. His cries turned to garbles as his life force drained into the mouth of the ravenous creature. He choked on the blood as it bubbled up his throat and out his paling lips.

The monstrous thing's eyes rolled back in its head as the blood washed over its tongue, like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Its jaw worked on the shoulder relentlessly. It never pulled away to swallow or take a breath. It just kept feeding.

Lonnie was mesmerized, lost in a stupor of red. His hands fell from the steering wheel as he watched several sets of hands dig into the gaping neck wound of the poor man and tear out muscles, veins, and tissue. They shoved the sopping meat into their mouths with fervor. The wet sound of their lips smacking echoed in Lonnie's ears until he thought he would lose himself all over again.

His vision started to fuzz. The sight of the small horde devouring the man called Torres felt further and further away, like a grim light at the end of a black tunnel.

Not now, he told himself. Don't do this now. If you do, you'll die. You can't give up now. Another voice inside his head argued. If I let go then I'll be more equipped to fight, to get us out of here alive. All those years I suffered abuse from my son of a bitch father and never did anything about it. Look what I'm capable of when I let go and let the darkness take over me. I can defend myself. I can beat this!

"NO!!" Lonnie Lands shouted as the last throws of life twitched from Torres's body. An expanding swarm of zombies threw themselves on him and worked to devour every last morsel.

Lonnie stepped on the gas and the passenger side door smacked one of the feasting dead across the back of its head, sending it rolling alongside the truck.

"What are you doing? Jacobson is still out there! We have to help them!" Rowan screamed in panic as he gawked through the back window.

"Consider him dead and thank God you're still alive."

Rowan's brown eyes were as wide as bullet holes. His tanned face was streaked with dirt, blood, and tears. He watched in horror as the last man standing in the road was taken down with a vicious bite to the face that tore away his nose and right cheek in a spray of red.

"Wouldn't want to be that guy," Lonnie chuckled as he watched in the rearview mirror.

"His name was John. He was a friend of my dad's. I've known him since I was ten years old," Rowan said in a far off, distant voice.

Lonnie blinked a few times as he returned his gaze to the two lane highway laid out before him. "I'm sorry, man. I just meant...look, I just came from a close call myself. Lost my fiancé and my dad, so I know what it's like."

"Shit. I'm sorry," Rowan adjusted himself on the seat to stare blankly forward. "How'd you find me, anyway?"

"I didn't. You just happened to be where I was headed."

"And where are you headed?"

Lonnie didn't answer. He only stared ahead. They were driving down a stretch of untouched highway—no zombies, no people, no cars. For a moment everything felt like it used to. Lonnie was sure if he turned around he would find his dad drunk in the Lazy-Boy chair in the living room, Amy dolling herself up in the bathroom for an early Sunday dinner date. But deep down he knew nothing would ever be like it used to.

Something in the tree line caught his eye. A female with long dark hair sauntered out in front of the truck fifty yards ahead. The closer the old Ford approached, the more Lonnie's mind played tricks on him. He saw Amy's face in the monster's, but not the same face he'd seen just minutes ago. It was the smiling face he had looked forward to seeing when he woke up every single day for the last eight years. The face that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The face he couldn't save.

### IX

Lonnie Lands pulled into the dirt driveway of a ranch home about three miles from the horde that almost made a meal out of Rowan Brady. The young man in the passenger seat was still in shock, his eyes unblinking and his hands shaking noticeably. Every few seconds Lonnie caught himself stealing glimpses of his new friend from the corner of his eye. He couldn't help wondering if he was going to be an asset to survival or the thing that got him killed. Was it worth the risk, keeping him around? They were about to find out.

He stopped the truck and turned it off. The grumbling engine died out and left them in heavy silence. As far as he could tell, there wasn't anyone around to attack them, though the house was surrounded by thick pine trees making it hard to see anything. Were the small movements in his peripherals more of the infected or were they just leaves blowing in the hot summer breeze?

Lonnie grabbed the rifle that sat in the middle. He took out the cartridge and turned it over in his hands. In his blackened haze earlier, he wasn't sure if he had used the gun at all. By the state of his father's smashed in face, it looked like he'd used the butt of the gun, but had never fired off a shot to kill him. By the weight of the cartridge he could tell there were still a few bullets left, but how many he didn't know. He took a deep breath as he stared up at the ceiling of the cab and slammed the magazine back into place.

The entire time, Rowan studied Lonnie as he wrung his sweaty hands in his lap. Lonnie was only acutely aware of the man's thin brown eyes locked on him. He was more focused on the task at hand. They needed to find shelter.

What little training he'd gotten from Army boot camp turned on in his head like a light switch and blocked everything else out, helping him to map out every possible scenario they could encounter in going up to the house they were parked outside. He hoped for the best case—to find the house already empty, abandoned by its owners. Luck had never been on his side, though.

"You're probably going to need this," he said as he leaned over and opened the glove box. He shoved a 9 mm pistol into Rowan's shaky, wet hands.

The scared man let the gun lay in his palms like a baby bird, afraid to move at all. He stared down at it as it rattled in his hands.

"It's loaded," Lonnie assured him. "But only use it if you have to. What's in the gun is all we got."

He opened the driver's side door and hopped out. The hinges of the truck creaked and echoed through the clearing until the sound was lost in the trees. If anyone was still inside the house, they already knew Lonnie and Rowan were there.

"Come on," Lonnie said as he walked around the front end. "Let's see what we're dealin' with here."

Rowan got out of the truck slowly with a firmer grip on the small gun. He tucked it into the back of his dirty jeans and followed Lonnie's lead up the steps of the porch and to the front double doors. For a moment the two men looked at each other, each one giving one last thought to if going up there was their only option.

Lonnie raised a fist and knocked. The loud noise contrasted with the peaceful surroundings, far enough away from the chaos that ensued further up the road that nothing could be heard except the birds in the trees. There was muffled movement inside. Faint sounds of people whispering could be heard. Lonnie gripped his rifle in both hands and held it at across his chest, finger on the trigger guard.

The door opened a crack and part of an older man's face appeared. "What the hell do you want?" he grumbled.

"We were hopin' to find shelter here, sir," Lonnie said, his voice softened and polite.

The man's eyes fell to the weapon readied in his stubby hands. "Let me talk it over with the Missus." He disappeared into the house and closed the door behind him. There came the distinct sound of a heavy deadbolt being locked.

"You think they're going to let us in?" Rowan whispered into Lonnie's ear from behind him.

No response.

Rowan straightened back up to his full-height, which was at least five inches taller than the stocky man in front of him.

Lonnie felt the weight of the towering shadow cast across his back. Would he have to do all the work while Rowan tagged along for a free ride? Would Lonnie have to be the brains and the brawn while Rowan hid behind him like a little girl? These questions made Lonnie's insides burn.

Both men flinched when the door was wretched open. They took a step back as the bearded old man took a brisk step out onto the porch. The barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun was pointed directly at Lonnie's chest.

"Bad news, boys. You're not gonna find no shelter here."

Lonnie clutched the rifle harder to steady his wavering hands. He took a deep breath in through his nose and let it exhale from between his thin lips.

He couldn't lose control.

"We don't want any trouble, sir. We'll just be on our way, then."

"You're gonna have a hard time gettin' around without that truck," the man said through his thick, gray mustache, his lips barely moving, his puffy, wrinkled face stone cold stern. He held the end of the shotgun to his shoulder firmly with one hand while he extended the other out and flexed his fingers.

Lonnie sighed. His shoulders sank and his head lolled slightly to one side.

"Come on now, boy. I don't got all day!"

Lonnie's blue eyes narrowed to thin slits. Boy. He never thought he'd have to hear that again. His mind raced while his face remained unflinching. What were the chances of him shooting the old fuck dead and them making it out of there alive? How many people were standing behind the door to back him up in case things went south? There were too many unknown variables. It was too big a risk.

Lonnie reached into his front pocket and handed the keys over.

"Atta boy," the old man's mouth parted into a sparse, toothy grin. "Now get before I send you out there with nuttin' to defend yerselves!"

Lonnie stayed rooted and locked eyes with the old, decrepit man. He studied his face and memorized every groove in his weathered skin before he turned and walked down the stairs. He wasn't planning to seek revenge, but if he ever saw that old fuck as one of those things, he wanted to make sure he was the one to take him down.

Rowan followed at Lonnie's heels. He looked over his shoulder to watch the old man standing in the doorway with his gun still aimed at their backs. His spine tingled with an overpowering fear.

'Stupid, fucking, piece of shit, old—" Lonnie grumbled as he stalked off down the dirt driveway again, leaving what little he had packed in his Army bag in the cab of the old blue Ford.

### X

Rowan Brady drew the pistol Lonnie had given him and aimed it at the chest of a snarling, bloodied living nightmare as it drew closer with fumbling steps. Its dead eyes were locked onto his, its mouth already going through the motions of chewing as it prepared to sink its teeth into his firm muscles.

He wasn't a good shot. No matter how many times his father took him out hunting with him, he was never able to hit his target, especially when it was moving. He closed his left eye and locked his elbows to steady his wavering arms. Sweat ran down the side of his thin face.

Fifteen feet. The thing shuffled forward and raised its arms.

Ten feet. It opened its mouth and let out a sickening garble that ended in a hiss.

Five feet. Its arms were inches from Rowan's throat.

He took a step back from the dirtied female and squeezed his almond eyes shut. His fingers wanted so desperately to pull the trigger, but his heart wouldn't allow it. Maybe he wasn't meant to survive in such a horrifying world.

A cold, hard hand brushed against his cheek. He took in a sharp breath and held it. Fingers streaked across his face as the thing let out a jolted, angry growl. Then came a thud.

When Rowan opened his eyes again he saw Lonnie Lands on top of the monster while its jaws snapped at his tantalizingly close neck.

"No guns," Lonnie said between heaving breaths. "Only as a last resort."

He pinned the writhing creature's arms down with his knees. It continued to thrash its body, even after the loud pop of its shoulders dislocating. Its ragged neck craned to try and take a bite out of Lonnie's groin.

The stocky blonde didn't flinch as the thing growled and snapped beneath him. Overwhelming confidence filled his senses until he beamed with it. He threw his head back and laughed at the sky, drowning out the sound of clacking teeth.

"Not today, bitch!" He pulled a pocket knife out and thrust it into its temple, rendering the monstrosity beneath him motionless, no longer a threat to him or anyone else left in the world. He pulled the knife out and wiped it on the bottom of his white tank top as he stared the thing in its sickening face.

This one wasn't as damaged as the other ones. There were no visible signs of what made it the way it was. The face hadn't yet turned pale and gray, the eyes still had a hint of green left in them as they only started the process of glazing over. Its spaghetti strap tank top and jean shorts were intact and barely stained. Its medium ginger hair remained braided on either side of its head. Lonnie studied it for another second, deciding whether it was Katie Gray from study hall freshman year or not. He couldn't be sure.

When he stood up he noticed Rowan staring at him with a gaping mouth and wet eyes. "If you had pulled the trigger two things would have happened. One—that she-beast from hell would of sank her teeth right into ya. Wanna know why?"

Rowan didn't give any indication that he heard a word Lonnie said. Tears continued to build up in his eyes until they spilled over the brim and down his tanned cheeks, one of which was streaked with the blood of the woman lying dead on the ground at his feet.

"Because you were aimin' for the bitch's chest. You gotta aim for their heads. Only way to take 'em down. At least, that's what I've found." Lonnie paused to see if Rowan would acknowledge the wisdom he was imparting on him—a nod of the head, some word of agreement—but the man stood frozen like a deer in headlights. "And two, you shootin' off that gun only woulda drew more of the fuckers out, no doubt. We woulda been surrounded and then we'd both been dead."

Lonnie folded the knife in half and shoved it back into the pocket of his jeans. He stood with his hands on his hips, his shadow cast over the body on the ground. A dark stream of thick, black blood oozed out from the wound in its head.

Could it even be considered a woman anymore? He bent down and ran a hand over the cool skin on its exposed arm. There was no way she could be that cold if she'd only died a moment ago at Lonnie's hands. She'd been dead to begin with. He picked up the arm and moved it around in his hands. When he bent it at the elbow, there was very little give and the joint cracked under the pressure, already in the throes of decay and rigor mortis. What the hell was she? It was like the goddamn zombie apocalypse finally decided to rear its ugly head, but why Chesterton, Indiana? How did it all start? Was the whole world suffering from it?

He leaned over and peeled back the woman's lips to reveal her teeth. They didn't look any different from any other person's, except they were stained red with blood and there were pieces of human flesh caught in between a few of them.

"Careful!" Rowan said as he snapped out of his daze. He took a step toward Lonnie with his arms out. "Don't touch her. She's sick or something. You might catch it."

"Relax, will ya?" Lonnie said as he stood up again.

Rowan's eyes were focused, but his mind was elsewhere, trying to make sense of what just happened. Lonnie knew the look. He saw it countless times in boot camp during uniform inspections on the faces of scared boys who tried to answer questions while a Sergeant First Class was inches from their noses, staring them in the eyes.

"When I was at my post, all people could talk about was this new flu," Lonnie said carefully. He left out the part about his post being training.

"That's right. You're in the Army, aren't you? I remember you saying something about it last night."

"Yeah. Anyway. This could be that."

Rowan nodded his head and clenched his jaw together. "I really don't see any other explanation. Does that mean we can get it without any contact with them? Is it airborne?"

Lonnie hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans and shrugged his shoulders, the AR-15 strap pulled tight against his chest as the rifle rested on his back. There was no telling how the shit spread or if they were already infected or not. Only time would tell. All Lonnie did know was that it wasn't safe in the open. They had to find shelter, and fast. Once night fell it would be a whole new hunting ground. They would be sitting ducks waiting to be roasted for dinner.

"Let's find somewhere to hide out, ride it out, and see how we're feelin' in the morning." His voice was steady and strong, but inside doubt crept around inside.

His thick hands started to sweat at the thought of what could be waiting for them at the next house.

### XI

The streets flooded with panic. Families ran for safety as the dead lumbered behind them, eager to sink their teeth into warm, tender flesh. Lonnie and Rowan crouched behind the thick trunk of a pine tree and watched it all unfold. The screams were unbearable to hear. Men, women, children, it didn't matter to the mindless dead that were slowly taking over every inch of the lakeside town.

One woman gripped the hand of her twelve-year-old daughter, dragging her along as they fled from their surrounded minivan. The girl kept screaming for her daddy and looking over her shoulder at the massive dogpile of feasting bodies. The mother turned around, just for a moment, and fell to the ground when she tripped over a body lying in the middle of the road. The little girl tried to help her up, but they'd already made too much noise. A hungry swarm was upon them in a matter of seconds.

When the woman's throat was ripped from her by blackened, dripping teeth, Lonnie stared, unable to look away. The arterial blood sprayed from the wound as the woman's trembling hands clutched at the hole in her neck. Frenzied bodies threw themselves onto her as the little girl made a break for it.

Lonnie didn't continue to watch to see if the girl made it to the shelter of the trees on the other side. It didn't matter. She was alone. She was already dead.

"We need to—" he started to say, but stopped when he saw Rowan huddled with his head down and his hands over his ears. He slapped the cowering man's arms down and continued. "We need to find an empty house right now. Looks like everyone's out in the streets so it shouldn't be too hard to get into one."

"If the houses are safe, then why didn't these people lock themselves inside?" Rowan pulled down on a branch to peek between the greens. He squeezed his eyes shut immediately and let the branch spring back into place.

Lonnie sighed and rolled his eyes. "I can't explain stupid. Let's just go."

They kept low as they made off away from the two lane highway and into the wooded area claimed by the Dunes State Park. Most of the homes built there had been bought out and demolished decades ago to preserve the scenic route. There were only a few select families who stood their ground and denied the government their property. Those were the safest places to lay low for a while, far enough away from the town that there would be less dead, sick, or whatever they were, to deal with.

The sun was beginning to sink behind the towering line of thick trees, casting long shadows over the two men as they maneuvered the woods carefully. Every step they took made a muffled crunch over the bed of dead leaves and pine needles. There was no trail to follow since they were still outside the park's entrance. They moved branches aside, stepped over fallen trunks, and kicked at the thick brush on the ground.

"I know there's a house just up here," Lonnie said. He squinted his eyes to see further. "Let's just hope the family's already left it."

Rowan nodded, but couldn't bring himself to hope such a thing. All he could hope for was that whoever's home it was, they were kind enough to let the two men in. He followed closely on Lonnie's heels with the 9 mm gripped tightly in his long, slender fingers. With his elbows bent awkwardly acute, the magazine rest high on his chest just below his chin.

"There it is!" Lonnie said through a whispered laugh. "Son of a bitch, we made it!"

The house was part ranch, part two story with a wraparound porch. The pale yellow siding with brown shutters and roof gave it a sunny demeanor, opposite of the world it was cruelly placed in. A little brown and white striped awning hovered over the front doorway, beckoning them in.

Lonnie imagined the family who lived there—a perfect family with a clean-cut dad who worked Mondays through Fridays and was always home for dinner, a mother with pinned up hair who wore an apron and baked cookies for her three perfect kids. He wasn't sure if his senses were playing tricks on him, but he thought he caught the wafting scent of an apple pie cooling in an open window.

The two men crept closer as their eyes scanned every window in the home. There wasn't a single light on. Either no one was there, or the family was smart enough to make it look like they weren't there.

Once they reached the porch, Lonnie held his fist up to signal Rowan to stop where he was, bringing authenticity to his Army façade.

"We're not makin' the same fucking mistake twice and goin' up to the front door. You go that way," he pointed to the right of the house, "and peek in. See if you see anything. I'll go this way and meet you around back."

"Got it." Rowan's face was stern and unflinching, but his voice wavered when he spoke.

Lonnie wanted to slap him and yell in his face. He was in his goddamn thirties for Christ's sake and he was acting like a sniveling baby, too scared of his own shadow to be of any use. Lonnie was only twenty-two and more in control of his emotions.

The image of Buddy Lands beaten to death on the floor flared in his mind. Well, maybe "in control" wasn't the right choice of words. Without a doubt, Lonnie was the only reason he and Rowan were still alive, though, and that irked him. He wasn't anybody's goddamn babysitter.

Thoughts of resentment fueled the fire inside Lonnie as he walked around the left side of the house carefully, his rifle readied in both hands at his chest. He raised up onto his tip-toes to look into the first window across the porch. The setting sun behind him was too bright in the glass to make out any details, but he was sure he didn't see any movement inside. The same with the next window and the next one.

He turned the corner to the back of the house and ran into something hard. Without hesitation, he raised the gun and pointed it right between the eyes of the towering figure.

"Whoa, it's just me!" Rowan practically yelled as he threw his hands up over his head, dropping the pistol to the ground.

"Jesus-H-Christ, don't fucking sneak up on me like that!" Lonnie bent down to pick up the 9 mil and tossed it back to his companion.

Rowan bounced it around as he tried to get a grip, his sweaty fingers slipping against the slick metal comically.

Any other day, Lonnie would have been rolling on the ground. Instead, he looked at the pathetic man with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes. The only thought in his mind was how long the guy would last before one of those fuckers ripped his throat out. Deep down, buried beneath that thought, was a shameful afterthought—he couldn't wait for the day Rowan was no longer his problem.

### XII

The house was stifling. The air conditioning units had been removed and piled on the living room floor so the windows could be locked shut. After doing a quick walk-through of the home to find it empty, Lonnie collapsed on the living room sofa.

He hadn't realized how exhausted he was until he was secured behind walls and doors again. His head pounded at both temples and ran down the back of his neck, giving him a nauseating feeling deep inside his stomach, which growled through the pain. He hadn't eaten all day. The last thing to go down his throat was a shot of tequila the night before.

Lonnie sat with his head rested in his hands. As he tried to will the pain away, the shadowed flicker of Rowan's feet paced back and forth in front of him and caught the corner of his eye, intensifying the nausea.

"Would you sit down or something?" he groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Without a word, Rowan complied. He set himself down on the other end of the creaky old sofa. His legs jiggled as his feet bounced up and down and his hands slapped his knees rhythmically.

Lonnie opened one eye and glared through the darkness at him. "Jesus Christ, would you knock it off? You're gonna make me puke."

"Sorry."

Rowan tightened his hands on his knees to steady them as his eyes focused out the front window. His thin, muscular legs still bounced slightly under the pressure. Lonnie rolled his eyes and winced when another sharp pain ran down his neck.

"Why don't we hit the sack? Upstairs will be best. Gives us time to get shit together if someone decides to try and claim the place in the middle of the night." Lonnie stood up slowly and scooped up his rifle that leaned against the arm of the couch.

Rowan nodded his head relentlessly as he too stood up, like the world's tallest and most annoying bobble head. He walked so closely behind Lonnie that he stepped on the heel of his boots. Each time, Lonnie took a deep breath to rid the urge to whip around and punch the guy in the face. One of the wooden steps groaned loudly from the weight and distracted him.

Logically, Lonnie knew there was no way the sound could be heard from the outside, but that knowledge didn't stop the hairs on his arms from standing on end. The last thing he wanted to do in that moment was find the miniscule amount of energy left in him to fight off more of those fuckers. The full weight of his exhaustion had kicked in, making his bulging muscles ache, his head spin, and his eyelids droop.

At the top of the staircase there were four closed doors. Lonnie had already searched each room thoroughly when he volunteered to make sure the upstairs was clear of people, alive or dead, while Rowan took the main level—a carefully calculated plan to ensure maximum comfort for Lonnie later that night. He walked right over to the door he knew belonged to the master bedroom, equipped with a King size bed and private bathroom with a garden tub.

"See ya in the mornin'. Holler if ya hear anything." He placed his hand on the doorknob.

"Wait!" Rowan exhaled with a jerky whisper. "We're not going to stay together?"

Lonnie furrowed his brow. "What the hell are you suggestin'?"

Rowan was taken aback. His mouth hung open as he stood frozen with wide eyes. "What? No. Nothing. Just that it might be safer to stick together, in case anything happens."

Lonnie took his hand off the doorknob and gripped his AR-15. "That's why we're on the second floor," he said as if he were teaching a toddler to count. "See, if anything gets in the house we'll hear it before they can find us. That's how that works."

The two men stared at each other in a moment of heavy silence. He couldn't be sure, but Lonnie thought he detected a flicker of fire behind Rowan's almond eyes. Maybe the guy did have some hidden balls he didn't know about. Lonnie huffed a breath of laughter, opened the bedroom door a crack, and slipped inside, leaving Rowan to stand dumbfounded and paranoid in the darkened hallway.

The master bedroom was pitch black. The thick gaudy curtains were drawn tightly shut, tied together by a decorative rope. Lonnie tossed his rifle onto the bed and sat down at the edge, his head in his hands and his elbows rested on his knees once again. He waited for the sound of Rowan's receding footsteps, but he didn't hear them. The tall man still stood in the hallway outside the bedroom door.

What was with that guy? It was like he was terrified to leave Lonnie's side, like a scared little puppy. It annoyed Lonnie to no end, made the simmering fire deep inside him rise up and fuel the rage he tried so desperately to control. He didn't know how much longer the two could carry on together before he blacked out and killed the poor sad sap.

Buddy's bludgeoned, beaten mess of a face flashed again, sending another nauseating wave through his head and down into his stomach. He rubbed the back of his neck. One day at a time. That was the only way he could approach the situation they were in. One day at a time. Who knew how long either of them had to live?

He pushed aside his gun and scooched himself back to lay his head down on the pillow. Staring up into the black void that hovered just below the ceiling, Lonnie let his mind wander from thoughts of murder to survival to Amy, until there was nothing left. He drifted off into a deep sleep on top of the floral duvet cover.

### XIII

The echo of a loud bang teetered on the edge of Lonnie's consciousness until he questioned whether he'd heard it or if it had been part of some dream. He sat upright, perfectly still, hands pressed into the memory foam mattress, ears tuned to the complete silence that encased him. The breath he'd been holding rushed from his nostrils as he lowered himself back down onto the soft pillow.

An unmistakable, wall rattling bang brought him right back up. It came from downstairs. Another bang and then another, until it sounded like a flock of birds were flying right into the side of the house. All at once, Lonnie's chest tightened. He knew what the noise was. It was the sound of hands beating against glass.

His door flew open and a shadowed figure rushed in at him. His hands groped the bed for his rifle as his heart raced.

"Do you hear that?" Rowan's voice came from the darkness.

He let out a breath of relief and wiped the sleep from his eyes. "Of course I hear it. I'm not deaf."

"What do you think it is?"

Lonnie stood up and stretched his arms high above his head. "People tryin' to get in. What else?" He spoke with the casual air of someone expecting visitors.

"You and me people or those other kinds of people?"

Lonnie heard the wet sound of Rowan swallowing a lump of fear down his dry throat as countless hands threw themselves into the windows to break through.

"Judging by the sound of it, the other kind."

"How can you tell?"

Lonnie stood with his hands on his hips and glared in Rowan's general direction. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. The crewman stood, body tensed, gun clutched awkwardly in his hands, and ever so slightly leaned forward as if he could take off running at any moment. Lonnie shook his head at the sight of him.

He could either continue to resent the man for being a useless lump or he could teach him to pull his own weight. He could teach him how to survive. That way when he didn't, it wouldn't be entirely on Lonnie. He wouldn't have to feel like it was his fault another person died on his watch.

"Well, there's more than one out there. Sounds like the house is surrounded almost. And it seems like all they're doing is beating against the windows. If it were normal assholes, like you or me, they'd be picking locks or using a rock to break the glass. They'd be quieter about it, that's for damn sure."

The black outline of Rowan's head bobbled up and down. It was almost enough to make Lonnie burst out in laughter. Immense exhaustion might have had something to do with that. He couldn't have gotten more than a few hours of sleep, though it felt like minutes. He wasn't wearing a watch and there was no clock in the bedroom so he couldn't check the time.

"What do we do?" Rowan asked.

Lonnie flicked the safety off his gun. "We check it out."

Downstairs, the light from the half-moon shown through the open curtains. The shadows of many hands rattled the glass and Lonnie's nerves. The sound of the front and back door shaking on their hinges made every muscle in his body tense up and refuse to release. His hands gripped the AR-15 so tightly his knuckles turned a sickly shade of white.

"Shit—shit, shit, shit!" Rowan whispered in panic behind him.

Lonnie wanted to tell him to shut up and calm the hell down, but it wouldn't have done any good. He was certain if he said anything his voice would have come out high and unstable, like a boy going through puberty. In all his eight weeks of Army training, they never taught him how to prepare for an attack against the undead, which is what those things had proven to be. They were not people anymore—they were freaks of nature. They deserved to die, for good.

Low, drawn out moans drifted through the warm night air and into the sealed off house. A chill ran through Lonnie's sturdy spine, giving him goosebumps on his arms and a tingly feeling in his brain. With every passing minute, the banging grew louder and faster as more joined in to beat down the walls and devour whatever was on the other side.

Lonnie tried to calm himself long enough to do the math and figure out how many bullets he had left. Assuming the magazine was fully loaded when Buddy first showed up in Amy's house minus the shots he fired off into her chest and head, that meant in the best case scenario he had about twenty rounds left. Knowing Buddy and how lazy he was about refilling the rounds once he'd used the gun, he could have anywhere from fifteen to one single bullet left.

His eyes flickered from window to window to try to count the number of shadowed hands. His chest heaved with massive intakes of air, making his head feel like it was going to float away at any moment. There was no way to figure out the odds of them surviving the attack once the windows gave out. All the two men could do was wait and pray that they were double paned.

### XIV

Glass shattered and fell to the wooden floor of the living room. Lonnie flinched as the sound reverberated through his aching head. Dead and mangled hands reached through the new opening ferociously. The shards of broken glass that clung to the sides of the frame dug into soft, loose skin and tore it from their bones as they tried to pull themselves inside.

Lonnie's heart raced as his eyes moved from the broken window to the others that remained intact. They didn't have long before those gave out too and they were perilously surrounded with no way out. He had to think fast. The Army may not have trained him to fend for survival against walking, hungry zombies, but they did teach him to shoot and use hand-to-hand combat. It would have to do.

Another crash tore through his dashing thoughts. The dead pulled themselves up by the window sills to get through. The two broken windows were spread far enough apart that they still had a chance—one directly in front of the terrified men and one to their right in the dining room that opened to the living room they stood in.

Lonnie couldn't tear his eyes away as one male used both arms to propel itself forward through the opening over a large piece of jagged glass. It drug across its chest and down its belly. The body collapsed to the floor, the first to break the barrier and make it into the house.

Lonnie and Rowan took several steps backwards, away from the bleeding corpse as it lie on the floor.

"Is it dead?" Rowan whispered frantically into Lonnie's ear.

"Yeah, but it's not stayin' down."

The lanky, gutted male pushed itself up. It swayed with its guts spilling out of the gash, its intestines dangling down to the floor like the rope Lonnie used to swing from at the Michigan cabin. It took an unsteady, lumbering step toward the two warm bodies of flesh and everything fell to the floor with a nauseating splat—stomach, intestines, spleen, gallbladder, liver. Nothing was neatly tucked inside anymore.

Rowan raised his hand to his mouth and gagged.

Two more bodies came crashing in through the dining room window.

"Let's get out of here!" Rowan yelled as he turned for the stairs.

"No!" Lonnie grabbed ahold of the panicked man's arm. "How do you think these things got to the windows? By climbing the porch steps. We go up there, they figure out how to climb the stairs, and we're done for."

The disemboweled male raised its arms and charged forward. Lonnie took his assault rifle in both hands and fired a single shot at its head. He missed and caught the thing in the throat instead. Slick, black blood spurted from the wound, spraying the couch and floor. One of its feet slipped on the mess and it tumbled down.

Lonnie jumped on the opportunity. He ran to the fallen body and shoved the end of the rifle into the forehead of the writhing creature. He fired one off and the corpse lie motionless below him, as it should have always been.

A surge of heroic energy sparked through Lonnie's body. We are not going to die today, he thought as he stared at the lacerated, disfigured form. The face was one he'd never seen before in town. That was good.

Twenty feet behind him, Rowan screamed over the sound of guttural growls. "Help! Get them off!"

If Lonnie truly wanted to be rid of the sniveling, worthless man, the moment had arrived. He was in the clear to find a way out on his own as the zombies swarmed over Rowan and tore him from limb to limb. All he had to do was get up, walk past to the back door, and slip out. He may never get the chance again. He whirled around and ran.

### XV

The AR-15 slammed against the skull of the clawing, ravenous corpse that had a grip on Rowan's dark gray t-shirt. It let go, stunned by the blow for a second before it turned to Lonnie with its mouth opened impossibly wide from an unhinged jaw.

The short, sturdy blonde turned his body and put all his weight behind the next crack across the bloodied creature's head. There was a loud crunch as the side of its skull caved in and a thump as it collapsed to the hard floor in a mangled heap.

"Get it off! Get it off!" Rowan continued to scream.

Another zombie had him by the arm and was trying to pull his soft flesh into its snapping jaws. "Oh, God! Get it off me!"

Lonnie grabbed the thing by the collar of its dirty button-down plaid shirt and flung it to the side. It crashed into the end table by the couch, wood flying in all directions as it burst into pieces. There wasn't a moment's hesitation as Lonnie stomped over to it. Splintered bits of cheap wood jutted out from the thing's left side and arm. Lonnie dropped to his knees, pulled it up by its shirt collar with one hand, and pummeled its face with his bare fists.

He wasn't thinking as he drove his thick, hard knuckles into the spitting creatures face over and over again. It wasn't like before with Buddy. He was aware of what he was doing, but he still had no control over it. His hands moved on their own and he simply watched in satisfaction as cheek bones fractured, the jaw shattered, and finally the right temple gave in. The dead weight of the body pulled Lonnie's hand down to the floor with it. He leaned over the putrid corpse, its face a sticky mess of pummeled meat and cracked bones.

The feeling was unbelievable, like nothing Lonnie had ever experienced. Before, whenever he felt the unyielding urge to beat someone's face in, he blacked out and was left to piece together the incident when he came to. It had always been frustrating to see the aftermath and not get to experience the electrifying feeling of knuckles against flesh, to hear the euphoric sound of splitting bones.

He stood to his feet, his shoulders heaving up and down, his muscular arms held away from his body as black blood dripped from his hands.

In the far distance, Lonnie heard the sound of more outside, moaning and grunting through their efforts to get in, like a scary movie playing in distant room. He was aware, but not concerned. He was alive, Rowan was OK, and they were going to get out of there in one piece.

"Did they bite you at all, or scratch you?" Lonnie turned on Rowan and got within inches of his face, his own turned up to glare into the towering, shaking man's eyes.

"N-N-No. No. I'm good," he stammered as he shook his head, his shoulders shrugged up to his ears.

Lonnie backed off a step and swung the rifle around to his back. He scanned the place quickly to find their best exit. "The back looks clear. Let's go."

"You saved my life," Rowan said, reverence pouring out of his eyes toward the breathless, bloodied man in front of him.

Lonnie forced out a puff of air from between his lips. "Whatever. No biggie. Let's just get the hell outta here."

Rowan took a step forward, his brown eyes softened as he stared his savior in the face. "It's a huge deal. Thank you. I owe you one."

Lonnie wrinkled his nose and gave a crooked smile. "What are we gonna kiss now? Let's just get the fuck outta here."

He wrenched the door open and looked both ways before stepping out into the hot summer night, the partial moon shining down on his sweaty flaxen hair, basking him in a gallantry glow. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, but he resisted. Only he knew the traitorous thoughts he'd had before he saved Rowan from being zombie food. But he did save him. That meant something.

A monumental shift happened inside Lonnie during that split second decision to save his life. The world was crumbling around him. Left and right, people were dying, by the hundreds, possibly thousands for all he knew. Rowan had been so close to death right before him that the foul smell stung his own nostrils. But he no longer felt the tug of unconsciousness as a seething rage burned inside him, toward Rowan, toward the dead. He didn't want to hurt anymore. He wanted to help.

There were people left in his town, people wounded and scared and too weak to take care of themselves, people who wanted to survive, but didn't know how—and he was going to save them all.

### XVI

Darkness blanketed the wooded area Lonnie led Rowan through, away from the overrun house. The crescent moon was unable to penetrate through the thick braches of the pine trees. The air was heavy with a dense humidity that weighed down the lungs and made Lonnie feel waterlogged and draggy, but he pressed on in a light jog.

After the rush he felt from saving Rowan's life he wanted more. He wanted to feel that intoxicating surge of energy again. Not only was he an important part in preserving mankind, but Rowan was now forever indebted to him. The man would do anything for him and Lonnie knew it.

Up through a small clearing in the trees, a squat male appeared and shuffled into the circle of silver moonlight. Its clothes were tattered rags and chunks of its hair had been ripped out of its head, pieces of skin taken with it to leave bloody patches exposing white skull. With its mouth gaping open, it emitted a raspy, hissing growl and its head lolled to one side.

Lonnie looked the thing in its white milky eyes before he cracked it in the head with the butt of his gun, never breaking stride. It was knocked onto its back, stunned for a moment but not dead in the way it should've been. The two men continued on past it.

There was no time to stop and make sure every single zombie they encountered was put out of its miserable existence. It was all about priorities. Finding survivors was more important than cleaning up the mess. That would come later, when Lonnie had gathered enough followers to take on the dead, one small horde at a time, until the living could regain their claim over their shit town.

On either side of the path the two men took, branches rustled and shadowed bodies limped along. Blackened outlines of heads turned on fragile necks toward the commotion of the two men moving seamlessly through the night. They zeroed in their sites on the fresh meat, trailing after it like a pack of dogs.

Lonnie never looked back once. There was no way those things could catch up. As long as he focused on what was ahead of him, he would make it out of the woods alive to save another life.

Rowan's breathing wheezed out of his chest with every exhale while Lonnie kept stride without hindrance. He knew the man's tall, toned, body was all for show. The guy probably never went to the gym in his life. Some people were just built that way, but where was that going to get him now? What would Lonnie do if Rowan couldn't keep up, if he had to stop and catch his breath?

Before he would've said "fuck it" and left the man to his fate, but now—now he would do whatever it took to save the sad sap, for no other reason than the fact that he could. He was capable. He was a zombie killing machine that no one could stop, and he loved every minute of it. He may not have graduated from boot camp or married Amy as planned. It took the world falling apart for him to find the purpose to his life. Funny how things worked out.

### XVII

Lonnie Lands and his faithful follower didn't rest until they reached highway twelve again. Once the soles of their shoes met the hard pavement both men doubled over, hands on knees, and heaved in and out in attempts to steady their breathing. Several minutes passed like that on the quiet, deserted street. Lonnie was the first to right himself, scan his surroundings, and get his bearings straight.

Up the road there was a single swaying body standing about fifty yards away, its back turned to them. It was the first time either of the two men had seen one of those things almost completely still. They couldn't make out what captivated it in the distance, if anything did, but the trance it was in was a stroke of luck for the exhausted duo.

Halfway between the mesmerized zombie and the two living, breathing humans was a car smashed into the thick trunk of a tree, the front end crunched in like an accordion. There was no movement in or around the vehicle.

Rowan finally stood up straight, a hand on his aching chest, and turned to Lonnie. He waited for the only two things that made any sense in that chaotic, upside down world—Lonnie's word and his direction.

The silence hung in the thick air as the stocky golden-haired man assessed the situation. If they moved stealthily up to the wreck and searched for any survivors, it could go one of three ways—they find someone alive and help them, they find someone dead or a zombie and leave them, or they find nothing and move on. Those were best case scenarios. If they found a zombie, it could attract the other one from up the road and from the woods. Same with an injured person who was in too much pain to keep their cries of agony to themselves.

Lonnie wiped the "what ifs" clear away. He'd had enough listening to the chatter in his mind. It was time to follow his instincts.

"Let's go check it out," he said in a low, steady voice before he took off in a jog again.

Rowan cursed under his breath but followed none the less, his hand never leaving his aching chest.

As they approached the rear end of the car, the shadowed figure up ahead snapped out of its daze and turned slowly, one of its legs bent awkwardly, giving it a prominent limp as it tried to take a step forward.

The two men squatted by the taillights and waited. Nothing could be heard over the sound of their heavy breathing. Thirty seconds later, Lonnie peeked his head around the car. The shadowed figure was gone.

"Shit," he breathed out. "Let's make this quick."

He stood up, rifle gripped in both hands at his chest, finger just outside the trigger, and peered through the busted windows of the vehicle.

The backseat was clear. Nothing but an empty Big Gulp from Seven-Eleven and a crumpled up McDonald's bag. He moved catlike sideways, one foot crossed over the other to the driver's side window.

The front seat was clear as well. The seatbelt had been ripped in half and blood stained the cloth and dashboard, but there were no bodies.

"Goddammit!" Lonnie banged his fist on the bent door.

Rowan flinched and then turned in a circle, his eyes squinted to see through the darkness. "Maybe we should keep it down. We don't know how many are close by."

"What's the fucking point? They're going to find us anyway." Lonnie's head shook slowly on his thick neck as he stared at the dried, bloody fingerprints wrapped around the steering wheel.

Rowan clamped his mouth shut and took a steadying breath through his nostrils. He let the 9 mm fall to his side. His elbow joints stung once they were fully extended, reminding him how long he'd been running with it stiffly bent. "Should we find another house to lay low in for the night? Lonnie?"

The Army washout didn't say anything in response. He let his eyes drift over the scene of the wreck, from the bloodied inside, to the smear on the outside door handle, down to the disturbances in the grass and dirt that lead away into the woods.

Rowan's voice flowed through the air and into Lonnie's ears, only registering in his brain once silence had returned.

"You OK, man?" Rowan reached out to touch Lonnie's shoulder.

"What? Yeah. I'm fine. We should look for another place off the grid to lay low for the night."

Rowan took his hand back and narrowed his eyes as he scrutinized his companion and savior. "...OK...sounds good."

"Let's get on with it before that fucker circles back around and makes a midnight snack of us."

All at once, Rowan felt eyes on the back of his neck, watching him, studying him, following him. He looked over his shoulder, but all he saw was the black void of the wooded tree line fifteen feet behind him. The hairs stood up on the nape of his neck. His next breath got caught in his lungs and he stifled a cough. When he turned back around Lonnie was already on the other side of the two lane highway, ready to disappear into the wooded abyss.

"Wait up!" he yelled in a whisper and ran to catch up.

Whatever was behind them, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible.

### XVIII

The night was eerily silent without the usual whoosh of cars passing by. Summer crickets chirped from all around and the cicadas sang a buzzing crescendo. Far away from the town of Chesterton, heat lightening danced across the sky quietly. Two tired men walked along the side of highway twelve inside the tree line, hidden from anything that might be lurking out on the road.

"I know there's a house 'round here somewhere. I've seen it a million times," Lonnie grumbled as he trudged, each step cracking and crunching over the brush and brambles.

"Maybe we got turned around somewhere," Rowan offered from close behind him.

Lonnie turned his face up to the sky and took a deep breath, the silver moon painted across his tanned face like a spotlight waiting for a monologue. It would wait forever. Lonnie had nothing to say, at least not until they found the house he knew was there, somewhere.

"So, we're looking for more people, right?" Rowan spoke up, his tone uncertain. When Lonnie didn't say anything he pressed on with the questions, despite the gnawing feeling in his stomach. "What are we going to do once we find them? I mean, y'know, what's the plan once we—" He ran into Lonnie's sturdy frame and ricocheted backwards. "Whoa, man. What's going on?"

Rowan's mouth hung open as he gazed over Lonnie's wide head.

They found the house. It was in a clearing up ahead, about a quarter mile back from the main road...and it was overrun with the dead.

"We should go," he whispered into Lonnie's burning ears.

Lonnie shushed him.

"But there's no way we can—"

"Would you shut the fuck up and listen..."

Both men faced the house, a hill for the tiny ants to converge at like a homing beacon. Through the endless stream of throaty, hungry moans and growls something else carried on the breeze just barely—something human.

Lonnie's ice blue eyes widened to the size of a full moon. Without a word, he took off into the clearing.

Somewhere behind him he heard Rowan pleading for him to come back, proclaiming that it was suicide, begging him not to do what he was already doing. In defiance, his legs pumped at an alarming rate, the muscles so tight he thought they would explode. The hard metal of the AR-15 slapped against his back. The distant voice grew in volume and urgency as he approached the outer ring of the nightmarish ghouls.

"Shit! Help! Help me!" a young man's voice echoed out through a missing window. "I don't wanna die!"

The horde of undead went back ten deep and spread out to encircle the house from all sides. There was a loud crash of glass breaking and an indistinct cry from somewhere inside. Lonnie's stomach lurched with every inch he drew closer to the first mangled, lumbering body. He could die trying to save whoever was trapped inside, and he had to be OK with that. He was OK with that.

Though his body panged him from every end as it tried to kick into its survivalist instincts and flee, he fought it all the way up to when he collided with the back of just one of the few dozen spongey figures that would soon surround him.

### XIX

There was no plan as Lonnie Lands charged the multitude of hungry, drooling zombies. The rational part of his brain had shut down completely. All that was left were primordial instincts to preserve mankind. He propelled ahead, as if thrown from a slingshot, with his upper half leaning forward, ready for impact.

The first body flew off its feet and landed face down when Lonnie threw his shoulder into it. He pushed forward without a pause. All the neighboring dead turned their heads slowly on creaking necks to look for the cause of the commotion, but Lonnie was already ahead of them. They spun on wobbly legs, their searching eyes glazed over, their mouths stupidly pendulous as they drooled.

Arms reached out from every angle to grab onto the blurred form that moved like a stroke of paint through the nighttime scenery. The only thing solidifying the man's existence was the trail of trodden corpses struggling to right themselves again. Their cold, hard fingers brushed against his warm flesh, but couldn't grasp onto it. Strained hissing emitted from their cracked, white lips that sounded like a group of angry cats.

Lonnie was halfway through the pack when he noticed he was no longer approaching oblivious bodies with their backs turned, but bloodied, disfigured faces. They were ready for him, feet planted on the lawn, weight distributed unevenly, but firmly between bent legs, arms stretched outward as their fingers clenched and opened perilously, their mouths already working in a chewing motion in wait for the thick blood they craved.

He couldn't slow down just because the tides had turned and he was no longer moving in stealth. Fear couldn't cripple him, though it did stifle his breathing and stiffen his joints so that every movement he made was an agonizing, and possibly futile, effort.

As if in slow motion, he approached the grasping hands. Behind them were mouths full of blackened teeth that dripped tar-like blood. Another cry from inside the house urged him forward. He closed his eyes moments before he jumped with reckless abandonment into the undulating sea of groping dead bodies.

The hands of the dead were all over Lonnie Lands. They tugged at his wife beater, his jeans, his arms, his hair, anything they could get their relentless fingers clasped around. He felt warm liquid smear across his unprotected body, unsure if it was his blood or theirs, and unwilling to stop to find out.

The sound of jaws snapping within inches of his finely tuned ears was the only thing that kept him pushing forward. The weight of body parts wrapped around his legs slowed him down from a run to a strained wide walk. Pinching pain shot up his limbs and fueled the fire of panic in his brain.

That was that. It was over. He'd gotten himself stuck and there was no way he would get out of it. He would fight to the end, but deep down he knew it was the end as their mouths pulled closer to his tender flesh.

He couldn't take them all on. There were three that clung to him as more figures slowly made their way over. He would be dogpiled to death and torn apart. How long did it take to die he wondered again—a minute, two, ten? He hadn't stuck around to find out when Torres was ripped apart. Now that he was in the same situation, he wish he had.

A misplaced sound cracked through the thick summer air. The ravenous jaws of the zombies stopped clacking for a moment as their heads turned to the source from the woods. Even Lonnie, with his blood bursting through his veins and his ears ringing with the ghostly, disembodied moans, couldn't help pausing for a second to look. Another crack echoed out.

Gunfire.

He squinted, but all he saw was the waving blades of grass and the rustling blackened branches of the silhouettes of trees.

One. Two. Three. Four. One after another the shots popped off, pulling the centralized focus of the zombies away from the bag of flesh in their hands.

A figure burst forth from the woods and waved its arms through the air. "Hey! Over here! Over here, dumb shits!"

The bodies on the outer edge of the horde broke off and followed the shadowed movement instinctively. Their chests deflated with heavy moans as they trudged forward, away from the house.

The next row turned, their alabaster eyes watching as if they had the capacity to process what they were seeing. In reality their limbs, already stiff with rigor mortis, were just gearing up for the movement it took to make the change in direction toward the new, more lively prey.

Lonnie remained frozen with mottled hands still clenched around his wrists and legs. He didn't dare move as the focus switched from him to Rowan. He didn't even breathe, though the stench of the bodies was so thick he could taste it.

Several ramshackle bodies pulled themselves out through the broken windows of the house and fell to the front porch. With greatly strained effort they pushed themselves up on their hands to stand again, their backs hunched and their spines disfigured. Gradually, Lonnie felt the release of pressure around his limbs as the rest of the herd mindlessly followed the others back into the woods.

For a fleeting moment, when there was no longer the heavy scent of rotting flesh engulfing him and he could catch a breath of fresh air, Lonnie felt a drop in his stomach and wondered if he'd ever see Rowan again. It was only for a second that he felt the queasiness of dread for his companion before he turned and ran up the porch steps and through the front door. With the hinges already twisted and broken, it crashed to the floor easily. He bounded inside as he scanned the darkened room for the young man in need.

His mind raced with horrifying images of being too late, of finding a torn, bloody body lying twisted on the floor, of holding the boy's head in his lap as he exhaled his last dying breath.

He leaned around the side of the couch and looked behind it. No one there.

He crossed the room and went back into the kitchen. Frantically, he threw the cabinets open in a fruitless attempt to find the one who called out to him. He pulled one of the chairs from the round breakfast table to reach the pantry cabinet behind it.

The house was silent. There was no creaking of wood to give away the hiding man's location, no whisper of hope from trembling lips, nothing as Lonnie stood in the middle of the room, arms hovering away from his sturdy frame as he heaved heavy breaths. Where was the little shit? He closed his eyes and took in a slow breath to keep himself from spinning out of control and tearing the whole place apart in a rage.

From under the table, something grabbed his leg with force and he jumped away, crashing against the frame of the doorway. His heart beat against his ribcage as he struggled to take air into his lungs. The white arm slithered back under the table and into the darkness.

Inching his way closer, Lonnie crouched down to get a look. He couldn't see anything in the thick blackness. When he reached a full squat, something moved that shook the table on its feeble legs. Two hands slapped at the linoleum as a figure crawled out on all fours.

Lonnie straightened himself up to stare down at the head of curly brown hair beneath him. Slowly it turned and a pale face looked up at him. Tears poured from large, brown eyes. "Thank you," the young man breathed out as he sat on his knees, crumbled over at the waist, and buried his face in his hands. "Thank you."

There was that surge again. The intoxicating burst that coursed through Lonnie's nagging limbs all the way to his racing heart. He'd done it. He'd saved another life. They were one step closer to reclaiming the world as their own. He reached a red stained hand down to the doubled over figure on the floor and touched his shoulder.

The boy, in his last year of being a teenager and on his way to becoming a man, flinched away and then gingerly reached out to join hands with the guy who saved his life. With a great upward thrust, he was pulled from the floor to stand on his feet.

The blonde savior clapped him on the back and broke out in a toothy grin. "You got a name, friend?"

The curly-haired young man allowed a smile to spread across his face despite the shaking that wouldn't quit in his thin, lanky legs.

"Yeah. Mitchell. Mitchell Barnes."

"Well, Mitchell Barnes. Whaddaya say we get the hell outta here?"

Mitchell nodded, sending his tendrils bouncing around his ears. Lonnie extended his arm to lend a shoulder to the weak and frightened boy. They walked out of the house together and stopped in the broken doorway to stare out into the dark and chaotic world.

There were only a few shadowed figures left in the yard, off in the distance by the trees, shambling away. They no longer chased after the sound of gunshots. The woods were eerily quiet and Lonnie couldn't help thinking that Rowan was already dead. Not every life could be saved.

Neither of them noticed the silent body that moved through the shadows of the porch behind them.

"Where do we go now?" Mitchell asked as he stared off into the trees. "Is there anywhere safe left?"

The body approached the huddled duo and reached out an arm toward Lonnie Lands to grab him by the shoulder.

"I don't know, kid. We just gotta—"

A solid hand gripped Lonnie where his thick neck met his collar bone.

"SHIT!" He jumped and turned to see Rowan smiling behind him. "What the hell, bro? Don't fuckin' sneak up on me like that!" He couldn't help exhaling a few breathy chuckles of relief. "Glad you made it."

"Me too."

Rowan ducked down on the other side of the curly-haired teenager and offered his shoulder as well. The three of them walked down the steps of the porch together and headed out into the clearing. They disappeared into the tree line in silence, starting their search for another shelter—one that would hopefully last longer than any they'd found so far.

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Enjoy this free sample from Dead Beginnings Vol 2

Lee Hickey

### I

Lee Hickey dropped off the patient file at the nurse's station. As soon as the folder hit the emergency room desk, he started to walk away but stopped. The conversation he had with Olivia Darling, the struggling high-schooler with the hurt wrist, penetrated his thoughts. Her parents laid into her about her horrible choice of boyfriend, a conversation Lee wasn't unfamiliar with, though the last time he heard it was through the open window as he walked up the front porch of his in-laws' house.

Olivia's parents believed her "thug boyfriend", as they called him, was the reason she was at Porter Memorial Hospital in the first place. She tried to tell them she had just done something stupid with a group of friends and that her boyfriend had been the one to try to talk her out of sledding down the enormous sand dune nicknamed "The Devil's Slide", a fact her parents dismissed when they heard it. Nothing she said would ever change their minds about the blue-haired boy, just as nothing would change Lee's in-laws' minds about him. To them, he was just another immigrant looking for a Green Card.

He picked up the phone and called his wife.

It rang.

He wondered what she was doing.

It rang again.

He hoped she wasn't with her parents, an awful thought he'd had on many occasions. He inwardly scolded himself for thinking it.

It rang a third time.

What were they telling his sweet Anna now? That she was better off without him? That she should leave him? That—

"Hello, handsome hubby," his wife's melodic voice sang out through the speaker.

A wide smile spread across his face as he exhaled a sigh. "Hello my sweet and perfect wife." His once-thick Irish accent faded and melded into an almost American one.

"Are you coming home soon?"

"Probably not," Lee said with a snort. "The E.R. is flooded." He leaned against the desk and watched patients, nurses, and doctors walk by.

"No problem. No rush. I'm still at my parents' anyway."

Lee looked at his watch, a birthday present from Anna four years ago. "It's half past eleven."

"I know," she said, her voice dropping an octave and softening. "They asked me to stay the night. They said if you weren't coming home till late there was no reason for me to sit in an empty house all alone."

"They do realize your almos' forty, righ'?" Lee asked sharply, whirling around to hide his flushed face from anyone passing by. "Did they plan another intervention for ya? Hoping to finally convince ya to leave me once and for all?" His accent grew thicker the angrier he got.

"They're old and senile," she interjected with a hushed laugh.

"No excuse."

"You're right. It's not."

There was a moment of silence between them.

Lee brushed his hand over his thick head of hair to smooth his unruly curls away from his heart-shaped face. It'd been fifteen years since he met Anna, a young nurse who worked in the delivery ward. They were twenty-five, both new to the field of medicine, and him to the US. His work visa was good for three years, but neither needed that long to figure out they were meant for each other.

Six months after they met, Anna and Lee married in the Porter Superior Courthouse. Anna's best friend was the only other person to attend, acting as witness and maid of honor. She always thought Lee was a sexy Irish catch. Anna's parents, however, never trusted him, quietly accusing him of marrying their beloved daughter to gain citizenship. Over a decade of marriage had done nothing to win them over.

"So," Anna broke the silence meekly. "I'm probably just going to stay here, then...if you think you're going to be late."

Lee's face fell, but his voice was upbeat. "Yeah, that's fine. I'll see ya in the mornin'."

His wife knew him well. She sensed the hurt he tried to hide. "Please don't worry. You know I love you, and I have some good news to tell you when I see you," she said.

He smiled a wary smile. "Can't wait and I love ya, too."

He hung up the corded phone and let his hand remain there as he stared, lost in thought. It was ridiculous he still had these obsessive thoughts of sabotage. At the same time, he thought it was equally ridiculous they hadn't come around to him yet. He had to face facts. They never would and this would be a life long struggle for him. The only thing that got him through it all was knowing deep within his heart that his beautiful wife was worth it.

"In-law trouble again, hon?" the receptionist at the desk said.

His thoughts faded away as he was brought back to the bustling reality around him.

"Yeah. I just don' bleedin' get it," he said, letting his broad shoulders fall. "I've done everything I can to get these people to like me."

The young girl looked down at her lap and smiled, blood rushing to her pale, white cheeks. She looked back up at Lee through her thick lashes, wisps of golden hair tickling her neck.

"She'd be a fool to ever leave you," she said, her blue eyes smoldering.

It wasn't the first time the young receptionist named Kelly had tried to flatter Lee. Each time, it sent a warm wave to the Irishman's heart, followed by a second wave of embarrassment. She was only twenty-four years old, and looked five years younger than that. What she had was an schoolgirl crush that Lee wasn't discouraging by being vulnerable in her presence.

"Thanks, love," he replied with a generic grin.

He walked away, picking up another chart as he entered the room with his next patient.

### II

"Rowan Brady," he read with indifference. He looked up when he recognized the name.

"Yeah. Hey, Lee!" Rowan said, hopping off the gurney. His perfectly styled chestnut hair was sticking up on its ends.

If it wasn't for the blueish-purple bruises on his long, chiseled face, Lee would have thought Rowan had just finished up a wild night with a young lady. He knew better, though. He'd seen Rowan in the emergency room for similar injuries on several occasions in the six months.

"Rowan, did you try an' pick up another man's girl again?" Lee chuckled as he walked over and inspected the bruises.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't know she had a boyfriend. And I definitely didn't know her boyfriend was six-foot-five and a professional wrestler. He could have been your brother."

They both laughed, pushing Lee's mind away from his troubles, if only for a second. "Well, I'd say you got off lucky then, huh?"

"You ain't kiddin'," Rowan huffed, shaking his head and sitting back down on the gurney. He clutched his arm close to his chest.

Lee sat down on the roller chair and reached out for Rowan's hand. "Let's take a look an' see if we can patch ya up."

"Thanks, man," the defeated brunette said through doe eyes. "Sorry you have to see me in here all the time."

The nurse laughed quietly through parted lips. "I'm sure there'll come a day when I see ya outside the hospital."

Rowan smiled. "Maybe we can grab a beer sometime and—"

"The doctor will be in shortly to see ya," Lee cut the young man off as he stood up.

Rowan looked down at his boots, disappointment overtaking his normally bright eyes. "Oh, yeah. Sure. No problem. Thanks again."

It wasn't that Lee didn't like Rowan. He was sure if they had met in another setting at another time, the two could have gotten along well. But Lee wasn't what one would call a "people-person". Most of his family was back in Ireland. After his parents cursed him for going to America, he rarely picked up the phone to call them. All he had was Anna and her handful of close-knit gal-pals, and that was all he needed.

Lee was a man who trusted his gut feelings. Right now, his gut was telling him not to engage with patients outside of work. He was a practical man who lived by the rules of the hospital and his own moral code. Of course, Anna was the only exception to his rule of keeping business and pleasure separate. When he met her, he knew immediately that she was someone he wanted in his life forever. By the look in her eyes, he knew she had felt the same way.

It had been his first time working the night shift at Porter Memorial. He was finally done with training and on his own, something that both elated and terrified him. At two-thirty in the morning, a young man was rushed in from the ambulance. A car had hit him while he was riding his motorcycle down one of the back roads. Blood covered his face, neck, and leather jacket, which they had to cut off him.

The site of blood never bothered Lee. If it had, he never would have gone into nursing. But it was the fear in that man's eyes as they wheeled him in that made the nurse's stomach churn and his heart race. He wanted to comfort the man and tell him everything was going to be okay. The collision hadn't been that bad. A couple dozen stitches in his head and the man would be good to go, but the words got caught in Lee's throat as he stared into the whites of the man's eyes. He followed the doctor's orders meticulously, and when they were done, Lee excused himself for a moment.

The primal fear of death he saw had jarred him. The reason that man wasn't ready to die didn't stem from selfishness or vanity. It was love and family the man was so terrified of losing. Lee figured that out when the E.M.T. gave him a ratty brown leather wallet. Inside was a couple dollar bills, an Indiana driver's license, and a picture of the man with his wife and two daughters, all smiling genuinely as if life couldn't be any better than it was in that moment.

What did Lee have in his life that was precious to him, aside from his medical knowledge? He had no family he was close with, no girlfriend to hold at night, no friends to crack open a beer with. All he had was his work and his sad little apartment several minutes down the road.

The man was asleep in his room, his adoring family by his side, holding his hands and telling him how much they loved him. Lee decided to wander the stark white halls as he pondered his life. When he heard the squeal of newborns, he stopped.

In the nursery, at least a dozen babies thrashed their arms and cried as nurses in pink and blue scrubs tested their vitals. Lee took a step forward so his face was only inches from the window, his fingertips resting gently on the glass. When would he start a family of his own? Now that he'd accomplished his goal of becoming a nurse, he wanted someone to share it with.

"Are you gonna stay there like that all night?" someone asked, yanking him away from images of the family he wanted so desperately.

"What?" He blinked and took a step back.

The young woman was wearing seafoam green scrubs that seemed to match her deep eyes perfectly. Once Lee settled on them, he found he couldn't look away.

"You can come in and hold one if you like."

Lee finally removed his fingers from the glass separating him from the babies. "I can?"

She smiled, a perfect, white, broad smile that formed two little dimples in her cheeks. "You do work here, don't you? Or are you some crazy person posing as a nurse so you can come in and steal babies?"

An older nurse passed by as the young woman said this, her nose wrinkled in disapproval at the joke.

"Hey, Barb," she said.

The nurse passed by and turned her nose up. She kept walking without saying anything in return.

The young woman shoved her hands into her pockets and turned back to the towering man standing in front of her. Her eyes widened as she cocked her head, her eyebrows lifted up as if pointing to the room beside them.

Several sensations ran through Lee Hickey's body in that moment. He swears he felt warmth radiate from his chest. His stomach danced endlessly, doing intricate backflips the longer the young nurse stared into his eyes. And his heart quickened its pace until he was sure she could see it pounding against his ribcage.

She brushed a stray strand of chestnut hair back behind her ear, waiting for him to say something.

"My name is Lee. I'm a nurse," was all he could muster. His ears, hidden beneath long waves and curls, burned.

The young woman laughed, her head tilted upward to look at the ceiling. "Well, that's a relief. I'm Anna. You can follow me if you like."

And so he did.

That was fifteen years ago, a day he always thought back on with a smile. They fell in love fast, married within the year, and actively started trying for their own baby immediately after the ceremony.

But life doesn't care what you want, a lesson Lee learned over and over again throughout his life.

After several years of trying to conceive without any success, he took Anna to a specialist. That's when they received the heartbreaking news that her chances of getting pregnant were slim-to-none. The percentage was in the single digits. He looked to Anna with tears in his eyes that day. Defeat washed over her face. She gave up right then and there on any hope of having a child of her own.

### III

Lee finally arrived home at a few minutes past four a.m. He walked into the empty, darkened house and locked the door behind him. For a moment, he stood in the entryway in silence.

What are her parents telling her about me now? he couldn't help wondering again. Did they tell her to give up on me, that I was the reason we were childless after fifteen years of trying? He knew it wasn't true, but was sure they blamed him all along.

He kicked off his white tennis-shoes and headed slowly down the hallway to the kitchen. A part of him hoped that when he went upstairs he would find Anna lying in bed fast asleep. Over the years, she seemed to pull away from him and gravitate back to her family for support. No matter what he did, or how much he tried to comfort her and reassure her that they would have a family of their own soon, she never seemed to believe him. He couldn't blame her. He barely believed it himself.

His stomach gave a growl as he opened the refrigerator. It was full of juice, milk, beer, vegetables, fruit, lunch meat, leftovers, everything for the makings of a four a.m. snack. But nothing his eyes scanned over appealed to him. He reached out for a beer, but then pulled back again.

"Fuck it," he said softly to break the silence.

He trudged up the stairs to his empty bedroom and collapsed on top of the comforter. His body ached with exhaustion. The urge to take off his sweaty scrubs and shower drifted further away until he was fast asleep.

Lee Hickey opened his eyes and looked around. The house was still dark, despite the feeling of having slept for half a day. He brushed his hair away from his face and sat up slowly. A sharp pain shot through his neck and up into his head. He rubbed at it as he stood up.

"Anna?" he called out once he reached the door. "Are ya home?"

A strange sound echoed up the stairs. Lee rubbed at his tired eyes before heading down. With each step, the noise grew louder. It reminded him of an infant's muffled cry, but he knew that couldn't be it. His wife had to be watching TV.

"Anna?"

Still no answer.

He wandered into the kitchen first. There were no signs that his wife had been home. Everything was exactly as he'd left it before he fell asleep. He pushed the swinging door to the living room open and stopped on the other side.

The living room was no longer his. Lee squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but the scene didn't change. The couch was gone. The television was gone. Everything that had made his house a home was no longer there. Instead, there was a single wooden rocking chair in the center of the darkened room. A woman sat with her back to Lee, slowly moving back and forth.

He wanted to call out to Anna—it was undoubtedly her. The thick waves in her brown hair were unlike anyone else's—but he found his mouth stubbornly sealed. The only sound in the room was the creaking of old wood as the chair rocked endlessly.

And then he heard it again—the squeal of a newborn. There was no mistaking it this time. Lee's eyes grew wide as he stared ahead.

Though his lips would not part to speak, his legs moved him forward without him telling them to. The hairs on his arms stood on end as an unbearable feeling of dread sank into the pit of his stomach like a rock.

He found himself standing beside the woman.

"Anna?" His voice was raspy. "Sweetheart, are ya OK?"

The chair stopped instantly. Lee's exhaled quick, shallow breaths as he waited. She didn't turn to look at him, and didn't say a single word. The cries from whatever she held in her arms grew louder until he couldn't take it anymore.

He lunged forward to stand in front of her. With her head down, her face was hidden in the shadows of her dark hair. The desperate urge to see her blue-green eyes overwhelmed Lee. She continued to look down at the squawking bundle in her arms as if her husband weren't there.

Lee reached out and took the baby in his arms. Anna didn't fight him to hold onto it. She continued to sit with her head down, her hands folded in her lap. Slowly, Lee unwrapped the dirtied blue blanket. It seemed to go on forever, never revealing what it was his wife had wrapped so tightly in there. As he removed the last bit of cloth, it fell to the floor.

The crying had stopped. In his arms he held nothing.

All at once, he understood what was happening. He'd had similar nightmares like this before, all involving a crying child he could never find, though none had been in his own home before and none had felt so real. Tears gathered in his eyes. He forced them back down as he lowered his cradled arms. He gave a loud sniff that shattered the new heavy silence of the room.

He wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands. "This isn't real", he kept telling himself in a hushed tone. "This isn't real."

When his eyes were finally cleared he looked to his wife. His breath caught in his chest. A shiver ran down arms.

"Anna?" he asked hushed, as if he spoke too loud she would break into a million pieces.

She was no longer looking down, but staring forward. Black tears stained her porcelain cheeks like two thick rivers. Her mouth was wrenched opened as wide as it could go, but not a single sound escaped.

Lee lowered himself and placed both hands on her shoulders cautiously. "Anna?" he said again softly.

Her face remained petrified except for her eyes, which moved slowly from the spot in the corner until they found Lee.

He held his breath. He didn't dare make a move. What he was afraid of, he didn't know. This was his wife. She would never hurt him. But as he continued to stare into her unsettling face, he realized it wasn't himself he was afraid for...it was for her.

"Anna, honey—"

The room filled with an unearthly shriek. Lee fell back and covered his ears with his hands. When he opened his eyes, he saw his wife still frozen, her eyes widened, her cheeks stained, and her mouth agape. The only difference was he could finally hear her scream.

### IV

Lee shot up in bed, sweat pouring down his face and neck. His chest heaved heavily as he looked around. Sun shone through the blinds he had forgotten to close. He looked around to make sure everything was as it should be. Only then did his breathing soften.

"You're finally up!"

Lee jumped off the bed, his heart racing again.

His wife was leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded across her chest. Her face was warm and smiling. "Come on downstairs. I made you eggs and coffee." She turned and headed for the stairs before he could say anything.

Lee rushed after her. He leaned over the banister to see her bounce down to the kitchen in that perfect way she always did. It took every ounce of effort to push the nightmare from his mind as he followed her down. His hands ran through his damp hair ceaselessly until he reached the bottom.

"In here, silly," she called out.

Lee stood in the empty kitchen. The strong scent of coffee wafted up his nostrils. He stared at the door to the living room.

"Come on, Lee! I have something I want to show you." Her sweet voice beckoned to him.

When he pushed the door opened, he couldn't breathe. He was sure his heart had stopped.

"Surprise!" Anna called out.

Tears collected in the corners of Lee's eyes as he took in the site of pink balloons and a banner over the fireplace.

It was a girl. Anna was pregnant.

All restraint left him. Tears streamed down his face. With three great strides, he moved to his wife and picked her up in his arms to hug her close.

"I didn't want to get your hopes up by telling you too early in case it didn't stick, and—"

He cut her off when he planted his lips firmly onto hers. All his worries lifted. Her parents' hatred for him no longer mattered. He was going to be a father.

When he pulled back he saw that Anna was crying as well. Her mascara mixed with her tears to run down her cheeks. He was momentarily unsettled by déjà vu. With the excitement of the news, he had forgotten the dream, but somewhere in the farthest recesses of his mind it lingered. She flicked the tears away with a smile. "How about that coffee?" she said with a breathy laugh. "I can have a small cup."

Lee used the ends of his work-shirt sleeves to wipe beneath his wet eyes. He stared down at his wife softly. "I love you so much," he said firmly, slowly, impressing his emotions into every syllable.

"You're happy, then?"

"I've never been happier."

Anna stood on her tiptoes to brush a strand of his dark hair away from his eyes. "You know this means we'll be seeing a lot of more of my parents, right? It's their first and possibly only grandchild."

Nothing could damped the feeling of joy in Lee's heart. "Well, then, I guess they're just goin' to have to get used to me."

She flashed him a toothy grin as she craned her neck to look into his glistening eyes. "Yes, they will."

With a quick glance, Lee looked down at his watch. It was a quarter past eleven. "Dammit. I'm due back at the hospital soon."

"Why don't you head upstairs and shower and I'll put your coffee in a to-go cup."

All he wanted to do in that moment was cut himself off from the world and spend the day celebrating with his wife. It pained him to have to turn away, but he did. With a sigh he marched upstairs, a euphoric smile still plastered on his face.

"You know, they should build a statue of you in that place for all the extra hours you put in!" she called after him.

### V

The emergency room was busy again, but nothing unusual for a weekend afternoon. Lee Hickey went into his next patient's room, chart in hand, and sat down at the small corner desk. His mind still lingered on the fact that he was going to be a father. In between patients he texted back and forth with Anna while they contemplated names for their little princess. A smile played at the corners of his lips the entire day.

"Hello, there..." Lee scanned the chart quickly, "...Mr. Talbot. Tell me wha' happened," he said without looking up from the clipboard.

"Well, this man came out of nowhere and he, um, bit me?" he said confused, as if unsure what really happened.

He held out his arm to show the broad nurse his wound. Lee didn't look, but wrote down what Johnathan Talbot said while shaking his head. His messy hair grazed his shoulders.

"Not again," he huffed. "You'd swear it was Halloween already."

"A lot of people getting bit by other people on Halloween?" Johnathan asked with a laugh.

"You wouldn't bleedin' believe. You're our third bite patient today, though."

Lee stood up, towering over the man, finally let his eyes rest on him. They fixated on Johnathan's arm and grew to perfect circles. He searched for something to say, but all he could do was stand there in unabashed shock.

Johnathan, a blue-collar man of thirty-eight, held his left arm in his right hand. Bright red blood dripped from a gaping wound in his forearm. The white of bone in the center of the massive, round crater could be seen. The man should have been shouting, crying, cursing, something other than smiling up at Lee as if nothing was wrong.

"You know, it's the weirdest thing. Hurt like a bitch when it happened, but now I can't feel anything. I do feel tired and a little sick, though. Dizzy. Do you think he gave me something when he bit me?" He held up his arm for closer examination.

Lee immediately turned to the door. "Your doctor will be with you shortly," he said as steady as he could.

Sweat started to form on his thick brow. He exited the room, closing the door behind him. His body went limp against the wall as he shut his eyes. All he saw was red. They sprang back open.

In all the years he'd been a nurse at Porter Memorial Hospital, he thought he'd seen everything. He'd certainly seen worse than a chunk of arm missing. It was the fact that another man's mouth had done the damage that got to Lee.

As he closed his eyes again, he imagined what the man who bit Johnathan had done with the flesh and muscle he ripped away. Had he swallowed it? Suddenly, Lee felt nauseous.

He hurried to the nurse's station and picked up the phone. Kelly sat at the desk, hunched over her paperwork, her pen moving slowly. Her face was gray like expired meat and dripped with sweat.

"Hey there, love, mind if I use your phone?"

The young receptionist looked up listlessly. "Sure, go ahead. Is everything all right?" More sweat trickled down her neck.

"Yeah, just something strange with my last patient. Said he was bit by someone. I just want to check on my wife and make sure she keeps the doors locked."

"Oh, yeah, right. There's been a few cases of those today. I had to help Jones out earlier. The guy came in all calm, didn't even seem to notice the chunk missing from his shoulder. And then, all of a sudden, he freaked out. Took four of us to hold him down. He scratched me good too, on my arm, but it's nothing to worry about. They checked it out and ran some tests. Seems fine."

Lee held the phone to his face as he stared down at her. He couldn't believe what she was saying. If that had been him, he would be nervous as hell, pacing back and forth, checking for the blood work results every other minute. God knows what the man could have given her, but she didn't seem worried about any of it.

He saw the tail-end of the wound on her arm from beneath her sleeve. Deep red blood bubbled and dried over the jagged cut. Lee pursed his lips together. He wanted to shake her and tell her to wake up as she stared off into the hallway with her lips parted and eyes glazed over.

Instead, he turned his back and dialed Anna's cellphone number.

"Hey," he said and continued without waiting for a response. "There's a lotta strange incidences today. I want ya to be careful. You should probably stay home. Lock the doors. Don't open for anyone."

"I'm on my way to my parent's house. What do you mean strange incidences? What's going on?"

"People gettin' bit," he said.

"Like by rabid animals?"

"No. People," He looked over his shoulder at the closed door containing the patient in question.

"Jesus," his wife whispered.

"Why are you headed to your parents? I thought you just went to see them yesterday." He was willing to talk about anything, even her parents, to get his mind off the look on the man's oblivious face.

"I'm going to tell them," she paused and took a deep breath while he waited, "that if they can't accept you into their lives as their son and love you as such, then I want nothing to do with them. You're the father of my child and they can't continue to treat you the way they've been. I'm sorry I let it go on for so long."

Lee's mouth hung open as he processed what she said. "What? Why...you don't have to, ya know? I'm fine with—"

"I know," she cut him off. "I want to. You deserve better. You're my family and I love you, and I always will."

Lee brushed his hand over his mouth and laughed silently. He never thought this day would come. He'd hoped for so long, but it was always a distant dream. "I love you too," he said softly. "You've no idea. This is..." He searched, but couldn't find the words to express his appreciation.

"Our child is so lucky to have you for her dad," she said. "And you be careful too, OK?"

"I will."

Anna took a deep breath as she pulled into her parent's driveway. "Here I go."

"I'll see you when I get home."

A moment of silence and then nothing.

