

Patient zero

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

Grabbing his chest, the man limped his way through the city. Bearing the burden of scared looks and even more frightened remarks, he was desperate in his journey to the hospital.

The pathetic shell of a man, his heart pounding out of his chest, sweating icy bullets while running a high fever, he all but gave up on his own existence.

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

He was already kicked out of three taxi cabs for his vomiting, the smell unlike anything he ever inhaled in his life. The cabbies took note of this too and were not shy in letting him know how they felt.

The disgust at his treatment by these people did not go unmatched; he spitefully smeared his puke all over the protective screens.

He grinned as best he could with his failing strength.

"That'll show 'em", he thought to himself.

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

He felt his heart smack into his ribs; it's pace slowing down ever so slightly. Each beat echoed in his chest, reminding him that he was still alive, but probably wouldn't be for long if he didn't find help.

Limping through the crowded city streets at night time, he regretfully allowed himself to vomit in front of a crowd waiting in line to get into a night club. The splatter hit several young, overzealous adults. Suffice it to say, it wasn't met with the greatest of sympathy.

A bottle left the hand of an angry patron and met the man's forehead. The rest of him met the pavement. He quickly went down and could no longer find the strength to get up. The lights grew fuzzier and brighter, and then, all faded to black.

"What the hell are we dealing with tonight?"

"Voices", the man thought.

"I don't know, there's barely a pulse, and he's running a fever, but his sweat is freezing. I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, that's comforting", the man thought as he felt his heart slam itself into his ribs again.

"Run an IV through him. That puddle of puke we found him in must have been his lunch AND dinner. Before we know what it is, we should at least feed him."

The man felt a prick in his vein. It felt dry. He could feel the needle scraping the vein and the cold liquid flowed through his body.

He began to black out again. The EMTs' panic made itself known very easily. He was in no mood to hear their worried words; he entered sweet oblivion, never to wake up human again.

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

That was the last glimmer of life in patient zero. What awoke would soon begin the collapse of modern society.

What awoke was no longer the man. It was a terrible demon that lived in the man's body. The virus that caused his suffering spread itself through the mucus membrane.

Bites, blood in a bodily opening, consumption of the flesh, etc. This was how the virus was spread.

The poor EMTs never had a warning. The machines, still hooked up to the man, did not offer any sort of warning that he was awake.

They were pulling into the hospital when the screaming erupted. The driver turned around to witness a "dead" patient's teeth tearing into the flesh of his co-worker and friend; he struggled to get his seatbelt off, but was too overwhelmed by the sights and sounds.

The sickening sound of flesh and bone being torn off his friend was enough to make him tear up while trying to free himself. The now disabled friend huddled onto the floor in the fetal position, the blood pouring from his wound offered him little time left in the world of the live. The second EMT had just grabbed a pen from his pocket to stab the patient, but it was no avail. His hand wound up in the man's mouth. His fingers soon wound up in the monster's stomach.

His sickening scream further lowered the driver's moral. The driver began to cry as he lost all control and began pulling at the straps of his seat belt, no longer able to keep his focus.

The monster threw its weight on the EMT who now only kept 6 of his life-saving fingers. The monster's hands clawed at the EMT's body. The EMT felt the monster's jaws land on his face, tearing off his cheek, and then his nose. All he could hear was gnashing jaws and flesh being torn from his face. The noise sounded much like clothes being torn at the seam. He cried at the loss of his vanity but never gave up the fight.

The monster's attention went to the driver. His cries had betrayed him. The monster got up from the EMT and dragged it's way over to the driver, who was still unable to release himself. The monster merely dug into his face, tearing off his nose with it's teeth. The driver's screams seemed to only feed the monster's blood lust as he now sunk his claws into his chest, tearing out chunks of flesh. The driver tried to shove the beast away, but only succeeded in landing his hand in it's mouth. His fingers shared some room in it's stomach right alongside his friend.

KNOCK , KNOCK.

The back of the ambulance opened up. Two nurses took in the terrible massacre, dropping the clipboard and allowing the gurney to roll away. The driver's screams were now muffled and sounded way too much like someone gargling mouthwash in the morning.

One of the nurses walked in and watched the monster dig into the driver.

The corpse of the first EMT stirred.

The nurse walked in slowly, stepping over the body of the second EMT.

The nurse standing outside began to call for help.

The monster turned to the nurse and began to make his way towards him; the driver was now lifeless and now held a few organs with teeth marks on them.

The nurse tried to escape, but the undead grip of the first EMT wouldn't allow it. He fell on his face, more surprised than anything else. It was when the first EMT's jaws dug into the nurse's Achilles' tendon that the nurse realized the full extent of the danger he was in. It didn't matter now, the infection was already pumping its way through his veins, slowly ending his life and getting him ready for his next.

His attempts to kick the EMT's grip off of him did not work as he felt another chunk of flesh be torn away and then another, and another...

The attempts to rescue and subdue the monsters in the ambulance worked, but resulted in many taking deep bites and scratches. Within a few hours, the entire hospital would be churning out these creatures by the dozen. Many terminally ill, sleeping, elderly patients would soon become new hosts to this virus and they too would join the throng leaving the hospital in search of new meat.

It would be a few hours before the world wakes up for work.

It'll be the last of nights when monsters only exist in people's dreams.

This was the story of patient zero and how it all began.

Matt

It had been a few weeks since the news made mention about patient zero, and much like all newscasts about disasters, the world had become jaded to the events at the hospital. Matt was no exception.

Ignoring personal safety, a news reporter went into the "hot zone" where most incidences of the "civil disturbances" had taken place. Matt sat on his swivel chair sipping a juice box. Being a 20-something, he still had a certain fondness for them, as well as staying home all day on the internet.

Matt watched the reporter, seemingly alone in the streets, shouting about the rise of these "disturbances" which involved the victim almost always getting pieces of them chewed off, sustaining deep scratches, and pretty much just messed up in some way. Matt had heard about this way too much. Sipping his juice box with indifference, he sat there watching the reporter.

"I AM HERE TODAY IN **BLEEP** , WHERE THERE HAS BEEN A RISE IN VIOLENT RANDOM ATTACKS..."

"Why did they bleep out where he was?" Matt thought to himself. "They never did that before, and why he is completely alone?"

The reporter continued.

"WE ARE ON THE STREET RIGHT NOW, WHERE THE TOWN HAS BEEN ALL BUT ABONDONED. STRANGELY ENOUGH,THE ATTACKS HAVE SPREAD TO OTHER ADJACENT CITIES..."

"Why do reporters always shout when they do the news?" Matt thought out loud.

Matt watched the reporter move around, of course, being followed by the camera with a lovely shaky effect. The reporter finds a resident dragging his feet, arms down at his sides, pretty much looking at the ground.

"This guy looks way off." Matt said aloud.

"WE ARE HERE WITH A LOCAL RESIDENT. SIR! SIR! EXCUSE ME, SIR! IF WE COULD HAVE A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME! NOW, MOST OF THE TOWN HAS EVACUATED, WE ARE WONDERING WHY YOU DECIDED TO STAY BEHIND?"

Matt watched the man slowly turn around, revealing congealed eyes and an open mouth with brown stains around his lips. Matt was grateful for the protection his television offered. The man became fixed on the reporter, who was now too busy looking into the camera to describe the desolate scene.

"uuunnh," Was the response that the man gave to the reporter. A low moan that you could hear scraping it's way through his throat.

The reporter put his microphone to the man's face and awaited an answer while talking into the camera about the man's bravery for staying.

There was a difference between bravery and foolishness and Matt could easily see the difference today.

In what looked like a few seconds, the man lunged at the reporter, his weight knocking him to the ground. The cameraman stood focused on the scene. He backed away and recorded the reporter's desperate screams for help. There was still time. The reporter was fending off the hungry beast. The inaction of the cameraman cost another life and added another infected to the ranks.

The camera caught it all; the reporter's screams as he desperately tried to slap the man away, his flailing kicks attempting to land a blow on him. It wouldn't matter though, these things don't feel pain. Matt had seen videos online of these things becoming dismembered and still marching on like nothing had happened.

Matt heard the sickening crunch, and watched the man chew off a chunk of the reporters arm, sleeve and all. The man screamed with tears in his eyes. His scream was heart rending that Matt had to turn away. The man screamed and cried at the same time, the camera caught the reporter reaching up to try and reclaim the piece of his flesh that the man was chewing on and swallowing right in front of him. The fingers, so close to his lost flesh, were gnawed off in front of the reporter. He had lost too much blood to keep fighting the man off.

The reporter stopped moving. His nerves kept him shaking. The cameraman slowly backed away from the scene. He was breathing heavily as he tried to make his way to the news van. He kept his eyes and camera focused on the scene.

There was another person breathing behind him.

He froze in his tracks.

He turned the camera and himself around slowly.

Right in front of the lens was a woman missing the flesh around her mouth and missing a cheek. Few sharpened teeth remained in her mouth and her clothes were torn and tattered. She was pale and her hair was almost all there.

"She's a fresh one," Matt thought.

The reporter dodged a lunge and watched the pathetic form of the woman fall over. She looked up and crawled towards him, reaching for his legs. He backed away, forgetting about what he was walking away from not a moment ago.

The reporter's corpse rose.

He and the man turned towards the cameraman, who spun around in just in the nick of time.

The sight of someone who was just obviously killed, risen and coming at you with extended arms is enough to shake anyone and the cameraman was no exception.

He dropped the camera.

He made a mad dash for the news van.

The blonde woman had finally grabbed his ankle and it sent him down to the ground. He desperately flailed around trying to kick her off. He succeeded in landing a few blows to her face, but her job was done. She bought the man and reporter enough time in catching their prey. One wouldn't expect much grace from the walking dead. The reporter fell on the cameraman who was already busy reeling in pain from have his leg chewed on by the blonde woman.

His echoing scream was being muffled by the reporter chewing out his cheek, his lips, and then pulling off his tongue. The cameraman's screams became a loud gurgling noise and Matt watched as his legs kicked with less and less strength, ultimately giving up the fight and allowing his death.

"Oh shit."

Matt changed the channel.

Jason and Dave

Jason and Dave had known each other for about 10 years now, so it was no surprise that one was at the other's house.

It was to everyone's surprise about what the news had just played. They both stood there together, stunned at the broadcast. They had not changed the channel and grew a bit afraid at the anchor's attempts to play it off as technical difficulties. You could hear the crew in the back chattering about the incident.

The friends both grew even more worried when they realized that the news van from the broadcast was in the next town over.

They were both aware that their town had taken in many refugees from that area and their area was growing less and less safe by the day. There were reports of a few "attacks" in the vicinity, but none of them had paid any mind. They knew better than to go out at night, especially around these times.

Jason turned to Dave, "Dude, what is going on? I don't even know anymore."

Dave replied, "I thought this was all a bit of a publicity stunt at first. I am a bit scared. I mean, seriously, doesn't this kind of thing happen in movies?"

Just then, a terrible scream rang out. Jason and Dave both ran to the nearest window. It was puzzlement or terror that kept them from looking away. Jason's neighbor, Beth, ran outside of her house screaming and flailing her arms around. Her bare feet smacking into the concrete almost echoed in the friends' ears. She began to grab at her shoulder; her blue blouse was stained with her blood, pouring out of a large open wound.

"Wait a minute, Jay, look at her hand." Dave was barely able to make out the words.

"Her fingers, they're gone. It looks like they were chewed off. We need to call 911 now!" Jason replied.

Jason ran to the phone, while Dave stood at the window, keeping an eye on Beth. Jason was having a hard time getting through to the paramedics.

Dave then saw what appeared to be her husband nonchalantly limp his way over to his bleeding wife. She screamed even louder as he fell on top of her and began...

"Jason, he's fucking eating her throat. There's blood everywhere. Oh my God." Dave yelled out at him.

"The line's busy. There's no help coming. How is she?" Jason asked.

They both heard her screams turn into a sickening gurgle noise. She was suffocating and choking on her own blood. Eventually, the noises stopped. They now just stood there as they heard her bones being crunched and flesh ripping up in his jaws. It was the loudest noise they had ever heard.

And then, the gunshots sounded off.

Behold, a Pale Horse.

"Repent, ye sinners of the new world. You have let our Lord down when he needed us most!"

The preacher was loud. His parish was full of screaming, desperate folk, many of which were bitten and losing a lot of blood or have become corpses on the ground.

"God is disappointed in us. God is punishing us! We disgust our Father. We spit in his face! We have man on man relations in our everyday life, women killing their unborn children. Sodomy is a joke to us now. It was a mortal sin in his time-!"

The people in the parish began to scream and throw their hands up in the air. They began to beg God for forgiveness. They prayed for their salvation. They prayed to be taken away from all this terror.

Their township was overrun with the walking dead. The reanimated corpses were fresh. They wandered the streets, limping, jaws open, ready to enjoy some fresh meat and to add another to their ranks.

Many of the church goers brought in their recently bitten friends and family. They knew at this point that a bite from the corpses was the cause of a virus that spread into their blood and turned them into one of the walking dead. They were also convinced that bringing them to church would cure them. It was all they had left. The hospitals had turned them away or had even wrapped up still-living bite victims in body bags and threw them into an incinerator. The family of the bitten wanted any shot at salvation.

"Pray, PRAY my brothers and sisters for the time is now. This is the time our judgment. We must stay pure for our Lord, for he is coming to take us."

The ones who were dead for a while were being awoken by the passionate preacher.

"When hell is full, my brothers and sisters, the dead will walk the earth."

The screams of the faithful became mixed with the screams of those whose legs and ankles were being bitten and chewed apart by the freshly awakened dead.

"REPENT, SINNERS, REPENT, OUR END IS NIGH!"

The screams of praise were no longer being mixed with pain. They were being drowned out by it. They became screams of sheer terror.

People began to fall to the ground as their legs became useless. They only served as a fresh meal to the undead. The flesh of the worshippers was being torn off right before each others' eyes. Mothers watched their children being dragged off slowly while having their feet and legs bitten off, piece by piece. The elderly put up the least fight but gave the most sickening cries for help. They were quickly overwhelmed. Their enemy was not yet standing. All around their feet, the dead crawled around, following their hungry and gnashing jaws to their next meal.

Amidst the chaos, a few noticed what was really going on. They stood up on the pews as the floor was quickly becoming a sea of corpses; the fresh kills, those who were living and flailing around for help, and the undead who were consuming them were almost impossible to tell apart.

Some people didn't stop praying. They didn't stop chanting. It was an orgy of cries for help, one that would go unanswered.

Many people tried to escape, but tripped over bodies and were quickly bitten and crippled. Having your legs and ankles ripped apart is a sure way to stop someone dead in their tracks.

One of the undead made his way towards the preacher himself. The preacher, still being a loud source of noise, was sure to attract some unwanted attention. The corpse, still dressed in solid grey suit, got up and began to limp towards the preacher. The holy man had his hands up in the air, praying for guidance and screaming for salvation.

He lowered his arms and his head just in time to see the corpse walking towards him. The man backed away in terror.

"C-Carl? What happened to you? Are you sick? We can fix you, just sit down." The preacher was nervous, His old friend, Carl, was missing his left cheek. His blood flecked teeth and jaw muscles were exposed. They began to open. The preacher backed away some more.

Crunch

The preacher howled in pain and fell to the ground. A young, blonde corpse had made a quick snack of his ankle tendons. The preacher, nearly blinded by the pain, began to punch at the body, who in turn continued to snack on the fresh wound. The preacher felt her jaws and tongue inside of his body. He felt her take away pieces of him in her mouth.

Carl fell onto him and finished what the blonde had started. Carl tore some veins out of his neck and the preacher's blood ran all over the carpet, the altar, and more importantly, into Carl's awaiting mouth.

Margie watched the terrible sight and prayed to both her fathers; the one in heaven, as well as the one being eaten several feet in front of her. Her father, the preacher, had instilled much faith in her, but no one could ever handle this sight. She felt tears rolling down her cheek, but became numb to the scene.

The congregation was in total chaos at this point. Many were attempting to flee through the small double doors. The smarter and more observant had already left. The blindly faithful had stayed behind, and for many, it was too late. They all pushed and ran and screamed at one another as they made haste to the parish's only double doors out front.

They could not get past each other and would not let the other out.

The herd of people fighting to leave looked like a novelty sized catering sandwich to the undead. They limped and crawled their way over to the loud herd. The one's in the back of the line were first to go. They were pulled off and quickly dispatched. A few of the dead wandered into the line. The terrified people didn't even notice the dead right next to them. The corpses just leaned in and chewed through people's throats. Blood spraying into the eyes of those still in line only added more to their fear.

Their screaming grew louder and only served to awaken the freshly dead corpses who were now making their way towards the meat.

Margie remained quiet. She was able to put two and two together. The more noise they made, the safer she was. They were beyond help. She needed to escape.

Margie, the pale, blonde young adult, stood atop the pews, knowing what might happen if she touched the floor. She began to think and to pray.

"Now isn't a time to lose faith. I can get out of here", she thought to herself.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..."

She began to pray to herself. It always helped her clear her mind in the past and now was no exception.

She began to think of another way out.

"...Thy kingdom come, thy will be done..."

She remembered her father's office behind the altar. There is a window she could squeeze through in there!

"...On earth as it is heaven..."

She gently hopped from pew to pew making as little noise as possible. She rationalized the situation by looking at the people trying to get out as a big, living hourglass. There was still plenty of noisy sand left for cover.

She ran out of pews to hop across and gently put her feet on the ground.

"...Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us..."

She looked to see if she was being followed or if she had aroused the attention of anything at all. Right now, even the desperate living were her enemy. If just one of those scared people saw where she was headed, they would bring the dead over to her and block her exit.

She crept behind the altar and saw the hidden hallway that led to her father's office. The cries of the people were getting lower and lower. She could now hear individual pleas for help.

She was running out of sand.

"...and lead us not into temptation..."

She looked through her father's office. Margie knew that things were only going to get worse and, at this point, anything would help her.

She opened the drawers in his desk.

"Come on dad, you cheaped out at Christmas. Give something nice. Show me you love me", she said as if someone else was in the room.

In the bottom drawer was her father's revolver. It was a small thing, but it would do. It was loaded. The weight felt good in Margie's hand. It gave her some sense of comfort.

She thought about the gun for a second. Why would a preacher carry a gun with him? Margie didn't care anymore. As far as she was concerned, it was a blessing.

She looked through the window she had come in here for and checked outside. There were a bunch of cars left in the parking lot.

"I should have tried to grab someone's keys back there. It's too late now." She whispered to herself and then sucked her teeth. She breathed in and held her breath. She opened the window quickly and ran out to the parking lot.

She forgot to finish her prayer.

"...And Lord, deliver us from evil..."

Tires suddenly screeched.

"Margie! Margie! Get in, quick!"

Mr. Fontaine pulled up in his red truck. There was room for one more.

Margie got in and they sped off. They were safe for now. She looked back at the church she practically grew up in and thought for a moment of those that were left behind. She remembered the times she had in there and how she saw pretty much all that she knew disappear in the worse way possible.

She had quick flashbacks of watching her friends and neighbors get pulled away. The noise those, those _things_ made when they bit into you.

She thanked God. It could have been her. She looked at her new companions and became drowsy.

"...Amen.

My Network

Matt spent the next few weeks online. He wasn't the only one that saw the graphic news report. The media tried to block it out. The reporter and his camera man were ghosts on television, but the advent of the internet made sure that no one forgot about it and was constantly reminded of it. The video was streamed all over and became a cult favorite.

What were these creatures?

Why are they spreading so fast?

Who was patient zero?

These were the biggest questions on the internet forums that Matt frequented.

Day by day, Matt would talk to his friends online. He lived his life as a loner mostly. He didn't have too many people close to him in the outside world. He worked out of the home as an IT support person and his weekends consisted of pizza and the occasional online game, along with sci-fi re-runs.

His online friends were his family, and to most of them, he was the same. As they tracked the "attacks", which the news called "civil disturbances", some of them began to disappear. They would always begin the same.

"Hey guys, the power has been going on and off here."

"I'm seeing a lot of sirens."

"My neighbors have been acting funny/gone missing."

"There are a lot of weird people walking around."

After that, Matt would lose another part of his family and his circle would shrink.

Within the course of a few weeks, Matt was down to a few friends, including his closest one. He actually knew him by name, Mark. He and Mark had been close for years and they both worried about each other. Matt knew that Mark lived west from his location and that was about it.

"Matt, there are a lot of weird people walking around my block. I haven't seen my neighbors in a while", the flashing instant message window flashed with urgency.

Matt felt his heart sink; he knew the signs at this point. He knew that he would probably lose his best friend soon.

"Mark, here is my address, there are a few brown outs here and there, but there haven't been any attacks here really. If you'd like, you can stay with me until this blows over."

Message sent.

Message not received.

User offline.

That was the last time Matt heard from his best friend.

"I-I'm all alone now, aren't I?", Matt said to himself. He had no one else to talk to. He texted Mark, but never got an answer and he would never receive one.

It wasn't until a few days later when Matt's internet access was cut off that he felt the stress of the situation. He had lost his pacifier.

Matt spent too long sitting at his computer, staring at the desktop. He clicked on the icon that took him to the internet, but the same thing over and over again.

"Page cannot be found. Cannot find server."

The computer seemed to mock him at this point. His mind quickly filled with fear. He was entering the mire that his friends had disappeared into.

"I'm next, I'm the last one", he thought to himself.

Matt held a glimmer of hope. He prayed his internet would come back, he prayed that he would hear from his last and best friend, he prayed that he would be okay.

He fell asleep in his chair. The loud and scary tone of the emergency alert system was blaring on TV. A muffled voice, difficult to understand, but filled with urgency warned whomever would listen.

Matt had a hard time understanding the message, "Do not...call authorities...contagious through bites, fluids, mucous membranes...head to Fort Edward...quarantine...travel lightly...avoid..."

The lights turned off, the only contact Matt had in what seemed like an eternity was gone. Matt looked outside the window to see the sun going down. The last rays of sunlight showed him all the glass on the floor, doors wide-open, boarded windows, and a body on the floor. Near his apartment, he saw bloodstains painting the street.

Matt finally began to panic; he felt his heart about to burst out of his chest.

He heard a man screaming in apartment above him. There are items being thrown around. Something breaks. The man is running. There is a thud. He trips. He screams, he screams at his pursuer. It is impossible to make it out. His screams get higher and are now filled with both fear and agony. He is crying. There is another thud, but softer. Whatever was chasing him must have fallen down on him. His screams fill Matt's ears. The change in pitch let him know that he is in mortal danger. The screams die down as they turn into sobs.

All is quiet again.

Matt heard running in the hallway.

"HURRY UP! COME ON!" Matt tries not to make himself known; he walks to his door and makes sure the door is completely locked.

He spends a few hours forcing himself to eat whatever food will go rotten soonest. There is no more power in his apartment now.

His heartbeat has been elevated the entire time. He fills up his bathtub with water and becomes lost in the noise of the water filling up and zones out.

"What happened to us? Is Patient Zero really real? What do I do?" Matt's thoughts were quickly interrupted by scratching at his door.

His heart sank in his chest. He heard heavy steps drag and saw the shadows under the door.

The moan echoed through his mind and he could even feel the scratches hitting his door in the back of his head. Whatever it was must have heard the water filling the tub. "It is a little loud", he thought. He walked over to the door and Matt heard the scratching get more and more intense and faster.

He looked through the peep hole and saw his neighbor, Stephanie, looking into the door, almost through it. Matt had a feeling something was very wrong. He decided not to say anything to her. She stood there, scratching at the door like a lost puppy.

A door down the hall opened up and Stephanie looked over. Matt saw that her cheek was dangling down and blood was slowly trickling down onto her blouse.

The unlucky soul who opened his door gasped at the sight and ran back into his apartment. Stephanie, sensing a closer meal, began her pursuit and left Matt's door.

Matt heard Stephanie scratching at the man's door, only he was trying to scare her off.

"Get away from my house! Get away you, you, you fucking monster!"

She kept at her scratching, unfazed by the comment.

A few hours went by.

Matt wiped down some empty containers he found in his garbage can and filled them with the water from the tub.

He was able to tune out Stephanie's scratching at this point since it was a little more distant and it wasn't at his door. He did hear a lot of movement on the floor above him. He heard someone dragging heavy objects near where the door should be.

"Smart if they're ready for a long term stay." Matt thought. Much like most people addicted to the digital world, he learned to de-humanize the situation in order to ease off some of the stress.

He tried to think of the situation as nothing more than a video game simulation, one he was determined to pass. He thought of people as other players and thought that the longer he can go without power, the better his score and the stronger he will become out of all this mess.

He smiled at himself for coming up with such a great idea.

"This is nothing.", he thought. He went around looking for items that would be of any use for the time being.

"That's it, that's it, that's FUCKING it!" Matt, unfazed by the random outbursts crept nearer to his door. It sounds like his neighbor could no longer take the psychological stress of the scratching. He was furious.

He wasn't thinking.

Matt heard the door open. He also remembered that the doors in the apartment opened inside. While his neighbor had his hand on the knob, Stephanie immediately threw her weight onto him and finally won her prize.

It was ironic, pure, primal instinct out did a being with logic and the ability to plan. Her simple scratching got him to open the door, caught him by surprise, and eventually lost his life and joined the ranks.

Matt listened to his loud screams, only seconds ago, full of rage, now, full of pain and fear. Matt heard some crunching.

He closed his eyes and thought to himself.

"One more player down. It could have been me."

Suddenly, the world became a little bit more real and he began to wonder how much longer his door could out.

How much longer could he hold out?

Do You Believe Everything You See on TV?

It hadn't been more than a few days since news of further outbreaks hit the front pages and clouded news programs all over. The emergency service broadcasts warned of power outages and gave instructions on where to go if outages affected your area or if you were bitten/infected.

"Why is it that if you're infected, they advise you not to go to a hospital?", Dave asked.

"Really, dude? 'Cause they'll probably take you somewhere and just shoot you. Remember that reporter? If I was a doctor, I wouldn't want to treat that.", Jason said back.

"I don't know, doctor? Really? You're more of a candy striper" Dave replied back, laughing at his friend.

"I didn't know they still made those. Thanks, Mr. 1950's", Jason came back. "But, seriously, we need to think of something because this doesn't seem to be getting any better. It just gets worse and worse and that bothers me."

"What makes it worse is that things keep getting closer and closer! We even have a curfew now, I didn't even have one of these when I was a kid!"

"Dave, it's tough, but it'll blow over. It has to. Oh shit man, what time is it?"

"It's about 10:45pm..." Dave said.

"Mind if I crash here? I don't feel like getting picked up by those cops. You heard they shot some drunk guy 'cause he was out late and limping around to get home? I don't even want to chance it."

"Sure man, go ahead. I felt like having a beer, and now that you're staying, I won't have to be pathetic and drink alone!"

"You're an ass...but, yeah, throw one over here."

A few hours had passed by. Both friends fell asleep after a few beers. They didn't notice the TV's steady beep. The text scrolling on the bottom was what every town that had become over run was playing.

THUMP

THUMP

Dave stirred a bit; it was 4:30am.

THUMP

THUMP

The house was dark. The only light was from the TV. It's steady beep was lost to Dave. The thumping noise was coming from the front door.

He was too tired to notice the text.

"Do not let anyone in. Beware of bites. Beware of infected. Head to your nearest evacuation site located on..."

Dave limped to the door

THUMP

THUMP

The noise grew more and more excited after it heard Dave's footsteps.

Jason began to stir a little bit. Something was wrong.

Dave looked through the small rectangle window on his door. No one was there. He began to walk back to the couch, letting sleep take his body again.

Scratch.

The noise echoed through his mind, "What the hell..?" He said to himself. He went back to the door and heard two hands scratching at the wooden structure. The noises grew more and more louder and more excited.

THUMP THUMP

SCRATCH SCRATCH

Whatever it was smelled him and grew aroused at Dave's presence. Looking through the window, seeing nothing, and hearing the scratching, Dave was confused and scared.

What was behind the door?

He opened the door slowly.

The door was pushed back with just enough force to knock Dave on his feet. One of the undead, with mangled legs, bone sticking out and blood still pumping through them looked at his meal. It pushed itself forward with it's gnarled fingernails. It's dragged itself closer and closer to Dave, letting out an excited and loud moan.

It grabbed Dave's legs. He kicked it away.

"Wh-What, Jay, JAY!!"

Jason ran over and froze for a second at the sight. It was a young adult, not much older than them. His body was destroyed, his legs were twisted and his clothes were torn. He had barely decayed if at all.

"Help me!" Dave yelled "Please! Don't just stand there!"

The monster snapped it's jaws at Dave's legs. He kicked it in it's face, knocking away a loose tooth.

Jason ran over and stepped on his head, smashing it into the floor.

Over and over again he stepped on the undead's head until it stopped trying to turn his friend into one of it's own.

Dave dragged himself away from it's now loosened grip and hugged his knees. Still on the floor, he looked at it and began to breathe heavily. A few tears rolled down his cheek.

"Jay, what was that? Did I just almost.."

"No! We killed it, you're fine. We're both fine!", Jason yelled.

They couldn't hide their fear anymore. The lives they had taken for granted and the safety they relied on was all but gone. Jason held in tears as hard as he could. He looked outside as he walked to close the door. He noticed three limping figures a few blocks away. They were drawn to the safety lamps of the house.

The irony was not lost on him.

He dragged the ghoul out by its legs into the middle of the street and quietly made his way back into the house and closed the door quietly and locked it.

Dave made sure to lock the other doors and draw the curtains.

Jason was in the kitchen, going through the cupboards. His eyes were red. Dave knew his friend. There was fear written all over his face.

"Hey man, now what?", he asked quietly.

Jason put a can of kidney beans on the table and squeezed it hard with one hand.

"I don't know man. I just, I don't know." Jason couldn't hold it back anymore, he cried softly a little bit.

"Hey, Jay, thanks, man. If you weren't there, I don't know man, they would have taken me to one of those hospitals and you know."

"No, we're fine man, and that's what counts. I wouldn't let them do that to you." He looked up and smiled, eyes still red, "you're welcome though, dude."

They both began to compose themselves and sat down on the couch. The steady tone was just background noise now, and it was also the only night in the house.

"We can't stay here forever. We don't have enough food and I saw a few of those things wandering around. Should we head to the evacuation site?"

"I don't know, Jay. I'm kind of scared to go outside with those things. Maybe we should wait until the sun comes up first before thinking of anything."

Jason got up and looked out the window. One of the limping figures was banging on a door several houses down. Dave came over to look. The ghoul seems to have caught some movement and walked over to the window of the house. It smacked the window a few times before it gave in. The crash echoed through Jason and Dave's bodies and they watched the creature climb inside.

A woman screamed. She cried. The screams were nothing short of pure terror. She managed to run outside.

The friends watched her run for her life, screaming for help. She was barefoot and her feet were already bleeding from the running on the hard pavement.

"PLEASE! SOMEBODY!!" Her desperate cries fell on deaf ears.

The ghoul limped after her. She ran away from it. The friends were sure to keep a low profile. She banged on every door she passed.

"LET ME IN! PLEASE!! IT'S GOING TO KILL ME!" They couldn't make out the last few words of her plea. They were drowned out in sobs.

"This isn't good", Jason said quietly.

"Do we let her in? We should help her."

"No! Look how that thing is following her, if we let her in here, then we have to deal with that."

"But."

"But nothing, man, I don't want to deal with that thing. Oh shit, look!"

Other ghouls that were invisible in the shadows made themselves known. The woman's screams were a beacon to them.

"Oh shit man, I didn't even see those earlier", Jason said.

The woman gasped and ran back, she tripped and fell down, she tried to crawl away. Dave pointed at what it was. Three more of the undead were in front of her. They were mere feet away, arms extended and limping quickly to their meal. They even had their mouths open revealing missing tongues and teeth.

She was slowed down, she crawled back into the original beast, the one that had broken her window. He fell on top of her and began to claw at her face and torso.

She screamed for help in vain. She screamed for her life. The other monsters caught up and enjoyed their meal. Her screams turned into cries of pain. They chewed meat off of her legs, making them all but useless. One of the monsters tore off a chunk of her breast with it's jaws. The original began to bite pieces off her face.

Her arms were flailing around as hard as they could. Eventually, they began to slow down and were merely twitching at this point. Her cries turned into gurgles and then became quiet.

The sound of the monsters feeding shook the friends.

This was real.

This was happening.

"So what happens now?", Jason asked.

"I-I, cant, I can't", Dave couldn't speak.

They looked out the window at the destroyed woman. There were still chunks of her remaining. She had one eye left and it was looking right at the window, right at them.

"Dave, could we have saved her?"

"No, man, you were right. We would have brought that one and it's friends that we didn't see."

"I wish, I wish I listened to you. Maybe we could have done something, you know?"

"Jay, we can't stay here much longer. We need to leave."

Looking out the window again, the woman's corpse began to make gurgling noises. Her arms moved and the friends watched her try to stand up. Her heavily chewed legs snapped under her weight and she fell to the ground. She began to crawl, dragging her body, looking for a meal of her own.

Other ghouls began to appear around the neighborhood. Her cries had alerted many, many more. It wouldn't be long until the sun came up.

"Find directions for the evacuation site, Dave. Write down the place. We need to get out of here."

Dave nodded and went to the TV to get the information.

"We can kill these things, right?"

A voice sounded off on the TV. The broadcast ended. It looked to be a press conference. An African American man in a white doctor's robe, stained with dried blood, stood at a podium. He looked among the reporters who were all standing and shouting questions at him.

A young female reporter with messy, short blonde hair caught his attention.

"Doctor! What are these things?"

"We don't know."

A young man with black hair wearing a blue blazer asked.

"Doctor, we have received reports that these people are coming back after being pronounced dead. Is this true?"

"Yes."

He quickly followed up.

"What is the cause of this?"

"We have had patients who after coming into contact with the infected, whether it be through bites or any other contact with the mucous membrane, or even killed by one of these...things, they become another."

An older, seasoned reporter asked, with a hint of desperation in his voice,

"Is there a cure or-or treatment?"

"We don't know."

The older reporter quickly asked another.

"Is there a way to stop them? Will this illness pass?"

The doctor paused and took a deep breath. He knew what reactions were coming.

"You kill them. You destroy the brain, smash it, shoot it. Don't try to talk to them. THEY ARE NOT HUMAN! THEY TOOK MY daughter."

He grew silent and pensive.

"They took her away from me. She was one of them."

The reporters grew angry. Some of them stood in their chairs holding their faces in their hands. Some of them visibly wept. Other shouted about ethics and inhumane treatment.

"Ethics?! ETHICS? You talk to me about mercy for these-these, ABOMINATIONS?"

The doctor grew angry.

"You talk to me about ethics, only after you've seen your colleagues get torn apart by them. You talk to me about ethics after you watched your co-workers and friends suffer and die and then turn into one of these things. You talk to me about ethics after you watch everything you have literally eaten in front of you!"

The doctor recalled his daughter's screams.

He looked down at the floor.

"No more questions."

The reporters yelled for more information.

"You destroy...the brain? Like smash it? There's hope, Dave! We can kill these things!"

"Doctor's orders.", Dave replied, gaining his composure back. "But, you first."

The sun was rising. The streets were lighting up. The blanket of darkness hid a few more of the undead.

"Dave, we really need to get out of here."

"I have an idea!" Dave lit up and ran off upstairs.

Jason waited and tried to think. He opened his wallet and looked through his items. It was a habit he formed to offset nervousness.

"$60, a bank card, a sandwich club card, driver's license, and a picture of Jesus. We're really going to need your help on this one", Jason said softly while looking at the picture.

Dave came back with a duffle bag he'd quickly put together.

"Dude, check it out! Remember when I worked at that summer camp a few years back? Check this out!"

Dave opened the bag and emptied the contents out on the couch. A few wooden baseball bats fell out, a hockey stick, some baseballs, and a catcher's mitt fell out.

"We could totally use this, Jay!"

"Alright, we need to gather some supplies though. Some food and water, you know things like that. The evacuation site is a ways away. Who's driving?"

Dave picked up a bat and swung it around a little.

"Well, Jay, I don't have a license, I lost it at this bar one time and.."

"Seriously? Fine, give me the keys."

Jason picked up a bat. It had a solid and heavy feel. It was red on the upper half and left naturally colored on the bottom half. It read "big stick" near the tip.

"Hey man, look!", Jason pointed to the wording. "How fitting right?" He laughed.

"Freud would have a field day with you." Dave replied.

"Dude, shut up. Give me the keys and let's go."

They both laughed a little bit. It felt good. Carrying the bats and the baseballs that Dave decided to leave inside of it, they left the house for the last time.

They quietly exited and made their way to Dave's blue sedan.

"Dude, this is the last time you'll probably see your house in a long time. We'll get through this and things will be the same again in no time."

"I'm ready, Jay."

Jason started the car. It aroused the attention of the nearby ghouls who limped towards the now speeding off car.

"We need to stock up. We should probably make a few stops." Jason said.

"Like where?"

"I was thinking...a mall?"

"What?! No!"

"Oh come on man. We could get some cool shit there, stock up on some food..."

Dave's stomach rumbled a bit

"Oh shit man, I forgot to eat!"

"Me too, so mall it is!"

Jason pushed the gas pedal down and zoomed past the blinking red lights. Dave's heart sank a little bit each time they passed a crowd of the undead. There were a few corpses picked clean on the road and several blood trails. Severed limbs were not uncommon either.

The car sped off. They had many more miles to go. They rode in a comfortable silence.

Margie

The church became smaller and smaller on the horizon as the truck sped away. It didn't take a genius to realize how bad the situation had become. The stop lights weren't working, but the shock of seeing all the carnage kept Margie from showing much surprise whenever Mr. Fontaine dodged a car or walking corpse.

Including her, there were five people in the car. Kara, the young makeup artist, Paul, a young grease monkey, clutching a bloodied wrench, Tommy, Mr. Fontaine's son, was shivering and covered in blood, and finally, Mr. Fontaine, who was just staring at the road, nothing could break his focus.

"Sorry about your dad, Margie."

"Thanks, Kara.", Margie replied.

Being the pastor's daughter came with a little bit of respect. She knew just about everyone who came into the church and thus, knew just about everyone who was reanimated and killed. Her father had a great reputation around the town, as did Margie.

An awkward silence that seemed like an eternity was interrupted by Mr. Fontaine.

"Any ideas as to where you kids wanna go?"

Silence.

Mr. Fontaine turned on the radio to break the silence.

Static ruled the airwaves. He pressed the "SCAN" button.

Eventually, a news station came up. They made no effort to hide the voices of the scared crew members. The anchorman was just audible enough to understand.

"The president has been taken aboard air force one to an undisclosed location. If you are in an area of much civil unrest, stay at home, do not unlock your doors, barricade your windows, fill your bathtub or any containers with fresh water, keep a radio handy. If you see anyone bleeding or with bite marks, avoid at all cost, they are infected..."

The broadcast continues. It only made the car ride a bit tenser. Margie put her father's revolver on her lap. It made her feel a little safer.

"Whoa, nice piece, Margie! Didn't know you had it in ya!", Paul said.

"Well, it was in my dad's office. I've never shot one of these things before."

"It can't be that hard. Just point and shoot. Pow, pow, pow!" Kara said jokingly.

Paul brought up his wrench. "It's more like, whack, whack, whack, with me, right guys? Right?"

Margie smiled at Paul's attempt. Kara smacked the back of his head.

"Ew! You're gross! I'll let that slide though, Paul", Kara laughed at him. The ride seemed to be a little less tense afterward.

"Well, I'm glad you kids are feeling better. How are you hanging in there, son?" Mr. Fontaine looked over at Tommy for a second. His silence made everyone a little bit on edge again.

"How do I feel? God has left us. He hates us. He didn't take us with him because we sinned, dad. We made God angry!" Tommy punched the window in rage. He began to bob his head up and down and muttering words to himself.

Mr. Fontaine shook his head in sadness. He slammed the brakes as hard as he could. Everyone jerked forward and then back. Paul's wrench hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Margie's mouth opened and she froze in terror. The scene was terrible.

There, on the highway, were cars stopped in an eternal traffic jam. Some of them were still honking. Many of them were dented and left open.

"Oh my God", Kara said to herself

"Shit, shit, shit!" Paul was getting nervous. He bent down and grabbed the wrench.

Margie held the gun tight.

Many of the cars were smeared with blood and had broken windows. In some cars, limbs were sticking out of them with some meat still attached to the bone. There were dozens, if not more, walking dead limping around the cars. The stopped traffic provided a near endless feast to the ghouls. The group saw a ghoul smash a car window and force it's upper body inside. The screams of the couple inside rang in everybody's ears. They all shook when they heard the scream get louder, almost certain she was being eaten alive.

"Canned food", Paul said.

Kara slapped him upside the head again.

"We need to move, fast. We're not gonna become like one of them." Mr. Fontaine's voice carried much urgency. Slowly, everyone got out of the car. They were standing on the highway and looking at the near endless line of cars and the horde of undead limping around trying to get at their next meal.

"Where are we going?", Kara asked.

"Anywhere but here!", Margie instantly replied.

"Just like your father, aren't you? You know how to use that thing, Margie?"

"Yes, Mr. Fontaine. Just point and, pow, pow, pow. Right, Kara?"

"Yes! Just like that", Kara smiled.

Margie felt a little safer in her group. Kara stood behind Margie and Paul. Mr. Fontaine reached under his seat and pulled out a lead pipe.

"Dad?", Tommy asked.

"What?! You know how many times this thing's saved my bacon, son? Now let's go. We need to get to wherever we can that's away from here."

"A few exits down is the Happy Oak gated community! We could check that out!", Paul seemed excited at this.

"Good idea, Paulie. We have a destination, now we need a path. Everyone, stay close and look after each other." Mr. Fontaine held the pipe out slightly, looking ready as ever, the group walked slowly between the cars. The highway was very high up above the ground, with little space to move around. Between the cars seemed best.

Margie seemed to be the only one who bothered to look off into the horizon, all she could see were destroyed cars, people trying to hide inside of them, people trying to get out of wrecked cars filling with smoke, smoke off in the horizon, corpses on the floor mangled, bones popping out of them, and more importantly, several of the walking dead milling around. They were trying to get at the delicious canned food on stalled wheels.

Margie wondered how a gated community would hold up in a situation like this, but she couldn't be choosy. Right about now, she was counting her blessings that she wasn't alone. Having a goal is better than just walking around aimlessly, especially in a time like this, she thought.

"Come on, Margie, we need to move," Kara said worriedly.

Margie trudged on with the rest of them, moving at a slow and steady pace between the cars. They tried not to disturb the dead that were banging on the windows, trying to get at the people inside.

"They're plenty distracted. We just have to keep cool and we should be alright", Paulie said quietly.

Everyone took special caution to watch for bodies that were crawling around under the cars. If the smell was any indicator, the dead have been here for at least a few hours, and given the circumstances, these legless bodies are more dangerous.

You can't hear them.

Mr. Fontaine led the group through several more rows of cars. They stopped when they heard banging coming from inside one of the cars and a muffled voice.

"Please, please, get me out! I can help you, please!" The voice came from a young woman who was obviously struggling with something in her car.

"Oh my God, I'll help you miss, we won't..", Kara interrupted Tommy.

"What the fuck did you do that for?! Can't you see she needs us!?" Tommy started to raise his voice and Paulie covered Tommy's mouth with his hand.

"Dude, come on! This isn't the best time!", Paulie said in a hurried whisper.

The group froze for a second. They suddenly became aware of dozens, if not hundreds, more people trapped in their cars, banging the windows and begging for help. It was mostly in vain as the banging only served to attract more undead to them.

"Look", Kara said, motioning to the woman's arms.

It was hard to see past her wide open blue eyes. Her blonde hair was a mess and her clothes were torn.

"Oh shit...", Paulie said.

Tommy grew silent. "L-let's just go, I've seen enough".

In the car with the woman was a baby wiggling around on the floor, the baby's mouth had blood pouring out, it almost looked happy. The young blonde mother's leg was covered in small, but deep bite marks. Her wide eyes not only showed fear, but knowledge of what the infection does to it's victims. It was only a matter of time.

She became aggressive.

"PLEASE! LET ME THE FUCK OUT! PLEASE HELP ME, HELP MY BABY! YOU CAN'T LEAVE US LIKE THIS!"

A few of the undead turned towards the noise.

"Oh shit, shit shit.", Paulie said in a normal voice.

Margie held out her gun and shifted from target to target. They began to limp towards the group. Mr. Fontaine smashed the infected mother's window with his pipe.

A loud crash was the desired result.

"Perfect, let's go , LET'S GO!!" Mr. Fontaine hoped his plan would work.

"NO! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING! NO, DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!"

The undead turned away from the fleeing group and began to make their way towards the louder source of noise.

Marge saw Mr. Fontaine biting his lip. He regretted his choice, but when it came to preserving his and the groups' lives, he had to be ruthless sometimes.

"I'm sorry." He said under his breath. Margie was the only one who heard it.

The group heard the infected mother screaming as her flesh was torn away from her body.

They tuned it out as best they could. Tommy was most shaken by it. He froze in his tracks and turned around. There were still a few undead in pursuit of the group.

"Tommy, let's go! What's the matter with you!", Kara pulled at him. He turned around and followed, lagging behind.

"Just a few more miles and we're golden", Paulie said with confidence.

The screams stopped.

The shuffling of more ghouls urged the group to proceed a little faster. Mr. Fontaine went on ahead of everyone keeping an eye out for anything. He prided himself on being a bit older, as well as a bit wise as the rest of the group.

"These kids need me", he thought, as he went on several feet ahead of them.

"Dad, slow down!", Tommy spoke loudly. It wasn't quite a well, but it was higher than his normal voice.

Mr. Fontaine heard him but kept going. The group was fine so far. Kara jumped at corpse inside of a car banging on the window.

Margie noticed the creature and quickly thought to herself, "How long would that person be in the car for?"

It was a teenage girl, just like her, but faced with unfortunate circumstances. Margie didn't know whether to pity or envy her at that moment. She was safe where she was, and she was also put out of her misery. She would not have to deal with this new world anymore. She got out early.

The banging of the teenage ghoul became more and more distant.

The cars began to rock around and the windows were now being slammed with the undead fists of their recently deceased hosts. Mr. Fontaine was barely in sight of the group. He was on the lookout for the exit to safety as well as other walking corpses that would threaten the safety of his pack.

He clutched his lead pipe hard. It took some of the edge off.

Margie held her gun tight, safety off, finger off the trigger, and pointing to the ground. She figured that with the speed of their enemies, she wouldn't have any need to draw it out quickly.

"FUCK! FUCK! HELP ME!", Mr. Fontaine screamed. Everyone looked around for him. He was so far ahead that Kara looked one way when he yelled and Paulie looked another.

"DAD!", Tommy yelled, "Where are you?!"

A corpse was twitching on the floor with a crack in its' face lay at Mr. Fontaine's feet. However, he was being grabbed and pulled against a car as another ghoul pushed him and began to bite at him, desperately trying to get a snack.

Mr. Fontaine tried to wrestle himself from the corpse's grip, but it's freshness made sure that most of it's muscles were intact and they were more than enough to pin an old man down.

It was a young man in a dress shirt and tie. He was trying to evacuate straight from his job, however, he was unlucky and became the enemy.

"For fuck's sake! Help me! Tommy!", Mr. Fontaine saw the group running towards him.

Margie saw something in the corner of her eye.

"Shit", she said to herself. "All of his yelling is attracting a bunch of them."

"Dad! Hang on!", Tommy was getting close to him, jumping over corpses and weaving through cars, with tears in his eyes he ran to his father.

"Tommy! Get this guy off of me!", Mr. Fontaine yelled desperately for his son, but the distraction was a foolish mistake.

"Tommy! Aaah! No..", Mr. Fontaine had taken a bite to the throat. Tommy watched as the hungry ghoul tore off a piece of his father's throat. He and his mortally wounded father both watched the creature greedily chew and swallow a vein that kept blood pumping to his head.

"Dad. DAD!", Tommy whined, kicking the ghoul over and letting his father fall to the ground. Tommy stomped the creature with angry tears in his eyes. Mr. Fontaine tried to get himself up, but was grabbed by a crawling ghoul. The creature grabbed his forearm, making his efforts to get up futile and proceeded to take a bite out of the weakened man.

Tommy was too busy kicking the young businessman to notice his father gasping for attention. One of Mr. Fontaine's arms was at his throat, desperately trying to keep the blood in his body. The other was being torn apart by the hungry beast.

Another crawling ghoul, smelling the blood, slowly made his way to the dying Mr. Fontaine and began to chew on his leg. Mr. Fontaine just watched the abomination chew off pieces of his leg through his trousers. He laid his head back and let himself die. It was far too late for him.

Mr. Fontaine was the first to go. His last thought was that he wished he could have seen his son and his herd make it to safety.

He breathed his last breath and left this world.

"Dad! No, no, no, come on, get up!", Tommy, so filled with grief, did not even notice the monsters still eating his father.

Paulie made it to the scene and kicked the ghoul off of Mr. Fontaine's leg.

"Tommy! What the fuck is wrong with you! Get that shit off of him!", Paulie yelled to Tommy.

Tommy could only look at his father's mangled body and weep. He fell to his knees.

Kara and Margie made it to the scene.

Kara covered her mouth and gasped at the horrific scene.

Margie stomped on the monster's head that was still tearing bits of flesh and muscle off of Mr. Fontaine.

"Guys, I'm sorry, but we need to go. All the noise, just, just look!", Margie said. The stress in her voice was very obvious.

"Oh shit, look, they're all coming here!", Kara said, pointing at the throng of ghouls coming at them from between the cars and some more crawling on the ground.

"Daddy", Tommy uttered.

"Come on ,we need to go. It wasn't safe here before, but now, hiding isn't even worth it. They're coming from ahead of us too. I don't think we can make it to the gated community now. Fuck, man", Paulie said. His voice was becoming somber and quiet. He was losing faith.

"Let's take the next exit off of the highway. It's our last chance. We can't possibly make it through here now." Kara looked at the ghouls slowly marching towards them ahead of them. Turning around, she saw the larger horde slowly descending on them.

"Dad-dy", Tommy said slowly.

Margie checked her gun. She had five bullets, only five. She looked at the horde and at her gun. She decided to only shoot four if it ever came down to it. The thought made her shake a bit, but she would not want to end up suffering like Mr. Fontaine did.

"GOD! I'M SORRY! I HAVE SINNED! TAKE ME, YOUR FAITHFUL SON WITH YOU UP TO HEAVEN!" Tommy got on his knees and began to scream as loud as he can.

"GOD! YOU HAVE TAKEN EVERYTHING I HAVE FROM ME. PLEASE LORD! TAKE ME WITH YOU! DELIVER ME FROM THIS EVIL!"

"Tommy! No! Shut the fuck up man. You're bringing more over here!" Paulie was filled with anger. He looked out into the distance and saw more zombies crawling towards them. They came from under the cars, the freshly animated ones. Others were beginning to rise from the corpse heaps on the ground.

"Tommy! Stop it! You're going to get us all killed", Kara said. Unable to yell, she pleaded with him to stop.

Tommy tore off his shirt and continued.

"TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS WORLD. OH LORD, TAKE ME AWAY. I AM HERE! I AM A MAN MADE IN YOUR OWN IMAGE! I WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THE DEVIL'S ARMY THAT ATE MY FATHER!..."

Margie's eyes opened wide, she and everyone else were in trouble. She cocked back the hammer of her gun. She turned around quickly.

A freshly risen ghoul, awoken by Tommy's "prayer" has arisen right behind Margie. She pointed the gun to the monster's face and fired her gun.

BANG!

Four bullets left.

The creature's brain matter sprayed everywhere, and with a fresh hole in it's head, the monster was down and would not be getting back up again.

The group, save Tommy, was walking towards the nearest highway exit faster and faster.

Tommy stood there, screaming to the Lord for help.

Paulie smashed a nearby zombie's head with a hammer.

"TOMMY! CUT IT OUT! WE NEED TO GO!"

"Tommy! Come on! This isn't funny anymore! We need to go!"

Paulie and Kara said, respectively.

Margie ran to the group, the ghouls were gathering fast, she ran past the kneeling Tommy. She had her back to Kara and Paulie.

"We need to leave", Margie said.

"What about Tommy? We can't just leave him here!"

"Fuck him. Let's go. He's not right. We need to leave! That exit doesn't have too many of them. We can run past them!", Kara yelled.

"Margie, come on!" Paulie urged her to go. She didn't know what to do.

"He's attracting way too much attention. Someone needs to kill him!"

"WHAT?!", Paulie and Margie said at the same time.

"You heard me, he needs to die. All his yelling just keeps bringing more and more of those things to us. Our lives are in danger!", Kara said.

"No, it's not right. We can't just kill Tommy. We need to get him to come with us", Paulie almost pleaded.

"Margie, shoot him! Kill him! If you don't, we all die! Kill him!", Kara yelled

Margie held up her gun. She had Tommy's head in her sights. She scanned the area and saw almost two times as many ghouls raised by Tommy's noise. She turned around to Kara and Paulie. Margie saw a sea of zombies, attracted to the noise, coming in their direction. It would take about 10 minutes for them to meet their destination.

"Margie, no, don't do it. Come on, get him to come with us! Make it better!", Paulie stood pleading. Margie didn't want to look into his eyes.

"No, kill him! He's trying to kill us all!"

"Don't shoot him! Margie, please!"

"He needs to die now!"

Margie stood there, now shaking. The devil and angel were on her shoulders, but the choices weren't cut and dry. She let their voices drown out and she began to pray. The right choice would come to her, but she didn't have the time.

"God is good, Jesus saves. God is good, Jesus saves."

She opened her eyes and the choice was clear to her. It wasn't perfect, but it would buy them all enough time.

Margie lowered her father's gun.

"We need to leave. Let's go. Head to that exit. We'll find a hiding spot."

Margie ran past Paulie and Kara. She had spared Tommy's life.

"What? What happened?", Kara asked as she began to run. Deep down, she was a little disappointed in Margie's choice.

"I'm with you, Margie!" Paulie was only glad that he didn't see Tommy die in front of him. He began to run with what was left of the group.

"If I killed him, he would have stopped making noise. We would have lost our distraction. If he lives, he makes a lot of noise, calls those monsters over and he buys us a lot more time. He's more useful to us dying than he was alive. He would have been excess baggage", Margie blurted out as she was running.

The group stood quiet for second. Kara and Paulie both agreed that it was the best idea, even though it pained Paulie much more than Kara.

Tommy's cries could be heard and while they were getting lower and lower, their passion remained the same.

There was a pause in his praying.

A blood curdling scream rang through the air.

It turned into a half sob and scream. It was full of pain.

The group kept running to their unknown destination. Anywhere was better than where they were.

Margie shed a few tears. It was obvious what had happened to Tommy. She hated to think about it, but it was a reality.

The group began to slow down. There was no immediate threat. They all took a chance to look back at the highway. Smoke was rising in their air and they could see a large mass of off the undead moving about. They were still heading to the source of noise that was Tommy.

"What's that over there?" Kara pointed off into the distance. A large building was in the fog.

"That's the mall. It's probably the only thing fun to do in this town."

"Fun or not, we should probably hold up there for the night. Hopefully it won't be too bad in there", Margie said

"Well, mall it is. Let's go", Paulie said.

They all began walking to the big, imposing building. Margie looked back one more time.

"Bye, Tommy, and good bye, Mr. Fontaine. Thanks for everything", Margie said silently to herself.

Creature of Habit

It had already been a few weeks since Matt locked himself in his apartment. He used to hear muffled voices, talking, and even screams of more neighbors being lost to the enemy. He sat in the corner. He had already lost some weight since he began rationing what was left of the food. His apartment stunk as the water he saved in the bathtub slowly became stagnant and rancid.

The noises that were his neighbors became shuffling steps and pained groans. He didn't know what more to do with himself. He noticed that where voices used to be, the moans and shuffling came from. As a result, Matt hadn't spoken in some time.

He would sometimes return to his computer, mostly out of force of habit. Sometimes, just for fun, he would click on his inbox and read the old e-mails. It was his only link to what was the outside world. It gave him some comfort and made him a little emotional to read and remember what life was before the world went to shit.

He then blinked and saw the screen was off. It was off for weeks. It was one of very few rituals left that kept his sanity in check.

Matt wiped a single tear from his eye.

"I miss them", He thought to himself.

He heard his stomach growl a little. The noise startled him a little bit. He made his way to his refrigerator. Knowing that there was not much in it, he carefully weighed the decision to open it or not. There was a small temperature difference in there. Opening it could mean a few hours or even days lost to some freshness.

"Fuck it. If it's rotten, it's rotten", Matt thought.

He opened the ice box.

The cold cuts looked slimy. The yogurt, Matt chuckled to himself; he grabbed a cup and looked out the window.

He turned back to the refrigerator and only saw baking soda and shriveled vegetables. Matt grabbed a carrot and a tomato, he saved the cabbage since it had very little mold on it.

Matt put his "feast" on the counter. He closed the refrigerator.

He took the spoiled yogurt to his window and looked both ways. He spotted some ghouls wandering around by the building. They were in range from this height. He wound his arm back and hurled the rotten yogurt at one of them.

"Bulls-eye", he thought to himself. He smiled.

He watched the cup splatter and spray its contents all over the monster. It lazily tried to smear the stuff off of itself but soon gave up.

Matt thought about how long it'll be covered in the goop, maybe until it rains, or forever if it stays inside of a building or something. Whatever, it was all he had left for entertainment.

Matt bit into the carrot. Carrying both vegetables in his hands, he took turns biting into them. They were both dry and spongy. He tried not to think that he could be eating mostly fungus. As long as it sustained him, he didn't mind. However, he knew that he had maybe one day's worth of food left with the cabbage and he wouldn't dare touch the rotten cold cuts. The water wouldn't last very long anymore, the smell was getting very bad and there was a film on the surface of it.

He slumped in a corner, taking a few bites and thinking of what to do about his situation.

"I have to leave", he thought.

Matt gagged a little bit when he bit into a bunch of fluff. He knew what the fluff was and he spit it out and started coughing. It made his throat burn. He did what he could to stifle the coughs, but his body demanded it. He was surprised with how loud he sounded. Maybe it was because of how quiet he had been lately.

Matt definitely had to leave now. The noise would surely bring unwanted attention. Maybe it was psychological, but Matt heard some shuffling from higher floors heading to his direction. He got scared. He didn't know what to do. They were closing in and he needed help. What would he do? Who could he call? What should he do? What should he bring?

Matt's heart began to hurt. That slowed him down. His years of inactivity were a mixed blessing. His out of shape heart anchored him and caused him to slow down a bit. His thoughts cleared up.

"The shuffling wouldn't be here for a while", he thought.

"I have some time to get myself together and leave. I need to get out of this apartment", Matt said to himself in a soft voice.

Breathing hard, he supported himself by placing his hand on the wall as he slowly made his way into his room to search for something, anything, that could be of use to him.

Going through his closet, he found a hockey stick covered in dust that his parents gave him years and years ago, back when his Dad had hopes of him becoming a pro athlete.

Matt laughed to himself and swung the stick around. The dust that flew off of it brought him back memories of how his mother would scold him for leaving his room so dusty. He fought back tears thinking of how those were now his good memories.

He put on winter boots even though the weather was comfortable outside.

"Everything counts, I guess", he quietly said to himself.

He made his way to the front door of his apartment. Placing a hand on the door knob, he took in a deep breath and looked at his apartment. He thought how he may never come back again...ever.

Just as he was about to turn the knob, he felt a crisp breeze caress his face. He looked at the window and at his fire escape.

"Wait a second." He said.

Clutching the stick hard, he walked over the fire escape and took a look around.

He saw a few ghouls milling around the entrance of the building. He laughed a little as he saw the zombie with yogurt splattered on his head.

"I doubt some people will need whatever they left behind at this point." Matt spoke to himself at a normal voice since being outside offered him a sort of freedom.

"First, I need food." Matt's rumbling stomach agreed with him.

He slowly walked down the creaking fire escape, again, taking a last look into his apartment.

He gathered his courage and tiptoed down the metal structure. To his surprise, a few of the windows were boarded up with small viewing slots. He highly doubted that the people inside would help him in, let alone take down their defenses. Some of the boarded windows, the few that were there, had boards crudely torn off of them, some had half a board taken off and blood smeared on them. Matt heard loud shuffling and items behind dropped.

"No way, how would the monsters get in?" Matt realized that for some of the boarded windows, the people inside had unknowingly trapped themselves with an infected family member or neighbor.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, trying to imagine their final moments.

Matt thought it was best to not even go near the boarded windows, shuffling or not, surely the people inside would be a little paranoid and rightfully so. Last thing he needed was some sort of sharp object or well intentioned bullet to hit him.

There were just a few floors left to look through. The lower ones didn't seem to be boarded up for some reason.

Looking through the first clean window, he saw a neat living room everything in place and looking spotless. This made Matt scared. Gathering more of his courage, which he was surprised he had, Matt knocked the window with his hockey stick. The closed window offered protection against any beast that would pop out.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

He waited.

Nothing.

Tap, Tap...

Nothing.

Matt tried to open the window, and with no surprise, it was locked. His stomach rumbled. He needed to take a chance. Matt smashed the hockey stick into the window. It only cracked. The loud noise rattled his skull, but he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth and hit it again.

It cracked.

Again.

A small gap.

Again.

A large enough hole to go through.

Matt cleared the glass by running the hockey stick along all the corners, making it much safer for him to pass through. He didn't hear any shuffling and didn't see any of the ghouls on the street taking much notice of him. He took a deep breath and went inside.

The living room was immaculate to say the very least. All the couches were perfectly arrange, the place was still decorated and nothing seemed to be out of place. There was a spot of dust here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. Matt walked through the place very carefully. Who knows what could be inside?

The door was chained shut, so no one left and he remembered that the window was still locked.

"No one came in from the outside. But the lock... does that mean no one left?", He whispered to himself.

"What if they were infected and stood behind?" Matt began to enjoy talking to himself.

He checked every corner, being sure to look behind himself every few seconds. He found nothing. He looked under the couches, behind the TV, and even poked the hockey stick through the closet.

Now for the bathroom.

"Which one of these is the bathroom?", he whispered.

He carefully knocked on the first door that he walked by.

Silence.

Carefully turning the knob, Matt ventured in slowly. The toilet was clean, the sinks were dry, and the shower curtain was partially drawn. It offered him enough room to see that it was empty.

Matt breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good.

Only one more room to check...

Walking to the last door in the apartment felt like an eternity. Matt's heart was racing. He kept reassuring himself that the apartment was quiet, so there would probably be an empty room behind that door.

His palms were sweaty, his knees grew weak, and his arms turned to limp noodles. He could barely hold onto the hockey stick.

He let his hand rest on the door knob for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and turning the knob.

He pushed the door open. It creaked ever so slightly. Inside there was a bed with a netted drape hanging over it. Matt squinted his eyes and barely noticed two figures under the drape.

A breeze that tickled his face startled him. He gasped and picked up the hockey stick.

"Wind. Only the wind." He muttered to himself.

The figures under the drape were motionless; the wind was the loudest thing in the room.

Matt, never showing his back to the figures, crept over the window and closed it. It shut hard, too hard.

Matt locked up and started at the figures, expecting them to rise.

Nothing.

He went over to them and pushed the drape aside with the hockey stick.

His fear quickly changed, he lowered the stick and moved the drape back with his hands.

"Aw, shit." He felt a tear welling up in his eye. For a moment, he finally forgot about his hunger.

He fell to his knees and wept for a few minutes.

Under the drape was an older couple, forever asleep and holding hands. Both were dressed in their absolute best. The husband was in a suit and tie. He even had wilted flower in his breast pocket. One hand was laid on his chest and the other held his wife's hand. She had a small smile on her face and a dried tear on her cheek. She wore a beautiful white dress that was flawless. There was barely any light in the room, yet the dress shone brighter than the sun.

Matt looked at the table. There were two large, empty glasses and a bottle of old wine. Beside the bottle were a prescription bottle of sleeping pills. It was completely empty.

"Couldn't save any for me, huh?", Matt said to the old man. His eternal expression was enough for Matt.

"Fine, I'll let it slide", Matt said to the corpse.

"You guys got off easy, you know. I don't have anyone. I gotta deal with this on my own."

Matt took a last look at the couple and choked back the emotions. His hunger slowly returned and if he didn't do something about it, he would surely share their fate, albeit, a bit more painful.

Matt closed the drapes and closed the door.

He wiped the last of his tears from his eyes.

"I gotta get out of here before it gets dark." Matt paused

He heard a cough.

"What was that?" He brought the hockey stick up to his chest.

"These things don't cough..."

The noise came from directly below him. It went from the single cough to full on crying.

Matt didn't know what to do.

"Am I going crazy? Aren't I the only person left?"

It had been a long, long time since Matt heard another voice that wasn't calling for help.

"Hello, HELLO? Is there anyone up there?!" It was a muffled female voice. Matt knew the sound of desperation when he heard it.

Matt stood there in awe. What should he do? Should he go to her? The sound of her voice would surely attract unwanted attention. He couldn't hold himself back. He needed human contact. It had been too long.

He left the apartment through the fire escape.

Road Trip

Jason and Dave were still a bit shaken up about what happened in the house. Dave, clutching the bat, looked at what was left of their hometown. The sky seemed to be permanently gray. The sun was out, but it wasn't there. Maybe it, too, gave up on humanity.

Dave looked at the plumes of smoke rising to the sky and watched the limping forms moving about the roads.

Jason smiled a little bit, "I spy with my little eye...something beginning with the letter Z!"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Zombie?"

"Sounds about right."

Both friends noticed that there were no cars on the road at all. Not even parked.

"This is kind of freaky, Jay. Where are all the cars?"

Jason stood quiet for a second.

"Well, maybe they all went to the mall, OR, while trying to skip town, they ran into THAT traffic jam..."

Jason motioned to the distant highway that led out of town, it was a bit far off, but they were able to see all the outlines of several cars, all stopped in their place.

Dave was able to make out a corpse that was on it's knees and half eaten beginning to stir.

"Geez, Jay. Ever think, why is this happening here? Why couldn't it be somewhere else? Why us?"

"I don't know. All I know is that we have to get to the evacuation site and get the hell out of here."

"You're right. Do you think things will ever go back to the way they were before all of this?"

"America usually sorts all shit like this out, dude. I wish it were somewhere else, but before we think about that, we need to survive."

"I'd like to think everything will go back to the way they used to be", Dave replied. He looked out the window and saw a group of the creatures biting into a corpse. He was a bit concerned at how jaded he had become to the sight already. He thought of how it could have been him. He was lucky that he wasn't alone in the house when the monster got inside, or else...

"Dave! We're almost here! Look alive, man."

"Alright."

A few minutes later, the friends pulled into the mall parking lot. The huge lot was littered with zombies milling around. Some were missing arms, others were staring at the sky, and more were banging on a few of the cars that were in the parking lot.

Dave noticed movement inside of one of the cars.

Jason turned off the car and the sound of the engine going quiet had Dave look at the ignition key out of reflex. They both nodded at each other and stood in the car observing their surroundings.

Looking at the rear window, Dave noticed a silhouette of what appeared to be a young girl locked in a silent scream and moving around the car in a pattern of desperation.

"Oh shit" were the only words Dave could mutter. Jason held him back as Dave tried to leave the car and help the shadow.

"Dude, come on, we can't take all of those. You know we're gonna get all their attention if we leave", Jason painfully said.

Dave nodded. His friend of over ten years always knew what to say.

Dave sat down with a sullen look on his face, thinking of what to do. Just then, the friends both jumped at the noise of glass shattering.

One of the ghouls had broken through the window and reached inside, it was promptly joined by other hungry monsters.

The screaming made both friends wince and close their eyes hard. They heard the woman's feet kick the metal frame of the car. They couldn't make out what she was screaming. Her noises only acted to call more of the ghouls over to her.

Dave looked up in time to watch two of the zombies pulling at the woman's leg. Her screams only grew louder and louder, pulling more of them to her. They began to grab at their next meal. Dave watched as two of the zombies pulled off her lightly tanned leg. He watched her silhouette recoil back in a terrible scream. He watched her try to pull back the severed leg.

Dave heard the door of the car pop open and he felt a hand grab him. He jumped and looked over.

"Come on, now's our chance!", Jason said with urgency.

Both friends grabbed their weapons and got ready to make a dash for the mall.

Dave couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene of the now weakening girl still trying to grab at her leg. She was watching it be eaten by the zombies that grabbed it while others tried to get at the rest of her.

They both left the car. Most of the zombies in the area were distracted by their noisy meal. The friends ran by many of them

Keeping their bats ready, they ran through the lot, passing the woman in the car. Jason caught her reaching towards the both of them as they ran by. In that split second, Jason's heart sank at the futility of her situation, but deep down, he was grateful. Her sacrifice caused them to live for a while longer.

He was glad Dave didn't see that.

The woman's screams were getting weaker and her movements were slowing down. They needed to get to the mall. Fast.

"We need to hurry, before we lose our distraction!", Jason said with urgency.

Dave nodded. They both ran as fast and quietly as they could. Their running would have looked funnier to an outside party, but to them, it was all about staying alive.

The glass doors of their new temporary home grew closer and closer as a few of the walking dead seemed almost oblivious to them. Others hungrily limped towards the screaming car.

Jason stopped to look back and saw the woman weakly reaching the stumps that used to be her legs. She was painfully looking at the ghouls eat them right in front of her. Jason caught sight of a zombie pulling at her outstretched hand. He felt a sharp pull and quickly drew the bat.

It was Dave.

"Come on, it's open! And put that thing down!"

Jason ran in, unable to shake the sight of the woman.

The mall was dark. Barely any light was getting through it's huge windows. The friends stood quiet, but it was hard since they could still hear the zombies beating on the car where the woman was. It was only a matter of time before the zombies discover anyone else who may be hiding in the other cars in the lot. Jason grabbed his pocket and felt Dave's car keys inside of them. They were still there. He smiled a little bit at this.

"So, now what, Jay?", Dave asked

"I'm really not sure, but while we're here, maybe we can find something useful", Jason said. He began looking around the mall, holding on tightly to the bat.

Dave pointed to a flickering sign.

"And this?"

"And this, could be very, very handy." Jason ran his finger up and down looking at the directory.

"Well now, I think we should get some new clothes, don't you think?", Jason said.

They both looked down at their disheveled and old clothes.

"Yeah, that could work", Dave replied, holding in a little bit of laughter.

It was good for the both of them to laugh a bit. It took some of the tension of the situation away slightly.

"Alright then, that'll be our first stop, and whoa, hey now. Check this out."

"What?"

"Tanzili's Gun Emporium, top floor."

"I love it, it's a toy store for grown-ups!"

"Alright, let's get some new threads and get us both some new toys."

"This pleases me, dude", Dave happily said. "Come on, my clothes smell like ass."

"Well, we have the Bulls-Eye men's clothing emporium on the bottom floor. Clothes first, guns later?"

"That sounds about right to me", Dave instantly replied.

They heard faint noises; several fast steps in the distance.

"Shit man, you think we're alone in here?", Dave asked quietly.

"No, let's keep quiet and make this quick, and just in case, be ready for anything."

The steps were still far away. They sounded too coordinated to be from anyone who had already died and returned hungry.

They walked down the escalator, slowly as not to make any noise. Their first stop was to get themselves out of their smelly and sweat covered clothes.

"Well, here it is. Bulls-Eye" , Jason said pointing his bat at the sign.

Dave tugged at the door.

"It's locked."

"Hey, I saw this in a movie once. Stand back", Jason said excitedly.

A bench suddenly flew through the large paned window of the shop and slid a few feet.

"There dude, instant entrance", Jason said, while cleaning out the glass around the bottom with the bat.

"Whoa, how did you do that, Jay?" Dave was in awe.

"Well, remember all that protein I've been taking and all that time at the gym?" Jason replied.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing to do with it, that bench is light and isn't bolted down."

"Ass."

They both climbed in through the glass keeping an eye out for any movement.

"Think that exploding window brought any zombies over?" There was some fear in Dave's voice.

"No. We didn't see any on the way here. We should be okay. Whoa! Check this out!", Jason replied while pointing at the hat rack. "We could always use some hats, and well, we have the end of the world discount!"

Dave put on a golfer's hat.

"Hey look! I look like a jack-ass!", Dave said to Jason.

"Yeah I know! And that hat doesn't help." Jason said mockingly.

"Ass."

"Oh man, check this out!" Jason put on a suede black cowboy hat with a chin strap. "Now THIS is fucking awesome! Here, there's one for you, too!" Jason handed Dave a similar hat, only in brown."

"I love this thing!" Dave said while stroking the brim of the hat.

"We need more than hats, Dave", Jason said. "Let's see what we can find."

The friends spent a long time going through the aisles, throwing shirts on the floor, unfolding pants, and generally being any retail employee's nightmare, if there were any left to be annoyed with them, that is.

Jason put on a tight, solid black t-shirt with a pair of good-fitting, dark washed boot cut jeans. He topped it off with a brown, hard cloth jacket with many pockets. He found a pair of brown sneakers to top it off with.

Admiring himself in the mirror, he called to his friend. "Dave! Find anything, yet? We need to keep moving!"

Dave crept out from within the aisles wearing light washed jeans, white sneakers, and a brown torn jacket which barely covered the form fitting "#1 Grandpa" shirt.

"Oh my God, Dave, seriously?"

"What!? It fits and I crack up whenever I see this shirt!", Dave quickly replied.

"Well, if you insist. We probably won't be coming back here anytime soon, you know."

"I'm good, Jay", Dave replied with seriousness in his voice.

They both took a look at their clothes, that looked much older than they really were, while they stood looking lifeless on the store's floor. It was a poignant moment for them. There would be no coming back to the store. They both walked out quietly

"Jay! Let's head to Tanzili's Gun Shop!", Dave broke the silence.

"Come on. Let's go. I need something loud that goes great with this outfit", Jason said.

Walking up the escalator slowly, the footsteps they heard earlier were much more hurried and accompanied by some noise. All they could make out were muffled voices and the sounds of something soft getting pounded.

"Jay?", Dave quietly said.

"Just keep quiet for now. We don't need any needless confrontation. Let's just stay quiet, get what we need, and head out", Jason replied back while looking in the direction of the noise.

"Right", Dave whispered.

Climbing up the escalator grew more and more tense between the two friends. The noises weren't stopping and the voices were barely audible. All they could make out were hostile noises. It was at this point where they didn't know if they should be more afraid of the living, rather than the dead.

"Do you think it's pirates?", Jason asked.

"Pirates? Like, with swords and parrots?", Dave replied with a hint of sarcasm.

"Yeah, kind of, you know, without the boat?"

"Yes, Jay, pirates are in the mall. That's exactly where they'd go. Not to peoples' houses, not prying open the cars, but yeah, they'd come to the mall to steal your amazing hat. Yes, Jay, those are pirates", Dave ranted.

"...Ass", Jason replied back quietly.

"Hey, hey whoa! Check this out!" Jason whispered excitedly. "There are some copies of that book I wanted to check out on display; 'Deviant', a story of sex and sexual addiction." Sounds interesting enough.

"Sounds kind of hot", Dave replied, uninterested.

Flipping through it, Jason replied, "Sounds kind of boring." And he soon tossed it aside. "Come on, one more floor to go before we hit the gun shop."

The friends arrived at the gun shop. The store's sign was a simple "Tanzili's" on a dark wood background with a picture of a pistol after the S. Jason tugged at a door, only to find that it was open. The lock was broken. Ironically enough, it was shot off.

"Well, shit", Jason said as he slowly and effortlessly opened the door.

Dave ventured inside, bat at the ready, but it didn't matter. The store was all but empty, save for a few old and worn looking weapons. There were bullets scattered all over the floor and glass reflected softly in the light.

"Let's take what we can and get out of here. We need to get to the army site before they leave without us", Dave said.

Jason grabbed a 9mm pistol from the floor. "You're right", he said as he released the clip and checked for bullets.

"Do you know how to use these things?", Dave said in a surprised voice. To his knowledge, neither of them had ever played with guns before.

"Well, no, but I've played a lot of video games", Jason replied.

"Oh", Dave said.

Dave looked at the walls and noticed that almost all of the gun accessories still remained. There were many holsters of different colors and textures. There were even slings left on the walls.

"Jay, look. I think we can totally make use of these", Dave said excitedly.

"Something is kind of off, man" Jason said. "Why is there such a mess around the guns, but all the tools and accessories are fine? If the people here had ample time to get ready, you know, in a zombie-free place, wouldn't they have taken a few things and left the store the way it was?"

It was then that both friends looked outside of the store and noticed cracks in the windows that they thought were in great shape. There were traces of blood on the floor, but not enough to be a dead body. There were also torn pieces of clothing scattered around the mall.

"Shit. Sometimes you need to be more afraid of the living than the dead in these kinds of situations", Dave said.

"Well, I got a C in Philosophy, so I say we just take the guns and get to the army site", Jason said back.

Dave found a few handguns left in the glass case under the counter. They were under a pile of glass which would explain why no one grabbed them in their haste. He brushed the glass aside and laid 4 of them out on the counter.

"These are all nice and simple 9mm handguns, Jay."

"Good find!", Jason said excitedly.

Taking two holsters each, both friends helped each other put on the gear and stored the guns they found into them. They each took a few seconds to admire how each other looked.

"We're badass, dude", Dave said.

"You know what would make this MORE badass?" Jason said.

"What? Bigger guns? A flame thrower? Oh! A bazooka!", Dave said, practically jumping up and down.

"No", Jason said as he pulled out a gun from his holster. "Bullets. See if you can find any."

The both laughed at themselves for looking over something that important. However, their laughter stopped when the noises that they heard from earlier started to get much, much closer.

Both of them knew that they had to be quiet and thus they were. They both knew what they were looking for and needed to get them fast. They didn't know what to be more afraid of more: desperate, living humans, or hungry zombies.

The gentle ringing of a bullet hitting the floor began to sound off in the store.

Dave had found several boxes in almost plain sight. He then began to wonder if the last group of people that were here made the same mistake he and Jason did.

Just as Dave was about to turn to Jason and tell him of his find, he saw his friend standing over him, holding a shiny, chrome, single barreled shotgun and a desert eagle handgun.

"Oh, you found the bullets", Jason said to a wide-eyed Dave. "So I guess you get first pick."

Dave, without a word, motioned towards the shotgun.

"A fine choice, sir. Hold on, I found a bunch of shells in a random box behind the counter." Jason handed Dave half a box of shells, it wasn't much, but it was great for getting out of a pinch.

Jason looked at his new toy. He had found 4 magazines full of .50 caliber bullets for it.

Dave motioned towards the bullets that he had found. The friends spent a few minutes gathering the bullets and putting them into clips they had found strewn about the store. Each friend wound up with about 6 full clips each. Jason stored the rest of the stray bullets.

"You never know, dude", Jason said, pointing at his full pockets.

Dave's smile quickly faded when the noise of glass shattering and scurrying feet made themselves known practically outside of the store. Both friends looked at each other and turned pale.

They heard faint voices, both male and female outside the gun shop. They couldn't make out what the voices said, but they were definitely there.

Jason went out to investigate.

He saw a silhouette running at him.

The light was behind the figure.

He couldn't see a face, just the form.

It got closer.

It stuck out it's arm.

Jason stuck out his.

Dave heard 2 gunshots and a body hit the floor hard.

"Jay?!"

Are we there yet?

Margie, Paulie, and Kara were tired. They had spent the last few hours both running and walking and hiding. Some cars were driving off road, shooting at anything that moved. Any distant outline of a human went down whenever the trucks went by.

"What the hell are those things?", Kara said.

Paulie looked at the navy blue truck going by.

Margie cringed when she heard the people inside screaming victoriously and making cowboy noises.

"They look like vigilante squads. They kill anything that moves since they probably think it's a zombie", Paulie worriedly said.

Margie sensed the worry in his voice and clutched her gun tight.

"So, that's good right. They kill those fuckers and step by step the world goes back to normal. It works", Kara replied back quickly.

"Normally, that'd be fine, but did you see that last one? I don't think one of those dead things would wave it's arms like that and then cover it's face when it sees a gun", Paulie said back, now his eyes wide open, keeping a look out for that truck.

"We need to get to that mall, and fast. That truck might circle back and we could be next", Margie said. She began to walk faster towards the mall now. It wasn't too far anymore.

"What do you guys think happened to Tommy?", Kara said sadly.

"Why should you care? You wanted Margie here to kill him!", Paulie yelled back.

"It was for his own good! He was gonna die anyway! It doesn't matter!", Kara defended herself.

"But, still, it's not right. He could have had a chance. You don't know with these things!", Paulie said back with tears in his eyes.

"I should have killed him", Margie quietly said.

"I should have shot him right in the head", Margie said louder

Paulie and Kara got quiet. They were both stunned.

"I could have put him out of his suffering and been done with it. God would have forgiven me. I was showing mercy to him! He had lost his father and I could have made it so that he joined him sooner, but now he's probably just like one of those things! He's doomed to walk the earth for...", Margie began to rant, Kara cut her off.

"Y-You did the right thing. If it wasn't for that distraction, we would all have a bunch of those things on our tails right now. We would not have been able to get this far", Kara said back with sympathy in her voice.

"Tommy, Tommy was nuts already. He probably wouldn't have done much good. Maybe even done more harm than anything else if we left him. I think Kara's right. You did the right thing, Margie", Paulie said back without any anger in his voice.

Margie nodded. "Then how come it doesn't feel right?", she whispered to herself.

"YIP YIP YIP YIIIIP", echoed through the group. They all became paralyzed with fear.

"I GOT SOME MORE HERE, JEB!", a deep southern accent yelled.

The blue truck sped towards the group quickly, kicking up dust behind it. The group ran as fast as they could towards the mall. It wasn't too far now.

"Th-The noise. Won't it attract those things?", Kara forced out.

"Yeah, it will, we need to get to the mall, and fast!", Tommy yelled.

Crack

Crack

"YIIIIP YIP YIP! YOU BETTER RUN, YOU SUM BITCHES!" Those words echoed as hard as the gunshots to the group.

One whizzed by Kara's head as she dropped to the ground.

"KARA!", Margie yelled. She stopped to pick her up.

"Come on! HURRY!", Paulie yelled. He slowed his run to a jog so the girls could catch up to him.

Kara grabbed his hand. The crack of the gunshots rang through their minds and seemed to echo for an eternity.

Margie ran past Paulie and Kara and hid part of her body behind a tree.

"Margie, what are you doing? We need to get to that mall right now, it's our only chance!", Paulie yelled.

Margie ignored him and uttered a short prayer. She drew her gun and held it out with both hands.

"Lord, let my aim hold true. Protect us in our hour of need."

She carefully lined her shot, growing more and more anxious by the second at how close the truck was getting. Margie saw the man in the passenger seat pointing his rifle at the biggest target.

He was aiming at Paulie and Kara.

With the driver in her sights, she fired, but she heard two shots.

The truck swerved around before flipping over several times, rolling a few dozen feet.

Paulie fell to the ground, screaming in agony.

The rifleman in the passenger seat managed to hit his mark.

Paulie was shot in the leg. Kara was able to catch him before he hit the ground. She carried most of his weight as they continued to limp past Margie, who was still stunned at what she had done.

Kara was right though. Many of the ghouls that were freshly killed and, ironically enough, some of the victims of the men in the truck were beginning to come to and descend on the wreckage.

Margie kept her gun on the wreckage. "Come on! We need to move!", she yelled to Kara and Paulie. He began to get alarmed at the amount of blood he was losing; he was having a hard enough time holding in the pain.

Margie stood behind as Kara, with Paulie putting much of his weight on her, hobbled by as fast as they could. With her arms getting tired from aiming at the doors of the wrecked vehicle, she began to see a shambling hoard of the undead descend on the doors. Margie heard the screams of those trapped inside as they were torn apart. She ran away, feeling like the zombies were doing a good enough job disposing of the twisted living.

Margie succeeded in hearing the gunshots ripping through the flesh of the zombies, but failed to see one that made it out of the vehicle and ran off ,leaving his friends behind.

"Get inside, GET INSIDE!" Kara yelled to Paulie. The mall's doors were still open. Throwing all caution to the wind, Paulie ran through the doors, not even looking at his surroundings. Taking his actions as a sort of sign of safety, the girls followed in with him.

Suddenly, the group heard the noise of glass being shattered, it sounded like a store window and something heavy falling to the ground. They heard glass being cleared and two male voices talking in the distance.

"Let's stay away from them. Who knows if they are friends of those guys outside", Paulie whispered while grabbing at his leg.

"I don't know. The voices didn't sound hostile", Margie replied.

"Guys, we need to find something for Paulie's leg. It just doesn't look good", Kara said. "We should go to Bulls-Eye. They would definitely have something for him there."

"Alright, let's find a directory and head over to Bulls-Eye. Maybe we'll find something useful and maybe some change of clothes, too."

Kara ran over to a flickering directory.

"Look, there are different stores here. There's a gun shop around here, too! Let's go!", Kara panted while she spoke.

Paulie was getting pale. His injury was worse than the group had thought.

"Is there anywhere we can get some sort of first aid for Paulie? He looks real bad", Margie said.

"Guys, don't worry. It's nothing. Just go find something to arm yourselves with. This place.."

He paused to breathe.

"This place, just gives me the creeps."

Paulie coughed up blood.

"Paulie...", Margie said.

"There's no time. We need to find something that'll help us", Kara desperately said.

The group heard heavy breathing and dragging feet behind them. Margie turned her gun at where the noise came from, but nothing.

The group, with Kara carrying Paulie, proceeded into the mall.

While they scampered into the mall, looking into the shops, all destroyed and emptied out, Margie began to imagine the scene where crowds of people were running around, trampling others, breaking windows and taking everything, even if it wasn't useful to them. She shook her head trying to clear her mind in the thought. Only when she slipped in a small pool of blood was when she was knocked right back into the thought, only she was living in it's aftermath.

The noise they had heard before grew louder and louder and was followed by low mumbling.

"Margie, did you see anyone get out of the car?", Kara asked with obvious fear in her voice.

"No, I saw a bunch of those _things_ going into it, but that was..."

Crack

A gun shot rang into the air and Paulie got much heavier.

The air around them grew quiet and time froze.

Paulie fell off of Kara and hit the floor hard.

Margie turned back just in time to see the lone survivor of the wreck aiming his rifle at the group. She stopped breathing when she realized that he had hit his mark.

Paulie was dead.

"RUN!!", Kara yelled and immediately dashed in a random direction.

Margie stood there, staring at Paulie's corpse. Not even a minute ago he was talking and hanging on to his life. She found it ironic that it was another survivor, not one of those beasts, that claimed him.

Realizing where she was, she ran after Kara.

"I'll get you all, y-you killed them. They were all I had, you dumb bitches." The voice of the twisted survivor rang in both Margie and Kara's ears.

They ran towards the direction of the noise they had heard earlier. The shattered glass would prove an obstacle for the crazed man.

The girls ran. The last two of a once medium-sized group, without direction through the mall, ran up a flight of stairs, seeing the broken glass.

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!", the man yelled.

The girls ran through the glass, Margie taking the lead. She ran to a dark figure, wearing a hat. She outstretched her arm towards him and he extended what looked like a gun at her direction.

Unable to choke out any words Margie left her hand in the air.

Kara looked behind them and saw the man standing at the end of the hallway. He struggled with something on his shoulder. He was in extreme pain. Kara saw blood pouring out of his shoulder and onto his clothes.

The man with the hat shot his gun and the crazed survivor shot his gun into the floor. He went down.

So did the freshly resurrected corpse of Paulie, with a chunk of the man's shoulder in his mouth.

The man with the hat had shot the zombie.

Margie jumped onto him and they landed on the floor. Kara could not take her eyes off of the dead figures.

"Jay?!"

The present danger was all but over. Margie quickly got up and the man in the hat, pushed her down and held the gun at her.

"A-Are you one of them?", he stammered.

Margie's breath left her. She was scared.

He pulled back the hammer.

"ANSWER ME?!", he yelled.

Kara ran over with a strip of metal from the floor, screaming loudly, she slammed the stranger in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.

He fell to the ground again near Margie.

"KARA!", Margie yelled.

"He was going to kill you! I can't lose anyone else, not like this", Kara replied.

Another man ran out of the shop with a shotgun in his hand.

"Jason?! Shit!" He held the gun at the two girls.

"Who-Who did this?!", he yelled.

"I-I'm sorry", Margie said quietly.

He pointed the gun at her and motioned the girls to stand together. He went over to his friend and nudged him with his foot.

The man on the floor stirred a little.

"Get out of here! The both of you! Just...just go!", he yelled.

Kara and Margie ran off.

"I'm sorry", Margie said again.

He lowered the gun and the girls, more assured of their safety, ran off down the stairs.

"Where do we go now?", Kara said.

"I don't know. Just, out of here", Margie replied.

Dave

Dave stood over Jason's body, looking around to make sure any danger was gone. He walked over to the man's body. He kicked the gun away.

The man looked up at him, breathing hard. His face was discolored and covered in veins.

He mumbled some fevered gibberish.

Dave was no expert, but he knew what would happen in a few minutes. He looked at the huge bite mark on his shoulder and knew that the man was infected.

The man looked up at Dave with pleading eyes.

"I-I'm not dead", he managed to make out.

Dave looked down at him and pushed his head to the floor with the front of his shotgun.

"You're not dead, but you deserve to be", Dave quietly said.

He used every ounce of strength and looked at his vulnerable friend.

He looked out the window and pulled the trigger.

Bang

The deafening sound of the gun caused Jason to stir a little bit again.

Dave looked down and had to hold in the nausea he felt. The man's head looked like a split watermelon, bits and pieces of him stained the walls, as well as Dave's #1 grandpa shirt.

He sighed heavily and walked over the zombie that bit the man. He noticed it was motionless with a big hole in it's head.

"Guess those video games paid off, Jay", Dave muttered. Finding no need to waste another shell, he looked at his best friend lying on the floor.

"Come on, Jay, wake up. Please." He knelt beside him. "Wake up. We can't stay here too long."

He began to sob quietly.

"Please, wake up. I-I can't do this alone. Please, wake up."

He knelt beside his friend, despite the shuffling noises that were closing in on them.

Over the Deep End

Matt cautiously approached the source of the noise, going slowly down the fire escape.

"I wonder if I could survive a fall from here", he thought to himself. He briefly thought of jumping over and ending this madness. He turned his head and decided to keep going.

He heard a gentle tapping at a window below him. He had his weapon in tow, ready to strike at whatever it was.

When he arrived, he had found an emaciated young woman, trapped in what appeared to be a bathroom. There was a shower rod holding the door shut, and what looked like piles of feces scattered around. The shower curtain was bunched up in the tub, looking like a makeshift bed.

When she saw Matt, her eyes opened wide and she let out a loud and piercing scream. She began to bang on the window with her open palms. Matt looked at her, making sure there were no bite marks.

He held a finger to his lips, trying to get her to quiet down. Matt had spent so long trying to be as quiet as possible and this was the loudest source of noise he had heard in a while.

Her noise brought about the realization of Matt's fear. He looked down and saw a few zombies responding to her noises. Also, Matt noticed the shower rod had fallen down in the bathroom.

Matt looked at her and tried to open the window, but nothing.

"I know I'm not this weak. Come on, Matty...", he said to himself as he used every ounce of strength to open the window, but nothing.

Looking at the window again, he realized that it had been nailed shut. A hammer lay near the hysterical woman.

"THE HAMMER! USE THE HAMMER!", Matt yelled. The noise hurt his vocal cords.

She was too hysterical to even consider using the tool.

The door behind her burst open and in came an older couple with pale skin and terrible open and festering wounds on their arms and face. They dragged themselves over to the woman.

"NO!! NO!!", Matt yelled.

He began to punch at the glass. Feeling it crack gave him hope that he could save her.

It gave him the hope that he would no longer be alone.

The monsters descended on her as Matt was about to break the glass.

He watched them sink their teeth into her neck, blood pouring down her body, then out of her mouth. She began to choke on it and with her weak frame, unable to fight, she let herself fall to the ground.

Her hand stood at the glass briefly, Matt pressed his hand over the cracked glass where her hand was, until it dragged down to the floor.

"No...", Matt said to himself. He began to weep quietly.

The window shattered, spraying glass everywhere, cutting Matt's face and his hands and arms.

The second ghoul, not content with the skinny girl, shoved it's arms through the weakened glass, tried to pull Matt inside.

Matt shut his eyes as hard as he can.

"NO! NO! NO!", he yelled at it. He opened his mouth in pain as he felt his arm open and drip with blood.

He felt the slicing sensation burn into his mind and then into his arm. Blood poured all over the ghoul's mouth as she tried to get his fingers into her hungry and barely toothed mouth.

Matt grew pale at the sight of all of his blood. His arm inside of the room, it was dripping all over the dead girl's face, into her eyes and mouth. He pulled as hard as he could, but the pain was too much.

"Oh God, Oh God", he said.

With his other arm, he grabbed his weapon and shoved it into the ghoul's face. She released his arm as she fell backwards.

Claiming his arm back, he held it close and felt the blood drip all over him. He grew dizzy and pale with the loss of blood.

"Fuck, am I going to be one of them now? Did I...lose?"

All of the gruesome sights since the infection broke out came rushing into his mind all at once. Time stood still. He felt something crack.

He began to laugh loudly while looking at the hungry zombies trying to make their way onto the fire escape.

"FUCK YOU!", He yelled as he slammed the head of the female zombie with his hockey stick. The force was enough to split her decayed head apart, her face peeled open like a split fruit. He saw her brain.

"DESTROY THE BRAIN, DESTROY THE HEAD, DESTROY THE BRAIN, DESTROY THE HEAD!", Matt yelled, as he swung the stick again into her, finishing her off.

"FUCKING BITCH!", He yelled at her. He stepped inside, smiling at the sight of the male zombie eating the girl he had just tried to save.

Matt mumbled something under his breath that even he could no comprehend. He raised the stick, and paused so that the zombie looked up at him.

He wanted to look into it's dead eyes when he destroyed it.

He swung the stick down with enough force to break the front of it off, it was now a pointed wooden rod. The front was embedded in the zombie's head. He slumped over, dead again.

"HAHA!" Matt was lost in himself. The thought of becoming one of them was enough to push him over the edge.

He looked at the corpse of the girl, she had not yet turned.

"It's all your fault. I was just fine before..." He had stopped to jam the pointed end of the stick into her head. "Your stupid ass made that noise and then I had to come and be the white knight."

He tried to remove the stick, but it was stuck in her head. Placing a foot on her head, he pulled the stick out and smiled at the sickening sucking noise that followed.

"You deserve this, NOT ME!", he yelled at her corpse.

He made his way into the house, through the open door, dragging along his broken weapon. He passed by two more zombies in the kitchen, but they didn't matter. They gave their shambling chase.

"FUCK YOU!", he yelled at them. He continued walking, a trail of blood making the zombies' chase all the easier.

He walked through the hallway banging on every door and making as much noise as he could.

"COME ON! I'M HERE!", he yelled to his invisible audience.

"I'm not gonna be one of them. I'm not gonna be one of them...", he muttered in between his shouts. He went down the stairs of the building, pushing the monsters away with his bare hands. Shoving them down the stairs and watching them fall alongside him as he fearlessly walked down.

Walking down the stairs, he would peer into the hallways, seeing the zombies milling around.

He banged the stick into the wall.

"COME HERE, YOU...FUCK!", he would yell at them.

The noise assured that they followed him down. At last, he was in the main lobby; he could hear the zombies he had pulled from various parts of the building slowly making their way down the stairs.

The sick grin he wore across his face never left him as he looked on the hastily barricaded door in the front of the lobby.

"COME IN! COME IN, ALL OF YOU!", he yelled as he pulled the various objects blocking off the door. Matt smashed the glass panes before he pulled the doors open, throwing the objects that were barricading the door a second ago into the street to make some noise. He called out to the walking dead.

Undead from several blocks away heard his noises and began to make way to the building.

Matt never stopped once to think if there were any survivors barricading themselves in their apartments, but he didn't care anymore. He was infected as far as he knew and he wasn't going to become one of them.

He looked at the stairs, the sick grin still on his face. He began to see the first of the dead making their way into the lobby.

He ran over to the shambling monster and shoved the pointed end of his broken weapon into it's head.

He laughed hard and loud at the slaughter.

"I AM NOT YOU!", he yelled at it. He watched it go down and he stamped his foot on it's head, feeling it's decayed and soft skull give way under his foot. He took a sick pleasure from it.

He saw a door that read, "staff only" on it. He ran to it and turned around for a quick second. The open door was allowing dozens of zombies into the lobby; he didn't have much time now.

He ran through the door, stabbing a zombie waiting inside quickly with the weapon.

He saw a hot water tank, with the pilot flame still lit. Near it were several natural gas pipes and a large propane tank.

"COME ON!", he yelled with a great urgency at the monsters.

Looking at the dated water heater, he pulled a large metal lever all the way into one direction. The flame grew huge and the lever snapped off.

A few of the undead made their way into the room.

"You're all going to love this", he said to them.

The big flame in the corner of the room lit things up nicely, he was able to see each and every decayed feature on each undead ghoul. Missing teeth, pieces of bone sticking out, blood trails all over the floor. He was clearly not the first in here.

"This is it, the end of all things", Matt thought to himself as he smiled at the undead walking towards him.

He counted at least forty of them walking in and in the lobby from what he could see.

Matt didn't say a word. He just smiled his sick, little grin and began smashing the natural gas pipes that were along the walls of the room, he heard the telltale _hiss_ that showed his plan was working.

The huge fire began to flicker and the air began to stink.

He lifted the propane tank and turned the knob, a loud hiss sounded from the tank. Matt held it high over his head. All the sound left the room. All he heard was pure silence.

It was the most blissful and calm moment that Matt had experience since it all began. He breathed in deep and smiled.

He took a second to look at his injury.

It was then he noticed the single slit going down his arm. He wasn't bitten, but scratched from the window.

"Well, fuck me", Matt said. Looking at the horde approaching him, they closed in on him and grabbed at his arms and clothes.

"The end of all things...", he said quietly as he felt teeth sink into him. He threw the propane tank into the flame.

He heard nothing at all, but saw only the white flash.

"The end of all things..."

Karma

Kara squeezed Margie's hand hard and ran with her.

"We need to leave this place, and NOW!", Kara yelled.

"Wait, Kara, we need to go back for them. They weren't infected. They can help us!", Margie said as she tried to pull her hand back.

Kara threw her hand down.

"Listen! The exit is right there. We need to get out while we still can! Who knows how many of those things are out there right now!", Kara exclaimed.

"Look, they are attracted to noises above all else, Kara. I'm sure we can all find a way to distract them and come out with people that can help us!", Margie said with hushed urgency.

"Margie, I'm done with you, and I'm done with this. If you're going to stay in this...this death trap, I won't holding your hand when you end up like..."

"Don't you say it!"

"Like, Tommy. He didn't need to die, but he was stupid, and he got himself killed, and I. Will. Not. End up like that! Do you hear me!", Kara stormed off onto the exit. A loud crunch filled the air, and Kara looked back with a pale and scared look on her face.

Margie covered her mouth.

Kara screamed.

On the floor was a half of a ghoul greedily holding onto Kara's leg, chewing a chunk of her calf, missing her muscle and weakened by the blood loss, Kara fell to the ground. The ghoul crawled its way up her body and bit a chunk of her side off and began to chew as it crawled up her torso and clawed her face before it took a bite of her cheek.

Kara screamed in agony as her blood poured out of her. The creature all but ignored Margie as it was focused on Kara's screaming.

Margie was stunned in terror. The monster bit into Kara's face again, ripping out one of her eyes, chewing it. A pop filled the air.

"H-h-h-help. M-Margie. I-I can't see", Kara made out.

Margie walked over to Kara with her gun in hand. She felt the cold metal in her hand. Kara's screams were slowly fading away from her mind. She looked at her last companion's face, rather, what was left of it. Blood, veins, facial muscles were all becoming a blur to her.

Kara reached her arm up and touched Margie's thigh.

Her words were just a garbled mess at this point.

Margie pointed her gun at Kara's head. Kara let go.

Bang

Bang

One for Kara and one for the monster that took her away.

Margie put the gun back into her pocket, she made the sign of the cross, and then she briskly walked back up to where the two men were.

She arrived, seeing the one with the shotgun sitting next to his semi-conscious friend.

"Excuse me", she quietly said.

He aimed the gun at her. "Come to finish with what you've started?", he said. "No." He lowered the gun. "What do you want though?"

"My name's Margi..."

He interrupted, "Where's your friend?"

"She's gone. Didn't you hear the gunshots?"

"I was wondering what that was", he said. "Also, my name is Dave, nice to meet you, Margie. This is Jason. He's usually more talkative."

"Look, Dave, we don't have much time. The noise attracts them and I don't think we should be here", Margie said.

"Okay, I'll get him ready to go. Go into the gun shop over there, grab what you can find, and I'll follow you", Dave said.

Margie collected a few loose bullets that seemed to fit her gun and loaded them. She began to shake as she put in the last one. She cried quietly and her mind drifted off. She remembered the faces of those who had been with her before. She remembered Mr. Fontaine, Tommy, Paulie, and now, Kara. They were all gone. Whatever madness swept over the world had swallowed them whole.

She stopped to remember her father through all of this, how he was one of the first and how he was torn limb from limb right in front of her eyes.

The tears poured down her cheek.

"Hey, we'll get through this", Dave said to her calmly. He propped Jason against a nearby wall and put his hands on Margie's shoulders. "We are going to the army base nearby and we are getting out of here. They'll take us all away and things will be better. Come on, Margie."

He carefully dried her face with part of his shirt.

She giggled through the tears at seeing the #1 grandpa shirt.

"I knew that shirt would come in handy", Jason weakly said.

He smiled a little as he returned to the world.

"Oh, God!", Dave yelled as he hugged his friend. "I was scared I lost you!"

Jason hugged back, "Come on. I needed a little nap. Who's your friend", he asked.

"I'm Margie." She said.

"Well, I'm Jason. It's nice to meet you. You weren't the one that clubbed me, right? No, you were in front of me. So, who hit me?", Jason asked.

"That was...Kara. She didn't make it", she said sadly.

"Oh, I'm sorry", Jason said sadly. "Nice girl, though", he said, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Good arm, could have used her."

"Ass", Dave said.

Jason got up to his feet. He was a little shaky on his legs. Margie caught him.

"Thanks, kiddo. Now come on, we need to get to the base. Dave, I heard you fill in our new friend. We need to hurry." Jason bumped into the walls on his way out of the gun shop.

"Is he always like that?", Margie asked.

"Usually, he's not a morning person, either", Dave replied.

They met with Jason outside of the shop, who was looking at the two corpses on the floor.

"Come on, we don't have time for him." Jason made his way to the nearest exit that he remembered.

"Goodbye, Paulie, and thank you", Margie whispered at the scene.

The group made their way to the exit. Jason stopped and looked down at Kara, a look of terror frozen on her remaining eye.

"Come on-oh-shit", Jason stood at the doorway, the parking lot was littered with zombies. Dave's car was on the other end. It would be too risky to run over to it.

"What do we do?", Margie asked.

"Should we fight our way out?", Dave asked.

"Noise, Margie, you said they go to noise, right?", Jason said excitedly.

"Well, yes, but..."

"Dave, uh, sorry about your car, man."

"What do you mean?" Dave asked.

Jason fished around his pocket for the car keys. Remembering he had grabbed them a second before they made their way to the mall. Jason looked back.

"Okay, get ready to run. We're going to head for the road under the highway over there. That should take us to the direction of the evacuation site", Jason said.

He pressed the PANIC button on the car keys.

Dave's car began to make one of the most annoying noises known to man...a typical car alarm.

The zombies turned their heads to the source of noise and began to make their way towards it.

"AW, NO! Not the blue rider!", Dave yelled.

"The blue-what?", Margie chuckled.

"We can mourn the death of the blue rider in a second, right now we need to..." Jason was interrupted by a loud explosion off in the distance.

A building in the adjacent city had just exploded and was beginning to collapse. The falling building slammed into another building. The noise shook the very ground that the group stood on as they watched in sheer awe.

They could hear the windows exploding, the bricks hitting the floor, some bricks even landed in the mall parking lot.

"Five seconds, Jay. Five. Seconds! That would have been enough noise, right there!", Dave yelled.

"Well, it didn't die in vain, and say good-bye, who knows when we'll see the blue rider again!", Jason yelled back as he started running towards the road.

Dave and Margie followed quickly.

A Walk to Remember

"What do you think will happen when we get to the evacuation center, Jay?", Dave asked.

"I don't know. They'll take us somewhere far away that not even the zombies will touch. Nebraska, probably", Jason said with a smile.

"Or maybe South Dakota!", Margie chimed in.

The group shared a much-needed laugh. The road they traveled was littered with the occasional body, but most of them were not zombies.

"Handiwork of those men from earlier, I guess", Margie said

"That's right, you mentioned the men in the truck shooting people", Dave replied.

"Well, hopefully all that, and...all of this will be gone soon. I hope they take us somewhere that's nice and green", Jason calmly said.

"I lost a lot of people since this started. I saw my father die right in front of me, shredded apart by those things. Then the people I was with, I lost them, too", Margie sadly said.

"Well, you won't lose us", Dave said.

"Yeah, we've been through a lot, like, paintball. We used to do that when things were normal", Jason said.

"Paintball. That's it?", Margie said. "You guys are funny."

"Well, no, there were other things, like, rock climbing! That was dangerous", Dave quickly said.

"Dude, we never went rock climbing", Jason replied.

"Well, she didn't know that!"

Margie laughed.

"If that was funny, this whole thing, really, really must have gotten you down", Dave said.

"Well, yeah...", Margie said.

An awkward silence filled the air.

"So, what did you do before this, Margie", Jason asked.

"I volunteered at church. My dad was the pastor there. It wasn't much, and sometimes I hated it, but, I'd give anything to go back to it now", she said.

"I was a bank teller. It's amazing how much of themselves people reveal when you handle their money", Jason said.

"Oh, anything good? I always had a feeling that there was good in people, even after seeing all...", Margie was interrupted.

"No, they were bastard covered bastards with bastard filling", Jason quickly said back. "I always wondered how the world would be like if there weren't any people around at all, just for a day. Well, be careful what you wish for, I suppose."

"Look." Margie pointed to a dimly lit construction sign that read.

"EVAC ONE MI – "

Most of the light bulbs that make up the sign, it's orange paint was scratched heavily, and it was moved around.

"Oh damn, look at this", Dave said. He was pointing the sign's tethering chain, which was snagged on a truck that had driven off the nearby highway.

The group investigated the truck, but saw only a badly decayed body snapping it's jaws sitting in the driver's seat.

Jason snickered a bit at the hat it wore. It read, "Keep on Truckin'" .

Margie and Dave looked at him with their eyes wide open.

"What?! It's delicious irony, 'cause you know, he can't truck...any...more. You guys suck, come on!", Jason snapped.

"Dave, what did you do before all of this?", Margie asked.

"Well, I used to work with animals. I loved those things, but, I don't want to think how they're doing back at the environmental center without me", Dave said with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Come to think of it, I've barely seen any animals since this whole mess started", Jason said

"Well, animals are smart, whenever there is a crazy natural disaster, they sense it first and leave. Who knows, this is probably nature thinning out an overpopulating world", Dave replied.

"Or, God." Margie said.

"Yes, or God", Dave sheepishly replied.

"Look. There it is", Jason said loudly.

"It's the base! There's a lot of dust coming out of the ground! That must be one of the helicopters. Come on!", Dave yelled!

The group ran to the base as fast as they could go. The gates were wide open, almost welcoming them inside.

Margie caught a glimpse of a beautiful white dove flying overhead holding what looked like an olive branch in it's beak. The sight filled her with hope and dread all at the same time.

"Margie! Come on! They're gonna leave without us!", she heard one of the friends yell.

She ran after them.

The End of All Things

The group arrived to their base, and was headed to the path of a helicopter awaiting take off. Inside, they saw many people, some bleeding and looking outside at the group suspiciously. The men in uniform told them to stop and pointed their guns at them.

"GET BACK! WE'RE FULL!", the soldier yelled. He was slowly boarding the helicopter as he had his gun fixed on Jason and then Dave.

"It's only the three of us. We came all this way!", Jason yelled.

"We're NOT infected!", Dave yelled.

"You must have room for a few more", Margie said to him.

"GET OUT, NOW! WE'LL SEND SOMEONE BACK FOR YOU!", the man yelled, as he strapped himself in. He got on his radio. "Alpha, this is Saving Grace, prepare evac for possible carriers. Over."

No one responded.

"THEY'LL COME FOR YOU!" His voice was barely audible over the engines at this point. The aircraft began to lift off the ground.

Dave fell to his knees. "No."

"Oh, no, no", Margie said.

"Jason looked back and saw that they had stumbled on to a minefield of bodies. There was a huge battle here. Bodies of men, women, and children littered the entire base. The corpses of army men still in their combat fatigues were all among them. Dave quickly got up when he noticed the corpse that lay next to him.

"Let us on!", Margie yelled.

At this point, the helicopter was already over their heads. The group shielded their face from the dust and debris that lifted from the blades.

"No one's coming for us", Jason said, all hope gone from his voice.

"Jay...these bodies. Only a few of them were infected. They are covered in bullet holes." Dave said with much fear in his voice.

Margie kept her eyes on the helicopter. She saw a commotion going on inside. Picking up a soldier's gun and peering through the scope, she was able to get a better look.

There were infected aboard the aircraft. They were turning and attacking the survivors inside.

"Oh, God", Margie was able to mutter. "They're dead, they're all... oh, God."

"What's happening?!", Jason yelled. He looked at the helicopter flying erratically. It began to veer in different directions and then drop. It lifted a little bit.

Margie was able to see the soldier who they were just talking to get his neck bitten into by a young blonde girl wearing pajamas. She almost seemed to look directly at Margie as she bit into the soldier, his blood covering her little mouth.

"It's going down. Oh shit, it's coming down!", Dave yelled.

The aircraft tried to make a clumsy landing and Margie was able to see a few people fall out of the helicopter. It came in towards their direction before pulling up one more time.

"Margie, what do you see?", Dave asked.

She stood silent, fixated on watching the battle through her scope. She considered trying to shoot at the machine, but thought it would make no difference.

"The pilot is dead", She coldly replied to him.

A zombie covered one of the pilots' face with it's hands before biting into him, she just saw the blood pouring out of him.

The machine began to spin. More people spilled out and landed nearby with horrible thuds.

"Oh shit", Dave whispered.

The helicopter crashed into the ground with a loud, earth-shattering explosion. It was less than 100 feet away from the group. Dust and rocks hit the friends.

"This is it, isn't it?", Jason said.

The group watched, they froze as they saw several, dozens, then hundreds of the slaughtered corpses rise. The explosion gave them that final push to get up and seek out new food. The undead rose all around the group and began to make their way over to their meal.

Margie held Dave's hand.

Jason pulled out one of the guns he had taken from the shop in the mall.

"I always knew it'd end this way", he said.

"Ass", Dave said quietly, but with a smile.

Dave pulled out his shotgun and cocked it.

Margie let go of Dave's hand. He noticed tears pouring down her cheek as she shakily pulled out her father's gun.

The three looked all around them. They were utterly surrounded and the gap between them and the dead was getting smaller and smaller.

"Well, this is great and all, but is anyone going to shoot?" Dave said.

Jason took aim and fired at the closest zombie. It was a man with a Bluetooth headset strapped to his ear still.

"I fucking hated those things", he said as he fired another shot to put him down for good.

"Remember, like it matters, but shots to the head bring them down, for good!", Dave yelled.

Dave fired his shotgun at the crowd, bringing down several at once.

"There are guns on the floor! They could still have ammo in them!", Margie yelled.

Dave nodded and fired off another shell into a group of zombies.

Jason fired into a crowd of the monsters and after a little while, he began to think if he should save one bullet for himself at the end.

"Fuck it", he fired off the last round in the Desert Eagle and smiled at the sound the bullet made ripping through a hungry zombie's head.

He pulled out another handgun from his jacket's pocket, and began to fire.

Click

Click

"I'm out!", Dave yelled.

"Here, make it count!", Jason replied as he ran to Dave, handing him another gun. "One left" He thought to himself.

Margie fired her gun carefully, making sure to save as many bullets as she could. The gap between them and the dead still grew smaller and smaller. The sickening moans of the monsters caused the entire group to shake periodically.

"Livin' the dream, eh Dave?", Jason yelled.

"Sure, why not!?", Dave yelled back as he fired another shot.

Click

"Shit!", Jason said to himself and threw the gun at the nearest zombie. His foot hit something hard. It was one of the soldiers' assault rifles.

"Always wanted to use one of these", he said to himself again.

Squeezing the trigger, the gun fired in 3-round bursts. "Nice!", he said to himself as he shot a few more of them before the magazine emptied.

As Jason was about to throw it, the gun had the grenade attachment on it, he felt a weight in that end.

"Always wanted to try this", he thought. He looked for the trigger, found it, and fired midway into the crowd of undead.

A huge explosion sounded as the shell exploded, bringing down many zombies with it.

"JESUS H. CHRIST! WHAT WAS THAT!", Dave yelled.

"It was pure awesome, that's what it was!", Jason yelled.

Click

"Shit!", Dave exclaimed.

Jason heard it and handed him the last gun.

"Do it for the both of us", Jason said as he picked up another gun off the floor.

Margie's gun was empty at this point. Standing there and staring at the horde, she attempted to grab at a dead soldier's pistol that was still in the holster. The corpse got up and grabbed her and opened its mouth at her arm.

"MARGIE!", Dave yelled. He shot the solider in the nick of time.

"Thanks", she said as she quickly drew the gun and fired at a zombie right behind Dave in one fluid motion.

"My kind of woman", he said.

The group was all but overwhelmed at this point. They were backed into a wall of sandbags. Firing the last of the assault rifle into the crowd in front of them, Jason felt cold, bony hands grabbing him and trying to pull him over the sandbag wall.

He looked down at the hands and laughed at the colorful nail polish.

"No!", Dave yelled and tried to shoot at the zombie grabbing his best friend.

Click

Click

Click

Jason pulled the hand off and smacked her with the butt of his gun.

"Relax, even when they were alive, they couldn't keep their hands off of me", Jason said with a sad smile. His arm began to bleed a little bit.

"Margie, it was nice meeting you", Jason said

"Dave, thanks for being my best friend. You were always there when I needed you. Now it's my turn", Jason said with tears in his eyes. "I'll see you on the other side."

Yelling, he jumped over the sandbag wall and began hitting zombies closing in on his friends with the butt of the gun. He quickly picked up a sheathed combat knife and pistol off of the floor. He fired the remaining rounds into random undead and then began stabbing at the zombies closing in on him with the knife with intense ferocity.

He began to laugh loudly as he stabbed the zombies.

"Jay...Shit", Dave said. He fired two rounds into the zombie that was only two feet in front of him.

Click

Click

"Dave." Margie said.

"Margie, I wish we had met under better circumstances", Dave said to her with a smile on his face.

He picked up an MP's baton, shoved it in the nearest zombie's face, and jumped over the wall to join his friend.

"Jay! I can't let you have all the fun!", Dave said. He looked at his friend, covered in bites and scratches.

Jason looked back at him for a second, "Well, I'm winning! Come on!"

Both friends attacked the horde as best they could, stabbing and clubbing them as fast as they could. Both of them shouting as loud as they could at throng of undead.

Their primal battle cries and sounds of slaughter began to slowly fade from Margie's ears. The battlefield grew quiet. She didn't know who had fallen first, but Margie knew it.

She was all alone now.

She began to weep as all the sound faded from her ears. She just heard a little ringing in her ears as she fired the last few rounds of the assault rifle propped against the sandbag wall behind her.

Click

Click

She felt their cold hands grab hold of her, digging deep into her skin. She closed her eyes and felt nothing at all.

The last thought she had was of the white dove flying with the olive branch held in its beak.

All the faces of those she had met before flashed through her mind. She saw them all smiling at her.

She felt herself smile one last time.

Then, just then...

The world seemed like a better place again.

End

End
