

Dead Beginnings

Volume 2

Lee Hickey

Text Copyright © 2016 by Alex Apostol

Cover Design Copyright © 2016 by Alex Apostol

writeralexapostol.com

Smashwords Edition

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

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

For my zombie lovers
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(COMING SOON)

### I

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

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

He picked up the phone and called his wife.

It rang.

He wondered what she was doing.

It rang again.

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

It rang a third time.

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

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

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

"Are you coming home soon?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No excuse."

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

There was a moment of silence between them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

### II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey, Barb," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so he did.

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

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

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

### III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Anna?"

Still no answer.

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

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

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

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

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

He found himself standing beside the woman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Anna, honey—"

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

### IV

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

"You're finally up!"

Lee jumped off the bed, his heart racing again.

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

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

"In here, silly," she called out.

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

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

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

"Surprise!" Anna called out.

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

It was a girl. Anna was pregnant.

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

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

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

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

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

"You're happy, then?"

"I've never been happier."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

### V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"People gettin' bit," he said.

"Like by rabid animals?"

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

"Jesus," his wife whispered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I will."

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

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

A moment of silence and then nothing.

### VI

Lee hung up the phone. The smile he'd worn that morning returned with full force. He bit his fingernail to try to hide it, but it was no use. Somehow in the last twenty-four hours, his life had done a one-eighty. Everything was falling into place. Everything he'd ever hoped for he was finally getting.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud from behind. Lee turned to find Kelly slumped face-down on her desk. She wasn't moving.

"Someone get a doctor!" he shouted as he rushed to her side. "Kelly, love, are you all right?"

He bent to place his ear next to her head. It was hard to hear anything over the bustle of the emergency room. He reached out and placed two fingers on her neck to check for a pulse.

Nothing.

He gently massaged around to find the vein in her damp, cold neck.

Nothing.

"Dammit, will someone fetch a doctor!"

Several nurses scattered while bystanders stopped and craned their necks to get a better look.

Lee carefully lifted the young receptionist's head and scooped her up in his arms to lay her out on the hard floor. Strands of wet hair clung to the sides of her face. Again, he lowered his ear. It hovered less than an inch from her slightly parted lips.

He waited, straining to hear for any signs of life coming from the poor girl. All he heard was the shuffling of feet, gasps from the onlookers, and someone talking over the intercom.

"Everyone step back," he said when he noticed the wall of legs closing in on him. "Give her some room."

Placing one hand over the other, he started chest compressions.

"One. Two. Three. Four." He counted quietly to himself. "Come on, Kelly. Five. Six. Seven. Eight."

The young woman's head moved from side-to-side as Lee tried his best to bring her back to life. Where were the nurses with the damn crash cart? Why wasn't anyone coming to help?

He pinched her small nose and lowered his lips onto her, hoping desperately to breathe life back into her. Her pale cheeks puffed out and then deflated once he removed his mouth from hers. Over and over, he repeated these steps with precision, holding it together as best he could.

She couldn't die.

He wouldn't let her die.

He had to save her.

Just as Lee was about to lower his mouth to hers a second time, Kelly's eyes popped open. There were no gasping breaths, no sudden movement to sit up, no tears rolling down her cheeks. Her lids simply sprang open to reveal bloodshot eyes.

"Oh, thank God!" Lee heaved, wiping at his forehead. "Kelly, are you all right? Can you hear me?"

Her sickly eyes rolled slowly over to him. Her lips peeled back to reveal all her glistening teeth. Lee stared, unsure if she had suffered from a stroke. She needed a doctor now. A low rumble came from deep within her throat.

Suddenly, the nurse's station erupted in panic. Shrieks of terror echoed down the long hallway. People ran in every direction. As he turned to see what was going on, a pair of cold hand clasped around Lee's neck and pulled him to the ground.

Kelly was trying to bite him. He struggled against her, unsure how a girl of a hundred and ten pounds could be so strong. The clacking of her teeth grew louder as she tugged at him desperately.

"Stop, Kelly! Let go!" he yelled as he pressed his arms into her chest and locked his elbows.

It was the only thing he could do to keep himself away from her snapping jaws. Someone else ran by, tripping over the pair as they wrestled on the ground.

One of the doctors, a man Lee had gotten a drink with once late after work, lunged onto the fallen man and sank his teeth into his neck. Blood erupted like a fountain as arteries severed. The injured man garbled, trying to get one last scream out before it was all over.

Doctor Stenson didn't stop as the hands of the dying man under him tried to swat him away. He buried his face further into the tender part of the neck and ripped away strips of flesh and muscle. Bright red blood ran down his chin as he chewed and chewed at what used to be a living, breathing human being.

Lee saw all of this from the corner of his eye while he tried to keep Kelly at bay. It was worse than he thought. Kelly wasn't the only one who was sick. Whatever it was, it was spreading fast. He had to get out of there.

It went against everything Lee stood for, but he had no choice. He pulled an arm back and let it fly forward into Kelly's jaw. Teeth and blood flew from her mouth and scattered over the white floor. He only had a second to feel any remorse before she whipped her head back to stare at him. She opened her mouth and released a horrifying sound—a mixture of a shriek, growl, and moan. It was unlike anything Lee had ever heard.

With her jagged teeth exposed, she lunged forward like a wild animal. Lee scrambled on his hands and feet until he felt something hard at his back. He rolled just in time to avoid getting a chunk of his own neck ripped out by Doctor Stenson.

Kelly collided with the doctor. The two tangled on the floor, shoving and tripping the other, but never trying to attack one another. Lee watched as he righted himself to stand tall next to the desk. When the two had finally gotten to their feet, they fell onto the dead and bloodied man together. Their hands dug into his abdomen, ripping through his soft skin as if it were made of dough. Grabbing at his entrails, they yanked and shoved them hastily into their masticating mouths.

Bile rose from Lee's stomach. He turned his head to vomit. It kept coming until all the contents of his stomach lay sprawled on the floor behind him. There was no time to wipe his chin as more crazed people burst in from the adjoining hall. All their clouded eyes locked on him. He ran around the desk for the exit down the hall. What was going on? What kind of sickness was this?

Everywhere he turned, people were eating other people. Blocking the sliding glass doors to the parking lot were two middle-aged women and a teenage boy tearing into an elderly man. He was still conscious as their hands penetrated his body. His howls of agony echoed through Lee's head, a sound he was sure he would never forget.

How much pain could a person endure before they couldn't take it any longer? He was sure whatever that man felt was more than he himself could handle. But the old man wouldn't give up. His frail, wrinkled arms pawed at the group of carnivores devouring him. He clenched his fists and hurled them at their shoulders, but it was useless.

There was no saving him. Lee was certain of that. The only question was how would he get around them to get out of the building?

The thought of abandoning the nearest exit to find another made his heart race even more. As he stood, trying desperately to make the right decision that would save his life, footsteps grew louder behind him. He whipped around, his fists clenched and raised in defense.

Another nurse, Heidi Birkoff, was headed for him, her stiff legs moving as fast as they could. Her once beautiful blonde hair was soaked through and stained red as if she had bathed in the blood of her victims. Black bile oozed from between her teeth as she gnashed them together maniacally. It dripped down her chin and onto the floor.

"Heidi, please, stop," Lee begged. "I don't want to hurt you. I know you can hear me, Heidi, please!"

If there was any consciousness left inside the thirty-three-year-old nurse, she wasn't showing signs of it. Relentlessly, she moved forward, her arms outstretched and her fingers swiping at the air in front of her, hoping to latch onto any living thing unfortunate enough to get in her way.

Lee wanted to close his eyes and wish away the scene unfolding in front of him, but he knew if he did it would mean his death. Instead, he balled up his fists. His arms tensed at his side. He stared forward, waiting patiently for Heidi to come to him.

The closer she got, the more eagerly she moved. Her pace quickened to form a lopsided jog. Lee noticed a piece of sharp bone sticking out from the ankle that dragged behind her. Heidi's mouth wrenched open as she closed in.

Lee kicked out his leg to meet her forcefully in the gut. The nurse was thrown back. A sickening crack echoed as her head met the hard floor. She struggled to right herself, but couldn't. Against his better judgement, Lee walked over and looked down at the pathetic creature who had once given him a homemade card on his birthday.

His breaths became shallow. His eyes glossed over with the oncome of fresh tears. Heidi clawed at the air above her, snapping her jaw and straining her neck to get to the fresh, warm meat that hovered over her.

She was a monster come to life.

With the cry, Lee raised his foot high and brought it down on her head. In the movies, they show blood shooting out from all sides and brain spilling onto the floor, but all Lee heard was the crack of Heidi's skull as it caved in from the force of his foot.

Tears streaked his face as she stared down at the unmoving mess that was once a happy, thoughtful, sweet, and caring woman. There was no going back from what he had just done. It didn't matter what she was now. She was once a human being and he had just crushed the life from her in a matter of seconds.

The urge to crumble overwhelmed him. His legs shook as he forced them to stand tall under the weight of his massive body. His hands shook violently. How could he have done that? How could he kill someone? His job was to save people! The voices in his head screamed. His knees trembled as they prepared to buckle.

"No!" he yelled aloud. He couldn't give up now. He was so close to getting out the hell unraveling around him and getting home to his wife. He had to protect her and his child.

Another monstrous beings came for Lee as he stood staring, unable to look away from the damage he'd caused, the life he'd taken. It grabbed ahold of his arm from behind and pulled toward its mouth. Lee felt hot breath beat against his skin as the thing groaned. He swung around and hit it in the side of the head with his iron-like fist. Then he swiped the thing's legs out from under it with his own, but its grip still remained on his arm, threatening to drag him down as well.

What was once a young man, possibly a patient who came in to be treated for something as small as the flu, looked up at Lee with an unquenchable thirst in his eyes, a hunger that would never be suppressed, and an urge that could never be satisfied. It strained its neck relentlessly, trying to get its teeth around Lee's arm, until multiple veins burst in its eyes and they turned bright red. Still, it kept on.

Suddenly, warm blood splattered Lee face and shirt. The tight grip on his arm fell away.

"This way!" a man shouted, waving Lee on with a fire extinguisher.

The bottom of the metal barrel was dented from where he'd bashed in the skull of the thing attacking Lee. They ran for the exit together. Without stopping, they charged the group still devouring what was left of the old man on the entry mat. Lee kicked his leg without a second thought and sent the ravenous teenage boy flying backward down the hall.

He charged forward to the promise of safety, the man who saved him by his side, clutching the bloodied extinguisher to his chest.

### VII

The parking lot wasn't in any better shape than inside the hospital. Dozens of bodies laid sprawled out on the hot pavement, surrounded by pools of fresh blood. Most lay still in the peacefulness of death, while others stirred and tried to stand back on their feet, a new hunger behind their vacant eyes.

"My car's this way!" Lee shouted.

His legs were almost twice as long as the man who'd saved him, carrying him further and further ahead. He didn't stop until he reached his burgundy Honda, his chest heaving gulps of the thick, hot air. There was screaming all around as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys.

He glanced quickly over his shoulder. The man with the extinguisher was almost to him, just another twenty feet to go and they would both be safely contained in the confines of the little car. Lee pressed the unlock button on the key-fob and hurried into the driver's seat.

A sickening scream echoed. Lee snapped his head to look out the window. The man he waited for lay flat on his stomach on the ground, the extinguisher rolling out of reach from his hands. One of the sick had been lying on the ground, hidden between the parked cars. It gnawed at his Achilles tendon viciously as the man screamed all the while. His fingers dug into the blacktop as he tried to pull himself away, but the creature wouldn't relinquish its hold.

Lee was close enough to see just how hard the man was fighting for his life. A distant part of his mind shouted for him to get out of the car and help, but the muscles in his body wouldn't listen. He sat frozen, watching the blood spill. The man dug so hard into the ground, Lee saw the whites of scratch marked etched into the blacktop.

But the thing that had him was stronger. It gave a final yank to shove more flesh into its mouth. Several of the man's fingernails snapped clean off and stuck up out of the pavement like tiny tombstones. The monstrous being climbed ontop of him and sank its teeth into the side of his torso.

It was all too much for Lee. His eyes squeezed shut. Terrible cries for help circled around the parking lot as he sat petrified, trying to will it all away. If he hushed his breathing, he could hear the clacking of teeth as the beings closed in on their wounded prey.

"I have to get out of here," he said quietly to himself, his eyes still shut. "I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here."

Suddenly, he was surrounded by an eerie silence.

Reluctant to open his eyes fully, he allowed one to peek through a crack in his lid. The man who'd helped him was sprawled out, his ribs bent fully back and sticking straight up in the air, his chest a hollowed out hole. Whatever ate his insides had moved on once he was cleared out. Lee couldn't find a single sign of movement. Now was the time to leave.

He shoved his keys into the ignition and started the car. The engine rumbled to life. Had it always been so loud? he wondered with a cringe. Luckily, the things seemed to have moved on, leaving behind the wreckage of truly dead scattered about. He stepped on the gas and backed up quicker than he intended.

Thud!

Lee whipped his head around to find one of the bloodied cannibals crawling onto the trunk of his car. It pawed at the rear window, leaving rusty streaks that blocked his view.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Lee shouted, his old-world Catholic upbringing escaping his lips unintentionally.

He put the car in drive and shot forward without another thought. With a flick of his eyes, he checked the rearview mirror to make sure the thing wasn't still clinging on. He saw a body roll across the pavement and smack into the tire of a parked car.

Something inside Lee Hickey wanted to smile in that moment, cheer aloud for making it out of Hell alive, but he couldn't bring himself to give in to it. Heidi's smashed face flashed in his mind. He swerved the wheel to avoid hitting another car as he merged onto the highway to head back home. A loud honk cleared away the horrifying image of his destroyed friend.

Going ninety miles an hour, Lee raced down the two lane highway toward the lakeside town of Chesterton, where his pregnant wife was waiting for him.

I hope, he couldn't help thinking. The minute he did, his breath failed to leave his lungs. It stayed there like a fireball caught in his chest. She had to be alive. There was no other alternative. Anna and his child had to be safe inside the house, alive.

Along the side of the road, cars sat running with their doors wide open. People scrambled across the grassy ditch to get away from the monsters that chased them. Quickly, the people ran, fell, got back up, looked over their shoulders, tripped again, scrambled to get back up, and all the while the ravenous horde closed in on them slowly, without faltering, charging forward like an army of undead.

Lee heard his mother's voice as the family fell for a third time and were finally caught by their predators.

It's the end of the world, son. The Rapture. God has called us all to Heaven above, invited us into Paradise, and here you are...left behind, alone and scared, staring down a gruesome death, all because you turned your back on your religion and abandoned your family.

Lee shook his head to scatter the voice in his head. Could she be right? Could he be staring down the barrel of the shotgun that would end the world? Had the dead risen to consume the sinners? Every rational part of Lee's mind screamed she was wrong. There was no way any of it could be true. The flu everyone had been worried about had finally hit. The fever damaged the brains of the sick and they were acting irrationally, downright fucking crazy, because of it. That's all it was. Someone was going to fix it. They had to fix it.

He pulled up to his two-story blue house and jumped out of the car without turning it off or closing the door. His legs carried him up the steps of the porch and through the partially opened front door. It wasn't until he was inside the quiet house that he realized the door hadn't been locked as it should have been. He froze in the entryway.

### VIII

The house was as still and silent as a warm summer night, the only sound a buzzing from the bee hovering by Lee's ear. He swatted it away. A hot breeze blew through the open doorway, hitting him across his sweat-soaked back. The sudden cooling sent a chill up his spine and goosebumps down his arms. His cotton scrubs clung to his damp body as he took deep breaths, eyes staring forward, wild and wide. Dread sat in the pit of his stomach. It was too quiet, too calm. Something wasn't right.

"Anna?!" he finally called out when he found his voice. "Anna, sweetheart, where are you! Answer me! Anna?!"

He charged into the living room, but found it empty. His large hand slammed against the swinging door as he fell through into the kitchen, but she wasn't there either.

"Upstairs!" he said aloud as he moved forward and around to the stairway.

His feet pounded on each step as he took them two at a time. The bedroom door sat open a crack. A warm glow spilled out onto the hardwood floor. The heavy weight of impending heartache lifted from his shoulders as he neared the top of the stairs. Anna was home, she was safe...but then why hadn't she answered him?

When he reached the top, momentum propelled him forward and through the door. His knees hit the floor as he braced himself with his hands. Slowly, he stood up.

"Anna?" He knew she wouldn't reply, but he couldn't stop calling out to her. "Anna!"

The bedside lamp lay overturned on the nightstand, the sheets and covered ripped from their luxurious Queen-size bed. Pieces of clothing scattered the floor like dead leaves on the ground, but Anna was nowhere to be found. Lee stood rooted by the doorway, too afraid to take in a single breath. If he breathed, then that would make the day real, and there was no way everything he'd been through could be real.

That was it. He had to be dreaming again. It was just another one of his horrible nightmares. He closed his eyes. If he waited, he would wake up and Anna would be by his side, fast asleep and holding her stomach. He would rest his head by the small bulge that was his growing daughter and listen for the small patter of her heartbeat.

When he opened his eyes again everything looked the same. Downstairs, the front door creaked. The sound echoed up the stairway to Lee. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He didn't dare turn around to see what it was. If it was one of the sick, he didn't want to alert them to his presence. If they thought the house was empty, they might go away.

His mind focused intensively on the situation at hand as he stood there waiting for something to happen. These sick people seemed to act on impulse, something in their brain telling them to attack healthy humans. Their only desire was to eat warm flesh and fresh organs. Did they even have thoughts? Could they feel anything anymore? Was there any chance of curing them, saving them and everyone else?

Another image of Heidi's smashed in skull flashed before his eyes. He jerked back, hitting his shoulder on the door frame. Several creaks and a long, dull groan came from below. Then a loud thud.

Lee couldn't take it anymore. He had to turn around and see what was going on. He envisioned his pregnant wife as a bloodied walking corpse and had to fight to keep tears from welling up. His eyes finally fell on the being at the bottom of the stairs. He let out a slow sigh.

The bloodied body of Mrs. Higgins, an elderly widow who lived next door, tried to walk forward, but fell once her shins hit the first step. Her sagging arms stretched outward, nails digging into the wooden step above her head. She tried to pull herself up, but the muscles in her arms were too depleted to get her anywhere. But she kept trying, over and over again.

All the fear Lee had for the disfigured, horrible creature vanished. She was sick. She needed help and that was what he was good at he reminded himself.

He stood at the top of the stairs with his hands on his hips, looking down at the pitiful Mrs. Higgins. Conflicting thoughts ravaged his mind. Sadness welled up inside him as he realized that whatever she was now, the old woman would never be the same again. He would never walk down the driveway to get the morning paper and hear her shaky voice calling out to him, asking him how his wife was. She would never shuffle back into her house in her fuzzy pink slippers and robe, sit down all by herself at her grand dining room table for eight and read the Lifestyle's section of the Chicago Tribune. Her life was over. This thing had killed her.

Lee went back into the bedroom and dug through the closet. He grabbed a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a plain dark green t-shirt. Quickly, he changed out of his scrubs and into the fresh clothes. The sounds of Mrs. Higgins trying to claw her way up faded into the background as he folded his scrubs neatly on the bed. Who knew if he would ever get to wear them again?

He shook his head. He couldn't think like that. This wasn't it. With a deep breath, he pushed the thought from his mind. There was only one thing that pushed him forward—finding Anna. She was the reason he fought so hard to make it out of that hospital alive.

Suddenly, he remembered the conversation he had with her on the phone before Kelly died at her desk. Anna had said she was going to her parent's house!

He rushed down the stairs, kicking Mrs. Higgins out of the way before running out the door.

### IX

Lee Hickey drove as fast as his Honda would allow down the winding road of Highway Twelve. Anna's parents lived in a lakefront home between Chesterton and Michigan City. It was normally a fifteen to twenty minute drive depending on traffic. But today, Lee didn't care about breaking the law. He swerved around moving cars, and even a three-car accident blocking half the road. On any other day he would have stopped to see if anyone needed help, but this wasn't any other day.

It's the end of the world, and you and your wife are going to Hell, his mother's voice rang out.

He stepped harder on the gas. Within ten minutes, he had arrived at his in-laws'. The moment he saw his wife's silver SUV parked perfectly in their driveway, he breathed freely again. Nothing looked out of place outside the three-story home. The breeze from Lake Michigan rustled the bushes in the front, the door was shut when he reached it, even the sand trail leading around back was undisturbed.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

When he tried the door, it was locked. Somehow, Anna had convinced her parents to give Lee a spare key only last year. He pulled it out and unlocked the door.

The strong scent of cinnamon apple pie greeted him. The lights in the entryway and living room were on, giving the place a serene, warm glow. Anna's parents may not like Lee, but he had to admit they were the only other people he would entrust with his wife's safety. They loved her more than anything. If it really was the end of days, he was glad they were there to make sure she survived to see him again.

He moved forward past the stairs and the formal sitting room. Down the hall, he saw light radiating from inside the kitchen. The familiar sound of shuffling pots echoed out to him. He couldn't contain the smile spreading across his face. All he wanted to do was take his wife in his arms, hold her close to him, kiss her stomach, and tell her he would never leave her again.

"Hey Anna, I'm glad I found—"

He stopped, using the doorway for support.

Anna's mother and father looked to Lee with their mouths agape, their milky eyes scanning his body. They turned their backs to continue with the meal already spread out before them. Mrs. Hadley picked up a dismembered arm from the floor and began gnawing at it like it was a turkey leg. Mr. Hadley lowered his face to rip off a piece of flesh from the foot in his hand.

Tears cascaded down Lee's face. His hands shook as he raised them to cover his mouth. The urge to scream overwhelmed him, but all that came out were muffled sobs.

Anna stared at her husband from the floor, her face permanently petrified in a silent, agonizing cry. Black webs of tears and mascara covered her cheeks. Her neck was ravaged to strips of broken veins and exposed muscles. Everything below her shoulders was unrecognizable—ripped apart, half-eaten, and smashed until she was nothing more than a pile of chunks and blood. Every limb had been removed, picked clean by her parents, and left on the floor like discarded chicken bones.

Lee's vision started to blur, its focus tunneling on the monsters devouring his wife. The room shook and spun as he dropped to his knees. With his hands on the floor, he cried out to the ceiling as loud as he could. He choked on his tears and struggled to take in a breath.

The two chewing figures in front of him dropped the bloodied pieces of his wife and turned slowly toward him. Mr. Hadley gnawed at his own lips in anticipation of more warm flesh to consume. Mrs. Hadley took several staggering steps away from the remains, one of her legs twisted at the knee, bent at an unsettling angle.

Lee finally opened his drowning eyes and saw the two were headed for him, their stomachs bulging from their feed. He cried out again. Heat spread through his chest as a fire deep in him grew ferociously. He rose to his feet, his broad shoulders rising and falling as he huffed through his nostrils. A deep growl filled the room. It was coming from him.

Mr. Hadley was the first to reach him. Without hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the walking corpse by the head with both hands. Every ounce of muscle worked to squeeze together until he felt the crunching of bones beneath his fingers. Their heads were not solid like those of a living human. They were soft and porous, as if the process of decomposition had sped up. His father-in-law's mouth continued to bite at the air until his head caved in completely and his brains leaked out through his ears.

Lee screamed all the while, only stopping to take another breath and start back up again. He had to make them pay for what they did, for taking his Anna and child away from him, for ruining any chance he had at happiness in this fucked up world. It wasn't his will to live that pushed him forward anymore. It was vengeance.

Mrs. Hadley grabbed him by the shoulder, but was too slow to get any further. Lee thrust his massive forearm upward and snapped her arm from underneath. Sharp bone stuck out from what used to be her elbow as the rest hung limply inward toward her body.

The low rumbling within Lee grew with intensity. His eyes burned white-hot as he stared down. He didn't see his mother-in-law of fifteen years staring back at him as he had seen in Heidi and Mrs. Higgins before. The thing in front of him was something straight out of the pits of Hell.

Lee swooped down to pick up one of the pots lying on the tile floor. As he cried out, he swung it at the thing's head over and over again. Blood sprayed his face, but he didn't stop. Its body fell face-down onto the floor, but refused to stay down. Lee beat the thing's head until it was nothing more than a dark soupy mess. Only then did he drop the pot with a loud clank.

### X

His mother-in-law was dead. His father-in-law, dead. His beautiful wife and their unborn child, all dead. Lee Hickey was a man with nothing to live for. At least, that's how he felt when he stared down at the three bloodied bodies on the floor. He'd cried so hard that there was nothing left inside. He felt numb. That was a good thing. If he was able to fully comprehend the extent of his loss that afternoon, he would have dropped dead of a broken heart.

He wiped away the salt from his cheeks where his tears had dried. It was time to go. He knew that for the last twenty minutes, but he couldn't bring himself to get up. How was he supposed to walk away from his wife? He couldn't leave her body in pieces. He had to bury her, mark the site, and pray he would be reunited with her in the afterlife.

But since his savagery, there had been an increase in noise outside the house—shuffling feet, the banging of hands on glass, distant moans and the clacking of teeth. If he wanted to live, he had to get out of there before the place was overrun.

But did he want to live?

Though it pained him to think of leaving Anna like she was, it was best until he figured out if he'd be able to go on without her or not.

"I'll come back for you," he promised her as he pushed up from the floor.

He ran up to the second-floor bathroom, the one that contained his mother-in-law's medicine cabinet, and flung the door open. Every inch of the four shelves inside contained various prescription bottles, antiseptics, ointments, bandages, and anything else anyone could ever want during a zombie apocalypse. Furiously, he grabbed at the bottles and shoved them into the pockets of his cargo shorts.

Glass crashed outside. Lee turned to peek his head into the hallway. It hadn't sounded close enough to have been one of the house windows breaking, but it could have happened nearby, like the driveway.

His car.

Lee raced down the stairs and threw open the front door. Every inch of his Honda was crawling with the dead. His front windshield lay in shards. The hood and trunk were dented beyond repair as their solid bodies lumbered up, searching for a way in. What were they after? Lee didn't have time to wonder what caused the horde to surround his car. All he knew was that he had to leave it. He couldn't fight off a dozen of those things by himself.

He turned and hopped over the porch railing to run around back. The soft thud of his massive feet on the grass made heads turn. Their focus changed from ransacking the car to following Lee alongside the house. With their arms outstretched and their stained mouths already chewing in anticipation, they moved slowly after him.

As Lee ran through the trees lining the lakefront, the bottles of pills shook like rattles in his pockets. If he wanted to stay hidden, he had to move with more stealth. Those things would be all over him if he kept making so much noise. But it was too late. When he hunched over to catch his breath he saw a site that nearly stopped his already broken heart.

Over the sand dune, a horde of several dozen zombies shuffled together. Each and every glazed over, bloodshot eye was zeroed in on him. Though they were more than twenty yards away, he saw their black tongues slathering their white crusted lips. Dark blood and bile oozed out of every orifice, including the ones created from the mouths of others.

Lee stooped down into the tall grass, but it was useless. He wouldn't be able to conceal his large frame there. He couldn't hide anywhere. The trunks of the trees were too skinny to hide behind, the branches too high up to climb. The lakefront was nothing but a stretch of openness and sand. If he ran, they would follow the noise he made. If he ditched the prescriptions, he might not survive. They were his most valuable resource. He had to run and hope that he could put enough distance between himself and the horde to be able to lose them.

The black mass of bodies descended the dune. Some stumbled over their own feet and fell, their faces pressed into the sand as they were trampled on. Others rolled down and got back up without missing a beat. They weren't fast, but they were relentless, like a swarm of locusts swooping in to destroy everything in its path.

Lee took off again through the trees and over a nearby dune until he reached a fence surrounding someone's backyard. With a running start, he hopped the chain-link and landed on the other side. Maybe whoever was inside would allow him to wait it out with them. If there was no one home, he could jimmy the lock open with his pocketknife.

He walked around the side of the two-story green house hunched over at the waist. The element of surprise was his friend. There was no telling what he would find on the other side of the front door. He had to be ready for anything.

As he stood on the porch, he inwardly debated his next move. Should he knock? Things weren't so far gone that he should just barge into someone else's home unannounced. Civilization hadn't collapsed completely. Or had it? He couldn't be sure. All he knew was that it didn't feel right to him. But if the dead were inside, it would alert them to fresh meat.

A breeze blew off the lake, carrying the stench of death with it. It reminded Lee of hot, rotting meat mixed with shit. In his profession he came across a lot of foul-smelling things. Nothing was as God awful as what wafted up his nose at that moment. The only thing that could create such a stench would be the gaggle of rotting corpses following him. They were close. He had to find shelter fast.

Urgently, he beat his fist against the heavy wooden door.

"Hello? Is someone home?" he called out "Please, let me in. Hello? They're coming! Please!"

He heard a faint thud, as if someone had bumped into something. The curtain in the window by the door moved.

"Please! I need to come in, please!"

The curtain moved again and Lee saw the terrified face of a girl about seven years old. Her blonde hair was pulled back into two long pigtails and she wore a summer nightgown. She hugged a teddy-bear close to her neck.

"Are your parents home? Please, can you let me in? I promise, I won't hurt you. I can keep you safe. I just need to come inside," he pleaded with the girl.

Her eyes grew wide until Lee could see the whites on all sides. The teddy dropped from her grasp and her mouth hung open. She pointed out the window past Lee. Her piercing scream told him exactly what was approaching.

The hum of the horde echoed down the street as they shambled up the driveway. Lee turned and pressed his back against the door.

"Let me in, please, let me in!" he started to shout to the frightened girl. "Dammit, let me in!"

The first few zombies reached the porch. They tried to raise their feet to make the first step, but their muscles were already stiff with rigor mortis, their knees unable to bend properly. One got its foot on the step, but then fell backward onto the walkway. Another kicked the head of the fallen and fell forward, landing face down on the first one's stomach.

The group started to spread out along the porch, reaching their arms through the banisters to swipe for Lee's legs. His back pressed further into the door, his heels hitting the jamb. He felt the cool touch of fingers grazing the hairs on his legs. If just one of them gained another inch, they would have him.

Lee turned his head and saw that the little girl had left her perch at the window. He didn't hear the patter of her footsteps coming to the door.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

Another set of fingers touched his leg. If one of their fingernails scratched his skin there was a chance he could become infected. Lee was pressed so hard against the door that he wouldn't allow himself to take a full breath. Instead, his chest flared rapidly with shallowed wheezing. His eyes moved to look down.

All of the undead had gathered around the length of the shallow porch. Any way he could have used as in exit was blocked by gnashing teeth and mottled hands. Then, his eyes turned upward. Above his head was a small, triangular overhang. If he jumped he might be able to grab onto it and pull himself up.

The thought sent his stomach churning. If he didn't make it they would have him in a matter of seconds. But if he didn't try he would be stuck on that porch eternally. The girl inside was not going to open for anything. There was no other way. If there was ever a moment for Lee to be thankful of his grand stature, it was now.

His heartbeat thumped in his eardrums. His chest clenched.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

He looked one last time to see if the girl was watching from the window, if there was the slightest chance that she might open the door and give him the shelter he so desperately needed, but she wasn't there. Lee closed his eyes and turned his face upward toward the sun.

"And lead us not into temptation."

He took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled out from between his parted lips.

"But deliver us from evil!"

He bent his knees and shot upward toward the awning, his body twisting in mid-air. The hot summer sun beat against his face. All he could see was its white blaze. He stretched his arms as far as he could, but felt nothing.

"Amen."

### XI

The ends of Lee's fingers gripped the edge of the roof peak. He adjusted his hands for a better hold. Every muscle in his arms shook as he attempted to lift all two hundred pounds of his body.

The growls from the dead grew with intensity as their meal dangled over their heads. Their fingers grasped at thin air in the hopes that the man above would fall into their arms.

Lee felt a cool, damp hand swat his ankle. He quickly tucked his legs up under him as he pulled himself upward. Finally, he was able to rest an arm on the roof. The black shingles burned at his skin. The urge to pull back overwhelmed his nerves, but he resisted.

Using his scolding arm as leverage, he pulled himself further up until he was able to rest both arms and swing one leg over. He yelled out deeply as he conjured every last ounce of strength he had in him to throw himself over the edge of the overhang.

He lay on his back, feet braced for support, his arms raised above his head to grip the peak to hold him in place. His chest rose and fell in full breaths. He turned his face to look down at the mass of ravenous beings a few feet below him.

Though the tempting flesh had moved farther away, they didn't give up or lose interest. Instead, they fought harder, using each other as leverage to climb up onto the porch. They fell, one-by-one, over the railing and landed with cracks and thuds.

Lee was safe for now, but how long would he last up on that roof? Without water in the blistering heat it wouldn't be long. His only chance was to venture further up where he would be hidden from plain sight. Maybe if they couldn't see him they would move on.

Maybe someone else will wander by and they could go after them, leaving me enough time to climb down and get away.

The very thought disgusted Lee. He couldn't believe his mind had gone to something so hateful and cruel. He threw an arm over his face and hid his eyes in the crook. The scent of burnt flesh traveled up his nose and settled in his stomach. He was too angry with himself to see how bad the burns were.

Even if he got away this time, there would only be more at the next place he tried to hide. And more after that, and more after that. There was no getting away from them. The infection was spreading too quickly. Who knows how far it had traveled already. Maybe it had consumed all of Chesterton, all of Northwest Indiana, all of the Midwest!

Panic rose in his chest. He had to get ahold of himself. If Anna were alive, she wouldn't want him to give up. She would want him to survive for as long as he could and help others to survive as well. She wouldn't want him to be angry with the little girl for not letting him in. That wasn't what Lee Hickey would have felt yesterday. That Lee Hickey would have worried himself sick that the murderous monsters would find a way into the house to get her. He had to find himself again.

At that, the primal instinct for self-preservation was pushed aside by the more intense desire to save lives. It was what he was made to do. He decided he would do whatever he could to get the girl out of there safely and find somewhere they could hide out. He would save her, not curse her.

Lee pushed himself upward with the soles of his shoes and grabbed onto the next tier in the angular roof.

With ease this time, he swung himself up to lay on his stomach overlooking the driveway of the overrun house. The creatures were still pawing at the air, some beating against the door and window now that they had found a way onto the porch. They weren't able to see Lee slip back out of view.

He stood erect for a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. More were coming from the north, probably lured by the sound of their own kind closing in. A few straggled alone to the east near another house that appeared to be empty.

West. That was the direction Lee had to go if he wanted to make it out of there alive...but first, he had to get the little girl.

Carefully, he moved around the sloped shingles to the back of the house. There were several windows on the second floor to choose from. As he lay on his stomach again, his head leaning over the edge to see inside, he spotted the girl curled up in the fetal position on her twin bed. Her hands grabbed desperately at her head as her shoulders moved up and down with sobs.

Lee stood up and moved over to the next window. Inside was another bedroom, empty. He squatted with his feet balanced over the edge, his fingers loosely gripping the edge of the roof like a perched gargoyle.

He looked down at the length of the drop. At least the yard was fenced in, leaving a clear open space free of zombies. If he fell he might break his leg or sprain his arm, but at least he wouldn't be devoured alive. But if he made too much noise, they would gather at the fence leaving him no way out. He couldn't rely on the girl letting him in again, and there was no low hanging roof peak to swing himself up onto from that side of the house.

That meant he had one shot at this.

He closed his eyes and let the thick breeze blow gently through his hair.

I can do this, he thought to himself calmly, I have to do this. I have to save her.

With a deep breath, he leaned over the edge and fell forward.

### XII

Lee Hickey went crashing feet first through the second-story bedroom window. Jagged pieces of broken glass scratched at his legs, but he didn't feel a thing. He was too wired on adrenaline to worry about himself.

A door slammed nearby.

He sprang forward through the doorway and into the hall. The girl's bedroom was to the right. Frightened by the noise of Lee breaking in, she had locked herself inside.

With one swift kick, the door flew open, pieces of broken wood flying from the frame. The girl gave a high-pitched scream as she cowered on her bed.

"Please don't eat me! Please don't eat me!" she shouted over and over again.

Lee walked over and kneeled down next to her. "I'm here to help you," he said gently. "But you need to listen and follow me, okay?"

"You're the man from the porch?"

Lee nodded his head, sending his dark hair brushing against his shoulders.

"Are you an angel?"

"I wish, lass," he said with a soft, breathy laugh. "I'm just the man who's going to get you out of here."

"But those people are outside," she whimpered as tears welled up in her round, blue eyes.

If he didn't contain the situation, he would have to carry her out of there kicking and screaming. That would ruin his plan of escaping without being seen or heard.

"My name's Lee. What's yours?"

"Jessica," she said with a sniffle. She hid half her face in the fur of her teddy-bear.

"And what's his name?" Lee nodded to the stuffed toy in her arms.

"Brutus."

Lee smiled. "What a fantastic name for a brave little bear."

The girl raised her head and gave a weak smile.

"Do you think we can be as brave as Brutus so the three of us can find somewhere safer to hide?"

Reluctantly, she nodded her head sending her blonde curls bouncing around her face.

"All right then." Lee scooped her up and walked out of the room.

As he headed down the stairs, he looked to the window in the front r. The afternoon sun had been blotted out by shadows of banging hands. Jessica hid her face in the nape of Lee's neck. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but it was best to keep quiet.

He walked carefully past the entryway and over to the west-side of the house where the living room was located. Two large windows sat side-by-side. Lee gently placed Jessica's bare feet down on the hardwood floor.

"I'm going to climb out through the window first."

Immediately, the girl starting shaking her head with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"Jessica, darlin', listen to me."

She opened her eyes again slowly to stare at Lee, terrified.

"I'll go through the window first and then I'll grab you and make a run for it. I've already checked and there's no monsters on this side of the house. We have a clean getaway and I'm a really fast runner."

"Faster than that bird on TV that's always being chased by the coyote?" she asked with her face turned upward, her innocent eyes wide with fear.

"Faster than the Roadrunner. I promise."

"Okay," she said.

Together they headed quietly over to the windows. Lee turned the lock on the top of one and lifted it open. They must have been recently installed because it slid upward on the track without making a sound. Lee let out a huff of air from between his lips. Sweat ran down the side of his face, wetting the roots of his thick hair.

He took out his pocket knife and sliced through the screen from top to bottom. The ripping noise made him cringe, but he moved quickly. The moans of the dead masked it. Hands continued to bang at the front as Lee slipped out the window on the side.

With his arms raised, he motioned for Jessica to lower herself down to him.

She stood there, Brutus clenched in both her arms, staring down at Lee.

His hands beckoned to her desperately, his eyes practically shouting at her to jump into his arms.

If either of them said a single word, they were dead.

Lee stared into the little girl's eyes. His heart beat fiercely. The back of his shirt was drenched in sweat. He waved his arms to get her to jump, but she wouldn't.

A snap echoed nearby.

They both turned to see a pair of stiff feet, awkwardly bent, sticking out from the edge of the house. Lee heard a quick gasp come from Jessica and his stomach sank. That was all it took to alert the corpse of their presence.

"Now, lass!" Lee shouted.

Jessica jumped through the window and landed in Lee's hulking arms like a sack of potatoes. He didn't waste a moment before taking off westward. The prescriptions in his pockets shook as they had before. The little girl sobbed into his chest. Lee breathed out in huffs as he ran full-force past the house next door.

He didn't bother to look over his shoulder to see if they were following. It didn't matter. He would save Jessica no matter what it took.

### XIII

Holding the shaking body of the little girl to his chest, Lee Hickey ran away from her house. They were in need of somewhere to hide, anywhere that would separate them from the dead. He could hear muffled sobs as the girl covered her mouth with her ragged teddy-bear.

When the arms of the undead stretched out from behind another house, Lee was quick to zig-zag out of the way without slowing down. His heart pounded. The throbbing in his ears was deafening. A sharp pain shot up his leg with every running step he took, but none of it slowed him down. He had lost his wife, lost his child, and though he wasn't crazy about them, he had lost his in-laws as well...but he wasn't going to lose Jessica.

Faint growls echoed off the surrounding trees, making it hard to determine where the walking corpses lingered. Whenever Lee thought the path was clear, a body would shamble out from behind a wide trunk, arms extended and mouth open, ready to take a chunk out of their warm, tender flesh. Jessica would scream and Lee would evade just in time to save them both. For thirty minutes it went on like this.

The sun sank behind the horizon, thrusting them into an impenetrable darkness. There were no lights along the highway to guide them. Not a single car passed by to give them a brief release, but several lay dead on the side of the road. A thick overhang of trees blocked out the light of the moon. How would they ever find shelter in this darkness?

Just as Lee was beginning to panic, the trees parted to reveal an old barn in a field of newly sprouted corn. From there, they could see for acres in every direction. The rustle of corn stalks could alert them of oncoming danger. It was the perfect spot to lay low while he figured out their next move.

"We're going to stay the night in that barn, there," he said, his mouth pressed against Jessica's head so he wouldn't have to speak too loudly.

All he got in return was a soft whimper and her arms squeezing tighter around his neck. Carefully, he headed into corn stalks, which brushed against his knees as he moved. The scraping sound carried on the hot breeze and made Lee's skin crawl.

"We're almost there, sweetheart," he said. "We're almost there."

He continued forward at a brisk walk, his desire to get out of open and into the barn overwhelming him until he thought he would burst forth in a run. Sweat continued to drip down his back and drench his shirt, but this didn't deter Jessica from clutching onto him like a spider monkey.

A rustle came from nearby.

Lee stopped in his tracks, holding his breath.

Silence.

He moved forward.

Another rustle. This time, he saw a patch of stalks move erratically.

"What was that?" Jessica whispered.

Lee was still staring at the moving stalks as the hidden thing drew closer. Why wasn't it standing and walking toward them? Maybe it was only a small animal.

"Lee?" Jessica's voice became louder and more desperate. "Lee!"

Her arms tightened around his neck so they almost strangled him as her body moved upward in an attempt to get away.

"It's OK," he said. "It's just an animal. We're almost there. Let's keep going."

Against his better judgement, Lee turned for the barn and continued forward. Every so often he looked over his shoulder. Whatever it was, it still followed them. It seemed to be going the same pace, because it was always about five to ten yards behind.

Suddenly, Jessica's scream tore apart the thick night air.

### XIV

Bloodied hands reached for Lee's ankles, tugging at the laces of his tennis shoes. He quickly moved backward and away, but tripped over something large and hard.

Down they went.

Jessica screamed, this time with an appalling shriek that made Lee's ears ring. One of the dead had grabbed ahold of his leg and was pulling itself up with its chewed up arms. The entire bottom half of its body was missing, its entrails dragging behind, staining the stalks it brushed by.

With a swift kick, Lee's heel sent the thing's jaw jutting out to the side with a crack. It gave him just enough time to back out of its grip and right himself. He stood over the pathetic being, looking down as it reached up with one arm, hunger burning painfully behind its milky eyes.

Lee kicked again, rolling it onto its back. It continued to reach up for him. A few short hours ago, he would have lost his lunch over the site of it. Now, he wanted it smashed into a bloody pulp. He brought his foot down and caved in its skull. Blood and brains spilled out onto the ground like candy out of a piñata.

Jessica shrieked again.

Lee whipped around to find another one of the disemboweled dead tugging at the hem of her nightgown. He made to move toward her just as the young girl lost her balance and fell to the ground.

"NO!" Lee screamed.

He reached for her as the thing sunk its teeth into her shoulder. Lee pulled her up, tearing away flesh and muscle that still hung from between the zombie's blackened, bloody teeth. Its tongue moved all around to lap up the fresh, warm liquid life.

He held Jessica to his chest. She no longer cried out in pain. Defeated, tiny sobs racked her body as she started to shake.

Tears welled up in Lee's brown eyes. He'd failed again. Every single person he tried to keep alive during this apocalypse had been ripped apart by the vile undead.

The thing still snatched at the air to get more meat into its masticating mouth. A rage filled Lee's heart until he thought it would burst. He let out a long, anguished cry as he stomped on its head, rendering it unrecognizable.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" he yelled out with fury. "You fucking son-of-a-goddamn-bitch!"

Long after the creature had stopped moving, Lee finally took a step back with heaving breaths. The fog of devastation dissipated. He remembered what brought him to that very moment.

Jessica's small arms no longer wrapped tightly around his neck. Instead of curling up in a ball on his chest, her head laid back, her neck extended, and her long blonde hair fell downward like a golden waterfall.

Gently, he laid her down on the ground where the stalks had been flattened. Blood gushed from the wound near her throat. There was silence all around as her life spilled from her tiny body onto his shaking hands. His bottom lip quivered as he stared into her vacant eyes. He suppressed the urge to say her name again. She wouldn't answer this time.

With one knee rested on the ground, he lowered his head into one of his thick hands. It was his destiny in life to be alone, that much was becoming clear. With the world the way it was now, it was useless to become attached to any living thing. The dead would simply claim it as their own.

A hand brushed against his, causing his lids to spring open. Jessica stared up at him with new eyes, starving for her first feeding. Her teeth gnashed together as she gave a feminine but threatening hiss. The wound on her shoulder no longer bled. There was no life left in her to pour out.

Before Lee could move, he heard a loud bang and dark blood drenched his face.

"Got it!" he heard a man yell with enthusiasm. "I got the sumbitch. Did you see that? The way it exploded? Aw, man!"

Whoever it was, he wasn't alone.

Mixed emotions spread through Lee as he continued to kneel in the cornfield with his eyes closed—hatred for the person who so callously wasted poor Jessica, heartsick from the entire day of loss with no time to grieve, and exhausted from endless running from the dead. The only thing he didn't feel was fear.

Slowly, he rose to his full height.

"Hey, man, you all right? Did it get you?" the same man asked with authority.

Lee's eyes opened, the only part of his face not covered in Jessica's blood.

"Oh, crap," the young blond man said slowly. "He's one of them!"

Lee waited for the release of death and the reunion with his wife and Jessica on the other side.

"No! Wait!" another gentler man's voice said. "He's not a zombie. Look at his eyes."

Lee continued to stand there, breathing in and out through his nostrils heavily. His arms hovered over the sides of his legs in a solid stance. The intensity at which he clenched his massive fists caused them to crack.

"Are you bit or not, motherfucker?" the blonde man, who was really more boy than man, demanded loudly, his voice carrying through the night.

"What's your name?" a third asked.

The massive Irishman took one last breath in as he sized up the three men before him.

"My name is Lee. I'm a nurse."

### XV

"Lee! Man, is that really you?" the tall brunette said with wide eyes. "I didn't recognize you with all the..." he paused and motioned to his face.

"Blood," the youngest, curly-haired teen said.

Lee's face didn't light up in recognition of Rowan Brady, a man he had seen only yesterday in the emergency room. Not a single flinch in the corners of his lips gave any indication he felt relief in finding someone he knew, even if he had only met the young man a total of seven times.

Rowan's smiling face fell as Lee stood staring ahead, drenched in crimson blood. The cornfield was saturated in a heavy silence. Only the distant screams of others falling victim nearby penetrated it.

"Well, let's move this on inside," the thick-necked blonde said with a stern face. "I'm Lonnie by the way."

"Mitchell," the third said with a delicate wave of his shotgun.

He held it awkwardly, like he was afraid it would go off with the slightest touch. It was clear he had never held a gun before this night.

They waited a moment for the bloodied nurse to agree with their plan or not. When an answer didn't come, Lonnie turned and headed for the barn anyway, not looking back to see if anyone was following him. Rowan Brady quickly jogged to catch up, keeping by Lonnie's side.

Only Mitchell stayed behind to make sure Lee would follow.

"I'm sorry about the girl," he said somewhat nervously, his brown eyes darting back and forth.

Lee didn't say anything, but started to move forward with the others.

"So, was she your daughter or just someone you came across or—" he was immediately cut off when he saw Lee's glowing eyes. It was a fierce look that said he didn't want to answer any of the boy's questions.

"Right, okay, got it," Mitchell stammered, facing forward. "Don't want to talk, that's cool."

When they reached the barn doors, Lonnie raised a hand to signal everyone to stop. They all stood behind his stocky frame, the other two peering over his head to see if they could see anything lurking inside. Lee looked forward, but his mind was elsewhere.

He couldn't stop thinking about the look on Anna's face, permanently frozen in her last scream as her parents dug into her, ripping her apart, tearing their unborn baby from her womb. He bit his bottom lip until he drew blood. The metallic taste in his mouth brought him back to the present, where Lonnie was entering the barn with caution, a flashlight balanced in his hand while he tried to aim his rifle.

"Clear!" he said like a soldier leading his troops through a battlefield.

"Thank God," Mitchell sighed, stepping into the warm barn. He set his shotgun up against one of the empty stalls. "I don't think I could have taken another one of those things tonight."

"Well, you better get used to it, 'cause these things ain't goin' nowhere."

"You really think so?" Rowan asked while setting his flashlight down so it lit up the ceiling. "What do you think Lee? I mean, you're a nurse. You know a little bit about medical stuff and you worked in the E.R...do you think they'll find a cure for...whatever this is?"

Lee entered the barn and continued on without acknowledging Rowan's question. He didn't stop as he passed them by, disappearing into the darkness of the back. In the far left corner there was an open stall with fresh hay strewn over the wood flooring. Lee headed for it with quiet determination.

"The hell's his problem," he heard Lonnie say, but was too exhausted to care about dealing with the three of them at the moment.

As soon as his feet touched the plush pile, his legs collapsed. He sat with his back against the wall, staring up at the darkened rafters above. A heavy silence consumed him for the briefest moment while the others staked out their areas for the night. He should find some water, wash his face and hands, see if there was anything to eat since he hadn't eaten at all that day, but he couldn't move.

Then came a terrible scream.

His back straightened as he looked around. The others were settling into their places on the floor as if they hadn't heard a thing, flashlights shining brightly around them for comfort.

Lee forced his body to relax back against the wall again. Surely the wannabe soldier would have been all over it if he had heard someone shouting. He seemed like the type of guy who enjoyed watching heads explode from the pull of his trigger. But whose scream was it? And why had no one else heard it?

It didn't sound like Jessica. When the zombie's teeth had sunk into her tender flesh, she had let out a high-pitched piercing cry, similar to that of a small dying animal. And it didn't sound like any of the cries he had heard while fighting to escape the hospital. Those had been panicked and breathy as everyone ran for their lives or died trying. No, it wasn't a scream he had heard that day. But then where would he have heard someone screaming so fully and desperately? He couldn't think of a single moment in his life that called for such a terrible and frightening scream.

Then he remembered the dream he had of his wife the night before—the way her face was permanently frozen in a horrific scream, the mascara running down her cheeks like two black rivers, and nothing coming out of her mouth as she looked at him, her eyes crying out for him to save her, but he didn't know how...it was the same face she wore in death on her parent's kitchen floor. The dream had ended with the sound of her screams. Looking back now, he could only assume that was the sound she made while her life drained from her body slowly and painfully.

In some twisted way, he had dreamt of her death before it happened. Then why wasn't he able to save her? The question burned at him. His balled up hands shook in his lap as he breathed in and out slowly in an attempt to calm himself. Even if he had some premonition of her death and could have stopped it, that didn't change anything. Anna was still gone and there was nothing that would bring her back.

Another cry interrupted the quiet of the barn. This time the others heard it too and jumped up from their beds of hay.

### XVI

An older woman, Lee guessed by the rasp in her voice, called out for someone to help her. Lonnie grabbed his gun first, as it never really seemed to leave his hands. He charged the front doors and peered out from between the crack.

Rowan grabbed his pistol and followed.

Mitchell slowly grasped his shaking hand around the barrel of his shotgun, but didn't move any further to pick it up. His eyes were wide as he waited for the inevitable horde of dead to raid the barn and kill them all.

Lee was the only one to remain on the floor, his back relaxed and his head turned upward with his eyes closed as if he had been carried off into a peaceful dream. In reality, he was fighting tooth-and-nail not to see his dead wife's face, which seemed to burn in his retinas.

The last thing he wanted to do was get up and fight to save someone else only to watch them die at the hands of the dead. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to stay with this group, a group he didn't particularly care for, because he was too terrified that someone else would die when he could have saved them. Maybe it was best to be alone, and if the dead sunk their teeth into him and ripped him apart with their bare, cold hands, then that was what was meant to be.

Shots fired into the night. Lonnie shouted a slew of curses. Rowan stood just outside the doors, watching in awe as the blonde charged head-first into the darkness. Mitchell stood shaking in fear. He had finally picked up his shotgun and held it close to his chest, ready to fire.

Lee had a fleeting worry that the kid would shoot the first thing that came through the door whether it was dead or alive. He almost stood up to tell Mitchell to calm down, but in the end he stayed put. What did it matter? He would comfort the kid only to see the others mortally wounded from his inaccurate fires. They would bleed to death slowly, the life fading from their brilliant young eyes as Lee looked down on them. It was better to stay hidden in the shadows and walk past the aftermath than see more horror unfold at his feet.

So, that's exactly what Lee did.

And even when Lonnie saved the woman named Gale Lewis from the horde chasing her and everyone was safe and sound inside the lighted, warm barn, Lee still sat in the back, isolated from every living thing around him. That was the way it had to be if he wanted to survive in this new world. Getting attached meant dealing with heartbreaking loss later. It was best if he avoided it altogether.

All he planned to do from that moment forward was survive.

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## CHAPTER ONE

Three men in navy blue jumpsuits walked the Boston Common with animal control poles. The loops at the ends swayed with each cautious step they took, careful not to make a sound as they stalked through the trees. Everything was quiet. Even the birds held their breaths, not letting a single peep fall from their beaks. Every so often, a gentle summer breeze rustled through the branches, making the three men turn on their heels.

"Didn't we clear this area two days ago?" the youngest man in the back whispered.

He was twenty-five-years-old and the newest member of the National Guard's zombie division, a special unit meant to catch and cure walking corpses. A rush of adrenaline made the young man's hands shake every time they were dispatched. Three men was not enough for the task in his opinion, but ever since the plague took a good chunk of the population the military had been left short-handed.

"And now we're clearing it again," the man closest to him hissed through his teeth.

Sergeant Stone's name suited him as he was built like a solid wall of chimney. His lips were pursed so thinly, it was a wonder how they didn't disappear altogether. He was tired of the newbie always questioning everything. It was their job to shut up and follow orders. If they didn't, the zombies could very well take over again.

The reign hadn't lasted long thanks to all the zombie lore from comic books, movies, and television. The CDC had even implemented a plan for if the zombie plague ever broke out due to the popularity of the monsters. No one ever thought it would really happen, until it did. And then, the government was quick to act. Sergeant Stone was one of the first to volunteer for the division.

He laughed when the Major told him a nineteen-year-old was joining the team that morning. He wasn't laughing now that they were out in the field.

"Would you two shut your traps?" their commanding officer growled from the lead. "We're looking for flesh-eating, organ-chewing, blood-drinking zombies, or have you forgotten why we're here?"

He was a decorated war hero who served three tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. His hair was silver and thinning, and his arms sagged with muscles that had been ignored over the years. It was the pins on his breast-pocket alone that commanded respect.

"No, sir," they whispered in unison.

"Good, then come on."

Together they walked in a U-shape, Major Jackson facing forward and leading the way while the newbie, Private First Class Goodman, faced the East and Sergeant Stone faced the West. There should have been someone watching their six, but they were told they would have to do without for a while.

The rustle of shambling footsteps sounded ahead.

The Major held up a fist, stopping the other two in their tacks.

A dull groan echoed off the trees.

Major Jackson pointed to Sergeant Stone and motioned for him to circle around and come up from behind. The Sergeant moved with stealth, his feet not making a sound on the plush grass. Goodman felt his knees knock together as he lost sight of his comrade. There were only two of them now.

Up ahead, a female limped slowly out into the open from behind a tree.

"Ma'am!" The Major called out with his catcher's pole gripped in both hands.

He knew she wasn't going to respond, but protocols had to be followed, even if they were stupid.

The young woman opened her mouth and let out a hiss before clacking her teeth together.

The two men nodded once to each other and watched as the dirtied woman moved toward them, her arms raising up in front of her. Her long brown hair was matted with twigs, dirt, and dried blood. A good shower would detangle that mess. Her pale face was scratched, but not so badly that she wouldn't recover in time. The only substantial wound visible was the chunk that had been bitten from her trapezius, nothing that couldn't be cleaned, stitched together, and grafted over.

"Let's bring her in," the Major declared.

They advanced on the pitiful zombie.

"Z-729657," the Major said in an official tone, "you're coming with us to the Massachusetts General Hospital where you will be admitted into the Undead Ward for treatment and—AHHH!"

A large male had wandered up soundlessly from behind and sunk his teeth into the Major's arm. He munched relentlessly as screams pierced the air. His head was thrown around as the Major tried to shake his bloodied arm free.

Goodman stood frozen in horror. It was the first time he'd seen anyone attacked up close. Crimson spilled from the Major's arm onto the green grass. His Commanding Officer was losing his pallor before his eyes. Though his legs were unable to move, his stomach gave a violent lurch.

"What are you doing?! Catch it!" Sergeant Stone's gruff voice called as he ran up to them.

He didn't wait for Goodman to snap out of it, but secured the female zombie by the neck with his own catcher's pole. She struggled listlessly as he held her in place. Her growls echoed in the young Private's ears, debilitating him further. His vision tunneled and all he could see were her bloodied, gnashing teeth with bits of the Major's skin hanging from between.

"For fuck's sake," Sergeant Stone growled.

He shoved the catcher's pole with the secured zombie into the petrified kid's hands and snatched his away. With precision and ease, he slipped the loop around the male zombie's neck and yanked him away from the shrieking Major, taking a chunk of arm with him.

Major Jackson dropped to his knees, howling. The blood flowed from the gaping wound like a raging river. He tried to stop the bleeding with his hand, but his life-force gushed between his fingers. With his free hand, the Sergeant pulled the Major up by the collar.

"You'll be fine, Sir. They'll get you fixed up with some of that Zombutexa-whatever-the-fuck it's called, and you'll be good to go."

"I don't want to become one of them," the forty-eight-year-old man wept while clutching his arm.

The Sergeant rolled his eyes. "You're not going to turn into one of them. Now, come on. Let's get them in the van and get out of here before any more show up." He snatched the other pole from the frightened kid and led both zombies across the park.

The corpses bumped into each other, hissing and clawing at the air for freedom, while the Major whimpered from behind. They left the Private dumbstruck in the blood-stained grass.

"Let's go, fuck-shit, before we leave your ass here!"

Goodman snapped out of his horrified daze and jogged to catch up. He went to take one of the poles, but the Sergeant jerked it away. The two zombies stumbled sideways and let out a series of moans and growls.

"I don't think so, newbie. Not after what you just pulled."

"I didn't mean to—" the copper-haired, wiry kid started to say.

"Save it. It's not up to me what happens to you now."

When they reached the Army-green van, Sergeant Stone ushered the dead up the ramp and into the back. He released the loops from the poles with the press of a button. Sensing their freedom, the two bodies lunged forward. Stone slammed the doors and peered in through the tiny window. He smiled with all his crooked teeth.

"Not today, motherfuckers!"

The Major groaned loudly from the other side of the van, as if death himself were approaching to take him away.

"All right, all right," the Stone grumbled as he walked around to the driver's side. "Let's go."

Goodman hopped in first and held a hand out. The Major, refusing to take it or possibly not seeing it through his blinding pain, inched his way through the passenger door and onto the seat. The smell of copper immediately overwhelmed everyone onboard.

The van lurched forward and a loud thud came from the back. Stone gave a satisfied chuckle as he turned onto Tremont Street. The Major let out another dramatic groan as Goodman stared at his wound with a gaping mouth. The kid nudged closer to Stone without realizing it. The Sergeant nudged him with his elbow.

"You wanna sit in my lap, Goodman?"

"Sorry," he mumbled as he readjusted himself, and then he whispered, "do you think he's going to be okay?"

The Major had leaned his head against the cool glass of the window. His eyes slowly closed as he struggled to breathe properly. He looked like he'd aged ten years in the last ten minutes.

"He'll be fine. Takes a good twenty-four hours to zombify completely. They'll give him the shot and that will be that."

"That will be that," Goodman repeated as he nodded his head.

He had no choice but to believe his Sergeant. After all, the hardened man had been on countless zombie hunts since hospitals all over the country opened the Undead Wards at the beginning of the year. He'd been through three Commanding Officers and eight teams of men. No one had ever died on a mission, though a good number had been bitten, infected for life with the zombie plague. But Stone believed it was all part of the job. The military had never been a safe career. This plague didn't change that.

Goodman wondered if he stayed with the division if he would become callous like Sergeant Stone. The very thought sent a shiver down his spine. He tried to ignore the muffled groans and bangs from the back. No matter how many he came face-to-face with, he would never get used to the sight of a zombie hungry for his brains. When he decided to sign up for the division, all he thought about was the gratitude others would feel toward him for helping to make their city safe again. It wasn't until today that he realized there was so much more to the job, like the zombies. He thought most of them had been cured already. If they allowed him to, he resolved to do better on the next mission.

In the back, the two zombies tried to stay standing as the van took sharp turns. The female moaned each time her head hit the hard metal side, but she didn't feel any pain. She couldn't feel anything but the overwhelming desire to sink her teeth into warm, flesh to get to the gooey brains underneath. The other zombie had been so close to securing their meal. If only they hadn't been outnumbered, they would both be on cloud nine right now, riding a brain high for the rest of the day.

The mangled man she'd been picked up with looked at her. He parted his crusted lips as if he were going to speak, but all that came out was a deep groan. He continued to stare as the van rocked with each turn. His wobbly legs offered little help to keep him upright. With each fall, he turned away and grunted.

She'd seen this zombie before in the park. He was vicious and moved with an agility the rest had lost over time. When it came to brains, this guy wasn't messing around. He wanted them bad and he would attack anyone to get them. A part of her felt scared to be alone with him, but then she remembered—zombies don't eat other zombies. It's rule number one.

## CHAPTER TWO

Zooey Beckett opened her eyes. The repetitive beep of the electrocardiograph machine seemed to grow louder with each ounce of consciousness she gained. Her head felt like it'd been hit with a sledgehammer, her face and shoulders stung and ached, but she was alive! At least, she thought she was.

She went to move her hand to touch it lightly to her throbbing cheek, but was stopped midway. A loud metallic clank echoed in the empty room.

"What the—" she said in a raspy voice unlike her own.

Metal handcuffs chained both her hands to each side of a hospital bedrail. Panic rose in her chest like a fire. Her heartbeat raced, sending the machine into a frenzy. She thrashed herself about, trying to get loose.

"Somebody get me out of here!" she yelled, not sure if there was anyone around to hear her.

She vaguely remembered someone telling her they were taking her to the hospital, but she wasn't sure why. Her brain felt light and clouded over with fog.

"Help!" she cried out. "Please help!"

Finally, the door opened and a young male nurse in green scrubs with too much gel in his dark, straight hair strode in. He turned off the EKG and shoved a thermometer in her ear.

"Hold still," he said dryly.

Every breath was shallow and painful, and she was still confused. She ignored the nurse's demands and moved about as much as her restraints would allow.

"Why am I here? What's going on? What did I do?"

Crusty-haired nurse ignored her and took the thermometer out when it beeped, though with as much as she moved the reading couldn't have been accurate. He wrote on his notepad and moved around to the other side of the bed, removing his stethoscope from around his thin neck.

"Can you tell me what happened?" she urged again. "Please!"

He placed the cold metal to her chest and looked up at the ceiling to avoid her desperate gaze.

Just then, a tall slender man in a white labcoat walked in.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Evan Fullerton. I will be your resident doctor for the duration of your stay."

Zooey's eyes grew wide as tears gathered in them. "What do you mean? Tell me why I'm here!" Blind rage was creeping up in her. She needed answers.

The doctor removed his silver-rimmed glasses and placed them in his breast pocket. The nurse rolled a chair in from the hallway and placed it behind the doctor, who lowered himself without ever taking his eyes off Zooey.

"What's the last thing you remember, Miss...?"

She looked from him to the nurse. Her mouth fell open in bewilderment. "Zooey Beckett," she said harshly.

"Ah," the doctor sighed while nodding his salt and peppered head. "Miss Beckett. As detailed as you can, please tell me the last thing you remember."

Zooey stopped straining against her constraints and laid her head back against the lumpy pillow. It was becoming clear she wasn't going to get any answers until she provided some for them. She held back her tears and swallowed the lump in her throat. With a pitiful attempt, she rubbed each cheek on her shoulder to dry them.

"I had just gotten off work—H&M—and I was walking to the train." Her voice shook, but she pressed on for the sake of figuring things out. "It had to be about 10:30 at night. I'd had a rough day and was feeling a little stressed, so I decided at the last minute to take a lap around the Common first to clear my head.

"Talk of the cure and safer streets had been going around. I thought I would be okay." Her vision blurred as tears collected in her eyes again. She could see her words played out like a movie in her head as she spoke. "I was attacked by the gazebo, bit on the shoulder. I didn't see it coming, and I couldn't get away..." she swallowed and her breath hitched in her chest. "And then everything went black. That's all I can remember."

The doctor didn't write any of this down. He simply stared into Zooey's dull-gray eyes as if she were the only other person on the planet at that moment, his head continually nodding like a bobble.

"And do you remember what the date was when this happened?"

Zooey's eyes shifted from his to the nurse's and back. Her stomach tightened. "Umm..." she sniffed to stay in control of herself. "May twenty-first," she finally said. "Why? How long did it take for you to find me? My roommate must have called when I didn't come home. Was it last night? Two nights ago?"

The doctor wiped his face with the palm of his hand, brushing back his short hair, and then leaned back in the chair. "It's July seventeenth," he said painfully. "You've been gone for almost two months."

She felt like she'd been punched in the gut. Zooey tried to take in a breath, but it was nearly impossible. Her chest heaved violently as she wheezed. The machine next to her bed beeped wildly and the nurse leaned over to turn it off.

"How can I lose two months of my life and not remember anything?"

The doctor continued to explain the situation. "Even though the cure is out there, we have not been able to capture and treat every single zombie in the United States yet. This is an ongoing problem because as we cure a handful, another handful is created by the ones still out there, as in your case."

Tears flooded Zooey's eyes and cascaded down her pale cheeks. The salt stung at her wounds, but she couldn't stop. She was one of them—a monster, a living nightmare, a cannibal!

"Does that mean I-I-I killed...people?" she sobbed, wanting desperately to cover her face with her hands as she struggled against the handcuffs again.

They dug into her flesh, tearing away at her already tender skin. She flung her head to the side in an attempt to hide her scrunched-up face.

"Now, now, we can't be sure what happened," Doctor Fullerton said in a soothing voice as he stroked her hair. "All we know is that you are human again and your life can be restored to what it once was with a little help. Would you like that?"

The sweet, placid tone of his voice seeped in through Zooey's ears and calmed her firing nerves. Her chest slowly stopped racking as she looked up into his kind eyes. She sniffed back her tears and used her shoulders to wipe her cheeks again. As she brushed the right one, a sharp pain made her wince.

"What do I do now?" she asked, meek and defeated.

Doctor Fullerton sighed through his slim nose. "For starters, you'll have to stay here for a total of three weeks, assuming nothing else comes up medically. We did have to stitch you up a bit due to some substantial lacerations on your face and shoulder. Luckily, none of it required any surgery or skin grafting."

Zooey nodded delicately. All she wanted in that moment was a mirror. The pain in her face doubled as she wondered how closely she resembled Frankenstein's monster. She didn't notice the nurse, who moved like a ghost to stand next to her, an empty syringe in his hand.

The doctor continued to outline her stay as her thoughts drifted in and out. "You will have one more day in this room to sleep off the sedative. You have already been out for two days so one more should suffice. After that, you'll be moved into the Adult Undead Ward. There you will attend group counseling and one-on-one sessions with me daily to make sure we are preparing you for the outside world again. How does that sound?"

Zooey sat in silence as she took it all in. Her head felt heavy, like a bowling ball on a stick. "And once I'm released? What happens then?" she managed to slur.

The doctor smiled with a row of straight white teeth beaming out to her. She flinched at the sight of them.

"Great question! Well, you will continue to see me every two weeks for your treatment and a thirty minute therapy session to make sure you're acclimating okay. Those only last for the first year and then you can go to one of the many walk-in clinics that are being trained on how to administer the treatment on-site."

Her eyes drifted over to the male nurse who now hovered in the corner behind the doctor. She looked to her left where he had been standing a moment ago in disbelief. She slowly moved her head to stare at him again. He folded his arms and tightened the muscles in his face. A chill ran down her spine and she shivered.

She let her eyes wander the room to avoid the nurse's gaze. There were three white padded walls and one glass one. Outside the room, she saw someone in a blue jumpsuit sitting in a rolling chair identical to the doctor's and another younger man in a blue jumpsuit with orange hair standing next to him. There was something familiar about those two, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Does that sound good to you, Miss Beckett?"

She turned her gaze to the doctor again. He looked into her eyes deeply, as if in desperate anticipation of her agreement. His eyes briefly shifted to the nurse in the corner, whose jaw clenched in the heavy silence.

"Sure," she said. "Sounds good."

"Excellent," he breathed out with a smile. "Then all that's left is the interview." He pulled a small notebook out from his pocket, along with a ballpoint pen. "What is your full name?"

Her eyes closed in a slow blink, almost too heavy to open again. Whatever the nurse had given her was strong. "Zooey Marie Beckett."

"And when is your birthdate?"

"December 1, 1990."

The doctor nodded his head as his pen scribbled away. "So that makes you twenty-six now," he said more to himself. "And what is your occupation? Retail, or did you hold other jobs aside from H&M?"

Zooey blinked slowly several more times. Her head was foggy as it adjusted from being dead to alive again, fighting through the sedative.

"I was supposed to start Grad School for psychology at Harvard, but the school closed after the outbreak. I was only working at H&M as a part-time job to make rent, well until the landlord disappeared. Then, I was working for food mostly."

She could hear herself rambling, but her lips wouldn't stop moving.

"Ah, Harvard!" the doctor bellowed as he uncrossed his legs to switch them. "You plan to finish your degree then?"

She readjusted herself to sit up as much as she could without disturbing the handcuffs. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything really." Her gaze glazed over as the weight of her new life crashed down on her.

Doctor Fullerton waved the question away with his pen. "Don't worry about. That's what the counseling sessions are for. Now, are you originally from Boston?"

"No. My family lives in...Walker's Landing... Washington." Her words stumbled over one another as her lips started to tingle.

There was no hint of recognition on the doctor's face. She wasn't surprised. Her hometown wasn't close to any major cities. If he wasn't big into fishing as a profession, it was unlikely he would have ever heard of the place.

"And tell me about your family."

"Why?" she forced out harshly. "I haven't lived with them in eight years. I barely speak to them."

"Okay, tell me about who you do live with, then," the doctor said without missing a beat.

Zooey's eyes finally closed for good as she thought about her roommate. A warmth spread through her chest as she pictured Elizabeth standing at the kitchen counter sipping from one of her oversized coffee mugs, tapping her foot. She was always tapping her foot.

"Her name is Elizabeth Wentworth. She graduated from Harvard with me and was supposed to begin Law School before all this." Her voice was slow, calculated, and distant.

"Quite an ambitious pair you two make."

Zooey smiled, feeling a sharp pinch in her right cheek. Instinct made her hand shoot up to touch it in comfort, yanking the handcuffs against the railing again. The nurse in the corner unfolded his arms and took a step forward, but Doctor Fullerton held a hand up.

"Can you loosen these?" Zooey asked. "Or take one off so I can scratch my nose if I want to?" One of her droopy eyes cracked open.

The doctor's gaze softened on her. "I wish I could, but we have to keep them on for a full seventy-two hours. It's hospital policy."

Zooey let out a frustrated huff and let her eyes close again.

"Do you mind me asking why you don't speak to your family anymore?"

Her dark brows pulled together as her forehead wrinkled. "I still talk to them, just not much," she corrected him. "My parents are stuck in a loveless marriage and they feel they have to make life miserable for everyone around them. My younger brother is a drug addict, in and out of rehab."

The doctor didn't say anything. He wrote on his small pad of paper furiously with his own forehead wrinkled in concentration.

"I think I've got just about all I need," he said with a smile, and he stood up. "You rest as best you can and tomorrow morning we will have you moved to a more permanent room."

He laid a hand gently on her upper arm. Her first instinct was to shrink away. She didn't know this man at all apart from his name and profession. But the longer his touch lingered, the more she relaxed into it. It'd been almost two months since she had any living human contact. Though her brain couldn't remember this, her body seemed to. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nostrils, relaxing her muscles and mind as she gave into the heavy sedative.

"Can I call Elizabeth and tell her I'm all right?" she forced out before unconsciousness took hold of her.

At this, the doctor removed his hand and placed it in the pocket of his jeans. "I'm afraid you're not allowed to make any phone calls yet. We are still preparing you for rehabilitation, and we have to prepare your roommate as well."

Her lids wrenched open and she stared into his baby blue eyes, hoping she could telepathically wear him down into breaking the rules just this once. It didn't work. He simply stared back sympathetically, his eyes turned upward like a damaged puppy dog.

"It'll get better, Miss Beckett. Just give it time," he said as he turned for the door. "Everything will be back to normal before you know it."

That was the first lie Doctor Fullerton told Zooey Beckett.

## CHAPTER THREE

Zooey shambled through the Boston Common, one foot dragging behind the other. She gave a drawn-out groan. There was no one else with her. The twinkling of stars and the big, crescent moon guided her through the trees.

Desire burned in her till she felt physical pain throughout her body. She needed brains badly. Her high had worn off from the last time she ate and all she was left with was a hollowness inside. There had to be someone, anyone, walking around on this warm summer night to eat.

As if in answer to her prayers, a young man in tight shorts and a tank-top jogged around the corner. The white wires to his earbuds bounced against his chest as he breathed steadily.

Zooey watched from behind a tree. He was headed her way. All she would have to do is wait for the right moment and throw herself onto him. With every stride he came closer to the horrific, bloody death awaiting him.

She gnawed at her bottom lip in anticipation. His yummy, gooey, dripping brain was all she could think about. She had to have them.

Just as the jogger rounded the turn in the pathway, Zooey lunged from the shadows to tackle him to the ground. Before he could let out his first cry, she sunk her teeth into his arm. It wasn't that she wanted to eat his flesh. That would only temporarily satisfy her craving. Biting him debilitated him, distracted him, while she worked at splitting open his hard head to suck out the juicy morsels inside.

Blood rushed over her tongue as she tore through his muscles. The man let out a shriek that seemed to split the night in two. She pulled herself on top of him, pinning him as he fought back with his good arm. Each blow to her head felt like he was hitting her with a foam swimming noodle. It did nothing to deter her, and certainly didn't make her give up. Nothing would. She had to have those brains.

Sinking her teeth into his tender neck, she ripped out his Adam's apple. Arterial blood sprayed upward like a fountain as the man relaxed onto the pavement with his eyes wide open. He didn't struggle against her anymore.

Zooey's face was drenched and warm. She licked her lips clean and her eyes rolled back into her head. She was thankful there were no other zombies nearby. Sharing the brains she worked so hard to get would have been a bummer.

She held the man's face in both her hands, lifting his head up from the sidewalk. His mouth was open, his handsome, young face forever petrified with a look of horror. He looked about the same age as Zooey. She wondered if he was a Harvard student like her, killing time until school reopened its doors so he could get on with his life.

With force, she threw his head down. A loud crack echoed off the trees. She did this over and over again until the back of his head was nothing more than a bloody mess of broken skull and leaking fluids. She dug her fingers into the cracks and ripped apart to reveal the treasure inside—his brain.

She scooped out the large pink muscle delicately. It was heavier than most of the brains she ate. Inside she smiled, though the muscles in her face wouldn't mimic the feeling. She turned the brain over in her hands, looking at it from all angles. It was a mighty fine brain, indeed.

With the ravenous force of a starved jackal, she shoved it into her mouth and tore off a large chunk. Blood and fluid slathered down her chin as she chewed. Warmth spread through her throat, and then her stomach. Her own brain lit up as if someone had turned on a light switch inside her head. Memories of going out with Elizabeth and Oliver played before her eyes like a movie, bringing back all the wonderful feelings that went along with them. Her body didn't feel like deadweight being dragged around anymore. Instead, it felt light as a feather, as if she would float away in the next breeze.

She swallowed the bits in her mouth and then dove forward for another bite.

Zooey shot upward, but was pulled back by the handcuffs still locked around her wrists. The lights had been turned on, glaring down at her like an extraterrestrial beam. She squinted her eyes until they were able to adjust.

"Time to get up," a gruff woman's voice called as she yanked the covers back.

Zooey's legs shrank under her for warmth. She was drenched in sweat and shivering.

The large woman, on her last leg of middle-age, went through the robotic routine of shutting off all the machines without glancing in Zooey's direction.

Finally, able to open her eyes, she saw the nurse bend down to unlock her cuffs. The sweet release felt like a hundred pounds lifted. Zooey sat upright and wrapped her arms around her waist, both for warmth and comfort. Her matted hair scratched sorely.

"Get up!" the woman barked.

Zooey noticed a hulking man in a security officer's uniform standing in the corner by the door. He was at least six-foot-five with rippling muscles that stretched the black fabric of his uniform to the breaking point. Not a single emotion could be recognized on his tanned face. But it was the squatty nurse that made Zooey flinch. She had the face of a bulldog and a bite that was worse.

"Do you want to be moved to your own room or not, girl?"

"My name's Zooey," she said under her breath.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed slowly and let her bare feet touch the cold floor. The urge to pull back was almost more than she could bear. Now that her hands were free, all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep for a week.

A brisk shove on her back forced her to stand.

"On your feet, Undead."

"Undead?" Zooey wondered aloud as she moved forward.

The nurse handed her a ratty blue robe and then strode out the door. Officer Ferrigno held his hand out, signaling her to follow. She put the robe on and wrapped it tightly around her thin frame.

"After you," he said politely.

All she could do was let them herd her from one room to another like a little lost sheep.

As she walked down the deserted hallway, watching the oversized hips of Nurse Crabapple swing back and forth grotesquely, she thought about the nightmare she'd had.

She ate some poor guy's brains. First she killed him, ripped his throat out with her teeth like a maniac, and then proceeded to bash his head in and eat his brains. The psychologist in her tried to rationalize it away as a dream, but she wasn't entirely convinced.

The long, empty corridor seemed to extend forever. Each time they went through a set of doors, they continued down another hallway to another set with no end in sight.

She glanced through a window into one of the many rooms lining the walls. Her pace slowed as she tried to get a good look at who was inside. Then, she stopped. A lonely man sat in a wheelchair by the window overlooking the rooftop. He had no hair on half his head and a big scar with stitches and staples running down the other side, weaving through his sparse brown strands. His face had been pieced back together and resembled a Halloween mask. She wasn't sure if he could see her through the puffiness of his eyes, though he turned to face her listlessly and then back to the window.

A lump moved up through Zooey's throat. She hadn't seen herself in a mirror yet and was unable to get a good look at her reflection in any of the windows. If she looked anything like the man in the wheelchair, then they must have pumped some good drugs into her. On a whole, she didn't feel that bad. Her breathing quickened anyhow.

"Let's go, Miss," the officer said as he approached her and invaded her personal space.

She moved to catch up to the rotund nurse still leading the way. Her right ankle was starting to sting with every step she took. It had been wrapped tightly in a bloody bandage. She cringed at the thought of what was hidden under the dressing. It couldn't be anything good. To avoid thinking about it, she let her mind wander, hoping it would take her to a happier place, but her thoughts turned back to her slurping the gooey brains of the guy she killed.

"In here," the nurse barked as she opened a door that looked like all the rest. The plaque next to it read 'decontamination room'. "Let's clean you up before we toss you in with the rest."

Zooey's eyes darted from the nurse to the door. There was a churning in her stomach, a deep instinct that told her not to go in there. But the nurse narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth the longer Zooey stood. Finally, the woman gave her a swift shove on the shoulder, pushing her inside.

"Get in that tub."

The room was completely empty aside from a large metal tub that looked like it had been a pig trough in its former life. Zooey pulled her robe tighter around her waist.

"Strip down and get in!" the nurse yelled in a voice fitting of a large man.

It made Zooey jump, goosebumps running down her arms. She slowly undid the tie of the robe and slid it from her shoulders.

"I won't bite," the nurse said as she gathered several towels and laid them down on the wet floor.

She cackled like a witch stoking the fire beneath her cauldron.

Zooey's eyes widened. This woman was insane. She took pleasure in pushing around former zombies like they weren't human beings anymore. Zooey wondered if that was how the rest of the world would view her, as some rotting sack of meat that used to be dead.

She pulled down her thin hospital pants and slipped her top off over her head. As the scratchy material grazed her right shoulder, she felt a pinch and then a pull. She looked down at herself to inspect the damage.

The nurse huffed as she plopped down onto a wooden chair next to the tub. The legs groaned under her weight. "I don't have all day to wait for you to admire yourself. Let's go!"

On the tips of her toes, Zooey walked over slowly. She lowered herself into the basin, her eyes turned up as she tried to cover as much of her naked body as she could with her hands. As soon as her bare skin touched the cold, stainless steel, the urge to pee struck her.

"I have to use the bathroom," she said meekly, avoiding eye contact.

"Go in the tub."

The nurse dunked a sponge into a small pale at her feet and squeezed the excess water out. She slapped it onto Zooey's back as if she were scrubbing the grime from a toilet.

"Jesus! That's freezing!"

"Lotta Undead to clean. We don't always have time to draw a warm bath and light candles for you all."

Zooey wrinkled her nose, but in the end she had no choice. Warm liquid rushed out from between her legs and pooled around her bottom as she sat with her knees pulled into her chest. Her urine was black. Zooey tried not to look. She closed her eyes and let the nurse scrub away her sins.

"Disgusting...filthy...undead..." the nurse grumbled, avoiding the stitches just barely.

There was nothing Zooey could do but accept that she had to receive a sponge-bath from Nurse Trunchbull while sitting in her own waste, shivering, sweating, and starving. Her head fell to rest on her shoulder. The texture of her skin was rough and uneven. Slowly, she looked down and then screamed out, causing the nurse to jump back and fall out of her chair.

The tender part where her neck met her shoulder was missing a large chunk. The skin was a sickly mixture of red, blue, purple, and yellow. It looked like the marks of a wild animal, but she knew it was human teeth that had sunk into her flesh and tore it away.

Suddenly, her stomach lurched upward. She tried to cover her mouth, but the bile rose too quickly and splayed out on the floor as the nurse righted herself to sit on the chair again.

"Vile creatures," the nurse said with her nose wrinkled.

Zooey could feel her cheeks burn with embarrassment as the stench of her vomit filled the room.

"Stand up," the nurse ordered after a minute.

Zooey did so without hesitation this time. The woman scrubbed off every last bit of blood, dirt, urine, and anything else that clung to her skin. She tossed the last of the freezing water over Zooey's head without warning.

Naked and shaking uncontrollably, Zooey hugged herself as towels were hurled at her. I'm a Harvard graduate, Goddammit, she thought as she dried herself off.

But the nurse didn't care if she was the Pope himself. All she saw when she looked at Zooey was an abomination. This wasn't something that had to be said. Every single time their eyes met, Zooey saw the hatred that lie not so far beneath the surface.

