Z.O.R.T. 
By: Kyle Deyette

Z.O.R.T.

(A tale of the Zombie Outbreak Response Team)

                                                            PROLOGUE

          My name is Kyle W. Deyette, and I am a zombie hunter. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a one man army; I’m just one part of the Zombie Outbreak Response Team. The Following people are simply the founders of Z.O.R.T.; we are not all that composes it.

            James is the kind of guy who will only run if it is ABSOLUTELY necessary –not due to fitness or anything like that, he’s just lazy-. Now to my surprise, unless there is more than THREE zombies chasing him it is still not a running matter. Well, either the zombie thing or there is a pizza about ten feet away.

            Joe is a jerk… Joe knows he’s a jerk… Joe likes being a jerk. It really is that simple. He is great at getting himself into trouble, now luckily for us he is also pretty damn good at getting himself out of it so we don’t have to hold his hand every step of the way.

            Alex is that pervert that everyone knows. He is the kind of guy that will turn EVERYTHING into a double entendre. He, thankfully, is a goddamned good shot with a rifle, so he is the designated marksman for every mission.

            Nik is a great utility while fighting a zombie, especially when you give him a sledgehammer. When I say “give him a sledgehammer” I damn well mean it because he would forget it at HQ if we didn’t help him out a bit. The one thing he DOESN’T forget is the explosives. Nik loves to watch things go BOOM.

            W.Z.O.R.T. (women of Z.O.R.T.)  is kind of a sub group that was spawned when we decided that girls were too “distracting” to be in the field hunting with us. I don’t mean this in a sexist way or anything like that, but we would always be looking over our shoulders and notice that the girls are…well…”exposed”. Zombies snapping, and shooting fists towards you, your clothes are bound to get snagged. Now for a guy that’s fine but if a girl loses a shirt than the guys will lose focus and we all die… and last time I checked I was pretty much allergic to death.

            Now I’m not TOO great at anything, my quote would be “jack of all trades, master of none” but that’s almost a bit too harsh. Mainly I would say that I’m the “Mario” of the zombie apocalypse. By this I mean that I’m not a power player nor am I useless.  I will toss aside every one of my personal prohibitions if one of my friends is in danger. I thrive in “do-or-die” situations, probably because I’m good at making split-second decisions and creating tactics. Whoever said that video games rot the mind obviously hasn’t met me.

If you are wondering how the zombies came to be, I can say that we are in the same boat. All I know is that if someone is capable of infection (75% of the world population is) then they are going to get infected pretty quickly, because it’s not a cheesy “get bit, get infected” type of thing, it’s more like a “I want some water. FUCK HUMANITY!” type of thing. These zombies don’t move slowly, and they are certainly not the walking dead. If the infected person is fat, they will run, eat and kill like a fat person. The Same principle applies for the strong, skinny, weak, and tall and so on. So if you see a “Usain bolt” or “Brock Lesner” zombie you best be getting running.

I know it sounds odd that teenagers could organize an entire “army” of zombie fighters, but were not normal teenagers. We’re the Z.O.R.T.

 

Chapter 1: The Game

             

“SMOKER!” I yell at the top of my lungs, as I slowly pull and hold the trigger releasing all the bullets in my clip to no avail.

 “God damn it, help me! I’m pinned by a hunter!” James squeals as his flesh is being slowly torn away by a greedy death-spawn.

“WE ARE GONNA DIE!” Joe yells to us both, and shoots the smoker originally constricting me. “Now that I have saved your ass get in the safe house!” Joe says proudly.

“James is still pinned! I have to help him!” I say directly to Joe’s face.

Joe replies “fuck you, I choose my life over his.” and begins to run towards the safe house Alex has already sheltered himself in. I limp my way over to James who has very little life left within him, and I quickly shoot the hunter, who is ripping him to pieces, and then help him up.

“Oh god man… I’m about to die, do you got a med-kit?” James asks.

“Yeah I do but we gotta get to the safe house first, so come on.” I reply. We both slowly limp towards the opened door of the small concrete room which is a haven for us, and as we enter the room I quickly turn around and slam the door in the face of a fat puss bloated zombie, and on the other side I hear him vomit.

“NOOOOO!!! YOU GUYS BEAT US!!” Nik yells to the rest of us, “Why am I stuck on the girl’s team? They all suck.” Nik says defeated.

 “Oh thanks Nik, I appreciate it” Skyler says mockingly.

“Yeah, thanks Nik, you jerk.” Jordan chimes in.

“Hey! This is my first time playing ‘left 4 dead’ so watch it mister!” Katelynn jokingly scolds him.

Within my pride I stride towards Alex’s refrigerator “For our amazing victory I am getting some mother effin coke!” I yell as I grab a glass and begin to pour coca-cola into it. I take a large gulp from the glass and put it on the counter. I hear them playfully laughing and joking in the other room as I slowly walk towards the window. As I peer out the window I see a man slowly limping up the road, and I take note that he seems to be covered in red goo. “Hey, uh- Alex? What the hells going on with this guy?” I chortle.

“That’s a damned good question buddy!” Alex laughs “C’mon lets go check it out” he says as he walks towards the door, with me right behind him.

We see the man and in the light I can clearly see this substance as blood or something of a similar viscosity.

“Hey! Are you okay sir?” I yell to him as I quickly rush to his side.

“Yeah, do you want us to call the police?” Alex asks right after I finish.

The man is completely oblivious to us or at least acting as if he is, but as we approach his head quickly shoots up and he stares me right in the eye.

“Oh god dude…that’s creepy.” I say as my eyes meet his.

“Dude he’s right here! C’mon lets not b-“Alex cuts off as he sees the pink in his eyes. “That… that isn’t just a case of conjunctivitis is it?” Alex chuckles awkwardly “Is that blood on your pa-“Alex attempts to question before being shoved aside by the man who has now set his sights on me.

“WAIT! WHATS GOING ON!?” I yell as the man tackles me to the ground and snaps his teeth and slashes his ‘claws’ at my face. “GET OFF ME!” I scream as I grab him by the shoulders and wrestle him away. He slashes at my face and gouges deep into my cheek. Alex, having recovered, runs over and grabs the man by the waist and quickly removes him from me.

“What happened?! Are you okay?” Alex asks as he assists me back to my feet.

“I’m fine.” I say angrily as I stare down the wobbly man with pink irises.

“What’s going on?” Nik asks as he runs down from the house “I heard some yelling and I thought I would check it out.” Nik follows up. “What the hell happened?” Nik bursts, noticing my deep cut and the man covered in blood –some of it mine!-.

“This guy just attacked us!” I yell as the man straightens and locks eyes with Nik, and begins to sprint.

“What the hell is going on!?” Nik repeats as he lays a sturdy punch in his face, as he’s falling I hear a cracking noise, which I clearly identify as a broken jaw. This punch would normally knock someone out if not kill them. This man, however, seems to be completely unaffected other than being knocked to the ground and getting phased momentarily.

“We have to get inside and call the cops, NOW.” I say sternly as I, Nik, and Alex quickly rush inside.

Chapter 2: What is happening?

“Oh no, what happened to your face!?” Jordan squeals as she sees my ‘battle’ wound.

“We can’t talk right now, we have to call the cops” Alex says as he rushes past the girls and quickly dials 911.

“I want to know what happened too!” Katelynn also asks.

“We were attacked by some guy out there.” I say as I sit down.

“What?!” Jordan yelps, horrified by the thought. “Let me help you with that cut.” Jordan says as she rushes over to the first-aid kit on the wall.

“Looks like that thing finally got some use eh James?” I laugh as Jordan patches up my laceration as best she can.

“I guess so!” James laughs, but quickly becomes serious. “What actually happened out there?” James questions.

“I’m not sure to be perfectly honest. To the best of my knowledge we were- OW!” I get cut off as Jordan pours peroxide on my cut. “Ouch! Thanks for trying at least.” I say to Jordan. “Anyway, there was some dude out there and he attacked us. Nik broke his jaw though so he’s still out there just wandering.”

“BROKE HIS JAW!?” Katelynn says, horrified.

“He tried getting me the same way he got Kyle.” Nik defends himself quickly.

Alex walks back into the room, “I called the police. I told them what happened and I heard him say to someone ‘another attacking’. You guys, I don’t think this is normal.” Alex says.

“OF COURSE IT’S NOT NORMAL DUMBASS!” Joe quickly snaps at Alex.

“DUDE, SHUTUP AND LET ME FINISH!” Alex retorts angrily.

“Both of you shut up!” Skyler says with a dominant aura.

“Sorry Skyler.” Joe says, defeated.

“Yeah I’m sorry babe.” Alex mimics.

“As I was saying before, the cops said that this happened more than once today. That isn’t good considering this dude just did so much damage to Kyle.” Alex says as he gestures to me.

“Yeah and he can’t be normal; I laid into him with all I have. I FELT his jaw break. As soon as he hit the ground he was scrambling to get back up.” Nik agrees.

“So what are the police doing about this?” James asks.

“He told us to ‘stay inside and that we shouldn’t go anywhere’.” Alex quotes the officer.

“WELL THAT’S PRETTY DAMN OBVIOUS!” Joe agrees, with yet another outburst.

“Well let’s just calm down and check the news to see what’s happening.” Skyler quickly calms everyone down.

We all walk to the living room and flick on the large plasma screen television and switch to the news channel.

“- and that’s how poor mittens the kitten ended his day.” The jolly, but ever-so fake, news pundit reported. “Now we go to Janet for some more saddening news, Janet.”

“Thank you Charlie, today a strange virus emerged in the north eastern part of America. No one is quite sure where the virus came from, when exactly it started, or what it does. We know minor details however. The “infected” are very hostile to everything that moves, they seem to be resistant to pain, however not invincible. The virus is quickly spreading, either through air or water, so military quarantine is virtually useless. We will be reporting new developments on this as soon as we here more.” The girl reports grimly.

The television goes off, and we all remain silent. The room remains this way until we all hear a scream from somewhere outside.

“What was that?” Jordan yelps helplessly.

“We’ll go check it out.” Nik says voluntarily.

“Yeah. Let’s go guys.” I agree

“I’m not going out there with that guy still out there!” Joe says hatefully.

“For once, Joe is right. It isn’t smart to go out there unarmed.” James agrees with Joe.

“Well we can’t just kill the guy!” I scream, realizing I’m cornered.

There is a long silence. Finally the silence is broken again, this time by a deeper scream, a man.

“Okay, I can’t stand by any longer. Let’s go. But promise me you guys, lets try to be non-lethal.” I try to persuade.

They all agree, with the exception of Joe who values his life more than that of a strange blood-lusting man. I walk over to a sharpened hand-axe and brandish it the best I can. I peer over my shoulder and take note of who follows, and what they hold. James has a machete (Alex’s dad keeps it for cutting bark off of trees or something along the lines), Joe wielding a baseball bat, Alex with his favorite hunting knife, and Nik with a small metal mallet. Geared up, we cautiously walk outside.

 

Chapter 3: Non-lethal is not an option

We exit the safety of Alex’s home and we slowly progress, in a single-file line, down the street. The fear within all of us is strangely minimal. We are all nervous, but none of us are really scared.

“Did you see that dude’s eyes?” Nik asks, obviously speaking about the original man who attacked me. “His eyes were…pink, Right?”

“Yeah, I saw them pretty closely.” I say, remembering the attack as I reach up and lightly rub the gauze on my cheek with my free hand. “They were a light pink color.”

“Like a vagina!” Alex quickly yells without even letting a second pass. We all laugh at his idiocy, only Alex would think about that at a time like this. This lightens the mood; we all loosen our stance but not our wits. I notice a door wide open and some blood on the siding of the house about 5 feet to my left, and we opt to check it out.

I walk in first and slowly move to the side and allow Nik to follow behind me. I cast a cursory glance around the room that I’m in; I notice the normally white carpet has a large streak of red leading into another room, we’ll check it out in a minute I suppose. There is a large television toppled over with splash of red near it.  All five of us have funneled into this small room at this point and we slowly fan out and observe our surroundings, I notice how the hysteria is slowly returning to us.

“Where do you think the screaming came from?” James asks, trying to shed some light on the situation. “The blood on the carpet would be a good thing to follow right?” he asks.

“That’s a pretty good idea.” Joe says in a hushed tone.

“Okay than. Lets go.” I say and begin towards the reddened carpet.

I peek through the doorway and notice the trail goes onto hardwood flooring and around a corner. From my position I see what appears to be a woman’s foot. I shutter at the thought, and smell. I hear a loud thump from upstairs.

“Did you guys hear that?” Alex inquires.

“Yeah I did too!” Joe quickly yells, before being shushed by Nik.

“Let’s check out our little trail first.” James says calmly, as he approaches the small pool of red, Nik and I behind him.

“Oh…god…” James mutters over the horribly pungent odor filling the air. I hear another thump, softer this time, but it seems to be moving, this one jumps me worse than the first one, probably because it’s quieter now than before.

We slowly move around the corner, weapons primed, and we see an inanimate bloodied woman lying on the floor. I immediately recognize this woman as Lisa Guay, a math teacher at my local high school.

“OH NO!” I scream as I rush and kneel by her side to check for a pulse that I know will not be there. She is missing most of her neck and all of her left forearm. “She can’t be dead… this shouldn’t have happened.” I whisper as I silently scold myself for my sloth to help her.

“Kyle, come on we have to get out of here, now.” Nik urges me.

“No. I want to know who did this to her. She may have just been my teacher, but she certainly didn’t deserve to die just because I took too long to make a decision.” I retort. I am visibly shaken by this sight; I have never seen death before. Another, louder, thump emanates from the upstairs part of this house. And then another, and another. One after the next louder, and faster, as if something is running.

“What is that?” Alex asks

“I don’t know.” I answer quietly, still staring at the death in front of me.

“We should go check it out.” James say’s. He isn’t as struck by the loss as I am. If he is, he’s bottling it up… that sounds like him.

“Okay, we will go up the stairs single file-” I begin to say before being cut off by a hushing motion by Joe.

Before I know what I have even been shushed for, a medium brown dog (a boxer I think) tackles Joe to the ground and begins gnashing his teeth for Joe’s throat. Joe begins wrestling with the dog and throws it into a wall, the dog lands with a yelp. He is immediately scrambling to get up and attack us once more.

“The fuck just happened!?” Joe questions furiously.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure this dog doesn’t just want a treat.” I say, trying to laugh at the situation.

The dog recovers and bears its teeth once more, softly growling while analyzing the situation the best its doggy mind can. The dog’s eyes also have the same pink tinge to them. Just as I note this, the dog lunges for my face, trying to blind me I’m sure. Although every fiber of my body urges me to move, I can’t. I don’t know what holds me in place, but I can’t move an inch. My entire life flashes before my eyes, because I’m certain this dog will soon end it.

 

 

Chapter 4: Hunters?

My temporarily immobilized body begins to function a moment too late, I swiftly crouch in attempt to dodge the hellhounds lunge but it connects on my scalp and he pulls me to the ground. I grab his head and pin it down to avoid his fangs, but as I think I have won, his claws quickly scrape deeply into my stomach –not as deep as my cheek gouge but deeper than I would appreciate-. The cutting pain causes me to leap off of the dog and fall on my back. The dog seizes the opportunity and pounces on me as though I was dead already and attempts to dig his greedy fangs into my tender flesh. Just as I think I am dead, the dog stops dead in his tracks. I cannot fathom why the dog stopped, but I am glad to be alive. The dog coughs blood towards my face, and I shield my eyes and mouth from the disgusting shower. I think he is going to set in once more but he falls limp at my side, and I see my friend James standing over me.

“Are you okay?” James asks as he pulls me back to my feet.

“Oh I’m dandy, thanks for asking.” I say with a painful smirk. I quickly cast a glance over the dog and I see James’ machete buried deep into the skull of the animal. I bend over and remove the weapon from his cranium and return it to James.

“Huh, I guess we can trade eh?” James says as he reaches out, handing me my hatchet and taking back his blade.

“That dog can suck-on-mah nuts!” Joe yells victoriously. We all laugh and cheer at our avoided deaths. Joe always has been a complete moron and that’s exactly why he’s a great guy.

“Come on we still have to find that guy.” Alex insists.

“Okay…” I murmur, casting one more glance over my old teacher’s corpse.

We gather up our wits once more, and venture back outside, confident that we can take down anything thrown our way.

We all gather up outside the house and discuss our best tactic at this point, and we decide that finding the man who attacked us would be the smartest idea. We begin prowling the nearby area for the man in a bloodstained coat.

“So Kyle, still trying to go non-lethal?” Alex asks, poking fun at me.

“Hell no! I want to find this zombie and tear his fricken head off!” I roar.

Everyone laughs and for the first time this actually seems like the zombie apocalypse we had always joked about.

We are cautiously walking down the street as we hear the same man scream. All five of us immediately look around and spot a man running out of a house. This man is tailed very closely by the very same man that attacked me, and another blood-soaked person, this one being a younger blonde girl. The man, running and flustered, trips in the middle of the street and is a very easy target for the two cannibalistic monsters.

“Come on, we have to help him.” I say as I run to help the defenseless man.

“You heard the man.” Joe says as he follows my lead.

All five of us sprint as fast as we can and as we approach I can tell that this man is far older and frailer than his scream led on. He cannot even begin to defend himself; I guess that’s where we come in.

“Get away from me!” the old man screams, unaware we are roughly 5 feet away to help him out.

When we are within striking distance, so are the beasts, so this man is in severe danger. James lays into the man with a shoulder tackle, sending him to the ground but only for a moment. Joe eagerly swings his bat downwards towards his head, no dice. The man moves very rapidly and dodges the deadly swing and goes after Joe. I run to help Joe but I forget about the young blonde who now has me in her sights. She pounces very quickly and my initial reaction is to swing my axe, so I do. The axe holds true and goes deep into her right arm, almost severing it. She gets knocked aside and is hissing at the axe still lodged in her arm.

 I turn to help Joe and I see that Alex has already done so, while Nik and James assist the older gentlemen back to our ‘base’. The blonde has recovered from the strike and quickly wrenches the weapon out of her arm and tosses it aside. I peer at her fearfully, which is odd because this girl is no more than 5’5 and I’m roughly a foot taller than her, but she has murder in her eyes, which is more than enough to spook me. As she lunges I grab her by the waist and make her do a small front-flip over my shoulders, and land painfully on her ass. I quickly run for my hatchet, and as soon as it’s in my grasp I spin around and expect to see her up and ready to try another tackle, but as my eyes get set on her, Joe quickly swings the bat downwards on her head, this time connecting painfully. Her once fairly attractive face is now nothing but a red smear on the pavement.

“EXTREME MAKEOVER!” Joe yells with an insane grin.

“I like her better this way.” I say with newfound zeal and giving Joe the same crazy grin.

“I’m glad you guys are having fun!” Alex shouts, struggling to keep the man from biting him.

We run to his side, and grab his arms and allow Alex to kick him hard in the knees, breaking them. He falls to the ground hard and is already trying to rise again, oblivious to his immobility.

“Shall you do the honors?” Alex playfully suggests, gesturing towards the man.

Although this man attacked us several times, I feel as though he still doesn’t deserve to die. As soon as this thought enters my head, he stares up at me hatefully, murderously, with his pink eyes, sending it out rapidly.

“I told you guys… I’m gonna rip his friggen head off!” I yell, and swing my axe downward on his neck, severing it completely. Alex and Joe cheer at our avoidance of death, as we walk to return to the others.

Back in the house I see Katelynn mending the minor wounds of the old man, whom I now recognize as Richard Grant, a local barber in my town. He is visibly shaken by what has just happened, but clearly happy to be alive.

“Are you okay?” Jordan asks tenderly noticing the claw marks on my stomach and the blood spray covering my clothing.

“Yeah I’m fine, but these scratches are really…uncomfortable.” I say withholding the pain for the better of the beautiful girl in front of me.

“Let me help you out.” She says kindly, reaching for the first aid box now being used quite frequently.

“Rich are you okay?” James asks, being the most familiar with him –Richard being his barber-.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m lucky you guys came along when you did or else I would be a goner!” Richard says gratefully. “Did you guys train or something? For this I mean.” Richard asks us.

“Train for what?” I ask while chuckling lightly, thinking he is still slightly delirious.

“Train for this!? You know! These guys! You handled them so easily I thought you were zombie hunters or something.” Richard says insistently.

“Zombies.” Nik says to himself thinking deeply.

“Yeah, zombies, that’s what I take out of it anyways.” Richard says very seriously. “Walking around, wanting to kill anything they see, and trying to bite at anyone moving.”

I think over what he just said deeply.

“Zombie hunters.” I say with a deep boom. “I like the sound of that!”

Chapter 5: Z.O.R.T. is born

Twenty-four hours after first encounter, we still have no idea what the hell is going on! We decide the elementary school would be the best place to bunker down until we find a more permanent place. I find it kind of odd that I always wanted to get out of school but now I really, really, REALLY don’t want to leave it. Although I know that I may die at any moment, I feel oddly at home with my misfit family of zombie fighters, which has risen to the number of twenty people. The original eight of us remain, in addition of the remaining survivors that we quickly gathered up en-route to our makeshift haven. In the school we barricaded all entrances, except for one which we have two guards at, at all times. We are currently talking, at a small table, with all the survivors we’ve accumulated.

“Does everyone understand what’s happening?” I ask cautiously. No one speaks, or even acknowledges the question. “Does everyone understand what’s happening?” I ask again, with a sharper edge to my voice. Most everyone nods, but a short girl in the back still doesn’t respond. The girl is one of my school friends, Sarah Styles. When we saw her, she was being attacked by two large men who would have easily slaughtered and devoured her unless we showed up. She has been bitten, but she won’t die, and she will recover shortly.

“Sarah, are you gonna make it?” I question the small girl, sympathetically.

“I-I-I don’t know.”  Sarah stutters, painfully.

“James take over for a second, I need to talk to Sarah.” I say to James, passing the lead onto him. I lightly grab Sarah’s shoulder and usher her out of the room. As I shut the door to the classroom, I hear James speaking to everyone.

“What’s the problem?” I ask her.

“I-I… am I gonna be a zombie?” she asks through her tearful sobs.

“Umm… I would think most likely not.” I attempt to reassure her

“Most likely?! This is my life we are talking about!” she yells, crying harder.

“Hey, calm down. You’ll be fine, we have seen 3 infected so far and none had bite marks or anything of the kind. As a matter of fact, a zombie bit my cheek yesterday.” I lie as I remove my gauze to show my wound.

“So… are YOU gonna be a zombie?” she repeats, slowing her tears.

“Well I feel fine, but I have a strange craving for… brains!” I say with arms outstretched, being the best zombie I can be.

“Shut up you big goon-head!” she says as she reaches up and slaps my arm, tears finally stopping.

“Okay, well go ahead in now; it’s my turn to take guard duty so I may not see you for a while” I say as I open the door for her. “James lets go relieve Joe and Nik.” I say and James says a brief farewell to the people in the room.

As we are walking to our guard post, we stop into the ‘armory’ to pick up our weapons. We grabbed these weapons out of Alex’s gun case in attempt to have a small defense. I scan the tables for a gun that would be suitable for my liking, to which the M1A1 meets my standards. James grabs a double barrel shotgun with a colt as his sidearm. I choose a more practical sidearm, the same hand-axe that decapitated our first contact.

“You like that axe or something?” James jokes with me.

“It makes more sense, if they get in close, than a pistol does.” I retort with a smirk. We gather up our wits, and ammo, and start walking again.

As we are approaching the door where the two current guards are stationed I hear the two playfully arguing.

“You ARE an idiot! The first god of war is the best!” Nik yells jokingly to Joe.

“NO! THE SECOND ONE WAS WAY BETTER!” Joe screams with a large goofy grin on his face.

“Okay you two, get inside, help the survivors, we’ll take over.” James insists.

“Okay, okay, but Kyle, which god of war is better?!” Joe asks.

“Well obviously the first one.” I agree with Nik.

“You guys are retarded!” Joe yells as he begins to walk inside, making us all laugh.

“Nik, make sure he puts his guns back in the armory?” I ask him.

“Uhh, sure.” Nik says half-heartedly as he too starts walking inside.

“I’m guessing that there was no contact so far.” James says, noting their calm and the absence of corpses.

“I think you’re probably right.” I agree.

An hour passes, and all we do is converse about our best fighting tactics, and our favorite video games. We have a half an hour left, to our watch, when I hear a loud crash, just to the right of the building, in the road.

“What was that?” I ask James, nervously.

“It sounded like a car accident.” James says, also startled. “Should we check it out?”

“Yeah… let’s go see what happened.” I decide. I slowly descend the hard concrete steps, and I sneak to the edge of the building and wait for James to follow me. When James is just behind me I reach in my pocket and grab a small car mirror and reflect it around the corner to see if anything is there. I am hoping for the crash to just be a minor car collision with no zombies involved, but of course it’s not, that would be too easy. I see a car –really hard to tell what kind from this angle- in the road that ran head-first into a telephone pole, and about five zombies around it beating at the metal and glass.

“What is it?” James asks, wanting to know what I see.

“I think someone’s in the car.” I say quietly as I hand the mirror to my friend. He quickly looks, and turns to look at me, his face riddled with confusion.

“What do we do?” James asks very quietly.

“I don’t know… we could go get Alex and tell him we need some cover fire, but the person might not make it. Or we could just storm it right now, and hopefully get lucky and take them all, and save them.” I say, not sure of what to think.

“Well I don’t know what to do.” James says bluntly. “You pick, and fast or else that persons dead anyways.”

“Let’s run in and go completely nut-shit on those maggot-sacs!” I yell after a short pause.

“I like it, but…do we HAVE to run?” James asks. I nod and begin running, and as I do, I hear him sigh.

As we’re approaching the car I can tell now that it’s a green Volkswagen Punch-Buggy. There is a brunette girl in the car, and it seems she can’t defend herself from the five carnivorous beasts. The girl, and the car, seems familiar but I don’t think to deeply about it as of now.

James and I approach the zombies, hastily and stealthily (if at all possible for a dude who is 6’4 and wears an orange sweatshirt), in hopes to catch them off guard. Luckily they are too preoccupied with the ‘meal-on-wheels’ to notice me or James. This is easily the most fatal mistake they have ever made in their short-lived idiotic zombie lives. James and I quickly step into position, and I allow him to make the first move. He silently rushes in behind one of the zombies and puts the barrel of his DB shotgun on the back of his head, and pulls one of the triggers. This has an amazing effect, sending blood and brains over the other demon-spawn, and the car, but also alerting them to our presence. Before James is even able to center another shot, one of the four remaining zombies grabs him by the arm, causing his shotgun to fall clumsily to the ground. The zombie is clawing rapidly at James’ face and a lucky swipe hits him and draws blood. James is still struggling with the zombie when I run over to him, axe drawn, and swing it towards the zombies back, striking very deeply. The zombie ignores the pain but releases James slightly, giving him just enough time to escape the grip of the blood-hungry demon. I grasp the handle with both hands and kick the zombie as hard as I can, dislodging my weapon from his back. The zombie tumbles to the ground, and I set my sights on his neck, but before he even stops moving a bullet goes through his head, shattering his skull. I spin around and see James, with his colt drawn, smirking at the headshot he just got. I grab his shotgun off of the ground, and toss it to him. On the other side of the green car I see a zombie slowly running for me –one of his legs looks broken- noting his handicap I chalk him off as easy prey. I run to him and sweep kick his working leg out from underneath him and he topples helplessly to the ground. I raise my foot high into the air and slam it downwards towards his head, shattering his skull, and spraying his blood all along the pavement.

“Bite the curb.” I say quietly to myself, but in my revelry of the curb stomp, I forget about the final two zombies remaining, and I am reminded the hard way when I get shoved to the ground hard by the only female of the original five. As I tumble to the ground, I see James is pre-occupied with the other remaining zombie and I know I don’t have back-up. The girl is on top of me, trying to bite my face, but I hold her arms back, keeping her at bay ever-so-slightly. My eyes meet hers and I see the same eerie pink of her irises, before she breaks my grip on her wrists, and lunges for my tender neck veins. I am surely dead. I scream every obscenity in the book at my imminent doom, and at the girl about to cause it. At the last possible second, before she reaches my neck, her head spews blood from one side and she falls deathly limp on top of me. I assume James has saved me yet again, but as I shove the girl off of me, I see James hunched inside the car, I assume he is helping the survivor.

“YOU’RE USELESS!!” Alex yells, hunting rifle in hand.

“Thanks for the help!” I yell gratefully. “But next time you do that, try not to get blood on my jacket shit-shot!”

Chapter 6: Women drivers

I rise from the ground, and brush all the dirt from my jacket.

“Are you okay?!” James says sincerely to the driver of the demolished V-Dub. I approach the driver’s door and peer over his shoulder to see an unconscious brunette girl and a small splash of blood on the windshield; I hope deeply this is from the zombies bashing their bloody claws on it, and not from the unconscious girl. “Oh god, please be okay.” James pleads helplessly to the girl, as he tugs as hard as he can on the car door that has been crumpled. Only now, when James is showing his concern, I realize that the girl is James’ girlfriend, Megan Caron. We were too pre-occupied, with the small slaughter, to realize that this was Megan’s car that had crashed and she had been unconscious for quite some time.

“Move over, let me help.” I say to James as he helplessly tugs. I walk over to the door, grab it by the demolished metal handle, and allow James to stand beside me and grab a separate part of the door.

“One, two, THREE!” James counts down slowly, and on his mark we both pull as hard as we can. The car door breaks off at the hinges with a loud metallic crash. Luckily the impact of the crash caused one of the car hinges to already separate, or Megan would have been trapped in her tiny green coffin. James reaches into the car and quickly moves the air-bag out of the way, and than grabs Megan by the waist and slowly raises her from the vehicle.

“Is she okay?” I ask as James cradles her in his arms.

“I-I don’t know…” James says fearfully, which is an odd thing for him. He has always had a habit of hiding and bottling up his emotions, but I suppose when Megan is involved, it’s a different story. She is bleeding from a large laceration on her forehead, it is deep, and to the best of my judgement, lethal unless it gets patched soon. Just as I see the cut James begins to run, with the unconscious girl in his arms, towards the school. I am running after him in an instant, and I can see Alex and Nik over James’ shoulder waiting with the door open. James goes through the open door, with me immediately behind him. He pushes his way into a small room with a nurse’s cot, and sets Megan down gently.

“Mark! Mark get in here!” James yells, to Mark Thompson (An intern at a local hospital). A tall, lanky man hastily walks into the room and joins us at Megan’s side.

“What happened to her?” he quickly asks, to James and me.

“She ran into a telephone pole, I don’t know what else happened.” I say.

“Can you help her?” James asks sincerely.

“I-I…I don’t know…” Mark stutters.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” James says hostilely as he grabs mark by the collar of his jacket and pins him up against the wall.

“James! Calm down!” I yell as I grab his shoulders and pull him away.

“I’m sorry… please…just help her…” James says, and walks out of the room. Mark and I stare at the unconscious girl on the makeshift bed.

“Well, I guess we need some… I don’t know gauze?” he says almost helplessly.

“Mark… calm down, you’re capable.” I reassure him “you are the only one here with any medical training, whatsoever. If you don’t help her, she WILL die.”

“O-okay…” he stutters. “Do we have any gauze?” he asks.

“It wouldn’t make sense to not have gauze in the nurse’s office.” I say quietly as I search for a roll of white medical wrapping. I reach onto the top shelf of a cabinet filled with medical supplies and I feel the roll of gauze.

“Great! Give it here!” Mark says hopefully. I hand it to him, and he sets it down on a small metal table next to the cot. “Oh crap… we need to disinfect the cut before we put gauze on it… oh god, we need to suture the wound too.” Mark says losing all faith he had in himself.

“Calm down!” I say again. “I know there is a needle in here somewhere, and there is bound to be surgical thread around here.” I turn from him to look for anything necessary. He opens the door of a desk and reaches in and rummages around, spilling tongue depressors and cotton balls all over the ground. I go back to the shelf where I got the gauze, and I see a small bottle of cut disinfectant, which I take and place on the metal table with the gauze. As I turn around, I see Mark with a needle in hand, which he places on top of the gauze.

“Disinfect the wound, I’ll find the thread.” I say to him.

“Okay.” He responds, as he washes his hands very hastily and puts on rubber gloves.

I rush to a separate desk, and I open the top cabinet, and scatter everything about to find the thread, no luck. I slam the door and cuss at the time being wasted. I pull open another separate door to the desk and I immediately see a spool of surgical thread. I quickly grab it –with my ninja grip- and turn to see Mark quickly dabbing the wound on Megan’s forehead with a swab doused with disinfectant. I run to his side and place the thread on the table.

“How’s it going?” I ask half-heartedly. The scruffy man ignores me and continues focused on what he’s doing.

“I found some thr-“I try to say before he raises his hand, trying to silence me.

“Please, don’t talk, it helps me concentrate.” He says calmly, as he sets into suturing. He moves so quickly it’s hard for me to follow him. Within minutes he is done suturing and puts a large patch of gauze upon the wound. “I- I think I’m done.” He says, quickly losing faith within himself once more. “She’ll be fine.”

“Great work!” I shout gleefully as I pat him on the back.

“I’m gonna go lay down.” He says as he turns to leave the room.

“James! Get in here!” I yell to my friend as I turn to follow Mark to the door. As soon as Mark is out, James rushes in. “He did a great job buddy!” I say joyously.

“Is she gonna be okay?” James asks grimly.

“Yeah! Mark did fantastic!” I repeat happily. James doesn’t budge, or even avert his gaze.

“Well…I will leave you alone.” I say to James calmly.

“Thank you. Both you and Mark…thank you both” he says as he pulls a stool next to the cot.

“No problem.” I assure him. “Just come get me when she wakes up.” I say as I open the door and leave the room. In the hallway I see Mark entering our makeshift bunkroom, and I also see Alex leaning against the wall by the door.

“That was Megan?” Alex asks me, confused about the situation.

“Yeah, she’s fine now that Mark patched her up. I know that dude doesn’t look like much, but I tell you, he would make a great surgeon.” I compliment the medical intern.

“That doesn’t surprise me actually.” Alex says in agreement. “So, Megan just drove into the pole?”

“Yeah, women drivers huh?” I chuckle gleefully.

“I know right? Can’t drive in the middle of the zombie apocalypse without hitting a pole!” Alex cheers playfully. He gets serious once again once recalling the severity of James’ situation. “So he is just sitting there, waiting?”

“I guess so.” I reply, unsure of myself. “Who is on guard duty?” I ask, attempting to change the subject.

“No one, we locked the doors for the night, no more survivors can get in.” Alex says dryly.

“Oh Yeah… I forgot James and I were the last shift of the night…” I recall. “Dude, I’m beat, I’m heading to bed.”

“Okay man, have a good night, I’m gonna talk to James real quick.” Alex says as he turns around and walks into our makeshift infirmary.

 I slowly walk towards the bunkroom where Mark, and most of the others, is already dozing. I see a bathroom directly to my right –time for a quick ‘shower’-.  I remove my blood soaked shirt and grab a towel that has probably been used today, but I don’t care, it’s certainly better than staying disgusting. I douse my hair, in water from the sink, and rinse it thoroughly, running a comb through it while under the stream. Large clumps of dried blood are getting brushed from my hair and falling into the sink. Once I get out most of the coagulated bits, I raise the towel to my hair and dry it quickly, and I head back out into the hallway. Today, I killed a zombie, almost got killed by another, had my friend shoot a white-hot piece of metal directly near my face, and assisted in saving someone’s life.… I need a fucking nap.

Chapter 7: The Raid

I am standing upon a large grey stone, in the middle of a huge desolate field. I can’t see anyone, or anything, within miles. I look down and I see a customized HK417 assault rifle lying at my feet; I’ve never seen this gun before, but I immediately recognize it. I bend over and grab the grip of the gun; it fits perfectly in my hand. I put my left hand on the front hand grip and peer down the iron-sights, and squeeze off a round. There is no particular reason for me doing this, but it’s a fantastic feeling. The bullet ringing out of the barrel sounds more musical than even the best guitar riff. I knew, and expected, the exact amount of kick-back, even before I shot. This gun was meant to be mine; I have been waiting for it for my entire life, it just took me this long to realize it. I am still in the revelry of my treasure when a loud roar, from the right of my stone, emanates throughout the entire field. The roar startles me, but I’m not scared in the least, now that I have this amazing tool at my disposal, I feel invincible. I quickly turn to face my attacker, and I see a large Caucasian man, missing his right arm, about half of a football field away, sprinting straight for me. I smirk and raise the stock to my shoulder, line up the sights, and squeeze the trigger. The bullet is dead-on and nails the man in the forehead, making a through-and-through bullet hole, causing him to fall lifelessly to the ground. Within five seconds another roar is heard, a higher pitched and much more shrill than the last. I turn around completely, and see a tall, skinny woman half the distance of the last, limping for me; her ankle appears to be completely snapped.

“What the hell?” I murmur to myself, unsure of where they are coming from. I squeeze the trigger, without even looking down the sight, and my shot hits the woman in the chest. A nice shot, fired from the hip, but certainly not a kill-shot. The girl –she’s far younger than I thought previously- recoils at the impact, but doesn’t falter in her sprint. She squeals twice as loud as before; I think I feel my ear-drums about to rupture. I angrily raise the stock to my shoulder and pull the trigger; this shot is far more accurate than the last, hitting the female in the back of the throat, ripping the undeserved life from her body. As soon as she hits the ground, I expect another screech, and an accompanying zombie, so I survey the surrounding area, but I again see nothing. A silent minute passes, and I feel safe, for the most part. Still scanning, I spot a horde of the blood-lusting lunatics, about seven or ten, running straight for me. I know for a fact they will all be upon me in a matter of seconds so I raise the gun quickly and steady it against my shoulder. I pick a fat man who is in the front of the group as my first target; I center my sights on his forehead, and pull the trigger. The bullet hits him in between his eyes, and he falls clumsily and heavily to the ground; poor fat bastard didn’t even know what hit him. His falling causes almost all the others to topple after him. The smartest one of the bundle hurdles his fallen buddies and continues on his course. I know he will be here very, very soon unless I do something about it. My hand reaches partway down the gun, upon its own fruition, and flips a small switch. I again aim down the sight and squeeze the trigger. This time, three bullets fire rather than one. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew that was going to happen. The muscle man, probably a body builder, is hit by all three of the small missiles in the chest. This fucker just won’t die though; he falls to his knees and lets out a deafening, bloodied, roar. I drop my weapon and clutch my ears, attempting to shield them from the intensity, to no avail. My hands do absolutely nothing to squelch the scream, which seems to be coming from INSIDE my head. Tears are streaming down my face as I fall to the ground and scream. I lose track of the situation at hand and continue to sob as the intense sound pierces the deep recesses of my brain. Everything goes black and I feel the greedy hands upon me, shaking me violently.

The noise stops. I still feel the hands, but the noise stops. Color returns to my world, but I am no longer on a rock, in a field. I am in the bunkroom, and the hands are that of my friend Joe.

“Jesus Christ Kyle, how did you sleep through that noise!?” Joe asks aggressively.

“The screaming?!” I ask quickly, worried that it was about to begin again, sending me back to insanity.

“What screaming? What the hell are you talking about? I was talking about the alarm clock dipshit.” Joe says, indicating my now ‘snoozed’ alarm clock.

“Alarm clock?” I question, under my breath “It was just an alarm clock…” I chuckle. “Oh my god Joe, I thought I was gonna die!” I yell, happy to know that the screams were just my alarm clock blaring in my ear.

“What the hell is going on?” Joe asks me. I explain my dream in great detail, describing everything from the stone I was standing on, to the roaring zombies (which turned out to be an alarm clock buzzing), down to the serial code on my amazing assault rifle.

“That’s creepy how detailed it was.” Joe says, awestruck by the vividness of my dream.

“I know… everything seemed so… real.” I say seriously. Joe is quiet, for once in his life, pondering what it may correlate to.

“Oh Yeah! Alex wants to talk to you; he’s at the front door right now.” Joe says, forgetting everything about the dream.

“Oh… okay thanks.” I say half-heartedly, still intent on the realism of my minds-trickery. I step into the hallway, and I see the infirmary door shut, I wonder if James is still in there, but I guess it really doesn’t matter. I walk past the room we had the conference with the survivors with, and I see two young siblings sleeping on the floor, sharing a blanket; they have been orphaned by the blood-hungry bastards. I realize that although the apocalypse may be ‘fun’ for some –those of us who have prepared-, for most people everywhere this is just a nightmare that won’t stop, until they’re dead. I promise to myself that I will do my personal best to ensure the safety of these children, and that’s all I can do.

I continue down the hallway, and descend the only flight of stairs that hasn’t been completely barricaded with desks, bookshelves and other miscellaneous things from the different classrooms. On the ground floor I see Alex standing in front of the only door that hasn’t been shut off from the world, with his favorite hunting rifle leaning on the nearest wall. He sees me and observes for about two seconds, and bursts out in laughter.

“What’s the problem?” I ask with a smile on my face, unaware as to why he’s laughing.

“Have you even looked in the mirror today?” Alex asks, still laughing. “Your hair looks ridiculous!”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t brush my hair, I’m not a little girl!” I say, laughing back at him, as I turn to look at a mirror behind me. “Wow… You’re right! I DO look stupid!” My hair has spread out completely on one side, while remaining flat on the other; I look like ‘two-face’ from batman. Still laughing I quickly pat it down with some water from a fountain on the wall; I look ‘normal’ once again.

“Joe said you wanted to see me?” I ask quickly, attempting to get him to shut up about my hair.

“Yeah, I do.” Alex reassures me. “We didn’t bring too much stuff here, and we’re running out.”

“So what do we do about it?” I ask.

“Hell if I know. You normally make the plans.” Alex says.

“Well do you think we should…? I don’t know… go to a store and grab as much stuff as possible, and bring it back here?” I question for approval.

“How the hell should I know? You would be better to ask James or Nik.” Alex says truthfully.

“Fine, I guess that’s what I’ll do.” I say coarsely as I walk away. I hear him chuckling as I walk up the stairs in search of Nik. I reach the top of the stairs, and catch a glimpse of someone walking into the armory. I run to the door and see Nik observing Alex’s M1 assault rifle.

“Hey Nik I need your help.” I say very dryly. He jumps, probably not expecting for me to show up when I did.

“Oh hey, what do you need?” Nik says awkwardly as he places the rifle back where he found it.

“We’re running low on supplies and I’m thinking about going to a store to get some more.” I explain. “I need to take a couple people with me.”

“Okay, who were you thinking about taking?” Nik questions after a moment of thought.

“I was going to see if you and Joe wouldn’t mind helping out.” I say honestly.

“I would certainly love to assist in the zombie smashing Kyle!” Nik cheers.

“That’s great! Now all we have to do is convince Joe to go with us!” I say happily.

“Which shouldn’t be too hard; all Joe ever wants to do is kill zombies!” Nik replies.

I pat him on the back and usher him towards the door, so we can find Joe. Nik and I are small talking in the hallway when Joe runs up and stops directly in front of us.

“I heard you guys were gonna go get some stuff at the store! I’m itching to get some action!” Joe yells happily “Can I go please!?” he pleads.

“It’s funny that you should ask… we were just on our way to recruit you to go on the mission.” I chuckle.

“Fuck yeah!” Joe squeals with delight. “When are we leaving?”

“We might as well go now.” I say in my most determined voice. “Let’s gear up!”

Nik and Joe cheer me on as we return to the armory to choose our weapons. Joe quickly rushes to the table on which the few shotguns we have are resting. Rather than the double barrel, Joe picks up the 12.gauge and a small bag of shells. He grins with delight as he places his left hand on the cocking mechanism towards the front of the gun.

“This is all I need to kick some zombie ass.” Joe says eagerly.

“Really, you don’t need a side arm?” I ask cautiously.

“Side arms are for pussies!” Joe taunts me.

“Or for people who don’t want to die.” Nik agrees with me, as he straps an M9, in a holster, to his hip.

“Joe you’re an idiot, you should at least take the machete or something.” I say with a grin.

“Fuck that, I can do just fine without a freaking blade!” Joe yells playfully.

“I guess you can do whatever you want dumbass.” Nik mocks him. We all laugh at Joe’s zeal to kill zombies, regardless of the reasoning behind it.

Nik takes the machete, that Joe decided to ignore, and also grabs the assault rifle he was observing. I’m sure he’s been waiting for a chance to use that. I walk over to the cabinet we have, which is holding most of our rifles, and I grab my exact load out I had before –M1 carbine and my hand axe-. I turn to see Joe buckled under our argument as he tucks a Smith and Wesson 9mm into a holster onto his waist.

“Oh, come on Joe, don’t be a pussy!” I tease the tall teen who is currently wearing his signature powder blue baseball cap.

“Shut up Kyle!” he yells, jokingly as he strides for the door, attempting to escape the ridicule. Nik and I follow him laughing and teasing him every step of the way. Joe, Nik, and I are a few feet away from the top of the stairs when my eye again catches the orphaned pair in the same room, they are awake now, and appear as though they are already zombies. Both are a pale gray in color, and have dark bags just underneath their eyes; I know they couldn’t have gotten a good night sleep in the past couple of days.

“You guys hold up down stairs at the door for a minute, I’ll catch up.” I say seriously.

“Well Jesus Christ! Hurry the hell up!” Joe says, assuming nothing but jest of my pausing of the mission. They both descend the stairs, but I branch off into the room with the siblings, and approach the couple slowly. The girl notices my approach but they boy either doesn’t care or hasn’t caught sight of me yet.

“Hey you guys.” I say quietly, not trying to startle them. “How are you two feeling?”

They’re silent but observant for a moment.

“Sleepy.” The boy says almost silently. “And hungry.” He adds.

“Well don’t worry about being hungry, cause me and my buddies are going out to get some food for everyone; anything either of you want?” I ask sincerely.

“Pizza goldfish!” the little girl yells happily, and as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes what happened, and returns to her state of hush.

“Pizza flavored goldfish crackers? I can do that for you my lady.” I say while bowing playfully to ‘her majesty’, the young girl smiles and looks away shyly. “And what should I get for you?” I gesture towards the boy.

“I want pizza goldfish too.” He says very quietly after a short moment.

“So, you two only want a couple bags of pizza goldfish?” I inquire with a grin. The boy slowly nods, eyes never disconnecting the stare with the ground, but his sister –a year or two younger than he is- locks eyes with me and smiles happily and nods. “I can do that easily.” I beam, as I stand to my full height and turn to walk out the door.

“Thank you!” the little girl yells happily, making me smile from ear-to-ear.

Outside the room I hear the two siblings discussing something, I don’t know exactly what, but I’m sure it involves the delicious pizza crackers that they have now been promised. I begin descending the steps to rendezvous with my party of raiders. I turn the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and see the current guard, Alex, standing at the door accompanied by Joe, and Nik. There is an additional person standing with them however; a short, cute, freckly, red-head, that goes by the name of Jordan.

“You were going to leave without telling me weren’t you?” she asks playfully with a smile on her face.

“Well this is gonna be a walk in the park, so I figured I would just talk to you when I got back.” I say, while embracing her lovingly.

“Please be careful.” She whispers seriously, in my ear while we are hugging. I break the squeeze, look her in the eye, and nod with intensity.

“I love you.” I whisper, and then turn towards the open door and walk outside, followed by my small squad of killers; The Z.O.R.T. strike team.

Joe and Nik are directly behind me, weapons loaded and ready to fire at the first cannibalistic psycho they see. Our goal isn’t too far away, a local grocery store with just enough food to feed a relatively large group of people; lucky us. It’s still relatively early, so our vision is bogged down by the early morning fog, but we aren’t at a huge disadvantage.  I see a man just outside of the schoolyard, hunched over a corpse, chewing it violently; he won’t bother us if we don’t bother him.

“Can I go kill him?” Joe asks eagerly, referring to the man I had just spotted.

“Sorry Joe, I think it would be better to just avoid him for the time being and only approach if necessary.” I explain.

“Well that sucks… I haven’t gotten any action since the other day...” Joe says, pitifully.

“Yeah, and if everything goes smoothly, you wont get any today either.” Nik says solemnly.

“God damn it!” Joe curses to himself, and continues to mumble vulgarities under his breath; he’s obviously getting an itchy trigger finger. It doesn’t matter, the less contact we have, the better off we are.

“So, how are we gonna do this?” Nik interrupts the silence.

“What do you mean?” I inquire back at him.

“How are we going to get the food back?” He clarifies.

“Oh, I was thinking a bunch of bags would work.” I say.

“Well, what are we gonna do if we get attacked while we are carrying the bags?” Nik presses.

“I’m guessing we drop the food, and fight back, or we turn into the food.” Joe says bluntly.

“Oh fuck, you have a point. I don’t know, we could do a sort of… caravan maybe?” I say, realizing a fatal flaw in my plan.

“A caravan? The fuck you mean by that?” Joe says blatantly.

“I don’t know, like have one person pushing the cart, and the other two defending him.” I explain. After a moment of thought, Nik nods in approval.

“Who would be the one pushing the cart.” Nik questions.

“If I don’t get to shoot anything, it isn’t me.” Joe says, and I can tell there will be no changing of his mind.

“I can do it.” I say directly after Joe. “I trust that you two would be able to defend me, so lets do it like that.”

Both Nik and Joe give me a nod of approval. Since we have decided how, exactly, we will go about doing it; we continue walking down the middle of the road. The pungent scent in the air is disgusting, all too similar to the one in my ex-teachers house; its death and decay knocking at the door of my nostrils, and I don’t think asking it politely to leave is gonna cut it. Still only one zombie has been seen, but I doubt our luck can last forever. Carefully observing through the fog, I can see the door of the mini-market is shut; hopefully no one is in there yet.  We all slowly approach the door, and I reach for the handle but Nik stops me.

“Hold up a second.” He says as he halts my hand. He reaches into a small knapsack on his back and pulls out a small bundle of red sticks. “m-80’s” he says with a grin on his face. In his other hand he holds a match and a match box. “Hold this.” He commands, as he reaches out with the box in hand. I grab it from him and await further orders. “Joe, when I tell you too, I want you to open the door, and as soon as my hand is back out of the way, you shut it.” Nik says assertively once more, to which Joe replies with a smirk and a nod. Nik strikes the match on the box in my hands, and lights the single large fuse, on the explosive. “Open it!” he yells to Joe, who does so without hesitation. Nik proceeds to toss the bundle of firecrackers through the open door, and as he removes his hand from the crevice, Joe shuts it once more. The firecrackers explode very loudly and rapidly, mimicking multiple gunshots, one after another. As soon as the madness stops, Nik grabs the handle of the door and swings it open again. I see a fat woman on the floor, twitching from the chaos of our improvised grenade. This lady wasn’t ‘living’ before the blast, and I don’t intend for it to live much longer. I rush to the side of the startled zombie with my axe primed, and swing aggressively for the head. The disoriented woman was obviously not expecting me to attack, because my weapon hits hard on the side of her skull, without any opposition whatsoever. Her blood, that which hadn’t been coagulated to the side of her head from it dripping out, sprays up in my face as I retrieve my axe from her brain. Although I probably look like a lunatic, I keep my bloodied wedge in hand and allow the blood to drip and dry off my face naturally.

“You just stole my fucking kill.” Joe says playfully.

“That’s what you get for not having a blade.” I brag as I show him the gore upon my weapon. He nudges me sharply with his shoulder as he laughs, and I bump him back with my elbow.

“Hopefully there was only one in here.” Nik says soberly, returning the seriousness to the situation.

“Let’s hope not.” Joe says under his breath. As soon as those words are under his mouth, a loud crash is heard from the next aisle to the left. Joe begins running, to find the source of the noise and make it very not alive. As he rounds the corner, me on his tail, I quickly see him raise his gun to his shoulder, and place his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” A male, squirrelly voice says. Joe lowers his gun with a groan and puts the safety back on. I quickly turn the corner, followed by Nik, and I see yet another kid from my school, Raymond Rivers, covering his face with his hands.

“Ray, is that you?” I ask, attempting to confirm my theory.

“Wh-who- what?” The terrified teen muttering, lowering his hands.

“God damn it! Ray I should shoot you right now!” Joe yells.

“What did I do?” he squeals, going from one state of shock to another.

“Nothing, Ray, Joe’s just mad cause he didn’t get any action yet.” I say approaching Ray cautiously, extending a hand to assist him to his feet. “Are you alright?”

“I think so.” He stutters; obviously still shaken. “Did you guys throw that grenade?” he asks.

“That was actually just ten M-80’s tied together.” Nik says, very proud that his makeshift weapon passed as a full-blown explosive.

“Whatever it was, it just about saved me.” Ray says. “That bitch was chasing me and I’m sure she would’ve caught me if you guys hadn’t come along.”

“Well, Ray, we’re on a mission, so we have to hurry; tag along if you want but otherwise, stay out of our way.” Nik commands.

“No way am I leaving your sides!” He yells. “Now what was that mission you were talking about?”

“We need food, for our base.” Joe says calmly – that doesn’t sound like him at all-. “Oh, that and I need to kill some zombies, before I start killing people.” That’s more like him.

“Considering you’re unarmed, you get to push the cart.” I say to Ray, gesturing to the few carts that remain. He runs to grab the handle, and returns to our side; pretty good at taking orders.

“Lets hurry, maybe we can avoid any more that decide to wander through.” Nik says as he begins to move.

We are all traveling in a small pack, grabbing everything we set our eyes on, chips, Twinkies, donuts, cereal, milk, cases of water in plastic bottles, and we throw it in the cart which ray pushes without complaint.  The cart is loaded completely with junk food, vegetables and other drinks, but I can’t figure out what I’m forgetting.

“This should keep us up and running for a few days until we get a better way of transportation.” Nik says as he tosses a six pack of soda in the cart.

“Well if it gets much heavier it’s going to be difficult to push.” Ray says, complaining for the first time.

“Okay, just for the sake of simplicity, I vote we head out now.” I say, to which Nik, Joe and Ray nod. I gesture towards the door, allowing Joe and Nik to head outside first, followed by Ray, and me taking up the rear –that sounds dirty in so many ways-. As soon as my foot is on the pavement of the sidewalk I recall the two orphans, and their request of delicious crackers; which I didn’t remember in time, or recall seeing on the shelves.

“Shit! Guys I have to go get one last thing!” I say with a bite to my words.

“Fine we’ll wait for you but hurry up.” Nik retorts quickly, I turn and run back to shelves attempting to find the goldfish crackers.

“What did you forget to grab? Tampons?!” Joe yells just before I get back inside, I ignore his joke and try to hurry up. I quickly scan the shelves for any of the children’s request, having no good luck; lady luck was always a bit of a bitch to me. After looking at all the shelves, I see the door that most likely leads to the store room. I push the door open quickly and hear a small click, probably nothing. I scan the crates on the floor, and also the ones stacked up. On top of a small stack of pallets, a crate loaded with Goldfish crackers is resting. I swing my hatchet through the plastic covering and reach in and grab the first bag of crackers that is on top; cheddar flavor. I dig through the entire box and finally in the mix of cheddar and pretzel flavor, I find 3 bags of pizza flavor.

“Jackpot.” I mutter to myself. I reach down into the box to retrieve the treasure, but when I do, I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Hold on, I found what I was looking for.” I say to either Nik or Joe. The hand grips tight and pulls my shirt swiftly. I tumble to the ground, losing my grip on the snacks. When I am done rolling on the ground, I quickly look up to face my attacker and see a short man covered in blood lunging at me. I raise my hands to defend myself, but the man smacks my hands away from my face and bites my forearm deeply and wrenches out a chunk of skin with his teeth. I cry out painfully and lash out a kick towards him; this kick sends him into the wall, smashing one of small panels on the wall. As soon as the man hits the wall, a very high pitch screech emanates throughout the building; a security alarm which i probably primed when i entered the room. Great, I set off an alarm, and I’m bleeding profusely; gotta love shopping.


Chapter 8: Bloody fun

The alarm is still screaming through-out the building and as if the squealing wasn’t enough, I’m missing a rather large chunk of skin and muscle from my left forearm. I rise to my feet and curse at the pain in my arm, and my inability to effectively combat the imminent threat. The man has quickly recovered from my kick, and is again trying to kill me. I quickly grab my hatchet off of the floor, with my good hand, and I charge the pink-eyed monster. He quickly darts forward, attempting to claw the life out of me, but I swing my elbow –we’re too close to one another for the axe- downward onto his skull, and he falls heavily to the ground. He’s squirming on the ground, and I attempt to lop his head off, but sadly he wriggles out of the path of my deadly arc, and my axe slams into the wooden floor; it’s wedged in about to the hilt. Rather than trying to pull my weapon out, I leave it in an attempt to save time. The stocky man has recovered again, and stares me down, as I get my firearm off of my back.  My right hand is on gun, with my finger in the guard and on the trigger, I raise my left hand to grab the front part, but as I do so, the stinging in my forearm makes me stop; I guess a large chunk missing from your arm makes you a bit sore. I cringe at the immense pain and lower my weapon, leaving me vulnerable to the bastard. As if reading my thoughts, the man charges me with his arms outstretched and grabs my shoulders. He tries pulling me in to a deadly bear hug –the only kind of hug I don’t like- so he can munch on my squishy inside-parts. I raise my small rifle as a buffer in between us, with the barrel jammed into his chest. I brace my one arm, and squeeze the trigger twice very quickly sending two tiny missiles into his chest cavity. He recoils from the sheer force of the bullet, and shuffles backwards. He is temporarily recovering, giving me a grand opportunity to end it. I raise the gun, with my right arm alone, and center it on his head the best I can, and pull the trigger. My first shot misses, but I again pull the trigger and my second shot propels deeply into his eye socket, and –from what I can tell- gets lodged in his skull. I realize that his brain is obviously a smoothie now, as he falls to the ground like a ragdoll. I breathe deeply and hit the safety on my rifle, and sling it on my back again. I return to the crate and grab the three bags of crackers and cradle them with my right arm.




“Fuck dude, always starting trouble!” Joe says spitefully, angry that I started an alarm, but I think it’s actually because I got another kill without him.




“I guess so.” I agree pitifully. “I’m hurt man.” I say while wincing at the pain.




“Yah I can see that, what happened to you?” he questions.




“I got bit, obviously!” I yell back at him. He opens his mouth to return a shout, but says nothing instead.

“Okay, well, let’s get out of here.” He says calmly, lowering his hostility exponentially. Rather than responding, I gesture towards the door with a nod and allow Joe to lead. He walks towards the door I entered this room through, leading me back to our party. I follow directly behind him until we regroup with Nik and Ray.

“Oh fuck, you’re bitten! Are you gonna turn into a zombie?!” Ray screams over the siren.

“That’s not how it works ray! But we don’t have time for questions at the moment; we need to head out now.” I respond. “Nik, hand me the M9.” I order. He quickly un-holsters it and passes it to me, along with a second fully loaded clip.

“Let’s get out of here.” Joe says as he begins to stride away from our group. Nik nods at Ray, silently telling him to follow. Nik and I follow ray, side by side, and keep our eyes out for any beasts attracted by the alarm.

“Contact to the left!” Joe yells to all of us; immediately after he yells that, his shotgun resounds and I see a corpse fall directly to the side of the cart, in front of me. I hurdle the fallen zombie, and pick up my pace, and gesture for the others to follow at the same speed. Ray is having visible trouble pushing the cart, at this speed, but he does so without complaint. I then spot a member of the legion of the dead, and I turn to evade his hellish grasp; and to kill him of course. I raise the pistol quickly and release a round, missing the target, I apply about a pound of pressure to the trigger, but before I actually shoot him, his torso distorts and explodes out of his back. I face forward and see Joe smirking, smoking shotgun in hand, he nods to me, and faces forward once more. I hear another shot, but not that of a shotgun, I peer to my right –past Ray- and I see Nik promptly blasting a woman missing most of her torso, in the head. After a moment of running without contact, Joe raises his hand, and we all slow to a hasty walk.

“I don’t think we’re in too much danger, any more.” Nik says, hopefully.

“Man, I hope so.” Ray says, heaving deeply. “I can’t do that for much longer.”

The school is in sight, but alas, there is a large mob of blood-smeared, half-decayed walking corpses.

“Oh fuck…” Joe says, baffled by the amount of them presented in front of us.

“Guys, keep quiet for a minute.” I whisper to our group. “Nik, do you have any more of those explosives?”

“Yeah, I brought two, good thing I suppose.” Nik says, as he reaches into his backpack and pulls out another bushel of firecrackers. He looks to me questioningly, and I nod as a cue to toss it. He lights the fuse and tosses the explosive into the horde. The device draws little attention amongst them all, that is, until they are suddenly tossed ragged by the red device. As the explosion settles, we open fire on the disoriented beasts, and they drop like flies. I cock my pistol and aim down the sight, locking onto the head of the larger man lying on the ground. He’s scrambling, but I quickly squeeze the trigger, while I have a lock, sending my bullet to his skull. The zombies are onto us now, and those who weren’t already killed by the flurry of lead, or the initial explosion, are running towards us. The one leading the swarm, a young girl, is approaching fast, and needs to be taken out. I raise my weapon and prepare to shoot, but before I can lock my shot, her head pops off and becomes a pump for a red, gooey liquid. I’m not sure if the kill-stealing is an act of kindness, or an irritant. More of the heads are exploding at a regular interval, as well as chest cavities getting eviscerated. Joe, Nik and I share a cursory glance, and I note that we’re no longer firing, yet the zombies don’t stop dying.

“Don’t just stand there!” Richard yells, from the strong-hold. “Get in here!”

Immediately, Ray begins running with the cart in his grasp.

“Let’s go!” Nik yells to Joe and me. I promptly follow him, and as I’m strafing behind him, I open fire on the, now very small, mob of zombies. Most of my shots miss, but a couple of them hit the chests and disorient them even more. Joe joins in on the mayhem and also fires rapidly into the horde, his shots are far more accurate than mine. Once all my bullets are drained from the clip, I holster the gun and begin sprinting for the open doors of refuge. Although I’m not looking, I know Joe is on my heel; this is the first comforting thought I have ever had about Joe.

Ray reaches the bottom of the steps, and Richard meets him there. I notice they share a couple words, and then grab either side of the cart and heft it up the stairs. They disappear into the school, and Nik follows directly behind. I reach the stairs and ascend them swiftly; I reach the top step and rotate around to see Joe climbing the steps followed by many more zombies than I recall being in the area.

“Don’t stare at me, get inside!” Joe yells; apparently he is aware of the gobs of zombies behind him.

I follow his wishes and rush through the door, and allow him to pass as well. I grip the door tightly and push it shut with no time to spare. The door is slammed against hard, and nearly comes unlatched, but I slam my shoulder into the door as a retort. I forgot about my recent wound, and also slammed that against the large metal frame; I wince at the pain and fall to the ground, completely forgetting about the door. Nik and Joe push into the door with their shoulders, applying enough pressure to withstand the myriad of beasts ramming and pushing on the other side.

“Go get your arm fixed up!” Joe yells.  I heed his will and run upstairs towards the infirmary, on the way I note Ray and Richard have started unloading the grocery cart in the bunk-room. The door, to the nurses’ office, is slightly ajar, so I just push through it with my right arm and scan the room. I see James still sitting in his post next to Megan, and Jordan preparing a first aid kit next to the spare cot.

“Ray told me what happened to you, lie down and take your shirt off.” Jordan commands, earnestly.

“Don’t you think this is a bad time for that?” I joke as I remove my orange jacket, and my, once white, now red-stained thermal shirt. I place the pistol on a shelf, and lean the rifle against the wall. She doesn’t respond to my joke, and she quickly sets in on healing my wound.  I don’t pay attention to what exactly she does, but it hurts pretty badly. I didn’t realize the severe amount of pain before now, but I suppose adrenaline would bog it down.

She carefully, and swiftly, tends to my wound, emotionless and with steely-wits. As time passes, the pain dies down along with the sound of gunfire, but I still hear the awaiting undead masses moaning eerily, and screeching for their prey.

“Okay, you should be fine.” She says tenderly, allowing emotion to return to her words. I slowly lean up and tenderly caress the would-be gouge. “Let’s go check the situation out there.” Jordan says, as she gestures towards the door. I rise to my feet, and follow her out of the room. She leads me to the bunk room, where most everyone is currently sitting and enjoying their new snacks.

“We got everything in here without much trouble.” Richard says, and points to the cart.

“Well that’s great, but what about the zombies, why aren’t we shooting them?” I ask irritated.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there is a lot out there; we don’t want to waste the little ammo we have.” Nik quickly says.

We’re all quietly contemplating this and our next plan of action, when I hear a loud slamming noise. A look of fear hits everyone when we realize what it was. Joe is the first to jump up with his gun and run out of the room. I stand slowly and approach the window, where Alex is standing.

“Shit, what do we do?” Alex says, daunted by the masses.

“I-I have no idea…” I retort helplessly. Nik replies by shoving me and Alex aside and tossing two metal canisters out the window in rapid succession.

“Joe, shrapnel warning!” he shouts loudly out the window. Within seconds the shrapnel does indeed fly, and it maims a couple of them, and kills others. There are many more of them however, and while that handful of dead helps, the problem remains. Suddenly my survival instincts kick in when I run back into the nurse’s room and pick up the rifle.

“James, we need help come on!” I command, getting nothing in return but a hateful sigh. Rather than arguing with a rock, I rush out of the room. Rushing down the stairs, I can hear Joe cursing like a sailor, either at the undead, or just for the hell of it. He’s holding them off in a pretty good bottleneck strategy, but he has a shotgun, which needs reloading. He curses his own absent mindedness, and pulls a few shells out of his pocket. The masses are slowly making their way in the gap –which is just wide enough to fit one or two- and sprint for Joe. Lucky for Joe however, I’m here to help, and I proceed to fire precisely at the zombies as they come in. I’m not as accurate as I would like to be, thanks to my wound, but I make due. Joe and I are picking them off one-by-one as they come in, slowly but surely. Sixteen at least were mowed down, and many more lie dead outside. Joe takes a few steps forward towards the hole in the wall. He’s looking outside, and turns to me to say something, but before he can get a word out, one of the dead undead, cheats death once again, and bites Joe’s ankle hard. Without thinking I rush to him and raise my leg high into my chest and drop it on the zombie’s neck. He howls in pain, but I don’t pay any attention to his lament. Instead I push him towards the stairs, and take his place near the opening. Visually speaking, the playground was a bloodbath, psychotically speaking, it was a masterpiece. A masterpiece by any other name looks just as gruesome I suppose. I don’t see any nearby, and I can clearly see that Alex was doing some of his own work in that window. The door is hanging lazily by the bottom hinge, and nothing else. I raise the heavy slab of metal into the proper position, and stand it vertically. I yell for assistance, rather than leaving the area, and Ray and Richard enter the corridor in seconds. They assist me in placing the door back in place, and also placing large bookshelves and desks against the door to keep it shut momentarily.

“Kyle, I guess I cut myself in the store.” He points to a minor bleeding wound on his bicep.

“Not too bad.” I say after observing it for a second “Go to the nurses office and get some gauss, maybe some anti-biotic, you’ll be fine.” He does just this, and Rich and I go with the others instead.

“Can you believe that?” Nik exclaims proudly “thirty plus zombies, all dead in less than a minute! We are amazing quite honestly.”

“Yeah, good thing you had those pipe bombs, or it would have been many more for Joe and I to kill. How did you get those different than the others?”

“Well the others were just bushels of firecrackers, these were firecrackers, in lead pipe!” he says with a grin. “The pipe adds shrapnel, and there were about three more in those two, making the explosion better.”

“You’re a pyro, you know that right?” Alex jokes. We laugh at him and the situation lightens another tier. We’re all joking with one another, and even Richard says a few quips about our mothers being promiscuous.

“Richard, you’re a fossil, honestly, you took a t-rex to your junior prom!” Jordan chimes in, making Richards face change 3 different shades of red. The laughter in the room would make any unenlightened person complexly unaware of the zombie threat elsewhere. This laughter feels good, heartfelt even; perhaps we’re all aware this may be our last time to have company and laugh together, so we enjoy it that much more. The joking comes to a screeching halt when a gunshot from the nurse’s office rings through the building. I jump faster than the others, and get there within seconds. Inside the room, the light green wall is contrasted spectacularly with a dark crimson splatter mark.  Megan lies limp on the ground, whereas James has his elbow on Rays throat against the wall.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Ray yells in a state of pure shock.

“James, put him down!” I Scream in my toughest voice and shove him aside. Ray falls on his ass, and sobs. “What are you doing?”

“He killed her! He shot her in the head just when she woke up!” he wails at the top of his voice

“I thought she was a zombie, honest I did!” Ray moans

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” James roars and starts towards ray again. I place myself in his path, and for punishment I receive a fist to the gut. All the air gets forced out, and I crumple up like a paper ball. The M9 I had was lying on the ground close by; James picks it up, and puts it against Ray’s forehead. “Why shouldn’t I shoot you right now?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I thought she was infected, I’m sorry!”

“Sorry won’t cut it Ray.” James says grimly “She died falsely. She was infected, but there’s a cure. I’m positive… there’ll be a cure.” This stuns me more than the sucker punch James just laid on me. Megan was infected this whole time, and he knew it? “Ray, someone has to die. It’s the only way I can go on.” Tears are forming in the corners of his eyes as he removes the gun from Ray’s head. He stands idle for a moment, sobbing softly. He slowly raises the pistol to his temple and pulls the trigger. His eyes are clenched shut, and he’s ready for death, but nothing happens. He opens his eyes wide and pulls the trigger multiple times, but nothing but a clicking noise is heard. Bawling now, he drops the weapon and falls to his knees. I’m completely shocked by what I just witnessed, but I have had time to recover from his attack, and I pick up the gun and remove the clip; completely empty. I had used all but one bullet in the field, and Ray used the last on Megan.

“She was going to attack you James, I-I didn’t know what else to do.” Ray says solemnly “I saw she was going to bite you, so I grabbed the gun, and shot her.”

“James, why did you let her do that?” I ask, beginning to interrogate my close friend “You knew she was going to turn but you didn’t tell us?”

“I knew you would have killed her.”

“No James, we would’ve tried helping.”

“Don’t lie to me! I know you would have just put a bullet in her head!” he caught me in a lie, and I have no response for him. “I was going to see if it was possible to communicate with those who have turned.” He chokes through the tears. “But it’s obvious that when she tried attacking me, I had no chance.”

“Then why kill yourself? I know how you feel, but it can’t help to kill yourself!”

“I just don’t know. I want to be alone.” He whispers, while rising to his feet. He hastily walks out of the room, calmly shutting the door behind him. Ray stands and approaches me.

“You don’t think this is my fault, do you?”

“Ray, I think you saved his life. You killed her though, and he just needs time to think.” I reply “Are you okay?”

“A bit shaken, and my neck hurts, but I’ll be fine.” He lies; I can tell he’s terrified right now, and I’m willing to bet he would rather risk the zombies again.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“I didn’t sleep at all last night, so probably about two nights. I was too afraid to sleep.”

“Not that the conditions are much better now, but go take a nap in the room with the others they will make sure you’re set.” He doesn’t think twice about what I say, and he runs to join the others. I gather Alex, Joe, and Nik, and inform them of what just happened. We converse about what occurred, and the conversation drifts into what should happen to the deceased; Joe suggests burning them in the playground, Alex suggests a mass grave, and Nik feels we should just allow them to decay after we relocate them. After a short discussion, we decide unanimously that a funeral pyre is the best answer.

“We can burn them outside the playground; hopefully the stink won’t overwhelm us here. We’ll use some of the wood from doors around the school, and a bit of gasoline from the boiler room.” Alex muses to the rest of us. “It would certainly take a lot more effort moving the bodies, but it would help in the long run.”

“I don’t want to carry around a bunch of maggot filled corpses! What if one of them isn’t dead, and tries biting me? I don’t really want to repeat what happened earlier.” Joe always makes things difficult

“Well, you can break some doors, and get the gas; we’ll handle the bodies.” Alex replies, trying to remedy the situation. Joe agrees to this, and goes on his way to get the supplies. With that, we all follow suite to do our aforementioned jobs. There were a total of thirty-two killed from the fight, the highest death toll so far, and they all need to be moved roughly twenty yards, off the premises. I heft the first body, an averaged sized woman, to the designated burn zone (Joe decided to spell out “ass” with wood) and place her on the “A”. The three of us work relatively quickly, and Joe also did a pretty good job with the wood; every four or five zombies placed, would have a good amount of wood placed on top of them, followed by a dowsing of gas. Soon, all the dead are placed together; that is, all but one. I turn away from the corpse pile to find the last of the damned to bring her to the makeshift crematorium. I enter the school, and walk past the door leading to the final body. I don’t bother to even move her, it’s not my right. Those in the bunkroom say he was not in there at any point; then his hiding spot becomes mentally revealed to me. I run up the second set of stairs to get to the third floor (nearly nothing has been touched up here) and stop near a metal ladder attached to the wall. I grasp one rung and pull my weight upwards. The roof latch isn’t locked as it normally would be which confirms my suspicion. Pushing it open, I climb up to the roof and breathe in the cold air. James is standing on the corner looking over our town.

“We’re going to burn the bodies.” I say soberly

“I saw Joe’s lovely message. It doesn’t surprise me.” He replies, smirking very slightly

“They’re not all there; I thought you would prefer to be the one to move her. I’m sorry it’s so sudden, but you don’t have time to dwell.” Although this is the hard truth, I feel terrible for making James do this on such short terms.

“I-I can’t…” he nearly whispers

“I can move her if you want, but I think you should be the one to do it.” He stands silent, looking at the body pile. He doesn’t respond, but instead walks over to the still open hole, and starts descending back into the building. On the edge of the roof, I inhale the cold air; this may be my last chance to get any clean air for the rest of the day.

Downstairs, James has Megan in his arms, holding her like baby. We both walk silently downstairs, and outside. He places her on top of all the rest of the bodies, and takes a step back. I produce a package of matches from my back pocket, and hand it to him. He takes one from the pack, strikes it on the flint and holds it for a brief moment. In this moment, I look at Megan, and see that she was struck only in the side of the head, not really a full headshot. As I’m observing her bloodied face, her eyes flutter open, and she begins making groaning, hissing noises. James flicks the match on the pile and in seconds every single body goes up in smoke. Megan screams a vile, wretched death howl.

“What are you doing? She’s still alive!” Nik shouts “We could have saved her!”

“No.” James says sternly, still looking into the flickering flames, almost ignoring her hellish shouts “She’s just another zombie now.”