Chapter 1

Joe Thompson lowered the forks on his forklift and set the crate near the end of the trailer. He backed out of the sweltering heat of the enclosed space and wiped a bead of sweat from his head. The loading dock itself was much cooler. It was beautiful outside, a cloudless seventy five degree day. A great day to be anywhere except at work loading freight on a trailer.

It was the last Saturday before the last week of the month, always the busiest shipping week. Someone had to draw the short straw, and it was Joe this weekend. He tried to use his pregnant wife as an excuse, but she was still a few weeks from being due, and the excuse didn’t fly. Deep down, he knew they needed the money anyway. He shot his supervisor Dan a dirty look in his office as he climbed off the forklift. He knew he should be feel bad for Dan too. Dan had to work every single weekend. But Joe was having trouble working up the sympathy.

Bill, the truck driver for the trailer Joe had just loaded, called his name. Joe didn’t hear, the sounds of the warehouse distracted him for a moment. The hum of air compressors was always in the background, along with grinders, welders, paint sprays. His plant made industrial driers, and it was his job to crate and ship them.

“Hey, Joe!” Bill called again. “You awake over there?”

“Oh yeah, yeah. All done. Just some paperwork. Over here.”

Joe had known Bill for almost two years. He was one of the regular drivers. Joe noticed he had a bandage around his arm as they walked back to the desk.

“You alright?” Joe asked. “Your wife beat you up again?”

Bill shot him a look. Bill’s wife was an amateur bodybuilder, and was about two times his size. Secretly, Joe felt bad for him. Joe was head-over-heels still in love with his wife Sarah, even after seven years. He couldn’t wait to add to their little family in a few weeks. He was excited, at least half the time. The other half, he was terrified. Bill, on the other hand, didn’t have many good things to say about his wife.

“No, she didn’t beat me up,” he said. “A damn homeless guy bit me.”

“Bit you? Are you serious?”

Bill thought back to the morning. He was getting in the car to go to work. He lived in the city, not the best part of town. He saw the homeless man stumbling down the sidewalk. His unkempt appearance and raggedy clothes tipped Bill off to his living situation. He assumed the homeless man would walk on by. Instead, he nearly fell into Bill and bit right into his arm. Bill punched the man and quickly climbed in his car. He had Lisa, the hot blond who worked in sales, help him bandage it. It shook him up for a while, but the work day was helping to distract him.

“Yeah I’m serious. The bastard was drunk or something. Bit me while I was getting in my car.”

Joe laughed. “You should get your wife to bend him in half, teach him some manners. Damn, man, you call the cops or anything?”

“You want me to call the cops on a homeless guy? And stop talking about Michelle, or I’ll get her down here to smack you around.”

Joe watched him as he signed a few forms. His hand shook a little, and he looked a little pale.

“You might wanna go to the hospital. You don’t look so good. I mean, you’re always pretty ugly. But worse than usual right now.”

“Ha ha, you little bastard. Wait till you see how you feel in a few months with that newborn baby. Just wave goodbye to sleep now.”

Joe smiled. “I’ll just wake Sarah up.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

They shared another laugh, then Joe got serious as Bill walked out the shipping dock door.

“Seriously, man. Go to the hospital.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna take my break in the truck, drop this load off, then I’ll head over.”

The door closed behind Bill. Joe heard the door to his truck open and shut.

The break bell rang. Saturday was only a six hour shift, so sometimes Joe would skip break and just punch out a little early. Not today though, he wanted a coffee from the break room.

Their break room was simple enough, but it got the job done. Vending machines, water fountain in the corner, some microwaves scattered around. They even had a little television on a stand against the wall. More people were gathered around it than usual. Joe grew curious as he took a sip of coffee.

“What’s up guys?” he asked. “Cartoons on?”

Joe liked to goof around and have a good time. But they didn’t answer. It took a good ten seconds for anyone to notice he even said anything. Finally, his friend Brian turned around to look at him.

“Man, check this out,” he said. “There’s some scary shit going on.”

Joe stepped forward and looked over everyone’s shoulders to see the TV. It looked like a riot, taken by a camera in a helicopter. Sadly, the scene didn’t shake him that much. It seemed like every other day there was some kind of violence on the news.

What did catch his attention, however, were the words New York City at the bottom of the screen.

“A riot in New York? What are they fighting over?”

“Not just New York,” Brian said. “Everywhere.”

Joe kept quiet and just listened.

“Officials are speculating that this is a biological terrorist attack. However, reports are now coming in that the mass outbreak of violence is happening in London, Tokyo, Sidney, every continent, which would seem to make a terror attack less likely. If you live in urban areas, authorities are advising everyone to stay in your homes.”

“This is un-fucking-real,” Brian said.

Dan the supervisor walked into the break room. Joe felt an eerie sense of deja vu. The last time everyone gathered in the break room to watch a life altering event, was on September 11^th, 2001.

“Guys, I just caught some weird ass stories on the net,” Dan said. “What the fuck is going on?”

No one answered. They were hypnotized by the news.

It almost didn’t seem real. Joe actually had a thought, just for a second, that this was all some kind of joke. Someone had made a gag tape and put it in the VCR. But the mood of the break room told him this was no joke. He turned around and grabbed his cell phone from his belt. His first thought was to his wife Sarah.

She answered the phone on the fifth ring. Her voice calmed him. Sarah had that effect on him.

“Hello?”

“Hey baby. It’s me.”

“Joe, you won’t believe this. There’s like fifteen cop cars down the street. Apparently someone ran a car into a house! I think it’s on fire. Can you believe that?”

“Listen honey. Are you watching the news?”

“No, why?”

“There’s, like, something really weird going on. I’m gonna cut out early today, soon. You stay at the house, alright?”

“Sure. Me and Margie are just watching what’s going on outside.”

Margie was Sarah’s best friend. They were in high school together and were always close. Joe liked her. She helped with Sarah’s pregnancy a lot, especially considering Joe working extra hours.

“Okay, I’ll be home soon. Tell our son I’m leaving now.”

“You mean our daughter.”

Joe smiled. Eight months into their pregnancy, and they didn’t know the sex of their child. They wanted to be surprised. They still hadn’t picked a name out for the baby, and Joe was getting nervous. He didn’t want his first child to be in his mother’s arms for the first time without a name. But Sarah had rejected every name they’d come up with.

“I’ll see you when I get home.”

“Okay, love you sweetie.”

“Everyone,” Dan said behind him. “I think we’re just gonna close up shop for the day. We should all just go home and take care of our own.”

There was some relief that passed through the break room. Then the television spoke again.

“The Center of Disease Control is now issuing a public health warning. They believe whatever is causing people to exhibit violent behavior could possibly be spread through a bite or direct contact with open wounds. Again, you are urged to stay in your homes.”

They showed different camera feeds taken from all over the world. Joe couldn’t look away. It wasn’t just mob violence he was watching. It was something more. The mobs of people didn’t carry guns or knives. They just tackled people. A camera in Ontario showed a gang tackling a woman to the ground, and it looked like they were trying to eat her.

Brian noticed it too.

“What the . . . what in the hell are they doing to her?”

Joe couldn’t believe it. The camera was quite a distance away in the sky, but they could tell what was happening. The woman struggled for only a moment. Then a pool of blood began forming under her. Her attackers didn’t even care, they just sat there in it.

Even the news anchor narrating the feed seemed shaken.

“Uh, I can’t believe what we’re witnessing here. We’ve heard rumors, but it looks like we have confirmation. This virus, whatever it is, however it’s spreading, looks like it causes cannibalism.”

Joe shook his head. He almost felt sick to his stomach. Then he remembered Bill, just talking to him five minutes ago at the loading dock.

He was bit by someone, and he looked very sick.

Joe didn’t even get a chance to tell Dan when they all heard a loud crash outside. Everyone ran out of the break room and hopped down from one of the open docks leading outside.

The warehouse was located in an industrial complex. They didn’t a get lot of traffic. Every car that went by the plant was either going to or leaving a job.

Bill had jumped the curb in his truck, ran through the fence separating them from the street, and drove right into the side of a Honda Civic that was passing by. The smaller car was pinned between the truck and a light pole.

“Holy shit!”

“Call nine-one-one!”

“That’s Bill Whitman’s truck, isn’t it?”

Everyone ran to the scene. A few men reached for their cell phones. Joe was in the lead. He stopped near the driver’s side door of Bill’s truck and looked toward the Civic. The entire side was smashed in. He could see a woman by herself.

She wasn’t moving. Her head was slumped against the steering wheel. Her lifeless eyes looked toward the ground outside. Her face was covered in blood, and a piece of glass stuck out of her neck.

Joe had seen her before. He didn’t know her name at all. He would see her driving somewhere deeper in the complex. She always dressed nice, so he guessed she had an office job. She would smile and wave at the guys at the picnic tables outside the plant as she went to get her own lunch.

Now she was dead.

Joe had never seen a dead body before. He was surprisingly numb, and he wondered if he might be going into shock. He could hear his coworkers around him.

“Oh shit! I think that lady’s dead.”

“I think an ambulance is coming. I got cut off halfway through. My phone might be dying.”

“Is Bill alright?”

“He’s moving! Hey, Bill? You okay, buddy?”

Brian knew enough not to move Bill until the paramedics arrived. But he wanted to talk to him, make sure he was okay. He opened the passenger’s side door and leaned in.

Bill was moving his head side to side, like he was confused. Brian saw his bandaged arm and what looked like a huge amount of blood under the gauze.

“Yo Bill?” Brian whispered.

Bill whipped his head around to look at Brian. The sudden movement scared him, but not as much as what he saw.

Something was very wrong with Bill.

His skin was pale white. His eyes were sunken with huge black circles around them. Brian could see very little of his eyes at all, almost like he had milky white contact lenses over them. His head just moved around like a baby’s, like he couldn’t control it.

Bill let out a deep groan and reached out to grab Brian. He pushed against his still-attached seat belt and bit Brian right on the arm. Brian yelled and his legs slipped out from under him. He was hanging halfway out the truck. Bill didn’t bite like a child though. He sank his teeth into Brian’s flesh and twisted like he was biting into a juicy steak. Brian ripped his arm away while Joe and Dan moved behind him, pulling him out of the truck. Brian cradled his arm as blood dropped to the street.

“He fucking bit me!”

Joe remembered what he saw on TV, about whatever it was being passed around by bites or open wounds.

He also remembered the part about cannibalism.

He searched everyone’s faces. Some people were thinking the same thing, as they started to back up. They kept an eye on Bill.

Joe didn’t back up. He pulled his shirt off and wrapped it tightly around Brian’s arm. He winced in pain and just clutched his arm close to his chest. Joe grabbed him by the shoulders and led him to the curb.

“Alright man, just sit here. Keep as much pressure on it as you can. The ambulance is coming.”

Half the crowd was watching Bill from both sides of the truck now. Joe stood next to Dan and watched from the open passenger’s side door.

Bill thrashed around wildly in his seat. Brian’s blood covered his mouth. He chewed on the piece of flesh from Brian’s arm. Joe almost lost his breakfast. Every time someone would say something, Bill would look at them and let out a noise that shook Joe to the bone. Bill didn’t even try to form words. He just moaned and struggled against his seat belt. He didn’t seem to realize that with just the press of a button the seat belt would come off.

Dan leaned close to Joe.

“What the hell is wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, but look at him. Something’s really off.”

“Oh really? You think so?”

Joe ignored his supervisor’s sarcasm. “No, I mean, just look at him. It looks like he’s-”

“Dead,” Dan finished.

Bill looked right at Joe and opened his mouth. He let out a loud painful moan. Joe felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

“Uh, guys,” someone said from the other side of the truck. “You’d better get over here.”

Everyone jogged around the trailer and joined the group on the other side. Joe stopped just a few feet away from the driver’s side door. He could hear Bill, still moaning and reaching out for them. But he almost seemed like an afterthought now.

The woman who drove the Civic, who just minutes ago was dead, slowly crawled out of the broken window of her car. She let out a moan just like Bill. The entire group winced as she fell to the ground hard. She didn’t hold her hands up, didn’t try to break her fall. She just fell face first onto some shattered glass. She didn’t let out a single cry of pain, didn’t even flinch. She just kept letting out that dreadful wail.

“Uh, ma’am,” Dan said. “You’ve just had an accident. You might wanna take it easy.”

He took a step toward her. Joe reached out and grabbed him. He didn’t think it was a good idea to even get near her.

She slowly climbed to her feet, an act itself that looked odd. It almost looked like her muscles didn’t want to obey. She stumbled a few times, falling against the car. Her eyes were just like Bill’s, milky white and lifeless. The piece of glass that was in her neck had fallen out, revealing a huge gash. But blood didn’t gush out, it didn’t flow. It simply dripped down her neck onto her dress, like her heart wasn’t even beating anymore.

She surveyed the group quickly, then lunged toward Dan. She was surprisingly fast now that she was on her feet. Dan and Joe both ducked out of the way in the nick of time. She fell once again to the ground. This time though, Dan and a few guys from the electrical department jumped on her back. She struggled to move and reached for anyone to grab.

“Lady, you have to calm down!” Dan shouted.

Joe looked up at Bill, still trapped behind the seat belt. He let out another agitated moan and reached out the broken window.

“I don’t think they’re gonna say anything. They’re crazy now or something.”

They heard a voice from the other side of the trailer.

“Uh, guys.” It was Brian. “I’m not feeling so good over here.”

Joe and a few others ran back to the other side. Joe didn’t mean to, but he gasped when he saw Brian. He looked terrible. He still sat on the curb, cradling his arm in his lap. His face was pale white and covered with sweat. Joe could still see his eyes, unlike the woman and Bill, but they had the huge black circles around them.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he said.

No one stepped toward him. Joe pointed at the ground behind him.

“Just lie down, on the grass there. Help’s coming.”

Joe suddenly had doubts that help was on the way. If there were riots happening all over the world, would ambulances care about one little phone call at a warehouse?

He grabbed his cell phone and called his wife. He wanted to tell her to get in the house and lock every door and window. Sarah didn’t answer though.

“Hello?”

“Margie? What are you answering Sarah’s phone for? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, Joe, everything’s fine.”

He felt panic, then quickly shoved it aside. “Where’s Sarah? What’s going on?”

“Here, talk to him a sec,” she said.

Margie handed the phone over, then Sarah’s voice. “Joe?”

“Sarah. Honey, what’s happening?”

“Well, uh, we’re getting ready to have a baby. I tried to call you, but I kept getting some message about all circuits being busy.”

“The baby? But you’re still two weeks out!”

“Yeah, well, tell her that.”

Joe had waited for this moment for months. He often wondered where he’d be when it happened. Maybe at home in the middle of the night, at the store, or outside doing the lawn. He even prepared himself for that phone call when he was at work. He had his drive to the hospital all planned out. They had a bag packed near the front door of every possible thing Sarah would need at the hospital. Spare clothes, a camera for pictures. They had a car seat already installed in the back of Sarah’s car. They had planned for everything.

But now, as Joe held the phone to his ear, Brian leaned forward to vomit. Dan was struggling with keeping a violent woman pinned to the ground. Bill lashed out at everyone within ten feet of the truck. They were in the middle of an emergency.

“You’re going to the hospital?”

“Yeah. I tried to call Doctor Rivers, but couldn’t get through to him. Meet us there. But Joe, please, be careful. There’s some . . . really weird shit happening on the roads.”

“Fights?”

“Yeah. It’s really scary. We just missed having an accident. Some guy knocked someone down right by the car. We almost hit him. It looked like he was trying to bite him.”

They lived in the suburbs. The riots that Joe had seen on the news hadn’t spread that far yet. But it sounded to him like it was starting to. He looked up at Bill once again. A virus, or whatever it was, that spread through biting.

Joe couldn’t help but think bad thoughts. Sarah and Margie are going to the hospital, where no doubt everyone else is gonna go. But they have no choice.

“Okay, I’m leaving work now. I love you, Sarah. Put Margie back on.”

A brief silence. He heard Sarah breathing uncomfortably in the background. He wanted to be with her desperately, to shield her and their child from the things happening around them.

“Joe? What’s up?” Margie asked.

“Listen. Don’t stop at any red lights. Take it slow, but don’t stop for anything, okay?”

“Yeah, no problem there. Whoa! Joe, we just passed three people beating the shit out of some guy against a van? What the hell is going on?”

He took a breath. He wanted to tell them what was happening on the news, at the plant. But it would take too long.

“The news isn’t quite sure yet, but it’s bad. Just get to the hospital. I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

He put his cell phone away and jogged back to Dan. He was still struggling with the woman. He had her knees driven into her back now, but she still fought and wailed.

“I have to go. Sarah’s in labor.”

Dan nodded. “Get out of here. Be safe out there.”

Joe ran across the parking lot and climbed in his truck. He sped away from the warehouse back toward the suburbs.

Two minutes after he left, Brian’s heart stopped beating. Four minutes after that, he stood back up. Ten minutes later, everyone that worked with Joe that Saturday wandered the parking lot without a purpose. It was only when the ambulance finally arrived that they perked up.

Brian, Dan, Bill, and the rest of Joe’s coworkers feasted on the ambulance paramedics until there was barely anything left.

Joe sped through the streets toward the hospital as fast he could reasonably go. He kept his emergency flashers on and slowly cruised through the red lights. For a while, he drove without incident, and it looked like whatever was happening across the world had skipped over his town. But then he saw cop cars with their lights on stopped at a corner. They were trying to pull two women off of a child while a crowd gathered to watch. He drove another block, and what looked like a riot was going on inside a corner Starbucks. Joe knew it wasn’t just any fight.

He didn’t know what was going on. But in the back of his mind he knew it was huge, world-changing big. He didn’t care about the world right now though. He cared about Sarah. He had to get to her. He had to be there for the birth of his child. Then they would figure this whole thing out. All he needed was his family, and he could survive anything.

He narrowly missed hitting a woman as she fled from another man. He saw a motel just off the road on fire. He had to weave his way between a few cars that had stopped to look. The firemen, instead of putting out the fire, were trying to pull a woman off of one of their own.

He was a block away from the hospital when he decided to call Sarah. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know what room she was in, if she went through the main entrance or emergency room.

The phone didn’t even ring. It went right to a recording saying that all circuits were busy.

“Dammit!”

Joe tried to keep calm. He would park his truck, and go to the main entrance. He would ask whoever was working the front desk where his wife was. Then he would kiss her and everything would be okay.

His jaw dropped as he slowly pulled up to the hospital.

An ambulance had crashed into the front, near the main entrance doors. Fire erupted from under the hood, throwing black smoke everywhere. No one was trying to put it out at all.

He didn’t even bother looking for a parking spot. He pulled his truck right on the curb and killed the engine. As he climbed out he heard gunshots and a few screams off in the distance.

He didn’t move for a second. Fear and confusion just locked his legs. It was only a picture of Sarah in his head that got him moving again.

Chapter 2

Denise Hutchins didn’t put herself through six years of nursing school to work the front desk of the hospital emergency room. But that’s exactly what she was doing. Her friend Lisa had called out the night before. Something about being sick with a fever. So Denise was in the middle of a midnight to noon shift, and it didn’t take long to realize something was wrong.

Most overnight shifts weren’t too bad. There were the drunks that were brought in. They were just overnighters to sleep off their stupor, then released. Some car accidents. There were the freaky sex emergencies that always gave Denise a chuckle. Like the one time a woman popped a hip out of place riding her boyfriend.

But this shift was far different.

The first patient was a woman in her young twenties, like Denise herself. She got into a scuffle with another woman at a nightclub and actually got bit. Her wound was treated and she was sent on her way. Then three more people came into the emergency room with bite wounds. One woman had bites all over her body. She said four men pulled her into an alley. They didn’t sexually assault her in any way. They just bit her. A bite wound on her leg was really nasty, like whoever it was that did it was biting into a tasty drumstick.

Then Robert Sloan came in.

The emergency room was already half full when he limped through the sliding doors. Nearly half the people waiting to be seen were there from bite wounds. Robert stumbled in and leaned his weight on one of the waiting room chairs. He had a bloody towel pressed to his neck. The color was completely gone from his face. He looked around the room, dizzy.

“Please,” he whispered. “Help me.”

He collapsed to the floor. He dropped the towel, and blood poured from his neck. Everyone in the waiting room took in a breath and backed up. Denise quickly paged Doctor Blair, the doctor on call. She quickly ran out of the emergency room corner office and knelt next to Robert. She pushed the towel back to his neck and checked for a pulse. She had seen death enough times to recognize it immediately, but she had to go through the motions.

No pulse, no breathing. He was gone.

Still, he wasn’t really dead until Doctor Blair said so. He along with two nurses burst through the swinging doors that separated the waiting room from the rest of the hospital. Denise stepped back and let them go to work.

She felt a quick stab of sadness, like she always did when someone died in the hospital. She wanted to be a nurse to help people. But she learned a long time ago that she couldn’t be a good nurse if she dwelled too long on the people that died. She used to do that all the time. She would think about the people that died on her watch, what they did for a living, how would their families act.

Not this time though. She was curious, only for a moment, of how he got the neck wound. She did notice there were a lot of people running around biting each other. It was odd, but she just wanted to go home. Two more hours, and her shift was done.

As she took a step back toward the front desk she heard the television in the corner.

“. . . the dead are returning to life . . . “

The attention of everyone in the waiting room was divided now. Some were fascinated by the sight of Doctor Blair trying to revive Robert Sloan. Others were glued to the strange news on the television.

“. . . this is not a hoax or a prank. Authorities still don’t know if what is affecting the global population is a virus, biological attack, or natural phenomenon. But they do know that it is reanimating dead tissue. If you’ve been bitten by one of the infected, seek treatment immediately.”

A six year old son looked up at his father. “Daddy, Brandy bit me on the swings today. Am I going to die?”

“No, no, of course not,” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” Doctor Blair said. He’d just finished trying to revive Robert, but that wasn’t possible. Robert was dead. He gestured for one of the nurses to get a gurney, then pointed at the television. “Turn that off. There’s no need to make people panic. I’ve been listening to that all morning. What they’re saying is impossible.”

Suddenly there was a loud crash outside. Denise’s heart thumped in her chest. Most everyone in the waiting room ran outside to see what was going on. Denise wanted to join them, but her professionalism kept her behind her desk. Also her fear. She was terrified. Something terrible was going on. She could feel it.

Doctor Blair and the rest of the crowd saw the ambulance buried in the front entrance of the hospital. The tires kept spinning, but it couldn’t get any deeper into the lobby. Blair thought he saw flame under the hood.

People ran all over the parking lot. The accident was drawing a crowd on the sidewalk.

Denise just stared at the sliding glass doors from behind her desk. She could hear the television still on, but she wasn’t focused on it at all. She looked at the few people still in the waiting room, including the father and son.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, not believing her own words. “We’ll get you fixed up and out of here.”

The little boy couldn’t think of anything except Robert Sloan’s dead body, still lying on the floor. His father tried to keep him turned around, but the boy would turn his head just slightly and take peeks.

Robert twitched.

The boy didn’t scream. His jaw just hung open and he pointed. Denise followed the boy’s finger.

She did scream. “Doctor Blair! Get in here!”

Robert Sloan was slowly pulling himself to his feet. Doctor Blair and two others stood at the emergency room entrance while people ran around in the parking lot behind them. Everyone just stared in amazement.

Robert looked around the waiting room. He didn’t think, didn’t comprehend at all what had happened to him. He didn’t remember that he was bitten just twenty minutes ago while walking to his girlfriend’s house. He didn’t even remember his own name. The only thing the creature that was once Robert was conscious of was that he was hungry, and the scent of food surrounded him.

He lunged for the closet person, Doctor Blair. Robert sunk his teeth into the flesh just under Blair’s eye and they both fell to the ground. The father and son screamed and cowered in the corner near the television. Blair tried to push Robert away, but that only sent more shocks of pain through his face.

A gunshot rang out.

Denise looked to the exit doors. She recognized one of the men that had been patiently waiting in the emergency room. So many names and faces passed through her mind each day, she didn’t remember his name. He had shot Robert in the leg.

“Sir, release that man now. Or I will fire again.”

Denise guessed he was a cop. She prayed he was.

Off duty police officer Frank Kinkade watched for a few more seconds as Robert continued to chew on Blair’s face. He expected Robert to cry out in pain, roll over and hold his leg. He did no such thing.

“Get him off me!” Blair shouted.

Frank felt silly for only a moment, then he pistol whipped Robert seven times in the head. He still didn’t make a sound, but he did let go of Blair. Frank grabbed the doctor by the shoulders and quickly hauled him to his feet. Blair kept a hand pressed to his face, blood squirting everywhere.

Robert looked up at both of them and let out an angry moan. Blood dripped from his teeth and tongue to the floor.

Frank didn’t hesitate a second time. He raised his gun directly at Robert’s head and pulled the trigger. Brain matter exploded from his skull and sprayed on the flood behind him. He fell to the floor, dead a second time.

The father and son were openly crying now. Denise couldn’t find any words. No one spoke at all. The only sounds were the chaos in the parking lot and television.

Blair was the first one to speak. “You . . . you killed him.”

Frank shot him a look. “Haven’t you been listening to the news? Hell, you checked him yourself. He was already dead.”

“That isn’t possible.”

They didn’t get a chance to continue the debate. Two women walked into the emergency room. One was very pregnant, and waddled slowly. The other had her hand on her friend’s shoulders, just slowly walking with her.

“What the hell is going on outside?” Sarah Thompson asked.

Both women stopped and gasped when they saw what was left of Robert Sloan, sprawled on the floor. Doctor Blair was treating himself. He rubbed his face with alcohol and pressed gauze to the hole Robert had left behind.

“My friend is pregnant,” Margie said.

Doctor Blair took a deep breath. This was turning into a crisis, if it hadn’t already done so.

“I’ll take them back,” he told Denise. “Get some help up here.”

Doctor Blair grabbed a wheelchair and helped Sarah sit down. Denise knew this was against procedure, but she could barely remember procedure herself at that moment. They didn’t know the woman’s name. She wasn’t logged into the system. No insurance information. Nothing at all.

Sarah tried to turn her head to Denise as Blair pushed her down the hall. “My husband is coming!” she called. “Please send him to me!”

Denise barely heard her.

Frank took a quick peek outside. The parking lot was empty, but he could hear the violence off in the distance. Screams, gunshots, people running, those awful moans.

He walked around Robert Sloan and up to Denise at the desk.

“Ma’am, I’ve been here for two hours now. I came here with my sister, Helen Kinkade. They took her back a while ago. Can you tell me where she is?”

Denise was quiet a moment, just looking at Frank’s face with her jaw hung open. He had to shake her shoulder to snap her out of it. She was embarrassed a moment. She was a medical professional. She was supposed to have better control over her shock.

“Yes, I’m sorry. Helen Kinkade.” She sat down at the computer. “Let me see.”

She didn’t get the chance to look.

A mob of people burst into the waiting room. Some came from the outside, while others came from the stairwell in the corner. They ran right to the father and son near the television.

The mob didn’t show any mercy.

Frank raised his gun, but he held off from firing. He was afraid to draw attention his way.

He fought off the guilt and the sounds of a boy and his father dying. He quickly opened the door to the office that Denise was in. She was shutting the glass window that separated her desk from the waiting room. Frank locked the door behind him. They both climbed under the desk and just listened.

Denise kept a hand clamped over her mouth while tears streamed down her face. She heard the father and son screaming in agony, then they were quiet. She heard the sounds of the mob feasting. Disgusting, horrifying noises. She saw shadows on the back wall that hinted at the Hell that was happening. The office itself was locked, but the glass window didn’t. They weren’t safe.

They’re just twenty feet away. We’re next.

Over the sounds of the creatures eating, they could still hear the television.

“. . . we have here footage in Brazil of an attack at a funeral. I know it’s hard to believe, but it looks like the body actually climbed out of the coffin. The deceased died from a broken neck at a construction site, but it didn’t seem to slow him here. Only physical brain trauma seems to put them down, whatever they are . . .”

Frank and Denise stayed under the desk for ten minutes. There was nothing they could do. Soon, the creatures grew bored of the cold flesh they shoved in their mouths. They rose up and wandered away, searching for their next hot meal. Some left through the emergency room, while others went back into the hospital.

Denise almost let out a cry when she saw a small shadow rise up on the back wall. There was a moan that was a higher pitch than the others. The mob had left just enough of the boy behind to rise among the dead.

The waiting room grew quiet, but that didn’t make Denise feel better. An hour ago, she was doing her job. Now, the world was tearing itself apart. The news on the television was interviewing different witnesses to different attacks. One interview was cut short when a mob of people attacked the camera team. Frank lowered his head as their screams turned into a technical difficulties message.

Frank thought desperately about his next move. His sister was somewhere here in the hospital. She was all he had left, after their parents died in a car crash four years ago. He had to find her, then get someplace safe. It was that simple. Whatever was going on in the world, they could figure that out later.

Suddenly there was a voice in the waiting room. “Oh my God! Hello? Is anyone here?”

Denise poked her head above the desk. An attractive man with no shirt on looked at the corpses on the floor. He had some blood on his hands, but didn’t look injured.

She waved wildly and finally got his attention. She pointed to the door behind her. “There’s a door on the side here! Hurry!”

Several moans from just beyond the double doors leading into the hospital got Joe moving. As he sprinted to the door Frank was moving to unlock it. Part of Frank, even the law enforcement part, told him that Joe was on his own. But he fought those feelings off and let Joe in. He couldn’t help the father and son against the huge mob that attacked, but he could help Joe.

Joe nearly fell in the office as Frank locked the door again. They quietly scurried under the desk as five more of the creatures burst into the waiting room.

The creatures sniffed the air. They knew more warm flesh was nearby. They didn’t know it was just six feet away on the other side of an office wall. They didn’t even know what an office wall was anymore. After a few minutes, they left to the parking lot, where the scent of flesh was much stronger in the open air.

Joe looked at Denise and Frank. He saw Frank had a gun in his hand. He also saw a holster under his coat. Had to be a cop of some kind. Denise was probably a few years younger than him, obviously a nurse. She would know where Sarah was.

Denise moved her lips slowly enough for the men to read. She still didn’t dare make a sound.

What are they?

Joe shrugged, but he knew now they couldn’t be human, at least not anymore. He knew humans could be absolutely terrible creatures. But cannibalism, feeling no pain, that was something else entirely.

He leaned toward Denise and spoke in a whisper. “Sarah Thompson, I need to find her.”

“And Helen Kinkade.”

Denise closed her eyes and held her hands up. She tried to think rationally, but the fear tried to knock those rational thoughts aside.

“Listen,” she said. “The news says these things are walking dead bodies. And we’re in a hospital, the worst place to be. Now, I wanna help people, but I also don’t wanna die. We should leave right now. Sarah and Helen, they’re probably already dead.”

Frank barely heard a word she said. He carefully reached up and grabbed the keyboard from her desk. “Look her up. What room is she in?”

Denise sighed and ran a quick search on Frank’s sister. She skimmed through the doctor’s notes as fast as she could.

Her voice fell. “She’s in ICU.”

“ICU?”

“Yeah. She was bitten, wasn’t she?”

He nodded. “Yes. Out jogging this morning in the park.”

“Her condition got worse, so they transferred her to ICU. Listen, Frank, she’s probably-”

“Where is ICU?”

“Third floor.”

Frank checked the magazine in his gun as quietly as he could.

“I, uh, suppose you don’t have another one of those?” Joe asked, pointing to the nine millimeter weapon.

“Afraid not.”

“Didn’t think so.” He looked at Denise. “Sarah Thompson.”

Denise ran the search. “Nothing.”

“What? I know she’s here.”

“She’s not in the system. I’m really sorry, but as you can see, this place is kinda falling apart.”

“Come on. Beautiful, blond pregnant woman. A pretty brunette would have been with her, her best friend.”

Denise’s eyes lit up. “Ah! Yeah, Doctor Blair took her back. But she’s not in the system yet. And that . . . that can’t be good. I don’t know what room she’s in.”

“Well where the hell do they deliver babies here?”

“Second floor.”

Joe looked at Frank. He wished they were going together, since Frank had the gun. But he knew that wouldn’t happen. They both had different people they needed to get to.

“Good luck, man,” Joe said.

“You too. Listen, whatever it is people are becoming, you have to nail the brain to take them down. I shot that guy out there in the leg, he didn’t even flinch.”

“Thanks.”

He looked around the office for a weapon. There was nothing at all that caught his eye that he could wield. His eyes fell on a spare computer keyboard in the corner. With nothing else to use, he grabbed it and took a few practice swings.

Despite everything around them, Frank smirked and shook his head.

“Okay, hold on,” Denise said. “Just hold on a second.”

She grabbed the computer monitor and stretched the cables enough so she could put it on the floor. Then she logged into the network-based security camera system. She shouldn’t have known the passwords, but Gary, the IT tech who was always trying to impress her, showed her once how to login.

They didn’t like what they saw.

Denise slowly cycled through the camera feeds. Joe and Frank crouched and watched over her shoulder. Her eyes burned as she wiped tears from her eyes. The cameras showed them what she had already guessed.

The hospital was a lost cause.

All it took was bite wound victims being shuffled all over the hospital. Now, the creatures were everywhere. She cringed as she watched people running for their lives down the halls, doctors that once cared for patients eating those same patients’ intestines.

“I’m sorry, guys. But I can’t go with you.”

Frank nodded. “I understand. Get your loved ones and get some place safe.”

A sad thought crossed Denise’s mind. Her mother was drunk somewhere in a bar in California. She hadn’t spoken to her father since the day he’d walked out on her and Mom, almost ten years ago. Six years of having her nose in medical books didn’t leave her with a lot of time to make friends.

She had no one.

Frank opened the door and sprinted across the empty waiting room. Joe was a step behind. They knew it was empty now, but it could be full of those creatures at any second. They had to be quick and quiet.

They went up the stairs without incident. When they got to the door leading to the second floor Frank peeked through the glass window. He pulled his head back when he saw a head pass by, half limping down the hallway.

Frank saw two men and a woman kneeling next to a man on the floor. One of the creatures used to be a patient. His robe was open in the back, revealing a slice that went from his tailbone all the way to the bottom of his neck. Frank could see the muscle tissue exposed.

He put a hand on Joe’s shoulder, not wanting him to look. Joe felt ridiculous. He still carried the spare keyboard, while Frank had a gun.

“This is my stop,” Frank said.

Doubt started to creep into Joe’s mind. This is crazy, he thought. I’m not gonna make it.

He had to try. His wife and child, and Margie, needed him.

Joe just gave Frank a nod. Frank pulled open the door and took his first steps onto the second floor. As Joe ran up the stairs he heard Frank shooting.

His hopes fell. How far did he really expect to get with a keyboard?

He looked through the window leading to the third floor. Down the hall he could see someone walking, his back facing Joe. For a moment, he thought it was a normal person. Then he noticed the slow, unsteady gait. In a closet just behind the creature, a mother burst the door open and fell to the ground. Her young daughter, whom the parent had spent the last hour hiding in the closet with and treating her wounds, tore a chunk of flesh out of her mother’s back. The other creature turned and joined in the attack.

“My God, this can’t be happening.”

A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind.

Joe spun around and cocked the keyboard back, ready to strike. Denise held up her hands and shielded her face.

“Hey, hey! It’s me!”

He let out a breath and lowered his weapon. “Fuck, lady! What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, don’t really have anywhere else to go. And you need help. You gotta find your family. Hell, that’s my job here. I’m supposed to help people.”

Joe was surprised. He didn’t expect help from anyone. He gave her a smile and looked at the fire extinguisher she carried. It was no doubt a little sturdier than the keyboard he had.

He stuttered. He didn’t know what to say. “I . . . well . . . thank you. I owe you one.”

She smiled. “I’m Denise.”

“Joe. Nice to meet you.”

Denise pushed her face to the glass. She looked away for a moment at the disgusting feast still happening at the end of the hall.

“Okay, the maternity ward isn’t too far away. It’s just two halls over to the right. But . . . I don’t know what we’re gonna find there.”

He took a breath. “You ready?”

She nodded.

Joe opened the door. The two creatures at the end of the hall looked up. They climbed to their feet and started walking quickly.

“Come on,” Denise said.

They took the hall slow but steady. It took everything Joe had not to break into a run. He heard the two creatures trying to catch up behind him, but he told himself they were slow. If they ran, they would make noise, and who knows what they would run into.

As they approached one hall intersection Joe saw a hand grab the corner of the wall, then pull itself into view. Denise recognized the man as Doctor Jay. A nice man who always told her how pretty she looked.

He looked at her now and wailed. His eye hung halfway out the socket. When he opened his jaw to moan, the eye fell out completely, only held by the optic nerve.

Denise was convinced now they were walking corpses.

Joe, who hadn’t kept track of the news, was stunned. He knew they didn’t feel pain, but this was too much.

He raced toward what used to be Doctor Jay. He swung the keyboard as hard as he could across his face, breaking the cheap plastic. Doctor Jay stumbled backwards and fell awkwardly on his leg. Joe heard it broke.

Still, that didn’t stop the doctor. He slowly crawled toward them, drooling blood on the floor.

“The ward’s one more hall over,” Denise said, grabbing his arm. “Let’s go.”

As they passed an exam room, Denise saw a nurse she used to eat lunch with ripping the tongue out of someone’s mouth. The nurse, with the scent of warm flesh in her nose, left her cooling meal and stood up.

“We have to hurry before we attract too much attention,” Joe said.

“We’re here. Just this next left.”

When they reached the intersection they stopped. Joe looked down a long hall with rooms on both sides. A creature had a woman pinned to the wall, teeth in her throat, about halfway up the corridor.

“Doctor Blair would have brought her here.”

Joe looked behind him. Three creatures were still slowly approaching, their arms outstretched. He took the fire extinguisher from Denise.

“I guess we have to look in every room, right?”

She nodded. They didn’t keep paper charts anymore. The computer told her where patients were, and that wasn’t an option.

They started searching rooms. The first room they saw with someone in it was a creature eating someone’s foot. Joe ran forward and smashed him in the head with the extinguisher.

The noise attracted the attention of the single creature ahead of them. The three others still tailed them as well. They rounded the corner behind them.

“They’re gonna pin us in,” Denise said.

Joe wasn’t worried too much about the creature ahead. He could simply knock him over and run, if need be. But Denise was right, they needed to hurry.

They approached a large room to their left with a huge viewing glass, and a mini lobby across from it. The single creature was twenty yards away. Joe took a quick look.

He didn’t know the name of the room, but it was the hospital nursery, where they kept newborn babies while the mothers slept.

It wasn’t a nursery any longer.

Rows and rows of tiny beds were knocked over. He couldn’t see what the creatures were doing, but they were on their hands and knees, reaching into the beds. Not a single baby made a noise.

Joe lost it. He leaned over and vomited. The single creature approaching them was getting dangerously close. It actually seemed to get faster as it got closer.

“Joe, we gotta move. Come on.”

He snapped. As he wiped his mouth, he could only think one thing. Is my baby in there?

He ran forward and smashed the single creature in the head with the extinguisher. The creature fell to the ground, a huge dent where its forehead used to be. But Joe didn’t stop. He hit the thing eight more times, until its brains leaked out of its crushed skull.

Denise was crying now. Joe was hunched over, vomiting again. Thick, almost coagulated blood was smeared on his chest from destroying the thing. She ran up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“You have to get it together!” she almost screamed at him. “We have to keep-”

She cut herself off when she saw movement to her right. She looked into the room next to them. She recognized Doctor Blair.

Joe’s murder of the creature attracted the attention of five more of them, all coming out of different rooms. They were moving much faster than the others. Joe and Denise were trapped now.

“Come on!”

She dragged Joe into the nearby room, where Doctor Blair was. She locked the door behind them.

Doctor Blair was standing near the window, just swaying back and forth, with his back toward them. Blood was all over the bed and walls. There was movement on the floor. The angle they had from the hallway didn’t let Denise see it, but someone else was in the room.

Joe thought maybe he had died and gone to Hell. He thought back to his chaotic day. The warehouse, then the hospital. He didn’t remember dying along the way. But that was the only way to explain what he was seeing.

His beloved wife Sarah crawled out from next to the bed. The gown she had on was twisted and covered in blood, and showed most of her front. Her stomach was split open. Intestines drug along the floor as she let out a moan that threatened to send Joe over the edge.

He couldn’t move or think. All he could do was look into the emaciated face of his once beautiful wife. He didn’t hear the crowd of walking dead gather outside the locked maternity ward room. He didn’t hear Denise next to him urging him to do something. He wanted to crawl into the corner and die, but his legs refused to carry him anywhere.

He thought of the last time he saw her. At the front door, where they hugged and kissed goodbye before he left for work. He had no idea it was the last hug and kiss they would ever share.

Denise plunged the scalpel she found on the table next to them deep into the skull of Sarah Thompson before she could crawl any closer. She fell lifeless to the floor on her side, the womb where their baby once grew exposed.

Doctor Blair shuffled forward. He had more bite wounds then when Denise saw him earlier. His neck was ripped open, exposing tissue and muscle. Joe didn’t even realize Denise had taken the extinguisher from him. She beat Blair in the head till he fell, then beat him some more.

Denise looked at Joe. She knew he was in shock, just leaning against the locked door. He seemed oblivious to the pounding coming from the other side. She gently grabbed him by the shoulders and leaned him against the closed bathroom door.

She knew they weren’t getting out the way they came in, not with all the creatures on the other side. She stepped over Blair’s dead corpse and looked out the window. The emergency waiting room was its own little addition, and the roof to it was just outside. The window didn’t open large enough to walk through. It only cracked a little, to get air. She swung the extinguisher at the glass, being careful not to cut herself. She ran back to get Joe. The pounding on the door was getting louder.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We can climb out on the roof here and jump down. It’s not a short fall, but we’ll figure something out.”

Joe blinked twice. Tears stained his face. “I-I think I’ll stay here.”

“What?”

“Sarah . . . she’s gone.”

Denise grabbed his face gently. She had just stabbed a woman in the head and beat a man to death. She was amazed she was keeping together as well as she was.

“Joe, she would not want you to die here.”

Before he could respond, there was a voice in the bathroom behind him. “H-Hello? Is someone out there?”

Joe thought he recognized the voice. He turned the handle to find the bathroom locked.

“Yeah. Unlock the door.”

The door opened to reveal Margie. She was a mess. Her shirt was torn, blood smeared down her face. Her pretty blue eyes were bloodshot from crying.

In her arms, she held a baby boy. He slept peacefully, wrapped in a blue blanket.

“What the hell is going on?” Margie asked.

Denise shook her head. “People are dying, and getting back up. We have to get out of here.”

Margie looked at the locked door in front of them. It actually shook from the pounding.

“Not that way.”

“No. We can get out through the window. Let’s go.”

As Margie moved out of the bathroom Joe pointed at the newborn baby. “Can I hold him?”

She gently placed the hour old baby into his arms. “Of course. He’s yours.”

Joe was lost in his own world for a moment as he looked at his son. The baby opened his eyes just for a moment, yawned, then went back to sleep.

The sounds of fists at the door brought him back to the real world.

“Joe!” Denise called from the window. She had already put a sheet over the sill to cover the shattered glass. “Come on!”

Margie was out on the roof. She helped Denise climb through. Joe moved with new-found purpose. He very carefully handed over his son through the window to Denise. Then he climbed through himself. He heard the door splintering behind him. He almost expected something to grab his foot from the room as he stepped onto the roof, but that didn’t happen.

They had a better view of the surrounding area. Buildings were on fire. The hospital parking lot was empty of people, except for a few bodies littered about. Some car alarms went off, and they could see the ambulance that had crashed into the hospital earlier was completely engulfed in flame. There was the occasional scream and some small explosions off in the distance, plus the wails of the creatures.

Margie ran to the edge of the roof. It was a good twelve foot drop to the ground. She had no idea how they’d pull it off with a baby.

She turned to see the creatures at the window, and screamed. Joe spun around.

They weren’t coordinated or organized enough to get through the window. They tried to climb out at the same time, bumping into each other and falling down. But one did manage to make it through. Joe acted fast. He ran forward and grabbed the creature before it could stand. He drug it along the roof and slid it right off the side.

“They’ll figure out how to get out eventually,” he said. “What are we doing?”

Suddenly an engine fired up in the parking lot. Denise looked down to see Frank Kinkade, not too far away, sitting behind the wheel of a minivan. He backed out of his parking spot, running over a dead body as he did so.

“Frank!” she called. “Hey, Frank!”

He stopped the van and looked around. It took him a moment to find the voice. He looked up at Denise.

“Can you give us a hand up here?”

Cop or not, Frank was tempted to drive away. He wanted to live through whatever was happening. The more he stopped to help people, the less of a chance that would happen. But he saw Denise and the man whose name he didn’t know in the waiting room. They had another woman and a baby with them. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t help.

“I’m gonna back up as close as I can,” he shouted. “Hurry up!”

Frank parked under the roof close to the front of the emergency room. Margie jumped on top of the van first and accepted the baby from Denise. She jumped down next. Joe was ready to make the leap when he saw Frank pull his gun and aim right at Joe’s head. He fired a single time. Joe flinched as the round went past his ear and struck the creature between the eyes behind him that managed to get out the window.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Frank said.

The women made it inside the van first. A creature shambled toward them from the waiting room as Joe landed on the ground, but a shot from Frank dropped it.

As Joe jumped in the side and shut the door, six creatures seemed to come out of nowhere. They pounded on the sides and back, leaving blood across the van. A creature that used to be a security guard lost its fingernails as it drug them down the side. The rear window cracked, sending spider-lines across the glass. The baby was awake and crying now in Margie’s arms.

“Go, go, go!”

Frank hit the gas. He weaved his way in and out of parked cars and ran through a row of bushes next to the sidewalk. He drove past car accidents, creatures shambling through the streets, people dying in the allies. Margie was in the front seat, Joe, Denise, and the baby in the back. Everyone was crying now, except Joe, who looked a little shell-shocked. Frank wanted to join them, but he knew he had to keep his composure, even after he saw his sister eating the hand of a doctor in the intensive care unit.

The world is falling apart, he thought.

“Frank, thank you, thank you so much,” Denise said. “Your sister?”

He didn’t say anything. Just shook his head.

“I’m so sorry.”

Frank ignored her. “Look, everyone. I don’t know what’s going on, but my grandfather used to have a house way in the woods in Cumberland. I’m going there. You guys can come with me, or I can drop you off somewhere.”

“You’re a police officer,” Denise said. “You’re just gonna run?”

He shot her a nasty look in the rear view mirror. “I don’t see you back there taking temperatures.”

She was quiet.

“Margie,” Joe said. He was still having trouble talking. But he had to know. “What happened?”

The memory was still fresh in her mind. She wasn’t sure if she could talk about it without breaking down. But she’d try. Joe had to know.

“I lied, told them she was my sister, so I could be there. Sarah . . . Sarah died. Doctor Blair, he tried his best. But everything was screwed. There were people right outside the delivery room, killing each other. She had an aneurysm or something, right in the middle of child birth.”

She cried a moment. Denise put a hand on her shoulder from the back seat. Then she continued.

“He was right in the middle of a C-section. He told me I had to leave, but I wasn’t going out there, not with those things. He almost had the baby out when . . . when Sarah reached up and bit Doctor Blair. She was dead, but she still got up.” She paused a moment. “I-I cut the cord myself, grabbed the baby, and hid in the bathroom. I could hear Sarah eating him just outside the door. Then I think he got up too. They beat on the door. They sounded so awful. Something would distract them, then they would beat on it some more.”

Margie cried at the memory. The entire hour she was in the bathroom, she expected them to bust the door down and kill her and the baby. Just outside in the hallway, she could hear people getting attacked and killed.

She remembered something Sarah said in the delivery room.

“Joe. Sarah, before he put her under for the C-section, she said ‘Tell Joe Aaron’. Do you know what that means?”

He sobbed. Sarah and Joe came up with hundreds of names for their baby over the past eight months. One of the early ideas they liked, but shied away from later, were names that could fit a boy or girl, like Aaron or Erin. Aaron had the added bonus of being the name of Joe’s father, who Sarah adored as her own before he died.

Joe held out his arms for his son. Denise handed him over, and the baby stopped crying.

“It’s okay, Aaron. I’ll take great care of you.”

Frank made it to the highway. It was almost as bad as the streets near the hospital. Cars on fire, dead bodies on the shoulder. He even had to maneuver his way around a big rig that was on its side with its trailer blocking most of the road.

Everyone in the van was quiet. Frank didn’t like it, and turned on the radio.

Two radio deejays debated and theorized as they took calls from several listeners.

“I’m telling you, these things are walking dead bodies. My neighbor got bit by one, and I can see him now from my kitchen window. He’s just standing in his backyard wandering around.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing here. It looks like even people that are dying of natural causes are getting back up. Only damaging the brain seems to do anything. But our government has yet to make any official statement. I mean, what is going on here?”

“You think it’s a terrorist attack?”

“I doubt it. This is worldwide, and no one has claimed responsibility. Maybe God’s just pissed off at us.”

“Whatever it is, for anyone listening, just stay inside. They’re dangerous, but they don’t seem that smart or fast. I’ve had a few callers say they’ve seen a few that can run, but not any faster than you or I. So please-”

They were cut off by the sound of glass breaking.

“Andrea, are you okay? Oh my God-”

Those were the last words. Denise put a hand to her mouth as they listened to two men dying over the air waves. There were screams, then they turned into more of a liquid, gargling sound as their throats were ripped open. They could hear Andrea feasting in the background.

“We’re all gonna die,” Margie said.

Joe found a sudden strength, and it wasn’t a mystery where it came from. He looked at his and Sarah’s little Aaron, still sleeping in his arms.

“We’re not gonna die,” he said. “We will get through this.”

“Amen to that,” Frank said. “I hope you guys like the outdoors, cause that’s where we’re headed, at least until this blows over.”

They continued on the highway in silence. Each one of them pondered their future.

Chapter 3

Frank was wrong.

It didn’t blow over.

It didn’t take long for the world to die. Two weeks after the dead began to rise, the news stopped broadcasting altogether. Then there were the assaults on supermarkets and department stores. The power went out slowly across the world, as less and less people were around to maintain the facilities that had spoiled society for a century.

For every person that died, there was one more walking corpse to avoid. There was no stopping the walking dead. Even deep in the country and small towns, the dead walked. For reasons that science was never able to find out, they didn’t decompose like normal corpses.

The living did just as much damage as the dead. People killed each other for food and supplies. The world of the dead brought out both the best and worst in people. But unfortunately, the worse seemed to have the greater numbers.

Time passed, but for the people that survived, time was meaningless. What did the passing of a day, or a month, even a a year, matter to people surrounded by walking corpses?

A lot of time passed for Joe Thompson, his new friends, and his son.

Joe was having a nightmare. It was a variation of a nightmare he had throughout the years. He was in the middle of a busy city street, but he didn’t know what city it was. The walking dead surrounded him from every angle, building, every alley. They were led by his wife Sarah. She wasn’t a walking corpse, like the others. She was alive and beautiful. But as she got closer she slowly decayed in front of his eyes, before shoving a hand inside his stomach.

“Dad! Dad, wake up.”

Joe woke up with a start. He sat upright and looked around. It was pitch black, but the familiar feel of the couch under him told him he was in the living room, in his home for the past fourteen years. His body told him it was late. The sheet he’d taken in their last supply run felt good against his skin. He couldn’t see Aaron, but he knew where he was standing, right in the hallway that led to the three bedrooms. Denise and Margie shared one bedroom, while Frank and Aaron both had their own. Joe shared with Aaron for a long time, but was more than happy to give it up when Aaron wanted a little more independence.

“You alright, Dad?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah. Thanks, Aaron. Just having a bad dream. Nothing new, I guess. Especially with Frank’s cooking.”

Aaron laughed. “You want me to stay up with you a while?”

Joe smiled in the dark. That was Aaron, a caring soul. They’d all done their part in raising him, and he was turning into a fine young man, even in the world they lived in. Sadly, Joe didn’t know how old his son was. Thirteen, maybe fourteen years old.

“No, you go and get some sleep. We’ll hit the lake, bright and early. Catch us some breakfast.”

“Alright. Love you.”

“Love you too, son.”

Joe listened as his son walked down the hall and back into his bedroom. All their ears had gotten sharper over the years, especially at night with only candles and moonlight to light the way. Aaron climbed into bed and shifted around for a minute. It was quiet, until a male voice cut through the air.

“Hey Joe. You mind keeping it down out there? Some of us who aren’t pussies are trying to sleep.”

Joe smiled. “Bite me, Frank.”

The women laughed in their bedroom.

He stood up from the couch and stretched his arms over his head. He knew he should try to get more sleep, but after the nightmare, he wasn’t quite ready to put head to pillow just yet. He easily navigated around the coffee table and loveseat and walked outside to the porch.

It was a beautiful night. The full moon hung high over the lake that was just outside the house. Joe walked down the dock and sat down, letting his feet over hang over the water. The breeze felt great.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The sounds of the lake and nature soothed him. Crickets chirped, birds flew overhead, fish hopped out of the water. It was hard to believe that just four miles away, in the nearby town, the corpses walked the streets.

The corpses never made it back into the woods. Every now and then, a lone straggler would show up. But Frank always thought it was just a lone hermit deep in the woods, and not a sign of a corpse invasion. So far, he’d been right.

Joe didn’t ever think he would be the outdoors type. But all things considered, he liked their lifestyle. Fresh water in the backyard, peace and quiet. Food could be a little rough. There were times he thought he’d die if he ate one more fish. But Margie did most of the cooking, and did a great job, even if she hated lighting the grill.

It took them a while to get used to the changes. Night was very black with no electricity. All the chores had to get done before sunset, or they didn’t get done. Sleep schedules changed. No more sleeping in till mid-morning. Everyone was up at dawn. When supplies were running low, they had to brave the nearby town to get the things they needed. They hadn’t driven the van in years, relying on bikes for transportation.

Their new life could be hard. But they were alive.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even hear her coming. His heart skipped a beat as he turned and saw Denise. The moonlight hid certain parts of her while giving a gray hue to others. She wore her favorite summer nightgown, and looked good.

“Whoa, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

He laughed. “It’s okay. Just enjoying the night air.”

“Want some company?”

“Sure.”

She sat next to him. Joe was suddenly conscious of what he was wearing, which was just a pair of shorts. Her nightgown rode up her legs a little, and Joe caught himself trying to steal a look at them.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Denise had the hint of a smile. “Yeah, we heard.”

“Sorry if I kept you up.”

“Look Joe. If you want we can take turns on the couch. I don’t mind at all.”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you though.”

They were quiet for a moment. Joe enjoyed watching the moonlight bounce off the ripples in the lake. He enjoyed spending time with Denise, more than he admitted. He owed a lot to her. Not just for saving his life, but Aaron wouldn’t be who he was without her around.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he said. “Gonna get cold soon though. I’ll start working on some wood tomorrow.”

She nodded. “We might have to head to town soon too. Some of our blankets are falling apart.”

Denise scooted an inch closer and carefully leaned her head on his shoulder. The closeness made Joe’s heart pound just a little harder.

She wasn’t sure when she fell in love with Joe. She had long arguments with herself that it even was love.

It was only when Joe and Frank returned home two days late from a trip into town that she realized she couldn’t live without him.

It was Frank’s house they were living in. He also taught everyone how to fire and care for a gun. But it was Joe who was their leader. It was just something about him, his calm manner in which he approached everything. He had a quiet leadership that Denise didn’t think he realized himself. Everyone was in a panic those first few days after the dead rose. Joe pulled them through, all while looking after Aaron.

He also somehow made everyone laugh. There was a time Denise thought she’d never laugh again.

I love you, Denise thought. She thought that so many times. Now if only I had the guts to say it.

“I, uh, think Frank and Margie are having sex.”

“What?” He turned toward the house. “Right now?”

“No, not now, nutball. Just, you know, having sex.”

Joe suspected as much. The other day, while getting the cooking fire ready, Frank had to get more wood. Nothing unusual about that, until Margie went with him. Joe thought maybe there was something going on there.

“Maybe you’ll get your own room soon, after all.”

They shared a laugh and she nuzzled her head more into his shoulder. She ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re gonna have to let me cut your hair tomorrow,” she said. That was as good an excuse to touch him as any. “It’s getting long.”

“Maybe I’ll just cut it all off like Frank and Aaron.”

Frank had decided he had enough of his thick head of hair years ago, and Aaron just had to look like his Uncle Frank.

“No, you can’t do that. I like your hair.”

“Why thank you.”

This is it. Make a move, she told herself.

“Hey Dad!” Aaron called from the porch. “A possum got in the house. Uncle Frank and Aunt Margie are both screaming in here. He says he’ll kill it with his gun if you don’t get rid of it.”

“Let’s go save the day,” Joe said.

Denise smiled. “Yeah, we’re heroes.”

He helped her to her feet. Her smile faded when she realized he was watching her, looking at her face. She could barely make out his features due to the darkness. He didn’t let go of her hands, just rubbed them gently.

He likes me too.

They walked back to the house. Joe held her hand the entire way.

The sun had only been up a little while. After catching six large mouth bass, Joe was cleaning the outhouse, not his favorite job. Denise and Margie were in the house straightening up. Frank was chopping logs with an ax. Aaron was out in the woods practicing with a compound bow, a gift from Joe he’d found on their last trip to town. Archery was a talent Aaron was getting dangerously good at.

“Hey everybody!” a voice came from the woods. “Check this out!”

Joe and Frank looked up. Aaron walked toward them. The first thing Joe noticed was his son was covered in blood. He panicked for a moment, then saw the huge deer Aaron was carrying on his shoulders. It was nearly his size.

“Uncle Frank, can you give me a hand?”

“Jesus, Aaron,” he said, dropping the ax and rushing over. “What the hell? You trying to be the Incredible Hulk?”
“I know.” Aaron had a huge smile on his face. “Dinner for a week. We haven’t had deer in a while. Who’s the Incredible Hulk?”

The women left the house to greet Aaron. They listened with smiles as Aaron told them the story. He was practicing with his bow on the other side of the lake when he saw the buck getting a drink of water. He killed it clean with a single arrow from around forty yards out, through trees. Everyone was impressed.

As Aaron told the story, Joe found himself not happy. It was only when his son finished did he realize why.

Aaron was growing up fast. Soon, he won’t need me anymore.

“Hey Dad, you mind if I clean up and read a while? Then I’ll help Uncle Frank with the wood.”

Joe nodded. He grabbed Aaron’s shoulder before he could walk away. “I’m proud of you, son.”

Aaron just gave his father a confident wink. Joe tried not to laugh as his son walked around the back of the house to use the buckets of lake water they kept to wash up. If high school still existed, Aaron would be the scholar athlete, getting excellent grades, then hitting the track after school. Not the snobby popular type though. Aaron wasn’t like that.

“They grow up fast, don’t they?” Joe said.

“It just means we’re all getting older,” Margie said with a smile.

“Speak for yourself. Maybe you all are old. I’m not,” Frank said.

Joe was ready to get back to the outhouse when he saw the three of them trading looks with each other. He searched their faces, something was going on.

“Guys? What’s up?”

Frank took a breath and shrugged at the women. “Do we wanna do this here?”

Margie nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do what?”

Margie tried to stifle a smile as Denise took Joe by the hand. Denise tried to keep her feelings for Joe a secret, but she never did a good job.

“Joe, Aaron’s gotta learn how to shoot a gun.”

“He hates guns. Scared to death of them. He can barely aim one straight.”

“Hell, none of us like guns. Well, except for Frank the warrior here. But Joe, come on. It’s way past time.”

“We’re not gonna be around forever,” Frank said. “He’s mean with a bow, and I taught him how to throw his fists around. And I hope it never happens. But one day, he might be in a corner with five corpses looking at him. He has to learn how to shoot.”

Aaron wasn’t a stranger to the world of the dead. He’d went along the last few trips to town. But he never had to see a corpse up close, never had to shoot one in the head.

Joe was quiet a moment. He was always reluctant to start on Aaron’s gun training because, like Frank said, it was an admission that they couldn’t protect him forever. It was easy to pretend that deep in the woods, they were protected from the Hell that had taken over the earth. But the truth was no one was completely safe.

Frank didn’t agree with Joe when he wanted to teach Aaron to read. Frank thought it was a waste of time. Joe knew Frank had a point now though.

“You’re right,” Joe said. “We all agree we need to head to town, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay. We got plenty of daylight left. We’ll go in together, get what we need, teach Aaron to shoot. Hell, maybe we’ll even find a battery and some gas for the van.”

Denise laughed. “You always say that.”

“One day I’ll be right.”

Joe turned to leave, but Frank grabbed his shoulder. “Uh, hey. There’s one more thing.” He looked at Margie. She gave him a bright smile, one Joe hadn’t seen in quite a while. “We have something to say.”

Aaron poured a bucket of water over his head. It felt great, although it gave him a chill as the water seeped inside his shorts. He wiped his bald head with his sweaty shirt and carried the empty bucket down to the lake for a refill.

As he walked by the house he saw his entire family gathered near the cooking pit. They looked like they were having a serious conversation.

He knew it was one of two things. They were either doing some serious planning about their lifestyle, gathering food, the upcoming winter, that sort of thing. Or they were talking about him.

Ah man, Aaron thought. Have I done anything wrong lately?

He grabbed a book from his room and sat on the porch, although he wasn’t really reading. He just studied his family. Aaron liked to just study and watch things. It wasn’t like he had a huge option of other hobbies. He couldn’t shoot a bow or read all day long.

He noticed Dad and Aunt Denise holding hands. Nothing major, just by the fingertips. Aaron shook his head. Come on, Dad. When are you gonna tell her? It’s obvious how she feels. He loved his father and knew him better than anyone. But Aaron was clueless as to why he held in his feelings for Denise. Whenever Dad just walked in the room, Denise would change. She would sit up straighter, puff her breasts out just a little more, smile a little brighter. Is it possible Dad doesn’t know?

Now Uncle Frank and Aunt Margie, on the other hand.

There wasn’t much of a secret there at all. Sneaking off in the woods together, late night swims in the lake. Aaron wasn’t completely sure, but he thought he heard footsteps late one night going from his aunt’s room to Frank’s. And he was quite sure it wasn’t to play Scrabble.

He laughed to himself. He saw their mood lighten a little. Frank and Dad shared a joke, then Frank gave him a playful slug in the shoulder. His aunts hugged.

Hmmm. I wonder if Frank and Margie finally said something?

The women passed Aaron on the porch to go inside and change clothes. Frank picked up the deer and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Joe, who was taking a seat next to Aaron.

“I’ll get this deer skinned. You got the bikes covered, right?”

“Yeah, I got ’em. Just give me a few minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll be around back.”

Aaron looked at his father. “Bikes?”

“Yeah. We’re all gonna head to town together today, get some supplies.”

“Okay. What was the laughing and playing around about?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Well, Frank and Margie just wanted to tell us they’re a couple now.”

“About time.”

“Yeah, that’s what Denise said.”

They were quiet for a moment. Aaron could see his father had something else to say.

“Look, Aaron. Today, when we get to town, Frank wants to teach you how to shoot a corpse.”

He winced. “With a gun?”

Joe nodded.

Aaron didn’t know what it was about guns that unnerved him so much. He didn’t even like holding one. It was no different than trying to get an answer out of Margie about why she was afraid of spiders. That’s why he took up the bow, so he would never have to fire a gun.

“Dad, I don’t like guns.”

“I know, I know. Hell, I don’t either. But there is a lot of danger out there, and you should be prepared for it.”

“I can hunt, fish, cook my own food, read a map, use the sun to get a good idea of time. Heck, give me a needle and thread and I’ll fix my own clothes.”

“Who taught you how to sew?”

“I read it.”

Joe laughed. His son truly was amazing. Sarah would be proud.

“I’m gonna get the bikes ready,” Joe said. “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

A mischievous smiled crossed Aaron’s face as Joe stood up. “Okay, Dad. I won’t give you a hard time on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You tell Aunt Denise that you love her.”

He sat back down. “What?”

“Tell her you love her. Don’t worry, she loves you too.”

Joe shook his head in amusement. “And what do you think love is?”

Aaron thought a moment. “Love is when it hurts when the person is gone. They like, can’t be apart, you know what I mean? They try to make each other happy. Oh, and they have sex a lot.”

“Aaron!”

“Hey, I didn’t make it up.”

Joe looked through the living room window. He could see Margie and Denise straightening up the kitchen. They didn’t use it to cook anymore, but it did store all of their supplies. He lowered his voice to make sure only Aaron could hear.

“D-Do you really think she loves me?”

Aaron just gave him a look. “Dad. She does, trust me.”

He held out his hand. “Okay. You learn to shoot, and tonight, Denise and I will have a little talk.”

They shook hands. “Deal.”

Chapter 4

The bike ride through the woods was peaceful. It was a ride they had many times before, although it was rare they all went together. Aaron felt like it was a family adventure, although he knew they felt much different.

Everyone had as large of an empty backpack as they could wear on their backs. Aaron brought up the rear and took a quick drink of water from his bottle. He made a mental checklist of some of the things they mentioned needing. Ammunition, blankets, clothes, towels, salt and pepper, lighter fluid, shoes.

And now, condoms for Frank and Margie.

Yuck. I hope they don’t keep me up all night.

Joe held his hand up as the woods began to thin out. Aaron had a sense of deja vu. This was the way they always approached town. They leaned their bikes against some trees and carefully approached the hill that overlooked Walton.

The town of Walton, once a simple place in western Maryland. Now, a home to nothing but walking corpses. Looters made off with a lot during the beginning of the new world, but there were still plenty of places to find supplies. It was just a matter of getting through the former citizens.

It always felt strange to stand on the hill overlooking town. Such a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze blowing. But just one hundred feet away was danger.

“Denise,” Frank said. “Hand me the binoculars.”

“Wait a sec,” Joe said, then looked at Aaron. “Let’s see what our trainee sees here.”

Margie gagged a little as Aaron took the binoculars and dropped to one knee on top of the hill. “You’d think I’d be used to the smell by now,” she said.

Frank gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. It felt good, no longer having to sneak around. They only kept it a secret so long so they could sort our their feelings. At first, it was just sex. But then it grew into something more.

“It’s okay. We don’t come out here that often. And I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it.” He gestured to the town. “This is all just still so . . . unnatural.”

Aaron slowly panned his vision across the houses, the small corner businesses, the streets. He saw the world in a way that his family would never be able to understand. He saw much of what the world was like in magazines and books, but had never experienced it. He just couldn’t imagine millions of people all living together without going at each other’s throats. As he studied the dead town, he passed over a mailbox and fire hydrant, having no idea of what the purpose of either one was.

The town looked the same as it did last time. Abandoned cars lined the streets. Vultures circled from above, then they would swoop down and eat maggots right off of the undead. Fallen trees leaned into the roofs of houses. Nature had begun to reclaim the town, trees and bushes growing in the middle of the street. The only sounds were the shuffling and wailing of the corpses, and the wind as it blew through the streets.

To Aaron’s family, it was a ghost town, a reminder of a life that once was. To Aaron, it was a place he never got to know, a life he never had.

He watched the undead as well. He’d never seen one outside of twenty yards. They stumbled and wandered around town without a purpose. Some didn’t bother moving at all. One pulled himself along with his arms, as he didn’t have any legs. Some of them were more decomposed than others, but they were all horrible and disgusting. It was hard to believe that they were once people, with their own thoughts and desires. Now they had only one desire, and that was to eat the flesh of the living.

Aaron took another sweep of the town. He noticed that some of the undead seemed to be stumbling in one direction. He tried to figure out where they were heading. Then he saw three people in the street, running from building to building.

“Hey Dad,” he said. “There’s people down there.”

“Let me see.” Joe watched as they shot a few corpses while maneuvering around others. They were getting dangerously close to getting grabbed a few times.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked.

“I don’t believe it. I think it’s Dillon and Shaffer. They got a third guy with them, don’t recognize him.”

“Who?” Denise asked.

“Dillon and Shaffer. Two guys Joe and I ran into last time we were out here getting things. Good enough people, if not a little reckless. Guess they have a camp around here somewhere.”

Joe continued to look through the binoculars. “Well, for better or worse, they’re dragging half the corpses in town along with them. We might be able to hit our normal stops a lot easier today.”

“Shouldn’t we help them?” Margie asked.

The men looked at each other. Joe felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but that just wasn’t the way the world worked anymore. If they were in trouble against three or four corpses, that was one thing. But Dillon and Shaffer were carelessly running through town, attracting the attention of every corpse that could still see, hear, or smell.

“No,” he said. “We’ll hit the clothes store first. Remember, always stay together. Don’t wander off. When we’re back on top of the hill, we’ll give Aaron a gun. Unless you want one now.”

He shook his head without a smile.

They started down the hill. Joe caught Denise’s arm for a moment. “Hey, uh-” He fumbled for words. “I need to talk to you tonight.”

She smiled. “Sure. I’m not going anywhere.”

The five quickly and quietly made their way down the hill and hugged the wall in the back of what used to be a laundromat. Joe took a quick look around the corner. There were six corpses in the way between them and the clothing shop. He tried the other side and saw a much clearer path, although a more disgusting sight. A single corpse with a tattered police uniform slowly walked with a broken leg. A malnourished dog ate at the corpse as he walked. The dog chewed off one finger, then another. The corpse did nothing besides moan and wail, only giving the occasional annoyed glance at the dog. For whatever reason, they only craved warm human flesh, not animal.

They heard gunshots. It was hard to tell where they came from. With the eerie quiet, it could have been close to the other side of town.

They sprinted around the laundromat and across the street to the clothing store. The corpse with the dog did notice them, but Frank dropped him with a single shot to the head. Aaron flinched, like he always did. He knew deep down they weren’t people anymore. They were monsters, which his books said didn’t exist.

Joe and Frank did a sweep of the store while everyone else hid against the wall behind a rack of clothes. Joe used to be able to smell if corpses were nearby. But the walking dead’s numbers only increased over the years, and the smell was everywhere.

The clothes store, like everything else in the world, was destroyed. The large glass windows that used to separate the store from the sidewalk were all shattered. Clothes were scattered everywhere. Mold grew on the walls.

After sweeping the store Joe and Frank rejoined everyone near the side. Joe looked at his son. Aaron looked remarkably calm.

Shit, he thought. He’s grown up with this. Of course he’s calm.

They didn’t say a word, just watched the street. They’d been through these trips countless times. The street was empty, but that didn’t mean a thousand corpses weren’t just around the corner. It looked deceptively safe, but they all knew better.

“Okay,” Joe said. He grabbed Aaron’s and his own backpack. “Fill these two up with as much as we can. Shoes, warm winter clothes, you know the routine.”

They did know the routine, and it was a sad one. Their van had run out of gas years ago. The battery was dead too. So their trips to the city consisted of filling their backpacks up as much as possible with whatever they needed. Backpacks only carried so much, and they were always in short supply.

Frank tossed a thick pair of jeans to Joe. He caught them and handed them to Aaron. Aaron shoved them in his backpack as tightly as he could.

“You alright?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. Those things, just freak me out a little.”

Joe just gave him a pat on the shoulder. Even growing up in a world of the dead, there wasn’t any way to get completely acclimated to the walking corpses. Everything about them was inhuman, despite the fact they used to be human. The way they just moaned when no one was around, only showing excitement when they sensed warm flesh. The way they staggered, unable to control their own bodies. Aaron saw a man get killed once on a trip. It was terrifying to watch them go from creatures without a purpose to a bloodthirsty mob, in no time at all.

“Okay, we full up on two bags?” Joe asked, making sure to keep his voice low.

Frank nodded. “Yeah. It’s not much though.”

Margie laughed, but it wasn’t happy. “It never is.”

“Okay, next stop, the Rite-Aid across-”

Joe was interrupted by gunshots. They weren’t far away this time. They heard some voices just out in the street.

“Dillon! Stop shooting them in the fuckin’ shoulder! Get the goddamn head!”

“I’m trying!”

Dillon, Shaffer, and their friend stopped in front of the clothing store to fire a few more rounds. Joe heard a skull explode and a body fall. Dillon turned and saw everyone standing there. He recognized Joe and Frank, whom he’d seen one other time in town before, but not the woman or teenage boy.

“Shaffer! In here!”

The three men jumped over a few overturned clothes racks and joined the group.

“Frank. Joe,” Shaffer greeted.

“What’s going on?” Joe asked.

“The corpses are coming. A lot of them.”

As soon as he said it, two shuffled on the sidewalk in front of the store. They turned and moaned while stretching their arms out. Aaron tried to fight the feeling that monsters were coming for them. But that’s exactly what was happening.

Margie gave the three outsiders a dirty look.

“And you thought it would be a good idea to drag them to us?”

“We’re just trying to survive here, lady. More guns are better than a few.”

Joe held up a hand to stop the argument, although he did agree it was a dumb move. No doubt they were all just looking for supplies, but Shaffer and his friends certainly went about it the wrong way.

Frank dropped the two incoming corpses with two quick shots to the head. But they could hear the wails now, just outside the clothing store. One showed up, then another. They were coming.

Joe’s fear started to rise, but he held it in check. That was simply rule number one in the world of the dead. Don’t panic, and think.

“We won’t be able to kill all of them,” he said. “There’s gotta be a back door to this place. Probably corpses there too, but hopefully not as many.”

The third man with Shaffer and Dillon aimed his gun and finally spoke. “No. That’s not how it’s going down.”

He fired two times, but he didn’t aim for the walking dead. He shot both Joe and Frank right in the stomach. Joe felt hot for a moment, a cold sweat forming. Then they both fell to the ground.

“Allister, what the fuck?!” Dillon shouted.

Denise and Margie were shocked for a moment, then started to raise their guns. They were just a moment too slow though, and Allister already had his nine millimeter raised, right at Aaron’s head.

“No no, don’t flinch. Or the kid here dies.”

“You asshole!” Dillon shouted. “These are good people!”

Allister grabbed Dillon by the shirt collar without taking his focus from Aaron. The corpses were still coming. There were so many now that they couldn’t see the street behind them.

“This is how it goes now,” he said. “This is how you survive in this world. Get used to it.”

Aaron watch numbly as the cold, calculating man led his two companions toward the back. Dillon and Shaffer looked apologetic, but didn’t stop. He wished he knew how to shoot a gun, so he could fire as many rounds as he could into Allister’s head.

Margie and Denise were attending to Joe and Frank. Margie was crying. Denise’s medical training was trying to take over. But she knew, here on the floor of an old clothing store, with no supplies, there wasn’t much she could do.

The corpses were fifteen seconds away. Aaron got an up close look for the first time. Maggots falling off their flesh. Tattered, ruined clothes. Some of them had bones exposed. They moved with that slow, unsteady gate.

Aaron grabbed the gun from his father’s hand.

“Aaron? What are you-”

He began to fire at the corpses. The gun felt heavy in his hand, and his aim was terrible. He fired until the clip was empty, and didn’t kill a single corpse. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The store was full of them now.

“Get out of here,” Frank said weakly. Blood poured from his stomach and formed a pool under them. Margie tried to put pressure on the wound, but it wasn’t helping.

Ten seconds.

“No,” Denise said. “We’re not leaving.”

Joe grabbed her hand. “Denise,” he begged. “Please, take Aaron and get out of here.”

“She said we’re staying, Dad,” Aaron said.

He felt hopelessness for the first time, something his father and family had shielded him from his entire life. The corpses marched for them, and nothing was going to stop them until they had their warm meal. They simply didn’t have enough bullets.

Five seconds.

“Come on,” Denise said, determined not to give up. “We’ll drag you out of here.”

She grabbed Joe’s arm. He pulled her in close though, so only she could hear. “I love you,” he said.

She smiled, despite death on top of them. “I love you too.”

She grabbed one arm while Aaron grabbed the other. Margie grabbed Frank’s wrists. Before they could start pulling, the undead were on top of them. They nearly stumbled over Frank, and two of them took a bite out of his thigh. He screamed in pain and managed to shoot the closest one in the head, covering himself with gore and dry blood.

“Frank!” Joe screamed.

Their time had run out. Margie tossed herself at the undead mob, trying to get them off of Frank. They swallowed her up and pinned her down. Three of them fell on top of Denise, biting her face as her head slammed to the ground. Aaron jumped on his father to protect him.

Aaron cried as he heard his family slowly dying around him. Their screams all mixed with his own. He felt his body being shifted around, and realized he was no longer on top of his father. He curled into a fetal position and covered his face. He heard Margie’s cries of pain slowly die down until there was nothing. Frank died while cursing at the undead. Joe died next, screaming his son’s name, followed by Denise, who had somehow managed to grab Joe’s hand while dying.

Aaron didn’t know it, but he was fourteen years old. Fourteen years to build everything they had. Two minutes to destroy it all.

He kept quiet, waiting his turn. He felt the corpses moving and shuffling around him. He heard the disgusting sound of skin being pulled from bone. He felt something on his face, and realized he was lying in a pool of his family’s blood.

But there was something he didn’t feel.

Pain.

He didn’t know how long he lied there before he risked opening an eye. Five, maybe ten minutes.

There were corpses everywhere. They stumbled and fell over each other trying to get to the warm flesh. Aaron looked at the lifeless face of his father, right before a corpse reached in and pulled out Joe’s tongue.

Tears fell from his eyes. He slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, not caring that he was sitting in what was left of his family.

He couldn’t think. He just stared straight ahead, not quite seeing the corpses shuffle around him anymore. This was the moment Frank used to tell him could happen at any time, but deep down, Aaron didn’t honestly think he’d see.

He was alone.

Slowly, the fact that he shouldn’t be alive finally crept into his mind. He looked at the corpses around him. They continued to feast on his family, just a few feet away. Others wandered around the store, tripping over each other and fallen shelves.

The monsters aren’t attacking me.

Aaron climbed to his feet, almost slipping in the pool of blood. He tried to piece together what was happening in his mind, but he just couldn’t figure it out. The walking corpses simply ignored him, as if he wasn’t there. For a moment, Aaron thought that maybe they couldn’t see him for some reason. Then he noticed some did look at him.

They just didn’t want to eat him.

A new low moan caught his attention behind him. He spun around, and his shoulders slumped while he started crying all over again.

The undead didn’t leave enough of Frank, Denise, and Margie to reanimate. But that wasn’t the case with Joe. Aaron’s father slowly stood up, almost losing his balance a few times. His eyes were white marbles. There was a hole in his mouth where his tongue used to be.

He looked at his former son, not a single glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Then he looked at his surroundings with only one single goal. Fresh meat.

The rest of the undead no longer enjoyed the taste of the cold flesh before them. They wandered off as well, not caring that Aaron was right there.

Aaron grabbed Frank’s gun from his severed hand. With tears clouding his vision, he leveled the gun right at Joe’s head.

The first corpse Aaron would ever kill with a gun was his father.

“I love you Dad.”

He fired a single time. After his father died for the second time, Aaron leaned over and vomited.

He looked at the undead around him, enraged. “Why don’t you kill me?” he shouted.

He waved his hand in their faces and jumped up and down. Some looked at him, even gave him what might have been a look of confusion. But they didn’t attack him.

As the walking corpses milled about, Aaron looked again at Frank’s gun. He thought about putting the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. He thought about it for quite a while.

None of it was fair at all. Frank and Margie had finally opened up about their relationship. Joe and Denise were about to do the same. Aaron felt it. He wanted to be with them, wherever they were. He did not want to be without his family in the world of the dead.

But he couldn’t do it.

His father wouldn’t want Aaron to kill himself. Joe taught Aaron how to do everything, to take care of himself. He wanted his son to have a long life.

So that’s what Aaron would do.

He left the clothing store, pushing a corpse to the ground as he did so. “Fuck you all.”

Aaron looked at the streets of Walton one last time before he left. He half expected the undead to pounce on him at any second, right as he started to relax.

That would never happen.