The cold grenade rested in my hand.  As I felt my heart beating through my chest, I wondered if the zombies could hear it.  Probably not from here.  Tamara and I sat a few yards away from the edge of the parking lot, a poorly trimmed hedge provided cover.  The parking lot was littered with abandoned vehicles, most with doors opened or windows smashed out, stripped of anything with value these days.  Beyond the scattered cars I could see two of the zombies shuffling aimlessly around the lot.  To the right, Johnny and Sticky were making their way around the garden center toward the back of the store.  My heart thundered some more.  I could feel it in my head now.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Tamara finally said.  Her body was motionless, but the muzzle of her rifle shook with her words.  ”My heart is pounding…”

“Relax,” I soothed, “close your eyes, take a slow deep breath for a count of four…hold it for four more seconds…now exhale for eight seconds.”  She loosened her shoulders a bit and stretched her neck before shooting me a faint smile.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” I smiled, “you’ll aim better that way.”  I focused on my own breath and felt my heart rate begin to slow.  A neat trick I learned in high school.  Anytime I had to speak in front of the class, my teacher would remind me to breathe like this.  I never imagined it would help me at a time like this.

Sticky and Johnny approached the back corner of the building, hugging the wall as they crept along.  Johnny glanced back to shoot us a thumbs-up.  I looked at Tamara, concerned.  ”Ready?”

“Yeah,” she nodded softly, “I’m ready.”

Gauging her response, I gave Johnny the thumbs-up, and then he nudged Sticky forward.  As they both disappeared around the corner, I felt my stomach twist into a knot.  Johnny was right about me sending Sticky to his death.  Not that I wanted him to die, but splitting up is usually a bad idea.  With no way to communicate, anything could happen and we’d have no idea.  At that moment I stopped breathing, realizing I needed to listen.  I perked my ears, straining to hear something, anything over my own heartbeat.  As the silence settled, I realized Tamara wasn’t breathing either.  She was poised over a rock, motionless, with the scope of the rifle pressed to her eye.  I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was.  Her skin held a warm tan that seemed darker in the early morning light.  Her muscles were tone, fit.  I could tell she took care of herself before the outbreak.  I tried to imagine the radiant woman she was before all this mess.  It was hard to imagine her with makeup on; she was already so attractive.  Her almond-shaped eyes seemed to glow, capturing whatever light was around her.  She had a face meant to smile.

I suddenly noticed the silence again.  How long have they been gone?  I couldn’t hear anything.  They should have made it around the store by now.  I put the grenade in the cargo pocket of my jeans, drew my handgun, and then turned back to Tamara.  ”Can you see them?”

“No, no sign of them.  I can spot three of the four zombies, I think the one by the door is laying on the ground.”

I scanned the parking lot.  Nothing.  Where the fuck are they?  They can’t be dead.  We would have heard something.  One of them would have let a shot off.  It wasn’t until then that I noticed how many bodies littered the ground.  Everywhere I looked there were pieces: arms, legs, and torsos dowsed in blood all over.  Did zombies do this?  They don’t usually rip people apart.  They just bite, chew, and gnaw at anything that moves.  I’ve seen them without limbs, but this was overboard.

I turned toward the back of the store again.  There, not twenty feet from me, stood a slouching man with his back turned toward me.  His shirt was ripped at the left shoulder, with blood staining his neck and back.  His left arm was broken and it swayed by his side.  My breath caught hard in the back of my throat as my body tensed.  Slowly, I raised my gun inch-by-inch, desperate not to make a single sound.  I adjusted my posture, anticipating the chaos to come.  The gravel crunched under my boot.  To this, the man’s head perked up.  He shuffled around, head cocked to the side, to look in our direction.  His arm dangled at his side, broken at the elbow, and his face and shirt were stained with blood.  Gazing beyond the barrel of my gun, his blood-filled eyes met my own.  He lifted his right arm toward me, yearning, as a slow groan escaped his gritty lips.

I squeezed the trigger.

The sound rocketed through the parking lot.  The shot punched through his left cheek, ripping out the back of his head on exit.  Tamara hit the ground the same time he did, scrambling to aim her rifle at the lifeless body.

“Oh fuck!” she gasped.  ”Where the hell did he come from?”

“The others, take them out Now!”

At that, she hopped back into position on the rock and fired on the remaining three.  I joined her, giving one shot at a time, cherishing every bullet.  We shot down the two closest ones right away, with the third running straight toward us.  I followed his movements, aiming for his head as it bobbed back and forth.  As I held my breath and squeezed the trigger, I expected his head to pour blood out onto the pavement.  That was hardly the case.

The ground shook as his body swirled up into the air, led by his legs, ripping apart at the torso.  He landed in three separate pieces amongst the rest of the body parts.  I quickly realized what happened.

“It’s a minefield!” Tamara exclaimed.

There was no time to enjoy it.  From the back of the store emerged a horde of zombies, roughly thirty of them, charging toward us.  I’d like to say I was surprised, but I wasn’t.  I knew we would have more.  There always is.  And if this horde was behind the store then Johnny and Sticky are dead.

I reached into my side pocket for the grenade.  ”God, I hope this works.”  I yanked the pin out, hopped a step forward, and lobed the grenade into the crowd.  The second it left my fingers I was at Tamara’s side grabbing her arm.  ”Run.”

I never thought it would come to this.  Somewhere deep inside my heart of hearts I hoped I would never need Wal-Mart to survive.  At least before the only thing I had to worry about was a crowd of stupid people dressed in their trailer-park best.  Now those same pieces of impoverished shit are going to be after my brains.  I wonder if they become smarter when they turn…

“I got a bad feeling about this.”  Johnny was getting uneasy, but he wasn’t the only one.  This wasn’t thinking with our heads.  We were starving.  Starving and dehydrated.  The last bottle of water went yesterday morning, split between the four of us.

“We better have a plan.  There ain’t no way we gonna pull this off if we run in there sprayin’ and prayin’ all over the place,” said Sticky.  He looked like he was going to be sick.

Johnny whipped back at him. “No shit, Sticky? Why don’t you grab a flame-thrower and just burn the place down?  Now you want a fuckin’ plan! We wouldn’t be in this shit if it wasn’t for you…”

“Keep your voices down,” I hissed.  It wasn’t so much for the zombies; I just couldn’t take their stupid bickering right now.  We were huddled at the top of a hill overlooking the parking lot.  The royal blue Wal-Mart sign glowed in early morning mist.  How is the power still on here?  Perhaps they have generators?  I’ve heard of that in big stores like this, but still going?  They should have run out of gas by now.  I could only imagine how many are still inside.  ”We need to stay calm and clear.  How much ammo do we have?

“Almost three clips,” said Johnny, “but that ain’t shit if we get into a big group of ‘em.”

“I know, just relax…Sticky, what do you got?”

“Eight shells and two grenades left, not that they’re worth a damn!” He was right.  Grenades just make a shitload of noise.  However this situation might prove them useful…

“Tamara?”

She was looking at the giant department store in the distance.  She cradled her rifle as if it were a child, protecting it from something.  ”I’ve got twenty two shots, then nine in the pistol you gave me.”  I was so thankful we didn’t lose the sniper rifle.  It was the only thing on our side at this point.

“Can you see anything in the parking lot?”

She raised the scope to her eye and panned slowly over the horizon.  ”I can spot three of them wandering around, all split up, and one more by the door.”

Four of them?  There has to be more.  ”Okay, the second we take a shot they’re gonna see us, so we’ve got to play this smart.  Sticky, you ready to redeem yourself?”

“Yeah…Wait!  What ya mean?  We ain’t splittin’ up, are we?”

“No, we aren’t, but you are.  One of us needs to check the back of the store.  We can’t afford any surprises.  If you’re not up for it…”

“Shit man, fine, I’ll do it!” he snapped.  ”Just…just gimme a second, okay?”

“Take all the time you need, big guy,” Johnny said sarcastically, “go meditate on it, we’ll just wait right here until you get back…”

“Hey, cut it out,” I said.  ”He needs our support right now, stop fucking with his head.” Sticky didn’t look back, settling against a nearby tree while he cased the Wal-Mart.  ”Now,” I whispered, “he’s got the shotgun, so when he runs into trouble he should be fine. However, when that first shell goes off he’ll be the center of attention.”

Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘when’?  You trying to send Sticky to his death?”

“No, of course not, but we need to know what we’re getting into down there.”

“Then I’m going with him.”

“What?”

“I’m going with Sticky,” he said convincingly, “he can’t do this by himself.  He could fuck this up for all of us and get himself killed in the process.”

I sat with that for a long minute.  I didn’t like the idea of it.  Johnny likes to shoot first and think later.  And Sticky, well fuck, Sticky is a certified idiot.  The two of them together could level the entire department store!

I looked at Johnny and realized he wasn’t going to budge on this one.  ”Fine, you go with Sticky, but use your fucking heads for me.  I’d very much like having friends who don’t try to eat my brains.”

“Ditto.”

Sticky was back, a determined look crowded his eyes.  ”I’m good, lets do this.”

“Johnny is going with you.”

“What?  Hey man, I can do this, aright!  I don’t need a fuckin’ body guard.”

“I’m going whether you like it or not,” Johnny replied.  ”This ain’t a one-man show.”

“Fine, but I’m leadin’ us down there.”

“Fine with me,” Johnny replied with a smile. “I’ll try not to shoot you.”

Tamara looked at me anxiously.  I could tell what she was thinking.  ”We’ll hang back a bit and provide cover until you’re around back.  If you make it around without any trouble we’ll hit the four up front together.”

She exhaled quietly, meeting my eyes only for a moment before she focused back on her rifle.

“Okay, anything else from our fearless leader?” Johnny crooned.

“Yeah,” I said glaring back at him, “I need a grenade.”

Night watch.  Tonight is the first night I’ve watched in almost three weeks.  After the bite, nobody was willing to shut an eye with me around.  I can’t say I blame them.  I’m surprised they let me live that first week.  Lucky.  That word sticks out like a soar thumb, as if it doesn’t belong in a sentence nowadays.  Hard to think Lady Luck is on anyone’s side in this hellhole…

My thought was interrupted by Sticky’s snoring.  Talk about unlucky.  That’s a bad habit to have in a place that demands silence.  How does he sleep like that?  Aside from the couple of weeks he spent thinking I was infected, he’s asleep before his head hits the ground.  Babies wouldn’t sleep that good, that is if there were any fucking babies left.  I’m still waiting to see a zombie infant in a fucking crib somewhere.  I get chills just thinking about it.  I can feel the vomit start to rise in my throat, imagining a ghoul sinking its teeth into a newborn…

“WWWhhhhaaacckk….zzz…” I swear I’m gonna kick him in the fucking head.  Then again, he’d probably scream if I did.  Big baby.

Johnny still tosses when he sleeps.  He was never a deep sleeper.  It’s weird, but I find it comforting.  It almost feels like he’s awake, too, just in case.  Tamara still has nightmares every now and then, although she doesn’t always wake up. Sometimes she just trembles and shakes, lying there, and whimpers a little before relaxing again.  She has her head in my lap again tonight, another first since I was bitten.  She sleeps better when she’s next to me.  Maybe I just want to believe that.

I want to believe we’ll all make it out of this shit, but how?  We haven’t heard anything in the way of a rescue.  No survivors.  Nothing.  The only hope we have is Jason Parker, the so-called zombie expert who is somewhere north of us.  I have no idea how we’d find him.  We don’t even have a radio anymore thanks to Sticky.  That kid is a giant ball of calamity.  So far he’s covered me in tar, blown up a gas station, destroyed our truck, and he snores like a Buick.  This one is gonna be the death of me, I can feel it.

It’s funny though, since he joined us we’ve all stayed alive.  I was inches from a bite and survived.  Nobody has received so much as a scratch with him here.  Maybe he’s our rabbit’s foot in all this, our plucky little good luck charm.

I suppose only time will tell.

I remember a time I imagined living through a zombie infection would be cool.  It’s an alluring idea, I suppose.  No rules, no jobs, you can do whatever you want.  And the added bonus: you can brutally murder infected people who (at one point) came from all walks of life without any moral accountability.  They have no soul, no humanity left in them, no cure to bring them back.  They’re as good as dead.  This is why the movies were so entertaining.

The journal didn’t make it.  I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish with it in the first place.  Keep me sane?  Leave a record of my life?  Hard to imagine anyone would find it, much less care to read about one more unlucky survivor.  Either way, it’s gone now.

Sticky keeps saying it saved my life.  I guess it’s sort of true.  I always had it stashed in the inside pocket of my jacket.

“Bro, you can’t sit there and tell me that shit wasn’t a miracle.”  Sticky was always trying to prove a point.  ”I saw you hit the ground, man.  You were a fuckin’ goner.  That ghoul was right on top of you with teeth dug in.”  I could still see the disbelief in his eyes.  He had a point, alright.  I should be dead right now.

“I tripped,” I replied.  ”There were bodies everywhere.  The shit they spit up is slippery enough.  It’s bound to happen to anyone.”

He whipped back at me. “Anyone?  Nobody survives a bite.  Nobody gets lucky.  When was the last time you saw a ‘close call’ that lasted more than a day or two? Face it, dude, when your number is up, it’s up.  And your number ain’t up yet.”

This wasn’t breaking news for anybody.  I stepped on an arm or something and rolled my ankle.  Before I hit the ground a zombie was at my side with his teeth through my jacket. Bit right into the binding of my journal.  Of course I didn’t know that at the time.  I thought I was done, too.  It’s funny, I used to laugh at journals with hard leather covers.  Why would a journal need that much protection?  No point in asking the question now.  I’m the lucky one.  ”Does this mean I’m officially human again?” I asked.  ”You haven’t slept in a week.”

“I’m not saying nothing.  Maybe you’re a zombie-hybrid or a carrier or something. I’ll sleep eventually, but the point is you got some reason to be here.”  I couldn’t help but laugh.  Sticky wouldn’t even be here if he wasn’t paranoid about his own shadow following him around.  He’s been edgy ever since I was bitten.  He checked my stomach a dozen times that day alone.  ”You’re like a Humbie, or a Zomban…or maybe you got a extra DNA that makes you super strong and you can communicate with other zombies and locate blue flowers and…”

I started trailing off.  He could go on forever with his little theories.  A hybrid-zombie?  Other than feeling more fortunate and thankful, I didn’t notice anything different.   That doesn’t stop Sticky from carrying a journal now.  I can’t imagine what he would write about.