I looked back.  The zombies trampled toward me, eyes filled with blood.  Just a few more seconds.

I glanced down to watch the blood stream from my leg.  I’d lost a lot already.  I could feel my heart beating in my knee.  Every thud sent a surge of pain climbing up my leg.

My heartbeat was pounding harder now.  Dead.  I’m going to be dead.  I’d spent so much time trying to stay alive that I hadn’t actually thought about what death was going to be like.  I tried to crawl some more, but as I lifted my body up my arms went numb.  I collapsed.  My cheek smacked down on the cold pavement.  The sky flickered a few times, then everything went black.

___________

The grenade sailed through the air with purpose.  It spiraled in a beautiful arch and disappeared into the center of the swarm.  A good throw.  It erupted from within the mob, flinging body parts in all directions.  The force of the blow expanded upward and outward, launching several ghouls a few meters away.  Those from the rear trampled over the fallen undauntedly to take the lead.

My feet pounded the concrete underneath me.  Tamara glanced back to see if I was still behind her.  ”Watch the fucking mines!” I barked.  We were running full speed through a Wal-Mart minefield.  This was certainly not the way I wanted to go out.  Scanning the ground ahead of us, I saw nothing but trash and bodies littering our getaway.  There was no telling where these things were planted.  I barely even knew what to look for; small, round, dish-like mines?  We were dead any second.

Truth be told, we weren’t running as fast as we could.  The zombies, free from the troubling knowledge that they could be blown to pieces at any second, were gaining on us.  Tamara darted up the hood of a car and began making her way across the tops of the vehicles. I followed close behind, but darted left to an adjacent path of cars to split us up.  The zombies followed haphazardly, stumbling and slipping in their pursuit.  I couldn’t tell the difference between my heartbeat and the clapping of my feet on the cars below.

Mines began popping off behind us.  I wanted to turn back and enjoy the eruption, watch the beauty of the shrapnel ripping through their frail bodies.  The remaining zombies stifled my desire.  As I looked ahead, I saw my car-top path running short.  Tamara had a good lead and was already back on the ground.  The parking lot was clear ahead.  No bodies, which had to mean no mines.

I jumped back to the right, headed for the clear.  As I ran down the windshield of an SUV, the glass caved in.  My right foot plummeted down onto the dash, my body hit the hood, and my ankle twisted through the glass.  I clunked down on the pavement smashing my knee down solid.  I howled as the pain shot up my leg.  Not my leg!  I rolled onto my stomach and scrambled across the ground.  Tamara turned to fire, but only gasped at me dragging my leg behind me.

“Go!” I screamed.  There’s nothing she could do.  I’m done, no good as a survivor if I can’t fucking run.  Johnny and Sticky had to be dead by now.  ”Get away while you can…”

I rolled onto my back and began shooting.  I didn’t turn to watch her leave.  She needed me to hold them off for her to have any chance on her own.  I know her chances, she’ll be dead in a week, but I have to try.  Someone has to survive this.

I drained the bullets from gun, one by one, until it was empty.  I glanced around for a weapon and found nothing.  For no real reason, other than habit, I rolled back over and crawled to escape.  Pointless, sure, but I wasn’t going to sit there and wait to get bitten.

My body shuttered at the thought of becoming one of them.  I hope they kill me.  Rip me up into pieces.  Just the thought of killing a human made me sick to my stomach.  Not that there are many left.  At that thought, the horde  lurched from around the SUV and trampled toward me.

“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 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.”

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.

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.

Well to start the shit storm off right, last week we hit a horde of ghouls.  They were all inside a church nearby a gas station we were scraping for supplies.  Sticky was outside syphoning gas when they spotted him.  (Now, this is where movies and video games get people into trouble with zombies.)  Sticky sees the horde and launches a bucket of gas at them, followed by a zippo.  I can’t fault him for it, I think most people would have done the same.  However, a hungry flesh-eating zombie cares about fire the same way he cares about what you’re wearing when he bites you.  The only difference in the bitter end: instead of a mob of zombies you now have a flaming mob of zombies, hungry as ever.  Good for you.

I imagine Sticky saw that scenario playing out differently.  We got back to the truck in time to get a few shots off, grab about half our supplies and run.  The two dozen flame-engulfed zombies overran the truck and gas pump, igniting everything in their path.  The truck went up in a blaze along with the whole fucking gas station.  We managed to get a distance between us with the fire slowing them down, looking back only to shoot the ones still pursuing us.  So now we’re on foot, starving and running out of ammo – again.  We’ve been on the run until yesterday; we found an abandoned bank and sealed up in the vault for the night.  Sticky still can’t get over the fact that his fire tactic didn’t work.

When you stop to think about it, fire is a slow acting weapon.  If there’s a horde unaware of your presence and you lob a molotov at ‘em from a safe distance, they won’t have any idea they’re on fire, much less where it came from.  Then you sit back and enjoy the musky smell of burning meat-heads.  And plan to be there for a bit.  Zombies don’t cripple over and die when on fire.  They don’t feel pain, so they retain the ability to move until the muscle is complete jerky.

First off, Sticky was proven wrong about his “zombie cloak” protecting his scent from flesh-eaters.  What a crock of shit.  We were about to check out this grocery store that looked abandoned when Sticky suggests the tar again.  We hadn’t seen so much as drop of blood for days, so I had to consider it.  So here we are all lubed up in this shit, sticky and smelling of burnt coal while we do a perimeter check.  The place was deserted, no electricity, so we go and crack open the sliding glass doors.  What a cluster-fuck.  The in the back of the store stood about fifty lifeless bodies.  Wall to wall ghouls oblivious to the world, and in walk three juicy humans ripe for the picking.  No zombie cloak.  As far as the zombies were concerned, we were dipped in chocolate.

Ya know, there’s a nice little moment you have with a zombie the first time you lock eyes.  It takes about 3-4 seconds before he’ll realize you’re human, especially if you startle one of them.  And in that moment, you have the slight advantage to plan the last minute of your life.

Those doors slid open, and we opened fire into the lot of ‘em before they had any idea.  Tamara was at the truck with the sniper rifle picking off any that got through the door.  After a minute or two, the street filled up and we made a run for the truck.  Thank god that thing has some power, we mowed over half of them driving away.  I still have that fucking tar on my clothes.

I give Sticky shit for using a shotgun, but honestly, it does the job in situations like that.  In close quarters with no need for stealth, the shotgun has the stopping power you need.  Not saying I’m giving up my Desert Eagle, but as long as we’re a team I feel better knowing he’s standing close by.

All sarcasm aside, we found another survivor.  I think his name is Steve or Sam or something like that.  We all call him Sticky.

So we stop at a gas station just off I-75 around Valdosta, and as we’re checking the joint for supplies and such…here comes Sticky.  I swear he scared the shit outta Johnny and me.  The guy had (and still has) black tar slathered all over his clothes.  I mean from head to toe.  Guy thinks it keeps the zombies away.

“Man, I’m telling you, it screws with their senses.  They ain’t used to no tar when they be looking for fleshies.  Mock me now but I swear, I ain’t seen a ghoul in days.  This is my zombie cloak. You all best get it good and on ya ‘fore they pick up yer scent.”

This guy cracks me up just by talking to him.  A little paranoid, but lets face it, the paranoid ones are pretty much all that’s left.  I guess you can’t be too safe.  Not saying I’m gonna go bathe in tar, but i like him.  Sticky is kind of a klutz, though.  If he makes it a week without a scratch, I’ll try the tar.

Johnny and Sticky are two peas in a pod.  Or I should say, Johnny likes Sticky.  This morning Johnny went over to Sticky while he was sleeping, grabbed his shoulders and pretended to bite him.  Sticky nearly shit himself when he felt the bite.  I’m surprised we didn’t have a handful of ghouls on us, he screams louder than any girl I’ve ever met.  And he nearly blew Johnny’s head off in the process.  Not something I’d do to a guy I just met in all this shit, but I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.  I can’t remember the last time I had something to really laugh about.

On a technical note, the Desert Eagle has saved my ass over the SMG’s tenfold.  It all boils down to accuracy and stopping power.  The SMG’s use too much ammo; they’re spray ‘n’ pray guns.  The single shots are treated with more precision, hence less ammo is wasted and a headshot is more likely.