I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse (working title)

I promised Weirdy I'd post this (or send it to her if she were online, but she is not) so she could read it. It's my zombie story antidote to all the Paranormal Romance (tm) stories going about told from the POV of a male zombie. Well, eventually it will be. Right now, he just seems kinda whipped. O.o

Also, I have a really bitchin' first line. The others after it? Not so much.

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Author's Note: Of course this is a social commentary, or it's meant to be a social commentary, because it's a zombie novel. Almost all zombie movies, at least the original or the first of a series, was a commentary on a social issue which just happened to use zombies to convey the message. George Romero's movie was... ground breaking, in a few different ways. So, I hope my social commentary is obvious enough that you, the reader, "gets it" but doesn't obscure the actual novel. It's horror, and it's meant to be such. It's meant to be entertaining and if you can take away a message, so much for the better, I believe.

The second part is that most zombie movies don't ever mention that zombies were a concept before that. It's like if a writer is writing about a zombie apocalypse, then no one has ever heard of zombies before, with the possible solo exception of Zombieland. I know some older folks may not be into zombies, of course, but they are a cultural phenomenon now. You can't hardly go anyplace without hearing about them, and there are organizations that are preparing for a zombie apocalypse... and, well, they do disaster relief and help people... but the intent is to prepare for when the zombies attack. There are zombie walks on Halloween, movies, music, pop culture references everywhere... I can't imagine anyone between the ages of ten and forty who doesn't know what a zombie is, or hasn't heard the term "zombie apocalypse". And, as such, I rather hope that my charactes who are more zombie savvy will not react the way they do in the movies where zombies have never been heard of.

With all that being said, enjoy.

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Chapter One

I slept through the end of the world. It wasn't my fault, of course. It wasn't like alarms blared and sirens screamed in the night. No, for us in Kansas City... nothing happened. No one alerted us to the disaster we would all have to face. There weren't any army troops going through, not even the National Guard. I awoke to the sound of my buzzing alarm at the ungodly early hour of four AM.

My wife turned over in her sleep, murmuring, "Adam...?"

I sat up and swung my legs over, turning off the alarm as I did so. "Yeah, baby," I muttered, hating this. A guy had to do what a guy had to do though, and with the new construction jobs being created to do infrastructure... well, I really had no choice. It was a job, a good paying one, but it took me away from my family. States contracted labor from out of state (which seemed stupid and wasteful as opposed to hiring local contractors, but maybe all of the locals sucked). I'd be heading to North Dakota, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Actually, now that I think on it, that move actually made sense. North Dakota was in the middle of an energy boom: oil west side, and wind on the east side. The local boys more than likely were hitching jobs up with those companies, which paid a lot better than being a road worker. With a mortgage to pay for and no local jobs, I was more than happy to take up the slack.

I... well, I'd just miss my family. Sappy and sentimental true, but the boy was just beginning to walk, and my little princess sat with me every day, her coloring her books and me filling out my job apps. Evey worked as a waitress. I hated to see her do it, but someone had to bring in the bacon. I rubbed my head, thoughts of all of this flitting through me in that sleepy daze. This was Sunday. We were going to drive all day and check into our little motel, and start work tomorrow morning. I had to get up and get going.

Turning back to Evey, I rubbed her hip, then leaned over and kissed her side as that was all I could reach. "Hey, babe, going to hit the shower." She mumbled something at me, and stirred as I got up. She didn't work until eleven, but she was going to get up and make me breakfast anyway, even after taking care of the kid all night. He'd kept crying over and over again. Evey had gotten up and taken care of him, walking back and forth and rocking him back to sleep until she had finally crawled back into bed an hour or so ago. It was kinda a crappy start to the day. I loved her more than ever.

The hot shower woke me up a little more, and I chewed over the trip in my head. I'd packed the night before and made sure everything was ready to go. Trying to travel light, I only had a week's worth of clothes, toiletries, a couple magazines, and my laptop. After a long internal debate, I had judged against taking my gun with me. Yeah, I'd be out in the middle of butt fuck Egypt, but it was the country. It's not like I was going to have to fight off bears with my hands, and all the locals were friendly, or at least should be so I was assured by a guy on the crew. Two solid months--and maybe more depending on the weather and any unforeseen circumstances. My checks were going direct deposit into the bank account... two weeks from now, and we'd be a grand richer. More, maybe.

Shutting off the water and stepping out, I could hear Evey moving around in the bedroom. She felt nervous about being home alone, and even more nervous about her mother's arrival later today. My wife had spent the last week catering to me--though honestly I tried to do everything myself to lessen the burden on her--and cleaning the house top to bottom. I know it was cliched as hell, but my mother in law hated me. She felt her precious daughter had married beneath her, and now that she was doing manual blue collar labor? Forget it. I'd gotten my ears blistered good the day "Miss Misery" found that out.

What's more is that I thought Evey's mom hated her. I could never really pin down any one thing, but rather it was an overall attitude. The 'you could have, should have' thing mostly. It was like she was trying to make Evey live the life she wanted. Evey went to college, but went for English instead of becoming a doctor or a lawyer or something, and I don't think her ma ever forgave her for not being a success so she could suck on the glory by proxy. No matter what, she took the opportunity to criticize Evey. Her kids were ill-mannered. Her husband was a lout. Her house was filthy. So on and so on. The house was the cleanest it had ever been, but I bet my beautiful, wonderful, smart, sexy wife was making the bed. I could just about strangle Miss Misery for what she had done to Evey's psyche. Someday, I would just snap and do it; I knew I would. Jesus, I was in a bad mood this morning.

I wrapped a towel around me and stepped into the bedroom. Sure enough, Evey was finishing up the bed, tugging the coverlet into place. My clothes were laid out on top of the otherwise spotless dresser. I moved over and started to dress, "Hey, babe."

She stopped and smiled at me in the dim light. That was an image to take with me. The light of the lamp filtered through a veil of her rich brown hair, lighting half of her face... just enough for me to make out the twist of her lips, and a glint in her eye. It was her 'my god, I love you' look, the one I treasured most of all. Underneath it lay the fear and apprenhension with a healthy dose of anxiety, but for that second, all I saw was her love. I wondered if she thought about the looks I had, if I had a grumpy look, or a 'I want dinner' look... I shook my head, and finished getting dressed, then turned my attention to her. "You ok?"

She nodded, sighing and crossing her arms. "I'm alright. Mother will be here at ten, and the extra room's made up...."

I moved over to her and puts my hands on her delicate shoulders. "Babe," I said, looking her straight in the eye. "If you want me to, just say the word and I'm staying. I'll find something else, something here, close." She shook her head, but before she could say anything, "Hell, I'll open a Daddy Day Care or something if I have to."

That got a mild laugh from her, and she sighed heavily afterwards, blowing a few strands out hair away from her face. "We've been over this before, sweetheart," she said, her voice low and sweet and strong. "We need the money, and with this experience, maybe you'll be able to get something around here."

I ducked my head and pulled her close. "I'm going to miss you, Evey," I said, smelling her hair as I hugged her, savoring the moment. "You and the kids."

She pulled away from me, practical as she almost always was. I think it was easier for her to focus on me leaving for the moment, instead of her mother arriving. "Let me make you some breakfast, sweetheart," she said. She moved past me, and left me to follow in her gentle wake.

Like it so far. One of the most important things of a good zombie story (especially when you're actually going for social commentary) is giving the audience an everyman protagonist. I can believe these people exist without much thought. (Although the narrator's wife's name makes me think of V for Vendetta every single time.)

I'm don't quite like the "OH HAY AUDIENCE I HAVE A GUN" line. Knowing the genre, it's blindingly obvious what that line is there for, and it sticks out as such. Maybe cut it and not mention it until the first zombie shows up. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit zombie not good oh wait I own a gun I will go get it now!"(Unless this turns out to be a subversion and he never actually gets to grab that gun.)

Laaawl. I thought about changing from Evey (which is short for Evelyn, because Adam & Eve? Come on, had to be done) but I really couldn't think of anything better.

Also... I put a gun in there? I might have to go back and reread, hehe. The fervor of Nano is taking me over--I can barely remember what I wrote.

I'm digging it so far, though I'm with Alhazred. The mention of the gun seems a little odd, unless it's hunting season and he's wishing he had time to go out hunting. Since going hunting is one of the things you DO out in the middle of nowhere, it wouldn't seem too out of place.

Either that, or, if he isn't taking the gun, mention it in the bit where Evey is worried about being home alone. Thinking of having a firearm in the house at the same time as he's thinking of his wife's worries about being alone would also make sense.

*smacks forehead* Yes, I see the part now. And yeah, he doesn't have it with him. It says, "After a long internal debate, I had judged against taking my gun with me." Which if I'm remembering correctly, will set up a scene much later on.

But thank you! :D :D :D

Also, Chapters 2 and 3. I don't remember why Chapter 2 is so tiny? It seems rather odd to me, but you know first draft zaniness.

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Chapter Two

After breakfast, I snuck into the kids' rooms, first Jane, and then Jack's. I don't know why we named them both J's. Janie was after my mother. Jack's name... just fit him. He was going to be a rough and tumble kid, I could tell. Both of them slept away, peaceful and unaware their dad was going away for a while. Jack probably wouldn't notice my absence, but Janie knew it was coming and would be heartbroken if I didn't wake her up. She looked so comfortable though that I couldn't. I kissed her forehead and whispered my good bye. Jack got a similar treatment, though I was reluctant to touch him in case I would wake him again. I knew Evey would be going to sleep again after I left and it wouldn't do to wake the kid up for her to comfort once again.

I wish I had more time to spend with them. I'd been trying in this last week after I knew the job was mine, but it didn't seem enough. They'd seen me every day for the past six months after I lost my last job and Evey went into the work force. I didn't mind being the primary caretaker, the house husband. If Evey had kept her teaching degree up instead of dropping out of the school after Jane was born, maybe things would be alright. As it was... this would buy a reprieve. Maybe she'd get those classes she needed to renew her certification.

After I said goodbye to the kids, I went back into the hall where Evey was waiting for me. "I'm going to miss you, Eve," I said, my voice sounding as sad as I felt.

She leaned forward and planted a kiss on my lips. "I'm going to miss you too, bear," she said, putting distance between us. I wanted to hang my head, the seperation hurt. I don't think we'd spent more than a couple days apart since we were married.

"I love you, and I'll call you when I get settled in," I said, hefting my duffle bag to my shoulder. "It'll be pretty late though."

"Call my cell," she said quickly. "I don't want to wake mother up."

My jaw clenched, but I smiled anyway. A tense, tough smile, but at least I was able to. "Your cell," I agreed. Silence stretched between us for a moment until I shuffled my feet and asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?"

"You can give me a kiss," she replied, smiling. I bent down and laid a gentle kiss upon her lips, chaste. I felt solemn. I think I was just dragging my feet. Evey laughed a little and bapped me on the shoulder. "You can do better than that," she said. I bent down again, and kissed her, with feeling this time. Thoroughly. Time ticked by, and when we parted, she grinned, "Now that's the one to go on. Get out of here, you."

I smiled and nodded. "Call you tonight, babe."

"Tonight," she agreed, and turned away. A flash of anger and hurt passed through me, squelched. She had to walk away because I never could. Not from her, and not from home. The dismissal was enough to finally get my feet moving and I headed out the door to the car.

Chapter Three

The drive to North Dakota was an exercise in boredom. The drivers shared the shifts, and Mike and I decided to split it up into two batches, morning and evening. I took the morning shift while I was awake, and for most of the morning, Mike sat in the passenger seat of the truck snoozing away in peace. I didn't turn on the radio, keeping it quiet for him, until he finally snapped it on himself citing that he could hear every hiccup the truck had and the music drowned it out. I followed the boss' truck mindlessly, thinking about Evey and the kids and leaving them with Miss Misery. The further away I got, the less I liked the idea of her having free reign with my children for a couple of months (maybe more), and of her picking away at Evey's self esteem. She was tough; I knew she could survive it for a couple of months, but I worried anyway, chewing on a thumbnail as I drove absently.

The truck chewed up the miles, and before I knew it, I didn't even have the thin pretext of driving along straight roads to distract me from my thoughts. Mike took over as we stopped for a late lunch, the whole convoy of four trucks--just big enough for the crew of eight, we were just one of many construction companies hired out--pulling over in a greasy truck stop to stretch our legs for a bit, and stuff our faces. I took out my phone while I was eating and pondered calling Evey at work, but decided against it. Her mother would be at the house now with Janie and Jack. I really wanted to hear Jane's voice, but the thought of Miss Misery ripping me a new one for leaving my family... no. I'd wait for tonight, and we'd work out a schedule of calls.

As we set out again, even Mike noticed something wrong with me. He eyed my fingers drumming on the armrest, and when he asked me a question three times, he finally swore in frustration. "What the hell is wrong with you? I got you this job!"

"I know," I said, tearing my gaze from the side window to face him. "I appreciate it, I really do."

"So?" he demanded.

I shrugged, nonchalant. "I miss my family, I guess." I always played off the attachment as cool if I could, but honest. It was a hard line to walk. You see all these movies and TV shows and guys are supposed to be one of three things: a bully, an idiot, or a pussy. It was this weird unwritten law that all blue collar guys didn't talk much about their families unless it was to complain about them, or praise a particularly high achievement. In the case of the latter, other stories would then be trotted out and examined. For example, if Bill's kid threw a touchdown pass to win the game, then the story about Nick's kid pitching a no-hitter was brought out and examined, and then compared. In the case of girls, it was slightly different, but no less competitive to some unspoken scale. For instance, I told the story about Janie beating up the principal's son (her kindergarten was attached to an elementary school) because 'they were slow, Dad. They were slow, and they were stupid, and they were in my way.' Everyone laughed, and then Joey brought out a story about his girl wanting to know where babies came from, and everyone laughed, and so on. Huh. Now that I think about it, it really was kinda funny we didn't talk much about girls and what they did unless it was cute or funny. I wouldn't be that way. I was really proud of my independant kid, and realizing that, I felt even more like a heel for not waking her up to say goodbye. I really should've.

"Aw, you'll get over it," Mike said, waving it off. "We're gonna be so busy you won't have a chance to think about 'em."

"Roads are that bad up there?" I asked, just trying to make conversation.

"Nah, not really. At least, not normally. These oil trucks, uh, are eating up the roads, I guess, going back and forth so much."

I nodded, "Where is this place anyway?"

"Northwest corner, Crosby. It's the county seat, except I don't think we're gonna be staying there."

Shifting in my seat, I asked, "Why not?"

"Oil, dumb ass, same reason we're up there. Motels are full."

"Oh." That meant a long boring drive to work and a long boring drive back, unless the boss or the company had lucked out. Didn't sound like it though.

"Yeah," he prattled on, me barely listening, "we're gonna be stopping in Minot tonight, and finish the drive tomorrow. The boss is scared we're gonna have to stay in Minot, but at least from what I hear it'll be cheaper. Forty bucks a night instead of sixty for a room. Make it up in gas though..."

He went on and on, and I nodded in the right places. I shifted around again, trying to find something to look at out the window. It was like Kansas though, flat and pretty dull. Since it was the beginning of summer, the fields were growing, starting to turn a nice yellow. Blue sky, warm yellow earth. It should have been soothing, but my fingers soon resumed their tapping against the armrest and my eyes scanned the horizon restlessly. I should be at home, I kept thinking, over and over. I should be with my family.

I made myself stretch, as if I were tired. Mike took the hint and shut up, and turned the radio up a little bit. I looked out the window and tried to settle down for a nap. I had to make myself sit still, and closed my eyes. The thrumming of the truck beneath me and the music from the radio in the cab (all country of course, it was the only station we could find) lulled me somewhat and I relaxed, drifting, but not into sleep.

It was, needless to say, the longest, most boring drive of my life.

As we turned off I-29 to I-94, a plane streaked overhead, low to the ground. The noise startled me somewhat, and both of us craned our heads forward to have a look. The vapor trail it left was easy to follow, and closer to the earth than I had ever seen a jet fly before. The truck behind us finally honked and Mike jumped slightly, flushing and put his foot down on the pedal. "Weird," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Never saw one that low."

"There's a base at Minot and at Grand Forks," he said. "They must be running maneuvers or something."

"You know a shitload of stuff about North Dakota," I said.

"I'm from here," he replied with a shrug. "From the capital, Bismarck. Moved down south when I was sixteen with my folks."

"Do you miss it?"

"Not really," he said. "But it's a nice place to visit, even if it feels like you're visiting the 50's in some parts of the state."

I smiled politely and went back to watching the vapor trail. It was already starting to dissipate, and I figured it must have been from Minot as it was heading northwest from where we were right now, and Grand Forks wasn't that far away.

The road stretched on and on, and we turned up to the local highway at Bismarck, to go to Minot. From there, we'd hit whatever podunk town we were supposed to be at, or so the boss decided during our lunch. It was named after some guy, Ray or Stanley or something like that. Maybe it was MacGregor. Whichever it was, it was the last leg of the journey, and as the night came down on us like a damp blanket, bringing with it mist and rain, I pulled out my cellphone and pondered calling. We weren't settled yet, had a couple hours to go, but I figured I might as well give Evey an update now, just to let her know I was safe. I hit the speed dial and held the phone up to my ear.

When the phone picked up, I spoke quickly, "Hey, baby."

I got a loud sniff in response. "Adam." Inwardly I groaned; her mother had picked it up.

"I'm sorry, but I was hoping to talk to Evey," I said politely.

"Adam," she said again, and let the silence stretch between us after my name.

"Yeah, it's me. I was hoping to talk to Eve."

"Evelyn..." Miss Misery said, and stopped. This was weird, and my anxiety jacked up a few notches.

"What's wrong?"

"There's been an accident, Adam," she said, accusation staining her voice now. Or was I imagining that? Who knew? I was suddenly hunched over and sitting upright at the same time. "She's in the hospital. It was very severe." Her words, as always, were enunciated perfectly, to the point of cutting.

"What happened?" I asked, frantic. "She's alive? Is she conscious? What happened?" I fired off the questions one after another, seeing Evey in my mind's eye, the lamp light filtering through her hair...the half-smile. She was going to be ok. She had to be ok.

"It was a car accident," her mother said. "She's in the operating room right now."

"Fuck," I swore, forgetting myself. "Mother fuck." I rubbed my head, trying to swallow the panic which was rising inside of me. "Fuck."

"You can stop your swearing," she said, the words rimmed with frost.

"Fuck you," I said. "I'm coming home. Is it Saint Mary's? She's at Saint Mary's."

"Adam, she's--"

"You shut up, you old bitch!" I snarled into the phone. "And you stay the fuck out of my way."

"Adam, you need to--"

"Don't tell me what I need to do!" I shut the phone with a definitive click and swallowed the urge to throw it out the window. Turning to Mike, who had been keeping one eye on me and one eye on the road, I said, "Stop, I need to head back."

Mike shook his head, "Sorry, buddy. No can do."

"Oh, shit, come on, man, I need to get off," I said, swallowing. A sick feeling rose in my stomach. "My wife's in the hospital; she was in a car accident... please!"

"Hell," he said. "Let me call." He pulled out his own cell phone while I dialed a friend of ours in Kansas City. No answer at the home phone, so I tried her cell. It went to voicemail. I left a message for Joyce to call me back as soon as possible, and hung up, looking to Mike and waiting for him to finish his conversation. As he did and put the phone away, he shook his head, "Boss said it's ok for you to leave, but you'll have to find your own ride back. He doesn't want us stopping until we hit Ray."

"Fuck," I said, breathing the word out. "Shit, man, you can stop, can't you?"

"No," he said, "I'm not gonna lose my job over this." He looked at me, frowning. "And you can't do nothing for her anyway--"

"I never should have left!" I said, grabbing a handful of my hair and pulling. Unbidden, tears began to form as my thoughts ran wild, like they'd been doing all day. What if she died? What if she had the kids with her? I should have asked, I thought belatedly. I shouldn't have swore at her mom. Damn it. What if, what if, what if?

I bit my lip and wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, trying not to let the tears spill. Mike concentrated overly much on the road, trying to give me some sense of privacy. He was a buddy, but he wasn't a close one. I never should have left her, I thought once more. Good christ in heaven, please make sure she's ok. Please? Ok? Please? I'll do anything you want. I promise... just make her ok.

Chapters 4 & 5

Also, I think after this, I start to sort of ramble. It feels like I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off going, "I need to stretch this out! But I'm booored! What would people do? Why are they doing [whatever]?"

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Chapter Four

"Sorry, but the road's closed," the highway patrolman said, rain pouring off his hat. He gave Mike a 'shucks' good old boy look. "There's been an accident."

I winced at the word accident. Neither of them paid me any mind. "But my boss went this way not even ten minutes ago--oh, hell, look it wasn't a Bull truck that got into the accident, was it?" His hands bounced absently off the wheel as he fidgeted.

The patrolman thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No," he said. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened. There are railtracks not far from here, a crossing. I think a train tipped." He looked furtively over his shoulder, and seemed about to say more, but when he turned back to us he shook his head. "Road's closed."

Mike ran a hand through his hair, "Ok, look, we need to get past. Our boss is going to kill the rest of us here, because we got cut off somehow. If we're not there, it's a black mark on our records, and like... you know, this economy.... What can we do here, officer?"

The patrolman scrunched up his face for a moment, then said, "Ok, if you back track a few miles, there's a country road that runs along a property line. They don't want anyone going past, but this should be alright. Just follow the road about ten miles, and there'll be a right hand turn onto another gravel road. Follow that, and it should bring you back to the hiway, past the tracks."

Mike gave him his best smile, "Thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it, sir." When the cop stepped back, Mike got out of the truck and went to talk to the rest of the guys, giving them the directions the cop gave him. I sat there like a lump, trying Evey's phone again. If I had to, I'd apologize to the bitch. It kept going straight to voicemail, so she had the phone off. I closed mine and tapped it against my forehead lightly, over and over again. Where were my kids? Were they ok? Fuck... It was only when Mike got back into the truck that I stopped banging my forehead. "We're good to go," he said, looking over his shoulder as he backed the truck up. "We're going to be last in the convoy now, but hey, at least we'll get there. Damn, it's wet outside."

"Yeah..." I responded. The weather suited my mood, at least. I still felt like crying. I had to be a manly man and keep it all in though. At least until I was alone, then I could cry my eyes out. Inside my head, I was trying to make plans to get back, but they all kept falling apart.

"Cheer up, buddy," he said thoughtlessly. I gave him a dark look which he never saw. "We'll be there soon. Enough with this driving, I say." I must have made some sort of noise because he looked at me then, and his face crumpled. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

I turned away from him, looking out into the rain. In the side mirror, I saw a lot of lights. More than I thought there were, and darker shapes inbetween. Must be some accident. A few pops behind us made me raise a brow, but after that we were down the road. Out of sight, out of mind. I had too much to deal with right now anyway.

Calling again, I got the voicemail once more. When I tried Joyce, the same thing. Everyone else I knew didn't know my family, and those that did, I didn't have in my cell phone. God dammit. It would have to wait until tomorrow... not that it would stop me from trying all night, I suspected. At least I would be trying to do something instead of sitting here uselessly.

The road we turned onto could barely be called a road. It consisted of two dirt ruts side by side seperated only by a raised tuft of grass. It had been used a fair bit, but in the rain it was sloshy and sticky, with the mud sucking at our tires. The trucks ahead of us were having just as much trouble, and we slowed down to give them some room, in case there had to be a sudden stop. We all knew where we were going, and with the storm growing more and more fierce around us, I think we all thought 'better safe than sorry'. Before long, I was sitting up and scanning the road ahead of us, playing wingman to cry a warning in case a deer or other animal jumped out in front of the truck, Evey forgotten in the current mini-crisis.

It was a good thing too, because something did jump out at the truck. Unfortunately, both he and I were too late in spotting it to avoid hitting it. "Christ, Mike, watch out!" He slammed on the breaks and we both heard and felt the meaty thud as the truck sloshed to a halt.

"Oh, man, was that a guy?" He turned to me, panic written all ove rhis face. "Tell me it wasn't a guy."

I shook my head, unbuckling my belt and opening the door. "I don't know."

"Christ Jesus," he muttered, turning the highbeams on. Sure enough, in the distance, there was a crumpled form, only barely visible in the pouring rain. We both could see enough to know it had two legs and not four. "Oh, Jesus, please," he murmured again, echoing me from not that long ago.

"Stay here, and get your phone out," I told him. "I'll check it out." He did as I told him, and sat with 9-1-1 dialed, thumb hovering over 'send'.

I got out of the truck and shut the door behind me. The wind howled, and thunder boomed, adding atmosphere to the scene, so to speak. I kept thinking about Evey and her accident. It was a car accident... was she in our car when she was hit? Or was it like this, her being hit by a car? Maybe I could... well, save this person. It would be sort of like saving Evey. Or maybe... if this person died, Evey would be spared. Either way, my mind was stuck on her.

The mud in the ruts sucked at my boots like they did the tires, and it was more difficult than I thought getting to the body. The person, I mean, because I didn't know if they were dead yet. The beams from the headlights shone on the person, but I still couldn't tell if it was a girl or a guy. They were wearing jeans, and looked thin. No jacket either, which was weird being out in this weather. I looked around, and couldn't see any lights around. Not too surprising in this downpour, but it gave me a chill nevertheless. Where'd they come from?

I knelt down by the person, and shook them, looking for signs of blood. "Hey," I said somewhat loud. "Hey there. Are you ok?"

There wasn't any movement, so I rolled them over to be on their back. It was a girl, and her eyes were wide open, staring. "Fuck," I murmured. "Oh, fuck." We had just killed a girl. I covered my eyes with a hand, and tried to bite down the tears. At least I wasn't driving, so I wouldn't be put away I thought... and then I was immediately ashamed. It didn't matter if I were driving or not, we were both in a heap of trouble.

Cold clammy hands grabbed my arm and jerked it downwards, throwing me almost on top of the corpse... which was now moving. Maybe I was wrong? I looked at her, trying to move back and stand up again, but the hands were too strong. They pulled my arm to her, and she opened her mouth and bit me. I screamed, and smacked her with my free arm, but she wouldn't let go. She made and fuck, I am not making this shit up... she made nom nom nom sounds as she chewed on my arm. Panic, which had been quelled at a couple points this day, bloomed into full flower and I hit her over and over again, trying to make her let go.

She finally did, but only to grab for the rest of me. My arm fell away, useless and numb at the moment, and with her surge forward, I fell backwards. It was all I could do to keep her bloody snapping jaws away from me. "What the fuck!" I shrieked.

"Grrraaaah!" she snarled, making low gutteral sounds of want or hate.

"Get off!" I screamed. "Get off of me, you crazy bitch!" We tussled back and forth, her fingers burning me where they grabbed. She was strong, but I was heavier, and even with one arm I was able to fend her off for a few seconds by virtue of throwing my weight back and forth. She grabbed my head and thudded it against the wet ground, then again, and again. I tried to shake her off, my right bitten arm a club against her side, making wet fleshy sounds as I thumped it into her again and again. My left was used up trying to make her keep her distance.

Her hands closed round my throat, and the world started to swim away from me, until I heard a loud crack, and her attention was torn elsewhere. She leaped off of me, and I heard a scream from someplace else. I felt warm, then cold. Chills and fever both ran through me as nausea rose. I rolled over on my side, thinking I was going to puke, and the world trembled again in my sight. I did puke then, and passed out.

Chapter Five

"Adam? Adam? Adam?" I heard, the words seeming far away. "Oh, thank you God, he's waking up."

No I wasn't, I wanted to say. I want to sleep, leave me alone. My head pounded, and I felt like I had a bitch of a cold. I felt hot and cold everywhere at the same time, and my stomach cramped. My arm was on fire. I could sink back into unconsciousness again. I wanted to. Instead, I opened my eyes. "Wh... where am I?" I managed in a croak.

"Jesus Christ man, you scared the fuck out of us," Mike was saying. There were other faces gathered around, my boss being one of them, and another couple from the road crew.

"We're at the motel," the boss said. "You passed out."

No shit, Sherlock, I thought to myself, and then winced. My head felt like there was a demonic drummer on it playing 'Painkiller' with malicious glee. "What happened to that chick?" I rasped.

Mike looked down, then at me. His jaw worked for a second, then he found his voice, "I, uh, I hit her? She tried to, uhm... bite me...." His eyes jerked to my arm, then back to my face, "Dude, I don't know. It was like Night of the Living Dead."

"Shut up," another guy said. I think it was Hank, or Henry. Something like that. He sounded shaky, "Just SHUT UP with that shit."

"Well, you explain it!" Mike cried, whipping around to confront him. He straightened and stalked up to the other guy, "You explain that bitch being run down out in the middle of nowhere, oh, and hey! How did she get there? Huh? And how did she get up after being run over? And--"

"Just calm down," the boss said, looking behind him. When he looked back to me, he took a deep breath and I could see that he was worried. He wasn't scared, not yet, but with Mike screaming in the background like he did, I remembered... "We'll figure it out. We already called the cops, and they will be here, and we'll get it figured out." He was trying to stay calm and in control, but he was uncertain. I could see it. Hell, I could almost smell it coming off of him in waves, like an exotic perfume. That's what fear smells like, I thought. He focused on me and me alone, as if I could sort out the mess, "Adam, can you tell me what happened?"

I sat up, moving slow so as not to upset my stomach and spew. "We hit something," I said, going back to the earliest and clearest memory I had of the event. "Mike stopped the truck. I got out to see what it was, and..." I paused, frowning and looking at my arm. They'd bandaged it at least, with what looked like a t-shirt. It was swaddled in the cloth, making it look three times bigger than it was. "Uh.. it was a girl."

The boss nodded, "Mike told us that. What happened next?"

"I thought she was dead," I replied, trying to scratch my arm through the bandage. It stung and I sucked in my breath at the pain, but at the same time it at least relieved the itch, or took my mind off of it. How was I going to say this? "You know, ah... in the movies or books where they say... that corpses have this wide... staring gaze? That's what it looked like. I mean, uhm, her eyes were wide open, but no one was home." I cast my thoughts back, trying to think of anything else. "I don't think she was breathing. I mean, I didn't see her chest move, but I didn't check or nothing like that."

He nodded again. Everyone in the room was hushed, looking at me. "Go on."

"I, uh, my wife..." My voice cracked, and I looked down. "She's in the hospital. I mean, she might be dead. I ... I was thinking that, uh... I was ... I can't get ahold of anyone there, so I was thinking about that, if she was run down in the road, or, uhm..."

"Get to the point," Mike said, from across the room.

Shrugging slightly, "I was thinking that, because I was afraid Evey was dead, and I was thinking that maybe she looked like that, had that gaze, and then... I, um..." I flushed slightly because I had been going to cry at that point, but to admit it here, "I closed my eyes for a sec, and then she grabbed me, and pulled me down on top of her. Next thing I knew, she bit me, and after that... man, pretty much all I remember is coming to here." Well, more or less. There had been some weird dreams, but those weren't important.

"Mike made it the rest of the way, and he told me some crazy story about this dead chick trying to eat him," the boss said, scornfully.

"She was a zombie," he said, retreating another couple steps until he was backed up against the door. "We should get out of here. He's ok, we should just take off."

"We're not leaving," the boss said even as the other two guys were calling him a dumb ass, and telling him that we weren't taking off, that we had to work, and so on. The boss turned back to me," You think you'll be ok until the morning? It's pouring rain out there, and the nearest hospital is at least an hour away in this shit."

I thought it over, and nodded. "I should be ok. I need to call my wife." I paused, "I mean my mother in law. She has my wife's phone..." Remembering the phone, I patted myself down for mine. "Fuck, where's my cell?"

"I don't know," Mike answered.

"Damn it," I said, laying back down on the bed as the boss stood. He moved over to Mike and said something to him as the other two guys filtered out of the room. After a couple more minutes, me and my roomie were alone. He came and sat down on the other bed. I could feel him staring at me.

"Are you sure you're ok?" he asked, his voice hushed.

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my nose in irritation. I felt weird when I woke up, but the feeling subsided somewhat with the conversation and my concentration upon it. "I think I'm a little sick." I paused, "Bites are filthy things."

"Bites," he whispered.

I sat up again, just long enough to pull my shoes off and then I lay back down, facing him on the other bed. His face was ashen. "What happened after I passed out?" I asked.

"I beat her to death with a tire iron," he replied, "but she was already dead, wasn't she?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I thought so, but that doesn't mean anything. She could have just been... uh, I dunno. Knocked stupid by the car."

He hung his head, and held his face with his hands, "Crap on a stick, I am not going to sleep tonight at all." As if to illuminate his point, thunder rolled over us, and lightning flashed outside the window. "Not a bit."

"Whatever, I'm exhausted. I'm crashing, man."

"Good night," he whispered, getting up to turn off the overhead room light, and turn on the bedroom lamp over his bed. "I'll be quiet, and try not to disturb you."

"Ok..." I gave him another look and settled myself on the bed, under the covers. I still felt weird, chilled and hot at the same time. With the blankets it was too much, and without too litle. I compromised with myself and kept my feet uncovered, though I think that only helped me psychologically speaking. Physically, well... I had to have been sick. My arm did throb and itch, and I tried to avoid scratching it again with little success. The more I messed with it, the more likely it was to get infected with something nasty. I had had some rest, but I wanted more. Yet, I was unable to fall asleep with any ease. My skin prickled as Mike stared at me, and I could smell... I don't know exactly what. I think he had some rotten foot fungus, because whatever it was, it was damn potent. It made my stomach turn over slowly, and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to puke again.

Evey... I would have given anything to be with her at this moment. I wished for my cell phone, and for a moment, I thought about using the motel phone to call home. A quick glance around told me there was no phone. It was a small place, and as I lowered my head to the pillow again, I thought about using the office phone or Mike's cell. Round and round I went, wondering if she was ok, if the kids were alright, where they were right this second, that sort of thing. They seemed so far away. I wished again that I had never left.

I'm really enjoying this so far! Can't wait 'til you put the next chapter up =)

I has fans? Hehe. I'm glad someone is enjoying it. :D That does tickle me pink. Here is chapters 6 & 7, which at one point does start getting kinda gross, but it really exacerbates the 'What the hell am I writing about?' running around in circles thing I talked about before. At least, in my mind, it seems like I was dwelling in this place forever, for no real good reason. Perhaps upon a reread, I may change my mind about it though.

Also keep in mind, if something feels like there should be an emphasis there, there probably should be. I haven't put in any italics or anything yet to emphasize words or phrases. Too lazy.

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Chapter Six

When I woke up the next day, there remained no doubt in anyone's mind I was sick.

"Good God, what did you do? Die in the middle of the night?" Mike asked, disgust making his lip curl up in disgust.

I groaned, and mumbled, "I feel like it." The hot-cold feeling from before had settled into me with a vengeance. It felt like my bones were burning up, heating my insides to the boiling point. Yet, my skin felt cool to the touch, clammy even, and the slightest breeze even of Mike just walking past me made me shiver convulsively. I sweated, and I sweated like a pig. No matter what I did, or how I lay, I couldn't get comfortable. All I could do was groan.

"I got my phone if you want to use it," he said, shooting me a dubious look. "I'm gonna talk to Bruce, and see what's up." He glanced outside the window, and then moved across the room, giving as wide a berth around my bed as possible in the cramped space, "You stay here."

Pawing at the nightstand where he put his phone, I mumbled, "Don't worry bout it. I ain't moving anywhere." I didn't think I could even stand up. Good God, what was wrong with me? As I got his phone open and the keypad unlocked--my fingers were clumsy and thick, not wanting to respond to my desires at all--I wondered if he thought I was going to, well, be like that girl last night and bite him. I dialed Evey's cell number slowly and carefully, just to make sure I did it right the first time.

Finally, I had some good luck as Miss Misery answered on the second ring. "Hello?" she asked.

"It's me, Barbara," I croaked. "Adam."

"Oh," she said, the ice creeping back into her voice. "You might be happy to know your wife has survived the operation. She's stable now, the doctors say." No thanks to you, she told me between the lines.

"I'm sorry," I rasped, then coughed, trying to clear my throat. "I'm sick. I got sick. I would be back to... today, but I'm sick. There was an accident last night."

"Yes," she said with her snide, know-it-all tone. "There was. You should just be thankful Evelyn is alive."

"I am," I replied, not finding the energy in me to get worked up over her tone. "I'm going to start back tomorrow. I quit. A girl bit me."

"I-- what?" she seemed taken aback by the apparant randomness. It wasn't quite, but the words weren't coming out as I'd like them too. My brain was cooking; it was no wonder I got a few words or phrases wrong.

"We had an accident here, and a girl bit me," I said slow, enunciating each word. "It's a long story, but the bite's infected, I think. It made me sick."

"I ... see. Would you like to talk to your daughter?"

"Yes," I whined. "Oh, yes, please." What was wrong with me? No, it didn't matter. I'll talk to Janie and it would be almost as good as talking to Evey.

I heard some rustling as the phone switched over, and then my daughter's voice, small and plaintive, "Daddy?"

"Yeah, it's me, baby," I said, feeling a rush of relief. For some reason, I had been harboring the idea that my kids were dead too, or that I would never see them again. "Are you ok?"

"Mommy's hurt," Janie said. "I'm scared."

"Grandma will take care of you, and I'll be back soon. Tonight or tomorrow," I promised.

"Please, Daddy," she said, and I heard some rustling again, then in a lower voice she continued. "Granny scared me some."

"What?" I asked, trying to understand what my daughter was trying to tell me.

"She said some bad things about you, and...I miss you," she said, louder. Smart kid. Too smart. She definitely took after Evey instead of me.

"I'll be back soon, honey, I promise." I paused, trying to clear my mind to think of what else to say. "I love you."

"Love you too," and then she was gone. There was some noise as the phone switched hands again. I waited, but Barbara wasn't saying anything.

"Thanks," I said after a minute. "I'll be back tonight or tomorrow. Whenever I can catch a bus, I guess." I tried to think that over, and no other better option came to me. I had no vehicle and so I couldn't drive back. The company wouldn't spare a man and a truck to drive me back, so... damn. Another unnecessary expense on our card. God damn it.

"You should stay there and work, Adam," she said, her voice matter of fact. I think it chilled me more than my current fever did. "Your family needs the money and I have everything well in hand here."

"No," I said, my temper starting to rise. "No, I'm coming home, and I'm taking care of my wife." I couldn't help but to hear the whine in my voice again, and hated myself for it. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I switched ears, "I'm coming back tonight. As soon as I find a way. The boss understands, and I can come back when Evey's out of danger." A complete lie, but I felt I had to defend myself and my decision. Maybe it was impulsive, but who could blame me? Who wouldn't rush home to their loved ones when they were hurt or in danger?

"You should think about the future," she said. "Now you'll have hospital bills on top of the mortgage, and Evelyn won't be able to work. I can take care of your children, Adam."

It was all reasonable, and truth be told a generous offer to stay with the kids, but I couldn't leave them with that woman. I wouldn't. "I'm coming home, and that's all there is to it." With that, I hung up, feeling childish. She always made me feel that way, that I was nothing but a clumsy clod whom her daughter brought home one day like a stray puppy. Except not a cute one, but rather a puppy who kept piddling on the rug uncontrollably.

I set Mike's phone aside and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My stomach rolled as I sat up, and dizziness made my head swim. Christ, I was sicker than I thought I was. I got up slowly, like an old man, and only ventured a step when I was sure I wasn't going to fall on my face. I needed water.. I needed a shower. My body was drenched in sweat, yet as I crossed the room, I shivered with cold. I turned on the bathroom light with only a couple misses at the light switch. Now that I didn't have my anger, worry, and hate for Miss Misery to focus on, things seemed a thousand times harder than they needed to be. Focus, I thought to myself. Focus on what matters. First step is to clean up.

As it was with dialing the phone, taking off my clothes was a chore. I dropped them where they were, and got a couple towels off the rack. As I reached for them, the bundle around my arm made me pause for a second. I should keep that dry. The garbage. I fumbled for it, dropping the towels next my clothes on the floor as I pawed out the trash bag. As carefully as I could, I put a hole in it, and secured it to protect against the wet. It was with dubiousness I regarded it, but at least it was better than nothing. The bandages should be changed anyway.

I grabbed the towels again, and put them on the toilet while I started up the shower. Once I felt it was hot enough, I stepped in, and a wave of nausea swept over me as soon as the hot water touched my skin. The heat inside and the heat outside seemed to battle it out, clanging against each other. I slumped back against the cooler tile and pushed the heat down until it was barely enough lukewarm. Better. It was tolerable now, at least, though not really comfortable. I didn't think anything was going to make me comfortable.

Foregoing any concentrated attempts to lather up and truly wash off, I sort of just stood there, zoning out. After what seemed forever, I remembered to turn around and let the water wash over the backside. Normally, if I were sick, I took a shower and felt a lot better, at least for a few minutes. This time, all I did was prune up, feeling just as miserable. The nausea went away with the heat, but even the lukewarm water did nothing to really help. I turned it off, and tried to step outside of the tub. My foot hit the top of the rim, and I experienced the very unpleasant sensation of falling in slow motion. My head hit the sink as I fell over the toilet, but thankfully not that hard. My body rolled, unresponsive, and I hit the floor.

Chapter Seven

I was walking in a field. The ground stuck to my feet, making it hard to walk. It seemed to almost grab at me, plucking at me and pulling me down. The sky was red, the color of fresh blood smeared across the heavens. I squinted my eyes against the redness of it, and held a hand up to shade my eyes from a non-existant sun. "Where am I?"

No one answered. I looked down at the ground, and it wasn't ground at all. I sucked in my breath, a grimace contorting my features as I looked down at a field of bodies, far as the eye could see. Help us, save us, they seemed to whisper. I tried to backpeddle, but where could I go? Everywhere there were bodies, in various stages of decomposition. Much of it was fresh, and I fell backwards, into them.

"No! Get off of me!" But they weren't ON me, I was on them. I tried to scramble away. Hands grabbed me, pulling me into the blood soaked heap of bodies. "Help me! Help! Evey!"

I gotta say that it was a relief to wake up to the boss looming over me for a second time. "Jesus Christ, you gave us a heart attack," he said, helping me up. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," I muttered, my head swimming. Looking around, I expected to see bodies, but it was just the bathroom. I glanced out the tiny bathroom window, and the sky was normal.

"Hey, uh, you might want to get dressed," he said, letting go of me as soon as I seemed steady on my feet. He took a few steps back, eyeballed me, then exited, only halfway closing the door behind him. I patted my body and realized I was missing clothes. Oh, yeah, I was in the shower, trying to bring down this fever and washing... I frowned slightly. The sensation of being hot and cold at the same time was still present, but it seemed to have subsided slightly. Whatever the cause, I used my temporary sanity to dress myself, and took the bag off the bandages. They'd gotten wet anyway, but less than if they were uncovered.

When I left the bathroom, the boss was still there. "Hey," he said again. "You doing alright? You dont' look so good."

"I'm fine," I replied, staggering out. "I just need to get on a bus and get out of here."

"You need a hospital, man, you look like shit," he said.

"No, I need to get home," I insisted. "There's gotta be a bus stop in this podunk town, and if there isn't, Minot'll have one. If you can just drop me off..." The single-mindedness helped. If I stayed focuses on Evey, it was easier to ignore the icy-hots.

"That's going to be a problem," he said. "We're shut down, for now." He frowned, looking the slightest bit... pensive? Was that the word? Maybe worried would work. "The army's got the roads shut down. Everyone's supposed to stay where they are."

"What?" I wasn't following him in the slightest. The army shut down the roads for a train crash?

"Yeah, ah, martial law." He grimaced, "We're suddenly in a state of emergency here."

"They closed down the roads?" I asked again.

"Yeah, we're stuck." He paused, then clasped my shoulder almost gently for such a big guy, "I wanted to tell you personally, because uh, I know you want to get back to your wife... I'm really sorry."

"It's not your fault," I muttered, shrugging the shoulder he was touching. I wanted him to get away from me. I took a step back, and broke the physical contact between us. "I don't feel so good," I said, sinking down into a chair.

"Yeah, I brought a first aid kit for the... bite," he said, as if he didn't quite believe I'd been attacked by a person. I nodded to him and put my arm on the desk while he switched the desk lamp on. "It's got peroxide, and antibiotics and shit... I'm sorry--we forgot all about it last night."

With great care, he untied the strings holding the makeshift bandage together, and unwrapped the t-shirt. When the last fold revealed my arm, he sucked in his breath, "Holy Mary Mother of God." No doubt remained the bite infected me; it was putrid. He covered his nose, though I didnt' smell anything strange. The sight though... the sigh tof it made me want to puke yet again. It was swollen, and even as we watched, a chunk of flesh sloughed off, sliding down the curve of my forearm and landing on the desk with a wet plop. The bite grooves were clearly delineated, the puffy flesh around them leaving deep grouges to indicate where I had been bitten. Black lines radiated out from the bite, snaking along my veins, heading up my arm much like tetanus might. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The boss actually crossed himself. "Jesus, we have to get you to a hospital."

Gingerly, I poked at it with my finger, the heat from last night very fresh in my mind. It felt... spongy to me underneath my fingertip, instead of the firm toned flesh before. "What," I heard myself saying from far away, "what did she do to me? W... what...?" It didn't hurt, but it should have hurt. I pressed down harder, unable to stop myself, expecting pus to burst from the wound. What I got instead was a sluggish red-black mess sort of oozing out of the bite grooves. He blanched.

Taking a deep breath, the boss pulled out the bottle of peroxide and opened it slowly. I nodded to him, losing my voice and feeling like a dummy. He poured the peroxide carefully over the wounds and it fizzed immediately. I held my breath in anticipation, but it was out of what I thought I should be doing rather than any real reaction. I didn't really... feel it. It felt like the water on my skin felt in the shower--sort of slimy and like, well, like the cold on my skin was exacerbated. There was no sizzle of pain, however, not like there should have been. With a clean pad of gauze, he dabbed at the wound, clearing off the peroxide infected flesh mess, so that he could pour a new layer. I watched him like I was watching something on television--totally riveted but not really at home, you know?

He started towards the wound with a free, ungloved hand, then thought better of it, and put on the sterile plastic gloves included with the first aid kit. Then, with his free hand, he squeezed on the wound to try and get some of the infection out, making a gagging noise as more of that brackish red oozed out. He poured some peroxide over the mess again, and once more, the white sizzle and foam, but no pain. This process was repeated a couple of times until he was satisfied the wound was as clean as he could make it. "Feels like closing the barn door after the cows got out," he muttered. Too little, too late in other words.

Once the cleaning process was done, he slathered antibiotics over the wounds. He put a gauze pad over it, then used the gauze cloth to wrap it together tightly. It was a little uncomfortable, but nothing to what it should have been. I might as well been watching Emergency Nightmares or whatever that program was on television, the one that haunted ERs looking for horrific accidents. He finished with a couple of those silver pins to keep it altogther, then looked at me, face still pale under his workman's tan. "I.. I've never seen anything like that," he whispered. "I worked in a slaughterhouse when I was a kid... I saw some of the most..." He began to run a hand through his hair, then remembered he was still wearing the surgical gloves with my fleshy gunk on them, and shuddered. He whipped them off in a hurry, and tossed them in the garbage with the rest of the supplies we'd gone through. "I saw some of the worst fucking shit, you can't even imagine. The industrial slaughterhouses are nightmares, man." He shook his head, eyes wide as he looked at me, "We need to get you to a hospital."

"The roads are closed," I said, feeling my words slur just a bit. The process must have taken something out of me; I felt tired. That or the icy-hots was finally eating at my strength, wearing me down. "You said so."

"When they see this, they'll ... they'll take you to a hospital," he said. He stood up, still staring at me, "Stay here. I... crap, I'm going to make some calls." He ran a clean hand through his hair, displacing his hat momentarily before replacing it on his head more tightly than before, practically screwing it onto his head. I lowered my newly bandaged arm into my lap, staring at him.

"Go ahead and go," I said, swallowing a few times. The words dribbled out of my mouth. Where did everything go so wrong? I would have given anything to be with Evey.... So absorbed in those thoughts, thinking about my kids, Miss Misery, my wife... all of that, that I didn't even notice when the boss was gone.

I should get his name again, I thought. I kept calling him the boss, but I forgot his name. I knew it, didn't I?

Television, I thought in a flash of insight. The morning news should be on. Afternoon news. Yes, I decided, looking out the window. It was afternoon. Or late morning. I got up and reeled, coordination beyond me. What was happening? Stumbling, I reached the bed, and fell upon it, my side hitting the bed heavy and causing the whole frame to shake. I got the remote, and clicked on the news, looking for a local channel. It took a bit to figure out there were only three channels here--some place he found us to stay--but one of them was NBC. Some talk show was on, earlier morning talk show. It must be around nine.

The remote fell out of my hand, and I lay on the bed, staring at the television, my thoughts racing around in circles. They settled on my wife, however. While I thought she might be dying, it was infinitely preferable to think about her and the last few moments we had together than thinking about what happened to her, and was happening to me.

I looked up dully when the door banged open. My roomate stood there, face ashen. "Something's...shit," he swore, and closed the door furtively behind him.

"Was... what's goin'...?" I asked, my tongue thick.

"Jeezum crow, you got it bad," he said, his voice pitched higher than normal. He kept looking out the blinds. "The army... shit, man, the army... someone tried to leave, and they shot him. Hank. Henry. Whatever his name was..."

I struggled to sit up. "What are ya talking 'bout?" People were getting shot?

"I don't know," he said, voice savagely innocent. More than my icy-hots, it sent a chill through me. This was the voice of someone very close to losing it, permanent like. I'd never heard anything like it before. "They SHOT him, they shot...oh, jeez, I'm going to be sick..." He stumbled into the bathroom, moving past the bed with a hand cupped over his mouth. It took just a moment for the sounds to come back to me of Mike throwing his breakfast up.

I looked back towards the TV. There was a commercial for Shiny Suds on. No... warnings, or announcements scrolled across the top of the screen, like they would for an emergency. Why would they shoot someone trying to leave...?

"Leaf the town?" I asked when Mike's green-tinged ashen face reappeared. "He waz tryin' to leaf the town?" I couldn't make the words come out exactly right.

"Leaf... oh, leave, yeah, leave," Mike said, bobbing his head once he understood me. "I don't know. Abraham's really scared. He went to the soldier guys to, ah, talk to them about..." His eyes drifted down to my forearm, "...we had a wounded guy with us, he said, he needs a hospital. They said no, no one leaves, and that we weren't supposed to be here anyway in the contamination zone."

"Contamin...wha?" Contamination zone? Like a quarantine?

"Hank-or-Henry said bullshit, and that he was a red blooded American and that he paid their salaries, and that he was going to leave," Mike said, sitting down on the foot of the bed. His eyes had this wide staring look I liked not at all. "He tried to walk by the soldiers, but they grabbed him and made him go back. He got really mad then, and hit the soldier. There was.. they fired. Oh..." He put a hand to his mouth again, the greenness around his eyes and nose coming back. He hiccuped a couple times, but in the end lowered his hand, keeping the contents of his stomach in place. "They shot him," he finished in a quiet voice, that starey look never leaving his face for a second in the telling.

"Mother fuck," I swore. Figured that I could swear properly. I did it often enough. "Help me upf." I gestured to him, and he nodded, grabbing my hand and helping me off the bed. I felt as weak as a newborn kitten, and I felt sorry for the poor dumb fuck, as I had to rest most of my considerable weight on him. Evey liked it that I stayed in shape, and I'd had plenty of time to work out in the last few months. "Want ta talk to Abe..." Abraham must be the boss' name. I didn't recognize it. "Th' boss."

"Ok, sure," Mike said, his voice staying with that higher pitched version. It was damn eerie, hearing a little kid's voice come out of a guy's body like that.

It was a good thing Mike was there to help me; walking had become a mean task. With him supporting my weight, I could make it ok. We went outside, and immediately I covered my eyes against the bright light, "Ow, god dam-mit..."

"What's wrong?" he asked, half pulling me out the door since I balked at the threshhold.

"It'sth too br... bright," I stammered. He ignored me, and kept me moving outside. I squinted my eyes shut against it, and looked down at the ground so I didn't see exactly where he was taking me, but it wasn't too far. When the bell rang indicating we had entered some kind of store, I looked up. It was bright in here, but better than outside.

'Here' was a restaurant, or more accurately, a diner, done in a home made decor. People had painted on the walls silly pictures of women in hoop skirts and guys with pompadours. The writing on the wall said 'Welcome to the Hip-Hop Cafe'. I had to blink and read that a few times. I wondered if they even knew what the hell real hip hop was here out in the middle of BFE. The place was jampacked full of people, only a handful of which I recognized. Everyone had the same expression on their faces though: fear. The place stank of it. My stomach rumbled, and I remembered I hadn't eaten anything since that late lunch yesterday. I hadn't even considered eating until now, but once I smelled the food, my body demanded sustenance.

Mike helped me to sit down in a booth, and then squeezed in next to me. Our boss and another guy from the crew sat opposite us. The towns folk... huh, it felt kinda weird saying 'towns folk'... clustered around at the other tables and booths, some few having coffee, but most just sitting there talking amongst themselves. The waitress came over to take our order, dressed in jeans and a tshirt. "What would you like?"

"Pancakes, eggs, and bacon for all of us," the boss said, "and information." His lips were pressed together, squishing into a thin line.

She looked at him furtively, and shook her head, "I... I don't know. Let me get your coffee, and food..." The waitress let her words trail off as she wandered off, taking refuge in doing something normal. I wished I could. Instead, Mike kept jittering and jiving beside me, and across from me, Abraham might as well been made out of stone.

"I gotta get home," I whispered, unaware I had spoken aloud.

Mike shook his head, and looked out the window where he could watch the blockade. They were actually building a blockade around the whole shitty little town, a physical one. A jet zoomed overhead, out of sight, but low enough to rattle the windows. "We're not getting out of here," he said, voice still high and tight.

"They need to tell us what's going on," the guy next to the boss said. Bruce, I think it was. "It's required by law!"

The boss shook his head, grimacing as he did so. He kept looking out the window as well, but kept whatever he was seeing to himself. The only time he looked away from the window was when the waitress returned with our breakfasts, to thank her and then begin eating once his coffee was refreshed. She laid the food in front of me, and I picked up my fork after a few misses, and cut some of the white of the egg away to nibble on it. I didn't want to dig in until I knew I would be keeping it down. The eggs and the bacon seemed ok, but the pancakes looked and smelled revolting to me, so I avoided them. Once I finished eating, I felt a little better for having some food in my stomach, but it rumbled still, wanting more. I pushed my plate away, and flexed my fingers. They felt kinda thick, and the fine motor manipulations of eating a simple meal had taxed them. "What now?" I asked, my voice clearer than it had been. Good. Slurring like that was fucking annoying.

"They need to tell us what's going on," Bruce repeated, bits of egg stuck in his beard.

"They're not going to," the boss said, watching them out the window again with Mike after he had finished eating. "They don't have to. The call I made to the cops was the last one made out of this town. They shut down the land lines, and they're blocking cells."

I shook my head. "Nooo..." I said slowly. "I call my wife. Mother in law, I mean." The boss gave me a look, and frowned deeply. "Mike borrowed me his cell, last night. This morning. I don't remember when."

"Right," he said, his brow furrowed. "They're blocking them now, I mean." I glanced at Mike, but he was too absorbed with looking at the military guys to pay us any attention. "It's a hazard zone. We're lucky the HAZMAT guys aren't here yet, but that'll be soon." He pointed towards a bigger building, "That's the town hall, I guess. They've been bringing people in from outlying farms all morning."

"What happened?" Bruce next to him asked.

He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "I don't know. Something bad. Something..." He turned to face me, and his eyes dropped to my bandaged arm. "Something really bad."

Next couple of chapters. That I sort of dawdled in this town becomes really, REALLY apparent to me.

-------


Chapter Eight

The afternoon stretched on. Instead of going back to our rooms at the motel, we decided to hang out at the diner, morose and silent. The atmosphere was funereal. More people trickled into the diner, looking shell-shocked. One girl sobbed hysterically, and shrank away when anyone tried to touch her. She ended up in a corner on the floor, her knees brought up to her chin, and her arms wrapped around her legs. A couple of people tried to talk to her, all with the same sobbing result.

Mike kept getting up to go out and have a smoke until I finally surrendered the outside of the booth, giving him the end so I wouldnt' be bothered. As for me? I don't know. The smell of food inside the diner intensified as the day wore on, and I ordered a open faced beef sandwich for lunch. My icy-hots seemed to dull down, and I felt almost normal, albeit with a slight fever. I thought I was getting over the cold, or infection, or whatever it was. My arm didn't hurt at all, and the itching stopped around noon. The antibiotics must have really helped.

Everyone was subdued, and other than the crying girl, no one made much sound at all. There were some sounds of bustling as the waitress refilled coffee and served orders as they came in, and of course, some people talked, but honestly, it was really quiet. It was like the military asked us to wait patiently, and we did, queuing up in line for something or another. The diner got really crowded after a while as the locals came in from their homes too. No one wanted to be alone. We all took comfort from other people just being there. I can't really describe how bizarre it all was, how surreal. It left my thoughts open for Evey. She had made it out of the hospital, Barbara had told me. No, she had made it out of surgery, that was it. I talked to Janie, and her Granny was scaring her. I replayed the conversation the best I could, but it was dull and fuzzy.

Everyone's head jerked around with the rumble of an APC trundling into town, followed by a jeep or two. On one of them, a .50 cal was mounted, and I goggled. "Isn't that only in the movies?" I asked, pointing. Abraham shook his head negative, but was getting up, He didn't look surprised at all, not like the rest of us.

I followed his lead, feeling relieved as I could stand without help. I had my equilibrium back, and walked behind him, heading outside. I winced at the bright light, and before I went outside directly, I swiped a pair of sunglasses off a stand by the register. With them on, the light outside was bearable. Being light-sensitive as opposed to puking sick? I could live with that trade off.

The towns folk trickled outside behind us, and it looked as though people were coming out of the town hall as well. Those bunch were noisier than we were, and a couple of them carried rifles or shotguns. The sight of them caused a chill to run through me; nothing good could come of that, of angry people carrying firearms and the object of their anger coming into view. Not smart at all. They joined up with our crowd though, and everyone half-circled the vehicles, waiting to see what would happen. An electric buzz ran through the crowd. The hairs on the back of my head stood up. I opened my mouth to say that maybe we should just head back inside, when the guy in charge of the military--I was pretty sure they were Army, but there was an Air Force logo on the APC, maybe from the base nearish here?--made a gesture with his arm, and people quieted down to listen.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," he began, and next to me Abraham snorted loudly, muttering something to thimself, "but unfortunately we have to quarantine the area, for your own protection. There was a train wreck near here, and it was carrying a..." He paused here, looking around at the gathered crowd. I looked around as well, and there was not a one of us buying it. Well, maybe one or two, the people who truly believed the government, but most of us smelled the BS. "...biological agent."

No wonder he didn't want to come out and say it outright. If that was true, then who knows what they spilled? If it was just a cover story, then what in the hell did they do? "...harmless, except in conjunction with a certain chemical combination. We are setting up a medical center to test, and as soon as you are cleared, you can return to your farmsteads. We will open the area as soon as we can. Safety procedures must be observed--"

"What about Henry?" Bruce shouted, interrupting him.

"Hank," Mike murmured, but no one heard him save for me.

The guy--I couldn't really see his insignia from where I was standing, but I was pretty sure he was at least a lieutenant--seemed taken aback, and the driver leaned up, whispering something to him. He nodded, and I joined Abe in a snort. Guy was just a PR agent. He knew exactly what he was told, and nothing more. "There was a casualty early this morning. The solidier who fired was attacked, and he was defending himself."

Mike shook his head ferociously side to side, anger overtaking his fear slowly. "Shrooms, man," he muttered. "Keeping us in the dark and feeding us shit."

Abe on the other side of me nodded, and I couldn't help but to agree. This sprang up overnight, literally overnight, and whatever it was... it was deadly serious. I scanned the crowd, and while I thougth I saw a couple of people who were pale or maybe looked a bit sick, almost everyone seemed fine. If it was a neurotoxin or something like Agent Orange, or anthrax, wouldn't we be sick by now?

I missed part of the conversation, but I caught the last bit of the answer. "...people eating others is just hysteria. There have been other incidents, sadly, but..." I zoned out again, scowling. I knew that was bullshit, and I turned on my heel to walk away. I didn't have time for this; I had to get home. Pushing my way through the crowd, I stumbled out onto the sidewalk, eyes burning. If they were blocking off the roads, the town, maybe one guy could sneak out, at night. If I got far enough away, if I got out of the quarantine zone, then I could hitch a ride to a real town, hit up the bus station... maybe it wasn't much of a plan, but it'd work.

"Hey, man," Mike said, playing at being my shadow. "You believe anything he said?"

I shook my head, wiping my brow, "Not a god damn bit of it."

"Me either," he said, time restoring his voice to near normal pitch. His hands twitched, and he plucked at his clothes. "You look better."

"I feel better," I replied. "Maybe it was just the 24 hour bug." It could have been, couldn't it? I mean, the icy-hots were still around, but greatly diminished. I felt almost normal, if ravenously hungry. "I'm going to get something to eat, and ... well, and sit, I guess." That was a lame finish. At least I didn't blurt out my plan to run.

We both went inside, and sat down at our booth, opposite each other this time. I pushed around the remnants of my sandwich; the potatoes and bread just weren't that appetizing. I wonder if they had steak, or something else more substantial? The rest of the folks started to filter back in. Unlike before, they were talking, and loudly. It wasn't hard to overhear them calling bullshit on the story, and making their own plans, most of which weren't wise at all. Stuff like storming the soldiers and breaking through the barrier which was being erected. It wasn't nothing major, of that I was certain. I'm sure it was something like barbed wire: fast and easy to erect, yet a bitch to get through quickly. This was a small town. It was easy enough to surround it, and keep your 'infected' citizens in one place.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boss talk to Bruce for a moment. Bruce then ran across the street to the motel, and the boss entered, sitting down next to Mike. "We're not just staying put, are we?" I asked, anxious.

He shook his head. "We'll see." Those two words were heavy with portent. They hung in the air, even as the buzz in the diner grew to a dull roar.

"They can't do this!" one older lady was saying.

"They can and they did, Margie," a farmer--he had a John Deere cap on anyway--replied. "We just need to wait it out."

"They shot someone!"

"They're going to shoot us!"

"I'm not staying!"

"Sit down and shut up!"

"Don't you tell me to shut up, you old fart!"

"It's anthrax, I read about it on the news."

"No, I bet it's al-Qaida, coming to take the missile silos."

And so on and so on. I groaned and lowered my head to the table, resting my chin on my arms. Looking at the gauze pad, and then at my boss, I thought about the wound and his reaction to it. Why hadn't he said anything yet? He seemed to sense me looking at him, and he turned, meeting my gaze. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and his eyelid twitched once. It was so cinematic that I chuckled. He cracked a slight smile, and turned his gaze to the people inside the diner. "It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better," he said in a low voice. "Panic hasn't really started to set in yet. People are afraid, and getting angry... but they're not panicked."

Mike closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again, visibly trying to steady himself. "We can't stay here. They did shoot Henry. We all saw. I know he was trying to... fuck, I don't know what he was trying to do, but they didn't even try anything else first--they just shot."

The boss nodded, one nod which barely registered with me. "I don't want to stay here. Whatever is happening..." and his gaze drifted to me again, "...we'll be sitting ducks. Tonight, or tomorrow night, we'll make our play. It depends..." He trailed off as he saw Bruce entering the diner, and he stood up to take the duffle bag which Bruce had brought back from the motel. After that, he went and talked to the waitress, who looked more than a little frazzled, but she gave him a quick smile and put the duffle behind the counter. He and Bruce both came to our booth, and sat down, making Mike and I the inside bitches. "We're going to sit tight for a little while. I wouldn't be surprised if they did a complete lockdown, curfews and all, and it really wouldn't surprise me if they started confiscating weapons."

"How do you know they will?" Mike asked, echoing my thoughts.

"They're the government," the boss answered. "Taking away freedom in the guise of 'it's for your own good' is what they do." Bruce snorted a laughed and so did I, but the look on the boss' face was pretty clear: he was serious about that. There was a glint... but I was getting drowsy, and it was hard enough concentrating on his words. "We'll either want to find a way to sneak out without being seen, or find some way to make a distraction."

"This is against the law," Mike said, probably playing Devil's Advocate. At least, I hoped he was. I wasn't about to stick around if they had orders to shoot to kill for a minor scuffle. Come to think of it, if it was that serious...aaah, my head wouldn't complete the thought.

"And sticking us in here to rot isn't? Shooting Henry wasn't? What did he do? Nothing, that's what." Well, that wasn't exactly true from the way it was told to me, but maybe he hadn't been there for it either. "We need to know what's happening, and they're not going to tell us. Just a few miles out and we should be good. I know how to live off the land, and so do you, Mikey." Mike nodded reluctantly at that. "Just the four of us, and we'll be ok."

"Living off the land... whatever, man," I said. "I just want to go home. That's all. My wife..." I felt a stab of pain and realized I hadn't thought about Evey for the past couple hours. I was such a bad husband; I never should... ah, you know the drill now. "I need to get to my wife, before I get incapped again. Why don't we just drive out?" That seemed reasonable to me; the Bull trucks were pretty big, and if we used the distraction, we should be able to flee before they got organized, right?

The boss was already shaking his head. "Too much noise and too big. We want under the radar." He looked around at all of us, "Are you in?"

We looked at each other. Mike was uncertain, but Bruce made up for it tenfold. I think he and Abe had worked together before, or were friends or something. I shrugged, and let Bruce speak for all of us, "Yeah, we're in."

Chapter Nine

I watched the sun set with foreboding. This was a really stupid idea, and as if to agree with my thought, my stomach lurched to the side. A light wind blew, sending chills over my skin. I'd been feeling pretty good at this point, almost not sick at all, and now it seemed to be coming back with a vengeance. I went inside my room where Mike was there, napping. I couldn't sleep myself, even though I should have at least been trying or taking it easy. We were attempting to escape a military barricade tonight. A stupid, stupid idea, but I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to get home. They weren't going to let one guy out, just because.

The rest of the afternoon had been whittled away by watching them set up a huge tent at the end of the main drag here, just outside the town hall. There were guys going back and forth, unloading supplies and whatnot. I wasn't the sharpest tack in the box, but even I noticed the masks they wore, as if to ward off infection. No HAZMAT suits yet, but give them time. We were a bit out of the way up here. I'm sure it took time to get what they needed up here. What concerned me most of all though is that I couldn't really see any person in command. Usually, well at least usually in the movies, the commander of any outpost, or the leader in a crisis situation would show up with his brass, walk around, brag a lot, and solve the problem in a neat two hour period. They weren't disorganized, not exactly, but... it was like they were sitting around waiting for something. They had their orders, and were waiting for the next step.

I sat down heavily in the desk chair, which woke Mike up from his dozing. "Hey, is it time?" he asked, voice muffled.

"Not yet," I said, shivering. "Maybe we should just stay here."

He peeled an eye open, "Got a bad feeling too?" I nodded, teeth clattering. He closed his eye, "We stay and rot, or try to leave and get killed. I don't want to stay and get shot."

I frowned, and wiped my brow. Jesus, all of a sudden, I wasn't feeling so great again. Sighing, I said, "It's the government, they're not going to shoot..." and then I remembered Mike's story. "I don't know," I finished lamely. If they had orders to shoot to kill, I didn't want to stay around either, and Evey was waiting.

Time passed slowly, and we both stared at the television. No hint of any crashes or epidemics or emergencies on the news at 9, which didn't surprise me at all. If I were a man prone to imagination, I would have imagined the news people looking a little scared, but if they were, I couldn't see it. It all looked so normal and bland. I kept my thoughts focused on my family. I had nothing else to think about to keep the icy-hots at bay.

A knock on our door startled Mike and I both, both of us jerking our heads up, and him half-rising from the bed. I gestured for him to chill out, and got up, wobbling a little bit. Damn it, the room was spinning again, that slow sort of spin you got when you were drunk in bed trying to sleep... and trying not to hurl. Fortunately, the nausea didn't come with it, and I stumbled across the room to open the door and reveal the boss. "Not tonight," he said quickly. "They're searching people now."

"Searching?" I asked, and Mike stood up behind me, echoing, "Searching for what?"

"They're confiscating weapons," he said in a low voice which carried a weird undercurrent to it. "Just do what they say, hand over any pieces, and we'll be ok."

I shook my head, then said aloud, "Don't have anything." I glanced backwards, and Mike nodded his head in agreement. "It's not like it's hunting season," I said.

Abraham harrumphed, and leaned in, "We're going to shoot for later tonight. Just relax, and go to sleep if you can. I'll get you when it's time." He gave both of us a look, meeting my eyes for a good four or five seconds, then turned away.

I closed the door, and wobbled back to my chair. Mike sat down on the bed. "I'm hungry," he said, digging around in his pockets for change. "You want anything from the machine?" When I shook my head in a negative, he moved past me, and wrinkled his nose. "Jeez, take a shower."

After he left, I sniffed. I didn't smell anything, and then I looked at the gauze. Nothing seemed to be seeping through, and I put my face down to the white pads, and sniffed deeply. Nothing. Who knew what in the hell he was talking about? I didn't feel like heaving myself up to my feet again, so I just sat there in the dim light. Mike came back with a soda and a couple candy bars. Giving me an uneasy glance, he went back to his bed. "You getting sick again?" he asked between bites.

"I think so," I said, lowering my head to the desk. The smooth cool surface seemed to match the temperature of my skin, soothing me. I closed my eyes and fell into a troubled sleep.

The back and forth on the sickness is interesting. Makes me wonder if he's immune or of he's a decoy protagonist, and if it's the former, whether or not it'll come with any baggage L4D style. it's nice seeing plot points like that early on for once, without sooooo muuuuuuch tiiiiiiime where everyone is shambling around being more braindead than the zombies and nothing happens. I'm not rightly sure why "wasting time" is a prerequisite for the genre.

Yeah, I keep banging myself in the head going like, "OMG WHY ARE THEY FREAKING OUT NOW?!?!?!" but I set it up in the first line, "I slept through the end of the world" aka, bad shit already went down. It seems really sudden, but it's not overall--just in his POV.

Thank you. Any criticisms are welcome as well. I have a really good feeling about this one, and I'm really into it, so after I'm done writing, I'm going to go back through and fine-tooth edit. Such as the gun in the first chapter. It IS a hunting rifle--I just neglected to mention it, so it would be better if I said he was thinking about bringing his rifle because it was up in podunk-town.

The back and forth is a precursor to how my zombies are in this world, so I'm very glad that's being set up properly, and is intriguing.

Chapter Ten

"Daddy, Daddy, you have to wake up," Janie said, shaking me by my arm. The urgency in her voice was unmistakeable.

I was struggling through the mud, holding Jack. "I am awake, baby," I said, looking down at her. "We're going to visit Grandpa, you remember?"

"No, Daddy, no," she said, her tiny voice pleading. "You have to go back, you have to turn around!" She clung to my arm and dragged her feet, trying to get me to slow down, even though I really wasn't making much progress through the mud as it was. "You have to go BACK!"

"Baby-honey, I ain't going back," I said, pulling her along in my wake. "There's no going back. We have to find your mom, and she's with Grandpa Ron, you remember that, right?" The terrain made it tough going, but I managed the field of torn up clods of dirt. The sky was a dusky pink, threatening to rain. I looked down at her, "You want me to carry you, like I'm carrying Jack?"

"Daddy, you're not carrying Jackie... look, Daddy, look!"

I turned my head, and the scream the poured out of me woke me up. I don't remember what exactly I was seeing, or what I saw, I was... in a field. No, I was laying face down in a field, with someone on top of me, hissing through his teeth, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I struggled, dirt filling my mouth, but I felt so weak, and it was easy for whoever it was to keep me in my place. I spit out a clod of dirt, and groaned, but stayed quiet for the most part. Empty, staring eyes flashed before me, and I moaned.

"Jesus, what's wrong with him?" someone asked.

"Adam, if you don't shut it, we're going to gag you," the guy on my back hissed in my ear. "Nod if you understand."

I nodded weakly, and bit my lip, although my throat kept making mewling sounds. I couldn't help it. Those eyes, the... no, I didn't want to think about it. It hurt to think about it. Evey, I thought. "I knew it, I knew we shoulda left him," someone else whispered. I was pretty sure that was Mike. Thanks, buddy. "He's so sick. He's.. there's something wrong with him."

"Shut up," the guy on my back said. "We don't leave a man behind." He patted my shoulder, "I'm going to let you up now--no more sound. We're near a lake and sound carries over water, got it?" When I nodded again, the pressure eased up from me. I started to get on my hands and knees to get up, but my hands didn't want to work. I shifted my weight and rolled over instead, laying there staring up at the clear sky. It was pretty. There weren't any city lights near by to ruin it at all... wait. How did I get out here?

I rocked back and forth for a moment, finding general movements easier than precise ones, and sat up. Looking around, I saw some lights here and there, but none near by. We were by a "lake", but that was too generous a word for that puddle. It stretched maybe two hundred feet across, with tiny ribbons of streams on either side. More likely than not, it was a natural depression which ranchers used to water their cattle. I lifted an arm up, and someone I didn't recognize helped me to stand. "What... happened?" I breathed.

The guy squinted his eyes at me in a frown, and shook his head. Looking around, I saw six other guys there--the boss was the one who had tackled me to the ground--Bruce and Mike among them. I shuffled my way over the uneven ground to Mike while the others talked quietly amongst themselves. "What happened?" I asked again, breathing the question as quietly as I could.

"You don't remember?" he asked. When I shook my head, he grimaced, "We left. We got out. I can't believe you don't remember."

"Sick," I said, and boy, that wasn't a lie. When I fell asleep, the chilling fever had just started to grab ahold of me again. The fire inside was raging now, and the chill on the outside made me feel like a popsicle. A popsicle with fire inside.

"We left a li--"

"Quiet," Abe hissed, then made a motion. "Going around. Follow me. Stay low."

Everyone seemed to be taking the duck and cover cloak-and-dagger approach, and I tried to follow suit, just about falling over in the process. I caught myself with my hands, and rather than chancing another fall, I crawled after them. They were slow enough I was able to keep up for the most part, mucking through the mud as I panted. "I can't... I should go back..." I whispered. No one paused. They kept their grim line intact, with sorry sack me bringing up the rear.

Lights blared into view, blinding me. I shieled my eyes with my hands, falling down into the dirt. Someone had been waiting. I couldn't see who; the light pierced me, causing the fire inside to boil. I moaned and collasped, struggling to ... god, I don't know. To do something!

Voices, and motors. "Throw down your weapons!" through a bullhorn. I rolled over in the grass so I wasn't in the direct line of sight of the headlights, and peered through my fingers. Abraham stormed a jeep, gunfire blazing around him. He wrested something, a gun I thought, from one of the soldiers, and turned it around. I lay there with an open mouth, seeing a glorious haze around him, bright red light etching him out easily in the dim light... no, that wasn't just him, it was everyone. They all glowed, or... seemed suffused with an inner light, dull red throbbing from beneath their skin. I crawled forward, thinking that if I could get that heat, then I could warm myself up. I was cold, yet sweating. My bones burned.

Somehow, I stood up and lurched forward, that light beckoning me. It was so pretty... so warm. I reached out for it as yells and cries erupted around me, but I was fixiated on the glow. I wanted it... I needed it... I grabbed it and the light struggled within my grasp. Oh, god, against my skin it was horrible, I needed to let it out... my arms jerked, seemingly of their own accord, and warmth splashed over me, warming me. I wanted to burrow myself in it. Slavering, I bit down, and was rewarded instantly with the fires inside dimming. Oh, god... it was so juicy, so good...

"Adam! Adam! Wake up!"

I blinked, and looked around, crouched in the bottom of the back of the jeep. I looked straight into Mike's eyes. His gaze must have echoed mine, with eyes wide in terror. Where was I? What was going on? It was so bright outside...I raised my hands and whimpered. "He's gone," Mike said. "He's fuckin' lost it, man, oh shit, what do we do?"

Chapter Eleven

I kept licking my lips, over and over again. I was so thirsty. They fed me some water, but it wasn't any good. The sun burned... and it seemed that instead of ebbing as it did the day before, this time my icy-hots reversed. I was chilled on the inside and hot on the outside. The sun burned me. I couldn't move. I could only lay there and moan. No... I cried. I cried out for Evey, and I cried for my kids, but mostly I cried because I was scared shitless. Not just weird dreams, dreams I couldn't remember, but hallucinations. I must be going insane.

That was ok though, because the world was insane. Somehow, we had taken over a jeep. It wasn't big enough for seven, but that was alright because there were only four left. Bruce and two other guys had died in the taking. The soldiers had believed them unarmed, and were unprepared. Now, we were a fair ways away from Ray or Stanley or wherever it was we had been at, free. What came over the radio... what came over the radio made us not so sure we wanted to be free.

The Midwest was under martial law. Not just the town, not just the state, but the entire Midwest, all the way down to Oklahoma, as far east as St. Paul, and as far west as the Rockies. The border to Canada, needless to say, was sealed. More troops were pouring into the area all the time, and we would stick out like a sore thumb. I don't think anyone thought about taking uniforms until after the fact. Right now, since the local farmhouses were evacuated, they were searching for a likely place to hide out.

Me? Yeah, I couldn't care less. I also couldn't really move properly, just whimper and curl up into a ball. No one seemed to know what was going on quite for sure yet, but... no. I didn't want to think about it.

I don't want to think about it still.

A farmhouse loomed ahead, with a barn nearby. One of the guys hopped out and checked the area out, proclaiming it clear. There were some animals, but they were stabled or whatever you called it. I was lifted out and carried into the farmhouse. There was a bedroom on the bottom floor, and that's where I was deposited. I couldn't sleep though. I'd either had rest or the piercing rays of the sun made rest impossible. Either or, I lay there, listening to them, and trying to piece things together. Nothing made sense. The world had gone insane around me.

Time passed, and I spent it watching the ray of light crossing the room. Mike came in for a moment, took one look at me, and left again. After that, Abraham came in. He pulled up a chair next to the bedside, and regarded me seriously. "Are you awake?" I managed a nod. "You..." He took a deep breath, "They did something to you."

Who did? I wanted to ask. I got a groan instead.

"I don't know how they did it, but you're... infected or something. I think... No, they WERE going, to experiment on you. On all of us. I had to do it." His eyes never left mine. Neither of us blinked. "We're not going to leave you behind," he said. "Never leave a man behind."

Evey, I wanted to say. I managed, "Eeeee..."

"We're gonna make it, even if we have to kill them all," he said, his voice quietly determined. And also insane. "We're gonna make it." With that, he clapped me on the shoulder, stood up, and left. I could only lay there gawking. The only conclusion to be had was that the world and everyone in it had gone insane, except for me.

I was gonna get out of here. Fine motor control seemed beyond me, but all I needed to do was stand up and walk out. I could find the army guys myself. I mean, maybe they'd let me radio my wife so I could see that she was ok. I rolled back and forth, easing my weight from one side to the other until I had enough momentum to swing my legs over the edge. My feet hit the ground with a heavy thud, and there was too much momentum for me to stop the rest of me following, falling out of bed. I did managed to thrust my arms out before me, but I heard a loud crack as I fell. The room spun and I readjusted to my new point of view, expecting someone to come in and check on me. After a few minutes and no one did, I realized they didn't care. I was forgotten, which was just fine. I could go on my own way then.

Gathering my will, I concentrated and tried to lift myself off the floor. My hands wouldn't work real well, so I used them as levers to swing myself up. God dammit, this was getting really tiresome. Inching my way up, I pulled one leg in, folding it so that I could rest my weight on it as I sat up. Excellent. I lifted my arms up to grab onto something to lever myself up when I noticed something off about one of my hands. I frowned, and brought the offending hand closer to my face--it was still pretty bright though it must be late afternoon by now--to examine it. My index finger was damn near sideways.

That was the crack I had heard.

I hadn't felt it.

My mind swam around those two sentences for a long time.

Chapter Twelve

With the soothing darkness twilight brought, I found I was more able to move under my own control. I had sat there on the floor for probably three or four hours until the sun sat and I felt good enough to stand up on my own. No one checked up on me since Abe came in and gave his rather unsettling speech. The fire inside started building, but I found I was able to ignore that by concentrating on my actions, like I had before by concentrating on Evy and the kids. Getting back to them before I died was paramount--I knew I was a goner. I don't know what I had, but it was something and if it deadened my nerves like that... it was probably fatal. Like that girl who bit me. She... no, I still didn't want to think about it.

The door had been left mostly closed, but a little open, so I was able to just push it open rather than having to fumble with the doorknob. The other guys were somewhere nearby; I could smell them. Or at least one or two of them with their very strong and pungent aftershaves. I stumbled out into what looked to be a living room, having no trouble at all seeing in the dim light. I didn't see them, but I heard something outside. I think they were getting ready to go.

I lurched towards the sound, towards what I thought must have been the door to go out, and paused by the window. Sure enough, I could see the group, readying supplies. It looked like all of them were carrying firearms, and I raised my hand and pressed it to the glass intent on tapping it to get their attention. Before I could, a horrific shriek came from the barn. It wasn't made by human vocals cords. The cows? It had to have been. I didn't think they could make sounds like that, and when I looked at Abe, he was blanching. I could see that from where I stood, so it must have been the livestock... I remembered his short story from earlier, about working in a slaughterhouse.

Mike cowered, but Abe unslung his gun and moved to investigate. I tried to make my voice work to say 'no, don't do that, just leave', but like any good horror movie, he wouldn't have paid attention to me anyway. Just like the brave (or stupid) heroine ignores the audience as they catcall what she should do... I felt impotent. I couldn't even move, and even the almost dead guy knew something bad was going to happen.

The barn door stood open already, and when Abe approached it, a figure streaked from the entrance, intent on him. The boss didn't hesitate, but lifted his rifle and shot. I could see the hit. The figure didn't react as they would in the movies, flying backwards wildly as it fell to the ground dead. I did see a chunk fly off though, high on the shoulder. The bullet must have hit in the meat of the top of the shoulder, close to the neck. It wasn't even close to a killing shot, but it should have made the streaking figure slow down at least, or jerk backwards wincing with the pain. Neither of those happened, and before Abe could get off another shot, the figure was on top of him, and the pair of them crashed to the ground.

They tussled back and forth, the rifle inbetween them, saving Abe from the snapping jaws... snapping jaws. This looked and felt very familiar to me. If that... thing... was anything like the girl who had attacked me, then it would fight like a demon, stronger than a person could believe is possible. I pressed against the glass, practically putting all my weight on it as I strained to see what was going on. Shadows moved--the other guys--and they tried to pry the crazy attacker off of Abe. As soon as it was touched, I saw the figure whip around fast as lightning, and attack someone else. Yes, this was very familiar, but I didn't feel horrified by it, nor disgusted or afraid. I felt... hungry. Something inside me rolled over. I can't describe it any better than that. Maybe that, well, that I wished I was outside to join in the fray... and not on our side.

That was what scared me.

Someone else had finally found their brains or their courage, and hefted their gun. Others scattered out of the way, and the feral stranger fell up Abe again, who had just started to rise. Before the beast could knock him over again, a shot rang out, and this time, it had the desired effect. I could see gore blow out of the back of the attacker's head, and it collasped on top of Abe. He shoved the corpse off of him and stood up, disgust evident as he raised his arm to his face as if trying to hide a bad smell.

With the death, my hypnosis broke. Free to move once more under my own power, I lurched for the door, hands sliding along the wall to find the handle. It took a while for me to find it, and longer still to turn the handle, which must have been covered with grease. The night air hit me as I opened the door, sending shivers along my cool skin. It was only a short way to the barn where everyone seemed to still be gathered, and I followed the short path there, downhill, so I could let gravity help me with my steps. Mike looked up at me as I approached--it was much easier to tell them apart now that I was closer--his eyes wide and fear-filled. He, at least, was calm. Almost everyone else jumped when I made a sound, guns coming to be aimed at me. Once they saw who it was, most of them lowered their firearms. Abraham... didn't.

"Whhaa...?" I tried to ask.

Mike shook his head, his whole body a-jangle. "I knew it, man, I knew it... zombie apocalypse..." He covered his head with his hands and jumped up and down, "Oh fuck, oh fuck, I'm sorry, Adam..."

Abraham didn't move at all, just kept looking at me. To my eyes, he was looking at me from down the rifle sights. "Zombies ain't real," he said slowly, enunciating the words with exaggerated care.

"You saw him," someone else said. "We... fuck, man, we SAW him..."

People shuffled about and I wanted to take a step back. Instead, I looked at the corpse on the ground, and he did seem kinda familiar, the clothes... the face was all fucked up. Probably a shotgun that did that to him; his head was nothing but hamburger. I turned my gaze to everyone else, and opened my mouth to ... I don't know. They were all looking at me now, and with that mix of fear and disgust with which they regarded the corpse. Mike kept moaning on about how useless it was to resist, how inevitable the end was in a zombie apocalypse. He was the only one who seemed to be really losing it, and the only one ignoring me so far. Other than the apology. I wanted to say, 'It's not me. I'm not one of them' I think. To beg for my life, maybe. I knew the end was coming. I might not have been the sharpest tack in the box, but I could read people pretty well.

"This is crazy," someone said.

"He's sick... infected," another said, trying to work up the courage to say what he really thought.

I shook my head mutely, "No, I'mmm..." I shivered, and I could feel the sweat rolling down my forehead. What could I say? I was sick, but I was just sick, god dammit! I wasn't going to turn into a zombie!

"Mike," the boss said, without taking his eyes from me. "You're sure?"

"Ahhhh..." he cringed, hands still on his head. "Yeah...fuck, I'm so sorry, Adam." He turned away from the scene, turning his back on his friend.

"He's the only expert we got," Abe said, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Sorry."

Stop! I wanted to say, and I reached out for him, to push the barrell away. This is crazy! You're all crazy! I couldn't get it out around my thick tongue, and by the time I thought those thoughts, it was too late anyway. He pulled the trigger, and my world turned black.

Chapter Thirteen

What is dead? I mean, obviously, when you die, your body stops moving. Your heart stops beating. You turn cold... but what happens to you? There have been many reports of people coming back from death minutes later, even after brain death, without any sort of repercussions. Some of them said they saw a white light, and relatives surrounding them. Others reported nothing, or even unpleasant sensations, or going to hell. So, what is death? Is it when your body stops working, or when you go to another place? And if you can somehow be reborn or reanimated, would you still be you or would irrepairable brain damage change you? If we have a soul, would it come back?

Those answers... I don't have them. I wish I did, but even after my death, I was plagued with questions. I felt the bullet enter my skull, through the eyesocket. I don't mean I felt pain. I felt my eye burst under the pressure of the bullet, and I felt the bullet skidding around my skull. If it penetrated my brain, I didn't feel that because there are no pain nerves in the brain center. I read that somewhere. I did feel my skull shatter at the back of my head, and my flesh rip open as the bullet entered. As with my finger, there was no pain. I was grateful for that at the moment.

Did I see anything? I saw the muzzle flash of the gun. I saw a flash of sky as I fell backwards, too shocked to even more. I saw them, through my good eye, gather over my body. I must have twitched or moved, because they pumped several more rounds into my flesh, my torso. I don't know why they didn't shoot me in the head again. I mean, come on... we've all seen zombie movies. Maybe they were just scared. Maybe they forgot. I'll never know.

Again, I felt everything, but there was no pain, just the sensation of quick pressure, there and gone in a blink. After that... the world went black as what was left of my life poured out of me, leaking from the holes Abe had put in me. I thought I heard voices, but it wasn't a choir of angels or a flock of demons... it was just them, talking over my corpse. It went away after a moment, and there was just blackness.

I must have passed out or blacked out then, because the next thing I knew, the sun was forcing me awake. It hurt, sizzling my skin and searing my sight when I opened my remaining eye. I sat up, a low sound coming from my chest involuntarily. It hurt... it hurt so bad, like every inch of my skin was on fire. I would have wept, but the dead can't weep.

I climbed to my feet, finding more coordination now than I had previously. Into the barn I went, and when I plunged into the shaded area, the fire stopped. I made a mewling sound in relief, and stood there, swaying side to side as I luxuriated in the pleasure of not being in pain.

It was a rather unusual sensation, I must say, being dead. I knew I was, once I concentrated enough on my body, trying to look it over as much as possible, I narrowed my attention to a beam, and ran it mentally over my body, trying to feel what was amiss. I knew something was, but as I couldn't feel any pain as I should have from my wounds, I couldn't tell what was wrong exactly. I patted myself down, my arms working under my command, but very slowly. It was as if just it being daytime sapped my strength, my agility. When I reached my chest and the bullet holes, I fingered the holes. Hmm... that sounds really dirty, but what else was it but an obscene act? I pushed in my finger until I hit something solid, and hard--the bullet lodged within. Another hole proved that another bullet must have gone all the way through my torso. I felt my face, and traced the open wound around my eye socket. No pain, I mused, feeling eerily calm about it all. I... honestly, I had thought something like this was happening for a little while, and when I broke my finger and didn't feel a thing, I shoved it all away in denial. There was no denying it now.

I don't know how long I stood there groping myself with clumsy hands. As I did, a slow realization dawned which should have been obvious from the outset: my heart wasn't beating and I was not breathing. When I made sounds, it was instinctive to draw a breath, as most people did before they spoke. They were not deep breaths though, not intended to give life to the body... just enough to give shape to my words or sounds, such as they were.

With that realization, I became very scared. I stood there swaying in the shade, as if bending to a gentle breeze. Was I dead? Was I alive? What was I? I mean, logically, I knew from watching horror films. In the old days, zombies were created by the voodoo priests, but it was all a hypnosis thing or something. In Romero's films, it was some chemical which reanimated the dead. In Re-Animator, there was an injection, again from some chemical--glowing neon green in that case. 28 Days Later it was... living zombies, or people overtaken by hate or rage. I never really got that. In my case, I was bitten... more like Romero's. That did not help my panic, and I was panicing, even if my body was not reflecting the fact.

What was I supposed to do now? Eat brains? I didn't know... and while I did feel a hunger in me, it wasn't for any particular thing. Well, maybe I would start when I saw someone. The only thing around me were dead cows, and they did not look particularly appetizing. I closed my eye and tried to think. Maybe I wasn't dead. No, I had to be. My heart wasn't beating. There was... no condition which... it was... I can't even begin to explain it. Maybe it's like those people who have paranormal experiences who say 'I can't explain what it was' when talking about their ghosts or whatever. Like their minds got stuck in a loop, trying to figure out 'hey, what is that? That's not normal'. It was like every time I stopped panicing because I got distracted by some random thought, it kept coming back to 'hey, you're dead, by the way', and I'd get scared all over again, rediscovering time and again what it was to be a little kid, frightened of the unknown, of the dark.

It sounds very poetic, I know, but it's far more scary when you're living it. I couldn't begin to explain how it felt to sit there, stand I mean... to stand there, your hands crawling over your body seemingly of their own volition, circling holes put into you by other men. I can't tell you how odd and detached I felt, even from my own fear. To be stuck in a loop, thinking the same things over and over again, no matter if slightly different each time... I don't know. It was surreal. It wasn't real. A drug trip. The last hallucination before the true death. A test to get into Heaven... I don't know what it was. I didn't know why it had happened to me, but it had.

Come to think of it, didn't Romero's zombies spread their plague through bites too?

I managed to lower my hands and keep them from roaming. If I concentrated hard enough on a task, I could manage to make them do something else, but then if my attention wandered, they'd go to do the last task I gave them, as if on auto-pilot. I wondered if my feet were the same way too, but was reluctant to find out given that the sun had hurt me so much. I stood there, swaying still, and tried to think of what to do. All the zombie movies only gave advice to the survivors. There was no advice on what to do if you found yourself zombified.

Oh, god... the thought of my family hit me like a ton of bricks. What was happening to them? Was this infection just contained, or were they in danger? Oh, Jesus, I had to get to them... I had to! I had to find out if Evey was ok, or if Miss Misery had kept my kids safe. I looked out the barn door, and winced mentally at the thought of walking in the sunlight. It burned, oh, god, it had burned. I would wait until nightfall, I decided. It would be nice and cool out, and I guess I probably wouldn't have to take rests, since I was... dead... and all. That was alright. I had a long walk ahead of me, but I would do it, by God. I would walk through Heaven and Hell alike to get to my family. Resolute, I stood there watching the horizon, waiting for the sun to go down.

Chapter Fourteen

The sun was burning my skin again, but just barely. It was dawn... dawn? Wait, how did I...? I looked around, and I was in a city, or something. Not just a town, a local North Dakota town, but a city. Maybe it was Minot? It was the closest thing to a city I could think of, but that was hours away from where I was at, or where I had started. The sun peeked over the horizon, as if it didn't want to rise.

How did I get here? I cast my mind back, trying to think of the steps I took from the last clear memory in the barn--dusk, of course--and now, and I came up with nothing. Crap.

As the sun rose, my skin tightening and tingled with the burning sensation, but it seemed more tolerable now. Perhaps it was the difference between a first degree burn and a third degree burn. I was also in the middle of the street with no visible shelter readily available. I was shuffling down the street, feet on auto-pilot, and I left it that way as I inspected my body once again. I didn't feel any more wounds, or at least... there were no gashes or holes. Bruises? I couldn't tell. My body was numb, my fingers bits of dead flesh probing even more dead flesh at least on the surface. I could feel the pressure, so I had to have some feeling left, but sensation of touching was beyond me.

Disorientated and disconnected, I looked around at where my feet were carrying me. It had to be Minot. There was no other place it could be. It was deserted, maybe they had evacuated already here. It's only been a couple of days, I thought to myself. How could things fall apart so quickly? There were some noises, but nothing near by. A car or a truck, some shouts... maybe some gunfire or the cars backfiring. An alien landscape... I had never seen such a sight in all my years. A whole town? Empty?

I shuffled along, looking from empty building to empty building. Cars were left abandoned in the street, some with the doors open. There weren't any corpses. Just bloodstains, sometimes drag marks, showed evidence there had been people there, once. Wherever they were, I hoped they were safe.

Since I could feel the sun, and track the sun's passage easily without even looking up, I knew which way was south. I directed myself southward, shuffling that direction. Eventually, I'd hit upon a sign and figure out where I was. I'm coming, Evey, I thought.

Chapter Fifteen

I saw my first zombie a couple of hours later. I still hadn't found a sign or anything, and at the pace I was going I doubted I would be out of this nameless hell by sundown. She was standing in the shadow of a truck, swaying back and forth like I did earlier. I tried to call out, glad as I was to see anyone, even another of the living dead. I moaned instead of shouting, but it was enough to get her attention. As I shuffled closer, she turned with laborious effort. I swore I could almost hear the joints creaking, and a low whistle coming from her, a muted cry of pain. I was to the tail end of the truck by the time she got turned around, and we sort of bumped in to each other. I bet it was comical from the outside, but in my fleshy prison, I cried out. I wanted so badly to reach for her, to grab her and drag her to me, for a variety of reasons I couldn't articulate very well.

Her guttural chuffs emanated from her chest, as if she had a bad cold and was trying to suppress a cough. I looked down as she looked up and our eyes locked. Her eyes and my one eye, I mean. If ever there was a desperate look, it was hers. Mine echoed it. We looked at each other, trying to make noises. Her arms came up clumsily, and thumped against my chest. Her hands slid down as she tried to grab onto me or my clothing. I couldn't even really make mine work, so intent I was on just looking at her.

There was no way to communicate.

There's this famous play or playwright who said once, "Hell is other people." God, it's not. Hell is being alone. It's the frustration of looking for someone to share your experience with, to draw sympathy from, or to give comfort... and not finding them. When you did, if you did I should say, the frustration of not being able to communicate with them was overwhelming. I... yeah, this was hell, if there was one. It had to be.

We looked at each other, and made our noises, eyes locked. I saw her expression change slowly, from one of blankness, to a scrunching of her brows, the lines of her mouth turning downward. She knew. She knew, and she was sad. Even that very simple message, that normal people see and pick up in an instant, took at least a minute for her to express to me. I felt primal joy at being able to sense that much, but it was short lived as the full implications of being an intelligent person trapped in a dead body hit home. We weren't a danger to them; couldn't they leave us isolated, and try to come up with a cure?

I backed up and concentrated on making this work. We had one message so far, I wanted to see if I could get another across, in a far more direct route. She shuffled foward, not wanting to break our very tenuous contact. I could see that in her eyes. They were a dull green in color. I saw flecks of dust in them. I shuffled back again, and she followed. We did this until I was next to the tailgate of the truck, and she next to me on the corner by the bumper. I lifted my arm and regarded my broken index finger, so I lowered that one and lifted the other. It would work just as well as the other, I supposed. I wasn't ambidextrous, but I had to concentrate so tightly on making the small yet simple movements I needed to do this it didn't matter if I was right or left handed.

With painstaking effort and care, I put a finger on the truck. I couldn't fold the rest of my fingers properly, but they just sort of hung loose, not touching the truck or the dirt on the back of it. I dragged my finger downwards, leaving a streak in the dust. When that was accomplished, I looked at her. She seemed to be paying close attention, so I continued on, eating the afternoon away as I laboriously traced out "KC, KS". It was the shortest message I could think of--I think anything long would be beyond my power--which would mean anything. It was both where I was going and where I was from. I waited, breath held (Uh, if I were alive I would be holding my breath I mean), to see what her reaction was.

Her swaying intensified, and she raised both her arms. Then one lowered and with the other, she pressed her hand against the truck bed. I could feel her frustration emanating from her in waves, and unbeknownst to her, she frowned... vaguely. Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but it heartened me to see it. We were communicating. I wasn't alone... I wasn't.

My delight in our communication waned as it took her just as long to spell out something, and when she was finished it was not nearly as neat as my carefully placed letters. She had to use her whole hand to spell out the letters, obliterating mine in the process. It was "RCSO". I stared at it for a long time, willing it to mean anything to me. She had backed up and watched my reaction, and when I didn't seem to get it, made a low sound in her throat. All of my hopes came crashing down--it was useless, completely and utterly useless. Already it was dusk, the sun getting ready to set in the west, and we had managed to write out eight letters, four apiece, and only one message got through. At least I think she understood mine, but I couldn't understand hers.

I began to walk, heading south. I had spent too much time on this experiment, and bitterly I resigned myself to walking the entire distance alone, without being able to talk. Maybe I would be able to make myself understood to someone else, a ... someone alive. Evey would understand. I just had to find her. With each step, I tried to stomp my doubts and fears down, with little success. I was stuck in this meaty prison for... well, god, for who knows how long? I could theoretically be around forever, because... well, I was dead already. It wasn't like I was going to die of natural causes or a heart attack.

Hearing a noise behind me, I shifted my head slightly to the side, so I could try to peek out of the corner of my good eye. The other zombie had followed me! Buoyed again, I slowed down my shuffle until she was next to me, and then matched her pace. I couldn't really take her hand or give her a smile, but I kind of bumped against her in recognition of her following me. She bumped back, and I felt better. I wasn't alone, at least for a little while. We could do this. We could. Perhaps as we grew used to our unique condition, we would get more mobility and dexterity. Perhaps when the sun set, and wasn't burning us with its rays it would be alright.

Well, this certainly went somewhere I wasn't expecting. A huge portion of the draw here is that it completely avoids the standard zombie story formula, and now it's hurling the formula off a cliff.

I do hope we get to go back to the still-humans, though. undead!Adam would probably have some trouble carrying the narrative on his own, what with his, ah, handicap. And I wouldn't want to miss out on what happens when/if people start realizing their zombies are different.

Thanks... I think we're coming up on the part which wigged me out here pretty soon, and tonight I'm going to be adding a couple scenes inbetween some chapters of what I wrote already. There's a fairly disturbing series of events coming up in the Chapter 20's which I like, but it's too soon in the story. So, I need to distance it somewhat.

Hurling the formula off the cliff... thank you for that. I've been trying really really hard. From my research, there have been other stories where the protagonists were zombies before (a book from the 70's or 80's, and the movie "Colin", which is really REALLY low budget--some others I don't remember as well) but I don't think from a first person perspective like this, at least not in written form.

Somewhat afraid the story is going to break down now too. Maybe I'm just running out of steam.