Zombie Trials-Chapter 1

I could tell today wouldn’t be a normal day when I opened the door this morning...but shit man, this is much worse than I thought. This morning I thought it was your average case of slow zombies, no big whoop to a young, mostly in shape, non cigarette and alcohol addicted body like mine. Only the unlucky slow people get bitten in slow zombies I was thinking, until they started being…not so slow. That’s when I started getting scared, because only the strong, fast, smart, and extremely well armed people survive in fast zombies. I am none of those things.

The scream is what woke me up, but I wasn’t sure if it was my dream or real. I sat there stiff and silent scanning my room waiting for something to happen. After a few moments I convinced myself it was my dream, and I was simply overreacting. I got up slowly and grabbed some clothes and a towel from my bedroom closet and went into the bathroom. I showered and got dressed and went downstairs, my parents and older sister were at work. My parents are 38 and 40, my sister is 26, and I’m 18 as of last week. I know we’re both old to be with our parents, especially my sister, but they actually insist we live with them. You see their quite rich and have a huge house, so they insist they’d get lonely in it without us. I say fuck that, I’m leaving as soon as I can.
I ate some breakfast, scrambled eggs and bacon with a glass of milk. I sat down on the couch with a Soda after breakfast and watched some TV, but my phone rang after only a few minutes. It was my buddy Samuel, I answered, “whatsup Sam?”
“Hey man you need to get a weapon and get over to Bryan’s house we’re having a meeting, the news is saying its zombies.” Samuel said this all quickly and immediately hung up, not cool.
I grabbed a baseball bat, emptied my backpack and threw it on quickly. As I stepped out the door I quickly realized why I was told to bring a weapon, because as I turned from locking the door my neighbor was lunging towards me. His face and most of his body were covered in blood, his pupils were giant black holes, and his eyes were a swirling blood red pool, with a yellow haze settling over the top. I crossed my bat across his chest pushing him back quickly, I had seen enough movies I had a good feeling what he was in that split second that we locked eyes. He was hungry for me, he was thrashing his arms, clawing towards me and biting air, begging for a taste of me. I tried to hold him with the bat, but he was surprisingly strong for his slow movements. He pushed me back until my back slammed against the door and I held his face away with all my strength. I knew I couldn’t overpower him so I ducked down and slipped to the right as quickly as I could. I stood up behind him, he turned slowly and began to move towards me, grunting, "Kyle...Help...Me." I was about to swing on his head like it was a home run pitch until I recognized what he had said. I turned and ran as fast as I could toward Bryan's.
I saw a couple of the zombies on the way to Bryan’s, but I easily just ran by, they were moving awfully slowly. As I ran I thought if the zombies are slow like this once we get some guns it should be no problem at all to survive. My head also swirled with thoughts of if everyone I knew was still ok, my family, all my friends, what about the girl I always see at the store whose number I just got? I kept reminding myself that it doesn’t matter right now; all that matters is I save my own ass. I can save people later, when I have guns. I got to Bryan’s at the same time as my friends Chad and Chris, they were both bent over out of breath Chris had no weapon in sight and Chad was holding a crowbar. Bryan let us in quickly saying, “Hurry up you’re the last three, we got to plan this shit and get goin’.”
I had never seen Bryan look so nervous; he was usually a very calm collected person. I was slightly nervous until I stepped into the kitchen to see every one of my friends standing in the same room. I was especially happy to see that half of them had guns already, Bryan included. I knew Bryan had his hunting rifle, but not the revolver he had holstered on his side. He saw me looking at it and reached behind him and pulled free a small glock and handed it to me with a smile. I smiled back, we had gone and shot this gun with his dad a few times before, and I was pretty damn good with it. I’d also shot Bryan’s rifle and his dad’s shotgun those times; Bryan’s brother Brad had the shotgun. Bryan handed me the glock and began removing its holster to give me, as he did our friend Derek whined, "God Damnit Bryan I knew you were just saving the glock to give it to your butt buddy!"
Bryan gave him a look that shut him up quickly; he knew I was better with it anyways. Many of our other friends told Derek to "get over it" or "we'll be fine". Bryan hushed everyone and gave us a plan about how we should go somewhere that is secluded, possibly with supplies already around, like a store of some sort. People began giving suggestions on where we should go I suggested to Brad that we should round up some of our own supplies. Brad and I began grabbing bottled waters and any other portable drinks and food we could find and stuffing them into the backpacks that everyone had on. We decided to move towards a store at the end of town that not many people even knew about. It was an old two story building with an apartment upstairs that the old couple who ran the place lived in, and it was right on this little lake that hardly anybody knew about. Most of us, me included, knew the old couple who lived there, because we were some of the only people who knew of the small lake and we were the only ones who ever swam in it. I liked the idea, and so did everyone else so we all packed up and set out.
As we walked towards the back road that was pretty much a 2 mile straight shot to the store I examined my friends around me and their weapon selections. Samuel, the one who called me that morning, had a pair of smith and Wesson pistols. Brad had his father’s shotgun and a Deagle in his holster. Our friend mark had a .22 rifle and his samurai sword on his back. Derek had a baseball bat like me and a knife in his pocket. Chad had his crowbar and Chris had a large knife on his back that I hadn’t seen before. He was also spinning a pair of butterfly knives between his fingers as we walked. Finally there were the twins, two brothers who were 6’5” and 225 pounds. They were in the gym nearly every day and both had just got back from boot camp. They each had a pair of holstered pistols and large knifes on their belts. Brent, distinguished by his brown hair compared to his brother’s blonde, had a large axe in his hands. His brother, Russell, had a large sledgehammer; they told us they had raided the tool shed.
Just as I was admiring our arsenal we were put to the test. A zombie seemed to appear out of thin air, lunging from the bushes to tackle Samuel. Sam screamed as the zombie tore a chunk of flesh from his arm, the zombie then placed its hand over Sam’s throat trying to choke him. Chad came in with a golf-like swing to the zombie’s head with his crowbar. The head went flying off into the bushes in a mess of gore and the body slumped to the ground. Chad turned with his hand extended to help up Sam, but quickly recoiled and stepped back when he looked at him. We quickly realized why as Sam jumped up and let loose a blood curdling scream. Sam ran towards Chad but before he could take more than two steps Bryan put a bullet in his head with his rifle. We all lowered our weapons slowly and looked from one friend to the next. We all had looks of guilt and grief smothering our normal emotions. Chris and Chad each grabbed one of Sam’s pistols since neither of them had guns and poor Sam no longer had any use for them. We knew that scream might call more zombies so we decided to move quickly. We were walking in silence for only about 30 seconds when Russell yelled wildly, “Oh fuck, we got zombies!”
I turned to see at least 10 zombies running towards us from the end of the road, about 30 yards away. We quickly discussed that we should just move slowly backwards fighting zombies, with someone looking forwards at all times of course, and stop to fight whenever zombies got close. As we finished discussing the zombies where nearly on us, gunfire erupted and I quickly readied my bat to swing and watched for the closest zombie. I watched multiple zombies fall before I felt a crushing tackle from my right side. I slammed to the ground and quickly grabbed the zombie’s shoulders and held him back with all my strength. He bit and clawed towards me, spraying blood towards me. I held my mouth closed tight to make sure none got in. My arms were getting weak; I was beginning to think the last thing I would see was this bloody fucking zombie biting for my throat with his razor sharp teeth, and the last thing I would smell was the shitty stink of the death and blood dripping from his mouth. A gunshot rang out and I saw blood splatter from the side of the zombie’s head. I quickly pushed it over and Bryan stood over me with the rifle in my face staring in my eyes, “I’m not bit man I kept my mouth closed and held him off, do I look liked a zombie? Sam turned instantly man, did I? No, now get that fucking gun out of my face, I didn’t get bit!” I began yelling, I was scared and angry, and I couldn’t control myself.
Bryan offered his hand to help me up, "Sorry man, I’m a little sketched out right now, let's just get the fuck out of here."
I grabbed his hand and stood quickly, "Don't worry man, we're all freaked out right now, let's just get to the store."
As I finished my sentence I saw Derek smash a zombies head into the ground with his baseball bat. I remembered that there were more zombies and quickly turned, Bryan did the same, and we were back to back. I heard his rifle erupt, and quickly grabbed my bat off the ground. I brought the bat in an uppercut swing to an incoming zombie's chin. The fat end of the bat came up right on target, sending his head flying off in a spiral of blood spray. I looked quickly all around me doing a 360 degree spin. I didn't see any zombies and everyone was quickly regrouping. Luckily no one had been killed our plan had worked so far, we continued to move forward. Brad was always watching our back side, Bryan was watching the front, and the twins were watching our right and left. Everyone else, myself included, had their heads on a swivel while we walked. As we walked people discussed the awesome ways they had killed zombies. Mark had cut ones head off with his samurai sword after it tore his .22 from his grasp; he had gotten his rifle back afterwards of course. Derek bragged about the "skull smash", as he called it, that I witnessed. The twins had each gotten a pair of kills with their melee weapons. Everyone had killed a zombie but only some of us chose to brag, I could tell I wasn't the only one who was scared.
We got about halfway to the store before we encountered more zombies. Brad and Bryan both called out at the same time from the front and back. I quickly checked both ways and there were at least 10 zombies on each side. We all chose a direction to face and prepared, the people with guns began firing. Derek and I stood back to back with our baseball bats ready, he whispered, “I got your back if you got mine.” I quickly agreed and teed up to swing on an incoming zombie’s head. I connected solidly and sent the head on a line drive of gore. The body slumped to the ground with blood sputtering from the neck stump. I turned to see Derek watching with amazement, and grinning from ear to ear. I looked behind him to see a zombie and quickly shoved past him to save his life. I swung quickly on the zombie, but I didn’t have enough room to get a good swing. The zombie was a man in a suit and tie; before he was bit he was just a guy on his way to work. However he was no average zombie, because he threw up both his arms to block the bat. As my swing connected I both saw and heard his forearm bones break. The zombie let loose a scream of pain and anger, and snapped his eyes onto mine before charging wildly. I was totally off balance from the quick swing and hitting his arms, I had no time to swing again before he was on me. Just as the zombie got close enough to grab and potentially eat me he was knocked off his feet. Derek’s bat came within inches of my face as he swung it towards the zombie. He connected with the zombie’s upper chest and neck, breaking both his collarbones immobilizing him and knocking him to the ground. I quickly pulled my glock from its holster and aimed between the zombie’s eyes before squeezing the trigger twice and replacing it. I scooped my bat off the ground and looked back to see Derek swinging at another zombie. I turned the other direction and saw Bryan rushing towards a swarm of zombies. At the bottom I saw Brad firing his shotgun wildly, he was drenched in blood yelling as loud as his lungs would allow. I ran as fast as I could towards the pile, Bryan saw and quickly stopped to give me cover fire. I saw at least 3 of the zombies’ heads explode before I got to the swarm and began swinging my bat. Brad’s shotgun had quit firing and his yell had turned into a dull whimper. As I bashed away each and every zombie that was eating my slowly dying friend I heard Bryan yelling, but couldn’t quite make out the words. Everything in the world had gone completely numb as I battled inevitability through this pile of death for a friend I knew I could never save. The feeling of the tears rolling down my cheeks and the intense stinging in my hands from destroying so many skulls with the bat is what brought me back to reality. I finally made out what Bryan was saying, “RUN KYLE, FUCKING RUN!!!”
I dropped my bat and sprinted towards Bryan’s voice before I could even ask myself why I was doing it. I looked up to see Bryan at least 10 yards away from where we had been when the zombies originally attacked us. He was throwing his rifle over his shoulder and turning to run towards the store, I saw the rest of the group another 10 yards ahead of him. I heard snarling as I turned my head to see a zombie clawing towards me, his fingertips two inches away from my eyes. I turned on the afterburners and quickly caught up with Bryan and evened out to his pace. I turned my head back to see a swarm of at least 20 zombies behind the one that had nearly grabbed me, amongst the swarm I saw Brad. Bryan and I caught up to the rest of the group and ran in stride with them. Russell turned his head as he ran and said to us with a smile, “good to see you guys made it, we thought you might have been zombies next time we saw you.”I gave him a stern look and glanced towards Bryan who was running with his head directed towards the ground. Russell looked towards him and faced forwards solemnly after realizing Brad was gone.
We outran the zombies for almost a half mile before we spotted a few parked cars along the street to take cover behind. We split up along each side of the street and quickly turned readying our weapons. Bryan, Chad and Derek were lined up along the car next to me while Brent, Russell, Chris and Mark lined up on the two cars across the street. I saw the twins both with a pistol in each hand nod towards our side of the street simultaneously before aiming towards the zombies and opening fire. I quickly pulled free my glock and aimed it down the street, but I heard Chad and Bryan’s guns erupt before lining up my first shot. I fired on a zombie piercing a hole in its throat that poured blood like a waterfall before the zombie collapsed. I quickly lined up my next victim and fired, his head snapped back in a splatter of blood as he toppled backwards. I fired on and killed 3 more zombies before I had to reload. I looked up as I reloaded seeing that the wave was much smaller than before but also much closer, and I wasn’t the only one reloading. I slammed one of 2 magazines that still had ammo into my gun and cocked it, and slid the empty one into my pocket. I aimed towards the closest zombie and fired, knocking it back a step with a shot to its right shoulder. It snarled and continued running, but only got a few steps before I put the second shot between his eyes. I heard Bryan continue firing and saw Derek send a zombie’s head flying into the street from the corner of my eyes before shooting the next zombie I saw. After what seemed like an hour of shooting I began to reload my weapon quickly, but I looked up to see the street had been cleared. I finished reloading and slid the second empty magazine into my pocket. Bryan had given me three that were full, and two pocketfuls of bullets to reload them with. I slid the glock into its holster before I began pulling bullets from my pocket and sliding them into the empty magazines. I walked with Bryan towards the middle of the street to regroup as we reloaded, and everyone else followed our lead.
Bryan spoke first, “We have got to get to that store fast, or we’re all going to die.”
We all knew it was true and everyone nodded in agreement before Derek spoke, “I need a fucking gun guys. Bryan I haven’t even seen you use that revolver yet can I please use it man? I hate having to get close enough to smell the fuckers every time I want to kill one.”
Bryan stared at Derek silently for what seemed like forever before tossing his rifle directly into Derek’s arms, and pulling his revolver free from its holster. Derek smiled and thanked him and we all resumed the formation and moved on the final stretch to the store. We got within 100 yards of the store before we started hearing the screams. We all agreed that they sounded human and we all took off at full sprint. As we rounded the corner to the store Chad was immediately tackled by a zombie. He let loose a scream of terror as the zombie sank its teeth into his neck, and tore free a large piece of blood oozing gore. Chris pulled free the large knife strapped to his back and started towards the zombie. He pulled up on the zombie’s hair tightly before slowly sawing the neck with the serrated edge of his knife. The zombie screamed until the scream became a gurgle of blood and death before Chris pulled the head off. He stared into the lifeless head’s dead eyes with an intensity I had never seen in anyone before. Chad and Chris had been friends since before any of us had known each other. Chris dropped the head and looked towards his lifelong friend with tears in his eyes. Chad was convulsing on the ground while his eyes were turning that disgusting color, all the while his neck poured blood. Chad looked back with his eyes filling with tears, he tried to speak, but he only mumbled and spit blood. Chad tried to pull free the pistol he had, but instead his hands almost seemed to force themselves away. Chris pulled free the pistol he had taken from Sam and took a deep breath before putting a bullet into Chad’s forehead. He quickly retrieved Sam’s other pistol from Chad’s corpse. Chris took Chad’s holster and strapped it onto his other leg then holstered both of Sam’s guns. He stood up and jogged towards us and we all turned and ran to the store’s front door. As we got to the front door we heard a series of gunshots that sounded like they came from a shotgun. Bryan hesitated as he put his hand on the door, and glanced back towards all of us. Everyone cocked their weapons and readied them before nodding back to Bryan. Bryan ran through the door with a tremendous burst of speed and strength, quickly sliding to his knees behind the nearest shelf. I followed in quickly behind him diving behind a shelf that was on the opposite side of the aisle. Chris slid in quickly behind me with both pistols ready whispering, “what do you see Kyle?”
I peeked around the corner with my gun aimed and ready and saw a girl two rows in front of me doing the same, but she had a shotgun right in my face. Before either of us could react Bryan had his revolver pressed against her temple as he whispered in her ear, “you better get that fucking gun out of my friend’s face before my gun takes out your face.”
The girl quickly lowered the shotgun whimpering, “I’m sorry we thought you were zombies we’re just being safe. I just realized I knew him and was going to drop my gun, but then you came up with your gun. And…. And….” She trailed off and began to cry silently into her hands.
Bryan apologized quickly before turning to me with a pleading look, “you know her? I’m sorry man! Why didn’t you say something?”
I looked at him with a puzzled look as I stumbled for words, “man I didn’t realize! I just… peeked around the corner… had a gun in my face… and then you had one in hers!” I waved my arm towards him in frustration as I yelled the last words.
I kneeled down next to the girl and nearly shit my pants when I realized who she was. It was the girl I had been trying to pick up for at least a month every time I saw her in this store. She was one of the few other people that had ever been in the store at the same time as any one of us. I had finally just gotten her name and number two days ago, when everything was normal. She looked up towards me with tears in her eyes, “Kyle right?” she sniffed.
I nodded back and felt my eyes began to burn, she looked so pitiful, but so absolutely adorable at the same time. She smiled as she tried to stifle sobs. “I’m sorry about the almost shooting you thing, we’re just so dam scared, and we don’t know how to work these things,” She said motioning towards the shotgun on the ground.
I slid my pistol into its holster before I picked up the shotgun, and helped her to her feet. As we got to our feet we stood inches apart and got stuck staring into each other’s eyes for a moment before she threw her arms around me. “Do you remember my name,” she whispered in my ear. I could feel her smiling on the side of my neck and face. I tried not to laugh, “How could I forget, I’d been dying to know until you told me.”
She laughed briefly, “Yeah, I know you were a real smooth talker.”
I snickered softly as I held her, she smelled mostly of dust, sweat, and desperation, but underneath was that hint of her natural sweet scent. I felt chills in my body as the smell entered my body, and the world seemed normal for a brief moment. “I wouldn’t exactly call ‘you dropped something dude’ smooth talking.” I turned red as the memory of our first encounter briefly entered my mind.
She laughed, “Well I thought you were pretty damn cute Kyle.”
I smiled, “You're not so bad yourself Lily.”
She loosened herself from my arms and took a step back to reveal a gorgeous, mischievous grin on her face. “So you do remember my name?”
My laughter was cut short by the loud shriek that came from outside the store. I turned to all my friends; we glanced at one another back and forth. Lily grabbed my arm and said, “C’mon we’ll go upstairs to Jim and Dona’s apartment. Don’t talk about Jim though; he got taken early this morning by one of the first zombies when he was going to town.”
As we began to make our way towards the back of the store a loud crash of shattering glass came from the front. I immediately knew zombies had gotten in the front window, but before I could say anything they had grabbed Derek. Derek screamed wildly, “Oh fuck man not me too! Shit help! Help me god damnit!!” he screamed as a pair of zombies dragged him away by each of his arms.
Russell had dove to the ground and crawled around the back of an aisle when the window shattered to flank the zombies. His plan had worked, because he loomed behind the zombies with his sledgehammer raised overhead within the same second Derek had finished screaming. “Derek duck!” he yelled quickly as he swung his sledgehammer with all his might.
Derek wrestled free from the zombies’ grip and dove to the ground as they were distracted by Russell’s yell. They turned snarling towards Russell as his hammer slammed into the first zombies head, and completely obliterated its head and skull in a mess of blood and brain matter. The swing lost little momentum and plowed through the second zombie’s skull with almost the same power. The second zombie’s body slumped to the ground as its brain’s painted the wall. Russell stood over the bodies smiling and offered his hand to Derek, but Derek quickly shuffled in the opposite direction. Russell muttered, “Son of a bitch.” He knew Derek had ditched him, and he turned around to be speared by a zombie that was even bigger than him.
I watched Derek get up and go running past me as I motioned for Lily to run for the stairs. Before I could aim and begin firing my shotgun Brent was swinging his axe into the zombie’s back, just before the zombie could take a bite of flesh from Russell’s arm. Brent and Russell turned to Mark, Bryan and I simultaneously and said, “Get the fuck out of here, we got this covered.”
We all knew it was best not to ask questions, and they had always claimed they were unstoppable together. They had even gone as far to say they were Siamese twins separated at birth which we all knew was untrue, but they definitely had a connection that was almost psychic. If anyone could hold off the zombies downstairs it was the twins. We all nodded and ran towards the door to the stairs. Bryan and mark ran up the stairs, and I stopped to look back at the twins. Brent had thrown the zombie off of Russell and helped him to his feet. They both checked quickly to make sure he wasn’t bit, then they quickly turned and both opened fire on a group of zombies as they came screaming into the store. They turned and dove behind the counter at the first break in zombie traffic almost perfectly in sync. They continued to move at the same pace as they set up their extra magazines on a shelf underneath the register, then stood up and resumed decimating the zombie hoard. I took one last look at our pair of heroes standing there, both with a pistol in each hand, fighting until the bitter end with no fear of the consequences. They definitely were born to be soldiers together, a truly unstoppable team, especially for both only being 20 years old. I closed the door behind me as I quickly dashed up the stairs to the apartment.
As I shut the door behind me I saw Mark and Chris glaring at Derek. “Why the hell did you just scuffle away like a little bitch instead of even warning Russell the biggest zombie all fucking day was behind him?” Chris was eye to eye with Derek giving him a death stare and no room to even breathe as he nearly screamed the words in his face.
I didn’t hear the rest of what they said to Derek, because Bryan approached me. “I don’t like leaving them down there like that; I’m not some pussy like Derek I can help.” He folded his arms and huffed out a large breath as he finished his sentence.
“Yeah I don’t like it either, but I think they’re confident they can survive and they don’t want to lose anymore friends today. I know I sure as hell don’t.” I patted his shoulder to try to comfort him although I knew it would do nothing.
His reply was a long drawn out sigh and a look of pure grief stuck on his face. I walked past him into the living room to find Lily sitting with Dona, who was holding a small white Pomeranian in her lap, on the couch. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the dog, and greeted Dona. “I never knew you had such a cute dog hiding up here Dona. Why don’t you ever use her as a guard dog down in the store?”
Dona snickered for a moment, “That’s a good idea honey thank you for the suggestion.” She gave me a smile and a wink as she spoke. I was happy to see she hadn’t completely lost her spunk in all this bullshit, and even after she had lost her husband of almost 20 years.
There was a series of radical scrapes and bangs on the door, we looked from one another and knew they weren’t human. Lily and Dona moved into the back room, but just as they were closing the door the small dog slipped out. I heard Dona scream behind the bedroom door, and was happy to hear Lily restraining her, because just then the front door was bashed open. A crowd of zombies tried to pile through the door way, but they were too stupid and got themselves stuck in the door trying to all go at once. Chris, Bryan, Mark, and I immediately readied our weapons and opened fire on the traffic jam. However, as we killed the few zombies’ in the front the group behind them made a more organized line, and came neatly funneling through the door way in a pair of perfectly straight lines. At the moment I didn’t think of it I just continued shooting, because it was the only thing that kept me real and alive. When I look back though that was the first time they began to show their true sophistication. I had always seen dumb and slow zombies in movies, and always thought it would be almost easy to kill them. These zombies were not slow or stupid, they were smart, fast, and they adapted and evolved rapidly. Not to mention their extreme strength even in smaller host bodies.
The zombie waves seemed to never end, as they poured into the room from the stairs endlessly. We shuffled backwards as we quickly reloaded. Mark was taken down by a zombie before any of us could finish, and the zombie wasted no time gruesomely tearing pieces of flesh from anywhere it could. Mark yelled with rage as he pushed the zombie off him with a final burst of strength. He jumped quickly to his feet unsheathing his samurai sword. The zombie tried to stand up but mark removed its head as it was on its hands and knees. Blood sprayed from the stump of the zombie’s neck like red soda being released from a well shaken can as the head toppled to the ground. Mark turned to us covered in blood with tears welling in his eyes. He reached down for his rifle and nodded to us all before saying his final goodbyes. No one watched Mark shoot himself, because we were once again struck with a wave of zombies. I doubt anyone really wanted to watch though; I sure as hell didn’t, because Mark was a great friend.
The zombies stopped coming before any of us had to reload again, and the three of us slumped to the ground. I looked towards Bryan and Derek as we all sat there gasping for air, and trying not to look at Mark's remains. I stood up and walked across the room to close the door. As I was closing it Dona's dog slipped into the room just before it shut. It was running towards Derek and he looked towards it with a grin. "C'mere puppy..." he began to say but he trailed off and his grin faded as the dog closed in.
Derek's face was overcome by a look of sheer terror as he tried to scramble to his feet and away from the dog. He raised Bryan's rifle to try and shoot the dog, but it jumped into the air clamping its teeth onto Derek's calf. He screamed in terror as blood oozed from the wound and the dog held onto his leg snarling and foaming at the mouth. He pushed his rifle directly against the dog's head before painting its brains across the floor, and finally releasing its grip on his leg. A pleading look came over his face as his began limping towards Bryan and I, "Please guys, you gotta help me don't just let me die."
I stepped back against the door and raised my shotgun towards him before pumping a shell into the chamber. "You know we can't help you man, we're sorry it's too late." I choked on the words as I said them, even though I had always thought Derek was an asshole he was still a good friend.
He began to sob uncontrollably before the convulsions started, and he fell to the ground spitting blood. Bryan fired his revolver once pinning Derek square in the forehead sending his brains flying over the remains of the dog and Mark. I looked towards Bryan; he had dropped the gun and fallen to his knees with his face in his hands. Before I could move towards him the door crashed open. Since I was standing directly against it I was slammed in the back of my head and sent flying to the ground. My ears rang and my skull felt like it had been split by Brent's axe. I blinked tears from my eyes and tried to see through the intense blur that had overcome my normally superb vision. I only saw blurs of human figures and splashes of red through my blurred vision, but I heard the most gruesome sounds I had ever heard as they devoured my best friend. Bryan didn’t scream at all as they tore the flesh from is bones, but he did curse and fight them until the bloody end. I heard the flesh tear from his bone, he would curse and I would hear bone smack bone as he threw his elbows back and forth at each of the two zombies making a dinner out of him. All the while I was making futile attempts at standing up because each time my skull would scream in my ears and my body would go numb as I collapsed back to the ground.

I finally blinked the blur out of my eyes and fought through the initial pain of trying to stand forcing myself to my feet. I felt my head rush and stumbled around momentarily blinding myself again. I firmly gripped my shotgun in my right hand and blinked looking towards the zombies who were aware of my presence for what seemed to be the first time. They looked up from the pile of bone, meat, and gore that used to be my best friend with blood dripping from their razor sharp teeth. They stared at me for a moment before shrieking simultaneously and charging towards me. I tried to ready my shotgun and pull the trigger, but I was still incredibly slow from the blow to the head. However, before the zombies could get to me Lily let loose a scream from the doorway. I cursed under my breath as both zombies stopped and turned towards her. Her mouth snapped shut as the two zombies began charging across the apartment towards the bedroom. I fired my weapon, pumped and fired again as fast as I could dropping both zombies before they were within range of Lily. I wobbled across the room as fast as I could while what was left of the zombies crawled across the floor. I stood over the first and pumped a round into his head before doing the same to his buddy.
Lily ran to me and I wrapped my arms around her for a moment before pulling away to shut and lock the apartment door. I asked Dona for a hammer and nails which she got from Jim's "Tool drawer". I went to the nearest bookshelf sweeping it clean of books before dismantling its 4 shelves. They were large, flat, rectangular and just big enough to go across the entire doorway. I used the hammer and nails to board up the door as well as I could. I made quick work of it though and then brought Dona and Lily over to a couch in the far corner of the apartment as far away from the door as possible. I walked around collecting the weapons of all my dead friends and piled them next to the couch Dona and Lily sat on. I leaned Mark's sword up against the wall next to where I sat down on the couch. I began reloading all the magazines for the weapons I had gathered. I strapped Bryan's revolver in its holster to the opposite leg of the glock he had given me and slung his rifle over my shoulder after I had reloaded them. I sat down on the couch and laid the shotgun across my lap, and the power snapped off. I heard Lily whimper in the dark and quickly put my finger over my mouth whispering, "Stay here, stay quiet, and stay low."
Lily and Dona both slid to the floor and crawled behind the couch before huddling together. I stood slowly and aimed the shotgun through the darkness towards the door as I crept slowly forward. I stopped abruptly as I heard shouting from downstairs, and I dropped to the floor pressing my ear to the hardwood. I quickly realized it was soldiers reporting that rooms were clear of zombies. I stood quickly and went to Lily and Dona to tell them what I had heard. As I got to the couch I heard multiple sets men marching up the stairs before there was 3 loud knocks on the door. The doorknob rattled but the boards held the door closed. I opened my mouth to call out, but before I could I heard a man with a very deep and strong voice booming from the other side of the door. "We got a reply to a radio broadcast from your old radio downstairs, and came as fast as we could. Anyone that is still alive clear away from the door on the double, or risk serious injury. We've come to help you, and contain this god forsaken illness."
He paused shortly before ordering his men to open fire. Lily wrapped her arms around me from behind and I felt her tears drop onto my neck. I reached up and grabbed her hand and whispered that "everything would be ok," of course I knew it to be a lie. Even though I knew it was coming, my entire body tensed as gunfire erupted from the other side of the door. The hail of gunfire reduced the door to splintered rubble and a screen of gun smoke within mere moments.

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