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  Taking steps back to the landing, making sure nothing was climbing behind her, she whipped the machete around and it dug into the neck of a zombie. She almost panicked when it stuck, but instead of freaking out she kicked the thing in the stomach and dislodged her weapon.

  In no time she’d finished the pair off, kicking them into the corner of the landing as far from the stairs as she could.

  She went to the door and listened. Was that Pierce breathing?

  “Pierce,” she finally asked. She pulled the Desert Eagle.

  At first she heard nothing but just as she reared back to kick the door open she heard his thin voice, but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

  Darlene kicked it open the door, shattering it as it slammed against the wall. The room was just as she’d left it so many hours ago: food and supplies piled in one corner, their bedrolls, pillows and blankets heaped under the shuttered window, and clothes stacked on the far wall.

  What was different was the amount of blood that coated everything. At quick glance she noted at least seven bodies in various states around the room, limbs, fingers, and heads everywhere.

  Pierce, his stomach a jumbled mess of spilling blood and guts, was leaning against the supplies. His breath came in short, frozen gasps. His eyes lit up when he saw Darlene.

  Darlene was impressed with the fight Pierce had put up in this room. “You’re hurt,” she finally said to him.

  “Just a flesh wound,” he whispered and laughed, a trace of blood flecking the corner of his mouth. “I need a stiff drink and some bandages. I’ll live.”

  “You’ve been bit.”

  “So have you.” He glanced at her ankle. “Why are you still able to talk?”

  “Just a flesh wound,” she said.

  Pierce closed his eyes, his chest heaving.

  She could see he’d been bit multiple times, the black poison coating his veins and slowly working through his bloodstream. Both legs and arms were gray, his neck a dark smudge of blacks and blues.

  “Help me,” he whispered. “I need a bandage.”

  Darlene decided that she needed to head north as soon as possible. She’d gather as much as she could carry, eat whatever food she couldn’t, and set the library ablaze. Hopefully it would attract any zombies in the area.

  Pierce opened his eyes and stared at her.

  “Go to Hell, zombie,” she finally said and put a bullet through his head.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Heading Out To The Highway

  The Jaguar XJ didn't miss a beat as Darlene cut the wheel back and forth, avoiding abandoned cars and rubble on I-95. She refrained from putting a CD in and blasting music while she drove.

  She glanced up but there were no clouds in the sky, just a perfect clear day. It was still cold but as she continued south the snow had turned to rain and than cleared up.

  Her immediate plan was to head north and back home but everything in that direction was aflame, and with snow falling at an alarming rate she decided to move in the opposite direction.

  The Jaguar had Maryland plates but she was already crossing into Georgia. Getting gasoline was the toughest part, since she had to siphon from other cars.

  The backseat was filled with boxes of miscellaneous food she'd pilfered from a few stores on her journey, and a score of fifty twenty-ounce water bottles.

  Darlene hoped there were survivors in Florida, which she figured would be her eventual final destination. "There has to be communities that pushed back the undead and rebuilt, right?" she whispered.

  A pileup ahead slowed her down, and she zigzagged in and out of cars, but she kept it moving. That was a good thing, because she cut around a torched van and suddenly there were six zombies on either side of her. Her initial reaction was to take her foot off the gas.

  She floored it but did it so suddenly that the back tires spun on the pavement and she didn't move. A zombie reached into the open window and gripped her arm.

  The car lurched but Darlene didn't have her hands on the wheel when it took off. She punched ineffectively with her left hand at the zombie, keeping the teeth away from her.

  The Jaguar slammed into a tree on the side of the road at around twenty miles an hour, jarring Darlene and tossing the zombie.

  "Motherfucker," she screamed, tasting blood in her mouth where she'd bitten her tongue. She exited the car and pulled her Desert Eagle.

  The zombie was scrambling to get back on its feet but Darlene put it down for good with a headshot.

  With renewed calm she walked back to the pileup and shot each zombie in the head in turn. Satisfied that there were no more in the immediate area, she went in search of a new car and bullets.

  * * * * *

  The wind blew through her hair as Darlene opened the Chrysler Sebring convertible up on a long stretch of open road, hitting ninety. She decided she'd listen to music and searched for any CD's in the car while she drove. "Something light and happy would be great," she whispered.

  PART TWO

  DYING DAYS

  Chapter One

  Lazy Eye held the pistol to Darlene’s head and licked his lips. “I said to take your fucking clothes off.”

  Darlene held her hands up and away from her body. “Is that a two-twenty six?”

  Lazy Eye looked confused. He shook the pistol and motioned at her with his free hand. “I won’t ask again.”

  “I think you’re right about that.” Darlene slipped her head down and to the left, bringing her extended fingers up and into his throat. Before he’d even stumbled she had gripped his arm, dislodged the pistol and heard his shoulder pop out of its socket.

  Lazy Eye went to scream but she covered his mouth, drove her knee into his stomach, and picked up the pistol in seconds.

  “Shut the fuck up or I will shoot you, motherfucker.” She had no intention of actually shooting him, since they were surrounded by undead. None of them were close enough to be an immediate threat, but they were there. The gunshot would get them moving toward her for miles out here.

  Under her the man struggled vainly. Darlene pointed the pistol at his head and he finally took the hint and stopped struggling. “This is a Sig Sauer 226 model, and a nice one at that. You don’t strike me as being a Navy SEAL or a Texas Ranger, so I’m guessing you found it. Too bad. It’s an excellent piece. Mind if I keep it?”

  Lazy Eye didn’t say anything. His good eye focused on her face before looking down at her dangling boobs at eye level. He licked his lips again.

  “Idiot.” She sat up, pulled a hunting knife from her boot and shook her head. “Here you go; the last thing you’ll ever see.” With that she pulled her dirty T-shirt top up and revealed her tits to the man, who openly drooled on the ground.

  “Nice, I know.” Darlene leaned close to him and just as his fingertip brushed against her hard left nipple she plunged the blade into his stomach and twisted. He gurgled as she drove the blade deeper into him and Darlene closed her eyes and tried to think of happy thoughts. She couldn’t and began to cry softly. As much as a scumbag as this guy was, he was still living and didn’t deserve to die. “Better you than me,” she mumbled. She cursed herself for not hearing him sneak up on her to begin with. So busy scanning the distance for the dead she’d not heard the living until he was on her.

  At this point in the game the only people still living were usually those stealthy enough, fast enough or lucky enough to keep from being ripped apart. Lazy Eye had obviously been lucky until today.

  She cleaned the blade on his clothes and checked him for supplies, food, anything. He had nothing in his pockets. His boots were too big for him and he wore three pairs of socks despite being out in the Florida heat of summer. “Where did you come from?” she whispered to his lifeless body before doing the horrific task of sawing through his neck with her knife to keep him from reanimating and trying to rape her again.

  He looked decently well-fed and he’d bathed in the last few days. His underwear was clean and his shirt still had a
slight laundry detergent smell to it, something Darlene hadn’t smelled in too long. He had a camp somewhere close, possibly a home where he had a makeshift washer.

  She was in the dunes near the beach, with several undead lurking on the road behind her. Any noise would alert them. Darlene scanned the beach itself and watched as two zombies shambled from the surf and moved in different directions. They were everywhere.

  Three days ago Darlene had cold-camped on a Georgia beach in a lifeguard chair. She’d woken to five zombies chasing after a child, no more than seven, down the sand. Before she could jump down and help three undead fell from the dunes behind her and gave chase as well. It was all she could do to sit in silence without making a sound as more and more came into view and went north in pursuit of fresh prey.

  Now, she decided to journey the way Lazy Eye had appeared and see if she could find his camp. The going was slow, especially since she was trying to be as quiet as possible. A dead man, clothes shredded and covering only his shoulders, stumbled a few feet to her left and she froze. His penis was engorged with blood, rivulets dripping from its bloated head. He was one of the dangerous ones: the undead that still had a functioning sexual organ and would love nothing more than to use it on her, stretch her and rip into her and kill her. She shuddered at the thought.

  Five tense minutes later he suddenly stopped and turned away from her and crashed through the sand toward the road. Darlene continued to move as the sun beat down upon her, sun-burnt and hurting. Six or seven months ago she was freezing, stuck in a blizzard during winter near Baltimore. She’d nearly died from sickness and watched as the living around her had succumbed to frostbite or the undead that hadn’t frozen. She imagined that by now they’d thawed out and were hunting for the living.

  A service road came into view, devoid of immediate danger. She joined the sandy strip up into the dunes. From this vantage point she could see for miles: A1A ran from north to south, riddled with moving bodies; a small town was to the west, smoldering and destroyed; and to the north over a collapsed bridge stood a gas station, which looked intact from this distance. She decided to head for it. Maybe there was some food left over, a stray can of soda. Crumbs would suffice at this point. Darlene hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning and that meal was a rotting orange and some rain water. For weeks she’d stayed away from mirrored surfaces when possible, knowing that her once full figure was now a mess. “Even at the end of the fucking world you’re still worried about how your ass looks in a tight pair of jeans,” she whispered and grinned.

  In order to get to the gas station she needed to traverse the broken bridge or wade through fast-moving sea water from the ocean. She didn’t know if she had enough strength to make it. That had never stopped her before.

  Praying to a God she no longer believed in, she moved slowly in that direction, skirting the undead and glad that they were so spread out.

  She wondered why there were so many zombies concentrated in this strip of land. Once she’d gotten safely across the river and onto A1A she thought she’d be safer. With the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the river to her west, land consisted of a block or two of houses in length at any given point, but where she stood there wasn’t much of anything but sand dunes. Usually the dead convened around destroyed towns, burnt-out buildings or car pileups.

  There were no undead pulling themselves from the river as she stood on its banks. The bridge was unmanageable to cross, with a large chunk of it missing and presumably sitting at the bottom of the river. Darlene wondered how zombies could destroy a bridge like that, but decided that her fellow humans had most likely done the deed.

  Most of the property damage she’d encountered since this had begun was man-made, with looting, raping and fires done without the zombies’ help. Man had turned on man. Instead of helping one another they’d decided to kill for that last scrap of food. Safety in numbers? Not if it meant having to share a can of soup. It was easier to bash your former friend and neighbor in the head with the can rather then sharing it.

  With the sun overhead and the smell of the water before her, Darlene could almost imagine that everything was normal again. Somewhere a bird actually chirped and she could almost sense the fish in the water and the ants and spiders in the grass. She was on vacation with her father, enjoying the Florida beaches and the warmth before heading back to the harsh Maine winter. They would stop later and eat at an amazing local restaurant that sold fresh seafood platters, local beer, and had tiki torches and real palm trees adjacent to the open-air dining room.

  She took in a deep breath to get the rich taste of suntan oil, mixed drinks and fried fish into her nostrils. When she choked on the stench of the undead moving silently toward her she sighed. The machete strapped to her back was quietly unsheathed and she said good-bye to her father and her vacation dreams once again.

  Chapter Two

  He was alone and his skin was sloughing off from so much time in the seawater. His clothes were missing as well as his left arm and his hair. Darlene stepped back and took a swing with the machete, slicing through its neck like butter. She didn’t even wait for him to fall before turning and stepping into the cold water of the river.

  How many had she dispatched since it began? How many zombies had she destroyed? How many of the living did she have to kill as well? Barry came to mind, but he was only one of a score of men and women she’d had to fight and put down to keep from being killed herself. The first to die by her hands had been her father…

  “Enough of this shit,” she whispered and began moving into the water, holding her machete and two guns overhead. Luckily this was a small tributary of the actual river so she got chest-deep into it before it leveled out and she could start rising again. Her head bobbed left to right, left to right, prepared for a zombie to grip her ankle or shoot from the water. Instead, she stood on the far bank and looked around at more dunes and the sand-covered road that led to the gas station. This side of the bridge no zombies were shuffling about. She wanted to be as quiet as she could so that they wouldn’t be.

  As she approached the gas station she held out the Desert Eagle in her right hand and the machete swinging in her left. She was as wary about zombies as the living at this point. Friends were few and far between. Darlene figured that if there was anything of value in the gas station she’d be fighting for it. Just another day in paradise.

  A chain-link fence surrounded the property, barbwire strung across the top. There was no discernable gate as far as she could see. She hated being so exposed but no trees, bushes or even dunes were between the water and the fence.

  Darlene hesitated before moving to her left and away from the road leading to the gas station. Behind the property the back road wound up over another, smaller bridge, leading to a two-story house. It, too, was boxed in with the fence. The road leading between the two buildings was fenced in as well. Whoever was up in the house was probably watching her. Even now they would be getting into position with a rifle if they had one, her head in the cross-hairs. She closed her eyes and counted to five.

  “I guess not,” she whispered when her head didn’t explode. It was almost… disappointing that she was still alive. She buried the thought in her head, swimming from the heat, lack of food and water, and the constant fear with each step she took.

  To keep her mind off of it she checked and rechecked her weapons and she walked directly to the fence and stared at the gas station. If the owners were going to kill her they didn’t have long-range weapons. She guessed that they’d make their way down the fenced-in road soon enough. Best see what the lay of the land was like until the confrontation.

  The pumps were still intact, although sand and debris had been flung up and around them. The road itself was nearly obliterated with the natural elements as well. When Darlene noticed that the windows were unbroken and the main door complete she smiled.

  Hopping the fence was no easy task in her physical state but she managed it. Her jeans had become snagged on the barbed wi
re and one leg was shredded. Darlene had to stop at the top and keep her head from swimming and dumping her face-first to the ground. She’d lost way too much way too fast and her muscle mass was being depleted at an alarming rate, but the alternative was much worse. She breathed in the salt air as she approached the gas station with her Desert Eagle drawn.

  She hoped that the owners weren’t inside.

  The windows and doors had been covered from inside with cardboard. So far, so good.

  The front door was locked as she suspected. She walked slowly around the building, trying to catch a glimpse of anything inside but there wasn’t even a crack.

  The bay doors to the garage area were chained and padlocked from outside, the large windows covered as well. When Darlene got to the back she glanced at the house but didn’t notice any movement. For the moment there was no pursuit and no gunshots.

  The back door leading into the garage was unlocked and she hesitated before turning the knob all the way and opening it. Caution made her stare intently at the door frame for tell-tale wiring or booby-traps. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  Six nights ago she’d come upon a camp of the living, nestled between a smoldering bowling alley and a dilapidated fast food restaurant. They had somehow dragged a damaged car into the gaps at either end and positioned guards with rifles to watch. She was pondering whether or not to reveal herself and perhaps join them when she tripped over a wire. Luckily it wasn’t attached to explosives but simply to rusted cans. When it clanged the alarm, three shots had rung out in quick succession in the general area that she was moments before.

  The undead in the area began moving toward them. Darlene had beat a hasty retreat, dodging the undead until she could escape into a used car lot and hide in the flatbed of a Toyota Tacoma until she fell asleep. The next morning there was nothing left of the group except for blood and a few scraps of food.