ZOMB-POCALYPSE

Chapter Thirteen

The zombie is a middle-aged man wearing a sweater vest and pants that used to be white. I wince as I stare at the dried blood that stains them now.

We stumble into the darkened kitchen, our senses on high alert, trying to hear if there are any more zombies in this mess. Silas turns on his flashlight and pans the kitchen at the same time that I trip over something solid on the floor. I give an involuntary shout as I fall down on the hard linoleum. I catch myself with my flailing arms, but the pain in my cut arm makes me unable to hold myself up for long. I collapse into a pile of sobbing panic. Something jumps on top of my back, growling, and I scream when I feel a sharp bite sink into my leg.

"Oh God," I cry as I struggle to get away from the zombie on my back. I realize it's actually quite small and scramble to my feet, causing the zombie to fall off as I stand. I'm numb, too numb to fight it off, and it bites me again, this time near the ankle. I hear Silas' curse, a thud, and then a yip piercing the air.

"Silas, I'm bit," I sob on the verge of terror. Silas shines his light in my face, making me squint.

"It wasn't a zombie that got you, it was that damn dog. I booted it," Silas tells me, pointing towards his beam of light.

A streak of white fur is racing towards us again, and Silas aims another kick at it. I'm suddenly terrified that whatever this is has crossed species. The idea of a zombie dog is horrifying. They would be so much faster than human zombies.

The dog suddenly changes its mind and cowers, hiding behind me instead of biting as the death stench increases and a woman comes teetering around the corner on wobbly legs. In some places, her face has been chewed right down to the skull, and she only has one good eyeball because the other one is completely missing.

I cringe, and thankfully Silas shoots her. "God that one was ugly," he exclaims. Even though I agree with him, I can't voice it as callously as he did.

Silas races to the front door and peeks out the spy hole. "There are a lot of them out there," he says, his words causing fear to turn my breakfast sour in my stomach.

"What do we do now?" I ask. I hate sounding like the helpless girl, but let's face it, that's exactly what I am.

Silas thinks hard for a full minute, I can't though...not with the sound of the dead beating against the back door.

"This house has an attached garage," Silas says at last. "With any luck, we can find a vehicle in there." We wander around, opening doors with guns drawn until we smell the telltale scent of gasoline and oil.

"I think we found it," Silas says victoriously, opening the door to reveal one of the worst things I've seen yet.

A zombie kid. He's standing in the middle of the garage, shuffling around aimlessly when we open the door. Then, he turns on us with a snarl and snapping jaws.

Silas and I each take an identical step back. The poor kid was probably only four or five, one of his parents must have turned and attacked him. He probably ran in here to get away from them, only to turn into a zombie anyway.

I feel sick to my stomach. The stupid dog, who's been following us around the house since we killed its zombified owners, starts barking frantically at the kid. The zombie kid walks slowly towards us, his eyes black and soulless and his skin papery and thin and torn in several spots.

"Oh God," I hear the tortured words rip from Silas' lips as he raises the gun and fires, putting the kid out of his misery.

"It's for the best," I tell him gently, placing my hand on his arm. I know my words can't make it better, but I feel like I need to say something. Silas shakes my hand off, remembering his tough guy act just in time, and starts toward the vehicle parked inside. It's an older model, single cab pick-up.