Chapter 25

Cassie crying is what slams time back into motion. "Get upstairs!" I scream over the cacophony of moans. Cassie struggles to get Wolf to move. I don't blame him, death is literally surrounding him, he has every reason to be scared.

      A window shatters from somewhere in the kitchen and Cassie screams and kicks it into overdrive. She picks Wolf up and runs up the stairs.

     A zombie reaches in and grabs a hold of the sleeve of my t-shirt. I hop away from the door and it swings open and my shirt tears diagonally in half. What remains on my body falls to the ground. I sprint to the stairs.

     A quick glance into the kitchen shows me that if I would have waited any longer, I would have been cut off by a surge of zombies that came through the window.

     I take the stairs three at a time and see that the door at the end of the hall is open, the one with the body in it. I sprint in and close the door, moving a near by dresser in front it. "It won't hold them, but it will give us time to think," I say, catching my breath.

"Jack..." is all Cassie can say, the rest of the sentence eaten away by fear and hopelessness.

"We're getting out of this." I walk up to her and hug her, I didn't say it, but I do have my doubts. Wolf puts the top of his head against the side of my knee and whimpers.

"Okay, help me move the bed," I say, letting go of Cassie and grabbing a corner of the bed frame. "On three," I say. "One, two, three!" Together we pull the frame halfway across the room before Cassie needs a break.

She grabs the frame and looks at me, determination prominent in her green eyes. The door starts to rattle in its frame, the dresser struggles to hold back the tides of death.

"One, two, three!" I say, and we pull the bed frame the rest of the way and push it up against the door.

     "What now?" Cassie asks through heavy breaths.

     I walk to the window and look out of it. In the light of dawn there's a lot of the undead, but they're spaced out enough for us to run through.

     "It's ballsy, but I have a plan, Cass." She looks at me, concerned.

     "When are your plans not ballsy?"

     "Right, what we do is uncover the dead body, use it as a distraction once they get in here. By that time, we'll be sprinting through the dispersed crowd down there." I say, pointing outside.

     "Are you insane!?" She says, her eyes wide with fear.

     "I have been hit in the head a lot of times." I say trying to lighten the situation but failing miserably. "Look, it's the only chance we've got, Cass."

     Almost as an emphasis, the knob on the door broke loose and the hands of the undead began to push through the frame of the door. Cassie looks at me and gives a reluctant nod.

     "Alright, whatever you do, do not stop running and keep your eyes peeled for outstretching hands."

"What happens if one of us does get grabbed?"

I didn't say anything, I just looked at her and she understood. I walked to the window and looked out, the crowd became more dispersed in the short time it took us to talk, but they will converge just as fast.

     "I'm going to uncover the body as a means of distraction. They'll go after that first." I say, walking over to the bed.

     She moves to look out the window. I throw the cover off of the corpse and walk to Cassie. "You ready?" I ask, trying to keep her from looking back at the words carved into the body.

     "Ready as I'll ever be," was her response.

     I opened the window and stepped out onto the roof. The noise that hit me sounded like death itself. The moans from all of the undead filled the air.

Cassie climbed out behind me and Wolf followed her just as the door inside splintered and hands began reaching through.

"What now?" Cassie screamed over the cacophony of the dead.

"Run to the side where the truck is parked and we'll hop down onto it, but we have to be fast before they converge to heavily for us to run." There's fear in her eyes, but she nods.

I walk to the front of the house and Cassie slowly follows, and so do the dead. Their hands reach to the sky, and their feet shuffle following our every step.

     We make it to the side with the truck, the ammo bags are still in the back, which is good, because we'll need them. "Okay, when you land, you won't have enough room to roll out of it so bend your knees and let them absorb most of the force."

     "Okay," Cassie responds in a shaky voice.

     "I'll go first, but you have to come right after me, we have no time to waste at all." I don't wait for response, I just jump. The metal of the roof of the truck bends but I quickly hop down to the bed and throw the bags over my back.

By that time Cassie has jumped, by the time she's in the bed, Wolf has jumped. I jump into the grass and suddenly the game has changed. It's no longer fight, its flight.

     As soon as I hear Cassie's feet hit the ground I sprint yelling back at her to follow my every step. I hold the pistol above my right shoulder, ready to bring it down to an aiming position at any moment.

     We're about halfway to the woods when I hear the screeches. A pack of rabids are sprinting to us, tearing up dirt and grass with their claws. "Faster!" I scream back to Cassie as I pump my legs. The weight of the guns and ammo already beginning to sap my energy.

     I chop down on outreaching wrists, some break and some just fall aimlessly to rise back up again to reach for someone else.

     Another screech pierces the air, but not from an undead. From a human. Cassie! I turn around to see possibly the worst sight of my life. A zombie has its fingers intertwined in Cassie's red hair. She struggles to pull away but her hair is knotted around the things knuckles.

I sighted the zombies head and fired, ending its eternal hunger. Cassie fumbled to regain her balance, but when she did, she sprinted like hell was on her heels, which it was.

      We break the tree line and there's still zombies everywhere. Cassie keeps up with me as best she can, she's not trained for this like I am, which worries me. If she falls to far behind, she will die.

So, I stop. I throw the bags to the ground and unzip the one that has the weapons inside of it. I grab the top assault rifle, which happens to be an AK-47. A gun built for war.

The moment the clip clicks into place the forest falls silent. I no longer hear the cries of the undead, I don't hear Cassie's heavy breathing or Wolfs whining.

I shoulder the weapon and look to Cassie, "keep running, don't stop, even if the gunfire stops. Take wolf with you and hide, I will find you." I bend down and pat wolf on the head. "Take care of her boy, I'll be back later." In that moment, something clicked on him, his whining stopped and I could've sworn he smiled a smile I know too well. The smile of a killer.

Cassie looks at me, tears flooding her eyes. She begins to say something but I don't let her. The zombies were closing in hard and fast. "Cassie, run, NOW!"

I begin to fire, every shot hitting its mark, right between the eyes. Cassie still stood there, "GO!" And she went, she sprinted, wolf led the way.

I smiled. The warrior smiled. Blood splattered the leaves and trees. I fired a clip and reloaded, fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. So much, that it became clockwork.

Although, no matter how fast I reloaded, the seconds it took to reload, the zombies closed in even more. The longer I fired, the more zombies that came to me. Which is what I wanted, I had to get them away from Cassie.

No matter how long you've trained to fire a gun, no matter how long you have actually fired a gun, your hands will eventually go numb. Your aim will be off, your arms will tire.

So I stopped firing and picked up the bags and sprinted the way Cassie had gone. I couldn't tell how long I had actually stood there, was it a few minutes or half an hour?

I unsheathed my knife and ran as fast as I could, trying to catch up to Cassie. The foliage began to thicken, the branches cut at my skin and my sweat flooded the cuts. The burning fueled my rage and made me keep going.

     A blur jumped out at me from behind a tree. It wasn't until it was on top of me that I noticed it was a rabid. The knife had been knocked from my grasp and I barely managed to get my arm under its chin to stop it from tearing my throat out.

     Saliva dripped onto my neck, and its jaws clamped open and shut with ridiculous force. It's skin was slimy and my hand was slipping. It's teeth inched closer and closer to my neck.

I let loose a scream full of all my rage and fear. For a split second I had to remove my arm and grab its chin with my hand. When I did I slung my other arm around its head and dug my fingers into its scalp. Cold blood poured out onto my hand. I yanked down with one hand and down with the other. It's neck snapped with a wet crack.

I stood up and quickly found my knife. I didn't hear it coming, I didn't see it either. Well, not until it's teeth were in my shoulder. In that moment everything stopped, all that was there was my heartbeat.

And then everything slammed back into motion. I spun and sunk the knife deep into its head.

This was it for me.

I don't know how long it takes to turn.

All I know is that I was bitten.