Because the infected were already dead, the infection that killed them rotting their bodies from the inside out, they were slow, had no conscious thought, and were only intent on feeding. Collin could handle one or two head-on, but if he got stuck, cornered by a horde of them, he’d be outnumbered and done for.
Even a scratch from one of these motherfuckers would infect him, and he wasn’t going to die that way.
If his life in this world ended, it would be because he fought to survive, not because a nasty corpse got to him. He opened the door, and the damn thing creaked. Pausing, he hoped those bastards didn’t hear the sound, and he waited to make sure everything was clear to go.
When they didn’t turn and notice him, he slipped out the door and started moving toward the city limits. The road ahead of him would be pretty damn long, but he had nothing but time anymore.
He made his way quickly down the street, stayed close to the side of the buildings, and kept his attention all around. There was a decomposing woman lying on the sidewalk, her face unrecognizable, her scraggly, long dark hair lightly blowing in the breeze. She held a small bundle wrapped in a pink blanket, and the sight was heartbreaking.
In all his life, Collin had never felt any kind of emotion aside from the power, violence, and rage that stayed with him at all times. But things inside him were changing. He was changing.
Another infected moved out from an alleyway and crashed into Collin. They both fell backward, the corpse scenting fresh meat and trying to bite at his neck. Black blood, bits of rotten flesh, and the stench of death covered Collin. The pipe dropped and rolled down the sidewalk. He brought his knee up, grabbed for the knife at his ankle, and once he had it, he slammed it into the fucker’s ear.
The infected fell off of him, but the scuffle had caused commotion, and the other assholes who had been moving away were now moving toward him.
Collin got up, grabbed his backpack that had fallen during the scuffle, and the pipe, and moved quickly away from the death and corpses and out of the city.
3
Present day
Solitude. Isolation. Alone.
Those three things meant the same, and they were definitely the worst things that happened since the world ended, at least to Rebecca Shaw.
Walking corpses needing, wanting to consume human flesh, men who were no longer decent and honest but intent on raping, maiming, and stealing anything and everything, were what she lived with now.
But those things weren’t as bad as the silence that consumed her, or that she’d never be able to sleep next to a warm body again, or the fact that she was utterly and miserably alone for the rest of her life.
She couldn’t trust anyone but herself now. With no family or friends left, she was this lone person who was always looking over her shoulder, always wondering if tonight would be the night she didn’t wake up or if she was taken and used as a plaything for depraved men.
Rebecca stared out the single, tiny window in the loft she now called home. The moon’s glow came through marginally, but she didn’t need much light. She was currently staring at the small lake in the distance, at the way the light bounced off the surface of the water and seemed to make it glow.
The close, distinct sound of moaning and groaning had her looking below the abandoned warehouse she was in. She didn’t know what the building had been used for, but she assumed maybe manufacturing farm machinery by some of the equipment scattered, slightly dismantled, on the floor below.
The moaning got a little louder, a little more desperate, and she knew the corpses down below were hungry. She had been holed up in the loft for the last few days, but she knew she’d have to venture out, because her supplies were dangerously low. She spotted a walking corpse directly across from her window.
Although Rebecca was a few stories up from the ground, she could see the woman well enough because of the full moon. Rebecca didn’t know if the walking dead were called zombies, but it didn’t matter much anyway. They were what they were: rotting flesh, decomposing former people, and monsters needing living human flesh to survive.
The corpse stopped and lifted her head to the sky. Her grisly looking mouth was open, her teeth partially missing, and this dark ooze coming out of every orifice. The hair on her head was straggly and missing in chunks, and a piece of her skull looked to be absent too.
She cried out into the night, a spine-chilling sound that had goose bumps covering Rebecca’s arms. A few more corpses walked by, their slow, shuffling gaits showing that they were weak and starving.