Alice Dunstan's practiced footfalls were nearly silent in the crisp fall morning as she jogged down the rise of High Street next to the convention center. The early sun had finally started to burn off the resilient morning mist. She kept to the center line of the cracked asphalt knowing that it was dangerous to be out alone—but alone she was.
As she reached the point where the convention center transitioned into the ruins of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, she slowed to a walk. At the intersection ahead a silent traffic jam stood as a testament to the panicked rush to leave the city's confines nearly two years ago. The cars now stood rusting and mute on slowly deflating tires as the weeds and detritus of a lost civilization gathered up around them.
High Street running north and south of the intersection was clear, thanks to the National Guard roadblock—now abandoned for years. Eastbound on Nationwide to the freeway was the only permitted egress from the city. The congested freeways had trapped the cars here like cows lined up in a pen for slaughter.
Every time she saw the scene before her, she considered what the horror of that day must have been like. To have been stuck in your car for hours in the blazing sun, surrounded by hordes of the undead—unable to move, and unable to flee. Hobson's Choice, she thought, stay in the car and die slowly, or flee and die painfully. Either way, you wind up one of them.
At forty feet from the Jersey barrier, she pulled on her chain gloves and drew her machete. The intersection marked the beginning of dangerous territory. Still keeping as silent as possible she closed the distance to the barrier.
Just past the barrier was "Harold," still sitting behind the wheel of his Mitsubishi, but barely visible behind all the grime on both the inside and outside of the windshield. Harold was all but mummified from his time spent in the sealed car, but could still sense when Alice came near and let out a pitiful moan, scrabbling at his window. Alice gave him a little wave.
Alice stepped up on the barrier, then onto the hood of Harold's car. From there, it was the routine of hood to hood until she reached the other side of the street. As she stepped down onto the macadam of High street, she felt a cold hand grip her ankle from beneath one of the cars. Before she could react, the hand pulled, and she found herself on her back, staring at the cold blue sky, listening to the metallic sound of her machete skittering away on the asphalt.
She sat up as quickly as she could and looked into the cold dead eyes of a ghoul that had hidden itself under one of the cars in the traffic jam. This one was dressed in the remains of a National Guard uniform, and was missing his left arm, and much of his rib cage. Alice pushed herself backward as the thing came crawling forward leaving a trail of ichor.
Even as her senses went into overdrive, a clinical, detached part of her couldn't help but wonder at the fact that even two years later this creature could still have bodily fluids, and could still function. Whatever it was that was reanimating the bodies of the dead wasn't playing by nature's rules—it wasn't playing fair.
The Guard ghoul reached out with his remaining arm and grabbed Alice by her right leg and pulled hard. Alice slid towards his gaping maw. He pulled again, and her calf was within biting distance. Rotted teeth clamped down on muscled thigh and Alice grunted with pain.
The undead Guardsman wasn't rewarded with a gout of blood and succulent flesh, however. Instead, his teeth were repelled by the neoprene rubber leggings that Alice wore.
Alice reared back with her left leg and delivered a strong kick to the Guardsman's head. The heel of her combat boot connected solidly, dazing the ghoul momentarily. Alice rolled quickly to her right and picked up the machete from where it lay. Before the undead Guardsman could even begin to regain its limited senses, she was upon it, severing its head from its body, rendering it harmless.
"You zombie son of a bitch," she said rubbing her leg, "that is gonna leave one hell of a bruise."