Thorns grab at my bloody clothes and tear my skin as I push myself through the bushes, low-lying vines threaten to pull me to the ground as I limp through the dark. Panting, I lean against a tree and pull my legs free of the tangled mess and take a moment to catch my breath.
I can hear my heart beating in my ears and feel it pounding against my rib cage. I gasp as I hold my side to try to stop the bleeding. "Not like this. Not like this." I mumble in pain, shaking my head.
I snap my head to the side as a bush rustles.
I hold my breath and stay as quiet as possible as my eyes strain to see in the dark and my lungs protest. Twigs snap in the gloom and the shambling footsteps get louder.
Not like this.
I inhale a few times, deeply and painfully and push off from the tree in the opposite direction from the noise
Not like this.
No more than three heartbeats later I hear grunting and hissing burst through the shrubbery behind me.
I hobble as fast as I can but it's catching up, I turn around and stop with my back against a tree and get ready to smash it's head with the butt of my empty pistol.
Once it gets close enough I raise my bad leg and rest my knee on it's chest above it's shredded abdomen. It's arms outstretched to grab me I groan in pain and fear and exhaustion.
Not like this.
I strike. The pistol connects with the temple and there's a slight crack from the skull, a couple more hits and it drops spilling it's brains onto the grass.
I have to keep moving, there will be more.
My eyes sting with the bright sunlight as I try to keep them open. I stumble over a fallen branch and crawl up a slight embankment onto a road. I stand up just to come face to face with a walker and it pushes me back down the embankment as we both fall over. It gets up first and I kick it over the branch I tripped over. I fumble around for something to help and find a large enough rock. I crawl back up onto the road and stand up, waiting for it, it rushes up the banking and I raise the rock with a yell and hit it until it falls, then I keep smashing it until I can't raise the rock anymore. Half lifted, I drop the rock and fall backwards hitting my head on the tarmac.
As I fall I can see a few other walkers nearby, no more than three, out of options and out of energy, my vision blurred as my head lols to the side, I see four figures coming towards me.
This is it.
I blink wearily and one has gone.
I blink again and two remain.
I blink a third time and the last one rushes towards me, but as it gets closer everything fades to black.
At least I won't feel anything.
.::.
Ecclesiastes 9:5-6
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
