OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

Introduction

"Run, Josie!"

The wind blew past her ears but she could still hear his voice screaming over and over in her head. She had listened. Between the groans from those dead people outside and the banging on the door and Cecil screaming at her from behind his bars, Josie had listened and ran.

She had made it across the large field quickly with several of those dead groaners trying to keep up behind her. Their sounds made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and her heart was pounding so loud she wasn't sure how close they were, but when she leaped over the fence and dodged into the trees they either couldn't keep up or went back to the barn.

Either way she kept running.

She wasn't sure how far she had actually gotten when her chest started to hurt and her legs started to burn. It could have been thirty minutes or several hours. Josie wanted nothing more than to keep running but her body wouldn't have it, and she was forced to slow to a jog. With how much she had to weave around the trees and bushes, it seemed like she wasn't nearly far enough away from that farm as she wanted to be.

Josie wasn't sure if there was anywhere in the world far enough away from that farm. And with those dead people walking around and tearing into things, how easy would it be to get far away? Military bases surely had to be secured enough to handle a few of these dead things, but Josie wouldn't even know where to begin looking for those. Maybe buses were still running, maybe airports had been protected...even if the farms were lost.

As soon as her thoughts wandered back to where she was running from, Josie stopped dead in her tracks.

She had listened to Cecil begging her from his cage to leave and to run and that he would be alright. But she knew he wouldn't be. He couldn't be.

She had only gotten a glimpse as she dodged out the back door but Josie knew there weren't just one or two of those monsters pounding that barn door trying to get in. And just like her, Cecil was in no shape to put up much of a fight.

Her heart felt like it dropped into her stomach and went cold when she remembered that through the screaming and the banging on the door and the groaning and gnashing of teeth, Cecil had been crying. That boy that had done everything he could to get Josie out had done it all with dry eyes until he started telling her to leave. To run.

Josie remembered not being able to leave right away. She had tried to open the bars that were keeping him locked in that barn and her hand throbbed at the memory of it. Her hand was bruised badly and aching – she had accidentally smashed a rock against her hand instead of the bar in her crazed attempt to get Cecil out so he could leave with her.

Josie felt like she was in a daze, moving her hand in front of her face and inspecting the bruised skin.

He had been so calm while he got her out, but she couldn't give him that back. Her heart had been pounding and she had tried so hard to stay calm. Maybe if she had she would have been able to break him out of his cage as well; maybe he would be beside her while she left. Her cheeks still felt wet to her fingertips.

A loud scream brought Josie's attention back to the fact that she was now a sitting duck just standing in the woods alone. The bushes to her left moved and a dead woman stepped out, her bare feet pushing branches and leaves with every wobbly step. The woman wasn't moving fast, but she was moving and her lifeless eyes were staring straight at Josie. Another inhuman screech tore through the woman's throat, making Josie jump again.

"Run, Josie!"

Cecil's voice was still clear in her mind and she took off again, tearing through the woods and dodging through trees, unable to keep track of how far she had come or which direction she should go. She just ran.

Occasionally a groan would push her in one direction or another. Sometimes it was just a sound from the bushes and Josie wasn't sure if it was a squirrel or a dead person so she just ran from all of the noise.

She keep pushing forward until it felt like she couldn't catch her breath. Josie stumbled out from behind a thick row of bushes and her shoes slid on the wet rocks on the other side. She went down fast, her feet and legs sliding into the running water and her back hitting the uneven ground hard.

The steady sound of water was the most soothing sound Josie had heard in a long time, but just as she let her head fall back against the rocks under her another sound reached her ears. Something slurped and her head jolted back up.

From across the small river a body with a mat of black hair sat hunched over a mound of bloody flesh. The slurping made her stomach flip and a loud crunch brought home just how close to this creature Josie was. She sat up slowly, cold water rushing past her legs. She tried to scoot back up onto the dry rocks slowly but her shoes keep pushing the rocks deeper into the water.

A louder crack sounded from across the stream and the head of matted hair shot up. The dead bloodshot eyes landed on Josie and she scrambled out of the water fast, splashing until her feet hit dry rocks. Groaning, the dead man stood up and stepped over the body on the ground, feet hitting the waters edge before the bushes behind it moved.

A large man – very much alive – stepped out of the bushes and jumped towards the water. By the time Josie made it to her feet the man had pulled out a knife and was on top of the dead person, blade through the head and a heavy boot kicking its back away. With a loud splash, the body fell into the water and Josie flinched when the drops hit her face.

Everything had happened so fast from the moment that cage door opened, it felt like time suddenly stopped. Josie fell back onto her butt and stared as the body slowly drifted down the stream until it was out of sight.

"Well well well," the man drawled, his voice slow and amused. He wiped the knife off on his pants, smearing dark blood. "Looks like I found us a Pocahontas."