John Sheets sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes. As they did every night the dead had stalked him in his sleep, denying him any chance of peaceful slumber. It wasn't fair. The zombies owned the world now, couldn't they at least let him have his dreams? He wondered if the ghouls dreamed? Did they have nightmares? What frightened them? The game?
John shivered in the chilly dawn air. Winter was coming. They would have to find permanent shelter before the snows came. He and his friends Gordy Albright and Max Burnley had escaped the chaos that had descended on the town of Willard. They had taken refuge in a stand of forest on the outskirts of town. The dead rarely invaded the dense woods. Instead they wandered the deserted streets of Willard, as if protecting its treasures.
Treasures indeed, thought John. He'd never thought of food as treasure.
They were low on food and would have to make another run into Willard. Another game of hide and seek with the dead. It was a dangerous buisness that yielded few rewards. Mostly canned goods scavenged from homes. Most of that turned out to be yams or lima beans, stuff that people really didn't like all that much.
John imagined the zombie apocalypse motto must be "Leave the lima beans and take the corn!" He was sick of lima beans. Sick of sleepless nights and bugs and being dirty. Sick of having to talk in whispers and sick of being scared. Most of all he was sick of being hungry. He understood now, why the dead moaned.
He wrapped himself in his blanket and wished for a fire. But they had all agreed that it wasn't worth the risk. A fire would draw the attention of the dead. Taking refuge in Willard would be crazy what with all the dead milling about. John supposed they'd have to find a nice farmhouse to hole up in. He would just have to get up off his tired, dirty ass and look for one. It couldn't be put off any longer. Maybe if he ate a few more ketchup packets for breakfast he could muster up the energy? Ketchup packets, the breakfast of champions!
John picked up the baseball bat he kept by his side. Affectionately named "whack stick." The aluminum bat was dented and stained with blood, the victor in many a contest with zombie skulls. King of the games! John prodded Gordy's sleeping form with it.
Gordy's eyes flickered open. Taking in his surroundings, he was disappointed to find out he was back in the real world. "Dammit!" he whispered sharply, "I was having the hottest dream about nurse Carter!"
John flipped him off. "Sorry, man." he mouthed with a smirk. John hadn't thought about Megan Carter in a long time. He was afraid to think about her. Afraid she numbered among the living dead.
Gordy and John had both worked at Willard General Hospital. John was a janitor while Gordy was an EMT. Having seen his share of blood and brutality, Gordy had weathered the zombie apocalypse better than most. Or maybe he just hid his fear better. Either way Gordy could still dream and John envied him for that. He wouldn't mind a dream about nurse Carter.
Both John and Gordy had crushes on Megan Carter, one of the nurses who patrolled Willard General. John had seen her sneaking out the day the horror had started. Things had gotten pretty bad at the hospital but he couldn't blame her for running out on them. He knew she had kids. He just wished she'd come to him for protection. Instead she'd probably gone back to the husband she'd broken up with over the summer. Still, just the thought of her made John feel better. He would cling to any illusion that helped him deal with living in a world of the dead.
The fantasies John usually engaged in were hardly enough to stave off the constant fear. Before the end came, he and his gang, comprised of Gordy, Max, Poke Jackson and Tony Sherman, had spent much of their time at Huyck's Art Theater and Grimes' Comic Emporium. But no amount of superheroics or martial arts mayhem could have prepared them for the undead apocalypse. This was the real deal. Grueling, balls to the wall carnage and it never let up. So John and the others relied on the game to ease the tension. Culling the herd didn't hurt either.
John missed his best friend and roommate Poke Jackson. John had finally left Willard General and went home to the apartment he shared with Poke. He'd told Poke to go home to his family as he planned to do. But Poke had probably stayed put. That would be just like him.
John hadn't made it home to his family either. His neighborhood had been in flames. Charred bodies shambled out of burning homes, screams and gunshots echoing up and down the street. John was pretty sure one of the moving corpses was his father. The image had etched itself on his retinas.
Joining the exodus out of Willard John had run into Gordy and Max. Of Tony Sherman there was no sign. Max had convinced John and Gordy that they would be better off on their own. Fights were breaking out among the living and they were under constant attack from the ghouls. The police and the National Guard were spread too thin to manage the outbreak so Willard fell quickly to the dead. All in a matter of days.
That had been three months ago.
John and Gordy and Max had seen his apartment building on one of their forays into Willard. It was infested with zombies. If Poke was still in there he was probably dead. Or living dead. If he had escaped John had no way of knowing where he was. He had given up on finding Poke. Had given up on finding the rest of his family. He knew they were likely dead.
Hiding out in the woods with Gordy and Max was John's safest and most immediate option. Max had camping skills that were invaluable. They figured they could hold on until help came. But as fall took hold and the leaves dropped from the trees, so too did their hope of rescue fall away. They hadn't seen another living person for almost a month.
Three weeks earlier a motorcycle gang had roared down Ross Way, the road that skirted the woods. Severed zombie heads adorned the handlebars of the bikes. That hadn't bothered John and the others so much even though it seemed demented.
Max was ready to step into the open when they saw something that haunted them still. A sidecar was attached to one of the motorcycles and in it sat an emaciated oriental girl. Her face was ripe with bruises and her hands were tied. Her terror was palpable. John recognized her as Stacy Tomomatsu.
Stacy had worked with Poke Jackson at Clark's Department Store. She was obviously a prisoner and John knew what the gang of motorcyclists was using her for. He and Max and Gordy had stayed hidden and watched as Stacy and her captors disappeared in a cloud of choking exhaust fumes. John secretly hoped that she was long since dead.
John winced as a pebble caromed off his head. It was Max. He'd been on watch and was perched in a tree. Max motioned towards the nearby road and held up two fingers. John nodded wearily and looked at Gordy.
"Nope! It's your turn!" whispered Gordy as he patted the length of steel pipe that lay beside him, "It's my day off!"
John sighed and stood up. He swung his bat a few times and walked off towards the road. Batter up.
Gordy gripped his pipe tightly. It was his talisman against the dead. It had served him well in their battles with the zombies but it couldn't hold off the encroaching dread that threatened to consume him. The games they played just made it worse. But he wasn't going to let the others know that.
Ross Way was littered with dead leaves and the detritus of the once living world. Two zombies stood in the middle of the road staring intently into the woods. John watched them from behind a tree. The zombies had shuffled their way out of Willard as had others before them. Most passed the woods by but these two seemed to know that food was hidden within.
John hated to think of himself as food. These zombies had to be destroyed before they drew others. He picked up a rock and threw it in a high, tight arc. It landed on the other side of Ross way and clattered down the graveled incline there. The zombies turned towards the sound. John stepped out onto the road, gripping the bat tightly. Bottom of the ninth, two men on. It was up to him.
Striding up behind the first zombie John raised his bat and brought it down hard. The impact stove in its skull and the cursed creature wilted to the ground. Putrid, wormy brains and black ichor oozed from its cracked head. The smell was disgusting. So much for a ketchup breakfast.
The other zombie turned and locked eyes with John. Vacant, hungry eyes. It raised its arms. Or rather its arm. Its other arm was mostly gone and what remained was defleshed bone. A jagged bit of ulna barely attached to the humerus swung limply as the zombie advanced on John.
John swung his bat again but his anger clouded his aim. The bat glanced off the zombie's skull and flew out of John's sweaty hands. The zombie seemed unfazed by the attack though its head now lolled to one side. It moaned and grabbed John's shirt, gnashing its teeth in anticipation.
"Get off me!" screamed John as he shoved the ghoul away. The zombie stumbled backwards and almost lost its balance. It reached out with its good hand, like a beggar seeking a handout. John sidestepped it and grabbed its fleshless arm. Ripping the broken ulna away, he stuck it in the zombie's eye. The pointed end of the bone scraped the inside of its skull and John choked down bile. He pushed the dead thing off the road and watched it slide down the incline. It didn't get up again.
"Thought I was going to have to help you." said Max in a voice barely above a whisper. He was standing just shy of the tree line, wary of other ghouls. He cradled a nameless crowbar in his hands. "Wouldn't have helped your count if I'd bailed you out."
John retrieved his baseball bat, ignoring Max's last comment. "Sorry buddy, but I'm pretty sure that gives me a hundred! I am in the lead!"
Max shrugged. "There's more where they came from." he said, pointing in the direction of Willard with his crowbar. He turned and headed back towards camp, a scarecrow in filthy clothes. "And the stupid things aren't really much of a challenge anyway." he added.
John nodded and watched Max's thin, unkempt form trudge away. It was getting harder to tell the living from the dead. He could barely resist the urge to bash Max's head in. Whack! That would definitely be a game winner.
John sidled after Max, still thinking grim thoughts. Maybe the game was getting to him. Destroying zombies became less of a challenge the more experienced you became. The only thing that had kept him going was the game. The count. The tally. Notches on a tree. He now had a hundred. Maybe it was time to move on to smarter prey. Prey he could actually eat.
A scream woke John from his lurid daydream. He was alone. Ahead was the camp and he could make out Max scrambling into his tree. John ran the last hundred feet to the camp. They'd been overrun. Dozens of zombies advanced through the woods, a shambling, moaning tide of rotten flesh. Another scream. They'd caught Gordy. He was a squirming red mass buried in the oncoming horde.
For a brief moment John wanted to join the zombies in their feast. He hadn't had fresh meat since before the end. Then the terror of his predicament struck him. He turned to run, pausing at the sight of Max clinging high in his tree, eyes wide with fright. John ignored him and ran on as fast as he could, as much from his own demons as from the zombies.
The game had changed.