(Disclaimer, I don't own anything from Dawn of the Dead or its affiliates.)
To my last Breath
"Infection, that's what everyone's been calling it but that's wrong. It's not a infection or a virus, those don't bring people back from the dead, but just saying that doesn't stop them from coming back. Judgment, yeah that's more like it, hell I'll even buy purgatory even though I don't believe in such a place. Belief, like what I believe can even exist now, those went out the window when this happened. No matter the case I'll be joining those 'infected' eventually." Lance says nursing the bite on his right shoulder blade. He left his family the night before, he left without a word while they were resting. He didn't want them to see what he would become as well as not wanting to hurt them when he did become what was being called a zombie.
Sleeping in a two-story convenient store (upstairs was the owners apartment) he came across last night, Lance was dreaming, but he couldn't escape this nightmare even in his dreams. Dreaming about the night he left and how is wife was screaming for him and his children crying. He thought about turning back but he knew it would damn them all if he did, and he couldn't live with that as ironic as it sounds, he woke to the sound of gun-shots in the distance. "Of all the things I could of dreamed about, it had to be that didn't it, why would it be anything else, that would negate the fact that I'm in hell. But I am sorry Irene, Chelsea, Ben I am truly sorry, I love you guys." Lance says as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Lance stood up and began to walk to the nearest window, his head started to throb, and the pain from his bite spread all over his back. Leaning on the frame of the window, all he seen outside was fires spread all over the city, and he could hear screams and gun-fire, hell on earth is what he thought.
He found himself thinking and hoping his family was okay and if they found a safe place to be. He lit up a cigarette took a drag then he started remembering how his wife told him how those cigarettes would be the death of him. He began to laugh at the thought now as he took another drag. When he was done smoking threw the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it, then went to one of the coolers and took a pop, "At least it's free, cause I'm broke, now where are the chips." Lance sat in a corner of the store and started to eat and drink hoping to get some energy from the food. The food immediately did not sit well with his stomach, maybe it was the "infection" or maybe it was the fact that he didn't eat in days, he didn't care. When he was done he just sat in the corner, his head still hurt but the pain began to numb. He closed his eyes to try and quell the pain from the headache, but another pain came instead, the pain of leaving his family. He couldn't help but think about them and started to hate himself for leaving.
He sat in the same spot and fought with himself over what he did, when he someone ran by the window he was by screaming. Lance slowly stood up, looking out the broken window coming face to face with a zombie staring straight at him. He and the zombie stood there for a few seconds just looking at each other, Lance felt the urge to run but his legs wouldn't move. The zombie stumbled closer to Lance and he still didn't move, the zombie began to what seemed to Lance study him. The zombie after a few moment turned and stumbled off to another location. Lance stunned by what just happened stood there staring and the building across the street, then stumbled back and fell on his back. Laying there he tried to figure out why the zombie didn't attack him, "Was it because it knew I was bit and was going to turn into one of them, that's ridiculous, that means that they have some intelligence. But to say they're intelligent implied they have use of their brains, and use of their brain means they can't be dead, right? That aside, it not attacking me means that I'm close to turning, turning into..into a zombie!" Lance sat up, slouched over and began to cry, he continued to cry until he wasn't able to catch his breath. He began to gasp and gasp, panic overcame him, is this it? he thought, is it finally over for me? His head began to pulsate violently and then a cold sweat broke over him, then nothing.
Lance woke up still panting heavily, the headache and cold sweat was gone. He starting thinking if he even was going to turn into a zombie or if it somehow passed. Then the headache came back , and he began to cough, he even coughed up some blood. He knew it didn't pass and the seizure was just the beginning of it. His thoughts cleared and he knew he was going to turn at any moment he could feel it, his body was dying. He summoned all the energy he had left and walked up to the roof of the building, and sat on the edge looking off in the distance thinking, he began to think about his family, "I'm sorry guys I'll miss you, I love all of you." he took out a cigarette and lit it up one last time. He sat there looking at the city in ruins, continued smoking his cigarette waiting for the inevitable. He took the last long drag of his cigarette, and when he inhaled the smoke he went into a coughing fit, he lost his balance and to weak to catch himself fell off of the second-story building to his death.