I arrived at this new beach, and felt skeptical at best. It wasn't a real beach. The last of the imported sand was being dumped out of the back of a truck. The water was this nasty green color, since this was an inlet fed from the Tennessee River. I'll swim in it if i have to. And all at once i realized the best part of this outdoor beach was the beach house that doubled as a motel. Its exterior was as stylish as Uncle Sam's taxes would bear to pay for, but it was new.

As i entered the beach house, I was surprised to see a nice pool, surrounded by chairs with quaint cushions. The door was narrow. Too narrow to comfortably bring my bags through without looking too awkward, which was a common problem for me.

I was spoiled. I had to have my essentials. Phone, wifi, the works. But I was unusual. I approached the check in desk in the next room and hesitated. In my mind, I searched with no end for the right words to say. I opened my mouth to speak, and as I was about to allow the words to roll away from my tongue, I stopped. My mouth parsed back together again. "Uh-m," l finally stuttered to the woman behind the counter. She looked at me impatiently. "I- have a reservation." Ughh. I figured I would be rethinking how I could had said that for the next hour. Social anxiety sucks. She showed us to our room. Us being my two friends who decided to accompany me.

Lenna was a lenky blonde, with legs like skyscrapers. It didn't help that she liked to wear high waisted shorts that even further complimented her twin tower legs. I was jealous, but not by much. She had a dumb girl kinda personality, but as kind a heart as they come. Then there's Esma, who was shallow and conceited. I loved her but in that way that you kind of want her short, dark-headed ass to get hit by a bus, and maybe be on the bus when it hit her, or even be the driver. Okay so maybe I didn't like her. She was more of a frienemy than a real friend. Oh well.

We followed the woman to our rooms, chatting and laughing, even fakely cutting up at times with Esma. The receptionist lifted her arm towards my room with the key. Her sleeve rode up, exposing a bloodied bandage. I looked up at her face. She fumbled to pull her sleeve down and I noticed she was flush and had been sweating. She opened the doors to our rooms and hurried back down the hallway. From our open doors, we made plans to meet up later by the pool, not that I cared. Sometimes, I felt more alone in a crowd of people, then I actually would have felt room was, well, a room, with one bed and a tiny tv. I set my bags down on the bed, thinking about the woman's bandage and wondered what happened. I didn't want to be nosy, but it just seemed strange.

When the time came, I joined the girls at the pool. They were both in chairs, tweeting on their phones, so they didn't notice the guy leaning on the door frame, his hands in his pockets. His hair and clothes were a bit dingy but, in a gritty sort of way, he was beautiful. He had on a biker vest and jeans and as I looked closer, I noticed that he had a knife in a holster. He looked like he was waiting on someone.

Well, quickly forgetting about the random pretty hobo, I prepared to get into the pool. I shimmied my shorts off, revealing my bikini bottom, but before I was able to take off my shirt, I felt two hands on my back. I was pushed clumsily into the pool. As I came up, I gasped for air, and searched for the culprit. I could feel my face become red hot with anger. Still searching for the culprit, I locked eyes with The Man By The Door, who cut his eyes back out the door. A half-smile played upon his face. I finally got out of the pool and glared down at Esma, who laughed foolishly. I joined the ladies, that still sat on the chairs texting. We stayed for a while and talked rather loudly and the man by the door kept looking at us. Finally Esma had had enough.

"Whatchu lookin' at, asshole?" she hollered at him. He stormed his way over when we all heard a blood curdling scream from the receptionist's desk. We rushed over to see what was going on, and found her laying in the floor. The three of us went over to her to help but as I bent down, the man pushed us out of the way and stabbed her in the forehead with his knife.

"Why the fuck would you do that?" I begged furiously.

"Yeah we could have helped her!" Lenna proclaimed. I got in his face. I heard Lenna behind me begin to cry. But he didn't back down. He was fairly tall and smelled like he needed a shower. That didn't deter me. He spoke aggressively.

"She's a walker! She's gone! Ya'll best get used to this-" but before he could finish, someone came through the door moaning and growling, and behind him, came a small hoard of these reanimated, walking corpses. Their torn flesh hung from their bodies and they smelt of death itself. Lenna screamed but couldn't get away fast enough. She was devoured. I stood in shock as I watched them tear her limb from limb. As Esma ran to Lenna's corpse to save her, she, too, was taken down by the heaps of rotten flesh. I still stood, unable to move. I could hear The Man By The Door yelling for me to run and as i turned around to run, I saw eye-to-eye, the crazed cannibal. His jaw was broken and hanging by a hunk of flesh. His eyes were yellowed and sunken back into his head and his flesh looked as though it was glued directly to the bone. The thing grabbed onto me and still, I was stunned. His blood dripped down from his jaw as he lowered his mouth to my arm. I tried to push him away but his body weight felt as if it were leaned against me. He was stronger than anything I had ever encountered. All I could think was, he's trying- to bite me. He's-, but my thought was interrupted by a pair of hands grabbing me and pulling me back. I turned and ran that way.

I ran to the door of the beach house to close it while this man drove his knife into the head of the other- zombies. "You got a name?" he snarled, as he finished them off. "Olivia." I said, trembling with still fresh terror. "You?"

"Daryl."