"Sophia? SOPHIA!"

Lucy raised her gun before she opened her eyes. The shrieking, desperate calls were close and getting closer.

"She's in there! I see her moving! She's right there!"

"Quiet down, woman," a male voice interjected quite ignorantly. "Stay here. I'll check it out."

Lucy froze. She was trapped. Her sleepy eyes followed the dark figure through the dirty, clouded windows as it stalked around the back of the vehicle and approached the back passenger door. From it's stance she knew it was a man and that he was carrying some kind of weapon. There was no way out. The only thing to do was to hope he wasn't like the last man she had encountered.

.

..

.

It had been two weeks since the first infection. Two weeks since her parents had fell ill, died and come back to life as snarling, brain-dead corpses. Two weeks since she'd had to abandon the only home she'd ever known with her loyal dog and a backpack full of necessities. Looking back now, as she wiped her nether regions with a handful of stale maple leaves, she wished she'd packed more toilet paper. And food. She was dangerously low on food. Water, thankfully, was in good supply. She had been following the river that ran behind her parents property since she left. It had even provided her and her dog with a few fish to eat. But they hadn't seen any in days now and they were on their last can of green beans.

She emptied half the can onto the ground for Pandora and picked the rest out with her fingers. It wasn't exactly fine dining but after two days of starving, cold green beans tasted about as good as hot mashed potatoes. The dog looked up at her with begging eyes. "All gone, Dora," she tried to explain to the dog, who pawed gently at the ground by Lucy's feet. It broke her heart to think they would die of starvation in just a few weeks. She wondered for a moment if she should not have left the city but then she reminded herself that she'd had no choice. Her own private neighbourhood had been overrun with the creatures. She knew it was likely worse in the more populated areas. But there were stores and houses full of food and weapons. There was shelter from the cold – something Lucy would never take for granted, should she ever be so lucky to have it again. Pandora sighed and laid beside her master, resting her long snout on Lucy's leg as they watched the rippling river flow downstream.

Snapping twigs and crunching leaves broke them from their peaceful meditation. Lucy jumped to her feet and turned around to lay her eyes on the intruder. It was a man, late thirties, if she had to guess. He looked like a hunter by his clothes and Lucy's heart sunk when she saw the large shotgun strung across his back.

"Well, well, well. Whatta we have here?" His smile made her wanted to run. His tone made her want to vomit. She backed up as he approached her. "Don't be 'fraid. I won't hurt ya, darlin'. Hell, we may be all that's left 'round here. We gotta stick together now, right?" His words might have had comforting intentions but every sense of survival in her body was telling her to run. She would have too, if she hadn't of backed right up into the water and slipped on an algae covered rock. Her head hit another rock and stunned her for a few minutes.

Enough time for the man to to reach her and drag her out by her elbow. He threw her to the ground and straddled her. When she came to, he had unbuckled his pants and was working on pulling hers down. She struggled but he was able to hold both her lithe wrists down with just one calloused hand. "No," she begged. He reached into her pants and his sausage fingers invaded her most clandestine of places. She squeezed her eyelids shut, hot tears breaking through. His weight crushed her legs, completely immobilizing her to his onslaught. "NO! DORA!"

The dog sprung into action and latched it's unrelenting jaws onto the mans arm and pulled. He screamed and released Lucy's hands as he flung his arm in a vain attempt to sever the gnashing teeth from his flesh. That's when she saw it on his hip: a shiny black Glock. Praying it was loaded and armed, she deftly pulled it from his belt, pushed it into the middle of his chest and pulled the trigger. It took more force to fire than she thought it would. More than it seemed to in all the movies and television shows she'd seen. It was louder too, leaving a deafening ringing in her ears for a long time afterwards. The thing she hated most about it was the numbness in her hands. She could barely summon the strength to push the now lifeless would-be rapist off of her. She crawled, on her elbows, over to her beloved companion and held onto her for dear life. She couldn't help but imagine all of the ways it could have been worse. Much worse. It took a while for her ears to stop ringing and when they did she heard the faint voices of other men. They were calling out for their friend, presumably the man she had just shot in the heart. Reacting quickly, she stripped the dead man of his shotgun and small shoulder bag. She still held fast to the smoking handgun.

They ran. Hard and fast and for as long as they could. Lucy stumbled here and there from exhaustion. Pandora would always stop and lick her hand or her chin with sympathetic eyes. It was enough to refresh her will. By sundown, they came upon an abandoned farm house and took shelter in the barn. The animals were long dead and rotting and the smell made her vomit, or maybe it was the memory of that man on top of her and what he had done and almost done. She looked down and realized that her jeans were still open. Sobbing, she buttoned them up as fresh tears flooded over her pink cheeks. There were no cops to save her, no mother and father to protect her. She was alone. And for the first time, she was sure that she was going to die alone.

.

..

.

She held her gun on the stranger as he reached for the door handle. Quickly, he wrenched it open and aimed his weapon at her. A crossbow stared her down. He lowered it and turned to his unknown companion. "It's not her," he said with disappointment.

Lucy used his distraction and slipped out the opposite door. Pandora followed quickly behind. They played tag around the car for a minute until the man jumped on the hood and slid across. Lucy ran the wrong way and he caught her, hand in hand. He squeezed her trigger hand until she cried in pain and dropped her gun. He held her hands behind her back until he had secured them with a plastic zip-tie.

Pandora approached him, growling and snarling. The man raised his crossbow at the animal and Lucy frantically stepped between them. "No! Don't hurt her. She's just protecting me." To the dog, she commanded, "Sit, Dora." The dog obeyed, still growling under her breath, obviously unhappy and confused about the situation.

"She's been bit," he stated as he noticed the wound on her hindquarter. "She'll turn."

"She's been bit before. I... I don't think animals are affected by... whatever this is."

"For your sake, I hope that's true."

"Let me go," Lucy demanded. She glanced behind him as a short haired, middle aged woman slowly approached. "Please."

The woman stepped closer. "Have you seen a little girl? Short blonde hair, blue eyes? Please, she's my daughter. She went missing a few days ago."

Lucy shook her head. "I haven't seen anyone. Sorry."

The man reached into the car and pulled out Lucy's backpack. "This yours?" Lucy nodded. He opened the bag and spilled the meagre contents onto the hood of the car. "You planning on surviving on this? Three cans of Spam, a half a bottle of juice and two blankets with more holes in 'em than I got in my socks?"

"Yeah, well, I forgot to stop at Costco and stock up. It's not exactly like I've got too many options. I was hoping to find more here but I guess you guys already razed everything."

The man sighed and gestured for her to turn around. She did and he cut her hands free. Instinctively, she rubbed her chafed wrists.

"You could come with us," the woman offered much to the man's chagrin. The scowl he gave her silenced her and Lucy knew the offer was just a nicety.

"Thanks. I'll be fine." She grabbed her knapsack and refilled it, picked up her gun and turned her back on them.

It took all of her willpower to walk away. They hadn't seemed like bad people, just a bit paranoid, which Lucy could completely understand. She couldn't deny the flicker of hope that had sparked in her heart when the woman had offered their assistance. But as much as she had wanted it, she also felt guilty as she knew she had nothing to offer. She was no hunter or killer. She couldn't cook toast and no one had ever complimented her on her ability to clean or sew. She was useful to no one but herself. To them, she would only be a burden. She was better off on her own, she knew, where she could only get herself into trouble.

"Wait!" She turned around and saw the man jogging to catch up to her. "Why don't you come with us? At least have a hot meal and a shower. Then, if you still want to go, you can go." His words betrayed his facial expressions. His words said come but his face said don't. She was about to refuse him when he added, "And we'll see what we can do about that wound." He gestured to Pandora who was clearly favouring her right side.

Lucy nodded and followed hesitantly as they made their way into the woods off the highway.