Author's Note: Thanks go out to Christy for beta'ing this story. I appreciate all your helpful tips and pointers.

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Jack pumped the shotgun once. The spent shell ejected out the side of the receiver and the last shell loaded into the chamber. That last shell was a death knell. That was the last shotgun shell that Jack had, after that, he was down to clobbering these things with the stock of the shotgun. He had done it before, but every time he had to, he knew that he ran the risk of getting infected.

The cloud of smoke from the previous shot cleared and Jack could see the shattered remains of the undead creature in front of him. The right side of its head was shredded beyond identification. A single eye looked up from the decimated skull, staring into the sunny sky.

Jack looked around and saw exactly what he expected; the sound of the blast was attracting more of them. He could see at least ten of them making their slow, plodding way towards him. Where there was one of them, there were at least five more that he didn't see. His time was limited, as were his options.

Grabbing his tattered backpack, he ran towards an abandoned building. That thought made him chuckle, despite the situation, most buildings were abandoned nowadays. If they weren't, the occupants weren't usually someone you would want to bunk up with anyway. He moved fast for his slightly overweight body, dodging the undead for days at a time would put a new lightness to your step. He ran around the burned out hulks of cars and debris that littered the street.

He reached the building and leaned against the brick facade surrounding the front entrance. He looked out across the street, there were at least fifty of them now. They moved toward him in a single-minded quest for nourishment. The sounds emanating from them were both comforting and disturbing. The sound of a human voice however distorted was good to hear, but the moan of souls torn from the grave was more than a little disquieting.

Opening the right half of the glass double doors, the inscription on the doors read "Denny's Bait Shop". He caught a quick glimpse of himself in the reflection of the door. A shotgun in one hand, dressed in a tattered green work shirt and dirty pair of oversized blue jeans, he almost looked heroic. If there was anyone else to see him, but the only eyes watching now were not looking at his clothes; they were interested in only one thing, the sweet tender meat inside his trembling skin.

Jack walked into the dark interior of the bait shop, the smell of rotten fish immediately overwhelming his sense of smell. He choked and opened his mouth to breathe but could still taste the rank odor that saturated the interior of the store. Moving slowly, he leveled the shotgun in front of him, anything popping into his field of vision was going to get a face full of buckshot.

He did a quiet sweep of the front part of the store. All that was left was behind the counter and the storage area. Areas with a lot of sudden corners, blind spots, and lurking places. Jack's nerves screamed at him in danger as he took his first steps behind the counter. One wrong move, even just a single bite from one of those things, and it would be all over.

One combat boot kicked open the workroom of Denny's shop. The door swung open, revealing a dimly lit area. A flourescent light on the ceiling cast its pale light on the dingy room. Boxes of fishing equipment lined the cheaply made shelves along the walls. In the center were two eight-foot church tables covered in repair equipment and fishing lures. In the center of the milieu was the piece de resistance, Denny himself, lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Jack recognized him from the photos hanging behind the counter in the front of the shop. A handgun lay beside him, the last testament to Denny, a single bullet taking his life and most of the top of his head with it. Still wary, Jack closed and locked the door behind him. He looked around seeing the two other doors in the room, a freezer door towards the back of the room and another door across the room from his position.

Moving quickly, Jack crossed to the other door and closed and locked it. The freezer door was secured with a steel pin in the door lock. Jack wondered what was in the freezer. Figuring there would be enough time to find out later; he checked Denny's body to make sure it was completely dead. It was, Denny had chosen to take the route of suicide rather than become one of these things or even live in a world populated by the undead. Jack hoped against hope as he picked up the pistol. It was a revolver. Flipping open the cylinder, he smiled for the first time in days as he saw that there were still four unused rounds. Two spent rounds were still in there. One for Denny, but what happened to the other bullet?

Jack was sure that the other bullet was probably inside whatever was in the freezer. Not wanting to find out exactly why the former Denny locked something in the walk-in freezer, Jack searched the room for any other useful materials. He would have to get moving pretty quick or he would be trapped in this room with a dead body and a freezer full of the unknown. He found a couple of fillet knives, a half-full box of shotgun shells for a .20 gauge shotgun. Too bad Jack was carrying a .12 gauge. That meant there was probably another shotgun somewhere on the premises, but it was certainly not in this room.

Jack sat down at the table and swept his arm across the surface, knocking the contents on the floor. Two errant fish hooks stuck in the arm of his shirt, he pulled them out and threw them on the floor where they bounced away from him. He set out his supplies on the table. A still unopened can of tuna, eleven .20 gauge shotgun shells, one .12 gauge shotgun shell, a .12 gauge shotgun, a .38 revolver with 4 bullets left, two still sharp fillet knives, a mostly full canteen of flat Mountain Dew, two slices of moldy bread in a sandwich bag, and a copy of Us Weekly with Britney Spears on the cover. Not much in the way of worldly possessions, but they kept him alive this long.

Jack laid his head against his arms and closed his eyes.

Jack awoke, his eyes slowly focusing on the floor underneath the table. He drew in a deep breath and lifted his head. He looked at his watch.

"Oh shit!" He said aloud. He had been asleep for two hours. He swept his supplies back into his pack with the exception of the shotgun and the pistol. He slung the shotgun on its makeshift sling over his shoulder and cocked the .38. He moved to the door leading into the front of the shop, he could hear banging and cracking. They were inside, and they were looking for him. There was no escape that way.

Running across the room, Jack listened at the other door, there were no noises coming from the other side. Turning the knob, he tried to disengage the deadbolts as quietly as possible, but there was still an audible click as the bolt snicked back into the mechanism. Left hand on the door handle, he pulled the door open slowly, his right hand holding the revolver in a death grip.

The door revealed a yellow-brown hallway with light being provided by a naked light bulb in the ceiling and a red EXIT sign. The hallway took a left turn at the end, where the EXIT sign pointed to a possible escape route. On the right side of the hall was a closed door. The hallway smelt of fish and old cigarette smoke.

Jack entered, pulling the door shut behind him. It closed with a soft click. Still holding the revolver, Jack moved down the corridor. He came to the EXIT sign and looked to the left. There was a solid steel door with a handle across it. Jack walked to the door and leaned his ear against it. The warm metal felt good against his face, there were sounds from the other side, but he couldn't tell if they were near or far. Hoping that luck was on his side, he backed up a couple of feet and kicked the door open.

The door swung outward and banged into something in its path. Jack didn't need to see it to know what it was. He could see well enough what was out there. At least 40 zombies lurched around outside the door; their heads slowly turning to look as the door began its quick revolution back to closed.

He was trapped. In a bait shop with rotten fish and a dead man. There was something in the freezer, but Jack wasn't brave enough to find out what that was quite yet. Jack slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. A million thoughts ran through his head, none of them useful.