The street in fron of Darrel's house was mostly dark except for the street lights. The houses all around were dark. I thought I heard whimpering noises coming from somewhere. I cursed myself for ignoring them as we moved along. Jeff had the lead.

"I forgot to ask, Jeff," I whispered, "How much ammo you carrying."

"Just 3 clips, plus the one loaded. Wasn't exactly planning on the apocalypse y'know."

"Yeah..." I did a mental count. His .45 held a 7 round magazine... plus one in the chamber... that meant 29 rounds. Shit.

We cleared the next few blocks without much incident, heading east. Wasn't much sense in running unless we had to. It would just tire us out. Plus there was no way Darrel and I could keep up it came down to a marathon run. So we just crept along the street quietly. Braddly and I pulled up the rear, both armed with staves, Darrel in the middle with his sword, and Jeff still in the lead. Things had been quiet for awhile. Only the distant wail of sirens or the occasional muffled scream from inside a house clued us in that there were still signs of life. That is... until the sounds of moaning reached us.

The noise came on slowly, with subtlety, and was easy to miss at first. It slowly crescendoed, but it was so gradual that by the time we noticed it, it was actually rather loud. We had just turned a corner, avoiding several burning cars when we saw them. There was a wall of death staggering down the street. We all froze. There was easily 5 or 6 dozen of them spread out across the street. I hadnt seen a pack this large, except on the TV, and that was going on downtown. From the looks of some of the lead zombies it was obvious these people were recently killed. Their skin wasn't quite as grey, their eyes still sharp, and their motions slightly more fluid. They all had huge chunks torn from their bodies though, and their cloths were stained with coagulating blood. My mind immediately jumped to my previous ammunition count. Shit.

Jeff was the first to break out of his horrified paralysis. He spun on his heels and smacked Darrel across the shoulder.

"Run!" he barked.

We all turned and ran weaving past the burning hulk of a couple of cars. The dead were in pursuit, but the cars gave them problems, buying us a little more time. I felt like my heart was going to explode. By body isnt built for this sort of thing and I had been running on adrenaline all night. The pain that began to throb in my joints wasn't QUITE enough to overpower the though of being chewed on by some dead-guy though, and I kept on going. I was just beginning to think we might be able to just outdistance this batch of corpses when I heard a sharp yelp from just ahead of me. Braddly toppled to the ground, he was clutching his ankle. A twisted piece of metal clattered away from him.

I stopped next to him, hauling him up onto his good leg with all the strength I could muster, which was actually respectable considering the circumstances. Brad draped one arm over my shoulder and we limed along. My knees were screaming in agony with the additional weight added to my already considerable bulk. We weren't moving as swiftly, of course, but luckily even in our crippled state Braddly and I could out distance the dead.

Jeff and darrell pulled up short when they finally noticed we were missing. The whirled about to see us limped towards them.

"Fuck!" Jeff cursed.

Darrell ran up to us, taking Braddly's other arm and heling him hop forward as well.

"I can't get far like this... argh" Brad groaned. The moans of the walking dead were getting nearer, the dark silhouettes of the first few in the pack could be made out just outside of normal vision. We were further starled by the sound of breaking glass. Turning to look, we saw several more corpses emerging from some of the houses ahead of us. It was almost as if they were heeding the call of the larger pack that was on our heels.

"We gotta move," I panted, "or they'll cut us off!"

"That way!" Darrel was pointing down what seemed like a mostly clear street. Not seeing any other recourse we hobbled in that direction. It was heading north, deeper into the heart of town. NOT the way we wanted to go... I could only hope we might find some help, maybe some police if we could just keep going. Jeff sighed and lead the way down this new street. He was just as aware how potentially bad it was to be going deeper into town as I.

"Im sorry guys... I had just turned around and... gah!" Brad was fighting throught the pain in his twisted ankle trying to carry as much of his won weight as he could.

"Shutup and run man, we'll worry about being sorry later," I snapped.

36th... 35th... 34th street. We had reached one of the main streets in Lubbock. 34th street was lined with business of various sorts and was usually pretty busy during the day. Right now it looked like a graveyard. The street was mostly open, a couple of cars here and there, some crashed, some abandoned. None of them burning interestingly enough. My eyes brightened

"Jeff, if we can find a car..."

"Yeah already on it man!"

Jeff was already bounding towards the nearest car, a Yugo, or a Kia, hell I can never tell I'm not a "car person." Darrell and I eased bradly onto nearby trash can, getting him off his feet for a second. The moaning sounds of the zombies behind us could still be heard, but they weren't on us... yet. We were watching the area warily for more of the dead that walk. The three of us gasped when Jeff let out a yell. We all grabbed our weapons and were lurching in his direction when he came up from the car smiling from ear to ear. He was shaking a set of keys in his hand.

"Would you believe it? Under the visor. Just like in fuckin Terminator 2 man."

Darrel, Braddly, and I all let out a cheer and made for where Jeff was standing. We didnt even notice the police car pulling up nearby till it wailed at us.