In the beginning, there was Man and he stood great and tall. The land bowed down at his step and the animals surrendered to his will...Then God looked upon the Man and was not pleased.
He had seen the heavens turn sour and the oceans decay...Watched the animals look out from cages filled with the filth of humanity, disease took the good and corruption the bad... God cried and said unto himself, I shall end this suffering, and inflict a wound upon the already infected earth.
God Watched as Men died and did not rise in spirit, but roll hungry out of the beds from which they lay in the soft earth. The infected shall infect and thus in turn spread the disease of humanity, for who better to carry the virus of mankind than man itself? In their blood, in their mouths, able to rip the life from infants and carry them into a new hell.
Man bow down to the greatest evil, sink to your knees and know its name, for it is Man that shall destroy Man. Teeth upon teeth, flesh upon flesh.
(Spraypainted over a mobile phone billboard, Nevada, city limits, three months after the rise.)
Gunner had seen alot in the past months, a hell of a lot more than one person should in a lifetime. Hell, he had even put down his own family...his son, Johnny...
All his brain would allow him to remember now without the pain was the little towhead running across a blacktop after a red ball. He remembered the sky, blue and bright, the no worries type that hung over feel good movies and sesame street intros. Johnny was such a giver, always giving more than he wanted to take. Gunner thought about the red ball, how it bounced way up into the sky, a red drop on blue...landing safely in his sons pudgy arms...
And then the fast forward...
The screaming, the yelling, the old man with the farmers apron staggering into the park full of kids, eyes slack...hungry eyes...
"look daddy! Its mister Albach!"
Then the blood...the small hands grasping the old mans shirt sleeve, grabbing on for dear life as the old man lifted the boy by the hair with strenght Gunner never thought the old man could posess... "Johnny!" He had screamed as he watched his fathers friday night poker buddy sink his fake chompers into his sons neck, the pearls of teeth breaking upon impact, falling with a chink onto the blacktop, but not before they had severed his sons tiny neck arteries, spilling warm blood on the white apron...
Butcher, butcher...whats there to eat? Gimme a slab of that sunday meat...
He had knocked the old man down, grabbed his son and made for the car...then...the dying, the screaming, the panic...and the little red ball rolling under an empty pram...
Gunner bit his tongue hard, erasing all thought from his mind. His eyes focused once again on the waife like girl in front of him, huddled amongst the shelves. He felt the cooling wet of rain and wind on his back, and he felt no tingle, he knew all was well...for now. He stepped over the body of the zombie that had lunged for this kid earlier and held out his hand in a friendly gesture. She stared at it, not knowing what to do. He let his rejected hand fall akwardly and rubbed the palm on his jeans.
"You alright?" He asked. She raise her eyes to him and he saw that they were watery, filled up with shimmering tears. Her hair hung dirty and limp, framing a pale face with cracked lips. He saw that she had once been beautiful, before the loneliness, the harshness and before reality took away everything pretty, in place for a feral wild that had a better chance of surviving.
"You been using rifles?" He asked pointing to her bandaged hand, raising his again, showing her his own battle scars. Not as bad as yours, but thats coz you probably had soft hands."
"I got nothing..." She whispered softly, he had to bow his head to hear.
"What?" he asked, blowing out a wisp of smoke into the air.
"I said i got nothing." She said louder, her tired shoulders sagging in defeat. "I dont have guns, or shelter or food. Nothing you could want. Seriously."
Gunner grinned in amusement.
"I aint here to rob ya sweets." He teased, reacing into his vest and handing her a cigarette. "Im here same as you are, looking for ammo. I just happened to see this thing and denied it an early supper."
Gunner kicked the spread-eagled corpse playfully.
"Here." He said handing her a ciggarette, "You look like you could use one."
Hesitantly Ally reached for the stick and waited for him to light it for her. As the smoke filled her lungs she let her eyes close, she felt the man ruffle her hair like her father had once done, and she let him. Almost gratefully, appreciating the kindness that flickered in the mans sad eyes.
Ally woke in the dark, a hazy dream fading from her mind, she blinked once and stared out the window of an old car, the rain had continued the whole night it seemed and they were parked beside an open field. Rain poured silver and fast down the window panes, carrying the dust and grime of the past months with it. Gunner was asleep in the front, his mouth slightly open. Ally remembered the picture he had on his dashboard of a blonde boy in a white karate uniform.
He had told her bits about him, trying to comfort her.
"I lost some of mine, like you did."
Ally was assaulted by the way he looked at the picture, she did not want to see his eyes grow cold the way it did when they roved over the boys face.
She didnt want to think of why the kid was not with his father.
Somewhere in the dark and the rain, thunder rolled, low and steady. Ally played with her new bandages and licked the nicotine taste from her lips, wishing badly for a toothbrush. She laid her cheek back down on the dusty seat and raised the flannel blanket up to her chin. It smelled like gasoline and Arizona dry roads...
She thought about hills and valleys, pools of water and the indian reservation her parents had taken her to long ago...The way the torquiose jewelry felt cool over sunburnt skin...
"Im going to Arizona." She told the sleeping Gunner. "Its safer there. Or Nevada perhaps."
She thought about the lonely safety of the rolling hills of desert and cactus sihouettes. Hundreds of miles away from any major city.
She watched him stir and mumble something about the hills having eyes...
Ally smirked and pressed her cheek tighter into the itchy seat. Dust drifted to the floor from where the rain pounded at the ceiling. She closed her eyes warily, letting the sound lull her to sleep.
The drought was over, the parched earth had its fill, then drowned slowly. Much of the water pooled and created streams that carried much of the sad litter downtown. Those that survived looked to the skies as a new hope, some came to see it as a sign of life being swept away...and trouble only beginning.
Ally took her time as she crouched shivering on the cold earth below the house's window. A black plastic bag covering her head. The mud swirled at her thighs and sucked at her fingers. But she wanted this more than anything.
She had watched the man raid through her food stash she had kept in the cupboards, noticed that he had long ago discarded her backpack and watched the rain break its soft fibers down into the earth.
The feel of the heaviness of the pistol in her hands comforted her, she knew what she had to do.
Gunner sat watching in the old corvette, his hands shaking as he looked up at the sky. Ally looked small and about ten years old huddled there in the muck like that. So close to a gazebo full of those things, clawing at each other hungrily...unable to get anything but a mouthful of dead flesh. They had rounded them up from the mall, and propped them up next to a house...
The poor man, he thought. He wont know half of whats about to come.
The dead creeps, as if sensing something big about to happen, gnashed their somewhat unhinged jaws in anticipation, their eyes filled with the clearing static of rain.