Chapter 1

July 3rd 1946

"You got any more smokes Peter?" Mitch said to the skinny man sitting across from him in the dark room. He was wearing a SS uniform torn and tattered.

Peter looked at Mitch and reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled pack out of his pocket and tossed it to him. "It's the last pack" he said in a thick German accent.

Mitch looked in the pack and saw only three left. He withdrew one and tossed the pack back. He lite it and leaned back against the wall and thought. They had been in this broken down house for two months now. There were five of them. Mitch and Toby the kid from New York, Peter the German, Ivan the Russian, and Clyde the French guy they picked up three months ago.

They were a motley group of guys that last year would have been trying to kill each other. Now they found they were Allies against the dead. Trapped behind the wall as it was known. Peter was Ivan's prisoner when all hell broke loose. When the dead rose they where cut off from the Russian lines and made for the American lines. What they found was Mitch and his platoon trying to get away from the dead themselves. That was a year ago.

They spent the next year going from one farm house to another. Avoiding the city's and trying to survive. For the first few months they tried to find a way over the wall, but every time they came up to it they would be shot at. They weren't letting any one over it. They were to afraid of the virus spreading. They were on there own. Toby and him were the last of the 4th Battalion of the 17th airborne division.

The little farm house they were in now was a couple miles south of Reims. It was the most stocked house they had found yet. But after two months they were running out of food again and would have to move again. Hiding in a house wasn't to bad. As long as they were quiet the dead usually didn't show up. The biggest problem was everyone getting along. There was at least one fight a week. The real danger was when they had to move out and find food or a new place that they seemed to run into more dead. They didn't have a lot of ammo left and if they ran into a large group of dead they were dead. Mitch chuckled to himself. Dead took on a whole new meaning now a days.

Ivan poked his head down from the attic access hatch and whispered something in Russian to peter and then vanished back into the attic. Mitch didn't understand Russian but peter did. Peter got up and grabbed his rifle.

"There's some coming by the road outside." Peter said.

Mitch got up and grabbed his rifle as well "How many?"

Peter whispered something to the attic a waited. Ivan's hand came out of the hatch showing four fingers.

Mitch crushed the cigarette out on the ground and went to the window and peeked out the front. He couldn't see anything yet. Just what looked like a hedged walkway out front leading to the road. He knew Ivan had a better view then him being in the attic. There was a little bump and Mitch looked back to see Ivan's hands poking out holding out nine fingers.

"Shit!" Mitch whispered. "wake up frenchy!" he said to peter.

Peter went to the back of the cottage and kicked a pile of what looked like rags in the corner not to gently. The pile of cloths moved and Clyde poked his head out of the pile. He was dirtier then everyone else and was probably the laziest person Mitch had ever seen. No one in the group liked him. Mitch always heard that the French were lazy cowards. He never believed it since he fought along side a lot of them and thought they were some of the most tenacious fighters he had ever seen. He figured the people that said they were lazy and cowards were talking about Clyde.

Peter put his finger to his lips and handed Clyde a rifle and directed him to one of the window. And then took a spot by Mitch. They sat there quiet as they could be. They could hear Toby moving up in the attic to get in position. He was watching out the back while Ivan was watching out front. If they stayed quiet the dead would probably move on past them. It was a tried and true method of not getting caught by them.

They didn't have enough ammo to get in a fight with a lot of dead and so relied on stealth. The first one came into view just then. Mitch and Peter ducked lower in the window and watched as it walked by without a glance their way. Then the next three went by the same way.

Mitch was feeling good about them all walking by when he looked over at Clyde. He was standing on a wobbly box to get a better view of what was going on. Mitch waved his hands in an effort to get him to stop, but it was to late. The box slipped out from under him and as he came down he grabbed a bored on the window and ripped it from the window. He came down with a crash.

Mitch looked out the window only to see two dead look his way and then start to run at them. "Shit!" Mitch yelped and brought his rifle up and started to fire. Pete followed suit and they could hear the two upstairs doing the same thing.

The dead in the lead fell to the ground with several shots to the body. The other jumped over it but was taken out with a shot to the head and flipped over in mid air landing face first on the ground. The other one started to get up. Several others came into site running at the door. They took several of them out but one came crashing into the door breaking it down with the force of its hit.

Pete turned his rifle toward it and shot it in the head as it started to get up of the ground but two more came running in.

"Shit! Theres a lot more coming up the road!" we heard Toby yell from up stairs.

Mitch turned his rifle toward one of the dead but was tackled by it. Peter was to close to fire and was forced to fight hand to hand.

Mitch on the ground started to struggle with the dead. It was a lot stronger then one would give credit to it. He had one hand on its chin holding back its head and was punching as hard as he could on the side of its face trying to knock it off him. The dead's head was slowly descending to Mitch's face. It's jaws chomping in anticipation of the meal.

"Frenchy!" Mitch called but all he could see was out of the corner of his eye's was Clyde running out the back door.

Mitch grabbed with his free hand at his knife at his belt. He pulled it out and raised to stab into its head. The dead's flaying hands knocked out of his hand and it went flying across the room.

"Shit!" Mitch knew he was in trouble.