The little boy, Melvin, ran under a table and hid. Dozens of zombies sprinted through the front entrance, with hungry mouths wide open for attack. The old man gritted his teeth and fired shots which echoed inside of McDonalds. I saw four or five zombies have their brains blown out, and fall to the floor instantly. One of them came for Melvin, but I took the knife that was in my hand and shoved into the back of it's skull. The next thing I knew, a zombie rapped his arms around my neck when I wasn't looking. I twisted around, trying to throw him off. The zombie tightened his grip around my neck and lunged in to bite my neck. I purposefully fell on my back to startle him. It worked. I got him off and stabbed him while he was still lying on the floor.
"You okay, son?" the old man yelled from two feet away.
"Yes, I'm all right."
A zombie woman flew in from behind the old man and made him fall. She had him pinned to the ground. The old man grunted trying to find his gone. It was spinning across the floor towards Melvin. The man held the zombie off with his forearm on her collarbone. She was so close, her saliva ran onto his face. Melvin picked up the gun.
I yelled to him, "Give me the gun."
He hesitated with the gun. Melvin was frozen in place under the table.
"Hurry, kid, throw the gun!" the old man yelled before the zombie bit his nose.
Melvin started to cry. I took the gun from him and shot the zombie woman in the head. She rolled off of him. The black man touched his nose to find that it was bleeding. All of the zombies were dead from what we could see. More zombies might come in at any time, I thought while I helped up the old man. He looked into my eyes, and we both knew that he was going to turn into a zombie eventually.
"Why didn't you through the gun when we told you to, kid! You know what's gonna happen to me because of you!" the old man growled.
I couldn't blame Melvin for thinking twice about the gun. In a life or death situation, it could be hard on a little kid. Melvin ran into a bathroom and cried. The old man sighed. He was muttering about how angry he was. It was a good thing that I was the one with the gun.
"You shouldn't be so hard on Melvin. He is just a boy." I told him.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to throw a gun. I am pretty much dead already…So shoot me."
I jumped back. "What?"
"You know what I said. I told you to shoot me. I pray that I will be forgiven of my sins."
"No, I can't do that."
I could feel the tension in the room. It was overwhelming. I would never shoot an old man (that was still living). I ignored the sinister glares that he was giving me. No matter how much he would ask, I would not shoot him.
I went to the bathroom to check on Melvin. He was feeling extreme guilt about the incident. His face was pale and his eyes were like glass, reflecting the water in his eyes. He was sitting on top of the counter with a tissue in his hand. I came over and sat next to him.
"It was my fault, wasn't it?", the boy asked.
"No. The only thing that you should blame are those zombies. Come on, let's get out of here."
"Okay."
With that, we walked out of the bathroom. The old man was nowhere to be found when we got out. Both me and the boy looked around for him. I was the one that saw his body in the kitchen. He was dead, with blood still coming out of his nose, and all over the floor. I kept the boy from seeing him.
"We have to leave. If we don't, bad things will happen." I told Melvin.
"But where will we go?"
"I'm not sure. We just have to run and never stop."
The boy agreed so he got some hamburger buns and patties for the long road ahead and put them in Melvin's book bag which was still in the yellow slide. I took a couple of bites myself. I gave Melvin the top layer of the old man's suit that he slept on because it was raining even harder and I was going to use that as an umbrella. I told him that we could travel when it is dark outside so that the zombies will not find easily. The boy looked at the freezer and must have thought about his mother and father that were zombiefied. The banging sound was drowned out by the rain, but we could tell the zombies were still walking around in there.
Right before Melvin and me left McDonalds, I heard the sound of groaning. Melvin screamed all of the sudden. I turned around to see the old man charging at us, with blood still coming out of his nose. He was a zombie! It would take too long to get out the gun I had in the book bag, so I took off the backpack, and used one of the straps to choke the old man. Suffocating a zombie in much harder than I thought it would. The old man struggled and used his fingernails to reach behind him and swipe at my face. I couldn't hold on any longer. The old man was stronger than I thought he would be. I used the last of my strength to hold on to the strap. The old man saw Melvin standing at the glass doors and tried to get to him. That enough was my motivation to end this fight quickly. I jerked him back towards me, and slammed him to the ground. I was on top of him while he was lying on his belly. He died shortly after I had him on the ground.
Melvin was scared out of his mind. I had already killed the man yet I felt as if I couldn't let go of the strap. After taking a deep breath, I got up off of the man, and put the backpack on my shoulders. It was time to leave. Melvin took a long look at the old man and walked out of the McDonalds, traumatized. I wasn't far off from having an emotional breakdown myself. I followed the boy.
I put the coat over Melvin's head as we walked into the parking lot. The streetlights were on. The rain helped me snap out of my somewhat dazed state of mind.
"Where do we go from here?" Melvin said quietly.
"North. To New York."
"Why there?"
"I got some family up there. It may be dangerous though."
"Will we see any other people like us? Living people?" Melvin asked curiously.
"I sure hope so, kid." I said softly.