Klein had tried to get some backup, but the other teams were busy with zombies of their own. Klein and Brown had faced packs of zombies before, but never anywhere close to this size. They loaded their guns, both their primary MP5 submachine gun and M1911 pistol sidearm.

“Ready?”, Klein asked looking towards his partner.

“Yeah.” Klein heard a bit of hesitancy in Brown’s voice.

They turned the flashlights on the end of their guns on and opened fire. Almost immediately the bullets ripped through the zombies rotting flesh. Six zombies fell limp to the ground. The zombies who weren’t taken down started making their way towards the source of the gunfire, tripping over their fallen comrades in the process.

They were moving faster than Klein had anticipated, giving him no time to reload. He drew his pistol and took aim at the closest zombies’ head, and pulled the trigger.

“SHIT!”

Klein looked to his right, only to see Brown laying on his back, struggling with his bulletproof vest. It had gotten caught on a shard of the metal dumpster and he couldn’t get it free. Four zombies were making their way towards him, and quick.

“Bogie down,” Captain Ethan Klein announced through the headset to his partner, Sergeant Kenny Brown. Klein sent out a broadcast to the other teams, “ Report.”

Klein got the all clear from the three other two-man SWAT teams.

They were just one of 6 patrols that the police department sent out to help clear the streets of the zombie masses. The government had tired to keep the outbreak under control, but the numbers were just too massive.

Now it was an uphill battle.

“I got a visual,” Klein whispered over his mic, “definitely two maybe more.”

With a few quick hand gestures they took up positions on opposite sides of the alley. Brown moved in first, making his way to a spot behind a dumpster. Klein moved up to an alcove where a side entrance to the building was.

“Turning on light,” Brown said

“No, not yet. I want to know what we’re dealing with first. No need for unwanted attention,” Klein said while staring down the alley, trying to count the number of zombies.

“More than I thought. Looks like there’s about a dozen or so.”

Klein heard Brown make a noise that sounded like gulp and then sigh, through his headset. Nerves don’t help, Klein thought.

“Talk about a feeding frenzy,” Klein joked, trying to lighten the mood and, hopefully, calm his partner.

Me and Brett worked on the hacking away the stairs while Mom checked the windows in the house to make sure that they were shut and locked. The work went fast. We alternated shifts swinging the axe. We only had to take out an eight foot section. The only problem was the axe began to get dull about halfway through. In total it only took about an hour to complete.

We could hear the zombies outside, scratching at the doors, all night. From the sound of it the numbers seemed were growing quickly. We heard police sirens a couple times throughout the night, always driving by, never stopping.

Never stopping.

We were going to be stuck inside for a while. I hoped eventually the zombies would become bored or distracted and leave. The next morning I went downstairs to check on the situation. I set up the ladder and scurried down. The street was filled with the undead. Most were just stumbling around, some just standing. The driveway and front lawn had a few stragglers. One was eating something, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

The backyard was no better. In fact it was worse. The zombies had managed to find their way in but became trapped, unable to find the exit. As it turns out the wood fence, which was quite old, was broken down by the driveway side. I was able to get a chuckle as I noticed a zombie caught in the hammock, struggling to get out.

I went back upstairs, removing the ladder from over the gap in the stairs. It looked like we were going to have to wait out the zombies. I didn’t know how long it was going to last, but even a life stuck in a master suite was better than being a zombie.

“We’ll make a run for it on three,” I said turning towards Brett, “You grab the ladder, I’ll get the axe. I’ll head out first and watch your back on the way back in. Let’s do this as quick as possible.”

“What exactly is the ladder for?”

“We’re going to destroy the stairs, the ladder is to get back down.”

“Gotcha.”

“Ready?” He gave a quick nod, “ 1…2…3!”

I threw the door open and sprinted to the shed. There was no door on the shed so I did a quick scan of the inside with the flashlight to make sure there were no zombies hiding inside. Brett grabbed the ladder and I found the axe hanging on the wall. By the time I got it Brett was already headed for the house.

“Kyle!”

I came out of the shed and looked towards the house. A zombie was standing on the porch, attempting to claw his way through the door. I don’t know how it got in the backyard but I couldn’t worry about it now.

I looked down at the axe in my hand. One blow to the head with it and our problems would be solved, at least for now.

I ran towards the porch, axe at the ready. When I got near the zombie I swung. Direct hit. Brain, blood, skull and who knows what else splattered all over the door and my face. The body slid down the door, leaving a bloody streak.

“Come on!,” I yelled, “Who knows how many more could be coming.”

Brett hustled inside, jumping over the body on the porch. I followed him in and shut and locked the door behind me.

I knew the bathroom was a perfect spot to hide. We would have water, a sink, toilet and plenty of room. On top of that my brothers room, which was supposed to be the master bedroom, was connected to the bathroom. My mom moved downstairs to a smaller rooom once  she and my dad got a divorce. Brett got to move into the master bedroom, while I was stuck in the smaller room we had shared for the past 17 years.

“Mom, grab as much food, batteries, flashlights as possible. Anything we might need to live, take it and put it in Brett’s room.” We had gone camping quite often when I was younger so I had no doubt that Mom knew what we needed. “Brett you’re coming with me to the shed. We need a ladder and an axe.” I grabed a flashlight and we headed for the backdoor.

“Mom, go wake up Brett.”

Brett was my older brother. He was a heavy sleeper and his room was in the back of the house, he wouldn’t be up yet. “Take the dog with you and lock her in the bathroom.” It seems strange to ask that, but I loved my dog and there was no way she was going to get hurt. Mom hurried up the stairs, with dog in tow.

Moments later Mom and Brett were downstairs. Brett was oddly tall for the family, my mom was short, and my dad was 6 foot, but he was 6’4”. I know it sounds cliché, but he was a big teddy bear. Mom had already explained what was going on to Brett when she woke him up. As soon as he came down he went over to the door to see the undead knocking on the door.

“Freaks,” he mumbled as he looked through the glass. Mom and Brett both focused their gazes on me. They looked at me with an expression on their faces that said, “What now?”

They just elected me leader.

I continued to lay in bed listening to the occasional bang. I knew my mom, whose bedroom was on the first floor of the house and was a light sleeper, would answer the door eventually. A few moments later I heard her scream. It wasn’t a scared, I’m being attacked scream, more of a surprised one. I put my glasses on and hurried downstairs.

“What’s going on?”

“There are people at the door trying to get in!”

My mom was one of the sweetest people you could ever meet. Despite being 5’4”, she could be quite tough when need be. She was standing a few feet from the door with her hand over her mouth, her hair somewhat frizzy.

I slowly approached the door, not knowing what to expect. I pulled back the curtain on the window to see through.

Zombies.

Life was about to get real shitty.

Everyone took the basic survival classes, along with basic shooting and first aid. The guys took classes on how to find food and lead a squad. The girls got to take cooking and a more advanced first aid class. A couple feminist mothers were upset about the differences, but the school district held firm on their stance. The truth was, that especially in a time of struggle, people looked towards men for leadership.

The gym became a hand to hand combat training area. The football field a firing range. I was finally starting to like school. We usually got out early so that we could go home and get all the supplies we could. Fortify the house and all that jazz.

All the survival training in the world couldn’t have readied us for what was to come.

He found Joan right when he thought he would. She was in an old steel mill. He was hesitant to go inside. He had no idea if there were other undead in there with her, plus he didn’t know how she’d react. He entered on the opposite side of the building, giving him as much room between them as possible in case she became hostile.

There were no other zombies there with her, but she was eating something. It looked like it might have been a  bird. He grabbed a piece of pipe and hit it against a railing. Her gaze soon fell on him. Even dead she looked beautiful. He approached her slowly, and she began to limp towards him.

Once they were 15 feet apart he stopped. He decided that morning that some matches could come in handy and took some with him when he left. He struck one and lit a stick on fire he picked up that morning. He waved it about in front of him. Thinking, and hoping, it would keep her from moving any closer, and it worked like planned.

They stared into each others eyes. Her typically green eyes had faded, becoming more of a faded silver white color. He noticed that she had a concerned look on her face, or maybe he was just seeing things.

“I love you, Joan. Always have, always will.”

She only managed to make some gargling noises as a reply.

He took a few more steps towards her and took out his gun. He had four of six bullets left. He raised the gun and uttered a quick prayer. He had never been religious, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to ask for forgiveness for what he was about to do.

A bang echoed throughout the desolate building.

His body hit the floor with a thud. Joan stood there for a moment motionless. She was standing over his body in seconds. There was nothing better to a zombie then a fresh corpse. She started with the abdomen. She always nagged John about eating too much. His gut had grown over the years, and now it made a perfect meal.

Within a few hours he had reanimated. Upon “awaking” he found Joan still moseying around the mill.

He let out a loud guttural moan. She reciprocated with a call of her own.

They were finally together again.

He had thought about her almost non-stop since she died. 23 years of marriage, all for naught. He started thinking about his life too. Was it really worth it to be alive, if that’s what you would call his current lifestyle of roaming across the country looking for supplies and a safe place to sleep. Was life really worth living if it consisted of dealing with the endless zombie hordes day after day? With Joan gone he had nothing left to live for.

He and Joan never had kids, not because they couldn’t have them, they didn’t want them. They were perfectly contempt living alone in their cabin, sipping wine on the back deck and reading Proust in front of the fire. Now he was lucky if he could find a can of beans to eat for dinner.

His current group was larger than it had been when they started out. He cared very little about them. He had nothing in common with them. They were all much younger; mostly arrogant, ignorant kids. There was a single mom in her late 30’s and her teenage son, a married couple in their early 30’s with an infant daughter, four preteens, who the group had found a few months ago in an abandoned apartment building, three hipster yuppie Mac users in their twenties. They were all good for nothing as far as he was concerned.

He wasn’t always this cynical, but losing the only person he cared about in a zombie apocalypse tends to turn a man bitter.

He was tired and had slowed down for the past few months. Two years of roving the country does not sit well on the joints of a 63-year-old. Luckily the school they were  held up in had some more comfortable accommodations then some of the other residents they stayed in the past.

The school was a perfect place to ride out the end of the world. From what he could tell it was a new school and with the recent scares of bombings, terrorists and the like, the school was built solid. Concrete floors, cinder block walls, metal exterior doors and solid wood interior doors. It could withhold a small army. The building had a full kitchen too, along with plenty of food. There was also electricity, something he hadn’t gotten to enjoy in a long time.

The power grid had only lasted a few weeks into the outbreak. Rarely did they stumble upon a generator, let alone any gas to make it run. Luckily they had made it to California, the Sunshine State. Since Cali was filled with liberal loonies, all public buildings had begun to be fitted with solar panels. The school building, as the group found out, was completely off the grid. They had all the power they could use.

That was all well and good, if he was going stay with the group. He had finally decided his future. He was going to leave the safety of the school, venture out into the unknown and look for his wife.

Finding his wife would be easy. John had planted a “tracking device” on her when she turned. He had experience with electronics and had jerry-rigged a device out of cell phones and computers. Last he checked she was 2 miles away to the south. That was two days ago, but she couldn’t have gone far; zombies were slow movers. She had actually been following the group, or that’s what John liked to think. It was most likely a mere coincidence.

The plan was simple: he would leave early the next morning. This ensured he would have plenty of time to find Joan. He also didn’t want to deal with the rest of the group. They would be sleeping still when he left. He knew they wouldn’t understand.

He would take no supplies. He would leave with nothing more than the clothes on his back and a gun with only enough bullets to fend off any zombies he ran across, plus one.