First Time Dead 1
Page 18
I squared off with it. I could see bits of corn in the waste covering the approaching zombie. I simply swung my steel’s pointed jaw and buried it in an ear while avoiding the spatter of crap and blood. I took an extra moment freeing the steel without using my foot as a counterweight.
I ran six miles west to the fallback overpass. I quickly and mercilessly destroyed all zombies on the trail of the other survivors as I caught up with them. I stopped counting at seventeen.
The river crossed my path at a little more than the halfway point. I stopped to splash some water on my neck. I was still bleeding. I washed my steel and then traversed the damaged bridge with little issue.
There were only three other survivors at the other overpass: Tim, the little girl, and Frank—a larger, older man with whom I had ever only shared three words.
“Motherfucker, you made it!” Tim yelled when he saw me hiking up the embankment.
“Tim, come meet me over here,” I nearly whispered. He walked to my position. I handed him my steel. “I got bit.”
Tim’s face fell.
I got down on my knees facing east. The sun was about to break the horizon; the smoke from the overpass hung in the air and nearly glowed—I thought time stopped.
Tim’s feet crunched on some loose gravel as he positioned himself behind me. I shuddered uncontrol-lably. He was still for a moment, and then I heard his footing shift.
I braced for his swing.
I felt his breath on my neck. “Uh…new guy? These aren’t bite marks.” Tim touched the wound and I winced. “They’re scratches.”
“Scratches?”
“Yeah, they’re deep, but they’re scratches. You should clean this with some alcohol or…I’m gonna have to pee on you.”
I stood up. “No.”
“Pee’s sterile.”
“Yours isn’t.”
“Do you want the little girl to pee on you?” He clapped me on the shoulder and handed back my steel. “Come on. I’ll take the first watch. You get some rest.”
We walked toward the others. “Do you think she’d be into peeing on me?”
Tim giggled. “If you still feel okay by midday, I’ll feel good about proclaiming you uninfected.”
* * *
My sleep was uneasy. I dreamt.
I slung my pack over my shoulder as I prepared to leave Camp Perry.
“Deserter,” he called me. He hid his snake pendant inside his shirt. The others weren’t ready to see it, to understand it, he told me once.
“Don’t go. You’re safe with me. You will not be safe out there. They’re an army! They’re my army!”
Tim shook me awake. “How do you feel?”
“Okay.”
“Your watch.” Tim got on the ground and balled his rain gear under his head. “So far, so good. Just don’t fuckin’ eat me while I’m sleeping.”
I faced south. Fantasies of carrying the little girl off while she slept to live with me somewhere in the southwest desert—Mexico or Chile—ran through my head. We could find a little deserted tropical island, eat coconuts, and run around naked until one of us died of old age.
I looked to the north, checking for intruders. I looked down at her sleeping form, curled up in a fetal ball.
I grabbed my pack and walked south off the overpass. I stood still for a long time before turning right, compelled to go west.
Magician, blogger, mundane adventurer and twitter addict, Megan Tregler has been telling creative lies, er, stories since childhood. First Time Dead is her first publication. Tregler lives in Chicago with her husband.
After years of writing poetry and stories and then destroying them, Andrew Stockton finally accepted other people’s advice and began submitting them. Amazingly, I’ve received an excellent response —surely that can’t be right? Can it?
Influences: I’d like to cite people like Moorcock, Borges, Perec and William Trevor, but that makes me sound pretentious, so I won’t. I’ll just say I enjoy clever stories and love the twist in the tail.
Likes: writing (anything, but especially dark fiction), family life (lovely wife, two fabulous daughters and a fussy cat), soccer, listening to music.
Dislikes: prejudice, bigotry, parsnips … and lists!
Sam Christopher writes about all manner of things, from reviews of all things sf (comics, books, movies, a little television) on the Axiom’s Edge website to short stories about all kinds of strange and wonderfully horrible things to an embryonic novel he’s still putting together in his head. The one thing he has the most trouble writing about is himself. He just doesn’t think he’s all that interesting.
Between endless hours of playing guitar and tearing through the desert on a dirt bike, I always found time to write. My name is Dillon and I’m seventeen years old. I currently attend a military based high school in Hesperia , California . Writing has been a hobby since the seventh grade but my whole life flying has been my passion. I love the adrenaline rush of going fast, as a career choice I’d love to be a jet fighter pilot for the US Air Force.
Chantal Boudreau is an accountant by day and an author/illustrator on evenings and weekends who lives by the ocean in beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada with her husband and two children. In addition to being a CMA-MBA, she has a BA with a major in English from Dalhousie University. She writes and illustrates predominantly horror, dark fantasy and fantasy and has several short stories and multiple novels in the works
Martin Milhomme was born in 1974 and has been a fan of horror since he was scared senseless by Dracula in 1979 at the age of five. Martin has been a drummer in a horrorpunk band where he wrote some of the lyrics. He lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada with his wife, Jodi, and his two sons, Evan and Kyle.
Rebecca Snow has been writing for almost as long as she can remember. Her first stories involved a detective horse and trick-or-treating vegetables. Her next unpublished endeavor told the story of the luckiest groupie ever. In high school, she wrote a lot of poetry about the perils of band geeks. In college, she majored in English with a focus on creative writing. During that time, she wrote short fiction about sober barhopping and poems about a stagnant relationship. She has written a zombie novel but hasn’t had the guts to let anyone read it. This is her first published story.
Dave Minyard currently lives in Quail Valley, CA with his wife Cara, and their monster “Great Dane-brador” Moses. He is an avid collector of horror memorabilia and has one of the largest privately owned Friday the 13th collections in the world. Dave is also a movie reviewer and interviewer for Shockya.com, often attending Red Carpet premieres and covering events like Spike TV’s Scream Awards and the Chiller Eye-Gore Awards. “As I Watch Her Walk Away…” is Dave’s first published story and he is working on his next book entitled “Bitten”
Bryan’s fascination with the zombie genre began as a child after watching the movie Night of the Living Dead. Then, one night many years later, after wasting six hours watching awful zombie movies, Bryan found himself thinking, “I can write something better than this.” So, he decided to try his hand at writing. This is Bryan’s first zombie story. He is currently working on another. He lives near the Illinois-Wisconsin border with his lovely wife Elizabeth, who he begs to watch bad Horror movies with him, and his two cats
Lisa Smith has had a lifelong fascination with the undead. When she was younger it was vampires but has turned to zombies. It all started with 28 Days Later and was further cemented with Dawn of the Dead remake. This led her to read everything zombie watch everything zombie and day dream everything zombie. Lisa decided to write down her day dreams and those are her stories.
Michael J. Evans is proof that not all zombies are mindless mounds of decomposing flesh. A native New Yorker who recently relocated to the Boston area, he spent 13 years of his life in Medical Publishing, where he literally died from boredom. He is currently revising his first novel manuscript, tentatively titled Ursa Major, and writing his second as yet untitled novel. When he is not writing, he enjoys watching horror movies,
reading, and shambling around the neighborhood devouring the most annoying of his neighbors.
John Lemut (that’s me – no use in pretending I’m not sitting here crafting my own bio) lives in Wisconsin. He went to college for writing and he now works a job that does not require it. John writes in his free time, but he also watches TV, reads and drinks beer. He freely admits that he needs to write more. “The Overpass” is his first published piece. He hopes you to like it and, by extension, him.
The unthinkable has happened. The dead are walking!
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