The corpse stopped and lifted her head to the sky. Her grisly looking mouth was open, her teeth partially missing, and this dark ooze was coming out of every orifice. The hair on her head was straggly and missing in chunks, and a piece of her skull looked to be absent, too. She cried out into the night, a spine chilling sound that had goosebumps covering Rebecca’s arms. A few more corpses walked by, their slow, shuffling gaits showing that they were weak and starving. In the last year and a half since Rebecca had been on her own in this fucked up world, she had noticed a few things in regard to these creatures that were now focused solely on feeding. Since they were already dead they wouldn’t starve to death. They became slow, immobile in some cases, and in some kind of hibernating state until fresh meat was near. And then it was like they had some kind of renewed energy, able to track and hunt in packs.

  She turned away from the window and stared at her small hovel of a home now. A pallet of holey, dirty blankets and a sleeping bag were in one corner. She had made a makeshift propane stove that was on the other side, a bucket and a roll of toilet paper for her daily business, and overall the sight was pathetic and depressing. Her propane had run out yesterday. The small bags of jerky she had and the few cans of baked beans were nearing their end, and if she stayed here any longer without stocking up on her supplies it would only get worse. Although sleep wouldn’t come to her tonight, she would start supply searching in the morning. It was safer that way since she only had a few flashlights with working batteries.

  Moving over to her pallet, she covered herself with the blankets, closed her eyes, and pictured her life before all of this. It was a memory she went back to over and over and over again. But it soothed her, and those memories were all she had anymore. The world was an evil, hate-filled place now, dangerous and not friendly, and although a year and a half was a long time, being alone was what suited her now. She knew the horrors that waited for her out there, had experienced a few of them firsthand, too. Rebecca was more content in this life, by herself, than surrounded by the ugliness human existence had succumbed to.

  She covered her face with the blanket, feeling the chill of the winter air coming in through the debilitated warehouse. It was November. Winter had already settled in, and she was surviving anymore just by the skin of her teeth. Life was even now more bleak and hopeless, and she didn’t know how much longer she could last. She didn’t know how much longer she wanted to last.

  ****

  Collin scooped out a peach from the rusted as fuck can and stared at the fire in front of him. He was alone, but he welcomed the solitude … to a point. It had been a long time since he had actually interacted with another human being. Oh, there had been a few altercations in the last six months or so since he had left the group of men he had been traveling with. And those altercations had ended up in a few dead bodies, some maimed assholes, and a whole lot of violence. Collin knew that life well, had known it before all hell broke loose and civilization ended. But this life now meant everyone was out for themselves, took care of no one but their own skins, and that was how it should be.

  But even though Collin liked his solitary life now, that didn’t mean he wasn’t looking for a female. He wanted one, needed a woman like he needed to breathe, and he wouldn’t stop until he found one. He had thought he’d found one a few months ago. But it turned out the woman that had been taken by the group of men he had been with, wasn’t what or whom he needed. He hadn’t backed off because Sparrow had two men with her, watching over her, claiming her as their own. It was because when he had actually had her in his grasp, taken her away from the people she had been with, that Collin realized this wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a woman to come to him, to want him because she was desperate for human contact that wasn’t tainted by this life.

  But although he had been searching for a woman since letting Sparrow leave, that didn’t mean he’d actually find one. The ones he had come across had been with groups, loyal to those members, and so rundown in appearance and spirit that they hadn’t been what he wanted, either. Collin was specific in the taste he had, the darker aspects of pleasure he wanted, and although he wasn’t hopeful of finding a female for his own, he was also not a man that gave up. But the desires he had once harbored in his former life didn’t much matter in this world. Just finding a woman to be only his, to protect and give hope and meaning to this hell, would make him keep going.

  He thought back to the night he had let Sparrow leave. He had given her his gun, told her to run, and prayed that she would survive. Then he had taken his knife, and killed every one of those flesh-eating motherfuckers when they had come after him. The night had been bloody, grisly, and then it was like an animal had broken loose inside of him. He had searched for Sparrow after that, obsessed with the need to make sure she had survived. And then three months ago he had found her, still with those two men she had traveled with, as they had scavenged through an abandoned gas station. He hadn’t approached them, but knowing she was safe had been enough to ease his obsessive need to make sure she had found her peace. He had walked away and never looked back.

  The sound of a twig snapping in the background had him slowly rising, unsheathing his hunting knife, and trying to see through the darkness. But he didn’t have to wait long, because the moaning and groaning came right before he saw the corpse of a man stumble out of the forest. He was still in Colorado, made camps nightly in the Rocky Mountains, and was content that way. He was out in the middle of nowhere, and although there were times one of the dead found him, it was easy to take them out. The zombie—and he felt strange calling them that since this was reality and not some book or movie—came closer. The fire didn’t bother it, and it didn’t seem to be affected by the light or heat. It came forward further, tripped over a small log, and fell right into the flames. It started thrashing back and forth, trying to right itself, but when Collin moved closer to it the corpse seemed to forget about the fire as it tried to reach for Collin.

  The sounds coming from it were earsplitting, and the smell of its rotting flesh being burned away from its bones was nauseating. It finally managed to move out of the fire and crawled toward Collin. Cooked and burned rotting flesh hanging from its face, arms and legs, his face was half gone from the decay, and his mouth gaped open as its jaw was partially torn off. He moved a step back, kept his knife held tightly in his hand, and wondered who this man had been before he was contaminated. He could be an original, one that had gotten the vaccine and changed into what Collin was looking at right now. Had he been a doctor, lawyer, or some other honorable profession that helped others? Or had he been a bad man like Collin, killing people when they crossed him, doing and selling drugs, and fucking any and all women that were willing? Or maybe he had been bitten, turned into a walking corpse?

  It didn’t matter now. As he stared at the grisly looking being in front of him, with his skin burned and charred, blackened in areas from the fire and necrosis, all he saw was the dead. The zombie lifted a thin arm toward Collin, its fingers having flesh and muscle hanging from the bones, and opened its mouth to let out a low, hungry howl. Collin plunged the blade in its skull, the sound of the knife sinking into its decrepit body slightly sickening. It dropped full to the ground, truly dead now since its brain, the control center for it all, was destroyed.

  Collin cleaned his blade off on the tattered clothing of the corpse, and pulled the body from the fire. There wasn’t any snowfall yet, but it was cold enough that the body should be frozen within a few days, as long as the frigid temperatures dropped. Once he had the body a good distance away, he took a step back and looked at the corpse. The night and the heavy trees around him made it impossible for him to really see the once living man.

  He turned without giving it another thought, knowing that he’d pack up in the morning and find another place to set up camp. He stayed in the mountains, but didn’t camp out in one place for any given amount of time. That was too dangerous, and he wasn’t going to test his luck that way. Besides, his supplies were low, and he needed to gather more. He knew there was a town close by, and a hike down the mountain could bring him right in the heart of it.

  Collin sat back down, grabbed the small bottle of water he had, and cleaned his hands. He picked up the can of peaches he had set on the ground, and started eating them again as he watched the fire still burning brightly. He had always lived his life any way he saw fit, but anymore he was living just to survive, because there were no back alley deals, no pleasures handed to him on demand. It was eat or be eaten, and Collin was going to be the biggest fucking dog in the fight.

  Chapter Three

  The warehouse Rebecca stayed in was about ten miles from the nearest town. She had gone through another city before stopping and making her home in the loft, but she had scouted out the surrounding area so she knew the lay of the land. She certainly wasn’t one of those survival men she had seen on TV … well, back when there had been TV, but she had learned a few things in the last seventeen months. Fires were a necessity now, and so she had learned quickly how to make one with only things she could find in the wilderness. It had been a lot of trial and error, but she hadn’t given up, despite the fact she had wanted to.

  She stayed in the tree line and stared at the small town. The sign right before entering the limits of the city said it had once been called Havens Peak. The little calligraphy beneath it said it was the most beautiful place in Colorado. Now it just looked like a sad and depressing visual of what life had once looked like.

  Rebecca might have stayed there, hidden amongst the thick foliage of the Rocky Mountains, waiting to make sure everything was as safe as it could be in this situation, but her stomach cramped, her head ached, and she felt as though she was coming down with something. It was the most inopportune time for her to catch a cold or get the flu, but she did hope she could find some over the counter medicine to stem off the symptoms.

  If she closed her eyes and imagined this town, she could visualize it as a quaint little place a couple might go to retire. It had sidewalks that were intimate and small, and the shops that lined the tiny street looked like something she might have seen in Pleasantville. But now it was just deserted, with trash blowing along the ground, windows broken out of the little shops, and the vehicles parked on the curb having their doors hanging open. Grass and weeds grew through the cracks in the sidewalks and streets, and the stench of desolation filled the air.

  She moved away from the woods and into the street. The knife she held was more of a shiv she had created herself after nearly being raped by a group of men. The only thing that had saved her that day was the horde of walking corpses that had come out of nowhere. The men had diverted their attention from her to the infected, and she had made herself scarce. Rebecca had run so hard and fast that when she had reached the warehouse and climbed her loft she hadn’t come down for days. Not even the sound of zombies outside the warehouse had taken her mind off the fact she had nearly been the disgusting plaything for a group of vile fucking men.

  But then she had gotten out of her blankets she barricaded herself in, and found a long piece of metal on the warehouse floor. In fact she had gotten several pieces of metal, and shaped them into long, nasty looking shanks. The smallest of the four she kept tucked in her sock by her ankle, the second she kept in her bag, the third at the small of her back, and the fourth she held at all times. She was ready to slice an asshole up if they looked at her the wrong way. Rebecca wasn’t going to be a victim anymore, or at least she wasn’t about to lie down and let this world swallow her up. She’d fight back until there was nothing left of her.

  Rebecca stayed close to the buildings as she moved silently and slowly. She kept her focus on anything and everything, and when she stopped by a truck that was half on the curb, she stared inside. There was a horribly decomposed body sitting in the driver’s seat. He, or she, because she couldn’t tell what gender the corpse was, was not one of the living dead. The clothing was just a t-shirt and pair of jeans, and the shoes a pair of sneakers. This person had been someone ordinary, who did average things, and was just now a rotting pile of bones and flesh. It had its arm on the steering wheel, and its forehead resting back against the seat. Its mouth was opened, its tongue hanging out, and there was a bullet hole in the side of its head. She had long since gotten rid of her need to gag at the vile aromas and sights that now covered the earth.

  Moving forward, she focused on the street, on the buildings on either side of her, and felt her pulse beat wildly in her ears. She moved her gaze back and forth along the deserted, eerily silent town. The wind picked up and had a few shutters on the mom-and-pop stores banging against the cement walls. She stopped, focused on each noise, and then moved forward when no corpses made themselves knows because of the noise. She moved past a hardware store, a creamery, and even a small clinic. Even though the town was now dead, it wasn’t that hard to see how it might have been before the contamination hit the world.

  A small pharmacy was on the corner of the street, and she crossed the cobblestone road, and pressed her back to the wall as soon as she made it across. Keeping the knife held to eyelevel, she tapped it on the glass of the building, and waited to see if anything came shuffling out. She repeated the action after a few moments of silence. She waited again, and then slipped inside. The pharmacy was small on the inside, with a few rows of shelving in front of her, the actual pharmacy counter in the rear of the store, and a cashier’s counter beside her. The large sign hanging in the center of the store had a mortar and pestle with a recipere in bright red coloring. The text beneath it read: “A community helping each other become one”.

  Rebecca focused on the trashed shelving, boxes scattered along the ground, and even money lying on the counter with an inch of dust on it. The interior was dark where the light didn’t penetrate it through the windows, and the stillness was so damn spooky that she felt a chill race up her spine. Her shoes crunched over broken glass as she moved through the shop, collecting what she could find that was usable. Most of the items were destroyed, expired and unsafe to take with her, or had been totally cleaned out by scavengers.

  There was a small room off to the side, and she could see a sink and toilet from where she stood. Moving toward it, she grabbed her flashlight from her backpack, turned it on, and shone it in the room. The bathroom was small enough to hold one person, so when she realized it was empty she stepped inside. Shining the light along the wall, she spotted what she had been hoping was in here. A condom and pain reliever wall dispenser hung behind the door, and although both were beat to shit and cracked wide open, she was able to get some of the packages off the floor. A few single serve packets of ibuprofen and Tylenol, and even some condoms were by her feet. Although sex wasn’t a part of her life anymore for obvious reasons, she did take the condoms. They were useful in other ways, such as containers for water, which sounded nasty, but worked when she was desperate. She shoved the medicine and rubbers in the backpack and stepped back out into the store.

  Rebecca moved behind the pharmacy counter, and although she had been hoping she could find antibiotics, even if they were probably expired and wouldn’t help if she had a cold or flu, she saw everything was pretty much cleared out. There was hardly any light in this part of the store, so she swept her flashlight back and forth until she spotted some first aid supplies. Crouching on her haunches and balancing the flashlight between her neck and chin, she shoved the gauze, alcohol swabs, A&D ointment, and other small supplies that had been kicked under a shelf, into her bag. She took the flashlight again, shone the light over the ground, and spotted a few small bottles of saline in the corner under a box. They were filthy, and a few were already busted open, but the sterile ones she picked up and kept. She stood and glanced around the room once more. This place was picked clean already, and she wouldn’t be able to get anything else of use from it.

  Stepping out of the pharmacy she immediately saw a clothing store a few shops down, and made her way over to it. Repeating the same procedure she did for all buildings before she entered, she waited for a few minutes to see if anything partially dead came out. Inside the clothing store proved a little more positive as she saw several racks of overturned clothing and even some vending machines in the corner. The backpack she had only carried so much, but she was able to find a tote bag, and started filling it with some undergarments, socks, even a couple of pants and shirts that were a little too big for her, but were better than nothing. A winter coat was pushed underneath a shelf, and although there was a tear in the arm, and the coat itself was filthy from the dust and grime on the ground, she took it and slipped it on. The clothing she wore was on its last leg anyway, and anything other than what she had on was like gold.

  The vending machines proved pretty much useless as the glass was busted out and everything taken from the inside of it. But she moved toward the back, saw that a few bags of chips and even one chocolate bar were behind it, and sent a silent thanks to whoever was helping her right now find this stuff.

  After she got what she needed she headed out of the clothing store and went into a few other ones, collecting what she could carry, and finally stopping at the lone grocery store in this town. It was much bigger than the other buildings she had gone into, and compared to the chain businesses in Denver it looked more like a convenience store at a gas station. Grass and weeds were starting to make their way through the numerous cracks in the pavement right in front of the doors. There were a few busted and partially dismembered cars in the distance, but she didn’t see any movement. The sun was especially bright today, but it was still cold as hell. She lifted her arm and blocked the light as she stared at one of the cars. The glare off the windshield proved to block out anything that was inside. But if an infected were laying low in a hibernated state in there, it would have seen her and come staggering out.