Margie ran past Paulie and Kara. She had spared Tommy’s life.
“What? What happened?”, Kara asked as she began to run. Deep down, she was a little disappointed in Margie’s choice.
“I’m with you, Margie!” Paulie was only glad that he didn’t see Tommy die in front of him. He began to run with what was left of the group.
“If I killed him, he would have stopped making noise. We would have lost our distraction. If he lives, he makes a lot of noise, calls those monsters over and he buys us a lot more time. He’s more useful to us dying than he was alive. He would have been excess baggage”, Margie blurted out as she was running.
The group stood quiet for second. Kara and Paulie both agreed that it was the best idea, even though it pained Paulie much more than Kara.
Tommy’s cries could be heard and while they were getting lower and lower, their passion remained the same.
There was a pause in his praying.
A blood curdling scream rang through the air.
It turned into a half sob and scream. It was full of pain.
The group kept running to their unknown destination. Anywhere was better than where they were.
Margie shed a few tears. It was obvious what had happened to Tommy. She hated to think about it, but it was a reality.
The group began to slow down. There was no immediate threat. They all took a chance to look back at the highway. Smoke was rising in their air and they could see a large mass of off the undead moving about. They were still heading to the source of noise that was Tommy.
“What’s that over there?” Kara pointed off into the distance. A large building was in the fog.
“That’s the mall. It’s probably the only thing fun to do in this town.”
“Fun or not, we should probably hold up there for the night. Hopefully it won’t be too bad in there”, Margie said
“Well, mall it is. Let’s go”, Paulie said.
They all began walking to the big, imposing building. Margie looked back one more time.
“Bye, Tommy, and good bye, Mr. Fontaine. Thanks for everything”, Margie said silently to herself.
Creature of Habit
It had already been a few weeks since Matt locked himself in his apartment. He used to hear muffled voices, talking, and even screams of more neighbors being lost to the enemy. He sat in the corner. He had already lost some weight since he began rationing what was left of the food. His apartment stunk as the water he saved in the bathtub slowly became stagnant and rancid.
The noises that were his neighbors became shuffling steps and pained groans. He didn’t know what more to do with himself. He noticed that where voices used to be, the moans and shuffling came from. As a result, Matt hadn’t spoken in some time.
He would sometimes return to his computer, mostly out of force of habit. Sometimes, just for fun, he would click on his inbox and read the old e-mails. It was his only link to what was the outside world. It gave him some comfort and made him a little emotional to read and remember what life was before the world went to shit.
He then blinked and saw the screen was off. It was off for weeks. It was one of very few rituals left that kept his sanity in check.
Matt wiped a single tear from his eye.
“I miss them”, He thought to himself.
He heard his stomach growl a little. The noise startled him a little bit. He made his way to his refrigerator. Knowing that there was not much in it, he carefully weighed the decision to open it or not. There was a small temperature difference in there. Opening it could mean a few hours or even days lost to some freshness.
“Fuck it. If it’s rotten, it’s rotten”, Matt thought.
He opened the ice box.
The cold cuts looked slimy. The yogurt, Matt chuckled to himself; he grabbed a cup and looked out the window.
He turned back to the refrigerator and only saw baking soda and shriveled vegetables. Matt grabbed a carrot and a tomato, he saved the cabbage since it had very little mold on it.
Matt put his “feast” on the counter. He closed the refrigerator.
He took the spoiled yogurt to his window and looked both ways. He spotted some ghouls wandering around by the building. They were in range from this height. He wound his arm back and hurled the rotten yogurt at one of them.
“Bulls-eye”, he thought to himself. He smiled.
He watched the cup splatter and spray its contents all over the monster. It lazily tried to smear the stuff off of itself but soon gave up.
Matt thought about how long it’ll be covered in the goop, maybe until it rains, or forever if it stays inside of a building or something. Whatever, it was all he had left for entertainment.
Matt bit into the carrot. Carrying both vegetables in his hands, he took turns biting into them. They were both dry and spongy. He tried not to think that he could be eating mostly fungus. As long as it sustained him, he didn’t mind. However, he knew that he had maybe one day’s worth of food left with the cabbage and he wouldn’t dare touch the rotten cold cuts. The water wouldn’t last very long anymore, the smell was getting very bad and there was a film on the surface of it.
He slumped in a corner, taking a few bites and thinking of what to do about his situation.
“I have to leave”, he thought.
Matt gagged a little bit when he bit into a bunch of fluff. He knew what the fluff was and he spit it out and started coughing. It made his throat burn. He did what he could to stifle the coughs, but his body demanded it. He was surprised with how loud he sounded. Maybe it was because of how quiet he had been lately.
Matt definitely had to leave now. The noise would surely bring unwanted attention. Maybe it was psychological, but Matt heard some shuffling from higher floors heading to his direction. He got scared. He didn’t know what to do. They were closing in and he needed help. What would he do? Who could he call? What should he do? What should he bring?
Matt’s heart began to hurt. That slowed him down. His years of inactivity were a mixed blessing. His out of shape heart anchored him and caused him to slow down a bit. His thoughts cleared up.
“The shuffling wouldn’t be here for a while”, he thought.
“I have some time to get myself together and leave. I need to get out of this apartment”, Matt said to himself in a soft voice.
Breathing hard, he supported himself by placing his hand on the wall as he slowly made his way into his room to search for something, anything, that could be of use to him.
Going through his closet, he found a hockey stick covered in dust that his parents gave him years and years ago, back when his Dad had hopes of him becoming a pro athlete.
Matt laughed to himself and swung the stick around. The dust that flew off of it brought him back memories of how his mother would scold him for leaving his room so dusty. He fought back tears thinking of how those were now his good memories.
He put on winter boots even though the weather was comfortable outside.
“Everything counts, I guess”, he quietly said to himself.
He made his way to the front door of his apartment. Placing a hand on the door knob, he took in a deep breath and looked at his apartment. He thought how he may never come back again…ever.
Just as he was about to turn the knob, he felt a crisp breeze caress his face. He looked at the window and at his fire escape.
“Wait a second.” He said.
Clutching the stick hard, he walked over the fire escape and took a look around.
He saw a few ghouls milling around the entrance of the building. He laughed a little as he saw the zombie with yogurt splattered on his head.