CHAPTER 1: NO REST FOR THE WICKED
ISAIAH 48:22
My name is T. Once upon a time it may have been short for something. But it's honestly not important anymore.  I was 17 when the zombies first became a problem. For me it was when both my parents were bit. They were doctors and were bit treating other bite victims before anyone really had any idea what was going on. After that I was forced to survive on my own in a world that was falling apart around me. I made myself hatchets or "tomahawks" as some people have taken to calling them and set out on my own to survive. I have a small group of people that I travel with, and the only group of people I trust. I was alone for most of the first two years. I ate, killed zombies and traveled by myself. That was until I met J. She's this redneck scrawny thing from west Texas. She's a real piece of work. She was holed up in a gas station and she did pretty well for herself at first, blowing them away with her daddy's pump shotgun. But the thing about a shotgun is, it is a very loud gun, and she eventually was backed into a corner.
I'm no hero. I'm no legend, I'm no soldier. Anyone could have saved J. I was just the lucky fuck to stumble on to her little predicament.

She had caged herself into a corner using snack food shelves and tied them together with zip ties. Zombies may be tireless, but they aren't super human. Without tools, that cage wasn't coming apart. She didn't scream, nor was she screaming when I found her. I heard the noise coming from the undead freaks inside, so I crept in to clear the place out and scavenge for supplies. And that's when I saw her. There were about eight zombies crowded around her little apparatus. Most appeared to be old corpses as they eyes had fallen out and the jaws had lost their strength and waggled ever so slightly. Arid Texas heat is not kind to the reanimated corpse. For an experienced zombie hunter, eight is nothing, and by this point, I was beyond experienced, I was seasoned. At first I was not concerned for her safety. In the world after the rising, everyone is out for themselves, as far as I was concerned she would kill me in my sleep after fucking me then clothes hanger the baby. It sounds harsh and violent. But that's the way my world works now. I had to assume the worst about everyone, it's the only way I stayed alive. I had been double crossed once already, and I would not let it happen again. I'm no rocket scientist but you don't have to tell me twice that people over all suck.

Zombie killing is not an art, it's not creative, it's not pretty, and it really doesn't even look cool, especially if there's only small numbers of them. It's not about style or heroics it's not even really about strategy, until you get into big numbers. You wave around something sharp and hit them in the head. If you break their brain, they die, or at least cease to be threatening.
When I walked in they all stopped moaning and turned to face me. God they smell, I hate zombies. I can live in a world with walking corpses that eat people. I cannot handle their smell. One charged me, somehow able to generate enough force in its rotten, dried muscles to move with some semblance of speed. So I did what any normal person would do; I hit it with an axe. Its skull split open and black puss spilled everywhere. Another hobbled towards me and I split its head from the side as well. Each time I split a head the smell became exponentially worse. The last one I was so intolerant of I just kicked him (I could still tell his gender) in the chest and he fell back against an old soda fridge. I pulled the fridge over on top of him and his brain was crushed.
I walked around the place stuffing my backpack with everything that hadn't rotted out. Fresh food was scarce, though you came across camps with cooked food once and awhile. The animal population had not been effected by the blight, not that I had seen. Peanuts, donuts, jerky anything that didn't smell went in the bag, until I could barely zip it. I wiped off my axes and put them back in their place. I turned to leave when J., or "girl who had locked herself into snack shelves" as I knew her then, whispered loudly at me.
"Hey! Let me out of here!"
I stopped and turned around walked back over to her and kneeled down in front of her little cage.
"Why? It's so much easier to leave you here. If you die, I might get a fresh meal."

-Another interjection. I am not a cannibal, nor am I anywhere near that creepy. But like I said, this is the world I live in, and there were people who were that creepy and that fucked up, and I was not going to be the one on their dinner table.-

"You aren't going to eat me. There's nothing left of me to eat. Just let me out so I can go on my way."
"And what way is that?" I asked trying as hard as I could not to sound interested. Part of me wasn't.
"Not any of your business. You seem normal enough in this hell hole. Just let me out and we can both go on our merry, no harm no foul."
I wagged my finger at her. I wasn't sure she wasn't a psycho who was well versed in bluffing. And I wasn't done bluffing either. "No, no, if I let you go we can't just part ways, you owe me for your life. You're very pretty little life."
"Fuck you!" she hissed and spat in my face.
I was sold, wouldn't you be? I took out my utility knife and cut the zip ties then backed out of the place turned and walked away, heading west. For some reason she came up behind me. When I heard her I pulled an axe and spun holding it at the ready, when I saw who it was, well it made no difference I still held my guard.
"What?" I snapped. "Go on your way, just like you said."
"Who are you?"
"Does it matter? I'm going west, if you want to live to see tomorrow morning, I suggest you get to stepping. That way." I pointed the other way, away from the sunset.
"I've met every loser asshole on this planet, been used and had by ever freak and monster, none of them killed me, but none of them helped me. Who are you?"
I put on my sunglasses and pushed them up as a calm breeze tossed my coat.
"I'm no one." I leaned in close to her face and said "Now leave." I tipped a finger pointing the other way. I turned sheathing my axe and walking away.
"I'm going with you." She said defiantly. I stopped.
"No you're not." I said impatiently, turning around.
"Yes I am. Whoever you are, you are the safest person I have met since all this started. And still the only person to do anything nice for me ever."
"Your point?"
"I've been raped five times. I've been beaten for fun, stripped naked, laughed at, and left to die. If you do half of the things most people do to me when I meet them you'll still be the nicest person I've ever met."
At this point, I didn't think I much believed in God, what with all the carnage, flesh eating corpses roaming the earth and my family all dead, how could there be? But when she told me this, and I saw that she still, after all that had hope that someone was still good out here, and that she was willing to risk it again on the notion that I might be one of those still good people; I had no other explanation.
"How do you know I don't just think you're a waste of my time?"
"Rapists and cannibals don't reason out who the best or most satisfactory victim will be."
"And how do I know you aren't going to cut my throat in my sleep? Tie me down and castrate me for fun? Kill me and eat me?"

"You don't, but you let me out didn't you?"
"Yes, on the premise that you and I, and I quote 'went on our merry'."
"I changed my mind."
"Why?"
"Mostly because you didn't kill me, rape me or try to eat me."
"Correct, I let you go on the promise of being left alone."
"But now I'm not going to leave you alone."
"Would you leave me alone if I raped you?"
She got right in my face looking me right in the eyes, "How do you know that's not what I want?"
"You aren't going to give up on this are you?"
"Nope."
"And if I turn and walk away you're going to follow me?"
"Probably."
I couldn't think of anything to respond with. I couldn't have her come with me, I didn't trust her enough. But she clearly was intent on doing so.
"You have got to be tired of talking to yourself wandering from camp to camp, stroking it with your left hand while palming a…hatchet with your right."
"And you can fix this?" I asked skeptically.
"Well, the part about talking to yourself yes." She gave me a cocky smirk and let her southern drawl drag out as she headed down the road.
In retrospect I don't think I realized exactly how attractive she was. Five foot three, maybe one hundred pounds long fire-hydrant red hair and freckles beneath a slightly less attractive sunburn that had to hurt. She was dressed in an old oil stained tank top and jeans that weren't exactly cut to be shorts just kind of ripped to be shorter than pants. And at that, I think they were men's pants at one point since they didn't fit her at all.
"You're forgetting your shotgun." I said as loud as I could with out shouting
"If you want it you can carry it." She drawled.
I shook my head, punched myself in the leg for being a moron, and followed after her.
It was on our walk to find a place to camp that I learned that her name was Jamie and she was from Edinburgh Texas. I decided to call her J. since I had lost use of my own full name and went by T. I did this mostly because it made her laugh.
The next several days were useless and empty. We simply walked across the barren orange Texas landscape telling survival stories and reminiscing about a time when the dead didn't walk and cut-throat self centered survival wasn't the only mentality still around. The phrase "survival of the fittest" came about through Charles Darwin in 1864. Since then it has been used religiously by communities and social groups and scientists. But all that is bullshit. No human being has ever understood that phrase until they have lived in their home country in total anarchy. And there is no chaos, disorder or anarchy like looming apocalypse. On our walk we didn't see another soul, or soulless cretin, and we walked for several days, one sleeping the other staying awake to watch as best we could.  It was on the fourth day of travel that at long last we reached a relief camp. And not just any relief camp, a federal relief camp.
A federal relief camp is the safest place a survivor can be. It is operated by U. S. Military, well armed, well supplied and geared to relieving the stress of putting a country back together from the ground up. However there is a ten day stay limit on any party entering the camp for reasons that should be obvious.  These federal camps have become known as "white zones" because of the near paradisiacal nature of the place. We were tested for pupil reflex, and looked over for bites and allowed into the camp. For the first time in months I was able to relax, and J. appeared, who apparently had never been in one, hesitated to relax but eventually did so ever so slightly, the first time since she was 12 I was told.
Upon entering we were stopped by a U.S. Marine in black riot gear in reflective glasses a mask that covered his face and a black helmet that simply read "U.S.". He stopped us at the gate and said:
"All new residents follow me." And follow him we did. His right hand never left the handle of his rifle as he directed us around the camp, explaining the rules, the military law, jurisdiction, and enforcement. He told us that our stay was to last a maximum of ten days then we would be forcibly evicted from the premise if necessary. The place was made of aluminum round sheds, much like the ones on old army bases. There was group housing, group showers separated by gender and a medical unit for emergencies only. Once he was finished he directed us immediately to the mess hall for chow and dismissed us.
We entered and at once were met with a line of people waiting to be fed. The people that I saw in these lines, what I encounter when I enter these camps, keeps me from coming back when leave. Several dozens of people from all former walks of life reduced to the most basic element; survival. Emaciated, sick, injured, hopeless; men, women, children, pregnant, amputees, all came here looking for hope. But as far as I knew, they never found it. What you will never hear from a wanderer like myself or J, is that in these camps the biggest problem isn't fights, or murder, or rapes or starvation or illness. Its suicide, more survivors come here to eat a meal and kill themselves. As a man driven to survive and make a life of it, I can't handle it. Maybe its darwinistic elitism, maybe it's that it's too sad for me to handle, but whatever reason I cannot bring myself to be around it for more than a few days. Few things are worth death, and even in this God forsaken wasteland that was once the proud state of Texas, I have found that walking day to day is enough for me. So in light of this you might understand why standing in this line of these people made me nauseous. Federal relief camps were built as a place of hope, but personally the evil that has overcome our society, our culture and our species with the plague and disease and lawlessness, is palpable here.
I was fortunate enough to be distracted from this loathsome sight by the most beautiful thing, the most contrary thing to what I was presently experiencing. If there was hope it was in what I heard next. Music, someone nearby was playing an electric guitar, and I could have cried. As a young man I enjoyed the classics of guitar and hearing this made my soul turn. I left the camp, pulling J along with me. I wandered in what must have been several connected circles around the lodging areas near the mess hall until I found where it was coming from. A campfire in a hole in the ground and around it sat several men all listening to one man play on a guitar attached to an amp. The man playing was wearing a sports coat over his naked chest in holey jeans with boots playing a Gibson SG like he was born with it. He had a medium length blonde beard and messy hair that hung in his face. His eyes seemed sunken in to his head and he was blistered all over from the sun, and I could see pieces of skin peeling off of his nose. I sat down in the dirt and let it wash over my soul for a few minutes. He finished his piece of music and stopped playing and just sat there.
"That was amazing!" I blurted out.
"No need to tell him that" Said the man across the fire.
"No kidding," I responded. "Who are you?"
Again the man across from me answered. "He doesn't actually talk. But I call him 'Reverend D. Simms'. And I am Big Guns Bert!"
J then spoke up asking a question. "That makes no sense. If he's mute, why do you call him 'Reverend'?"
Bert didn't miss a beat, responding with "He doesn't have to say a word to speak to your soul, that's what a reverend is supposed to do right?"
Bert was an odd person; I would describe him as a real character. He wore large goggles meant for welding, slicked his hair up into absurd, caricaturist spikes with rifle grease and was maybe five foot six. However, despite his odd appearance and the fact that he carried two very large black revolvers on each hip, had a wad of tobacco dip stuck in his lip; he seemed to be in the most cheerful mood of anyone I'd ever encountered. It would be hard to be completely hopeless with someone like Simms around playing heavenly melodies like the one he'd just performed but Bert seemed as though he would have been equally as cheery without him.
"Now, what is your name kind lady?" he asked gesturing with his finger to J.
"I go by J. and this is T." She said as plainly as she could have.
"T. for Tomahawk and J. for Jealous, which is what you're making me. Speaking of, where did you get THOSE?" He asked pointing to one of my tomahawks which stuck out of my coat when I sat down.
"I made them." I responded.
"Bullshit, lemme see that." He said coming around taking one from me and examining it. "If you did make it, you are both very clever, and very very very green at metal working. Full tang, like that, steel also good. But what did you use to heat the metal a blow torch? And you hammered it with a mallet it looks like."
I was impressed. "Yes that's all correct."
"Well I can tell you you're craftsmanship is horseshit. Gimmie two days, I'll make you better ones."
I stared at him for a second. "Why? More importantly, how?"
"Why? Because nobody needs friends out here, everybody needs good weapons." He turned to Simms and said "Simms show them what I made you."
Simms pulled out of his guitar bag the biggest revolver I had ever seen. It was a glossy steel finish with a triangular sort of barrel and a five round revolving chamber. The barrel had inscribed on it in fancy writing "Luke 23:43". Bert smiled proudly taking it from him. "It's chambered to a Smith and Wesson .500 and blows zombie brains all over the god damned place. You asked about how? Follow me my friends. Here you go Simms." Simms snatched the gun back from him and stuck it back in his guitar case while Bert waved us to follow him. J and I followed close behind him as he led us back to the opposite end of the camp rambling about how he pretty much owned the place anyway. We made it to the end and there was a large rusted out shed made of aluminum with a hole cut in the roof and what appeared to be stove pipe running out the top. He opened the door, if it could be called that and immediately we were blasted in the face with heat. It had to be 120 degrees in there. I could hardly breathe. In the middle of the shed was a huge brick oven glowing red heat from the inside covered with iron on the outside and inside.
"This is the repairs shed. I make, repair and recycle all weapons and metal that comes through this shit hole here. This is MY house." He walked over and kicked a large stack of crates. "See all these? These are U.S. issue transport crates. The geniuses in Washington DC made too many, so whenever we get extras here, we melt them and use them to make more useful things. Like gun parts, knives, beds, whatever we need. They are made of a water proof, nearly universally stick proof steel alloy mixed with god knows what. I can melt one of these puppies down and have you better toys in no time at all."
I looked at him, then at the crates, over to the stove and back at him. "What's the catch?"
He frowned at me. "No catch. You seem decent so I want to make sure you are decently equipped." I turned to J and said "Now you know three nice people." She hit my arm and told me to shut up.
"How about it boy? Do you want them or not?"
"Why are you really doing this?"
"You have to look after your feisty friend here. And you can't do that properly with that gypsy shit." He said pointing at my current axes. "And is that all you carry with you?"
"No I also have a knife and a 9mm handgun in my bag as a last resort."
"Good, now leave, I have work to do." And with that he shewed us out the door and slammed it shut. Left to our own devices we stood outside for several minutes arguing about what to do. We eventually went to the mess hall….again and grabbed food eating it quickly at the beckoning of impatient Marines guarding the hall. I have never been in the military, but I can only assume that it would get very obnoxious to have to babysit as a member of the world elite fighting force instead battling undead minions or foreign enemies. By the time we finished we were told the camp was locked, no one would be let in or out until morning and all residents must be in a residential housing facility by night fall. J and I killed time around the campfire until the sky became orange and dark clouds began rolling over head. A marine came up and barked at us.
"Move along to your residential area now please. It is nearly night fall."
I waved at him that I understood and walked to where I would be sleeping and was about to walk inside when I felt something push by me.
"Move it or lose it buddy." I looked down and J was muscling past me. A marine on the outside pushed me out of the way and grabbed her.
"Ma'am this is male residence only, you are not allowed in here." J jerked her arm away from him and snapped at him.
"Don't grab me, I have to stay with him!"  
The marine reached and grabbed her more firmly. "Ma'am come with me, you have to go to the women's residential area. Its just two houses down from here. Its just a few yards."
J began to shriek. "NO LET ME GO! I HAVE-I HAVE TO STAY WITH HIM, DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T TOUCH ME!" She was jerking and thrashing until the marine lost his grip and then she pushed him. He tripped out the door way. Then she grabbed me around the waist and clung with all her might. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was breathing very fast.
"DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME T DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME! I HAVE TO STAY WITH T! DON'T TOUCH ME DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME! I HAVE TO STAY WITH T! LET ME GO!"
For a second I was caught off guard, here was the level headed girl I had spent almost a week with. The whole time she had been calm, reasonable, level headed almost relaxed. But now she was freaking out, almost a psychotic attack. I reeled for a second then immediately jumped into action to try and defuse the situation.
"J! JAMIE! Its ok I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Do you hear me? J."
She was gasping and bawling like a child that had lost its parent, she wouldn't let me go. I looked at the marine she had pushed and held up a hand asking for a moment. "Give me a moment let me see what I can do." The marine nodded and stood to the side so that I could walk her outside for fresh air.
"J, listen to me. Are you listening?" she nodded but kept an iron grip on my arm. "We have to sleep in different areas, it's the law, it's the rules here. They don't want us to be having sex, or taking advantage of anyone else, among other things. It's for ours and everyone else's safety. Understand. Like the Corporal said, I'm just a few yards down."
She shook her head into my chest and squeezed my arm harder. "No, they won't take me they won't they won't. I just, I need to stay with T, I need to stay with you, T, I need to stay." I sighed, not knowing what to do. I said "Give me a few minutes I am going to see what I can do ok, but I need you to let me go. I am not going anywhere I promise." She loosened her grip and I walked over to the very heavily armored Marine Corporal.
"Corporal….Dunham, is that how you say it?" I asked him reading his name tag.
"What?" He asked sharply.
"This girl I'm with, J, has been seriously traumatized. She has very serious issues and probably has years of psychological damage. To spare you and me both the trouble of having to do anything unnecessary to get her to comply is there any way we would be able to spend the night anywhere without separating. I'll sleep outside for Christ sake."
"I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you and her are not in that cabin together all night, you can sleep where ever the fuck you want." He stormed off muttering to himself in frustration. Easier than I thought it would be.
I went back to J who was holding herself around the shoulders like she was cold and shivering. "We don't have to separate but we cant sleep inside, it has to be out here. Are you ok?"
She wiped her face and shivered pushing her head into my chest, wiping snot and tears on my shirt. "I am now."
My eyes rolled up into my head. I could not believe I was doing this. In the movies, she would snap and chew my balls off in my sleep saying it was because she loved me or something. She clearly had PTSD along with any other number of things caused by intense and repeated sexual abuse.
"It's going to get colder; we need to go over to the metal working shed, at least there will be warmer. Come on." I held her by the shoulder and we walked across the camp to the shed where we had seen Bert only hours before. We bedded down by the east wall sharing my bag as a pillow, facing opposite ways enjoying the heat that radiated through the tin walls. Neither of us said anything, J quickly fell asleep. I drifted off after an hour of watching the sky go from a quaint star speckled blue to a hellish cloud covered black. The last thing I remember crossing my mind was how mad I was going to be if I was woken up by rain.
Before I continue I need to clear up some rumors about zombies. Some misunderstandings and legends.

On the origins of zombies, as they are called, there are three running theories:
1. Religious doomsday
2. Government laboratory conspiracy
3. Yet to be explained natural phenomenon
I am no scientist and before all of this I was an average student. But I know a few things about religious doomsday scenarios and what is happening here and now is not that. As for government conspiracy, if it is one, it will not be proven for many many years. But in addition, it was a popular conspiracy theory for years that AIDS was created to wipeout any given ethnic or social group depending on who you ask, and science does not hold up to that at all. I believe the rising dead has an explanation, but has not been put to sufficient study to be yet explained.
Another big misunderstanding about the undead: It has often been theorized and postulated by fiction writers and zombie movies that there are "types" of zombie or that zombies manifest in one "way". This is not the case. As I have observed in my travels zombies manifest in stages.
1. The bit person becomes ill, sweating, coughing and eventually bleeding from the eyes.
-this is because the believed virus penetrates the brain/blood barrier and first shuts off the mental instinct to blink
2.  The bit person goes crazy, becoming as they are now colloquially known "Freakers". Freakers are extremely violent and vicious people that have not been killed by the bite but are nearing death. This stage is considered by most to be the most dangerous stage as it retains semi-conscious thought and they have been known to use weapons. Usually bludgeoning devices.   
3. Death. The bite victim dies and goes through all the stages of rigor mortis. The corpse will remain dormant for usually 24 for hours.
4. Last the zombie itself arises and begins to feed without explanation.
-Zombies in this stage have several stages of mobility. A fresh zombie moves pretty quickly, sometimes able to run, albeit rarely, others just able to yog or jog. An older more decayed corpse can only hobble, walk or crawl as its muscles have deteriorated to a point that it lacks much of its former athletic capability.
Contrary to popular belief, zombies too have an expiration date. Eventually, though the cause persists, the human body can only endure so much without being repaired, and a zombie will eventually cease to be threatening as the host bodies can no longer function.


Many terrible things happen in stormy weather, storms themselves have brought misery and destruction upon people for millennia. Tonight was no different. J and I were both woken by a loud roar of thunder and lightning that split the sky like glass. The rain didn't just fall on me; it attacked me, seeming to aim for my eyes. I finally rolled over and swore at my foul luck. J apparently wanted to be cute about it.
"Hey T I think it's raining!"  She yelled across the torrents of water hurling itself at us.
At any other point I might have been painfully turned on at the sight of a scrappy lean redhead yelling sarcastically at me in a drenched white tank top, but now, in this situation, having been woken up by rain, I was not.
"Thanks J, you're not helping. Stay here, I'm going to go find some cover to sleep under."
"Not so fast!" she yelled back, "I'm going with you!"
This time it was my turn to be 'cute', "Here take my coat, your nipples are showing through your top!"
"You aren't allowed to look at my nipples unless I show them to you, or we get married asshole! Play by the rules!"
I ignored her and covered her with my coat and we went sprinting through the sheets of water. We made it to the walkway outside the mess hall which was covered but also very far from the heat of the metal working shed. Our breath fogged in the air like smoke, it was so thick I could wave my hand in it and it would thin out and vanish. There was a marine standing several yards away in the rain wearing a plastic rain poncho shining his flashlight around in the hills to the east. His light past over something that caught my eye and I jogged over to him leaving J under the awning.
"Excuse me, sir, point your light that way, I saw something."
"What?" he asked sharply.
"Please just humor me, if I'm wrong there's nothing lost, if I'm right, we have a big problem."
He shined his light further left and- Have you ever had a moment where you saw something you didn't expect too suddenly and your heart nearly stops. I had one of those moments just then.
"Fuck!" He whispered sharply. Right in the beam of his light was a green figure with black shadows at the eyes staggering towards the camp with its jaw slacked open in a grey shirt covered in blood. A zombie, and there were others following it.
He pushed the button on his 2-way and said quickly "Code 7! Code 7, contact east! Sighting three! Code 7 code 7!"


Red lights all over the facility came on and Marines everywhere were standing at ready with their suppressed rifles pointed out the fence. Zombies could be seen approaching the camp from every open area. A marine appeared on the scene not in combat gear, instead in his Service Charlie's. His tan, short sleeve,  button up shirt was immaculately ironed and creased, as were his olive pants. His face was pressed into a disgusted scowl and I couldn't help but notice how neat and clean cut he looked with his shaven face and cropped haircut. His silver lieutenant's bar gleamed in the red lights as did his sharp and angry blue eyes. A group of marines saluted, he returned the salute and began barking orders at them immediately. He pointed with one finger in all different directions making various hand motions coordinating the plan to deal with the recent rise in undead flooding what he called "his house". He was not armed with a rifle like the other marines but instead carried only his side arm, an old Colt .45 M1911. He didn't seem to be saying anything. But he would point at a small group of marines make a few hand signals and those marines would go and do whatever they were told. Once he was done handing out orders, no pun intended. He walked over to me and whispered in the most matter of fact whisper I'd ever heard and said
"Did you alert my men to this mess?"
"Yes sir." I said as calmly as possible.
"Good. Thank you; now get out of my way, and out of my sight. Now!"
I turned around and headed back to the mess hall where I found J huddled against the wall hugging her knees with my coat around her shoulders. When I turned the corner she saw me and ran up grabbing me and whispering, "What's going on?!"
"Zombies, a lot of them and they're everywhere. I don't like this. I'm going to go find Bert. Stay here."
I got up and took off. The wind was biting cold against my soaking wet long sleeved shirt and jeans as I jogged up to the metal working shed. There I found Simms wrapping his guitar case frustratedly with some sort of cloth. The case looked perfectly safe to protect his precious instrument to me, but he clearly was not satisfied.
"Simms, do you know where Bert is?" Simms ignored me violently tying off the tarp he had just wrapped his guitar case in. Then he pointed over toward the front gate.
I nodded. "Thanks man." He waved and picked up his guitar case as rain poured over everything and water dripped from his beard and face.
I ran up the hill toward the front gate where he was standing surveying the growing number of waddling human bodies moving slowly toward the camp. I stood next to him while he smoked a large cigar, or did his best.
"This is bullshit." He said loudly causing one of the marines to gesture to him for total silence. Then he looked at me and sniffed. "Oh, it's you. I haven't finished your toys yet. You ain't nervous are you? Can't be nervous in times like this."
"I'm not nervous, I'm worried."
"Worried about what?"
"This camp, it's not very solidly constructed. I saw the ruins of one of these places once because the fence that they build here breaks under heavy pressure. The fence is electric to keep zombies from piling up and leaning on it, but I think it could snap if many more show up. How many do you think are out there coming this way?"
"No way to tell, theres a couple of dozen just this way coming at this wall."
"When do you think the marines will start, I don't know, shooting them?"
"When the fancy pants over there says so."
"and that will be?"
"No ide-" then we heard a long strings of subtle 'pops'. Pft pft pft pft pft pft, as the suppressed assault rifles fired off in three round bursts all over the camp. In the red light I could see the mangled, staggering, corpses as they were torn to pieces by stray shots, but they were dropping like flies as one bullet always hit the head, popping the skull like a grape, spilling the inexplicable black puss everywhere. But dispite the efficiency of the marine's firings the abominations kept coming and reaching through the fence, being electrocuted with 100k volts of electricity.  Each creature that did remained attached to the fence, kept in that pose by the closed electric current that ran through the husk frying the brains. But they kept coming into view and the marines couldn't keep up or shoot them fast enough. Through the rain and wind I could smell them and my hair stood on end as the fence filled up with roasted zombies  who's arms stretched through the chain links. The fence was beginning to bend inwards with the weight and pressure. I looked around, and saw a similar situation at all of the other fences. It was surreal to see it all.  Then there was a snap louder than a gunshot and my head whipped around to see the nightmare that I had lived a year ago unfold again.
A bolt that held the fencing in place at the post had burst under pressure allowing a small portion of the fence to fall open and zombies started to pour in. marines began to reorganize and fall back but the creatures ran in overwhelming the force allotted to that area. I stood stone still watching in horror as it happened all over again. I was pulled from my lapse in clarity by Bert smacking the back of my head.
"Wake up shit head, game time!" He ran toward the north fence pulling those two big revolvers crying (against the marines advice) "YEEHAW!" aiming each gun at a corpse he let lose firing three shots in rapid succession each shot hitting a body square between the eyes, the hollow points he was shooting serving their purpose with divine perfection. I pulled an axe from my belt spun it three times and ran toward the fray. The rain had let up slightly and was now just a steady shower. I pushed over a zombie in front of me cracking its head open splattering puss into the puddles in the dirt and the rain immediately carried it away. Two more came up on either side of me I pulled a second blade spinning them outward hitting both in the head at the same time. I spun the axes forward then backward and then moved forward to the hole. People stay alive for a lot of reasons. I'm alive because when you get down to it, this is what I live for. Bert was ahead of me next to the marines shooting the overflow into the camp. I was attempting to clean up what got through the gap. I was looking as marines scrambled to cover the gap when I saw one of the strays coming up behind the lieutenant. I didn't even flinch; the axe in my left hand went spinning through the air in a spiral of water sticking into the ghoul's skull. He turned around looked at the zombie, then at me and pointed casually behind me, then wagged his finger. I turned around and saw two more coming up behind me, hobbling in a kind of half run. I stuck the first and came across to the second. The fences were overloaded with zombies, the electric current had died and the generators were choking as crowds of zombies flooded the gates and fences straining their structural integrity. By the grace of whatever divinity may exist the fences held for now. The commander turned to the problem at hand pulling his .45 and taking calculated shots at the zombies that either were closest to get in or would block up the hole for a few seconds when they stopped moving. He was such a marksman that he didn't even take time to aim.
It appeared that the marines had successfully adapted to the situation, controlling the overflow into the camp by bottle necking the cretins and shooting them at close range. I walked up and retrieved my axe then jogged back to the chow hall to a startling sight.
J was covering her face pressed up against the wall, and a solitary zombie corpse was laid out on the ramp without a head. Simms stood over it with that unholy gun of his in his right hand and his crisp blue eyes scanning the wet scene for more daring bodies.
I ran up to J and grabbed her shoulder, "Are you ok?!" she was breathing heavily, almost panting. She was in panic. "J, its ok, you're ok. Can you tell me what happened?"
She shook her head hastily and covered her mouth with my jacket.
"J didn't you survive against zombies before we met?" I asked watching her hide behind the coat.
"Yes, I'm just a little shaken. He came out of nowhere!"
I was relieved to hear her speak.
"It happens, they're not…natural. Are you going to be ok?"
"I think I'll be ok. And I wasn't talking about the zombie." At that moment we both looked up at Simms who was lighting a cigarette, then broke his pistol open and slid another massive round into the empty chamber.
"What did he do?"
"I'll tell you later."
"Are you ok?"
"Yes, for Christ sake I'm fine…now. It looks like that guy over there is waving at you. You should take your coat, its cold out there!" She handed me the coat…thing. I've yet to come up with a word for it.  Swung it over my shoulders and situated it on me then ran back out to Bert who was waving me over while loading his pistol's with his teeth.
"Shish thish shish ish bashish tharsh foush mosh…" He slid two more bullets into the chamber then spoke clearer.
"This shit is batshit! Where'd you go?"
"I went to check on J."
"Who's J?"
"The girl I was with."
"You were with a girl? Good job kid!"
"We don't have time for this Bert."
"Right."
"What's going on out there?"
"Shit I don't know. They told me to get out of the way and that they had it. So here I am, out of the way. I was checking on you."
All of the sudden our attention was stolen by a loud crash over by the damaged fence. If I'd had time I would have given a dejected sigh of surrender. Tonight could not have possibly gotten any worse and it just did. The whole section of fence gave way under the weight and zombies came flooding in.
Reflexively I pulled out two axes and waited for the first wave which didn't take long. Bert opened fire haphazardly somehow managing to nail a freak with every single shot.
I whipped an axe out and hit one in the head, coming around and hitting another. By this point I didn't see faces or bodies of people, they were just targets, monsters, like fighting lots of little boogymen. Just scary blurs in the dark, or in this case red light and rain. As a big one ran towards me I spun to get momentum and lashed out with all my strength laterally splitting its head and the huge hulking thing slumped to the puddles below. I spun my tomahawks to fling off the black puss and trotted over to the next crowd and going to work.
The rain soaked into my coat chilling my skin and weighing me down, each move I could feel the cold of my own wet clothes stabbing into my arms back and shoulders. As I struck down monster after monster I started to lose awareness of my surroundings. All I heard was the splatters of the rain and muffled reports of pistols and rifles. I struck one zombie down after another telling myself I just had to get to the next one, counting out each number to keep focus. 31, 32, 33..
Because I was so absorbed in what I was doing I didn't notice that one had snuck up behind me. It grabbed me around the shoulders and tripped taking me down with its weight.

- There are people who are not bothered by roaches, and there are people who are. People who are not, are people who I maintain are people who have never stepped on one barefoot. They aren't scary, they aren't dangerous, they are gross. Plain and simple. The same goes for zombies. It's hard to hate them unless you've touched one. and smelled one.-

CHAPTER 2: WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
Job 12:22

I went to the ground with the gremlin on my back. My knees and hands splashed into the cold water on the ground. I could hear his vocal chords gurgling in my ear. I rolled on my back, pushed down and pulled his arms forward pulling them out of the sockets then sat up free from its grip and recovered my axes and launched one right between its eyes. Then I hit him again, just for good measure. I stood up but was knocked down again by a loud roar and boom. I stood up again, this time more carefully looking around in a daze. All around me people were shooting. Marines shooting at every corpse that came up to them, Bert shooting the ones that didn't and did. He was just having fun shooting. Somehow I remember him humming while doing it.
"do dee dee dum dum do…"
I looked around to see what had made the loud blast and dutifully received my answer when another boom happened shaking the ground and bringing with it a brilliant flash of light which seemed to consume everything. I twirled my axes and looked for a way to help but the situation seemed well controlled now, where everything was falling apart not moments ago. The commander had apparently ordered and aerial strike on the surrounding area, using incendiary explosives cooking the ghouls where ever they stood.
I put one axe away and went back to check on J since I didn't seem to be needed here. The rain had slowed to a haze and the post-rain chill had set in. J however was still dry from her safe keeping under the awning at the chow hall. I leaned my back against the wall and slid down sitting next to her. Simms sat on her left while I sat on her right. Simms was smoking a cigarette. I don't smoke, but if I did, I would have been.