Dead Sea

    I couldn't just go out the front door. Smoke in halation would kill me before I got the barricade tore down. Even if I did make it, the street was full of zombies. I could shoot two of them, but then what? Stab them with my knife? That wouldn't work. One of the weird things with Hamelin's Revenge was that you had to destroy the infected corpse's brain. Nothing else worked, except for maybe incinerating them. I could outrun them for a little while, but eventually I'd tire or the smoke would get the best of me.

    Stay here, a voice whispered inside my head. Just sit down and relax. Go to sleep. Quit running. It's easier. Why bother anymore? Does it really matter? Does anything really matter? Maybe Alan was right. Maybe this would be easier.

    I had to admit, the idea was tempting. Go back to bed and wait for the fire to engulf the house. With luck, I'd be dead before the flames even reached me. But I'd seen a documentary about burn victims. Last two things to burn were the heart and the brain. If the smoke didn't kill me, I'd be alive that whole time, aware as I burned to death.

    That wasn't an option.

    Deciding fast, I grabbed the hammer and ran back into the kitchen. There was a small window over the sink, and I'd nailed a single piece of plywood over it. Six nails stood between freedom and me. They screeched as I yanked them loose. I tore the board free and tossed it to the floor. Then I checked outside. The narrow alley behind my house was full of smoke, but otherwise deserted. I smashed the glass with the butt of the pistol and then tossed the backpack outside. Then I crawled through the window. Keeping the wet washcloth pressed to my face, I crouched down, retrieved the backpack, and crept through the darkness. I stayed bent over, trying to stay as low to the ground as possible, down where the air was better. Discarded trash crunched under my feet. The alley was full of debris: empty beer cans, used condoms, candy wrappers, and cigarette butts. A dead man lay sprawled on his back across the concrete. His skin looked like a greasy, bloated sausage casing. A red hole was in the middle of his forehead. He wasn't coming back. Holding my breath, I stepped over him.

    All around me were screams and the crackling of flames. The neighborhood was a Molotov cocktail and God had just tossed the fucker. The fire came from three directions. The only way still open to flee was toward the harbor.

    I ran into the night, straight into the inferno.

    Straight into hell…

Chapter Three

    The dark sidewalks steamed in the heat. Even with the washcloth pressed to my face, sweat poured down my forehead and into my eyes. My lungs felt like they were burning. I tried to keep from coughing so 1 wouldn't give my location away. It was hard to see clearly. The air was thick with smoke and my stinging eyes watered. To make matters worse, I heard screams and gunshots everywhere, but couldn't see where they were coming from. All around me, the inferno crackled and roared.

    I'd only gone about a half block when I encountered the first zombie, an old woman dressed in a soiled nightgown. I smelled her before I saw her, and figured that if her stench was stronger than the smoke, she must be close indeed. I had time to hide behind a green garbage Dumpster before she lumbered out of the haze. Her wig was missing. Her bald scalp looked like a peeling onion, and her varicose veins had burst right through her skin. The corpse's lips were shredded, hanging from her face in gray-white strips. I let the dead woman wander by. She moved in silence. The only sound was the buzzing flies inside of her.

    When the coast was clear, I continued on my way. Flames flickered in the night. I didn't see anyone else on the street. Either the mass exodus of survivors had gone another way, or the fires had trapped them, or they'd ended up as dinner for the dead. I moved cautiously, but quickly, too. Stayed mindful of what was behind me. Eventually, the smoke grew less thick. I passed by the burned-out shell of a car. A family of four had cooked inside the vehicle. They were just blackened shapes now, two adult-sized and two child-sized-a zombie's well-done Happy Meal. I wondered how it had happened. Was that horrible, agonizing death by fire preferable to facing whatever had trapped them inside? And what had burned them and their car? It couldn't have been the current inferno. The flames hadn't reached this street yet.