A shiver went up my spine the moment I stopped at the station. It was dark inside. I opened my pack, and my hand came to rest automatically on the flashlight. I wasn’t about to waste the battery. A man pulled a knife on me in the parking lot of a GI Joe’s to try and get it away from me two days ago- he didn’t get it, but I knew how precious it was.

My lighter still had fluid in it, and I lit a tealight candle. The little flame danced in the wind, and I covered it with my hands to protect it.

The door to the gas station was open; the door hadn’t been broken into, which probably meant the owners were dead inside. One or two shamblers wasn’t going to be too much trouble. I pulled out a Bowie knife I’d bought for what seemed like a joke of money now, but flicked off the safety latch on the Kimber holster- bullets were precious, too, but bullets are no use to a dead man.

The first of them wasn’t stealthy. I thought it better to take care of him than watch over my shoulder the entire time I was there- and maybe a little of my Christian upbringing nagged that I might be saving someone else down the road (though if Christ wasn’t sated with my insane pilgrimage into the belly of hell, well, I don’t know that a murderous good deed was going to tip his scales).

He was making snorting, snarling noises, like a rutting pig, bent over in a freezer that hadn’t been freezing for weeks. I tiptoed behind him, planning on slitting his throat, then cutting until the head came off. I’d actually seen a head survive being cut off from the body, but without any muscles to move around, it was pretty harmless; unless you were dumb enough to put your hand it its mouth, you really couldn’t be hurt by it.

But my foot hit a can of nacho cheese bean dip, and it rolled right into the fat bastard’s foot. And he was fast. It meant he was newly dead, or different from everybody else (though I suppose he’d been eating, maybe it was just a sugar high). He had his hands raised up at me, reaching already for my throat.

And I shouldn’t have fucked with it- I should have shot him in the face right then, but I froze, just an instant too long, so the only defense I had was to jab the knife in his side,

Most of them don’t breath anymore; whatever metabolic processes are at play, they’re largely anaerobic- though I heard on NPR before it went silent that doctors believed this was leading to a build-up of lactic acid in the dead people’s muscles, which caused them pain and difficulty moving, and was one of the reasons they moaned so damn much.

I could hear the next one breathing, deep, and low, labored. I found my mind wandering to the name of the place; if I’m honest, it was because I was wondering what that gaudy damn sign out front that was likely to be my grave marker said.

Then I saw him. On his shirt was a name stitched in- Earl- same as the store. He’d been dead a long time, and most of his muscles, and organs, had melted. Their decomposed muck had him stuck to his swivel chair, not that he probably had the muscle mass left to get out of it anyhow. Raisin eyes too dry and shriveled to possibly see flicked across the room from habit, and he began to quake; he could hear me, and I felt a little pang of guilt knowing that I scared him. I put the Kimber to his forehead, paused a moment to angle it to destroy as much brain as possible, and pulled the trigger.

Only then did I notice a door behind Earl marked “Private.” I could tell there was no light inside, and no way of knowing who or how many there could be. I couldn't think of a single thing that would make me open that door.

And then I hear the sound, faint as a whisper, the gasp of a girl no more than six. I kicked the magazine out of the Kimber, slid another bullet in and pushed it back up inside.

I set the candle down on the desk in front of Earl; I realized too late I’d set it down in brains, and that I wasn't picking it back up again. I turned the knob and pushed the door in just enough to clear the latch and stop. I pulled back as far as I could, and nudged the door open with my foot; I was a little too far back, and the door creaked open slow.

She’s standing there as if posed at the edge of the candlelight, enough to make her out, but not the details, a little girl- younger even maybe than she sounded- but she’s not alone. I put a round in every black shape with a center mass. Two of the five slump to the ground and groan from the floor; from the sounds of the impact, I hit two boxes and a wooden post, too. Two left in the Kimber. I cup my fingers around the flame, trying not to touch brain; the flame kicks up and burns my hand, but I don’t let myself drop the candle.

The backroads out of Camas are clear, at least compared to the main roads; I dodge a Subaru half in a ditch, but I don't even bother to slow up- driver looks to've been dead a while, but I don't want to take chances the door will pop open and surprise me.

Of course, Portland's across a river- the Columbia, a filthy damn river made that way because half the civilization in Washington owes its power and livelihood to the river. And it's strong; no way in hell I could swim it with my pack- especially not at this time of year, besides which I don't want to be stuck in Portland without transport.

Which means the bridge. I-5 is a two-lane, which is almost certainly fucked- that bridge backed up for miles every day of the week, so something told me apocalyptic conditions would only have made it worse.

Which left the 205. More lanes, and it meant I didn't have to make it as far down SR-14. I took 164th through Vancouver. There were still people holed up in the bigger stores, like the Fred Meyer's, barricaded in there. Stumblers were sprawled across the parking lot, sleeping on the asphalt, splayed across cars. It looked like a homeless camp, and it seemed peaceful, until one of them noticed me driving by. He moaned, and others looked up. I gave it more gas and was gone before I got any more interest out of them.

14 was pretty well and fucked, too. There was a nasty accident at the 205 exit, and people frantically trying to get through had only made it worse. And there were a few stumblers wandering in between cars, too. Even the shoulder was full, but there was a thin strip of grass on a slope, and if I took it slow, I could slip by.

Except, that, of course, there was a car that had jumped past the shoulder, smashed into the dirt on the other side of the incline. There was a little gate that was clear, and opened up into the neighborhoods behind the fence and a line of blackberries. I didn't like my options, but a stumbler with a mouthful of blood crawled out of the passenger side of a parked El Camino, snapping a car seat in half as she fell out of the car. Gate it was. I closed it behind me, and the woman thrashed against the fence, snarling, but harmless.

The neighborhood was quiet enough- out of the beaten path enough that there didn't seem to be anyone around. And less than a mile down the road, right before the 205 exit, someone had smashed through the fence.

The sun was already starting to sink by the time I hit I-84, which I needed to go west. I imagined the road would be just as bad as 205 had been, the going just as slow, so I passed the exit, and got off at 21. It was an exit I knew because there'd been a Winchell's there, before they were bought out- one of the last Winchell's in the area.

I drove slowly through the side streets. I needed a garage, but one with a high window so I could break in without compromising my safety. It took me a couple of hours to find one, at least, to find one in a house that didn't look occupied. The sun was already setting, so most of the inhabited houses had some kind of light going- a fire, a candle, something.

This house was dark. I wrapped my hand in my jacket, and used the small prybar I carried to smash the window in. I cleared as much glass as I felt I had to, laid the jacket over the frame, and climbed up and in. I flicked on the flashlight- this was one of the times I needed the light more than the batteries, and unholstered the Kimber.

The garage seemed clear, and there weren't any sounds at all. I checked beneath an old Datsun, then inside, before reaching for the handle on the garage door. There was still enough light outside for me to shut off the flashlight. I wheeled my bike inside and pulled the door back down.

I knew I should check the house, in case there were stumblers, but I was tired, and it wasn't worth the batteries. I leaned an empty beer bottle against the door handle to the inside. I didn't want to unroll my sleeping bag, because if something happened I'd have to leave it behind, so I pulled the entry mat to the wall and put my coat over my lap.

I'd barely fallen asleep when the bottle fell. My hand was already on the Kimber, where I'd set it when I'd started to doze; I knew it could have just been lousy balance. The door handle jiggled, and I thumbed off the Kimber's safety. The door creaked open, and stopped.

A kid in little blue footy pajamas padded onto the cold concrete. He set a kerosene camping lantern down in the door, keeping it open, and giving him just enough light to see into the garage. He snatched a juice box, and started to pull at the plastic straw on the outside when he noticed me, leaned against the wall.

I felt like shit as the kid peed himself, and ran back inside, snatching the lantern. In this kind of a situation, you can expect one of two responses: either the family barricade the door and hope you go away, or a very angry parent gets into your face. I didn't want to be halfway through leaving if the latter happened, so I waited.

I left at first light. I wasn't sure how things might have turned with the preacherman, and I didn't think it prudent to stay for simple curiosity. But I needed more supplies. There was a Plaid Pantry behind the old Winchell's, and I'd noticed the night before that the parking lot was empty. I parked my bike at the far end, and watched the store through the iron sights of the rifle for twenty minutes; the Plaid had nice, big windows, so not only could you see in, but there was light. When there wasn't movement, I decided to eat while I waited, and opened a can of beans. They were cold, but they weren't bad enough cold to be worth the effort getting them hot.

There was still no movement at all, so I set the rifle against the bike, took out the Kimber, and walked inside. The Plaid didn't have the same half-grocery selection as Earl's, but there were enough staples I figured I could get by, at least for a week on my own. Anyway, it would have to do until I found some place else to “shop.” My bag was full again as I left, though it was mostly full of junk food; man may not be able to live on Cheetohs and Butterfingers alone, but he can survive longer than you’d think.

The hairs on the back of my neck noticed it first; I shivered, and was nearly ready to write it off as a breeze I didn’t remember feeling when I saw him. He was hunched over my bike, holding up the rifle in his hands. If he just had the rifle, I’d probably have cut my losses and let him walk with it, but the bike- I needed the bike.

I crept up quiet as I could, got to within ten feet, knowing that the further I was away the more of an advantage the rifle would give him, before I yelled for him to put the rifle back down. He didn't respond- didn't even acknowledge I'd spoken. I could tell from the color of his hair, the sag and waste of his body, that he was an old man. I yelled again, and no response.

But I didn't want to just shoot him; maybe he was deaf, or at least an old man who was practically deaf. I circled around, slowly, keeping him in the Kimber's sights. My shoes scraped on gravel, and he tensed, and slowly he looked up. The skin on his face, from the center of his chin to his cheek, was missing on the right side; the wound had aged enough that the blood was dry, but drool still poured freely out of the hole. His mouth came up, preparing a snarl; I fired before it had a chance to form, and he fell.

Immediately there was movement to my right. I heard the slow, horrible scrape of fingernails along the bottom of a small metal trashbin. I thumbed the safety off the Kimber, but left it in the holster- the Kimber would bring out everything in the building- and pulled the knife.

She must have been the building manager. She had a kind face, or at least she used to. Her skin was flaking off in sheets, and her eyes were closed; I assumed she was blind.

Her fingers were worn to bone, and she dragged them across the bottom of the bin, and came out with a handful bloody meat, fur, and bone; it looked like all that remained of a cat.

She perked up as my feet crossed the threshold into her office, and the bin dropped with a ringing clatter. She stopped, and turned around the edge of her desk. I raised the knife, keeping it between us in case she made a blind run for me.

Instead her eyes opened. Keeping them closed had preserved some of their moisture, and they were saggy water balloons she had to squeeze with her eyelids to keep from pouring out of their sockets. But she could see me, and let out a terrified wail- I ignored that moment's guilt and jabbed the knife beneath her jaw. I stabbed too much and slashed too little, and the blade embedded itself, not quite at her throat.

She tore at my arms, but couldn't get through the leather. I kicked her, once in the calf, again at the knee, and she buckled, fell, held up only by my hand on the blade in her chin. She grabbed my wrists, and from her half-fallen position almost seemed to help as I twisted the knife, trying at the same time to kill and retrieve the weapon.

When she finally keeled backwards I knew better than to keep hold of the blade, and it fell back sheathed in her jaw. I paused. She didn't move for a very long time, so I stepped over her. To be certain, I stamped down on her windpipe, which collapsed like wet cardboard. Using my foot still in her neck for leverage, the knife came free.

Back in the lobby, I retrieved the flashlight from my bag; any further in and the light from the windows wouldn't penetrate. I quick glance around the lobby confirmed that there weren't any stairs here. Beyond a row of mailboxes was a tighter hallway, ending in a door with a small window smashed out.

My foot scraped along one of the concrete steps, and he turned to face me. Still gripped in his fingers, instinctively, was a crescent wrench. He had weight, momentum, and the high ground. I unholstered the Kimber; I figured it might be worth the noise.

Then I stopped, and stepped back. The maintenance man tried to follow, but his feet missed the step, and he tottered, on the brink of loosing his balance. I reached up to him and pulled, shoving him passed me down the stairs. The stairway wasn't long, and his momentum carried him into the wall with a terrible sound, but he kept moving, falling down the next, and another.

I slid the Kimber in place, smiling a little. I was moving for the next step when I heard him moan, a gurgled cry on the edge of a scream, still human enough that I froze. I walked back down the stairs. He'd finally landed in the corner three sets of stairs down. His neck was bent in an unnatural position, one leg twisted too far around, his back almost certainly broken, because his head was nearly laying flat in his lap. Still gripped tightly in his hand was the wrench. From the noise he made I think he was weeping.

I pulled the wrench from him, and perhaps he understood, because his grip slackened immediately. The wrench pierced his skull with little effort, and his body relaxed. The wrench suddenly took on an unearthly weight, and I let it slip from my fingers; it struck the concrete stairwell with a sound like a church bell that echoed up the concrete shaft.

Because of the adrenaline the trip back up the stairs was lighter,- I almost ran past the door marked “6th floor.” I pushed my way inside and stopped.

The complex was nice enough that the carpet was flush with the doors- no light leaked in from underneath the doors, even though there was still light outside. I flicked the light back on. Most of the doors were still closed. I couldn't help but picture the scene from Old Boy, a hall filled with violence I'd have to smash my way through (or stab, since I had a knife instead of a hammer). But unlike the movie, my hallway was filled with virulent monsters- a single bite, a drop of blood, and I was dead.

I wanted to turn back; for an instant, I seriously contemplated it. I tried to remember the look on her father's face, or how much she had meant to me once, but self-preservation was too damn strong, and my free hand was already reaching for the stairway door behind me when apartment 614 opened slowly.

He opened the door- her boyfriend, I mean. Don't let my obvious bias confuse you- he was a bigger loser than I'd have ever imagined. Obviously a drug addict (as opposed to a casual user), probably high at the moment, actually.

“Where is she?” I asked, perhaps a little abrupt with him.

“Where's who?” he asked stutteringly; I pushed the door, pushed passed him- the drugs had sufficiently slowed his reaction to the point that he didn't put up his arms until he smacked back into the entry wall.

I strode into the front room (rather than push passed him a second time towards the bed and bath rooms). I scanned quickly, sofa was empty save for a blanket, chair unoccupied (unless you counted a cat). I spun around, the kitchen nook, such as it was, was empty- and most of the cabinets were open and bare.

I walked back to the entry. He was on his feet, and his animal instincts were up. His eyes were focused, face red. I wanted desperately for a reason to bludgeon him in the nose with the Kimber, and his balling fists looked to be working to that.

“Leave him alone.” She was sober, which surprised me- that she took his side did not. She was wearing a black hoody peppered with cartoony goth characters- probably from Hot Topic; for a moment none of the shit between us registered, and we still liked each other and maybe cared- but that stare she fixed me with brought it all back like a sledgehammer to the temple.

“I'm not here to hurt anybody,” I said, holstering the Kimber.

“You're tracking blood on my carpet,” she said.

“Only some of it's blood,” I replied- and I might have smiled, but no one else seemed in a smiling mood.

“My dad sent you,” she said, no longer a question (though I think that's how it started), staring at the Kimber. I nodded. “Why'd you come?”

It felt like we'd had this conversation before- and it was something I hadn't been able to explain to her then, either. “I just did.”

As I walked down the hallway, several of the apartment doors bolted- good news, actually, because it meant there were still people alive behind them. 609 was open, and I walked in, slowly.

The man with the needle in his arm was still there. The layout to his apartment was the opposite of 603. To the left was the bathroom, a closet, and the bedroom. I closed the doors, pulled the handle to make sure the lock caught.

I didn't have to get close to know he was dead; the stink filled the main room- of course, that didn't tell me whether or not he was still dangerous. I looked over my shoulder, to the kitchen, but there was no one there. My eyes paused a moment, bottles of formula, rancid, sat by the sink. A baby. Christ.

I turned back towards the man with the needle in his arm. His long hair covered his face. I watched his chest, and the hair on his lip: he wasn't breathing. I kicked him, hard, in the side of the neck, and his body fell over. I put my foot in his neck and took a handful of hair and yanked backwards until enough of his vertebrae snapped I was sure he wouldn't be able to stumble even if he wanted to.

Then I turned back to the entry. That was when I noticed it, a faint trail of blood, small- too small. In the blood were a child's hand and knee prints, a crawling baby, moving from the bedroom into the bathroom.

I opened the bathroom door; this was stupid, if anything came in from the hall or the bedroom, I'd be fucked in the tiny bathroom- but it was reason versus a million years of evolution. I had to find the baby.

He was sitting in a pool of water in the tub, tinted slightly red. He had curly blond hair, and almost seemed to smile at me; if it weren't for his eyes I wouldn't have known he was infected. He was healthy, only just turned- hours, probably not even a day. The bottles of formula would have gone bad just after they lost power- she'd been breast-feeding him while infected.

I knew right then I wasn't cruel enough to leave him there. My first thought was to take him to the big front window, let six floors of gravity do the work. But the fall might not kill it, and besides, it was bad enough I had to see it; it seemed crueler still to make every passerby see how cruel this goddamn world had become.

I moved slowly, trying to smile calmingly; even knowing what I was about to do, I'd have felt worse if I made him cry. I holstered the Kimber, knowing I couldn't lift him one-handed. At first he cooed at me, and his tiny fingers wrapped around my wrists. Once out of the water, the smell of the diaper hit me, as rotting feces spilled down his legs.

She still refused to go with me- but the stumbler in the hall had at least aroused her self-preservation instincts enough she wasn't demanding I leave anymore. He was starting to look like something God shat out after a Tijuana bender, but at least he was spending more of his time in the bathroom instead of in my face.

I'd been there the better part of the day. She wasn't budging, not this soon. They were sitting by the front window; it served as both entertainment, and the closest thing they had to security, because they could watch the street below. I asked her when they'd eaten last; she didn't say, but the fact that she wouldn't look me in the eyes and glare said enough. I opened my pack and handed it over to them.

They were hungrier than I'd imagined. It must have been a while since the boyfriend had been outside. I should have stopped them- at least tried. Instead I skipped dinner, and figured that would make up for some of their gorging. She found some instant coffee in my pack; I'll admit I didn't get it for myself. She built a fire in a skillet with scraps of paper from her wastebasket, and boiled water in a pot.

She took care to follow the instructions on the package to the letter, even waiting impatiently as the coffee bag brewed. When she finally took her first sip she closed her eyes, and leaned back against the edge of the couch; for the first time since I'd arrived she smiled.

I gave her a few minutes to enjoy her coffee before I interrupted; “We should take turns at watch. It's important one of us always be alert. I'm still awake enough I can take the first watch.” Not that I wanted to, but something told me if I didn't show them how to do it right it would never get done.

“Zombies can't get in here- not without waking us up anyway.” I knew he couldn't help being stupid, but I couldn't understand why he also insisted on being so proudly wrong.

“I'm mostly not concerned with them. But people-” I stopped.

“Well, I'm going to bed,” he said. He looked at her, but she had her hands around her mug- that was answer enough for him.

We sat in silence, I'm not sure for how long. Then the bastard came back in the room. “I can't sleep with you out here; you should come to bed.”

“She really shouldn't.” She glared at me.

“I'll go where I want,” she said, stamping her foot as she got up.

“Wait,” I rubbed the bridge of my nose as I stood up. “Can I talk to you for a second?” He stopped as she walked into the bedroom. I walked over to him. I played it through a dozen ways in my head, and maybe some other way would have worked, but none would have been as satisfying.

I grabbed his forearm, just below the elbow and twisted til he was off balance; with my free hand I grabbed the hair on the back of his neck and smashed his face against the doorframe. “Fuck!” she screamed, running at me.

Several days passed. I kept at her, but she was nothing if not stubborn. Surprisingly, he started to get better; stopped vomiting, and color returned back to his cheeks. She even moved back into the bedroom with him.

And then he got up. I'd been up twenty hours; when I wasn't on watch, I found myself having to keep an eye on her. I knew the combination of her libido, her desire to twist the knife and her own self-loathing would probably eventually win out over my scare tactics- especially with him getting better.

He stood in the entry hall; he looked clearer than the day I arrived. “I feel... better,” he said, to no one in particular, then, as if noticing I was in the room for the first time, “You're a fucking asshole, man.”

“I'd cripple you to keep her alive,” made it to the tip of my tongue, but I didn't let it out, and simply smiled- well, until this made it out anyway: “For the record, I still think you're dying; if you do anything to pass it to her, I won't wait to find out- and I'll make sure your death is excruciating.”

It was half a lie- I wasn't sure anymore. I'd never seen anyone get better like that; the infection usually just made you die faster from whatever else you caught. “Fucking asshole,” he said, as if all I'd done was confirm what he'd said.

But I seemed to have gotten through. He stayed back from her; when she tried to kiss him, he turned his head. I knew he was right about me being an asshole, but maybe I’d been wrong about him. That night, we ate dinner. It was the last of our food, a can of chili with cheese already mixed in; we figured it was a special enough occasion that we went to the trouble of heating it. He ate half his food, and tried to be noble and give her the rest. I put my hand between her spoon and his bowl, “contamination.”

“Shit,” he said. She glared at me, then at him for concurring, even in spirit. She started to move her spoon around my arm, but he pulled the bowl away defensively. “He’s right. Shouldn’t chance it. We’ve been good this long- safe- let’s not fuck it up now.”

“He’s fine,” she said, no longer talking to him. “He looks better, sounds better.”

Is it still called wishful thinking if what you think is going to happen is horrible? Neither of us could stop her from sleeping in the same bed with him- though I heard the argument they had through the wall when he wouldn’t fool around with her. I slept fitfully; every squeak of their boxsprings made me sit up, but they were always lonely- the lonesome complaint the mattress as platonic lovers shifted in the night.

By the time the sun was up I was haggard. I must have dozed after that, because he woke me up, dressed and ready, smiling a little at having me at a disadvantage. She was still asleep (or I imagined she might have been pouting in the bedroom). I shifted slowly off the couch, and slipped into my boots. “Hurry up,” he said; “we don’t want her trying to tag along.” I grabbed my pack and we left. I made a point of setting the rifle and its box of ammunition at the foot of the couch the night before; it’s still there as I step through the door.

He sighed, a weight off him, as the door closed. “She hates it,” he said, still speaking just above a whisper, as if she’d hear and charge after us as she shoved on her boots. “I don’t care if it is sexist.” I didn’t nod, but I knew exactly what the hell he meant.

We started down the concrete steps. I was still waking up; I hadn’t even thought of the potential for something coming at us from one of the other apartments. As stupid as that was, we’re lucky to be alive; I scowl, and turn to him. “Can you ride?”

He pauses. I feel a little badly for him. “Like a motorcycle? Can't we take a car?”

“No. The roads are choked with cars. Bikes can make it through- or at least, they could on my way here.”

He hesitates, before, “I can- I can make it”

“since your life depends on it,” I say; he doesn't seem amused. “You got a preference on the bike?” He stares blankly. “Bigger bike will use more fuel- and you're siphoning your own so keep that in mind. Bigger, up to a point, means more oomph, which usually comes at the cost of acceleration- beyond that point, the extra power goes entirely to moving the extra metal.” He doesn’t say anything. “We’ll steal what we can, then.”

He’s silent the rest of the way down the stairs. Through the lobby. Onto the street. Then he turns to me. “Do you think I’m going to die?"

The road was steep, and it was slow walking. We tried to stay to the center line, away from corners and cars, where stumblers could have been hiding. At the intersection of Yamhill there were four cars nose to nose in a bent-metal swastika. I pushed past him, and put my hand on his chest to stop him. I moved to the edge of the building, and poked my head around.

The stumbler must have smelled me; her hand was already reaching for my face as I saw her. I jabbed my knife in her hand but she didn’t retract it, only continued forward. “Fuck,” I said, as she fell on me, reaching for my face with her other hand. Her fingers had decayed to the point that they were sharp at the end, where the bone threatened to tear through the skin; her fingers were water balloons filled with poison surrounding bone ice picks. Momentum was on her side as I tried to fight to stay upright, fight to keep her fingers from my eyes.

He smashed her in the head with the butt of the Kimber. It was a glancing blow, but it stunned her enough that she fell away from me; her hands went down on instinct, and the plump sacs of her fingers burst as she landed, spewing putrefied blood and meat across the concrete, dripping down the curb. I pulled her body into the street, so her head and neck were positioned awkwardly against the sidewalk’s end, and stomped on her skull. He flinched at the slightly sharp smashed melon sound.

I didn’t look up at him to say, “Took you goddamned long enough.” When I did I noted his raised eyebrow, and how he was unable to scrub a smile off his lips, and it took me another moment to recognize why- it was the way she would have reacted. I stamped off up the hill; trying to glare at him only would have confirmed the comparison.

It was weird, having a few streets of calm, but that’s what the rest of the walk was. And calling the Commodore a hole might have been kind, but it was enough out of the way, hidden down a side street, that it had fared well enough; maybe, being this close to Burnside, the locals had simply got gone or got eaten earlier than elsewhere. He held the Kimber like a half-assed actor on a cop show, and asked, “You want to wait outside?” It was a nice enough gesture I stowed the urge to tell him I couldn’t trust him to get the right supplies.

Place was dark, but enough that you couldn’t see. “Hold up,” I told him, and took the flashlight out of the bag; I’d learned my lesson about scrimping on the important things, and ran the light up the aisles, starting closest to the door. The aisles were empty with the exception of some scattered cans of food on the floor- but the shelves were still stocked (at least, as well stocked as they’d ever been). The area behind a counter opened up to a stock room and office, and I handed him the bag. “Stay away from perishables. Canned foods are your best bet, things that can be eaten without heat. Stay away from anything bulging.” He took the bag and trotted down the aisle, a little huffy that I was treating him like an idiot again- but I didn’t know how big an idiot he actually was- I was just erring on the side of caution.

I froze when he kicked a can of bean dip; I thought I’d heard a stir from the other room, and the clack-clack-clatter of the bouncing can ensured that whatever I’d heard had now heard us, as well. And he still had the gun. I slid my knife out of its sheath, and waited.

A woman, short and squat and old, stepped slowly out of the office. Her breathing was heavy, and she stopped to grunt at the effort every time she took a step. I waited where the counter ended, standing still, patient, even, and I imagined I could hear an impatience to her breath- an exasperated worker in no mood to deal with customers. When she reached the opening, within a few feet of me, she stopped.

She would have been trollish before she died, and the decomposition of half her face hadn’t helped. “Shhhh,” I told her, with my finger to my lips; it seemed to confuse her, and she gurgled as she tried to understand. I didn’t move quickly or threateningly, just brought the blade up naturally. It wasn’t until the last minute that her eyes flicked to the shine off the blade, and some distant memory informed her of its danger. She tried to reach for it, tried to push me back and away, but I was too close by then, and the knife slid up under her throat at an angle. I grabbed the back of her hair for leverage and pushed the blade out the front of her neck. Her hand at my shoulder went limp, and fell to her side as her body lost its balance and fell with a clatter.

A group of stumblers off Burnside had noticed us; started walking after us on 20th Place. When one stumbler notices something, usually a whole bunch will follow, curious, or bored, or just odd pack impulses reasserting in the absence of a commanding rational mind.

20th Ave is a gradual slope, far more so than the surrounding streets- and not nearly enough to prevent stumblers from at least starting up it. And I blame myself, because he was whining, and I didn’t make him shut the fuck up- and that’s why they got so close.

If only the wind had been at our backs, we’d have smelled them a mile off, but it was blowing in our faces, and I think the smell of us made them move faster. But the first we knew they were there was when one grabbed his shoulders and pulled. He cried out, not in pain, just surprised, dropping the plastic bags of junk food off the handle bars. A second was on him instantly, and the two of them played a moment’s tug of war.

He was lucky- neither of them seemed to be biters- at least not the deadly kind that bite first- which bought him a moment, long enough for me to slash the throat of the first, and kick the leg out from under the second; its knee crumpled and broke away, and it fell, lopsided, onto the stump of the limb. It grabbed his leg, this time raking sharp, bony fingers along his jeans and biting, but the fabric held.

I dropped the backpack straight to the ground, hoping he hadn’t packed any glass, and stabbed the stumbler in the cheek. It screamed and gasped, staring at me with unbelieving eyes as its tongue flicked across the sharp edge of the blade still jabbed through its mouth. It squealed again as the blade sliced into its tongue, and I pushed the blade forward, until the cheeks were completely severed and there was just the hinge of bone keeping his jaw from falling to the ground. Then I pushed its head under my boot to the ground, and held it there as I pulled the knife back away; I considered leaving it alive, since it was mostly harmless without a jaw, but it started whimpering, an animal noise, inhuman yet similar enough that it sent a shiver up my spine, and I pressed the boot down hard, until the skull caved in, and it went silent.

But there were still four more, in close enough that, between them and the bike, running was not an option. “The gun,” I said, waving the knife between the stumblers and us, which didn’t seem to give them much pause at all. He tried to peal the Kimber out of his belt, but it stuck, and I had to lunge to intercept a woman as she made for him. She had been pregnant when she was infected, and the child had gnawed its way out of her womb, and the child, dead from some combination of trauma and road-hauling, still dangled limp from its umbilical cord on the street behind her. The thrust, panicked as it was, went low, bounced off her ribs and buried in her belly; I jabbed the blade in further and pulled it around her torso as her hands crawled towards my throat. I sawed at the muscles lining her torso, hoping to cut enough that she wouldn’t be able to hold herself up. “The gun,” I said through her tightening fingers.

We don’t talk after that- not at all. I think he gets that he’s one wrong word, one sideways look, away from a bullet, and probably knows he deserves it, too- but he doesn’t want to die- like most people once they’re face to face with it.

The rest of the trip’s uneventful. He’s too weak to get the bike all the way up 20th, so I take it over, with the pack and the bags. It makes me tired, but being sore only pisses me off more. Woe to whatever goddamn thing crosses my path at this moment.

But nothing does. We get all the way back up to the 6th floor when I stop, and tell him, “Get back in the apartment, bolt the door. There’s something I have to do.” I wait until he’s inside, and I hear the bolt slide home.

I stop at 614 and knock on her door. There’s still a large part of me that wishes I’d saved her when I could, and sidestepped all the goddamned drama of the last few days. She doesn’t answer. I knock again, hard enough it echoes up my arm, hurts my knuckles; I realize I’m punching the door- but at least I’ve got my gloves on, so it doesn’t open the skin. The pain actually makes me feel a little better.

I wait for a response. Nothing. I tap the door. It’s soft, hollow, made of cheap wood; they figured anybody on this floor had already keyed passed the heavier doors downstairs. I kick the door beside the handle, and it snaps like cracker. My foot hurts when I put it down, but not as much as I thought it would. I draw the Kimber, and push the door open.

Room’s clean- surprisingly so. She’d been keeping everything tidy, even making sure she kept her trash in the cans, and, once they’d been used up, replacing the food in the cabinets with it. There was no perishable trash at all in the apartment- which either meant she’d been throwing it outside, or that she’d actually been making runs somewhere to dump it. But because it’s so clean, and because the apartment’s so sparsely furnished, it just takes a moment to recognize that she’s gone. Main room’s empty. Bathroom’s dark but open, and a glance in the mirror show’s there’s no one inside without having to go in. Bedroom’s just a bed and a mattress, with a dresser pressed against the window, no places she could be hiding. I grit my teeth, open the closet, prepared for a body hanging off a belt, or maybe something much worse- but it’s empty, and she’s gone.

Of course, he couldn’t hide it for long, and I sure as hell wasn’t willing to help. She figured it out when he snuck away during dinner, and she caught him coughing up blood. It’s just as well, because he passes out, and when he comes to, he’s too weak to stand. She says we can’t leave; I argue that that was the point- to get them somewhere he might get medical help, rather than wait for him to die- even though I know I’ve already lost.

I browbeat her into sleeping in the front room, but still, she's been sneaking moments with him, just holding his hand, visiting. I tried to enforce a “never in the room while he's asleep” policy- since it’s harder to notice if he dies- but of course she bucked against that. I’m asleep on the couch when a cry from the other room wakes me, and I’m on my feet before things stop blurry, and as I open the door I realize I left the damn Kimber in the front room.

She’s screaming; I don’t have a moment to steel myself against the inevitable, and maybe I love her just enough to still be a fool, and I rush into the room. He’s crushing her hand in his- he’s barely conscious, just waking up to his new existence. But that docility won’t last- and her scream ignites animal fires in the back of his brain. He lunges at her, teeth out in the open in a tearing motion, heading for her throat; with her hand pinned she can’t stop him, can’t move away.

Our bodies collide with the audible sound of bones and meat, but he lands against the wall, taking the brunt of it. He’s still got her hand, still squeezing and tearing with his fingernails, but he doesn’t have any open soars on his hand, so I ignore it. I use my forearm to pin his head against the wall just as he decides to try and eat me. I pull out what’s left of the knife- it’ll have to do.

The first stab goes into the shoulder, and the arm goes limp; she falls, nearly passing out from the pain, and vomits. I pull the knife out and jam it in the near side of his neck, and drag it across, tearing out a bloody ditch in its wake, but cutting shy of the throat.

The loss of blood causes him to pass out. I turn angrily to her- angry I almost got her killed because I wasn't man enough to murder him when I should've. “He's not dead yet. Leave.” She pauses a moment, wanting to argue it- wanting to will reality back into something she can handle, but I don't flinch and neither does reality. She goes.

I expect her to hit me, to shove me, call me any of the dozen horrible things I know she has on the tip of her tongue. She doesn’t. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even flinch. She sits next to me on the floor, still too proud to lay her head on my shoulder, but she leans against me.

After a long time, she asks, “What do we do?”

“I’m taking you home,” I tell her, without hesitating. I can tell in her eyes there are questions, doubts, and to be honest, I have them, too, but I know if I indulge them, even for a moment, they’ll overwhelm me- that I’ll stop acting stupidly and start acting pragmatically. And I don’t want to- not now.

I stand up, and pull her before she’s ready to her feet. She teeters, and I can tell that she just wants to cry, to curl up in a ball and we don’t have time for that. “Pack what you need into my bag and we’ll go.” She takes a knife her father gave her, and a beaten stuffed rabbit, and a few clothes. “Put the knife on your belt,” I tell her.

I remember she hasn’t been outside, isn’t prepared for this- but it’s the best I can do for her. She picked up her dad’s Springfield, checked the chamber. Then she put the box of .30-06 bullets in her sweatshirt pocket. She wants me to believe she’s ready- she probably wants to believe it, herself, but she’s shaking visibly. I put my arm around her and squeeze; I want to tell her everything will be all right, but I can’t bring myself to tell that lie.

Eventually she pulls away, and opens the door. The hall is dim and shadowy- the clouds overhead are choking what little light could squeeze through the windowed door atop the stairs. She asks if we should use the flashlight, and I put my finger to my lips; who or whatever might enter the hall will have the same disadvantage, except they won’t be accustomed to the lower light- and if it’s a stumbler, their night vision is even worse. We walk slowly- I’m listening for movement inside the apartments, telltale signs of impending ambush, or the methodical, uneven pacing of a stumbler.

The door opens too quickly, just behind us, so quiet it must not have been shut all the way. I know immediately from the stumble the woman’s dead on her feet. Her dress dangles half-off, probably trying to cool from the fever that finally took her, and long, fake fingernails reach out towards us. I step back, pulling the Kimber, but before I can take a shot the stumbler has her in half a half-nelson. I’m neither confident nor reckless enough to take the shot.

I’ve learned my lesson about Burnside, so we travel up St. Clair, but once we get up to Vista there’s a fresh accident. The driver survived just long enough to be torn apart by stumblers. Most are still milling about. So we keep straight ahead towards Washington Park. But I only just remember Washington Park from when I was a kid, back when OMSI was across from the zoo. I get us lost, and we spend a bit of time driving past the same damn signs; to her credit, she doesn’t complain, not once.

I noticed it earlier, but I didn’t say anything, but the second time her fingers tense and she digs her fingernails into my ribs I look back at her. Her eyes are closed, and I can’t be sure, but I think she’s crying. Her grip on me weakens- too much- I can feel her body teetering back in slow motion. I elbow her, thinking she’s falling asleep, or distracted, but it makes her start to fall to the side. I reach to catch her, but the bike leans. I look back up in time to know two things: there are stumblers within 50 yards, and the bike is going down- and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

I don’t think I’m out long- because when I come to, I’m still not dead yet: the stumblers haven’t come twenty yards. But she’s still down, dark hair over her face, her neck pressed unnaturally against the curb. I assume the worst.

I’m on my feet before I realize my ankle’s sprained, at a minimum- it might be fractured, but it’s strong enough to hold me up, so I keep moving. Her chest rises and falls, the sound of it deep, wet- definitely blood in her lungs. The instincts that kept me alive this long tell me to leave her a moment, because she might be playing opossum- and I tell them to go to Hell.

I call out her name, unable to be self-conscious when my voice cracks. When she doesn’t respond I hit the wall, my body becomes heavy, and I move nearly as slow as the stumblers. I try her name again, weak, defeated. She breaths in deep, and rolls over, and I freeze. She pushes herself up on her hands, weak smile on her lips, and I run to her on the busted ankle.

It’s good that I do, because she falls as I get there, not so much into my arms as against my torso. I shake her, but she’s out again. I want to check her head and neck, make sure she’s alright, but the stumblers are too close, now. I look back at our pack and our hard-won supplies scattered across the street. I put her over my shoulder in half a fireman’s carry, and run.

Thorns grab and claw at my skin, though I can’t help but think she’s getting the brunt of it since she’s in front. I’m lucky that I see one of the branches a second before it tears my eye out, and shut the lid tight. It rips a bloody gash from my eyelid towards my temple, and it hurts like only getting punched in the eye does, but I’m not blinded. For a second we’re stuck in the branches, and I feel stumblers’ fingers reaching through for us (or maybe it’s just more branches), but then there’s a bramble’s snap and we’re free. We stumble forward, and I barely manage to kneel without throwing her to the ground.

She’s a little more alert, now, and sits up on her own. There’s a gash from a thorn across her forehead, with some of her hair still sticking into it. “Shit,” I tell her, wiping blood from her forehead, pushing the hair away. “Brace yourself,” I say, and pull the thorn loose. There’s the sound of more branches snapping, and my head spins to see more stumblers forcing their way through the bush, slower, and more caught up, but making too much progress. I don’t ask if she can walk (she’s already beginning to sway again)- just pick her up and we’re moving again.

I scan the first street parking, cars, all cars. I hate cars- no telling what’s in them, no guessing how difficult the anti-theft devices will make stealing them. But I can see another street just passed it. Surreally, there are stumblers trapped in the tennis cages- not chained, just unable to work the simple flip lock that keeps them inside. I almost laugh at one, caught up in the net, a tragicomical farce in ultra slow motion.

But there’s something resembling a god, because there’s a bike parked between the tennis cages, not too big (but not too small for a passenger). I set her on the ground beside the bike. I look behind, and there’s enough distance between us and the stumblers that I have a lifetime to hotwire it- which is easy, because at some point it had already been hotwired before it came here. I get her balanced precariously on the bike, and manage to lash her arm around mine with my belt. With the engine going, I can see we have enough fuel, probably, to make it, and we’re gone.

By the time we get back to the freeway I can tell we aren’t going to make it before dark, but 26 is clear enough to 99, which gets us to 84, and we make it up 205 to Airport Way before I pull off. She protests, “We could make it before dark.” I’d tell her 14 is fucked, but she wouldn’t hear me over the howling wind.

I pull into the Best Buy lot, and she points to the Ikea. “Probably beds and couches and things there.” I shake my head.

I’m a goddamned moron and I know it, the moment I wake up. She’s curled against me, “for warmth” is the best lie I can tell myself. If she turned in the night I’d

I force myself up to shut my mind off. The floor’s done my back no favors, but that’s when I realized it isn’t light, and I’m awake because I heard something. I take out the Kimber, walk slowly. There isn’t much of a moon through the clouds, so the store’s black save for the silhouetted outline of the counters.

And suddenly my feet hit something slick, fly out from under me. I know I’m rushing for the ground, but I went enough around that I’m not sure which direction to reach out to break my fall. I smash face-first against the hard marble floor. I taste blood in my cheek, and realize I’ve landed in a pool of it, cold. Walt’s blood. My tongue searches my cheek frantically, to see if there’s a hole and I’m dead or if there’s just a cut- but I swallow by mistake and realize it’s warm as it goes down. It’s a deep gash and now my teeth hurt, but the blood in my cheek is my own.

And then I hear it, low, guttural, and at first I think it’s just my stomach growling. Then the animal’s lips curl back, and I hear it clearer- at first it’s just the grumble of a tired dog, but it raises in pitch and fear. I realize my hand is splayed out- the hand that had been on the Kimber, the hand that ought to have saved me, and that it’s on Walt’s leg- only Walt’s body is behind me several feet.

My eyes have finally started to adjust enough that I can make out a coyote, rail-thin, its back curled and its hair on end, teeth bared less than a foot from my hand- sitting on its hard-chewed-off meal. My mind races back- I’ve never seen an animal turned, and I don’t think they can be infected- but then I realize it doesn’t matter, because his entire mouth is lousy with Walt’s blood- and he’s a fraction of an instant from biting me.

I am good and fucked.

I don’t have a clue what I want to do- if there’s anything I can do; I’m not even frozen for fear, but because there is no option that doesn’t result in that canine biting me. And that’s when it happens, a barrage of CD cases from the darkness behind me. The first one startles the coyote, and he almost lunges at me because I must somehow be to blame, but then one clatters near his legs, and he shuffles quickly backwards, urine splattering the ground as his own terror becomes evident.

Come the morning I’m full of more doubt about last night. Tearing off Walt’s leg left a hell of a messy stump behind- I think the coyote must have been bigger and meaner than I’d let myself see. By this time she’s been up several hours; I imagine at some point in the night she realized she didn’t want to wake up in my arms.

She’s collected a handful of CDs and an old discman and batteries, and is listening to music as she goes through the impulse snacks near the register for breakfast. And she’s happy for a moment, before she realizes that I’m awake, and I smile. She nearly drops her Boston baked beans when she notices; I tell her, “I kind of hoped I’d never see you again,” though I know that doesn’t really say what I mean.

But she stumbles and ruins it, and at first I think she’s stepped in Walt’s blood, but when I jog to her I realize she’s still four feet from the puddle. I steady her, but she tries to pull away, and needs me to steady her a second time. “Don’t be proud,” I tell her, “and don’t be stupid. You might just have pneumonia, and if you fell over onto Walt and smacked your head then…” I don’t finish it, because my throat tightens.

I’m almost surprised when she doesn’t mock my optimism, only I think she wants to be optimistic, too. I think she needs it. Because the alternative now is horrible. I hold her a moment, then lift so she’s completely on her own feet again and tell her, “Gather your things. We need to head out.”

She tenses up at that, like I’ve interrupted something precious, then she pushes away, giving her weakened equivalent of the shoulder bump. She’s already packed everything she thought we might need into a Badtz-Maru satchel- and we both pretend that she didn’t pick it because of the angry little penguin on the side.

I help her over the minifridges, trying my damnedest not to notice the weight and the softness of her thigh in my hand, trying not to take in the smell of her (well, okay, the faint hint of the artificial smell of her deoderants and shampoos and detergents, lotions and conditioners- beneath the BO our rank species naturally shoves out there when we can’t bathe on a daily basis). And for a moment she’s almost graceful rolling over top of them, until she almost falls- and my heart skips a beat- only for me to remember how naturally klutzy she is. I laugh out loud, in fact, when I remember that ice storm, when she slipped on the ice and landed on her ass, and she gives me the same, irritated feline look now as then, and I shrug.

I take it easy on the way back. Whenever we get the chance to pause some place secluded, we do, get her a chance to lay down. She’s weaker, barely conscious, usually propping herself against me every chance she has. By the time we reach 192nd she isn’t holding on anymore, just laying unconscious against me. It isn’t safe, I know- leather jacket and the helmet only protect so much, but that tiny, tiny hope I have somewhere inside me says that maybe if I can get her to her parents, maybe…

I can’t, even in my moment’s fantasy, imagine how that ends well. I know it isn’t just the flu; I know there’s nothing approaching treatment, let alone a cure. Maybe I’m just hoping that so I can give her parents a chance to say goodbye, give her a few last moments of happiness for the pain I know I caused her, intentional or not.

She whispers dreamily into my neck, and she says, “I loved you,” and I want to ignore the past tense, but I force myself to hear it, to know it, to understand what that means- maybe only because I know that it doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t bother telling her I know, because it’s something I said before, so fucking long back, now, when it seemed like whether or not she had was an argument worth having.

And I’m thankful for the sounds of her snoring, because it means she isn’t going to talk anymore, isn’t going to make me feel like there’s hope when there isn’t, not for her or for us or probably for anyone. She snores all the way through Camas, until we hit the back roads, and even then I think it’s only the added groan of the bike’s engine as it climbs out of a valley that she stirs, snorts. Her fingers grip me, hard, with more life than they’ve had, then relax, as the shock of waking up at 40 miles and hour in the open air fades.

Then I catch it, just a moment in my mirror, as she looks around, dazed. There’s nowhere to pull the bike out of the way, and tall grass on either sides- too dangerous to stop here, no place to go. She bites into the shoulder of my leather jacket, clamping down again and again as her mouth traces towards warm, exposed flesh. I elbow her 8 times before she goes limp against me.