"It's okay, Tommy. You did what you had to do to protect your mother."I was too late. I should have never let him get near her. It's my fault."
Johnny steps next to Tommy and takes his hand. The young boy says nothing, and Tommy looks down with a smile. The two walk hand-in-hand, and you can tell by his expression and posture that your nephew's gesture has eased some of Tommy's pain, if even for a moment.Turning the corner down Barnberry Street, you see the road is blocked by a pair of cars crashed front-to-front, the drivers both dead with shots to the head.
Tommy rounds the accident and waves you on. "My house is right over there," he says and marches in the middle of the street towards a brick-faced row home. The windows are lightly boarded, and light shines through the spaces.
"Did you leave the front door open?" you ask as the home comes into view.
"No, I didn't." Tommy's face turns from agitated to worried, and he hastens to the sidewalk at the foot of his home. "Mom, mom!"
A shadow pokes out, tall and thin and gangly, and the door slams shut. Tommy rushes up the front steps and turns the doorknob, but it fails to open.
"Hey, hey!" he shouts, hand slamming on the door, and he fumbles with a keychain.
Max springs towards the window, growling and yelping.
As Tommy yanks out a key to unlock the door, you draw your AK-47 and Get ready to rush in with Tommy in case there's trouble.You stand by Tommy as he shuffles through a handful of keys. A loud voice speaks inside, muffled by the door, and another voice shouts from the second floor.
"Go, go," the second voice says. "We're done here." A heavy crash like falling furniture sounds out, followed by a burst of footsteps.
"What the hell?" Tommy says and forces a key in the lock. "Mom, I'm coming!"
The door opens a few inches and hits against something blocking its path. Tommy throws a shoulder at the door to push his way inside, and you slam your hands on the surface to aid him. A narrow space opens, and Tommy slips his body through the opening, stepping over a huge bookshelf.
"Stay right outside," you say to Johnny as you follow Tommy inside.Much of the room is in discord, with a sectional couch pushed in one clump along the far wall and a big TV cracked and lying on top of the pile. A display case is tipped over, and from it have spilled dozens of porcelain figurines of clowns and cats and angels. You see no one inside, other than Tommy who runs the length of the house.
"Mom!" he shouts.
Dropping Max's leash, you watch as he rushes around the living room, sniffing and knocking through broken and toppled pieces of furniture. At the edge of the living room near the kitchen, the body of a small white-haired poodle lies on the floor, its back snapped. The dining room table is toppled with several legs cracked, and a large empty chest is turned on its side, the lock broken. Pictures framed and hanging on the walls show Tommy or his mother, Janice.
"Aaron!" Tommy yells from the back of the house.
You tear through the house, evading sharp edges of a broken end table and skipping over a pile of trash. In your haste, you only catch a few details of what happened before you arrived at the Monroe house: a shred of clothing on a kitchen rug, drag marks to the yard door, a large boot print, a bloody bar of soap in the drain, a smear of blood on the back splash. The back screen door swings open in the breeze, and you notice two parallel red streaks a foot or so apart on the floor leading out of the kitchen to the yard. Pushing the door out, you follow the tracks out to the cement. The backyard of Tommy's home has a knee-high wall with several steps leading to a back alley, and the streaks stop at the outer edge. A pile of loose bricks lie near a small enclosure under construction. Tommy kneels near a body—a woman, his mother. She lies on her back, staring at the canvas of clouds, her eyes milky and lacking pupils. Her lips are parted and through them show blunted teeth turning to points, and her skin has taken the color of the change to living death. A puncture wound just under her chin oozes blackened blood. A missing patch of flesh sits high on her arm with six fang-like holes in a circle at its edge.
"They killed her," he says, his voice shaking with anger, teeth clenched. He stares and rocks back-and-forth, and his hands shake violently.Tommy looks at you. "I'm going to kill them."
"Don't worry, we will find them. They had no right to do this."
Tommy stands and paces around the back yard eyes gazing at everything but the body of his mother. "People broke into my home and killed her. Maybe she would have died anyway, but maybe it would have been days from now. Or hours, but they stole that from her, stole it from her and me. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye or have her say my name once more. If she was going to die, so be it. The people who broke in my house killed her and had no right to do it."
You stay with Tommy and watch over him as he silently grieves over his mother. It lasts only a short minute. He mutters under his breath and squeezes his eyes shut, then lets out a short cackling cry. After it passes, he takes in a long, smooth breath and exhales.
"What can I do to help now, Tommy?" you ask in a solemn tone.
He stops by the wall of his house and leans backwards into it until his head touches the surface. "Nothing. I appreciate the offer and all you've done. I'm going to take care of my mom, and it's something I need to do alone."
He walks past you to the kitchen, and you follow. His blank expression and determined movement tell you he's left the grieving stage already. He's moving with purpose, and it's a side of Tommy you doubt he shows often. He flings open the cellar door, flicks on the light, and barrels down the stairs. You walk to the top of the staircase and peer through the flickering light which strobes over Tommy's form. He throws items in a duffel bag, swings a baseball bat over his shoulder, and marches up the stairs. "I'm leaving with my mother. You're welcome to take whatever is left in this house. I'm done here. Couldn't live here another minute if I tried.""You don't have to do this, Tommy. Let me take care of her," I say. It's the right thing to do.Tommy smiles, not in happiness, but to tell you it's alright. "This is something I need to do alone. Just me and my mother. Her Thomas. She's the only one to call me Thomas." As Tommy walks away, you consider your options.
You decide to leave Tommy house without scavenging. You walk through the living room and exit Tommy's house. You walk back home along the same path you took with Tommy. Max walks by your side, stopping every once in a while to sniff a patch of grass or perk up at a noise in the distance. A light flashes in an alley and the quick pops of firecrackers follow. You walk faster to escape the noise and whatever trouble it may draw in.
Before long you're home, and as you close the door, you wonder what other surprises the outbreak may have for you.
You decide to scout the area for anything. Johnny heads to the door with his school bag over his shoulder. By his side, Max hops by the front window, pouncing up and down in an excited dance.
"You have to stay here, boy," Johnny says and hugs the squirming dog. "Me and Ares will be back."
"You can't go with me, Johnny," you say to your nephew as you unlock the deadbolt.
"What do ya mean? I want to go," he says and turns the doorknob.I need you to watch the house and make sure no one gets in," you say in order to make him feel needed.Johnny tilts his head to the side as if mulling over your words. "That's a good point," he says, raising a finger in the air. "It's best if I keep this place safe while you're gone."
Max hops by the front window, wagging his tail.
"You have to stay here, boy," you say and hug the squirming dog. You slip outside as Max tries to follow, but you leave him inside.
You lock the front door of your home and step into the street. The sun hangs in the sky on your left.
As you scan the neighborhood, an ambulance speeds along the street, its sirens blaring. A long black mark runs along the side of the emergency vehicle, with blood smeared in the dent where it must have collided. Once it passes, the clamor of the city returns: the shouts, the thunder of car motors, the rumble of military vehicles. In the backdrop, an errant howl of the infected tells you they're out there, somewhere. You walk down the steps and glance all around the calm street. The air is warm, causing the leftover snow to melt and run down the street in eddies toward the gutters. Birds perch on telephone poles and the soft buzz of bees floats through the air. You see no activity on the street: no cars or military vehicles, no neighbors or other survivors, not even the infected wandering around. But you hear it all in the distance, the faint sound of jets passing overhead, an errant gun shot, a door slamming, a shout. At any moment, someone or something could spring out.
Aside from Fred, Vince, and Parker, you don't know many other neighbors. On the corner sits a three-story Victorian owned by an older couple you've rarely seen outside their home. As you stare at the residence, you spot a light turning off in the third-floor window. Around the corner, a home under construction has boards covering the first-floor windows and plywood hammered over the door. A narrow fire escape leads from the curb to the second floor, which appears unprotected. Something or someone crosses the main bay window, but you can't discern any other details. Farther down the street is the largest house on the block, a one-floor residence with owners who travel often and might not even be home.
Having checked out the neighborhood, you step back inside your house to decide your next move.You check the time—2:00 pm.
Loud shouts draw your attention to the front of your home. You beat your nephew to the window and stand next to him as you peer outside. You peek through the spaced-out boards covering the glass. Max runs to the front door and barks. Across the narrow street, a mid-sized man in a track suit is stumbling across the pavement. He holds a hand to his bleeding stomach and carries a pistol in the other. A gold chain bounces around his neck, and he wears only one sneaker. Behind him, several car lengths back, two women are racing towards him. Both are infected, their bodies early in the stages of decomposition, and they call out in deranged howls. The man limps as he struggles to keep the distance, then he trips as he looks over his shoulder at his pursuers. He falls into a parked car and shuffles a few more steps, raising his pistol at the zombies. At this rate, they'll easily overcome him within half a minute.
"Are we gonna help him?" Johnny says in an agitated tone as he leans on the windowsill and stares at the action.
You rush outside and kill the infected The man will surely die to the two zombies, and you can't let that happen.
"I'm going out there," you say to your nephew. His eyes go wide, and he bounces in place nervously.
"Wait inside, and if anything goes wrong, keep the door closed and locked," you say, giving your nephew a quick hug before leaving.
You take one last look through the window. The two infected women charge across the pavement, though their stiff limbs keep them from a full sprint. The injured man lifts the pistol over his shoulder and fires back at the zombies, missing wide.
You have only moments to intervene before the two infected reach the man, and you consider the best way to kill the zombies you use your primary weapon AK-47.You throw open the front door and run down the steps to the curb. The injured man calls for help and fires his pistol at the infected women, who have closed to within twenty feet. Their shrill howls blanket the area, only interrupted by the short pop of the man's gun.
Readying your AK-47, you fly across the street, cutting around a parked sedan and racing along the pavement from behind the two zombies. You push yourself to move faster, or it may be too late to stop the two zombies. They close upon their victim, and he turns to aim his pistol at the closest woman. His pistol pops, and the first zombie flinches from a bullet in her arm. The man fires again and again until the gun empties, then he fumbles to load a new magazine.
You aim the AK-47 at the woman on your left and fire. The shot pierces the back of her skull above the neck, and she tumbles forward and slams face-first into the sidewalk. Her undead companion doesn't react but rushes for the injured man, who rolls over the hood of the SUV to avoid her clawed hands. You level the AK-47 and pull the trigger, and her head twists from the impact. A wound above her ear oozes thick, rust-colored blood, and she collapses against the parked car.
As you step over the body of the infected woman, the injured man leans against a parked sedan and takes in a huge gulp of air. He has a deep, rich brown skin tone and a larger head than should fit on his narrow, bony frame. A thick gold chain hangs from his neck with the letters DANTE. His track shirt is unzipped, and a white T-shirt underneath has dark spots of blood near the abdomen.
"Thanks," he says. He slips the pistol into the belt of his pants, but keeps his hand over it.Are you okay now? Do you need anything?" you ask. "I live nearby if you need to get off the street for a bit."
Dante eyes you up and down, then turns away. "Peace," he says and jogs away in the same direction from where he came.
"Hey!" you yell to him, but he keeps running.
With the man gone, you eye the corpses of the two zombies. Both appear to be in great shape for the undead, so you reach for your specimen collection kit. Examining the body and your notes, you take a sample of Cerebrospinal fluid.You flip the zombie face-down, bare its back, and prepare a syringe and test tube. You acquire the specimen and place it in your sample kit. Specimen Collection has increased from 1 to 17.
Next, you take out a syringe and test tube and draw a sample of ocular fluid to see if any virus lives in the eye. The fluid filling the syringe's bulb is dark and murky, and though it's only been moments since the infected died, the specimen seems to have putrefied and become unusable. You empty the syringe and plunge the needle into a shallow part of the zombie's arm, and again a thick viscous fluid comes out. After only a few minutes of true death, the infected must quickly decompose, and the virus dies at an accelerated rate. From now, on if you want to take samples, you'll have to be quick.
Thinking it's wise to return home, you start back home, keeping watch on Dante. By the time you reach the front of your house, he's disappeared around the corner of the last home on the street. Back inside, Johnny rushes you with a million questions. "Who is that guy? Is he coming back?" he asks and looks through the window once again.
"I don't know," you say and recap the event to satisfy his curiosity. "I just hope he's okay out there."
The time is 3:PM so you decide to go out to a house.You wonder whether to take Johnny and Max along on your trip or leave them here. Is it safer by your side or here at home? Could your nephew help you out on your trip? Will Max protect your home?
You decide to take both of them You tell Johnny to grab his school bag and get ready to leave. You clip Max's leash onto his collar, and he sits by the door, waiting.
You lock up your house and leave it once more for the day. The sun hangs in the sky above. The area is unusually quiet for this time of day. People aren't walking, biking, or jogging by. No one is outside rinsing off their front pavement. Mailmen aren't finishing up their deliveries for the day. There's a calmness to the city, a desolation, and in the void of activity, it feels like something is about to happen. You head to your neighbor's house, and though you've never met the couple who live inside, you know that they're busy young professionals who travel often and likely weren't home at the start of the outbreak. They have one of the largest houses in the area, so you hope they have a variety of supplies.
The easiest way to the house is through the back alley, and you take the narrow walled pathway to the high stone wall surrounding your neighbor's backyard. The back gate is open, so you step inside to a humongous clearing, triple the size of your own yard. You step past a pile of melting snow and along the deck to the side of the house, and as your eyes glance through the sliding glass doors, you spot a group of infected roaming through the living room. Shocked, you leap back and press your body against the stucco wall. The songs of the zombies are dampened by the glass, but your stomach churns and legs twitch at the thought of only a thin pane of glass and some curtains separating you from a pack of undead.
Johnny steps around the deck next to you, and your hands instinctively pull him towards you.
"What?" he says, but as the word slips out, his eyes widen and face turns pale. "Oh. Wow."
You slide along the wall and peek into the living room, exposing as little of your body as possible. A woman shuffles by the sliding door wearing a black evening gown, her hair matted into a coil on her head, one high-heel still on, and her arms covered in pocks and ravaged skin like third-degree burns. Her head tilts to the side, and you catch sight of her bent and pointed teeth. She screeches, and her breath fogs the glass. As she walks away, you scan the rest of the room and notice a backpack and revolver sitting on a coffee table a few feet from the sliding doors.
Your mind races at the thought of what to do next. You know the layout of the house and could sneak through the kitchen door to search the place and maybe even grab the backpack and gun. Sneaking through the house does present a considerable risk. If you created a diversion near the kitchen, maybe the zombies would leave the living room, allowing you to dash in through the sliding doors. Of course, you'd have to run the length of the home and might not have enough time to rush in and grab the supplies.You stare down at the AK-47. This will do just fine. You take a deep breath, confident in your ability to kill every single zombie in that house.
"Listen, Johnny, I have an idea," you say, and his eyes go wide as you detail the plan.
"You're gonna go inside?" your nephew says, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "There's like fifty of them." You hand him Max's leash, whose tail wags and tongue hangs out as he pants.
"Nah, there's five or six at most," you say, downplaying the numbers. "I'll be fine, Johnny. If there's any trouble or I'm not out in a while, run back home, go inside, lock the door, and wait for Jaime. Okay?"
Your nephew stares up at you, and as he opens his mouth to answer, he wraps his arms around your waist in a tight hug. You pat his back and give him words of assurance, knowing they might be the last words he ever hears you say. Finally, he lets you go and stares at the ground as you walk away.
You circle the perimeter of the house and reach the kitchen entrance. A large X marks the back door in black paint. You reach up and try the knob, surprised at it being unlocked. Considering the mass of zombies roaming the interior, a locked door seems worthless at this point.
You swing the door open in tiny increments to avoid any squeaks from the hinges, and once it's open a sliver, you peek inside. No zombies roam the kitchen. You open the door a few more degrees and change position to peer in at a different angle. You can't see or hear any zombies, so you creep through the narrow opening, leaving the door ajar as a safety measure should you need to flee.
The kitchen is in a shambles, with cupboards ajar and littered with trash, the refrigerator wide open with spoiled food, and tracks of dirt all over the floor, likely made by the shambling dead. With nothing of value to take, you move to the kitchen door. As soon as you look past the open doorway arch, you spot three zombies in a row bumping into one another, meandering with no purpose near the huge sectional couch in the living room. Two more zombies are hanging out at the dining room table ten feet away, and three more crowd the front door, their low murmurs joined in one constant ambient sound. There, on a coffee table near the giant sofa, rests a backpack and a pistol.
Time to get to work.You watch and wait until all of the zombies in the living room are facing away from you, and in their random motion, your wait feels like an eternity. But as the last one turns, you ready your AK-47 and take a deep breath for the most important—and hopefully not the last—fight of your life.
You raise the AK-47 and aim at the head of the closest infected, a woman staggering by the dining room table, her white dress covered in streaks of dried blood. Once the weapon fires, the whole room will wake up, and you take a series of deep breaths to prepare for the action.
You fire a short burst, and the head of the first zombie's head flips to the side, a cavernous hole opened above her ear. She falls across the dining room table, dragging the tablecloth with her.
The remaining infected turn in unison, and their combined wailing shakes you to your core. You've been in combat before, felt the heat of the battlefield and stared into the face of the enemy across that field. These zombies don't feel like the enemy. They don't even remind you of humans. Their deranged faces stare at you, devoid of humanity or fear, and with no other warning, they rush at you.
Weapon raised, you take aim at the next—a former police officer. She drops as you pull the trigger, and you line up the next shot and drop him, too. Your hands twitch but eyes remain focused, and the next three fall to the floor, their heads destroyed by the weapon you're holding, their lives erased in a moment.
The three from the front door close in, and you back into the kitchen as they funnel through the narrow doorway. The first, a nurse, pushes his way past the others. You flip the switch to automatic and squeeze the trigger. The weapon rattles in your hands as it spews round after round into his diseased body. He drops, the next zombie pulls himself through the doorway, and the AK-47 cuts a line of bullets through his scalp. Brown blood squirts from the wound and sprays the refrigerator.
The final zombie staggers past the falling body of the undead. He wears construction overalls and a hardhat. As you raise your AK-47, it digs into his chest, forcing you backwards. Clawed hands swipe at you. Your back hits the stove, and his teeth snap close to your face. You swing the weapon up and clip the side of his head, and it knocks the hardhat off, which rattles on the kitchen floor. You swing again, striking his temple, then you continue to hammer, over and over again, until his skull cracks with a splash of blood.You sit on the kitchen floor to catch your breath and wipe the blood from your hands and face with a towel left on the counter. The sharp, pungent odor sticks to your clothing, and your shirt is thick with residue. But there's a house to search, and you'll worry about clean clothes later. First, you move closer to the body of a zombie and reach for your specimen collection kit. Examining the body and your notes, you take a sample of
Arterial blood.You take out a syringe and test tube and find an artery along the inside of the zombie's neck. You acquire the specimen and place it in your sample kit. Specimen Collection has increased from 17 to 27.
With that task done, you move to search the house.
In the living room, you take the backpack and loaded Colt Python from the coffee table. Pressing forward, you search the first bedroom, which is as disheveled as the kitchen. You find a lighter, an empty carton of cigarettes, and several dozen burnt-out cigarette butts in a pile on the floor. The lighter works, so you stash it in your pocket. Otherwise, the bedroom contains only trash and debris.
You move through the hallway, searching room to room for any other living person who might be here. The second bedroom is in disarray, with clothes thrown everywhere, dresser drawers flung open and broken, a cracked television set, and a shattered wall mirror. From a closet, you take two bars of soap, an unopened pack of batteries, and a bottle of sunscreen.
As you step into the master bedroom, you smell the unmistakable odor of death and find your neighbors, though not like you expected. They lie together on a king-size bed, held in one another's arms, each with a small hole in their temples. An empty bottle of wine stands on the bedpost, and an ashtray has the remnants of marijuana cigarettes. You spot two spent 9mm casings from a pistol on the floor but no gun. They appear peaceful in death and have escaped the horrors of the apocalypse. You leave their room, locking the door on the way out.
Finished with the bedrooms, you return to the living room and step past the corpses of the undead. With the house searched and your neighbors located, you end your time here and leave through the sliding glass doors.
"Time to go," you say to your nephew as you leave the house.
"Is everything all right?" he says in a concerned tone.
"Yep. We're done here."
Max trots alongside you, bumping your legs with each hurried step.
As you leave your neighbors' house, you think of them lying inside, dying together, their final choice as a couple. When you think of that last act, you feel Nothing about it. Your only concerned with my your survival.That couple made a decision, and maybe you should feel something—empathy, sorrow, even envy. For whatever reason, you couldn't care less how those two strangers chose to deal with the apocalypse. With zombies taking over, citizens turning into bandits, and the threat of disease or malnourishment, it's hard to spend much mental energy on two corpses that crossed your path.As you reach the front steps of your house, you see the front door ajar. Moving closer, your heart rate quickens at the sight of dirt tracked over the threshold and trailing into your home.
"Johnny, wait here and be as quiet as you can. If you see or hear anything, run."
"Run where?" he says, his tone underscoring his worry.
"Do you know where Fred's garage is? Go there."
Your nephew nods and takes Max's leash from you.
You walk up to the door and peer through the narrow opening. More dirt footprints lead from the doorway, but you see and hear no sign of an intruder. You step inside, careful not to make any noise. Your footsteps fall without a sound on the carpet, and you slide along the living room, following the tracks toward the stairs, then they pass the stairs leading to the second floor. You peer around the corner and see no one in the den, and the tracks go dead in the middle of the floor.
A plane flies overhead, low and sweeping like passing thunder, and as the sound fades, you turn to hear a low murmur from the other room. You skirt along the staircase and lean into the living room, and there in the kitchen doorway stands a man, tattered clothing clinging to his gray-and-yellow pocked skin. You backstep and raise your AK-47. He hasn't seen you yet, or he would have attacked. He might wander into the kitchen, giving you time to sneak behind him for an easier chance at a kill. You could open the front door, and like an insect buzzing around in a car, the zombie might just find his way outside. Of course, you could also just attack him and get it over with you attack now before it's too late.Just then, the roar of the garbage truck passes the front of the house, and the zombie screams in excitement. He tears across the living room, and you retreat a few steps to the den. He throws himself at the front door and bounces off it, thrashing and clawing at the surface in a feeble attempt to reach the noisy truck. As it passes, the sound draws him along the wall, and he pushes his body against the window and scrapes the boards with his long fingernails.
This might be easier than you could have planned. You lift your AK-47 and step towards the zombie. You aim at the back of the zombie's head and pull the trigger, though his erratic movements make him difficult to target. The shot hits his earlobe, bursting it open like a water balloon. He barely flinches, craning his neck for a split second in your direction, but the truck changes gear, and the revving motor draws the zombie back. You readjust and fire again, this time puncturing a hole straight through his skull above the neck. Bloodstains smear the wall by the front window as his limp body slides down, but oddly enough, no more of the brown liquid seeps from the dead creature's body. This zombie seems far more decomposed than the others you've encountered, but you reach for your specimen collection kit to obtain a sample for research. Examining the body and your notes, you take a sample of Brainstem tissue.You take out a scalpel and a tissue sample case. Tilting the zombie's head to the side, you lean to cut into brain. You acquire the specimen and place it in your sample kit. Specimen Collection has increased from 27 to 37.
You open the front door. Johnny is sitting on the steps with a comic book in his lap, apparently impervious to the apocalypse.
"Oh, hey," he says and stands, scooting by you into the house.
You shut the door and bar it with a few boards, which should hold up as a temporary measure. After that chore, you drag the body of the dead zombie to the yard and return to the living room to clean his bloodstains.
You check the time—5:45 pm.
"Ares, come quick!" Johnny yells, and you dash to the window beside him. You maneuver until you find a space to see out between the wooden planks over the glass. Gunfire erupts outside your home, glass breaks, and voices shout in a cacophony. You spot a series of figures running down the middle of the street, chased by a pack of the infected. One of the living, a heavyset man, tumbles over a knocked-down trash can and slams on the pavement, face down. A long-barreled gun flips out of his hands and lands out of reach. His companions stop just ahead and turn: a short-haired blonde woman with a shotgun and a tall, bearded man with a rifle. The zombies close upon the fallen man, their shrill howls intensifying with each step, their bodies colliding as they try to be first to their target.
You rush to the front door and unlock it, knowing you only have seconds to help the man. As you swing open the door, you hear the heavy boom of a weapon and pain-filled screams; the pack has surrounded the fallen man. He flails and cries for help as the infected rip and bite and rend, and one lies several feet away with a gaping wound in its stomach. Still, it crawls toward the dying man.
"Damn it, George, shoot them!" the woman yells, and the heavy weapon fires again. "Kill them!"
Another zombie falls from the shotgun's blast, but five more continue to tear the fallen man apart. Blood flies up in short squirts, and the faces of the zombies wear it like face paint. The tall bearded man holds his rifle against his chest and backs away, watching as the zombies do their work, his face blank and expressionless. As the woman reloads the barrels of her weapon, she spins to face him.
"What are you doing?" she yells, her face red and voice filled with rage. "George! George!"
The fallen man lies still in the street, and the noise of the zombie pack has become subdued as they feast upon the corpse. There's little anyone can do to save him now, but the zombies remain a threat. Though the woman prepares to shoot them, they could easily turn on her, leaving five riled-up undead outside your house. As you consider what to do, a window opens on the second floor of a neighbor's home across the street. A moment later, a black luxury car squeals as it turns the corner and drives the wrong way down the street towards the zombies.