Mark Clodi - Outbreak

“Cory run!” she screamed at him as she stepped up with her trusty fire poker. Cory, however did not run, he ducked and side stepped off of Max’s porch, the zombie grabbing for him missed and screamed at him. Amelia’s rush put her into swinging range and her first blow caught the zombie above the eyes, almost dead on with the front of her half turned forehead. The poker smashed in easily and the zombie collapsed.

“Oh God! I hope that wasn’t Max’s wife!” she yelled to Cory who was getting back to his feet while Amelia backed away from the front door. Glancing at the boy she saw that he was fine and then shifted her eyes again to the front door, she did a double take and stammered, “How? What…how. How did you get here?” at the figure who had appeared on the other side of Max’s storm door.

Nancy smiled at her and said, “Well, well look what the cat drug back to us! So you and Max hooked up huh?” Calling over her shoulder she said to an unseen person, “V, it is Amelia from work! Yeah again! Tell Julie to move the troops around, looks like Amelia took one of your recruits down too.” Then back to Amelia, she said, ”You know when you got away I really did not think you would make it far. Where is Max?”

“Max?” Amelia stammered, her spirits sinking, “He is not here? Cory get in the car, quick!”

A zombie raced out from the far side of the house, not at Amelia or Cory, but to put himself between them and the car. Cory took a few steps towards the car, then another zombie appeared on his side of the house, “Amelia! There are more of them!” Cory backed away from the zombie, unfortunately he was also backing away from Amelia, which left her effectively surrounded by them with Cory outside the circle.

“Give it up deary, I think we have you surrounded, tell the boy to stop and we will make it easy for you. Jimbo, I took the last one, you can have this one, she's even pretty, you'll like her.” said Nancy, as she stepped through the door outside.

“Never! Run Cory!” Amelia stepped up and swung at Nancy with all her might. Nancy raised her arm and tried to catch the fire poker, however Amelia had learned to expect such defensive reactions in the last few days of fighting and at the last minute she lowered the poker to hit Nancy in the lower leg, with a sickening crack Nancy went down. Nancy screamed and grabbed her leg with both hands as another zombie Amelia recognized stepped over her, ‘V’, Nancy had called her. “C’mon V, that is your name right? Just let us get out of here. Please.” Amelia begged.

“Fucking crucify her ‘V’, no getting away for her, I want her dead! That bitch broke my fucking leg!” frothy spittle sprayed out of Nancy mouth as she screamed.

Veronica never took her eyes off Amelia, “If things were different maybe I could do that, things have changed, we need food now. Well now that Nancy is wounded and needs to heal up. Sorry, it is nothing personal. I won’t let them eat the boy though, when we catch him. And we will.”

Amelia looked around and sure enough Cory had bolted like she said, the zombie on that side of the house was returning, getting back into position as if he had tried to chase the boy down and then given up.

“Then there is nothing I can do.” Amelia heard herself say, after that she let out a cry of rage and swung at Veronica, deliberately pulling her blow back and then edging forward, which caused Veronica’s blocking arm to miss. The blow took Veronica in the middle of her chest and ripped into her white blouse, though her blouse and skin, lodging as near as Amelia could tell in her right breast. Veronica gasped, tried to grab the fire poker and swung her right hand at Amelia ineffectively before stumbling to her knees. Amelia didn't stop, she edged past Veronica and jumped over Nancy's legs as she leaped into the house, barreling into Jimbo, Jimbo wrapped his arms around Amelia, trying to get a good hold on her. “Stop fighting, I'm gonna let you go, get up into the attic if you can.” the wriggling human woman, didn't stop fighting and Jimbo let her go, she did, however, run up the stairs when he released her, dropping the fire poker onto the floor.

“You fucking let her go Jimbo!” screamed Nancy from on the front porch.

“Yeah, I did.” said Jimbo, not bothering to add the 'fuck you' to his reply. “Where is she gonna go Nancy? She's stuck just like poor Max's wife and we can take them anytime we need to.”

Pain, that was all there was, pain. Sarah grasped her leg and tried to stem the bleeding, one of the kids handed her a towel and she pressed it against the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. She should never have moved over by the attic door to try and listen to what they were saying, who knew that they could jump so high and tear through a ceiling like it was paper?

Tears were streaming down her face when she heard the woman below begging for help. Leaning over and clearing insulation out of the way she saw a young woman down below with a pleading look on her face.

“Please! Please help me! let me into the attic, I haven't been bit, I'm not a zombie.”

A chill went down Sarah's spine. 'Bit? Bit? Was she bit? Oh God!', she had thought one of them had stabbed her, lifting the towel she examined the wound closely while the woman continued pleading below. One edge of her wound clearly showed a jagged incision made by human teeth.

“What do you mean you're not bitten?” Sarah yelled through the hole, “What difference does biting make?”

“It is…I'm not one of them, let me up, please!” Amelia begged, looking behind her she saw Jimbo and Veronica bodily in front of Nancy preventing her from coming up the stairs. Veronica had Amelia's poker and was waving it in Nancy's face as they argued. “Please, she is going to get up here and there is no where else I can go!”

“What do you mean about the biting?!” Sarah demanded once again.

“It is, well, they bite you, that is how it happens, how you turn into one of them.”

“Oh God. Oh no-no-no!”

“You were bitten?” Amelia called up.

“No-no-no!” as she sobbed she pushed the two by four that had been blocking the attic access and the ladder swung down to Amelia.

Amelia wasted no time scrambling up the ladder and pulling the door back closed behind her.

“When were you bit?” Amelia said.

Sobbing Sarah didn't answer. “When. Were. You. Bit?” Amelia asked again.

“Just now, just right now, they, one of them pulled my leg through the ceiling and bit into it.”

“Okay, I was with this woman who got bitten, she, she lasted awhile, we might be able to get you some help if we can get past them.” Amelia stopped, knowing, without outside help, they were not going to get by the zombies in the house.

Turning to the kids, she said, “Hi. What are your names? I am Amelia.”

The kids, with pale tear stained faces looked well beyond scared, they mumbled their names, quietly. “It'll be alright, it will be okay, don't worry alright?” The lie sounded hollow even to Amelia as she spoke it. “Lets get your mom over there, on that piece of wood and away from this hole, okay?”

The kids helped her move Sarah to the plywood where they had been sleeping.

Amelia said ‘Run!’, Cory ran. No way he was going to leave her though, no way at all. He doubled back around the house after running around the nearest corner, the zombie that had tried to chase him gave up really easily and Cory was now standing in what he thought was the backyard of the house behind the one he and Amelia had tried to go into. He saw two zombies in the backyard of Max’s house, a girl and a slow moving guy, the guy started around the side of the house and Cory thought he could take out the girl on his own, he started climbing over the fence when a hand grabbed onto his ankle and pulled him back down into the backyard, towards a bushy evergreen tree, Cory struggled to grab something, anything to stop his journey, nonetheless he ended up under the boughs of an evergreen tree, where he was unceremoniously flipped onto his back to look into his captors eyes.