WALKING CORPSES

He fell back with the ladder into the attic where the zombies were reaching out to grab him. For a moment, he gave up on life and living, his heart broken from being betrayed twice in less than an hour.

His back hit the floor and he reeled from the impact. All around him, the zombies were jostling to reach him, and he kicked at them in panic, flailing his hands in a feeble attempt to keep them away when one of them touched something.

It was a brand new chainsaw he had very recently purchased.

With all the effort he could muster, he reached out to pull it towards him when he felt a zombie bite into his leg. Holding the chainsaw with both his hands, he swung it with all the force he could muster, sending a few of them off and cutting into the head of the one biting his leg. Another swing gave him some space to stand, and he started the machine.

It buzzed, alive and dangerous, the sound vibrating over the whole room. The zombies began to shriek and yell and rush towards him, obviously affected by the sound the chainsaw made and in a bid to turn it off. Without waiting for anything else to happen, Kevin cut a zombie that had been rushing at him in half.

More of them filled this room, all of them struggling to reach him and stop the sound, shrieking as they came close, and Kevin cut all without mercy as well, crying as he did. His leg hurt from the zombie bite, but the pain he felt did not transcend his will to stay alive.

They rushed at him in increasing numbers, and he cut them all, sawing and cutting until he was almost entirely soaked in their rotting, grey blood, scores of them dead at his feet.

Realising that he was far too powerful for them to finish off, they moved back while he stood defensively. Slowly, they went back through the doors they had rushed in from, leaving Kevin alive.

Exhausted, he fell to his knees, switching the chainsaw off and letting it fall to his side. As he sat on the floor with a pile of zombie bodies forming a circle around him, he cried, moving himself till his back rested against the wall in the attic.

There, he sat and let the tears he had been holding fall free.

For a moment, his cheek hurt, and he rubbed his hand against it only to feel more pain. When he looked at his hand, there was blood on it, and he realised that the zombies had scratched his face as well, a burning cut that stopped above his right eye, another wound in addition to the bite in his leg.

His thoughts went to Gina and Felix, wondering how they were feeling at that very moment, and if they were at peace with the fact that he was most probably dead, his body joining the swarms of mindless zombies ravaging the city and seeking more to join in their ranks.

It felt to him that they would be happy that he was out of the picture, leaving them free to do as they wished with each other.

“They will pay.” He swore to himself, standing up. “But for now, I have to survive. I cannot have my vengeance on them if I die.”

Cautiously, he climbed down from the attic door and into the room below, switching the chainsaw on as soon as his feet touched the wooden floor. There, a zombie stood shrieking and he cut its head off without sparing a second thought, yelling as he did. Another one came rushing at the sound of his chainsaw and he cut that one as well. Four more came and in one angry swoop of his chainsaw, he had their heads on the floor.

He soon reached his room, where he had caught his girlfriend cheating, and then he locked the door behind him. He turned around again and came face to face with three zombies, killing them in the same way he did with the others. They fell dead, the only ones in the room and he stopped, turning the chainsaw off and panting.

Throwing the chainsaw aside, he went and sat on the bed, tired. He fell back on it before the image of Felix thrusting into Gina resurrected in his head, and he sat up on it again, shutting his eyes and biting on his lips.

His rage filled his heart, and he wanted to take it out on anything, just right about anything. Going through the room like an angry tornado on the rampage, he kicked and broke everything in his path until he was tired, the zombie bite in his leg hurting and the one on his face itching.

Like in the attic, he sat with his back to the wall, and as he did the gun he had used in killing the zombies slipped out of his pocket. He picked it up, cocked it, and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not shoot.

Remembering he would have had some extra bullets, he went to the drawer that had the gun in it and searched for them. Soon, he found enough for six rounds, and he loaded his cartridge with them, picking up his chainsaw again and returning to sit in his position where he would wait for anything to happen.

His eyes blinked for want of sleep, but he struggled to stay awake until he could no more, clutching his loaded gun and his chainsaw close to himself, ignoring the slimy grey blood on his body and his weapons.

He did not know for how long he slept, but when he awoke there was a zombie screaming above him, its deathly mouth wide open before his eyes. Around him, even more zombies were reaching to grab him, and he yelled in panic, sitting up.

Looking around him, he saw that there were hundreds of zombies around him, but none of them could come close enough to touch him.

To him, it looked as though there was some kind of protective layer between him and the ravaging horde of walking, rotting corpses.