Rules (of the Living Dead)
Always shoot them in the head. That's the only way to make sure the sons of bitches stay down. Thunder pealed from the business end of the shotgun, disintegrating the head of Harold's former neighbor, Jim Carlson. All that remained were thin strips of flesh that hung from his neck-stump like badly-dyed strands of hair. Carlson's corpse fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud. He wouldn't be getting up this time.
Harold scanned the area around him. No sound issued from the houses. The suburban neighborhood was tranquil, dead as the cemetery it had become. He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for though – he knew that the calmer it was, the more likely that he was being watched, stalked.
Hunted.
A score of birds erupted from a tree behind him, and he was ready. Pivoting to face his latest stalker, the eighth of what would undoubtedly be many, he dropped to a knee with the shotgun pressed securely to his shoulder.
From around the tree stepped Janice Selner, the cute teenage girl from up the road who sometimes walked his sister's dog. He would often look adoringly at her when she came to pick up Timmy, and he had the feeling that she liked him, too, even though she acted nervous and shy whenever he was around.
She was anything but attractive now. Her long blond hair was filthy and tangled, her previously-pristine skin covered in lesions, her teeth black and rotten. Even from this distance, she reeked of rotting flesh.
Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth onto her torn t-shirt. She dropped something onto the leaf-covered grass. It was Timmy, now minus a leg and part of his neck. Janice stared at Harold, and he stared right back, knowing what she was thinking -- she had found something better to chew on.
Don't EVER let them bite you -- you'll turn into one of them, he thought as he trained the gun on the spot right between her eyes. He wasn't likely to come close to hitting her there, but with the spread of the shot, it really didn't matter. All he needed to do was get close enough, and the blast would take care of the rest.
The deluge had started early in the morning. He had been awakened to the sounds of Carly, his sister, leaving the house after receiving a phone call. Curious as to where she was headed, he peered through the curtain of his room. Across the street, he saw his sister speaking with Laura Selner, Janice's mother, the conversation punctuated with a great deal of angry gesturing towards their house. Carly then moved in as if to hug her, and that's when it happened – Laura bit her on the side of the face, tearing a chunk of flesh from her cheek, and letting loose a torrent of blood.
None of the movies had warned him that zombies could be so clever as to trick a person with conversation, but he couldn't deny what he was seeing. The change in his sister had been near-instantaneous as she rushed back to the house, eyes blazing, skin dissolving as he watched, to do to him what had been done to her.
Luckily, she hadn't known about the shotgun he had bought a week earlier for just such an occasion, and he was able to put a hole in her the size of a saucer just as she burst through the door. Her normally serene visage was replaced by one of rage, hunger, and a large dose of surprise. Even so, he had felt bad about shooting her – she was his sister, after all – but there was no way in hell he was going to become one of those things.
Save the last bullet for yourself, he thought. Just in case. That was sound advice, but not any that he'd need any time soon. He was wearing a heavy coat that was loaded with pockets full of shells. Before the time came to finish himself, which he was fully prepared to do, he was going to take twenty to thirty of the damned things with him.
He braced the gun and took aim on Janice, and then she surprised him. Rather than lurch towards him as he expected, she started to run the opposite way. Baffled by the development – none of the movies ever mentioned that zombies would run away – he nevertheless fired the gun. The Janice-thing tumbled to its knees. He approached it cautiously, wary that it might be some sort of trap. It stared up at him, clouded eyes regarding him with anger, and something else. Fear? Hatred.
He lifted the shotgun and put the thing out of its misery. It was a shame, really – he had spent many nights thinking about Janice in ways that would be illegal had he ever acted on them. But it was for the best. Hopefully, he would meet some more survivors and band together, just as they always did in the movies, and there he would fine his soul mate.
The movies had been his saving grace. If Carly had just listened to him and paid attention as he had, she would still be alive. Instead, she condemned and mocked him, saying that the movies would lead to nothing but bad dreams. She had called him stupid just the night before, but he was smarter than she thought. He wasn't a walking corpse, and he wasn't going to be if he had anything to say about it.
Approaching the tree, he looked down to pay his last respects to Timmy before moving on. Instead of seeing a dead dog sprawled in the grass, there was simply a black purse, its contents now spread across the ground. A compact had broken open, and the mirror inside blinded him with the reflected morning sun.
He turned away, sure for a moment that he was missing something. Why would a zombie run from him? Why had his sister gone down with nothing but a shot to the stomach when the movies always claimed a shot in the head was required? Had Carlson actually called him by name before his head exploded in a shower of red and gray? This train of thought made his head hurt, so he pushed it away.
He had been wrong about the dog. So what? It didn't change the fact that these creatures were everywhere, and he had to do what he could to help. And where better to help than the park, where mothers and their helpless children would be out playing on a beautiful spring day like today? It would be a bloodbath.
Harold snapped the gun open and reloaded as he walked toward the sounds of the screaming children.