Chapter 8

I opt to continue showering. Even if I stop right now, not too much more damage can occur in 10 minutes. I pause. Can it? I speed up the soaping, do a final rinse and dry off. I put some clothes on. In case things get physical up there I do not want to be bouncing around in my pjs. Ugh. My gun. Into the living room i go, to retrieve it. I look down the barrel, across the sight. Not real sure why i'm doing this, i already know it's off. I walk over to the door at the bottom of the stairs, and listen. Nothing. I have a sinking feeling that I'm not going to get to bed until the sun comes up as I start to unlock the door. I heard somewhere that people are more comfortable in uncomfortable situations if they are holding something. I can attest to that at this very moment, because my left hand has an iron grip on my gun and I feel almost invincible. I ease inside onto the tiny landing between the bottom stair tread and the door, closing it behind me, listening and trying to sense any movement coming down the stairs. This would be one of the times i think to myself, why a two story?! My gaze travels up the 10, maybe 12 stairs covered in a ruddy brown shag. No sign of life, er... Listening intently for anything coming my way, i take the stairs two at a time, nervously reaching the top. I stop at the top of the stairs, quickly looking from left to right, and back again. Nothing. Where are they? Hopefully not where I'm about to go. I hang a right, and head down the hall to my brothers old room, and bathroom; which is where I suspect the problem is. I don't encounter anyone at this end of the house, thankfully. I shut the bedroom door quietly behind me, enter the bathroom and shut its door too. If they figure out how to turn doorknobs, i'm in serious trouble. I set my gun down on top of the toilet tank. I bend down and check the water lines: all dry. As I stand back up, my muscles scream and for a second i think of yelping, before I get hold of myself and swallow it down. Man am I sore?! I slide over and open the cupboard below the sink. Bingo. The bottom of the MDF cupboard is swollen, buckled and very wet. Water is dripping from the bottom of the trap in a steady stream. A pool has formed in the middle of the cabinet bottom and it's trending toward the back of the cabinet in a little trickle. Wonderful. I reach back and turn the water off to both faucet handles and move back onto my haunches. This is not going to be a quick clean up, and I really don't want to spend anymore time than i have to up here. The water has made its way under the various bottles of shampoo, lotions and supplies that my brother had stored here. I start to systematically take everything out, wipe it off with the hand towel from the sink top and set items on the floor and in the tub. I grab another towel from the rack on the wall and give it a sniff. Funny, it still smells like him, and is not at all musty from non-use. I toss it under the sink and start to sop up the water. Just what i want to be doing in the middle of the night, which must be turning into morning by now. I always hated this bathroom, there aren't any windows. I dislike having to rely on artificial light. Also, at this point of the apocalypse, no window means one less escape route. Not smart. I've gotten most of the water up, it's about as good as it can get given my motivation for the job and energy level. Standing, my knees pop and crackle, my right butt cheek is getting tighter by the minute and I yawn as I stretch up to hang the towels over the top of the shower curtain pole. THUD. I drop the hand towel and spin for the toilet, grabbing for my gun. The bathroom door is still closed, but if i was a betting person, i'd lay money on the fact that the bedroom door had just swung open and hit the doorstop behind it. I slide up to the bathroom door and listen to the shuffle and slide of heavy feet. My heart is beating a mile a minute in my chest and i feel the first race of adrenaline course through my veins.

Chapter 7

The walk home is so far, uneventful. Thank goodness. My muscles are already starting to tighten and i just know there's a bruise the size of mars waiting for me on my backside. Laying down to sleep should prove a feat. I reach the front lawn, and am not at all surprised that the corpse is gone. One of the lookey-loo neighbors probably saw the whole thing go down, and called 9111. 9111 got instated when the government realized that this whole walking dead thing was actually here to stay. 9111 is the clean up team. Cops, Firefighters, EMS - the whole serve and protect cocktail has special branches now that responds to deader attacks and messes. Their main function is to manage attacks and their aftermath. Once the myth about zombies creating more zombies by an infectious bite was debunked, it became paramount to make sure that an attack victim isn't a fatality. I don't know what the statistic is of a person becoming a zombie at death, but in my experience, my family isn't doing so well. Heck, with the exception of my father, most my immediates are bumbling around upstairs. I look to the second story and can see a shadow in front of one of the windows. I wonder who it is and do they recognize me? Up the sidewalk i go, vaguely interested in the clean-up job and the fact that there's so little matter left in the concrete. I disengage the multitude of locks, and I'm inside the house, safe and sound. I toss my fanny pack back on the coffee table in the living room, my gun follows it. The cleaning and sighting is going to have to wait until morning. I pause at the bottom of the stairs to listen to my house guests. Not a sound. Do zombies sleep? What are they doing up there? I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it. I can feel myself starting to hit a wall. I need to shut down. I make my way into the bedroom, stripping off my clothes at the same time. I continue through the room and into the bathroom to take a shower. Vaguely i wonder what time it is as i turn the valves to get the water to temperature. As the stream starts spurting from the shower head, tendrils of steam and heat start to dance in the damp air. I pull back the curtain and get in, wincing slightly as the water hits my skin and pummels my back. I avoid glancing in the mirror that runs alongside the wall opposite the shower. I don't want to see what bruises are blooming just yet. Inside i rinse off, and as I reach for the soap sitting in the caddy hanging from the neck of the shower head, i feel an odd drip on the crown of my wet head. Instantly, i look up, and there's a water spot on the ceiling. The drywall is beginning to sag, and the paint is pregnant with water. A tiny droplet is balanced on the bottom of the expanding paint bubble and it sprinkles down and lands on my nose, washes down my cheek with the rest of the water. Shit. There's a leak upstairs. Which means I have to go amidst my dead family members and check things out.  

Chapter 6

I can see my breath coming out in tiny puffs as i inhale and exhale, my senses on overload, searching, scanning and running across my brain. My gun is still in my hand, and my thumb reaches around and releases the safety. I say a silent prayer that it didn't get damaged when it hit the ground. The hair on the back of my neck is starting to rise, and my pulse is thudding in my ears. I can barely hear my music, my foot isn't even keeping time with the bass line. I start to turn, slowly, eyes darting from left to right, right to left, my gun arm loose at my side, on standby. I'm still not seeing anything, but i can feel something watching me. I complete my turn. A full 360. Nothing. My pulse is starting to slow, but my dander is still up. At the moment my brain starts to register the song playing, i catch movement in my peripheral vision. I spin, moving so fast i surprise myself. I raise my gun, cocking it, adrenaline pumping. There it is. Its looking right at me, if zombies can actually look and focus on anything. Its arms are swaying slightly, and seems like its trying to take a step forward, but the effort is wasted, because it's not moving. The deader is standing just off to the side of the club, to the South, perpendicular to the front door. At the angle I'm at to the building, i can't be sure if it's seeing me, or not seeing me. It's just standing there, almost looking like it's dancing...dancing?! I might have hit the ground harder than i thought. But as i stand there, my teeth start to chatter and i realize that is exactly what it's doing. Or trying to do. That deader can hear the pound of the bass inside the club and the trill hop of the treble and it's dancing!. I ease the hammer back and depress the safety. And i shouldn't have. The instant i complete the action, something snaps inside the zombie and i know, without a doubt it sees me. It lurches, lunges forward and starts to make its drunken way towards me at high speed. I'm almost surprised as I reverse my actions, cock, release and explode the trigger. The bullet strikes out with a snap-bang! and hits the deader square in the chest. Almost surprised. The sight is most assuredly off from the gun hitting the ground when i  fell. I take aim and shoot again, trying to compensate for the bad trajectory. I was aiming for his chest this time, and nailed his face instead, just as the doors of the club swung open and a crowd came pouring out to see what the commotion was. Blood and bits of whatever-else sprayed in an arc around the deader as the corpse collapsed and hit the ground. Someone gasped, a woman I'm pretty sure i didn't know stood holding a baseball bat, and i made eye contact with the bartender. She smiled, shook her head and started ushering the onlookers back inside, promising free drinks and towels for the goo. In the distance i hear sirens, which sound like they're getting closer. I reinstate the safety and put the gun inside my fanny pack. I touch the print scanner on my phone, once, twice, three times and the decibel level goes down an octave. I shove my hands into the back pockets of my  pants and stand there, hopping a little, trying to keep warm. The blare of the siren gets louder and louder, and I don't move. A police car winds around the corner, it's lights flashing, the siren screaming and screeching as the vehicle rolls up alongside me. I'm hoping my ID is in my fanny pack, because at the moment i don't remember putting it back. I hope to God it's there, or this night will get even more interesting. The policeman gets out of the patrol car, his shiny black boots making a soft swish and scratch on the frozen pavement. I love it when they wear their sunglasses at night. I smirk, because that song "I wear my sunglasses at night, so i can, so i can" starts going through my head. I have the presence of mind to think that I'm going to get in trouble, the instant before the cop says "what's so funny kid?". I make a blank face, reach into the pack at turn my music off and tell him. He's not amused, but takes his glasses off while shaking his head. Into his right breast pocket they go. Now, you might be wondering why he's got his sunglasses on at night. Well, the new sunnies have built in infrared in the lenses, so sometimes its actually easier for them to see at night with them on, than off. I explain in great detail the last hours event, ending with the dead deader sprawled on the ground outside the club. Blood and bits of ick all over the street, and on some of the patrons already back inside. I get a warning for killing a corpse in a public place and for possibly endangering said public. He wanders over to the corpse and gives it a shove with one of those shiny patent boots. The deaders whole body ripples with the force, but that sucker stays down for the count. More sirens are trilling in the background, and i hear a different sort of engine coming my way. The ambulance. Here to make sure the living stays alive and the dead stay dead. Two EMS gents pop out of their ride and rush over to me. I go through the story again, they leave me alone and go over to make sure the corpse is still dead. Everyone pretty much does the "hey how are ya's" standing over the deader, shaking hands, shaking heads, trading the evening news, and then they break away back to their vehicles and head off into the night.  I'm even colder than i was when this whole thing started. I'm wondering whether or not i should stay and wait for the meat wagon to come pick up the body when the waitress pops her head out of the club to tell me i can head out, it'll get picked up in the morning. I smile, say my thanks, apologize for the ruckus and start back the way i came. I turn my music back on, amp up the sound level and let the last dregs of adrenaline ooze out. I'll sleep like a baby when i get home.

Chapter 5

The temperature has dropped significantly while I've been inside. Black ice formed on the ground, there's a thin veil of it on the pavement, the sidewalk and the grass. Fragments of crystals catch in the wind and refract the neon light flashing above my head. Snow flakes are falling, giving me the vague sense of being in a psychedelic snow globe. My tailbone is throbbing and my palms hurt from the sudden impact with the ground. I rub my hands together, getting little bits of asphalt and dirt out of my flesh. Now, where did my gun end up?! I'm looking around for it as I stand. If this was a movie, I'd have fallen gracefully, my gun still in my hand having rolled just before I hit the ground, ready for action. But this isn't a movie, and I'm not made for this crap. Dad used to call me Grace when I was younger, small wonder. My bones creak and both my knees pop as I stand up, brushing my hands against my thighs, ridding myself of the last of the grit. My butt's wet from my short stay on the ground. Fantastic. I look to my right where i think my gun must have skittered when i fell. Between the flash of the sign and the hour of night, I'm having a hard time laying eyes on my black firearm. I catch a glimpse of something a little shiny, half under the roll away dumpster edged up against the side of the building and a retaining wall. I amble over, a hitch in my stride, still recuperating from my adventure. I bend down, knees popping again and my lower back straining from too much misuse in one night. I take a knee and bend myself in half, my right hand balancing my weight on the side of the dumpster while my left hand makes a grab for what i hope is my gun. It is! My fingers take hold of the ice cold metal and I stand up, the weight of it comforting and familiar in my hand. I look it over, angling it in the light of the sign in the background: it's scratched pretty bad, but as I stare down the sight across the barrel, it doesn't look compromised. I guess I know what I'll be doing when I get home. Gun cleaning. Again. I sigh, and shaking my head I start to walk down the sidewalk, West, back toward home. I'm unzipping my fanny pack, my thumb already racing inside to depress the scanner when I sense something near me. I pause. My thumb scan completes, and the ear cans around my neck start to send out their chaotic pop. I'm scanning the area, but never turning around to look behind me. I'd have heard the door to the club open and the cacophony that follows, I wasn't far enough away yet. Instinctively, I start to smell, in earnest, the air around me. I'm not detecting any rot, no smell of blood or decay. But still, I can sense it. There is something out here with me, and it may not be alive. 

Chapter 4

I can feel the glass slipping in my hands, the combination of my skin, the gun oil and the condensation forming a slick slime. I turn back to the bar and grab a napkin, twisting it delicately around the glass. I notice that it gets pretty dingy the moment I've touched it. I really should shower later...or at least wash my hands. Disturbed, I wipe the remaining condensate off, clean my hands with the damp napkin, and tossing it, now crumpled onto the bar and simultaneously wipe my other hand on my jeans. The bartender sees me do this and scrunches up her nose as she sidles over to pick it up and throw it away. Yea, I think; it's gross, I know. I resume my position facing the crowd, and take a sip of my drink. I see a bevy of new faces in the sea of bodies crowding the room tonight. The music is gradually ratcheting up, louder, higher, more intense. Almost like it's fighting for attention from the dancers, all those moving parts heating the room to a frenzy. I have the thought that perhaps they keep it warmer in here to make us spend more money on drinks? Smart. I feel eyes on me, and I'm instantly alert. I dig in my pocket for five dollars, the cost of my ginger ale plus tip, and toss the singles onto the bar without even looking. My inner radar, that quiet fight or flight mechanism begins to rev up. Slowly I rotate, looking for that someone, but not seeing anyone, relying solely on the voice within to reveal my admirer. I'm not picking anyone out, and am a little concerned. The last time my inner me failed, it got my brother and mother killed. (Not zombies, by the way - that's a story for another day). I've done a full 180, the only portion of the club that I can see is the immediate bar side and dance floor. The second floor is obscured from my view by the angle that I'm at and the floor above. I'm looking at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I look like hell. My cheeks are hollow, my eyes are sunken and there's dark circles under them. My lips are thin and cracked, and I'm not sure if it's blood or just dirt from my lack of hygiene that makes my hair stick to the side of my head at an odd angle. Jeez, I can see my collar bone poking above my tank top! Yanked from my self evaluation, the knot in my stomach is pulling tighter and I decide it's time to leave. I down what's left of my drink and half drop, half slam the glass down. The bartender, with her super sense, somehow hears or feels me do it, and whips quickly around, surveying my area. Her eyes land on the money laying in a heap near the glass and she nods with approval. I want to ask her if she's seen anyone suspicious, but at this point, having just caught sight of my own ridiculousness in the mirror, she'd probably fall down laughing. I make a break for it before I launch into a full scale anxiety attack. I still feel eyes on me, and it's really bugging me that I'm not able to see who it is. I turn and stalk through the people on the dance floor. I'm getting smashed into, right and left by people dancing. I can feel their disapproval as I infringe on their space. My feet are getting stepped on, I'm stepping on feet. I'm bumping into people, they're bumping into me. Some on purpose, some not. The doors feel like they're a mile away. I'm still surveying the room as I make my way to the exit. My sight line travels right, center, left, and back, when I walk full tilt into a wall. Wait. That can't be right. I look down. I always look down, I wish I wouldn't do that. My mother did too. I hear her voice in my head "Stand up straight" "and make eye contact for crying out loud!". I start to do just that From the floor up I see black combat boots, cracked, unpolished and covered in dirt and grass. Blood speckled khakis, wrinkled, worn and covered with patches that skim narrow hips and meet a half untucked plaid shirt. I follow the buttons on the shirt, one is missing, up to the collar. My inner me knows who it is before I do. I can practically feel that invisible self inside me, straining to be free of the shell of my a body. It's almost physical the urge to get outside of myself. Unable to look away or to engage the flight reaction my brain is now so desperately calling for, my gaze travels up the muscled neck of a man I've known for years. A man, who in nearly every sense, contributed to my creation. I skim over his chin, over his sensuous mouth, his nose, to his watery blue eyes. His gaze holds mine, bores into me, making my own eyes water, my throat dry. I avert them, and slowly track back to meet his again. My right hand is moving carefully toward the fanny pack. The roar of the room around me starts to fade, a soft din, like the echo of a high school cafeteria heard from a neighboring hallway. I'm aching to get my gun out. I need something in my hand, something to ease this fear, this anxiety, this unease. At the same time i feel a desperate urge to get up on my tip toes, touch his face and have him hold me...what?! I shudder involuntarily. He smiles, that terrible, heart melting, fantasy inducing smile and reaches out to touch me. I don't want him to. I desperately don't want him to. I use the time and his apparent preoccupation with my face to unzip the fanny pack and grasp hold of my gun. I ease it free, managing to partially drag closed the zipper with my thumb and forefinger, my eyes never leaving his. As his large, callused fingers caress my cheek bone, instinctively my head tilts into his touch. I hate myself. Down around my jaw they go, landing a thumb dead center on my bottom lip, drawing it down ever so slightly. I fight the urge to taste his thumb. To vomit. I can not believe this is happening. My sanity returns, the music is hurting my ears it's so loud. The bass drops and my chest starts to hammer to the beat. People are dancing frenetically around us. Despite us. I raise the gun, sliding off the safety as my arm arcs to meet his temple. My eyes are clear, my heart is reaching for him and my fingers just want to pull the trigger and watch his essence rain down around me. "Don't touch me again" I say through gritted teeth. My body adjusts imperceptibly so that my right leg is forward of my left, my hips are at a slight angle while my left hand has secured the zipper on the pack. Ready for flight. He's still looking at me, and I'm still looking at him, the muzzle of my gun pressed gently into the side of his temple, his so very handsome face just within kissing reach. What?! I see his Adams apple start to work and my ears realize he's speaking. Rather, shouting to be heard over the racket blasting from the sound system. "...didn't say that the last time" was all I caught. Shit. There's always a last time. And half the time with me, that means there's a next time, because that soft inner self just can't be controlled. He puts his hands up in surrender, and steps aside. Inside of me, secretly, his action hurts my feelings. I roll my eyes at myself, and at him. I slide the safety back and return my gun hand to my side. I stalk passed him, but not quick enough. He pats my ass on my way by and it takes every ounce of self control I have not to turn around and let him have it. I keep going. Bursting through the doors, I slip. My feet go out from under me, I lurch and start to fall backwards, my hands racing down to break my fall. I land on my ass in the cold. 

Chapter 3

I'm still sitting on the steps. Suddenly, I wish I had a cigarette. It just seems apropos. I haven't had the funds to blow on cancer tubes in quite some time. Ever since cancer was proved, unequivocally to come from tobacco, cigarettes and cigars became the legal drug dujour. You'd think if someone told you that smoking these things would most definitely kill you, that you wouldn't do it. Instead they turned into a high priced hand bag, or designer shoes. Only the super rich and uber cool smoked. And died young. And some of them come back a zombie. I rub my hands across the tops of my thighs, to my knees, back and forth a few times. Decision time. I'm going out. But not to hunt. I need to be around people. Live ones. I skip down the sidewalk, hop over the corpse and head East. I'm a creature of habit. Whenever i leave the house, i head East. West leads toward the water. And I'm about as sick of water as I am zombies. I relocated to Illinois when Florida started to sink. It was a long haul. My car broke down just outside of Tallahassee, and between hitching and buses, Illinois proved to be almost 3 weeks North of the border. I make my way into town, eyes scanning from left to right and nose sniffing for the scent of decay. Unbelievably, it appears that the only walking dead out tonight is laying in my yard. I see the neon flash of the sign up ahead and pick up the sounds of laughter and music as I get closer. The double doors open as I approach, and a cutesy, lovey dovey couple stumbles out, arms around each other, nuzzling and kissing and giggling. Something inside me breaks a little and i am positively green with envy. I squeeze past them and make my way inside. I reach into the fanny pack and depress the scanner to shut my music off. I don't need it in here. This place usually has a solid score riffing. I weave and bob in the crowd, people dancing, people talking, hookers hooking and the hired guns comparing war stories. I'm up at the bar, waiting patiently to be noticed by the bartender. She comes over, with a wide smile on her very pretty face. Her teeth gleam behind red lacquered lips, and I follow her dimples to her elf like ears, filled with hoops and studs. Amazing. I wonder if she ever takes them out? Her multi-colored braids are a mess, a little Medusa like halo around her elfin head. I see her mouth moving, but over the din of the tunes on blast and my mind going a mile a minute, I don't know what she said. And she knows it, because that mega smile shines at me again and she slides a drink across the bar top to me. It's in a highball, filled with round ice cubes (she knows I love those!) a twist of lime balanced precariously on the lip of the glass and tiny bubbles cascading and falling all over themselves to get into my mouth. My grimy hand reaches out, and grasps the sweating glass, bringing it to my lips. I taste the cool liquid, already mellowing with the melting cubes. Ginger ale. She knows me so well. I nod my head to her, and turn slowly around to survey the crowd. It's always hard, this part. I stand there, hoping to be the one that gets noticed. That maybe tonight, despite the walking dead, the fact that I probably haven't had a shower in almost a week and my social ineptitude, that tonight will be the night i meet the one I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with. 

Chapter 2

I pull the fanny packs zipper open and peer inside. The last time I left the house and didn't double check my cache, i forgot my phone. I let out a sigh. The phone is inside. Its blue locator light blinking into the dark abyss of the pack. Aside from the zombie evolution, technology has really upped it's game. All phones are genetically matched to their owners now. Retina scans or fingerprint pads. Buy the phone, tech clerk scans your eyeball or takes your print on the scan pad and sha-zam. The phone belongs to you. The locator thing is really jazzy though. Even when the battery dies, anyone can be found. Back up. Anyone's phone can be found. Lose your phone, your loved ones lose you. Batteries now last days at a time instead of a few hours. My parents used to tell stories about phones that flipped open, filled the palm of your hand and had to be charged multiple times per day. I'm almost glad i was born and raised in the future. I mean, can you imagine charging your phone? Or having to flip it open? Man! Mostly i carry the phone for it's location abilities and my music stash. Once the zombie apocalypse started, the government decided to make the Internet free again, so i can stream music to my hearts content. The only problem is headphones. Once they get blood or brain bits on them - that's it. They're toast. And forget those ear-buds. You'd think with the leaps and bounds of technology that someone would invent something better. I rock the old fashioned kind that have a head or neck band and cups around my ears. A pair hangs around my neck at all times. Mostly because i never know when I'm going to be on the run, or on the hunt. They snuggle me inside my hoodie, between the neck of my tank top and the nape of my neck they're pretty safe. The thing about zombie hunting to music, is that it drowns out their disgusting noises, and I like to pretend I'm in a video game. Got my own soundtrack. The only thing I'm missing is my kill-score following me in the sky where ever i go. I lost count at a hundred by the way. I know others that have much higher body counts. I'm not bragging. Don't get me wrong. I never would have thought myself capable of killing, let alone on this level. I mean, frankly, I'm a predator. I go out a zombie-hunting almost every night. During the day, it's like fish in a barrel. They move slower, and they're easier to spot. And I'm a much better shot during the day than i am at night. One of the better things (if there are better things at this point in time) is that zombie bites don't make more zombies. All those movie makers are probably rolling in their graves...uh...our zombies are nature-made: you die, there's a chance you come back as a zombie. No bones about it. Gosh I'm on fire tonight! I check out the status of the front porch and the street beyond. Looks good. Nothing out and about. I press my forefinger onto the scanner, the phone wakes up, and my music starts to pour out of the headphones. I zip up the pack, and begin unlocking the front door. I don't know why i lock the doors, the deaders can't turn door knobs and there's almost no crime at this time of year. It's almost like the criminals can't stand to be bad during the holidays when there's zombies in the world. Doesn't stop them the rest of the year. But hey, maybe a zombie trade for less crime isn't such a bad trade? I feel my right eyebrow go up and the smirk touch my lips. Like hell. Zing! I open the door and walk out. I'm not even going to bother with the locks. If I'm on the run on the way back I'll be able to get inside quicker. I start down the steps and hit the sidewalk, my footsteps automatically matching themselves to the beats pumping. Shit. I should do a perimeter check of the house. I pivot, just in time to catch a faint scent of decay wafting my way. I unzip my fanny pack, that has my name on it, in calligraphy by the way, courtesy of my grandfather's sharpie and draw out my piece. Safety is off, and i am on high alert. Time to pay attention. The nice thing, er, one of the benefits of a non movie zombie, these things reek. I mean, roiling, stomach turning, gag inducing smell. And you can not mistake decaying flesh once you've smelled it. Its very distinct. I am indeed smelling a deader, and I'm watching it wander around the side of my house. Well, not "my" house. The house I'm squatting in. But i am ferociously protective of this house that is not my own, my hackles go up and my adrenaline starts pumping. I break into a soft jog, careful of my footfalls back up the sidewalk and into the grass. I take a knee, my left shin flat to the ground, my right elbow balanced on my right knee, that leg at a right angle. Before my brother died, and you know, un-dead, he used to make fun of this "stance" of mine. I'm a much better shot when I'm balanced. And since i can't chew gum and walk without falling down, I need all the help i can get when it comes to aiming.  I have a vague vision of a sniper in my head, as i stare down the barrel and wait for my target to come around again. The music is fading out, i can no longer hear the soft sounds of night around me and i am inhaling and exhaling with a purpose. Thank goodness i fixed those motion lights around the house. It's almost too easy. The deader rounds the corner by the steps, trips over the bottom tread and i can't help myself: I snort and chuckle just as the zombie looks up and meets my gaze. Ever so smoothly i squeeze the trigger and the deader goes down, in a heap, diagonally on the sidewalk. A stream of blood and goo oozing down the sidewalk. With it's slight pitch, i might luck out and be able to wash that shit down into the storm drain without too much hassle. I start to breathe again, i realize I'm tapping my left foot in the grass to the beat of the song i didn't even know i was hearing. I get up, both knees popping i brush off the bits of grass that are sticking to my corduroys and head up to the corpse. Time for a dead check. It would appear that I got it in the head, on my first shot, which is completely out of character for me. I go through bullets like some people eat candy. Heck, like i eat candy. I'm about a half a foot away from it when it starts to rise, from the chest up, using it's rubbery arms to help it gain purchase. My right arm raises automatically, and before i know it, I've pulled the trigger, once, twice and three times. Each one a kill shot. I mean at this distance, if i missed, I'd be embarrassed. It's really dead this time. I sit down on the steps, after I roll the corpse fully onto the sidewalk and decide maybe i shouldn't go anywhere tonight. I've never had a deader casing my house before.