It had been one week since the living dead got his family. The four of them had a full supply of food and water, and their house was securely boarded. They had ignored the pleas on the TV to get to a shelter, before they stopped broadcasting. But one of the local neighbor boys had gone outside to get his dog, and wasn�t fast enough. The zombies started after him, and his father ran out to help him. As soon as he went out, all eyes were on him. They swarmed him, and has he tried to get back to the house, they followed. Inside, everyone did their best to keep them out, to no avail. Everyone was bitten or scratched except him. His dad was always such a nice guy, always had to help. Look where it had gotten him now. He locked them all, his father, mother, and sister, in the basement. Their soft words of �I love you� and �I�ll be okay� turned into ravenous snarling and constant pounding.

It kept him up for days. After days without sleep, he passed out, and went someplace where few go. Assuming he was dead or dreaming, he went played along. He was standing in a big open field with green grass, and a big tree on top of a hill. He walked op to it, and there a man sat. He was wearing all white.

�Hello Alex. It�s good to see you.�
�Who are you and what is this place?�
�I need you to do something for me.�
��What?�
�I need you to remove the plague which has swept the planet.�

There was a long pause, and they both just stared at each other. He could not believe what he had just heard.

�You�re joking, you�ve got the wrong person.�
�No, I don�t. You can save them.�
��Save them? Save WHOM? The only people I cared about saving in the first place are gone!�
�I know.�
�I bet you do.�

There was another long pause, and again, they just stared at each other. �I�ve asked this of you. It�s your choice.� Before he could say one word, he felt the pain of reality coming back to him.

       It was all on the news in the weeks ahead. The government was experimenting with a new form of nuclear power. They had built the first plant in northern Wisconsin, and it was all a big media event. They had built it there in case of a meltdown, since the population was sparse, but close enough to a few major cities to use the power. When it was first turned it on, the entire world was watching. It worked fine. For a few days. Then almost everyone working there became deathly ill. A lot of them died. Most of them came back. It took about another week before the government finally realized what was happening, and what was causing it. But by that time, the plant was so infected, anyone who went neat it was infected, and they couldn�t bomb it because of the nuclear activity.
       Only 18 years old, he had outlived his entire immediate family. His support network was gone. He was totally lost. No direction, no guidance, no love. He went through all the memories he had of them, the good and the bad. He remembered his dad telling him of how he escaped from the rescue shelter he worked at when it became a giant cattle feed for the undead. His father told how he had tried to save as many people as he could, before leaving at the last second. Alex had asked his father,

�Why bother? You don�t know them, you don�t owe them, so why burden yourself?�
�Because everyone�s life is valuable. If you help others, you�ll find that they�ll help you.�

       The next day the zombies got his father. Along with everyone else; all because he decided to help someone else. Those walking piles of rotting fleshing. They stank, and their skin hung from their bones. Expressionless and ghostlike, they walked endlessly in search of food.
       Alex sat at home for weeks afterwards. Thinking of them everyday, and crying for them every night. He stayed in the stairwell leading down to the basement. The basement door was solid oak, as was the door leading to the stairs. It was walled on both sides, and the steps were finished and carpeted, which led to a good insulation of sound. He had no plans of leaving, that is, until the food supply he had nearly ran out. He had formulated a plan to get out, and hopefully survive. All the problems were with what was outside the door leading to the stairs.
         The house was still somewhat open. There could be a million creatures in there. It was a good thing the Y2K scare had come about; otherwise he wouldn�t have anything to defend himself with. But they had bought a rifle and a pistol. They also had canteens of water, and a few packs of dehydrated food. He lived in New Berlin, but they had a cabin they stayed in during the summer. It was past Eagle River, hours away. It was very isolated, in the middle of nowhere, a large forest. If food had ever run out, the animals seemed to be unnoticed by the undead, and there was plenty of game to be hunted.
       He walked to the top of the stairs, and listened. He couldn�t hear anything, so he put his head near the door. Still nothing. He moved even closer, and put his ear on the door. He heard a shuffle. Or was it the wind? Or maybe an animal? He thought to himself,

�Why bother?�

       Was it really worth risking his life, just to go on living longer, in a dead world. For all he knew, everyone was dead. There�s no reason to live in a world where every day you live in fear, and suffering, struggling to survive. He sat on those stairs for hours, contemplating. He slowly drifted into sleep. When he awoke, he opened his eyes to see the walking corpse of his dead father standing at the bottom of the stairs, snarling at him. He screamed in terror, the image of his fathers rotting face horrified him. His fight or flight instinct took over, and without thinking, opened the top door and ran out, slamming the door behind him. Flight instinct won. He looked around his house. It was hauntingly quiet. It was just past dusk, the only light was from the afterglow of the sun.
       He slowly opened the door to the stairs open, and saw nothing.

�Strange�, he thought.

       He cautiously searched the rest of the house, and found nothing. He took a bottle of rum, a sock, and made a Molotov cocktail. He had seen it a dozen times in the movies. He took it to the top floor of his house, being wary of the section of the stairs they cut away incase the undead ever got in. He went to his window and looked out. There were probably 30 zombies on the street. He lit the cocktail, and threw it as hard as he could at a car parked down the street. It exploded, and drew most of the undead away from the house.
       He hopped in his car, opened the garage door, and drove like hell northwards, hitting anything in his way. The streets were a mess, littered with cars, debris, and bodies. He came up to one intersection, and stopped at the red light. He waited. And waited.
       ��Fuck this.� He said, as he drove through the intersection, as he saw some bodies shambling behind the car. The freeway was barren. Along the way, there were hitchhikers. Some alive, some dead, and some undead. He stopped for no one. He didn�t want to spare the food. After an hour or two of driving, he came to a section of highway blocked by cars. There was no way around. The only thing he could think of to do was turn around, and find the nearest exit. Before he could, the car died. He looked at the gas gauge, it was on E.
       He screamed, and got out of the car. He thought maybe he could siphon gas from one of the other cars. He had done it tons of times before when cleaning his fish tank. He got out and looked for something to put the gas in. He went up to the nearest car and peered in the back window. As he did, a zombie popped out at him. It grabbed him by the neck as he turned to run away. He tried to scream, but its grip was strong. He was overcome with feelings of doom, as if this was going to be the end. He grabbed the undead�s hand and crushed it between his own. It was soft with decay, and the fingers fell off like clay.

       He managed to free himself, then fell to the ground. He got up and turned to run, when he noticed a tire iron on the ground. This time, the fight instinct won. In one swift motion, he swooped down, grabbed the tire iron, and bashed the zombie in the head, dropping it to the ground.
       �FUCK YOU!� He screamed, and regretted a moment later. The scream alerted several zombies to his presence. He heard their moans. He looked in the front seat. Keys were still in the ignition. He got in, turned it on. The gas gauge went to �F.� He went to hit the gas pedal, but something stopped him. He put his foot on the floor, and locked the doors. He sat there, and slowly the things came after him. They got up to the car and began pounding the windows. He remained calm. He looked around him, and saw all of the death and carnage. Everything on this highway was dead.
       He sat there, contemplating whether or not to drive, or to let the things take him. Maybe he thought he could be a hero. Get out and use the tire iron and beat the hell out of as many of them as he could. Maybe he could do it in honor of his parents� of his father. The things rocked the car back and forth. He sat there with his head against the seat, and his eyes closed. He pictured himself on a boat, far away. It relaxed him, and made him want to save himself even less. But he opened his eyes, and saw what appeared to be a girl running down the road.
       He hit the gas and drove towards her, hitting countless zombies in the process. The closer he got, the more he realized it was just a piece of cloth stuck on the guardrail. Yet there was an exit to the left of it. He drove off the freeway, and into the night. He could see the ominous towers that loomed in the distance. He stopped the car on the side of a road, and parked it. He stayed the night there. He munched on an old Twinkie he found in the glove compartment.

�Hmm. They really do last forever.�

       He wondered what the owners of this car were like. Wondered if it was a family, or a single person? Perhaps an elderly couple. He looked up at the moon, as it passed behind the ominous towers of the power plant. He sat in the car, and listened to the haunting sounds of the area around him. He tried to sleep, but thoughts kept him awake. What would be the significance if he kept living? Would the world rejoice, or would he just be another battered face among those who survived. What would be the big deal if he did die? Those closest to him would not mourn for him.
       The windows grew foggy. He contemplated simply ending his life right then and there. It would spare him from walking around without a soul. He took out his pistol and put it to his head. He expected someone to yell �No!� But there was only silence. Images of his family burned in his mind. The breakfasts they shared, the vacations they took together. There was so much to miss, the pain was almost unbearable. He pressed the barrel against his forehead so hard it left a red mark.
       He heard a noise outside, which quickly took his attention off himself. He slowly rolled down the window to see what was outside. He saw a lone deer, a buck, standing in the middle of the road. It stared at him, and looked around. Slowly, a doe and a fawn emerged. Together, the crossed the road and vanished into the woods. He slept a few hours, then decided to get back on the freeway. He continued driving northwards. He watched the moon collapse behind the horizon, and the sun attempt to penetrate the clouds. But it stayed hidden. Perhaps it did not want to see what horrors the night brought.
       As he continued to drive, he started to hear a hum. A vibration in the car, so he turned it off, yet the hum persisted. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The further north he drove, the louder it got. He knew what it was, but refused to admit it. The cabin was just a few miles away. He looked around and saw terrible scenes. Death was everywhere. The once little town he was driving through had become a tourist attraction, with strip malls and amusement parks everywhere. Now it laid a ghost town.

       He made it to his cabin, and immediately boarded it up. It stank of moisture on wood. He started a fire, and lay down on the old dusty red couch that so many pictures had been taken on. His moment of peace was quickly broken, when he realized how strong the vibrations were. He put his hands over his ears, which helped with the humming, but the sensation was still there. He grew frustrated and screamed and yelled for it to stop, and pounded the walls with anger.
       He began to hear another sound over the humming. It sounded like screams. He got up and went to the window. He peeked between the boards and saw three kids, a boy and two girls, stumbling towards the cabin. Behind them was a wall of walking death. The oldest girl had the boy in her arms, running as fast as she could, with the other girl right beside her. The oldest girl looked hurt, she was running with a limp.

�HELP US!� The girl screamed. �PLEASE HELP US!�
He backed away from the door in case they saw him.
�SHIT!� He said, �They must have seen the smoke!�

       What could he do? They were almost at the cabin. If the creatures saw them come in, they would come down on this place with no mercy. They were at the cabin.

�Please, please let us in! Please!

They pounded on the door and windows. The zombies got closer. His mind froze, a traffic jam of a million thoughts and feelings, of self-preservation, of world preservation., of food, water, survival. Just then, the words of his father broke through the traffic. He pried the boards off the door and let them in. They ran in far, to the back of the cabin. He quickly re-boarded the door, the grabbed a rifle, and stood at the window. He could hear the crying of the young boy and girl behind him. He aimed the rifle out the window, and stared, and waited. All of a sudden, he heard something plunk and looked out the corner of his eye. He saw the older girl standing at the window, aiming her own rifle out.

�Amy� she said.
�Alex� he said.

       They stood in silence, as the reign of zombies stared at them with cold, dead eyes. The two of them stared right back.





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