I couldn’t fucking believe my eyes when I turned on the news this morning. There was Brenda Artwin (the plaster-faced anchor on channel 5 every day since dinosaurs roamed the earth), looking desperately confused as she read poorly from the teleprompter as though she couldn’t believe what she was being asked to say. I couldn’t either.

Despite numerous essays turned in during nursing school regarding the wide-spread possibilities of a vector born illness (infections caused by transmission with other infected’s bodily fluids – like the way mosquitoes spread West Nile Virus), I never thought I would live to see the day when fucking zombies were crawling all over the major cities in the world. I didn’t even think before I grabbed the phone and called my best friend.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that B was impulsive and prone to self-sacrifice, but for him to be wandering around the city while fucking zombies ate everyone in sight made me vaguely uncomfortable… so I did the only thing I could think of. I texted him constantly, hoping each time I hit send that I would get a response just one more time.

Rationally, I knew that I should get in my car and drive to get him instead of making him walk all the way here, I just couldn’t bring myself to face the famished hoard that could strip the flesh from my bones faster than you can say ‘fuck’. Rationally, I knew that I should probably be doing something other than packing a bag and waiting impatiently by the door for the knock that would mean my best friend in the whole world was still alive. But, at this juncture, I really wasn’t too rational.

So, an hour after getting off the phone with B, when someone banged loudly on the door, I rushed to look through the peep hole as fast as I could get my legs to move. It wasn’t B.

It was my elderly neighbour, Mrs. Clark, looking uncommonly harried and… bloodstained. I nearly fell over trying to get away from the door, scrambling towards the hiding place behind the couch without even having to tell my body to do so. It was the most frightening experience I have ever lived through until that point. She just kept knocking herself against my door as though she could smell me on the other side and just couldn’t understand why the door wouldn’t magically disappear and allow her entrance. I couldn’t feel my body, but somehow during the trip behind the couch, I had grabbed a meat cleaver and was clutching it so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Atleast I might take a piece of poor Mrs. Clark with me when she finally succeeds in banging down my door.

And that’s when it stopped. The noise, my breath, my heart, the growling I could faintly hear through the tiny crack under my front door. Everything just stopped. And I knew that if I didn’t get out from behind my couch and find out with the fucking hell was going on, that I could never live with myself. So I got up, moved almost silently to the door and looked out the peep hole.

Mrs. Clark was ambling down the stairs and out into the parking lot, her bloody hands leaving a gory trail behind her. I shuddered.

Clang Smash Thud Scrape BANG BANG BANG

Someone had just vaulted up the stairs at an alarming speed and was knocking furiously at my door. I sighed in relief… B was finally here.