Plenty of Time

It was getting closer to sunset as Tyler carefully made his way through the heavy woods of southwestern Kentucky. He wasn’t too far from where the group had parked their car in attempt to take a rest from pushing it forward along the highway. The three of them needed to rest ever since they had crossed the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign at the Missouri border, but Tyler kept pushing and encouraging them on until they had reached a small two-lane road that was more out of the way and less likely to be trafficked by anyone that could bother them. It also allowed for the possibility of wild game that they could all use for food. None of them had eaten properly for far too long, and it was most noticeably taking an effect on Rob, who was muttering more and more. Lisa was starting to express her worries to Tyler, but he had more important things to focus on. Namely, making sure someone provided food.

Ever since he was a kid, his dad had taught him how to hunt with a bow and arrow. Living down in Mississippi, hunting had always been seen in Tyler’s father’s eyes as something that had been overcomplicated and needed to return  to basics, and he had pounded that lesson into Tyler’s skull. After all, you could always go get the arrows you shot. But bullets were a one-use only deal.

Tyler held on to the compound bow tightly, his bony left hand clenched onto the arrow, holding it back from being released. The deer was in his sights, too busy eating grasses to notice any danger around it. It helped that Tyler was wearing his lucky hunting jacket. The thing had been rolled around in dirt, mud, grass, snow, and every other earthly substance to the point that it seemed to help him blend in to the environment more than the average camouflage hunting gear. That’s what he told himself, at least. His family was always polite about letting him wear it whenever they all went hunting. Well, before everything went to shit anyways.

Tyler eased up on the arrow, carefully letting the tightness of the bow’s string loose. The trouble with a bow and arrow was that you had to make sure that the prey didn’t limp off to far; the wound had to be either instantly lethal, or prevent the prey from running off. If he didn’t bring back something to eat, all three of them would go hungry again. Deep down, he was sure that he could make the shot, but given how everything else seemed to be developing in their group, he knew that he had to do something to put everyone’s tension on hold.

“What’s the matter? You had a clean shot,” a familiar voice whispered behind him.

Tyler sighed and glanced back at Lisa, who was hiding behind one of the thicker trees in the forest. Her face was peeking out from behind, enough for him to see the blank part of her face where her nose had rotted off. “What are you doing here?” he whispered back, irritated. He turned his head and saw, thankfully, the deer was still pre-occupied eating. “I thought you and Rob were staying together, guarding the car.”

“He kept going crazy trying to fix his miniature portable solar…thing for the DVD player. I tried to get him to calm down, but he just snapped at me whenever I tried to help.” Lisa held a hand up to her eyes, trying to block out the sun so she could get a better look around her. Her eyesight had been slowly deteriorating ever since before Tyler had met her. It was a side-effect of their condition. “He’s always on edge with that thing,” she continued, making sure to speak softly and not startle the deer. “I just don’t understand why Rob’s always so angry.”

“Let me guess. You tried to calm him down with Scripture again, didn’t you?”

“I was only trying to help,” Lisa hissed at him.

“Lisa, look, I get it, alright? Can we maybe talk about it after I’m done here, though, please?” Lisa simply sighed and sat down on the ground, taking care to balance herself in order to not fall down. She pulled out her copy of The Scholar’s Annotated Bible, Volume 3 that she carried around in the front pocket section of her oversized sweatshirt. It always amazed Tyler how she had worn that thing for several months, yet it hadn’t developed any major dirt stains or holes. Tyler knew his clothes were starting to slowly fall apart, and Rob was desperately trying to hide the shabbiness of his clothes by layering up. But Lisa had somehow survived the year-long drought of proper clothes care and washing.

She had been like that ever since Tyler and Rob had found her in Iowa, huddled up in a boarded off, abandoned church. The two of them had figured they would spend the night there, since it was easily defensible, and Rob sprouted some strange “no fighting on holy ground” movie logic that Tyler just agreed to go with. They both found the heavily tattooed Lisa cleaning up the alter area, fighting a Sisyphean struggle to keep it clean. She agreed to join the two of them almost immediately after they met, claiming that it was their destiny to be together.

Tyler notched the arrow once again and drew it back. The deer had moved a bit further off, wandering around in some sort of contentedness. Tyler carefully took a step forward, trying to remain calm and not cause some sort of major disturbance. The wind had died down enough for him to risk a shot. He let loose the arrow, hoping that he wouldn’t have to track the deer down any further than he had already. Tyler spent almost all day tracking down this deer, and he didn’t want to let it go.

The arrow landed deep in the deer’s neck. The animal wildly flailed about, shocked by the sudden intrusion of the arrow. It ran off, but just as quickly dropped to the ground, eventually ceasing to move as its blood started to pool around the body. Tyler smiled at his success, while Lisa quickly looked away from the recently deceased animal, focusing more on Acts. “Well, looks like we’ve got dinner tonight!” he said. Tyler reached down and grabbed his pack, gently placing the bow in its place in the open compartment and then lifting up the bag around his shoulders. “You can help me out with this if you want,” he said to Lisa.

Lisa looked mortified at the suggestion. “I should…uh…should maybe go, and, and, and….uhm, see what Rob’s up too. Maybe he’s calmed down enoughIshouldgonowbye.” Tyler always thought that Lisa looked funny when she got flustered or embarrassed like that; she always unconsciously held up a hand that obscured both the missing nose and a ripped away and slightly rotting portion of her mouth that showed off some teeth and jaw on the right side of her face, like she was trying to hide the fact that she was still a zombie instead of her embarrassment.

Tyler just nodded and let her walk back towards the car. He carefully limped towards the deer’s body, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t fall over. Ever since he had turned, his legs had stopped being able to run or even hustle quickly properly, and the longer he remained “alive”, the worse his legs got. He could still move, but only in a slow shuffle. Tyler had gotten used to it, but it was still a hassle to deal with when it came to dealing with the average feral zombie, or running away from groups of human survivors that had started banding together after the dead began to rise and the normal order of society started to fall.

Once he got to the deer’s corpse, he pulled out the giant container of plastic baggies from the backpack, along with a skinning knife. Tyler slowly pulled the knife along the skin of the buck, tearing away the nasty, hard-to-process fur and leaving only the edible meat. He carved up pieces as best he could, placing them in the plastic bags until the deer had no more meat to provide. It was probably enough to last the three of them several days as long as they stuck to minimum rations. The older food would most likely spoil within two to three days, but at least it wasn’t human meat.




As Lisa got closer to the group’s car, she could hear Rob loudly muttering. It was much harder than actually seeing him clearly, but she was thankful that there was only one sense she was having trouble with. She made her way up to him as cautiously as she could. “Fucking stupid piece of….is it really that fucking hard to charge? The sun’s right fucking up there, just fucking work, dammit!”
“Hey, Rob,” Lisa said. Rob’s head snapped up, hand tightly gripping a baseball bat and standing up so fast he almost lost balance and tripped over the rifle that was lying next to him. “So…do you have the DVD player charged up?”

“Does it fucking look like I have it all charged up? Jesus Christ, this fucking solar charging thing is the biggest piece of shit I ever spent money on. ‘Life-time guarantee’, my ass!”

“Rob, you need to not say the-“

“Oh well fucking excuse me for offending you, Mother Theresa. I just want to be able to watch one fucking movie on this thing!” Rob threw down the bat he held in his one good arm and stomped off, letting loose a loud frustrated scream. Lisa wasn’t even sure what to do in this case. Every day it seemed like Rob got angrier and angrier over the smallest things. The only time he really seemed content and happy was when he was eating, and there were plenty of times that they had gone days without anything substantial. A zombie apocalypse wasn’t exactly the most resource friendly time for anyone.

But, from what Tyler had told her about Rob, he had every excuse to be angry. He had been some sort of film scholar, writing various reviews of films online and for mass publication. Films had been his life, to the point that three of the suitcases in the car were filled with his collection of DVD’s that he had scavenged from his house and everywhere else they had travelled, mostly, in his own words, “to preserve the greatest art form known to man”. Given that he proudly proclaimed his favorite film to be Caligula, Lisa had her doubts, but did her best to practice her patience with him.

“Rob…do you want to talk? Because I’m here if you want to. And I know that, sometimes, you may not want to have me here, but I will stand by for you and Tyler. The three of us have to stick together.” Lisa moved closer towards Rob and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry if I have offended you.”

“Whatever,” Rob replied. He went back to fiddling with the cheap solar charger. “Man, it’s going to take weeks to get this thing charged up all the way.”

“Hey, come on now. I’m sure we could watch something. The solar panel can’t be entirely defective, can it? Maybe we can just watch a shorter movie, or something?”

Rob stayed silent for a few seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and turned
around. “Maybe. It’s just…do you have any idea how rare these things are now? I mean, I’m amazed we even found one two weeks ago. And that solar panel thing…I’ve been carrying it around back when I was…you know. I thought it’d be useful. But instead it’s just a pile of shit.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” Lisa replied. She squatted down and took a close look at the screen. She squinted up her eyes to counteract the blurriness. “How much is it charged up?”

“Enough for twenty minutes.”

“Over two weeks?” Lisa wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Do we really have nothing that can last that long?”

“Let me check.” Rob walked over to the trunk of the gasless car and opened the door. His stump of a left hand first reached for the suitcase he was looking for, before he reminded himself to reach with the proper hand. He pulled the case out and unzipped it, revealing stacks and stacks of DVD cases that he had collected throughout the time the three of them had been travelling together. “Short films, short films, short films,” he muttered softly to himself. “There’s got to be…maybe…where is it….AHA!” He pulled up a DVD and showed it to Lisa.

“Oscar Collections: Best Animated Short Films, 1990-2010?” Lisa thought about the idea for a while. “That could work!”

“It damn well better,” said Rob. “Now where the hell is Tyler? Did you find him on your little trot through the woods?”

“He should be back soon. He had just gotten a deer.” Lisa shivered at the sight of Tyler digging into the deer’s body. “It…didn’t look too bad. At least it’s...something.”

Rob simply nodded to that. Each of them tried their best to not be like the mindless zombies that they had seen, and holding on to being as human as possible. “Yeah. It’s not. But where the hell is he?”

“I’m right here, guys,” Tyler said. “Could you help me out with this hill here?”

Lisa and Rob both helped Tyler up the small hill that led up to the guard rail on the side of the road. It was at just enough of an incline that Tyler’s barely stable legs wouldn’t have been able to support him had he simply tried to climb it himself. Once he was up, he pulled the backpack off of his back and zipped it open, passing out bags of fresh deer meat. “Dinner time, guys,” he said in a joking manner.

“About time,” said Rob. He balanced his bag on the road’s guardrail, fiddling with the Ziploc top with his hand until he could finally gnaw on the delicious food. “Oh man,” he moaned happily, “you have no idea how much I needed this.” Lisa looked disappointedly at Rob, quickly prayed over the food, and followed suit with eating.

“So, how’s the movie charging thing going?” asked Tyler. “Any chance we could watch something tonight?”

Lisa handed over the DVD set to Tyler, who groaned at the sight of it. “Cartoons? Really? Look man, I like Bugs Bunny just as much as the next guy, but can we watch an actual movie today?”

“Well, this is the only thing that’s going to work,” Rob replied. “And these aren’t just ‘cartoons’, they won OSCARS in the Best-“

"I did not spend several hours lugging around a broken down station wagon and hunting down some food for us just to watch some Disney stuff. Can’t we watch something that lasts longer than five minutes? Like Butch Cassidy or something good like that?”

“The DVD player only got charged for twenty minutes. This is all we CAN watch with that time.”

“For real?” Lisa and Rob both nodded. “That’s all? Seriously? We get what’s essentially a miracle finding one of those things for you, and now you’re telling me it’s worthless?”

“Well, miracles don’t really stack up, Tyler. You think you’re pissed about this? I’ve been lugging around that snake-oil solar power thing ever since before I got turned. So you can just shut up about it and accept what we’re watching tonight, OK?”

“Miracles do stack up,” whispered Lisa.

“Excuse me?” Tyler asked.

“Oh not this again,” Rob mumbled.

“I mean…look at us,” Lisa said. “Three people from across America, all somehow surviving being bitten and turned into zombies with their intelligence remaining, and meeting together? Isn’t that at least…ten impossible things happening one after the other?”

“Lisa, we get it. We got it the last fifteen times you’ve gone on this rant,” Rob complained, reaching into Tyler’s backpack to pull out another piece of deer meat.

“But guys, this, I don’t think you have!” Lisa started to get louder as she went on. “We have been spared, do you realize that? We have been chosen to have a second chance at life! That God has allowed—“

“Lisa, Liz, we get it, alright? Let’s just enjoy our food, ok? We can talk about this later,” Tyler said.

“But God allowed us to-“

“God is not important right now,” Rob interjected forcefully. “I just want to eat in peace, alright?” He started walking away from the car, grabbing several more bags from Tyler’s backpack before he left.

“Rob? Rob, come back, man,” Tyler cried out. “Just…come back over here and we can talk this out, alright? Rob?” He turned around to face Lisa, who looked extremely hurt. “Just give him time.”

“I was only trying to help him feel better.” Lisa sat down next to the car and kept eating, either not noticing or caring that bits of deer blood were dropping onto her clothes. “He just doesn’t listen.”

Tyler had to think for a minute before he ended up with the words he wanted to say. “Lisa. Maybe, in the future, you could…I don’t know…hold off on the whole praising God thing? At least, when Rob’s around?”

Lisa didn’t know how to respond. “Tyler….I…I thought—“

“The three of us are only going to survive like we have been if we work together. These arguments that you and Rob have aren’t healthy. Look, Rob’s been on edge ever since we found that thing. Just…just try and not talk so much about religion. At least not when you notice he gets mad. Other times, sure, go ahead. But we need to all be together, all right?”

Lisa simply nodded her head in silence and focused on eating. Once she had finished, she refused the offer for more food, saying “I feel fine, thank you”, and went back to spending the remaining sunlight reading. Tyler gave her the space she clearly needed. He had had to balance the two of them and work as a de-facto leader ever since they had all decided to join together. But even then, it was hard to make everything work. Rob wanted to continue heading to the South, preferably Florida or South Carolina, while Lisa kept preaching how they should head for New York or Washington D.C. Both had argued so much that Tyler had to forbid anyone talking about it within his earshot.

As the sun was just about to disappear behind the horizon, a noise started up, at first very softly, but eventually getting louder and louder. “Lisa? Where’s the rifle?” Lisa pulled out the rifle and handed it to Tyler, with her picking up the baseball bat and trying desperately to see what was making the noise.

“Can you see anything? What is that sound?” Lisa desperately asked. “Tyler, what’s going on?”

As two lights blared on in the distance, Tyler could only stammer out a response. “I….I think it’s a car. Like—like a really BIG car.”

“Should we go and hide?”

“I don’t….wait a minute.”  The car was moving fairly slowly, but Tyler could tell that something making that much noise couldn’t be a car. It looked larger, like a Winnebago. In fact, it WAS a Winnebago. But what made it even stranger was that, in front of it was Rob, walking calmly and acting without a care in the world. “What in the hell….Lisa, cover up your face.” Lisa obscured her missing nose and mouth by wrapping up a scarf around her face, while Tyler pulled the hood of his jacket up as far as he could to obscure his face.

As the Winnebago reached their car, Rob stepped forward towards his two companions. His face was hard to see from the darkness and the several hooded jackets and sweatshirts he wore to cover up. “Guys, you are not going to believe what happened!” A few men started to pile out of the Winnebago, two of them having their guns visible.

“So,” one of the men from the mobile home said, his mouth obscured by a large, hairy beard, “I take it you two are Tyler and Lisa?”

Tyler and Lisa had absolutely no idea what to say. Lisa could only stammer out a “Yes” before Tyler stepped forward. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Tyler, relax, man,” Rob said, stepping in front of him. “That’s Benny. He’s cool, he’s got this whole Winnebago set up with more supplies that-“

“Rob. Shut up. Now.” Tyler shoved past Rob, making his way towards Benny, making his gun very visible. “What. Do you guys. Want?”

“Hey now, we’re not trying to ruffle anyone’s feathers,” Benny said. “We just happened across your friend here. He told us about you two, and me and the rest of the boys here decided to pay you a visit. You were on our way regardless; this road only goes one way, you know?” Benny seemed cheerful, but he still made sure to casually keep a hand on his pistol while he talked.

Tyler walked backwards, told Benny and his group to “Give us a moment, please,” and forcefully pulled Rob into a huddle with Lisa. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he whispered.

“They don’t know about our…condition, Tyler,” Rob explained. “I kept my face down and hoods up. Besides, they’ve got power! They’ve scrounged up all kinds of propane and fuel to keep their stuff powered for a long time. They even have a portable TV. With a DVD player. A DVD PLAYER!”

“They’re also people that we don’t know anything about!” Tyler whispered back. “What if they try to steal our stuff? Or kill us in the middle of the night?”

“Oh yes, they want to steal our things, like your precious bow and arrow toy set,” Rob sarcastically replied. “Come on, man. This is a good thing that is happening here. Don’t try to knock it!”

“Maybe Rob’s right, Tyler,” Lisa said. “You said we needed to work as a group. Maybe…maybe our two groups could form some kind of a super-group. As long as we’re careful, we should be alright.”

Tyler wasn’t sure what to say to that. He could handle Rob or Lisa, but not both at the same time. “Alright then,” he finally said. “We’ll let them spend the night. But once it’s morning, we both go our own ways, alright? Otherwise, they will kill us to protect themselves, if they find out about us.”

Neither Rob nor Lisa looked happy about that decision, but they didn’t object to it.




Lisa was the only person who was still inside the Winnebago. Benny and Rob hadn’t been lying when they said Benny’s group of six was fully stocked. It had plenty of firearms, non-perishable cans of food, ammunition, spare camouflage-print clothes for the summer and winter, sleeping bags, so many supplies that it was a wonder how six people could fit, let alone one single person to drive the thing. Everyone else was outside, rummaging through Rob’s absurd collection of DVD’s and good-naturedly arguing which movie they wanted to see. Lisa did a silent prayer that God had given them this opportunity to meet some sane people in their travels.

“See anything you like?”

Lisa turned around. Her scarf still covered up her face, so she felt only slightly uncomfortable about the man standing before her. He was one of the younger members of Benny’s group, someone who looked like they were just about to turn thirty behind long, shaggy blonde hair. “Yes. It is…quite impressive.”

“Yeah. Benny’s been looking out for us for a long time. Even before the dead rose up.” The blonde man walked closer to her. “He used to run some kind of hardcore survivalist camp up in Wyoming. I used to have a job there too.”

“What…what happened?”

“It got overrun. Someone bitten got in, someone hiding it pretty well. They died, rose up, caused all kinds of shit. Next thing we knew, half of us were dead, and the zombies outside were barging in.” He paused, sitting down in the driver’s seat.  “Now we’re heading off to Michigan. We got some radio broadcast a few days back, saying there was some fancy-pants government place up near somewhere….Macanback? McInaw? Somewhere north. Even got some sort of science crew up there trying to “cure the plague” or some shit. What about you three? What’s your story?”

“Oh, nothing much. Met Tyler and Rob about four months back. We’ve just been travelling ever since, trying to find someplace that didn’t turn out to be some crazed dictatorship.”

“Well, good luck to you on that.” The blonde man just kept looking at Lisa, to the point that she was starting to get embarrassed. If her body was still capable of doing so, she might have even blushed. “So, how come you wear that scarf?”

“Oh this?” Lisa held up the two loose ends with her hands. “I get cold real easy.”

“It’s plenty warm in here. You can take it off if you want.”

“No…no I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on. I just want to know what a pretty girl like you really looks like.” He got up from the driver’s seat and walked towards her. “Is that so much?”

"Yes, yes it is.” Lisa started panicking. “Please just get out of my way—“

“Just one second, I promise.” Lisa tried forcing her way past, but the blonde man stood solid and reached for the scarf. He caught it with his right hand and noticeably didn’t grab her nose. He let out a brief “Huh?” before grabbing the scarf harder and pulling it back to get a better look at Lisa’s face. He had enough time to briefly see her scars before she managed to forcefully shove her way past.

“Sorry!” she said, as she ran out to the door. The blonde man picked up a handgun and let loose a wild shot, putting a bullet hole in the windshield and missing Lisa. Lisa ran even faster, shouting in alarm and running to Tyler and Rob, pulling up her scarf as she did so.

As soon as the gun went off, everyone put down what they were doing and ran over towards Lisa. “Lisa!” shouted Tyler, as he limped as fast as he could over to her. “What the hell happened? Are you alright?”

“WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THAT BITCH?” The blonde man jumped out of the Winnebago and started waving his gun around. “WE GOTTA KILL HER NOW!”

“Sky! Skylar, easy man, easy!” Benny ran forward, grabbing the gun out of his hand. “What in the hell is the matter with you?”

“Get him out of here!” yelled Tyler. “Lisa, are you alright? What happened?”

“He…” Lisa lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “He saw my face.”

“WHAT?” Rob hissed.

“THAT BITCH IS INFECTED! SHE’S-SHE’S ONE OF THOSE ZOMBIES! THEY ALL MIGHT BE!”

Tyler tried to defuse the situation. “Yes, because intelligent, talking, civil, movie-loving zombies are a thing,” he said sarcastically.

“Have I ever lied to you, Ben?” Skylar asked. “Have I ever lied to any of you guys?” he shouted at his four compatriots. He pointed his gun right at Lisa. “Have her take off the scarf. SHE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A NOSE FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“This is absolutely ridiculous!” Rob shouted back. “Are you actually going to listen to this guy?”

“You know what? I’ve worked with him for damn near half his adult life. So yes, yes I am going to listen,” Benny replied. He pulled out a flashlight and shined it on the three. “So come on then. Let’s see your faces.”

Lisa tried to speak up. “You can not seriously think that—“

Skylar let loose two shots that went past Tyler, Lisa, and Rob and instead went through two of Rob’s suitcases. The cases inside had holes torn into them, destroying the DVDs they weakly protected. “Show your faces.” Skylar stepped closer towards Lisa. “NOW.”

Rob only stared at Skylar’s destruction in horror. Tyler tried to think of what he could say in order to have everything come out with them still alive. And Lisa decided to give in. “Alright. Alright.”

“Lisa…” growled Tyler.

“It’s ok, Tyler. Maybe...maybe if we're honest with each other, we can work this out.” Lisa lowered her hood and slowly unraveled her scarf. When it came all the way off, everyone except Skylar took a step back in horror and shock.

“Holy shit!”

“What the fuck?!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Please don’t say the Lord’s name—“

“SHUT! UP!” Skylar shouted at Lisa, taking another step closer to her. “Benny! We kill them, right? We gotta kill them!”

“Welp, I certainly don’t see anything wrong with that proposal,” Benny replied jovially. “Goddamn, just when you think you’ve seen everything on this planet, you get smacked upside the head by these freaks. Sky—“

Before Benny could finish, Rob lunged at Skylar, furious and howling in blind rage. He sank his teeth into Skylar’s throat, ripping it wide open. As blood gushed out from the dying Skylar’s throat and Rob went to town feasting on his body, everyone just jumped back in shock. Tyler was the first to move. He reached over for the rifle towards the ground and fired off a shot, hitting one of Benny’s group in the leg.

Benny pulled out his handgun and quickly shot Rob point-blank in the head. “KILL THEM!” he shouted at the group. “KILL THOSE FUCKING FREAKS!”

Tyler fired two shots at him, the first missing, but the second hitting him in the lower chest. He fell down clutching his gut and screaming in disorientating pain. Lisa scurried away from the main source of fighting, only to ram directly into one of the hunters.

“Lisa! Grab their guns, if you can! Help me out here!” shouted Tyler, as he continued to fire shots from a lying position. Lisa grabbed onto the gun of the man she had run into, but the man struggled with her, trying to hang onto his weapon. Lisa screamed in anger and fear, opening her mouth wide enough to let her emotions clear. The man seemed to get frightened by this, letting go of the gun, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she repeated to him over and over again. The man ran off, leaving his group behind.

“SHOOT THEM! Shoot, you assholes!” Benny shouted, pointing his gun at Lisa and trying to hit her in the head proper. He got her once in the right shoulder, which caused her to tumble down from the impact. Tyler had crawled towards the car, giving him valuable cover but making him unable to properly see where the hunters were.

“Lisa! You alright?”

“Hit me…in the shoulder, yeah, that’s where he hit me.” Lisa seemed to take being shot rather well, surprising even her. She hadn’t expected that it would have been so painless. “What do I do?”

“Shoot back at them!” Tyler yelled. “Make them get the fuck out of here!”

Lisa simply hid behind the car, too scared to make sense of what should happen. Flashlights were dropped to the ground as people began firing wildly to try and hit both her and Tyler. Then she heard something in the air. It was hard to tell over the incredibly loud and distracting gun shots, but it was still there, clear as day. “Tyler! We’ve got company coming!”

Tyler knew exactly what “company” meant. Fucking fantastic, he thought. “Your point?”

“I THINK WE HAVE BIGGER THINGS TO DEAL WITH HERE!”

Along the road shambled several zombies, almost thirty of them, stumbling forward towards the firefight. They first got the man that Tyler got in the gut, with five of them ripping him to pieces. The man’s screams made the others turn around and realize how they were trapped. “SHIT! EVERYONE, WATCH YOUR BACKS!” Benny tried to maintain order, but it was clearly failing. One of the men screamed in pain as two zombies grabbed him and began to devour his arm. A second kept firing his weapon until his empty-sounding klick-klick repeated over and over.

Lisa couldn’t stand for it anymore. “Tyler, we’ve got to help them.”

“What?”

“We have to help them! They’re dying out there!”

“They were trying to kill us! They killed Rob!”

“That doesn’t mean they should die too! They’re just human. They don’t deserve to die like this. No one does.” She had made up her mind. She walked out from behind the car and made her way to the zombies.

“Lisa! Crap, damn it!” Tyler adjusted the position of the rifle, making sure it stayed pointed away from Lisa and instead at the group of zombies that were approaching.

Lisa calmly fired two shots into two different zombies’ heads that brought them down instantly. She casually walked up to more, each time shooting the zombie right in the head. This was the only real kind of violence she was comfortable with; they were already dead, and she was fairly sure from her studying the Bible that it wasn’t a sin to kill the dead again. When she finally ran out of bullets, she grabbed the baseball bat and started bashing their heads in.

Benny was somehow still alive, thanks in part to Tyler covering for him with his rifle. But even then, there was only so much he could do. “I’m out!” he eventually shouted towards Lisa. He put down the rifle and picked up a gun that one of Benny’s group had dropped in the madness. He shuffled closer to the zombies, obliterating the skull of one and making his way to another.

As Lisa and Tyler made their way through the zombie crowd, none of the mindless abominations offered any resistance to them or tried to fight back. Their infections allowed them to simply slip right in and destroy the zombies from the inside out. Eventually, as the two of them finished off the last zombie, they made their way to Benny, who was clearly very dead. He had been clawed and scratched at by several zombies, with his beard having been ripped off forcibly in some spots by the walking dead trying to grab hold of him.

“Wow.” Tyler couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m so sorry, Benny.”

“Wasn’t any fault of your own, Lisa.”

“Yes it was, Tyler.” Tyler didn’t know what to say to that. “They were going to Michigan.”

“Sorry?”

“Michigan. Skylar, he told me, before he found out, that there was some radio broadcast. About how the government had located to Michigan. And was trying to find a cure. And now they’re all dead. And so is—“ She couldn’t continue.

“Lisa…” Tyler went over and gave her a hug. The only reason she wasn’t crying was because her tear ducts had died when she became a zombie. “It’ll be alright. We can go there, if you want.”

“We need to bury them.”

“We need to what now?”

“Bury them. We have to. Especially Rob. They all deserve a burial.”

“Lisa…we’re in the middle of the road. Where are we going to—“

“They NEED a burial. Rob was our friend. He deserves some dignity. And so do all of them. Please, Tyler. It’s the Christi—it’s the RIGHT thing to do.” Lisa looked up at him, begging as hard as she could with her fading eyes.

Tyler simply sighed. “I’ll find some shovels, and we can do it in the morning, when we can see, alright? Then Michigan?”

“Then Michigan.”

“All right. Fine.” Tyler walked into the Winnebago, before turning around. “You know how to drive one of these things?”




The next morning they buried Benny’s entire group in a large, shallow grave, side by side. Lisa gave a short speech, begging that God forgive them of their sins and allow them into Heaven. Rob received a much deeper, more emotional speech, along with his own resting place. They carried Rob’s things and packed them into the Winnebago, barely fitting everything in.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Lisa said.

“What? Stealing from the dead?” joked Tyler.

“No. Not having Rob. He never got to watch one of his movies.”

Tyler stayed silent, and then went to the back of the Winnebago, eventually pulling out the Oscar Collections: Best Animated Short Films, 1990-2010. He held it up for Lisa to see properly. “I think we’ve got time for a few of these. He said they had a DVD player on here, didn’t they? So…maybe we can watch some? For Rob?”

Lisa simply smiled at that. “Yeah. We have plenty of time.”