ZOMB-POCALYPSE

Chapter Six

I get just close enough that I should be able to reach the zombie with the long axe handle, without it being able to reach me, and I raise the axe over my head. I take a shaky breath before bringing it down with a disgusting smack. My swing is off because the axe is so heavy, and the curved blade imbeds in the creature's collarbone by accident. I refuse to think of it as a person, not when I'm hitting it with an axe.

I try to pull the axe out, but I'm getting dangerously close to the swinging arms again. Thankfully, blood doesn't spray out like I was expecting. Instead, the gross sludge starts leaking slowly from the wound. The zombie doesn't seem to be affected by the horrible injury and keeps growling and swinging at me. The axe is yanked from my fingers as he unexpectedly jerks to the left. I take a step back just as he manages to tear away from the fence. The zombie starts towards me with his slow, uneven gait. I backpedal fast in blind panic and trip. I fall backwards and land hard on my butt. My teeth snap together and the air is knocked out of me, making my chest hurt. Even worse, the zombie is still coming after me.

He moves quicker than I expect. Within three rapid beats of my heart, he's on top of me before I can scramble back. The smell of the rotting, putrid skin pressed up against my face would have me gagging if I wasn't so busy fighting for my life. I can hear his jaws snapping like crazy. The axe handle that's still protruding from his collar bone is digging painfully into my hip. He's crushing my legs with the full force of his weight, and I'm forced to put my hands up on his shoulders in an attempt to buck him off, but it's impossible. He's huge and immovable.

I let out a ragged cry of terror; my brain is shutting down from fear. Somehow, my hand manages to grab around and find the knife that I tucked in my hoody pocket. I bring the knife up just as the monster opens his mouth and bares his chipped, ragged teeth. He snaps down on the blade and the momentum of his own body weight pushes the knife further into his skull. My arms tremble with the strain of trying to hold him up, but adrenaline has given me an added boost of strength.

I hear the horrible death rattle in his throat, and then he's dead weight, unmovable and unmoving as he collapses on top of me. My arms bend under his weight, and I begin to scream in terror and buck harder. Thankfully, he's pulled off of me a second later. I scrabble to my feet, slipping in the gore, and see Ryan standing over me. He's the one that pulled the zombie off me. He's puffing and out of breath from running across the yard. Even though I'm covered from my boobs down in zombie viscera, he pulls me into a tight hug.

"Did you get bit?" his voice is filled with tension, and I have to do a mental check before I am able to truthfully shake my head.

"No," I manage to get out before I burst into tears.

Ryan scoops me up in his arms and carries me, sobbing, into the house. I didn't notice at first, but Abby had run over with him when the zombie got loose. She follows him back to the house.

"Take her upstairs and get her cleaned up," he asks Abby, gently setting me down.

"Megan and I will take care of him," he motions towards the guy still sitting on the porch.

My legs feel like they're made out of jelly. Abby grabs my hand, despite the gore, and it makes me feel a bit more stable.

We go back up to the bedroom we stayed in the night before, and Abby leads me to the bathroom. I have no qualms about stripping down and getting underneath the icy cold blast of the shower this time. The water makes me feel like I want to jump out of my own skin, it torments me, like tiny pin pricks of ice driving into my naked, shivering body, but I don't relent. I scrub myself from head to toe until I'm sore and pink. I'm tempted to find a bottle of bleach, but I limit myself to a fourth scrubbing instead.