The BITTEN - A Short Tale of Terror #3

The BITTEN

ONE

Nineteen months ago the dead walked...

In an abandoned city, a group of survivors, armed with make-shift weapons, cautiously wander the empty streets.

Abandoned cars clutter the streets.

Money floats on the breeze.

No one stops to pick it up.

It wasn't long before we, the survivors, managed to gain our footing in this new world...

The group of survivors cautiously makes their way into an abandoned house.

We adapted. We overcame in the simple ways we could...

One member of the group moves off alone. He enters the empty kitchen, and makes his way toward the pantry.

We created a new order. A new set of rules to live by...

As the man reaches the pantry, a zombie leaps from within and tackles him.

But like any new order, ours came with new laws...

The other survivors run in and battle the undead human.

...And, like any new set of laws...

The survivors fight and win.

... There come new sets of loopholes.

The survivors stand over the zombie.

IT JUMPS UP AGAIN!

A female survivor fires a handgun right into the zombie's head.

Blood explodes outward.

TWO

Inside an old, yet warm, house, an older woman prepares food. She looks worried. She walks to the window and peers out.

The curtain moves out of the way. She see nothing. No one. Alive or dead. All is quiet.

She closes the curtain and continues to prep the meal.

In the nearby bedroom, a scruffy man sits on the edge of a bed.

The man holds a hand-written note in his gruff hands.

He stares out into the empty room.

He then hears footsteps on the stairs. He quickly puts the hand-written note under the pillow.

In the kitchen, the older woman hears the footsteps too. She puts down her utensils and heads into the living.

As she enters the room, the front door opens and the group of survivors enter.

"Oh, thank the lord. I was beginning to worry," the old woman says as her comrades enter. "Are you alright?"

The group holds the man who was attacked by the zombie up. He's clearly in shock.

They put him down on the couch.

The older woman turns to a bearded man.

"What happened to him? Did he..."

"No," the bearded man answers. "Thank God."

The entire group stand in the silence; the horror of what that would have meant sinks in.