Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Seven

We all stood frozen for a second, trying to determine by sound if she was in fact still breathing or not. I looked past Shane, but couldn't see if her chest was moving. I tried to slide between the brothers but was stopped when they each grabbed an elbow.

"What are you doing? Are you nuts?" Kyle hissed.

I pulled away from both of them. "I need to check if she has a pulse. She might be in a coma."

"Which would just be more evidence that she's actually sick!" Kyle argued.

I frowned at him. "I need to see if I can help her."

"And now we know why doctors are the first to go in a zombie apocalypse," Kyle muttered under his breath, his face a little pale.

Shane rolled his eyes. "The vote on the whole zombie apocalypse thing is still out, Ky."

Ignoring them both, I moved toward the woman. Despite their words, they both stuck right next to me, Shane pulling his gun from where it had been tucked into his belt.

I knelt beside the woman, Kyle's words still ringing in my ears. I had seen my fair share of zombie movies too, so I pressed my fingers into her wrist instead of her neck, trying to find a pulse.

My breath started coming a little more rapidly when I didn't feel anything for much too long. Standing up, I whispered, "Her heart's not beating."

"Are you sure?" Kyle asked, watching anxiously from behind the coffee table.

"Yes I'm sure!" I snapped still looking at the woman.

"Okay. Um. I'm just asking because I'm pretty sure her hand moved." Kyle held up his hands in surrender.

"What?" I dropped back into a crouch, grabbing the woman's wrist again. I waited for what felt like forever, but still didn't feel anything. Quietly, with my hand still on her arm, I asked, "Does anyone know: a.) if this virus kills and b.) how quickly it does it?"

Looking up, I found both Kyle and Shane shaking their heads at my question. I sighed and closed my eyes briefly.

That was a mistake.

Whoever decided that zombies started out slow and weak was dead wrong, if you'll pardon the pun.

A hand latched around my throat and I found myself being slammed backwards into the floor. My hands automatically came up, one gripping the hand at my throat, the other trying to push a body off of me.

An animal snarl made me raise my eyes and I saw it was the woman. My mind froze in shock even as my muscles worked to free myself from her grasp. The woman snapped her teeth at my face, but even then it was like I couldn't believe what was happening.

The first time is always the worst, right?

I heard a yell from somewhere above me, then a booted foot came sweeping past my head, smashing into the woman's face. She was thrown backwards off of me and I felt hands under my arms, dragging me back to my feet.

Shane let go of me, then pushed me behind him, training his gun on the woman. I stood just behind him, my breath ratcheting in and out. The woman looked up, and I wanted to scream when I saw her face.

Her eyes were a cloudy, dead white but that wasn't the worst of it. Her nose was broken and a thin stream of thick, gelatinous blood oozed down her chin. Shane's foot must have connected with more than her nose, though, because I could see where her cheekbone was broken, the skin sagging away from her eye. She didn't seem to be phased by this and that scared me.

That, to me, is the scariest thing about the zombies. They just feel no pain you know? I mean, all humans understand pain. They avoid it because pain means danger. Not zombies though. And what do you do with something that cannot be discouraged even by pain?