But she did.

The main cabin was dark; the aisle lights were dim but give enough light for her to walk. She'd smile to the few passengers who were still awake, but most of them were sleeping.

She hated to disturb Dr. Riesman; After all, he had taken that medication.

Reaching into her apron pocket, she pulled out a small flash light.

Row 57 she heard something. It was a wet sound, squishing.

It grew louder as she hit row 62.

At Row 63, she heard a heavy, gurgling. A breathing that didn't sound right.

Had he taken a turn for the worse? The odd sounds grew louder.

She arrived at row 64 and couldn't see Dr. Riesman's head. Perhaps he had gone to the rest room. Another step, a raise of the flashlight, Marian softly called "Dr. Riesman."

The beam hit the empty seat of '65B' only for a split second. Into the light, Hans raised his head with a snarl. His mouth opened wide, showing his teeth and blood along with saliva poured out. His eyes flared a deadly blank look.

Fear had consumed her so much, that she couldn't get a productive scream.

Hans shook his head like an animal, shucking remains from his mouth.

The flashlight tippled from her grip as her hand shot to her mouth and backed up when she watched Hans returned to devouring the man in '65 A'.

Marion was frozen in fear and in shock. She wanted to scream, warn the sleeping passengers. She hadn't a clue what to do. So she ran. She ran as fast as she could through the plane and up to the Captain's cabin. "You need a gun."

"Marion, what's wrong?" The Captain spoke calming, standing as he did.

"A gun. A gun!" Marion screamed, and then broke into hysterics. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

"Marion." With a firm grip to her and a slight jolt, the Captain vied for her attention. "What is going on? Calm down."

Marion cried out. A bone chilling scream, followed by sobs.

"Greg, I'll be back." The Captain moved to the door.

"Do you want me to go?" Greg asked.

"No. I'll see what the problem is. In the meantime, notify Berlin and alert them that we may have a situation."

As the Captain began to leave, Marion dove for him, holding on, begging and sobbing 'please don't go back there' repeatedly.

The Captain pulled her from him, pulled the cabin door closed and walked out.

Marion dropped to the floor.

Greg's radioing to Berlin was mere background noise as Marion weakly reached up and locked the door.

The cockpit was safe and secure.

No one could get in there. They would be fine until they landed and that would be long.

Something told Marion that the Captain wouldn't be back.

She was right.

They arrived at a small village just after dawn. Chickens danced about in the orange hue of morning, people moved, but not slowly. They radioed in to let command know their position. Jack's patrol was on foot, a vehicle would meet them there.

The woods didn't bring anymore incidents. That was good. Jack believed he did overreact and that, really, there was no way it extended into the village. Another animal could have eaten that goat.

"Spread out, knock on doors," The platoon sergeant ordered. "Try your best to convey that we are looking for people who are ill."

Jack nodded his agreement; he was paired off with Specialist Carlson. The village houses lined a dirt road; he and Carlson were instructed to start at the last one.

They had just happened upon the home when the door opened and an old woman, maybe eighty emerged. She dropped her bucket when she saw Jack and Carlson, started rambling fast and insidiously in her native language as she ran to them, grabbing them.

Her face tear streaked her arms dirty.

As Jack tried to speak with her, he noticed her arms. Dirt? Blood. "Ma'am? Slow down. What is wrong?"

The door opened again and another woman emerged. High in the air she held sickle by its broken handle. Middle aged, thin. Her eyes widened, she lowered the sickle and she genuinely looked relieved to see them. She hurried to the old woman, pulling her from Jack.

"Come," the woman beckoned. "Come." She waved her arm and led Jack and Carlson around the small house.

The woman stopped and merely extended her arm to what looked like a small chicken shack. "Husband."

Jack asked. "Your husband is in there?"

She nodded. "Husband" She pointed with the sickle.

Jack glanced at Carlson and both men took a step.

The younger of the women, reached out, stopping Jack.

"What?" Jack asked. "We're going to go check."

She pointed to his rifle and reached for it.

Jack moved it from her way.

The woman pointed to the rifle, shook her head, then mimicked raising the gun.

"Um, Sarge," Carlson said. "I think she's telling us to raise our weapons."

"I think you're right." Jack lifted his and motioned his head. "Let's go."

The shack was only twenty feet away, but it seemed like a mile. Arriving at the door, Jack signaled Carlson to stand back and then Jack sprang open the door.

Nothing.

They looked at each other, then with weapons raised walked in.

It was quiet and dark. Another step then out from no where, with an inhuman growl, rushed a man.

His snarled and raged for Jack and Carlson, snapping to a stop inches before reaching them.

Jack stepped back. The man had been restrained by chains, but he fought and struggled to reach and bite him.

His face, his wounds, his coloring. All the same.

Jack didn't need to be a doctor to know, this man, in this remote village, was infected.

Jacqueline Druga is a native of Pittsburgh and a prolific writer of numerous novels. While she specializes in the Apocalypse, Jacqueline also writes Horror, Comedy, Romance, Mystery and YA. She is considered an authority on Bio-terror and was feature3d on the History Channel.

She welcomes your feedback and you can reach Jacqueline via her website at www.jacquelinedruga.com Dana Fredsti YOU'LL NEVER BE LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN.

First time director Darren Zuber was having a hard enough time shooting his film before the dead started coming back to life and eating the living.

Mara Dubray, his leading lady and a well-known star of daytime soaps, was proof positive that most actors' IQs and egos were inversely proportional. Known more for her enormous bosom rather than any real acting talent, Mara was not about to let some first-time director tell her how to deliver lines. Her tantrums had already run the film well over budget and the words "completion bond company" had been bandied about more than once by Gerald Fife, the executive producer.

Never mind that it had been Fife's brilliant idea to cast a mediocre soap star as Lady Genevieve, a noblewoman in love with a priest (played by Derrick Stone, a minor name whose entire range consisted of stoically wooden) in the midst of a plague-stricken 14th Century Europe.

Darren had fought this casting - certainly the most ludicrous decision since Verhoven had cast Melanie Griffith as Elizabeth I ("I have the mind of a king and a bod made for sin") as vehemently as he dared. But with only a music video directing credit under his belt, Darren had to swallow both pride and common sense on a great many crucial details, such as casting and rewrites. It was the only way to get his film made, a project he'd dreamed of doing since his first years at UCLA. And it was only the success of Game of Thrones that had convinced Plateau Productions, headed by Fife, to invest the money.

Plateau was known for low-budget rip-offs of big box office pictures, as well as micro-budget exploitation films in every genre. If you rented a Plateau picture you could always count on four things: bad scripts, worse acting, one or two minor "name" actors for foreign draw, and at least one scene set in a strip club.

Explanations to Five that 14th century Europeans did not have strip clubs were useless. To Fife, if a film didn't have topless dancers, it wasn't a film. "You gotta have tits and ass, kid," Fife had said during one of their many rewrite sessions. "And I don't give a shit what century we're talking here; you can't tell me that the men didn't want to see naked girls after a hard day plowing in the field, even if they hadn't invented boob jobs yet." Darren had given in, figuring he could come up with some sort of scene in a tavern with bawdy serving maids and a band of roving minstrels for the music.

But it was certainly a far cry from the idealism of film school and all of those vows Darren and his fellow students had made. They would never sell out to the commercialism of Hollywood. Their movies would be pure; art for art's sake. No stars (unless it was an older name, like Maureen O'Hara or a 70s sitcom star. Both had a certain cache that appealed to the idealistic - and pretentious - students in the UCLA film program); no more than one explosion per film, and no scripts by Roland Emmerich.

Darren wondered how many film school grads had their idealism kicked out of them by the steel-toed boots of companies like Plateau. He supposed he should be grateful to have won the battle against a rock'n'roll soundtrack. As he stared balefully at Mara while she finished butchering yet another speech, however, Darren found it hard to be grateful about anything.

The scene would have to be done again to get the master shot, and then there would be countless takes on key phrases, close-ups, reaction shots from the crowd of peasants as Lady Genevieve tried to convince them not to flee their village, and- Shit! Was one of the extras wearing sunglasses?

Why the hell hadn't the extra coordinator or the wardrobe mistress caught that? And how had he missed it? And how could that asshat of an extra be so...so brain-dead? Several scenes would now have to be reshot, adding more to the already inflated budget.

Darren groaned and rubbed his head, trying to convince the nagging ache behind one eye that it did not want to become a migraine. Melissa, his assistant, silently handed him two Excedrin Migraine and an unopened can of soda. Darren mouthed a silent "thanks" and popped the top, washing down the pills with a mouthful of sickly sweet orange-flavored carbonation.

"Jeez, this stuff is crap." Darren handed the can back to Melissa. "Can't those P.A's get anything but this shit?"

Melissa shrugged. "Budget will only cover generic. Besides, the whole dead thing back east is really playing havoc with shipments."

"Jesus..." Darren turned to his first A.D. "John, call lunch. We'll take this scene again after that. And tell Zack to make sure none of the extras are wearing fucking sunglasses! Or watches, or any other jewelry, for crissake! These are 14th century peasants! And tell Linda I want more yellow on their teeth! They didn't have Crest in the 14th century! Jesus!"

Darren stomped off without waiting for an answer, unable to control his temper. He didn't like losing it in front of people. He had promised himself he wasn't going to be one of those abusive directors famous for their on-set tantrums. But he hadn't bargained for the reality of low-budget Hollywood.

At least Darren could trust John to handle the situation. Thank God for John, a fellow student from UCLA and one of the few people Darren could really count on. His producer, Phil, was another friend from film school. The three of them had shared many a late night pizza while watching The Definitive Movie Masterpieces as defined by their film prof, analyzing them to a degree that would have both amazed and amused the original filmmakers.

John still retained some of the purity of vision they'd once all shared, albeit tempered with an increasingly world-weary attitude now reflected by his newly tinted glasses. Phil, however, had not only happily tossed idealism out the window; he'd also thrown out imagination, courage, and loyalty. He made up for these gaps in his character by extra doses of brown-nosing and sleaziness.

Even now, instead of showing any interest in the increasingly disastrous proceedings, Phil was off in a corner schmoozing some buxom peasant girl; one wearing a pair of decidedly non-period earrings and far too much self-applied cosmetics, despite strict instructions from the makeup department.

Darren went off in search of something stronger than Excedrin.

The next day brought a whole slew of unpleasant surprises, including the news that Joe Pilate (one of the few actors Darren had actually cast himself) had been eaten the day before. Phil delivered the unpleasant news via telephone before Darren had a chance to sip his morning espresso.

"Eaten? What the hell do you mean, 'he was eaten?'"

"Had his guts ripped right out," Phil confirmed with ghoulish relish. "Joe was visiting his father's grave in Philly and a couple of deadheads had him for lunch."

"Jesus, that's sick." Darren was dismayed that even while he mourned the death of a friend, his mind was already going over possible replacements for the devoured actor.

"That's the east coast for you," Phil said. "By the way, Fife is really on my ass about the budget. Are there any more scenes we can cut?"

Darren swore. It would already take an editing genius to make a coherent story out of the amputated bits left from his original script. Not for the first time, he suspected Fife had a sympathetic ear in Phil.

"Forget it," he growled. "Any more cuts and we're going to have a 14th century music video."

"Hey, we could get a rock band and have them do a title song," Phil said enthusiastically. "Call it Plague Years or something!"

Darren closed his eyes. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Bottom line, no more cuts." He paused, finding his next words sticking in his throat. "And find me a replacement for Joe ASAP. We'll shift his scenes to Thursday. I'll have Melissa call the actors and let 'em know we're doing the love scene today."

Hanging up before Phil could argue, Darren sadly reflected that he'd just given Joe an extremely shoddy obituary.

As soon as he arrived on set, Melissa told Darren that Mara was refusing to do the love scene with Derrick unless provided with a bottle of Cristal to relax her.

"Relax her?" Phil, who had joined the pair as they walked towards the craft service table, snorted in derision. "If she'd lay off the coke or whatever other crap she's been taking, she'd relax just fine."

"I don't know." Melissa shrugged fatalistically; something she'd been doing a lot the past few days. "She says the whole dead coming back to life thing is really stressing her out."

"Oh, that's a load of crap," Phil snarled, grabbing a bagel and slathering it with cream cheese. "This is Hollywood, not Philadelphia."

Darren headed straight for the Excedrin.

"I don't know." Melissa shrugged again, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "They're saying it's spreading."

"'They?' Who are 'they', Mara? That's total bullshit." Phil bit viciously into his bagel. "She just wants to get loaded on good champagne on our dime."

"I guess," Melissa said doubtfully. "So what should I tell her?"

Darren sighed, deciding he'd better step in. "Get some Tott's or spumante and don't let her see the bottle. I doubt she'll know the difference. She only knows about Cristal because she's watched Showgirls at least twenty times."

Later, as he tried to coax some genuine emotion out of his two leads, Darren reflected that if the walking dead problem did spread out west, no one would be able to tell the difference between the zombies and his actors anyway, so who'd give a shit?