Chapter 7.

At first light, Ryan started walking. He moved slowly, lacking any kind of energy that would allow for even a leisurely stroll. In an hour, he'd gone almost half a mile. In that amount of time, he had to stop twice to relieve his bowels, and twice more just to rest. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, and his clothes were finally starting to dry. Ryan wondered if the heat radiating from his body was causing them to dry faster.

He mopped cold sweat from his forehead, stood up from his perch on a stone wall, and almost passed out. Even though his eyes were wide open, his vision had narrowed down to a tiny pinpoint, as if he was looking through a long tunnel. He staggered from a street sign to lamp post to an old mailbox, barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

"Must get home. To Kelly," he said to himself. Although he would never admit it, Ryan loved when Kelly would take care of him when he was sick. "She'll know what to do."

He staggered on, at one point picking up a limb and using it as a walking stick. To stay focused on the present, he counted his steps. In an attempt to remain coherent, he tried to do the math in his head, but his mind kept wandering.

"Thirteen miles home. That's 5280 times 13. So, that's like 68,000 feet. At two feet per step, that's... I need to remember to repair that top step from the garage to the kitchen. It's been loose for a while, and if I ever get the garage cleaned out, Kelly might trip coming into the house."

For the next several hundred steps, Ryan's fever-addled mind wandered to all of the things he needed to do around the house. He was just past the last house in town, when Donte appeared in front of him in a swirl of black smoke.

"Hi, imaginary Donte."

"Hi, Mr. Fullerton. You don't look so hot," Donte casually replied.

"Oh, I'm hot. I'm about to sweat to death, I imagine." Ryan's voice was nearly jovial. "I need to get home to Kelly, and somehow I don't have my keys. Did you ever lose your keys? One time, I was at the beach, and forgot to take my keys out of my bathing suit pocket. Like three hours later, I got to the car and did that panicked pocket-patting. You know that feeling?"

"I do know it," Donte replied, walking backwards in front of Ryan, although Ryan didn't notice. In his stupor, all he saw was the beach on a sunny summertime day. There were hundreds of people all around him. Beautiful girls in bikinis, children playing in the surf and way too many men wearing Speedo's who shouldn't be. All connection he Ryan had left with reality was completely severed.

"So, we had to call the rental car company and they had to bring us a new key," he rambled. "The next day, Kelly was walking around in the surf and stepped on our car key! Can you believe the luck? That's how she was, my Kelly. She always has a way of making things work out." Ryan wasn't even aware that he was speaking about Kelly as if she was still alive.

"Mr. Fullerton, you're pretty sick." Donte's voice had no connection in the fantasy world Ryan created. He was merely a floating voice the last remnant of reality.

"Nonsense, I'm perfectly fine. Just having a little stroll down the beach with my beautiful wife. Isn't that right, Kelly?" Ryan said, turning his head. Just to his left, holding his hand was Kelly. She was walking barefoot along the beach in a red bikini, with a big floppy hat on top of her head. He felt warm and content.

"Yes, Ryan. It's a beautiful day for a walk," she agreed and squeezed his hand a little tighter.

Ryan walked along the beach with his wife. If there had been anyone left alive to watch the scene, they would have seen a man who was barely able to walk drenched in sweat, mumbling incoherently. Occasionally he would stop as massive coughing fits seized him. His body was running on auto-pilot; he turned at the right places to get home, but his mind was gone. The fever he carried was off the charts at 107. The flu virus ravaging his lungs had limited the oxygen supply to his brain.

As he started up the dirt road towards his house, the beach scene disappeared. The world seamlessly transitioned into a beautiful fall day, even if unseasonably warm. The sun was shining over his head and the leaves were gloriously colored. All around him, there were shining oranges and yellows with hits of red blowing in the light breeze. He was walking home, looking forward to the chicken pot pie Kelly was working on in their kitchen when he left. He could smell it from here, and the smell quickened his step.

In reality, it was getting dark. A cold drizzle beat down on Ryan, soaking him to the bone. Ryan's body leaned on his mailbox, wracked with a coughing fit, spraying the side with bloody phlegm. As if to add insult to the cough, he sneezed twelve times, before letting go of the mailbox and starting his slow shamble up the driveway.

It was to Ryan's benefit that no one was left to see him walking. Had there been a single armed survivor at any point on his walk home, they would have shot him, thinking he was a zombie. As always, when Ryan topped the hill and started the last hundred feet to the driveway, the undead corpse of his wife started shambling towards him.

Slightly winded from the walk up the driveway, Ryan looked up and saw his wife, standing outside in a pair of blue jeans and a dark gray hoodie. Her hair was beautifully streaming behind her, glowing in the sun, and she was smiling. Kelly called out to him and waved her hand in greeting. She started towards him, and Ryan couldn't wait to kiss his wife. He was struck with the sense that he hadn't seen her in a very long time, even though he'd only been gone for about an hour. As he walked, it felt like he was dragging his legs through concrete he just couldn't get to her fast enough. Getting to Kelly and finally embracing her became his ultimate goal. He just missed her so much and with a small, happy cry he reached towards her.

The two of them closed the distance. The shambling man and woman, both of them pale, dripping with water, clammy to the touch. The woman tripped over a stone, nearly falling to the ground. As she fell, her torpid limbs attempted to grab anything to arrest her fall. Her palm scrubbed down the trunk of a pine tree, coating it in heavy, sticky sap. The woman shambled forwards.

Ryan was happy something he hadn't felt in a very long time. A smile lit up his face as he walked. He embraced his wife. A flood of pure joy washed over him as they finally touched. "I love you. I love you, Kelly," he said over and over. Kelly's warm skin was so soft as he cupped her face in one hand. He brought the other hand up through her soft, golden hair and pulled her closer. The lovers kissed passionately. Ryan knew that he could never live without her. Life was not worth living if she was not part of it. And then, very suddenly, there was intense pain. The pain was so strong; his eyes snapped open and reality came flooding back into view.

Kelly was dead - one of the infected. She was inches from his face, slowly chewing his bottom lip as the E'Clei she'd infected him with streamed through his blood towards his brain.

Her teeth had torn through the meat of his lip as she pulled back. She stared at him blankly, still chewing on his flesh. Blood ran down his chin and with a horrified shout, he tried to shove her away. He grabbed her hand to remove it from his shoulder. Even though he was pulling with all the strength he could muster, Ryan was too weak from the flu and couldn't get away. Not that it mattered - the infection had already taken him. The E'Clei shut down the pain center in his brain first, and he stopped screaming. Then he stopped fighting all together.

Donte Jackson watched the scene unfold curiously from the roof of the house as he released his control over Kelly. With a smirk, he disappeared in a swirl of black smoke. He was off to report what he'd learned about the human mind's capability to distort reality to his Lieutenant.

Minutes later, the corpses formerly known as "Ryan and Kelly Fullerton" shambled back towards Gander Valley, hand glued to hand by the thick pine sap. Finally together again, just like Ryan always wanted. Forever.

The End Laura Bretz has been immersing herself in fantasy lands, apocalyptic settings and all things impossible since she was a child. Pretending to survive in a post-apocalypse world set fire to her imagination and teaming up with Kirk Allmond to co-author the "What Zombies Fear" series finally gave her an outlet to express and bring her characters to life.

Graduating from college with a focus in interior design has given her an excellent eye for detail. Combined with her love of painting, that attention to detail allows Laura to create vivid pictures with words.

When she is not obsessing over tenses and punctuation, Laura is usually spending time with her dogs Marty and Teddy, painting, or singing with her local Sweet Adeline's International chorus in south-central Pennsylvania.

Laura's first solo novel project, "The Book of Kris" (www.thebookofkris.com) is coming along well. She also has a high fantasy project in the planning stages, and continues to co-author books in the What Zombies Fear (www.WhatZombiesFear.com) universe with Kirk Allmond. If you'd like to find out more about Laura and the status of her various projects, please join her on her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/LauraBretzAuthor.

Books in the What Zombies Fear universe: What Zombies Fear: A Father's Quest (2011) - 1st in the WZF Series What Zombies Fear: The Maxists (2011) - 2nd in the WZF Series What Zombies Fear: The Gathering (2012) - 3rd in the WZF Series What Zombies Fear: Fracture (2012) - 4th in the WZF Series What Zombies Fear: Declaration of War (2013) - 5th in the WZF Series What Zombies Fear: LEGION (Due August 2013) Short stories set in the What Zombies Fear universe: Victor Tookes Adventures: The Farmer's Daughter The Ballad of Ryan Fullerton Other Short Stories (As Laura Kirk) Will of the Dead To purchase any of Laura's books in any format, please see visit www.whatzombiesfear.com/library for a complete listing of all available retailers.

Tonia Brown Bob Bob Fletcher never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the bunch. Nor did he want to be bright. At best, Bob tried to be a little less dim than the very dimmest, which kept him from being cast aside but also kept him from being called upon to shed light on anything. He considered the weakness of his character the strength of his character. Too feeble to rely on, but not so unreliable that he couldn't handle small tasks. Granted, the task wasn't too big.

Or required too much thought.

Or any actual physical labor.

Bob had made a fine art of this labor avoidance. For twenty-six years, seven months and three weeks, he had dodged, ducked and narrowly skidded past any real work. Especially at work. On a professional level, this left him as the assistant to the assistant manager of the office supply department for Sutter and Son's Inc. And that was after eight years with the firm. This might have depressed anyone else in his place, to know that so many years of dedication had produced so little result. But no, Bob was happy being a nobody. A nobody was neither the squeaky wheel, nor the grease, and thus no one noticed him sliding through life. And when no one noticed you, they couldn't lay you off, or size you down, or zip you up.

Bob's pitiful office, the one he shared with the assistant manager, was on the second floor of the Sutter Building, which meant he was one of the first to die when the zombies attacked that bright November morning.

Becoming a zombie wasn't much of a career change for the lazy slob in Bob. At first he worried that being dead, or rather undead, would require some effort on his part. But no, he quickly found that all he had to do was lurch about, follow the faster fellow undead folks, let them do the hard work of actually taking down the living prey, then join in the feast afterwards. It seemed zombies were less hung up on sharing or hoarding than living folks were.

Hording, undead Bob thought. Zombies like to horde, not hoard.

Bob had a lot of thoughts lately. More than he used to. And a lot more than he supposed a dead man, or rather undead man (he just couldn't get quite used to that) should have. But who was he to question the ways of the world? One moment he's eating a hot ham and cheese at his desk, the next he's dead as a can of said ham. One minute he was living his normal office life, and the next he was dead. Or rather undead.

Office life, undead Bob thought. Office unlife is more like it.

And the more he thought about it, the more life as a zombie resembled life in the office. This mindless shambling from place to place with no clear objective. Taking directions from the lead zombies as they consumed everything in sight. Eating what was left, castoffs and scraps, while crawling over the carcasses of your enemies on your way to the top of the heap. But Bob was used to leftovers, as he usually bought a big takeout meal from one of the many local food chains at the beginning of the week, then ate off the thing until it started to smell a bit. And even then he might hang on a day or two longer to keep from having to talk to the takeout guys again.

So why did it bother him? This new undead life of his? It wasn't much different from the old one. He had spent a lifetime of being pretty much everything he was now. So why, now that he had everything as easy as he could ever want it, was he not happy? Bob knew he wasn't happy because when he was happy he had a very satisfied feeling all over, from head to toe, especially in certain tender regions. And even considering that his all over was missing an arm, and his right ear lobe, and a handful of teeth, and most of his intestinal tract, Bob was still sure that the all over left to him wasn't feeling satisfied.

He felt, in fact, very, very, empty.

Despite the three men he ate just under an hour ago.

"Can zombies be happy?" undead Bob asked, of no one in particular. This of course came out as a strained series of moans and grunts, which scared the beejeebus out of a teenager hiding in a trashcan on which Bob was resting his left elbow. But Bob ignored the trembling can in favor of turning his rotten mind to his dead dilemma. Or rather undead. (He really needed to get used to that!) Bob tapped the can as he pondered the makings of a zombie's mind. What made the average zombie tick? And in this makeup, where there was rage and pain and hunger and hunger and more hunger. And hunger. And even more hunger. Did he mention hunger? Because hunger should be on that list, preferably at the head of the list, just after hunger. Wait, where was he? Oh yes, and in this makeup filled with various emotions, one of which was definitely hunger, could zombies feel happiness?

How about joy?

Delight?

Arousal?

Ugh, it was probably best not to contemplate that one. Bob shook the gruesome images of nude undead ladies-most missing their vital naughty bits thanks to his warped sense of worthlessness-from his mind and wondered if perhaps a handy catchphrase would help him get a handle on what he had become and why it irked him so much.

I lurch, therefore I am?

No, that just seemed silly.

I am zombie, hear me groan?

That was even worse.

Give me liberty or give me ... no, that wouldn't work in this case.

It was no use. Bob had spent twenty-six years, seven months and three weeks avoiding this kind of brainstorming, so diving into it headfirst wasn't effective for him. And that's when Bob realized what was wrong with his new unlife, aside from his being so very, very dead.

He missed the challenge.

For twenty-six years, seven months and three weeks he had avoided everything ever handed to him by everyone he ever met. He avoided his mother and her constant nagging about him never amounting to anything at the firm. He avoided making friends, because friends wanted to rely on you, and that was the last thing he needed. He even avoided baths when he could, which probably helped with the whole no friends thing when one thought about it.

But the point was this: it was work to avoid work.

Work he missed now that it was gone. He always thought of himself as a lazy slacker, but how was he to realize there was such an art in knowing just what to say or do when the possibility of real work arose in his life? And now? Now all he had to do was follow the horde and eat when they ate and moan when they moaned and lurch when they lurched.

We all lurch to the beat of a different heart?

No, that was almost embarrassing!

The challenge of avoiding the challenges of life was gone, and with it, so was Bob's happiness.

Perhaps, undead Bob thought, this is why zombies eat people, because the dead are jealous of the living. Perhaps consuming the flesh of those alive is just an empty attempt to make myself whole again.

Now there was an idea! It didn't explain the unending hunger, of course, but philosophy wasn't supposed to explain everything, just some things. The important things. And Bob couldn't think of anything more important than himself.

Shuffling along with this new philosophical idea taking root in his rotting brain, Bob began to contemplate just how he could return to his previous state of bliss. Bob had loved his life. Most folks didn't, but Bob sure did. And he knew he loved it, because now that he was undead, he missed it. He didn't know at the time how much he loved his life. But who does? The whole thing was very much like not realizing how often you use a body part until it gets injured. Or goes missing. And since he was now missing a whole arm, Bob was pretty sure he qualified as an expert on that.

What was a depressed zombie to do?

There were no powers to be to fight. There was no head office at which to file a complaint. There wasn't even a random sacking or system-wide layoff to look forward to. One didn't get fired from being undead.

Fired, undead Bob thought. Ready? Aim? Fire!

That was it. There lay the solution to his problem. If being this dead was too simple, then there was only one answer for it. He had to get deader. He had to get dead for realsies. It was going to be a challenge, perhaps even involving real work, but he thought that maybe, just this once, he was up to the task. There was just one problem he could see with the whole idea.

Bob was going to need help to re-kill himself.

He knew-from years of watching movies and reading books and just some inherent awareness that came with the job of being undead-that the only way to die this time was going to include a hole in his head big enough to drive a truck through. On a normal day, he might be able to accommodate himself. (After all, he spent a lifetime handling his own head, of both varieties.) But here lately, Bob was feeling, well, a little shorthanded. As a result, he knew that he wouldn't have the strength required to end himself. Besides, what if another zombie saw him re-kill himself? It might start a movement, and then he would re-die knowing that his unique effort was for naught.

Why buck the trend and re-kill yourself if every other zombie was going to do the same darned thing?

He had to act fast, right now in fact. Bob moved along, picking up his pace from lurch to stagger, keeping his one good ear and both good eyes open for any signs of life that was willing to fight back. Maybe someone with a shotgun or a machete. Or maybe even a sexy, nubile, half-naked Amazonian with a machine gun and a thing for dead guys. Yeah. That would be nice. A nice, sexy way to die a second time. It would be much better than the way he died the first time: as the mid-morning snack for some zombified postal worker with a penchant for earlobes.

Bob got excited as he groaned and staggered and sought out his Amazon Queen to do him in. But he knew it wasn't just a living person with a weapon he needed; it was privacy too. He needed somewhere off the beaten path, so other zombies wouldn't see him willingly lay down his undead life. This was going to take some time, but that was okay, because he quite literally had all the time in the world. He'd searched high and low, deep and wide, and several other cliched phrases about distances, when, after several hours of lurching, he came across a pair of teenage boys hiding at the end of a dead-end alley (how apropos!) with a single rifle between them. He knew they had a rifle because one of the kids fired it at him as soon as he saw Bob.

Fired, and missed.

"Hurry up, Randall," one said.

"Shut up, Jerry!" the other one said.

"Reload! He's going to attack!"

"What do you think I'm doing? It takes a second, okay?"

"We don't have a second. Kill it!"

To a zombie, this conversation was tantamount to a dinner bell. Bob's undead belly grumbled at the prospects of easy pickings. He moaned and lurched ahead, his stomach on autopilot, while his mind continued to mull over his little problem.

Wait! his undead brain said. This is what you're looking for, Bob! Let them reload and shoot you. It's either this or wander around for another couple of hours, and who wants to do that? That sounds like work!

At the thought of this four-letter word, Bob stopped, arms poised for rending, teeth mid-gnash. Yes, yes this was what he was looking for, a weapon and a living person to fire the weapon. So there he stood, mid-lurch, waiting for the kid to reload and shoot him.

"What's it doing?" one kid asked.

"I don't know," the other said. "But I'm not going to find out."

The second kid, now having reloaded, lifted the rifle and fired at Bob. And somehow, at almost point blank range, firing at a single unmoving target, with no crosswind or interference, the kid still missed. Was the weapon old? Was the kid a moron? Why couldn't it be both? Bob panicked, wondering what he was going to do now. Should he eat them? If he did, how long would it take to find another armed and isolated person?

The slacker in Bob kicked in and took care of him.

As if hit, he grabbed his chest, groaned and teetered. Then Bob fell down-well, it was more like a slump to the ground-and there he did his best to hold still. He hoped, prayed, that the kids would make sure the zombie-he-was truly dead before they scampered away.

"Did you hit him?" one kid asked.

"Of course I did," the other said.

"It didn't look like you hit him."

"He fell down, didn't he?"

"Maybe you should shoot him again."

"Why waste the bullets?"

"Yeah, but in that movie they said to double-"