Tobias

It's a beautiful sunny day. I am walking in a park. Children are playing and laughing. Parents chatter leisurely on benches surrounding the large swing set. It is serene. I sit down on a bench near a small pond with ducks criss-crossing it's surface. The sun warms my face. The children's laughter lulls my eyes shut. A dog barks in the distance. I slip my sandals off and feel the grass between my toes. I feel the moist caress of a tongue and I look down to see a cute blond retriever licking my toes. I scrunch my face with laughter. When my eyes open again and I focus it's not a dog I see.

I leap up from my bed. The dog has become a blond dragger and it's right at the foot of my bed. It has been licking my feet as they stuck out the bottom of the blanket. It would have bitten them but it doesn't have a lower jaw or a left arm and it's right one stops at mid forearm where other zombies have gnawed the flesh away. My hand flail's for my pistol as the dragger struggles onto my bed. My fingers clamp down on the cold and reassuring form of the Beretta. I swing it in line with the dragger and fire one round. I struggle past the lifeless mutilated corpse and grab the rifle leaning in the corner.

As I round the corner to the main room I see Jan reloading her shotgun with several dispatched draggers at her feet. I turn toward the kitchen just in time to draw a bead on a thorpe as it runs through the door way. I drop it in it's tracks and rush to the door as I shout to Jan, "Where's Bianca!"

"She opened the door and ran out before I could stop her!"

"She ran out! She's out there?!" I say as I instinctively slam the door closed.

"It was like she was possessed. She bolted from her room to the door mumbling something about a dog." Jan says as she racks a round into the chamber of her Mossberg.

"I'm going out after her." I say as I grasp the door handle.

"James,"

"Don't try to stop me. I-"

"Put on some shoes before we go."

I look to my bare feet and remember with sickening clarity the creatures tongue on my skin. I grab a bottle of bleach we keep near the door and collapse to the floor frantically searching my feet for any scratches or signs of a bite. They look clean. I drench my hands and feet with the bleach and pull on the nearest pair of boots.

Jan hoists me to my feet and grabs the door handle.

"Ready?"

I nod and she flings open the door. We step out and immediately open fire on the living dead. There are more zombies out here than I have seen any time before! What's brought them all? We fight our way to the street. We are both already running dangerously low on ammunition. We turn to start up the block as something whips around the corner. Jan and I raise our weapons -

"Don't shoot me!"

Bianca! She runs toward us holding the collar of a blond retriever. Jan wraps her arms around Bianca as she says, "What were you thinking?!"

"It's a dog! The monsters were after him! I had to help him, I had to. He needed me. He -"

"We need to move," I say as I grab onto Jan and start pulling them up the street. The dawn is just starting to come over the rooftops. The swarm of living dead moving up the street towards us looks like it is pouring from the sun itself. "Move. Move! NOW!"

I push them further down the block away from the apartment.

"Were are we going?" Jan asks with a worry that I have never heard in her voice before.

"We'll circle around the block ahead of the swarm and cut through the back yards to the apartment. Hopefully it will confuse most of them and lead them away." We run around the corner keeping ahead of the thorpes that are leading the zombies. We get to a chain link fence on the opposite side of the block from the apartment and I pull the bottom up for Jan and Bianca to crawl under. Just as I crouch to go myself a thorpe rounds the corner and spots me. My rifle swings into action almost as if it has the will to do so itself. I fire twice hitting my target on the second shot. I scramble under then fence.

"Keep him quiet." Jan whispers to Bianca. The young girl gently closes her hand around the dogs snout as we make our way slowly and quietly to the apartment.

All this happened last night. As I write this there are still a large number of zombies in the vicinity of the apartment. I am afraid we may have to relocate soon as the ones that hear us in the apartment will certainly summon more. The dog, who Bianca has affectionately named Tobias, is still recovering from his ordeal. He looks well fed so he couldn't have been out there long. He was spent physically from running but I don't think he could have kept up the pace for more than a couple of miles which means that there is or was other people alive and close by. Jan and I will begin a sweep of surrounding buildings tomorrow. If your alive and reading this we're coming to help you.