At first – after realising it in the first place - Francis regarded the so-called “zombie apocalypse” with a healthy dose of cynicism. He wasn’t one to follow the news in the first place since he didn’t like the news (full of lies and propaganda and too much bullshit politics, he thought) and he wouldn’t have even noticed anything out of ordinary if it wasn’t for every channel in existence reporting the same goddamn thing about some sort of infection spreading at an alarming rate; about the dead coming back to life. Francis thought they were exaggerating: he remembered they had already been going on about some sort of flu epidemic for a week or so. Bringing dead back to life, hah. As if.

He was in his regular bar (which was oddly silent and deserted for a Friday night), downing a beer and flicking through the channels, looking for something interesting to watch, anything but the stupid fucking repetitive newscasts. Same old sensation-seeking bullshit that was always on.

Finally he gave up with a growl, left a random channel on, and dropped the remote on the counter. The owner, who had been surprisingly jumpy for the entire evening and having spent most of the time arguing over the phone – Francis knew because he heard a louder angry retort every now and then over the blaring cacophony of the TV and the eighties heavy rock from the speakers – finally swiped the two bottles Francis had already emptied off the counter, and with a nervous glance at the door, told Francis that he was closing early tonight.

“What the hell man, I was just getting comfy,” Francis whined, lingering over his last beer.

“It’s my bar and I can close it whenever the hell I want to,” the owner snapped, looking like he was about to lose his temper. Or mind. Or both. He was still taking nervous glances at the door.

A panicked female voice screamed in the TV.

“Hey man, chill. I’ll go,” Francis said, gulped down the remaining beer and got up, finding himself way too sober for the occasion. He had been hoping to see some friends, get drunk, start a fight or at least get in some kinda trouble, but finding himself alone in his favourite bar ... all he really felt like anymore was getting drunk, and apparently he had to find another bar to get that done.

The owner escorted him to the door. His hand was on the handle, ready to push it open, when he stopped and looked at Francis, suddenly looking a bit sad.

“I suggest you go find a safe place as well, Francis. You’ve been a good customer.”

Francis looked at the owner, slightly bewildered, and a bit taken aback. “Even though I broke that pool table last week? Seriously, dude, I’m gonna pay that back, even if it wasn’t completely my ...”

The owner just sighed and placed another hand on Francis’ shoulder, patting it reassuringly. “It’s the end of days, my friend. Go home.” That said he opened the door and pushed Francis outside, and Francis was too bewildered about the whole thing to resist. The door clicked shut behind him, and soon after the lights in the bar windows went out, and Francis was left alone in the street. A car drove past, way over the speed limit.

It was just past sunset, the street lamps were on, and as Francis took a look around, he noticed that it was unusually quiet. A chill ran up his spine and he regarded it as cold, since it was a bit chilly and he was only wearing a T-shirt. Someone ran past him, muttering something, and disappearing around the next corner.

It definitely wasn’t a normal Friday night.

First of all, it was much too early, Francis was way too sober, way too bored, and way too full of repressed aggression, and his favourite bar had just closed. So it was in order to move onto the second favourite, which thankfully wasn’t but a few blocks away.

Five minutes later Francis was staring at the “Closed” sign on the door of his second favourite bar. “Indefinitely!” was hand-written on the door itself with a sharpie. At that point Francis frowned openly. Couple of minutes later he found out that his usual liquor store was closed as well, with all the lights off and no sign of the usual Friday night swarm of customers. As he took a look around, he still couldn’t see a living soul on the streets, light shone through very few windows, and the dark streets of downtown Fairfield were unnaturally silent.

At that point Francis was starting to feel bad for not actually watching any of the newscasts. Maybe there had been something important, something that would’ve explained the jumpiness and angry phonecalls of the bar owner, the lack of customers, the closing of everything, and the overall fucking silent creepiness that had taken over the streets. Francis hugged himself, once again feeling the chill, and started down the street, deciding to head home and maybe watch some TV.

And once Francis started watching TV, he couldn’t stop until every single channel he got went off the air, first flashing the “Hold on for further instructions” info screen and then nothing but white noise. By then it was late Saturday morning, sun shining through the blinds and Francis felt like he had a hangover (despite not drinking anything but those three beers), sitting on his scruffy old armchair with a remote in hand and staring at the slightly cracked screen of his tiny TV. The cat was sleeping on his lap, perfectly unaware and uncaring of everything but sleep.

The cat wasn’t his, by the way: it had been sitting outside his door one night some months ago. It was mostly brown, a tiny little thing, with big ears and long tail. And being the sneaky creature that it was, it had slipped inside once Francis had opened the door. There was a chase, the cat getting into places Francis couldn’t reach and making him trip by running under chairs and stuff, and fifteen minutes later Francis had decided to take a break, completely exhausted. That’s when the cat had approached unabashedly, its tail high in the air, and jumped on Francis’ lap, curling up and starting to purr. Francis stared, found himself scratching the cat behind an ear, and after a while regarded the cat a winner of this clash of wills. So the cat stayed. Francis never got to giving it a name (and he didn’t know was it a girl cat, or a boy), so he called it a cat. It was to the point and the cat didn’t seem to mind, and although Francis would’ve never admitted it to anyone, he kinda liked the cat being around. It always slept on his lap, or curled up next to him when he went to bed, and rubbed itself against his legs whenever he went to the kitchen, and it was kinda nice. It was soft.

But the cat wasn’t the point, the news were.

Francis was confused: first everyone were told to stay inside and avoid all contact with the infected (and no one knew anything about these “infected,” just that it was a disease or something, and it was – or that’s what they said – bringing the dead back to life), and after a few hours everyone were told to get out of the cities, to go to the nearest evacuation center that were being set up as they spoke, something about local police forces handling the spreading of information. Leave everything behind, and go, they had said, the last unscripted newscasts before the channels had gone off the air. Katie Couric with panic in her eyes.

Francis got up, picking the cat up and placing it gently on the chair (it stretched its paws with a loud purr and then curled up into a perfect ball), and shambled to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. Instead he found a bottle of beer, and decided that it was much better than coffee. With the bottle in hand he shambled back into his living room (that was also his bedroom, but whatever), stared some more at the white noise in his TV and then scoffed loudly.

“Bullshit!” he said, and repeated it, for good measure. The cat perked its ears, but didn’t move.

He had almost fallen for it. The whole thing was just more of the same old lies and propaganda and bullshit that media was trying to shove down the collective throat of human kind: some government-issued crowd control bullshit. There was no infection, no evacuation, and all channels going off the air was a publicity stunt of some fucking epic scale. And there definitely weren’t some undead vampires roaming the streets!

Francis emptied the bottle with a couple of swigs and placed it on his TV table, picked up his leather vest from the pile of dirty (but perfectly wearable, if you asked him) clothes on the floor, pulled his boots on and headed out. The cat slipped past him as he was closing the door, and Francis told it to be back by evening. The cat looked at him over its shoulder and made its way down the stairs, tail pointing upwards. Francis took a look around, making sure no one saw him talking to a cat (he had appearances to keep up), and locked his door.

He saw lots of big posters on the walls as he made his way downstairs, most of them saying the same thing the TV had said: about staying inside and trying to confine the infection: some kind of rules of conduct. Francis hazily remembered seeing the posters before (for how long had they been there? A week maybe? He remembered tearing one down because it was plastered on his door and covering the peephole, and back then he had been drunk), but he had never really paid any attention to them. There was also a larger poster on the front door (and a few more of the other ones, all crossed over with yellow spray paint), an evacuation notice. Francis still didn’t really care enough to pay attention: it was all just for show anyhow.

His resolution about everything being just for show faltered a bit as he opened the front door. A car had crashed through the window of the convenience store across the street (so that’s what caused the noise he had heard a few hours ago). There was an upturned dumpster a bit further away, and the garbage had spread all over the street. Another car was parked messily over the sidewalk, and there was a trailer truck further away, almost completely blocking the street, smoke rising from somewhere behind it. And there was no one, absolutely no one in sight.

Francis stared.

Then he crossed the street, manoeuvered himself over the hood of the crashed car (he tried not to pay any attention to the bloodstains on the wheel and the windshield) and through the broken window, and took himself a bottle of whisky from under the counter. And a chocolate bar, because he was fucking hungry. Trying to open the register did cross his mind, but he was okay with stealing only as long as it did damage to people who really deserved it, like the government or bureaucrats or the police. The hard-working Indian guy who ran the store didn’t really deserve it. Besides he sometimes gave Francis some discount, since he was a regular customer. So okay, he was stealing a bottle of liquor (but selling booze in convenience stores was illegal anyhow, stupid state laws, so actually Francis was doing the owner a favor) and a chocolate bar, but really now, it wouldn’t actually consistute as a hardcore felony.

Munching on the chocolate he unlocked the shop’s door and stepped out on the street. He was thinking the joke was going a bit too far with no one on sight and everything, as he saw some movement further down the street. A man – or a woman, really hard to tell from so far – was crossing the street, carrying something large on their arms.

Francis watched them go, and finally tried to get their attention by yelling. Maybe the person would be able to shed some light on the whole ordeal. Francis hoped it wasn’t a cop.

The person definitely saw Francis, as Francis saw them stop and turn their head quickly, but instead of maybe stopping to talk, they started running.

“Hey! I wanna talk to you!” Francis yelled, and sprinted after the person. They made a quick turn to the right, and Francis found himself on an alley, a trash can clattering over in the distance as the person disappeared from sight. Francis didn’t feel like chasing them down, as they apparently didn’t want to talk. The alley seemed eerily dark and depressive in the shadow of the buildings on each side, although it was a sunny day. The lack of people didn’t help the atmosphere one bit. There was a fire burning next to a larger dumpster, and Francis scoffed. Some homeless people had probably set it up during the night.

Suddenly he felt a cold touch on his arm, and he literally jumped, heart in his throat from the unexpected fright. Turning to face whatever was touching him almost caused him to fall down from surprise and shock, but instead he just stumbled backwards and had to take hold of the wall next to him.

“What the fuck!” he had to utter aloud as he stared at the bloody, raggedy middle-aged woman standing next to him, swaying a bit from side to side and lazily reaching her hand out to him. She was pale as a sheet and her blonde hair was falling over her eyes, a once-nice hairdo now a complete mess. Her clothes were frayed, and there were bloodstains all over her. There seemed to be an open wound on her calf, blood slowly trickling down her leg, and she was also missing a shoe. She was now limping slowly towards Francis with just one high heel.

Francis swallowed. “Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked. “Do you need help?”

The woman gave a soft moan, still holding out her hand, and Francis decided she was definitely not okay, and probably needed some help. He took a step closer, ready to help the poor woman walk, as she suddenly threw her head back, revealing completely white, overturned eyes. Before Francis had the time to react with a heartfelt “Jesus fuck!” the woman had already given a shrill shriek and with an almost unnatural speed attacked him. Francis found himself against the wall, holding the woman by wrists as she tried to claw at him. She was kicking his shins, jaws snapping shut between screams and trying to get a bite.

“What the fuck is your problem, lady?!” Francis yelled after regaining some of his sense, and kicked the woman away. She stumbled back while trying to regain her already shoddy balance, and as soon as she was back on her feet she attacked Francis again, letting out another of those piercing animalistic screams. Francis stepped aside and looked for anything to fend the woman off with (he always had to fend off the females, heh heh, he thought), remembering the bottle of whisky inside his vest. He took it out by the neck and raised it up in front of him, ready to swing.

The woman turned, let out a low growl and attacked, only to have the bottle connect with the side of her face. The bottle shattered, spraying alcohol and glass shards everywhere, and the woman gave another shriek, this time clearly from pain, as she stumbled to the side, and Francis hit her again, for measure. This time she fell down and didn’t move.

Francis took a deep breath, relaxing his wired shoulders as he breathed out. He stared at the motionless woman lying on the ground, pretty much unable to believe what had just happened. There was a bloody smear on top of her head from where Francis had hit her the second time. He dropped the remains of the bottle. Damn waste of perfectly good whisky.

For a second Francis felt bad. Sure it wasn’t the first time he had hit someone (not even the first time he had hit someone with a bottle), he had engaged in more bar brawls than he bothered to count, but he had never hit a woman before. Not even when they had definitely deserved it, like this time: the woman did try to attack him first.

Maybe he should call a cab for her, to take her to the hospital. He could always say he found her like that, probably mugged. Even took her shoe, those bastards.

His contemplation was cut short as the woman suddenly moved and grabbed Francis’ leg, letting out a high-pitched growl. The right side of her face was a bloody mush, full of shards from the bottle, and she was opening and closing her mouth, as if trying to bite, clawing at Francis’ leg. Francis even felt her fake nails stinging his skin through the fabric of his jeans.

“Son of a bitch!” Francis shrieked, surprised, and instinctively grabbed a small wooden plank from a pile of construction lumber next to a dumpster at his left. Before even realising it, he was hitting the woman with the board, once, twice, countless times, banging her head against the ground. The plank broke in half, and after a few strikes that didn’t connect like the others, Francis was shaken out of his violent stupor. The woman’s head was nothing but a bloody pulp and her shoulder seemed dislocated. Francis freed his leg from her hold (he still felt her nails through the jeans) and kicked her further away, with a look of utter disgust on his face.

“Son of a bitch...” he repeated quietly and wiped some blood off his jeans with the side of his palm. He wiped his hand on the wall, dusted his vest, threw away the less-bloody half of the plank he was still holding, and stepped out of the alley, continuing down the street like nothing had happened.

Okay, maybe not all of the newscasts were lies and propaganda, and yeah, it was pretty far-fetched, even from the government, to make all TV channels go off the air for a publicity stunt.

“I fucking hate vampires...” he muttered to himself, striding down the street with lengthy steps and keeping a good eye on his surroundings.

***

By sunset Francis almost regarded himself as a professional vampire exterminator. The closer to city center he got, the more he kept running into people like the woman in the alley: all bloodied and battered up, sounding like animals and attacking him, most of the time at sight. They didn’t seem very smart, mostly acting on basic instincts rather than sense, but what really made Francis impressed, was seeing them scale building walls, high fences and everything and anything like monkeys. There were all kinds of people, men and women, young and old, and he would’ve probably felt really bad about bashing in the head of a girl not older than twelve if she hadn’t tried to bite his fucking arm off while screaming like some insane primate.

His first weapon had been a baseball bat he found in a playground. It was really nice, fast to swing and the infected usually dropped after one hit. While they didn’t die, at least they were out of the game long enough for Francis to pass through and be gone.

Not long after that he ran into a cop car that had run into a wall. The door on the driver’s side was open and a badly mutilated body (apparently the infected did have a taste for human flesh) of an officer was hanging out, half on the sidewalk. Francis, feeling strange sort of elation, took a closer look carefully and found out that the cop’s gun holster still included his .45 calibre sidearm and a full clip. After that the late officer’s apparent partner, now one of the infected, attacked Francis and he planted a bullet between the ex-cop’s eyes. Before exiting the scene, snickering at himself about actually shooting a cop, he naturally took the infected cop’s gun, shoving it inside his jeans.

Francis didn’t like the fact that a handgun didn’t have much stopping power at all, especially since the stupid vampires still kept coming after being pumped full of lead, so he still kept using the baseball bat, and only took out the gun when he had the time to aim for a headshot.

Then he had remembered a pawn shop some ways off from the route he had in mind and figured that if there was a place to find a real weapon, a shotgun or even a rifle, it was the pawn shop (sure there were weapon shops everywhere, but the trick was how to get in and get what he wanted). The reason for Francis having a plan was that after running into the lady on the alley he had checked the evacuation posters and decided that it was probably a smart move to get away from the city. Not that he didn’t enjoy the complete anarchy and the ability to do whatever he felt like without any cops in sight. Francis hated cops and their overrated authority. So a lot of fun was included in his route, like breaking into a convenience store, taking some popcorn and soda, and then taking a break in an electronics store and watching half a movie with their home theatre system while munching on popcorn (made in one of the microwaves). Then he naturally had to fight his way out after all the noise apparently attracted every infected in the vicinity to the store.

So he had his fun, but considering that he was the only not-infected he had ran into during the whole day, seriously, he didn’t want to be the last man on earth. Unless there was the last woman on earth too (and she was a hottie) and the deal included some repopulation hijinks.

After having enough fun and actually making it to the pawn shop, Francis found out that he had been right. He had to break into the shop from the back (the fireax he had picked up earlier proved extremely helpful with that. It wasn’t nearly as good an infected-stopping weapon as the bat was: while it did some real nasty damage, it was heavy and hard to use, but at least the door was in splinters after a short meeting with mister ax), and kill the man who probably used to own the shop (yes, he was infected too), but at least he found himself a nice 12-gauge shotgun and some ammo. So a boomstick in hand and a two pistols in his jeans he continued on his perilous journey to the closest evac center, the Hewlitt Recreation Center, which was incidentally downtown, west from the river, and still several miles away.

By sundown, while he had killed maybe twenty to thirty infected in several different ways (out of which the shotgun was his definite favourite), he was only five miles closer to his goal, and thoroughly exhausted, hungry and tired. He was taking a shortcut through a big industry warehouse, thinking it might at least allow him a break from all those goddamn infected, but boy was he wrong, those fuckers seemed to be everywhere. He was relieved when he finally reached the end of it and climbed over the barb-wired fence back to the streets. Now if he could only find some place to crash.

He was just getting down from the fence when he heard a voice behind him.

“Aren’t you a sight to sore eyes.”

Francis turned around as fast as he could and pointed his shotgun at the source of the voice. He was still dangling from the fence.

It was an older man, maybe on his fifties or sixties, wearing old military fatigues, a green beret on his head as a final touch. He was holding an SMG that looked like an uzi, and a shoddily made molotov’s cocktail was dangling from his belt. His hair and beard were graying, there was a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and he was grinning subtly from the corner of his mouth. “I was starting to think everyone really was dead.”

“You military?” Francis asked, frowning. He hated the army.

The man just laughed, not bothering to reply. A booming heartfelt laughter with a derisive edge that somehow made Francis feel uncomfortable.

Francis narrowed his eyes at the man and dropped down from the fence, lowering the shotgun. He didn’t like the man, but at least he didn’t seem like one of them. He seemed pretty ... normal.

“I used to be, son, now I just fight for myself,” the man said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Phew, that was fun. I’m glad to see someone’s still surviving out here, even if it’s someone like you. Where you going, son?”

“What do you mean ‘like me’? And stop calling me son, old man,” Francis snapped. “I’m heading for evac in the Hewlitt Recreation Center on the west side of the river.”

The grin on the old man’s face died and he furrowed his brow. “That’s no good,” he said slowly. “Didn’t you hear? It’s run over.”

“What?”

“No evac, they ... I think everyone’s dead.”

Francis stared at the man, trying to see some sign that would tell him he was pulling his leg. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“I wish I were, son.”

“I told you, don’t ...”

“But there’s still a way to get out. Mercy hospital, there’s a helipad, I heard they can come get you from there.”

“So you heard something and you’re just going to ...”

The look on the old man’s face made Francis shut up before he could bring his sentence to an end. “Yes, I heard something, and I am going to trust it, because it would seem that it is our only chance. Tell me, son, how many living people have you seen on your way here?”

Francis hesitated for a moment too long.

“That’s right, there’s no one left. There is no evac. All there is, is Mercy hospital.”

“Whatever, old man,” Francis said, raising his hand in defeat. “That’s what you say. It was nice meeting you, but I think I’ll continue my way to the evac.” He started down the street.

“You’re one kind of an idiot, you realise?” he heard the old man say.

Francis turned back to face him. “It’s at least ten fucking miles to Mercy. It’s five miles to Hewlitt. And I’m not going to trust some old man who has heard something. And from what I heard from the news, downtown Fairfield is a fucking warzone, there are vampires everywhere.”

The old man stared, unbelieving. “They’re not vampires.”

“Whatever! I don’t care what they are, I’m still gonna put a bullet between their eyes when I see them. I’m going now, bye.”

“If you insist on going to check the evac, I’ll come with you. You won’t survive the night alone, especially if what I fear is right and they’re ... changing.”

Francis spun around again, raising his hands and looking amused. “No way, José! I ride alone, old man.”

He heard the old man grunt in disapproval and frustration. “Good riddance, then.”

Leaving the crazy old man behind, Francis continued down the street, towards his ultimate goal. He was already planning more shortcuts, if he took the next alley and found a way to the other side, he could easily save half a mile. Who needed rest anyhow, it was only five miles, and if he could find something to eat, he would be there well before sunrise.

The alley in question looked anything but inviting with the sun almost down and darkness falling faster than Francis was comfortable with. He had basically no light, and those infected were fast, who knew how well they moved in the darkness ... maybe it was a bad idea to keep moving. Stupid old man, planting a seed of doubt into his mind. Francis wanted to hurry because ... what if there was no evac? He wanted to know. And the faster he got to Hewlitt, the faster he could make his way to Mercy in case ... no. Stupid old man, the Mercy thing was definitely bullshit, there was still evac, people were alive, and yes they fucking are vampires.

Suddenly he heard a loud cough from somewhere above him. He saw the silhouette of a fire escape against the darkening sky and ... was there something there? Francis took a cautious step forward and tried to see better by furrowing his brow and craning his neck, and then he heard a sharp slurping sound and felt as something slimy and cold wrapped around him, around his neck and midriff, and with a soft jerk he was lifted off the ground. He dropped his shotgun in surprise. The something around him tightened immediately around his neck, constricting him, and he found both his arms were tied tight against his body: he was only able to move his wrists. He felt panic setting in as he realised that he couldn’t get free, not like this, and he started thrashing wildly, trying to loosen the slimy something tying him, but it would not give in. He was slowly hoisted higher, slowly getting out of breath, and there was a constant slurping noise above him and he smelled something, like dust and cigarette smoke, only more rancid. While part of him was curious to know what it was, the more sensible part considered it a good thing that it was dark and he couldn’t see anything but a distorted figure of something against the dark blue sky.

And then he was yelling for help with the last of his breath, feeling stupid because he knew there was no one to answer his calls, and feeling even more stupid for turning down the old man’s offer to accompany him. His vision was blurring and slowly going dark and there was intense burning in his chest, and he knew that he was going to die.

Just as he was about to lose consciousness, he heard rabid automatic gunfire, explosive cough from above him and then he felt air in his lungs as he fell ten feet and collided with the ground. Even the sharp pain in his ankle felt somehow welcoming after the near-death experience of suffocation. Then there was someone helping him up.

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t have gone alone, you idiot.”

“Did you follow me?” Francis asked after coughing and hacking and wheezing for a while, trying to catch his breath. He wasn't sure if he should feel violated or grateful for the turn of events. Once he was on his feet, he pushed the old man away.

“Aren’t you glad that I did?”

Francis didn’t reply, not ready to thank the man for following him while he had politely (okay, not very politely) refused his offer to accompany him.

“That was a Smoker,” the old man said then, giving Francis a disapproving look, apparently not exactly happy about the lack of a thank you. “Or that’s what I call them anyway, because they ... well, when they die they just let out a big cloud of smoke. They catch you with their long tongue and then try to constrict you ... but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Francis grunted in answer, picking up his fallen shotgun from the ground. The old man reloaded his uzi, dropping the empty magazine.

“Sit down and I’ll fix your ankle, then we’ll have to keep moving, and keep on the bigger streets. We don’t want to use any alleyways until we know exactly what we’re dealing with. I know they sound like animals, but I’ve heard screams even more animalistic than those ...”

“My ankle’s just fine,” Francis muttered, attempting to take a step, and finding it much more painful than he had hoped.

“You don’t even believe that yourself. Just sit down, son, and stop being an ass,” the old man said sternly, and took off the medkit he wore like a backpack, taking out some bandages. Francis sat down, figuring he might as well, since he definitely couldn’t walk, and fighting with the old man felt like a bad idea.

The old man kneeled next to him, took off Francis’ boot, wrinkled his nose in disgust at the smell and started working. “It’s just a sprain, should be okay in no time,” he informed, twisting the ankle, probably just because it hurt like a bitch. Francis grimaced.

The old man bandaged Francis’ ankle in complete silence. Francis toyed with his shotgun, keeping an eye on the surroundings, especially the fateful fire escape. Stupid “Smoker” or whatever, he would’ve been fine without it, now he was stuck with the old man.

“I’m Bill,” the old man said once he was finished, standing up. He lit a cigarette with a match.

“Whatever,” Francis said dismissively, standing up and taking a few steps, testing his ankle. Way better than before, while putting weight on it still hurt, though. “We going or what?”

“You’re not gonna tell me your name?” Bill asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Why’d you need my name for?”

“Well, I can always keep calling you ‘idiot’, it’s probably way better than any name you might have.”

Francis groaned. “It’s Francis. Now let’s mosey before more of those vampires show up.”

Bill followed him out of the alley, wearing an amused smile and sounding delighted. “Yeah, I think ‘idiot’ is much better.”

***

It had been a long few days, Francis thought while pushing a cupboard to block the door in a random apartment in downtown Newburg. It was a miracle they were still alive. Battered and exhausted, but still pretty much alive. He remembered the naïve elation he had felt when climbing into the chopper on the roof of Mercy hospital in Fairfield. The pilot, who had been a cheerful fellow (considering the circumstances), told them they were lucky: he hadn’t been planning on coming back for any more possible survivors. Said that Fairfield was pretty much gone, and if there still were someone alive, it wasn’t worth going back for. The last swarms of infected had kind of proven his point: it had been extremely risky getting on the roof of Mercy.

“More like ‘No Mercy’, am I right?” the pilot had been laughing, inciting a couple of heartfelt laughs out of his passengers.

He was planning on taking them to an evacuation outpost the military had set up somewhere north, outside the nearby city of Newburg. That’s as far as he could go with the fuel that he had left, and the military knew more about relocating any and all survivors that stumbled by. If there were any safe places left in the first place.

They were closing in on the small town of Riverside when Louis noticed something about the pilot. His sleeve was all torn up and bloody and when asked about it, the pilot just gave a nervous laugh and told them that it was nothing. Sure, an infected had gotten on the chopper when he had tried street-landing earlier, but he was apparently immune (“like you guys,” he had said, causing Francis to think if it was actually true and they had survived so long only because they were immune to the infection. He hoped they were immune to death as well), because otherwise he would’ve been turned into one of them already, right? Right?

Francis caught Bill’s eyes at that moment, and was relieved to see that the old man didn’t believe the pilot was immune either (he wasn’t looking good, all pale and sweating and shivering and having difficulty to breath, and what was seen of the wound on his arm through the torn sleeve was looking outright nasty). It was one of those times he was actually happy to agree with Bill. He saw Bill lower his hand to the gun holster strapped to his leg and pull the pistol halfway out. Francis took off the safety on his own gun, and saw Zoey do the same. The girl gave him a tiny nod. Louis was oblivious as always, having already changed the subject and chatting about something completely trivial and unrelated with the pilot, who was sounding even more nervous than before, and scratching constantly the bite on his arm.

Within few minutes everything went to hell in a handbasket. First something started beeping in the cockpit, the chopper started shaking, and when Louis grabbed the pilot, demanding to know what was going on, the pilot only replied with “I feel cold...” and promptly fell unconscious. Soon enough the chopper was spinning completely out of control, the beeping filling the cockpit and Bill was pulling the pilot out of his seat to get his hands on the controls.

“You know how to fly a chopper?” Francis had yelled over the continuous beeping.

“Of course not!” Bill had replied angrily, which resulted in more name-calling until Bill told Francis to shut the hell up because he was helping about as much as a band-aid to a migraine (“and you make a migraine feel like a goddamn blessing, Francis!”). Louis was pulling off the pilot’s helmet to check on him, and was soon informing the others that he was dead. Zoey didn’t find it surprising, and was there to shoot the man in the head just as he opened his eyes again.

Louis’ frantic scream, “Trees!” was the last thing Francis remembered hearing before losing consciousness. When he came to, the chopper had crashed into the woods, the undergrowth miraculously softening the landing, and since he was staring at the smoking, banged-up chopper, he figured someone must’ve dragged him out of the wreckage. Bill was sitting next to him on a tree stump, smoking a cigarette. He glanced at Francis from the corner of his eye, stood up, and held out his hand for him.

“Okay, Sleeping Beauty, we better get a move on before they realise that they’re having visitors.”

Francis grunted, completely disapproving of the princess remark, and let Bill help him up. He was feeling a bit woozy, but nothing was hurting more than it had been before the crash, so he figured he made it out pretty much without a scratch. The road to Riverside was only about a hundred feet away from the wreckage, and Francis wasn’t surprised at all to see the few crashed cars and fallen trees on the road, and the broken bridge ahead.

They were unanimous about going to Riverside and finding out what was going on. Who knew, maybe there would still be evac. It turned out that there had been survivors before them - just like in Fairfield - writing on the walls, leaving information and rumours after them and trying to help anyone who might’ve been trying to get through. There were rumours of boats coming to get people to Newburg (and while everyone knew that Newburg was burning – that’s what the pilot had said, and they had seen the fires from the chopper – they thought it was better than nothing).

Riverside was completely abandoned (aside from the infected, of course), but they had made their way through to the waterfront, contacted the fishing boat, and made it onboard safely. The boat owners were a middle-aged couple, both of them smart and up-to-date about what was happening, and while the wife seemed a bit shaken by everything, she was keeping it together well. John and Amanda, they were called. They also had a plan: “We can take you to Newburg, the planes still fly,” John had told them. He had been hoping to get some supplies from Riverside, but as it turned out that Francis and company had naught but guns on them, staying on the river with such a big group seemed like a bad idea. The boat was a floating fortress and the infected couldn’t swim, but without food or clean water they wouldn’t get too far.

“But isn’t the city burning?” asked Zoey, looking worried.

John had nodded, but told them that it wasn’t the whole city: there were areas that should be safe – or as safe as anything swarming with the infected could be – to pass through.

“What about you?” Louis asked.

“We have enough supplies for the two of us,” John said, looking at his wife with a sorrowful smile. “We’ll go down the river, keep transmitting a signal on the radio and see what we can find.”

“You could come with us,” Zoey said carefully and ignored the looks both Francis and Bill gave her. (Francis didn’t want anyone to join their little ensemble: it was enough of a pain to move with four people, two more would just slow them down too much. Apparently Bill was thinking the same. They were agreeing once again, scary).

John shook his head again, and laughed. “Sorry, but I don’t really know how to use a gun. We would just slow you down.”

The couple left them off at a distant part of the Newburg wharves, and gave them some directions: find the nearby greenhouse, keep on the roofs and inside the buildings, avoid fires, and the airport is to the east. There should be a construction site that can be used as a shortcut. Then Amanda, who had been silent for the most of the trip, asked for a gun, for protection. After looking at the others, Louis gave her one of his extra pistols and a few clips worth of ammo. They wished the couple luck, and stayed to watch as the boat drifted down the river, and Francis couldn’t stop feeling a bit bad for the couple. Zoey was on an extremely foul mood until they found a place to spend the night.

So there they were, in a random apartment in Newburg. They had broken in, barricaded the door from the inside like they always did when they found a place to stay, and everyone slept in turns while others watched over.

“It’s a surprise the grid is still working,” Louis mused to himself, flicking through the channels on the TV, just in case something was on instead of the same old never-ending white noise.

“It’s a blessing the grid is still working,” said Zoey from the kitchen, warming up some canned food in the microwave. “I hate cold beans.”

After everyone had eaten, and Louis had gotten bored of the pointless channel surfing, Francis had taken a shower (“the zombies are lucky if they have lost their sense of smell, for the love of god, Francis, do you ever wash yourself?”) and was now going through the belongings of the apartment owners (“once a thief, always a thief, eh, Francis?”). Seemed like a normal family: mom, dad, two kids ... Francis took a random picture frame down from the bookshelf and looked at the studio-shot photograph, running his finger over the smiling, happy faces. Suddenly he wished the family had made it safely to the evac, and were now being relocated to somewhere safe. Seemed like a nice-enough bunch. Good people, probably. It would be bad if people like that had died and people like Francis ... anyway. They had apparently taken only what they needed with them when they left: some of the closets and cupboards were left wide open, clothes and other things were spread messily on the floor and beds were unmade, indicating a hasty departure. Lots of personal belongings were still there, like the photographs. Maybe the family would come back some day, once this all had blown over. If the entire city didn’t burn to the ground, if it would ever blow over in the first place ...

“I hope they made it,” he said aloud, hearing someone come into the room. Probably Bill, Zoey and Francis had already gone to bed, leaving the first guard shift to Francis and Bill.

“Maybe,” Bill said and stood next to Francis, taking a look at the frame in his hands. He scoffed amusedly. “You got a family?”

“No,” Francis replied. “Just me.”

“Dead, or ...?”

Francis shrugged, placing the frame back on the shelf carefully, just the way it was before he took it. He didn’t really mind about discussing his family, mostly because he didn’t really have anything to say about them. His parents hadn’t appreciated him dropping out of high-school and that was, what? Over twenty years ago. “I don’t know.”

And it was the truth, he really didn’t know. Most of all, he didn’t care. Sometimes he thought about his little sister, but he was probably dead to her too, and he had no idea where she had gone after college. Maybe she had a family, maybe...

Bill left it at that, wisely, and started examining the room, like Francis had done before. He was humming silently on some military tune – a habit of his that made Francis annoyed and nervous.

“You? Got any kids or anything?”

Bill glanced at Francis from the corner of his eye, wearing the exactly same grin he had when Francis met him for the first time. Before the Smoker incident. He was apparently amused that Francis was showing any interest in him, even if the question had been more out of courtesy than genuine interest (although Francis admitted – reluctantly – that there was something about Bill that fascinated him. Not that he’d ever say it out loud). Or maybe it was just that: Francis wasn’t too high on courtesy, hardly having any manners to speak of, and Bill was happy to see him practice any at all.

“No. Just me,” Bill replied.

Francis couldn’t say he was surprised, Bill didn’t really seem like the family kind of guy, and from what Francis had gathered while listening Louis and Zoey ask Bill what it had been like in Vietnam (both of them of course secretly disapproving of the entire war, being raised when society already knew a bit better, but asking questions anyhow since Bill seemed to like talking about his glory days in ‘Nam), the old man was so fixated on wars and fighting and military business that it wasn’t exactly a surprise that there was no Mrs. Bill.

“I did have a cat,” Francis said then, remembering the cat, and feeling sudden worry over the creature. He wondered if it was okay, if it would sit outside his apartment door waiting: Francis did tell it to come home by evening.

He hoped it was okay.

Bill turned to look at him, genuinely surprised. “A cat?” he confirmed.

Francis nodded.

“Well color me surprised,” Bill chuckled. “Wouldn’t have pegged you a cat person.”

“Me neither,” Francis muttered in answer, thinking how he was refusing to miss the stupid cat. He would’ve actually given anything to have it curl on his stomach when he went to sleep. (He wondered if Zoey would curl next to him instead).

“Don’t worry, son, I would’ve been much more surprised if you had told me you had a wife. Or even a girlfriend.” There was the same old good-humoured jest in Bill’s voice, and the same old half-serious anger in Francis’ groan.

“Are you never gonna stop making fun of me, old man?”

Bill chuckled again. “Probably not, you are making it so easy.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“I know, Francis. I know.”