I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

Late dawns and early sunsets, something me and my husband Kyle used to enjoy in the Autumn. We would sit out on our porch and watch, just like our favorite scenes. Life was simple and plain here in Wisconsin, but we were happy. We'd do everything together, then holding hands and life was made perfect, just like up on the screen.

I don't know what caused the outbreak to happen, but within 8 hours it was out of control. We woke up to screams, gunshots, and sirens outside of our house and in the streets. Kyle went to look out the window, only to have someone fire shots at him. He ducked and moved away, shocked and confused just as much as I was.

Then there was a crash from downstairs, someone had broken through a window. We didn't bother to investigate, Kyle grabbed my hand and we took our back window fire escape down into the yard below. I happened to look inside of the rear kitchen window, to see a number of people shambling around inside. One of them spotted me and shuffled over to the window, smashing his face repeatedly into the glass.

"C'mon!" Kyle said as he pulled me along.

We had to go by foot because we had left the keys in the house. We came around the front of the house, to find wildfires, burning vehicles, smoke, blood, body parts, and bodies strewn about our neighborhood.

"Wha.what happened?!" I gasped in disbelief at what I was seeing.

Kyle's grip on my hand tightened, "I don't know, but we gotta move. We can' stay here."

How could any of this happen? And throughout our lives, we were always decent people. Our neighbors, the Armstrongs, lay dead in their car. Their bodies looked chewed and eaten as if a wild animal had attacked them. They were sweet neighbors, the whole time we knew them, always giving. Counting their faces among the living...

We moved quickly, me in my slippers and Kyle barefoot. We came across a crashed police cruiser. We found the dead police officer still hooked in his seat, a deep nasty wound had been gouged in his neck. He was silent and still.
Kyle tried to the radio, static. He then took the officers shotgun and service pistol, handing the pistol over to me.

"Kyle, what are you doing?" I hissed, not sure why we would need weapons.

"Look around you Amy, people are dying! We need to make sure we don't end up like him!" he replied, pointing at the dead body in front of us.

Suddenly the body lurched forward, baring it's teeth and tried to latch onto Kyle. Kyle pulled his arm away and struck his attacker in the head with the butt of his shotgun. It did nothing to slow it down. I was in the passenger seat of the car, next to this creature when it attacked. I backed up, actually tumbling out of the open car door and onto the hard pavement.

Kyle stepped back, "Amy, are you clear?!"

"Yes!" I shouted, "What are you-"

He interrupted me with a shotgun blast to the dead cops face, sending brain and skull shards everywhich way. Some blood sprayed my face, but it felt far from warm.

Kyle came around and helped me up, "You okay?!"

I nodded, still in shock from what I had just witnessed.
We ran at that point, not wanting to take chances.

"What the hell happened back there?!" I said while we ran.

"I don't know! He just...attacked me! He tried to bite me!"

I wasn't sure where we were going, "What do we do now?!"

Kyle pointed to the large structure only a mile away from us, "There, the mall should keep us safe!"

I wasn't sure if it was a good idea, even if the windows were six inches thick plate glass, what good would security alarms do? But I cleared it from my mind, anywhere was better than here out on the streets.

"Wait, stop!" Kyle said all of a sudden, halting our advance.

"What? What's wrong?" I asked, unsure of why we had stopped.

"Shh..look! It's Mrs. Greenwich, one of our neighbors! I think she's okay, but where's Mr. Greenwich?" Kyle said, pointing at a middle aged woman in a bathrobe, slowly stumbling along as if in a daze.

I knew Kyle wanted to get her attention, but I stopped him, "What if she's one of those things that attacked us?!"

He considered that scenario, and thought better of his actions. Instead, we hid in the bushes and waited for her to pass.
When she came by, maybe only twelve feet away, we noticed that she had large and small chunks of her calf, shoulders and nape of her neck missing, exposing muscle, bone, and skin tissue. She was the walking dead, a "Zombie" of some sorts. When she was far enough away from us, we continued our trek to the mall.

Along the way, we came across what was left of Mr. Greenwich. His stomach had been torn open, his intestines were pulled out of him, glistening in the killing days sun. He had a look of surprise on his face, his right arm was missing, only a sliver of torn muscle tissue snaked out of his flannel shirt. As we moved by him, I could have sworn I saw his leg twitch.

We eventually came to the chain link fence that surrounded the mall parking lot. We hopped it, doing our best to mind the pointed tips of the fence. I made it over first without incident, but Kyle snagged his leg on one of the barbs and cut himself pretty deep. I dressed his wound with a scrap from my white undershirt, it wasn't much, but it stopped most of the bleeding.

We snuck inside through a loading dock door that had been left unlocked. We made our way through the dimly lit boiler and furnace room, then up into the main complex. Our first task was to look for any other survivors. We resisted shouting, for fear some zombies may have made it inside.

Up and down escalators, searching for anyone. We found no one. After our search, we sat down to rest and think out our next move. We sat in the main plaza, pennies and colder fountains. I took this time to help Kyle wash his wounds. We then headed to the elevator, to check the security offices on the third floor. We passed entire floors in that elevator with half price sales marked everywhere, not that it mattered anymore.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Try to find a radio, maybe get some more ammo. The security office should have some." Kyle replied calm and quiet.

"No, I mean, where will we go? We can't stay in this mall forever."

Kyle nodded, "We're trapped in by all these mountains though, I don't think anyone is going to be escaping anytime son."

Kyle was always the optimistic one, whenever he negative or pessimistic, it meant something was bothering him.

When I asked him, he only shrugged and said, "Whatever those things are, they aren't human anymore. They're like zombies, I'm certain Mrs. Greenwich was the one who killed and ate her husband."

We got to the third floor and walked down a long corridor to the security office. The door was locked, so Kyle knocked off the handle with his shotgun butt, gaining access. We found the room humming and blinking with lights and surveillance equipment. They had a camera system setup through the entire mall, inside and out. While Kyle foraged for supplies, I checked out our surroundings. It seemed clear on the inside from what I saw, but when I looked at the outside, it was different.

Three zombies were at one of the entrances, banging weakly on the glass doors. A large swarm of them were creeping in through the parking lot. How did they find us?

"Okay, I found some flashlights, emergency rations and water, a few extra bullets and shotgun shells, but that is it. They have radio batteries, but there's no radio! Can't believe-"
he fell silent as he saw what I saw on the monitors.

"How did they find us?" he asked.

I couldn't figure it out either, as far as I was concerned, not a single zombie saw us enter the place. But then, I realized they must have sniffed us out! Kyle's blood trail from his cut leg must have alerted them!

We saw the group of zombies by the door, slamming itself into the glass, again and again. The sheer weight of the dozen bodies being pressed together, caused the glass to crack, spiderweb, and then shatter to pieces. The invaders stumbled in, some crawling, their legs having been ruined from previous battles.

"Did you lock the back door?!" I exclaimed, remembering how we had gotten in.

Kyle cursed, no he hadn't. I checked the monitor, so far so good, nothing had found the rear entrance.

"Okay, I doubt they'll make it up here, but still, we gotta fight now. We have to defend ourselves," Kyle said almost to himself.

"Kyle.."

He ignored me, "We'll make it if we are just as cold blooded as they are, we-"

"Kyle."

He stopped talking and looked over at me, "What?"

I sat down, tired and afraid, "I just don't know if I can do this. Killing people, people who I knew."

Kyle sat down next to me, "I understand how you feel, I don't like the concept anymore than you do. But it's come down to survival, nothing more, nothing less. Those things aren't even people anymore, they're walking hollow husks of humans. We can do this Amy, we have to. Cause I can't do this alone, not without you."

He always knew how to make me feel better, no matter what. We got to our feet, ready to do this, to survive.

But for the moment, we could only stare helplessly, as a new horde of the evil dead closed in on our location. Pretty soon, the majority of the parking lot became an invasion staging area for the undead. We heard glass breaking, metal creaking as they forced their way into our sanctuary.

Kyle took my hand in his, squeezing it.

"Ready?"