No Time To Bleed

The crowd went rushing away. Mothers holding their kids and screaming. People stumbling over chairs.

A group of about 6 or 7 new arrivals was being dragged in by two men decked out in gear. All of them were screaming and thrashing against each other.

“She’s infected! She’s infected! Get her away from me!”

One of them was covered in blood and thrashing even more erratically than the others. Her broken teeth screeched up into the air and dug their incisors into one of the guard’s neck.

I didn’t even wait another second before bellowing the words into the air.

“TAKE HER DOWN!”

I surged forward, grabbing a steady hold of a wooden chair as Cece and Alex surged on beside me.

“I’ve been waiting to kick some ass!” Cece grunted.

I slammed the chair over the zombie’s dirty blonde and blood caked hair. Her neck made a sickening snap and along with her, the entire group went down.

Arms and limbs were pinned. Another death defying scream hit the air.

“She bit me! She bit me! You have to kill me!”

The one remaining guard looked just as disoriented.

I struggled and fought against the limbs holding me down as I screamed. “Alex! Cece! You’ve gotta kill it!”

The same blonde one dove and tackled Cece face first to the floor, arms pinning her down with blood and spit flying from her mouth.

Alex’s hands dug into my collar and pulled me from the bodies, eyes looking horrified. “Are you bit?! Did it bite you?!”

“No! I just fell down! I didn’t get bitten!”

Another inhuman screech came from the pile of bodies and one person stood up next to us.

Of the 6 people who had arrived, 3 of them had been turned including one guard.

“Get the fuck off me!” Cece pulled a knife from her waist and plunged it into the zombie’s heart, then its skull.

One surged forward at Alex. It appeared to be about Alex’s age with its scalp half torn off.

Alex caught it by the throat and the thing attempted to scratch at his face.

“Get me a knife! Get me something to stab its brain with!” he screamed.

Alex threw the thing to the floor and slammed a kick into its ribs.

I was already at the table, rummaging through the used tray for sharp silverware. People were just standing by in awe, watching.

“I can’t find anything sharp enough! I can-“

A body tackled me to the floor, heaving me over a table along with plates and shards of jagged glass.

I let out a horrified scream as the broken pieces dug into my arms.

“Alex!” I screamed.

“I’m busy!” He sent a cratering fist into the zombie’s head then, ducked as another came at him.
Cece and the other survivors was handing one heavy built zombie.

The thing waved its hands and sharp nails at me, slashing and thrashing at any clothing on my body.

I forced a kick into its knee and heard another snap.

The glass cut and tore into my arms, but I lifted my weight and tried to make it to a half crawl. A butcher knife glinted on the floor a few feet away. If I could just use it.

Wild hands tore into my hair follicles, ripping until blood could be felt seeping down my skull.

I bellowed another intense scream. “Get the fuck off my hair you piece of shit!”

Now, I was belligerent.

I slammed a fist back and the thing went down. My foot caved into its defenseless face next again and again.

Putrid skin turned to bone and flesh as the slime covered my shoe.

I reached back and grabbed the knife, jamming it into the remnants of its skull.

It wasn’t until I pulled the blade out that the thing stopped moving.

“There’s still the guard! He’s infected!” One of the survivors yelled, running full blast at the mummified guard.

They both went down in a heap and the zombie’s arm dislocated as it dragged its self away.

We all stood in a semicircle, watching the thing thrash around until the arm pulled away from the socket all together in a spray of blood.

Next, the sound of a bullet came and the undead guard toppled the ground.

And against all odds, it was Jesse who was the holding the gun.

Jessie had shot the zombie.

We all stared to him and he lowered the gun from the air. It looked to be one of the guard’s guns.

He must have picked it up while we were in the struggle.

His eyes finally went to us. “I fucking hate those things.”

And even with all the jaded pieces of glass ripped in arms and blood dripping down my fingers, I managed to smile.