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window fell apart beneath her fist, leaving only a few jagged shards behind. She was surprised, to be honest, and suddenly felt that whoever had purchased these particular windows didn’t have the tenants’ safety in their greater interests.
    Careful not to cut herself, she cracked the last bits of glass out of the window frame, put on her somewhat-worse-for-wear top, and retrieved her knife. She had one arm and one leg through the window when she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped a beat. Her apartment door was wide open, and from the sounds coming down the hallway, it seemed that the hoard down by Terri-Lynn’s apartment had heard the shattering of the window.
    In her rush to get to the door, Nancy tripped over the window frame and nearly impaled herself on a particularly large chunk of broken glass that had fallen against an end table. That would have been fucking stupid! thought the tiny part of her brain that was still making random observations. The door! The door! Get the fucking door! shrieked the other, more instinctive parts of her brain as a wide-eyed, blood-spattered face began to peer around the corner.
    How she made it to the door on time, she’d never know. Whether it was through a burst of adrenaline or pure, dumb luck, a second later Nancy found herself leaning against the apartment door, the dead bolt clutched closed in her shaking hand as her zombified neighbors began scraping and pounding at the thin wooden barrier between them. Her heart was racing in its own little marathon. Nancy thanked the stars for the one tiny sliver of luck that was the lethargic lack of speed in these creatures.
    She should hurry, she thought. What had it been...three or four minutes since she’d left Terri-Lynn? She didn’t want the other woman to think she’d been abandoned.
    Nancy ran for her bedroom, where she knew her keys would be in the work pants she’d worn yesterday and left at the foot of the bed. But as she dashed toward the discarded pants, a shiny salvation caught her eye. On the furthest wall from where she stood hung something that really had no business being in a young woman’s bedroom, but was something Nancy loved. It was a ceremonial katana, a gift from an uncle who’d taught English in Japan and was very interested in martial arts and ancient samurai culture. Nancy didn’t know if it was actually meant for real combat, but she’d kept it clean and sharp over the years, and at this moment it looked exceptionally appealing to have at her side.
    She ran for the sword, strangely excited to have its heft in her hands, but was stopped suddenly as her tank top tightened around her and pulled at her body.
    Eyes wide, Nancy swung her head around.
    Mrs Spears, her white hair drenched in blood that ran from her eyes and mouth, was standing there staring at her, looking for all the world like a rabid wolf. She had reached for Nancy and caught her by one of the straps of her top. With a gasp of terror Nancy realized that she’d forgotten the carving knife in the living room in her rush to shut the apartment door.
    If there was anyone left alive in the apartment building, they would surely have heard Nancy’s scream.
    For her part, she was able to think quickly. Before the zombified Mrs Spears could grab her with the other pale, dead hand, Nancy grabbed at one of the tears in her shirt and ripped as hard as she could. The top fell into three pieces, and the force of Mrs Spears’ pull caused her to topple backward a few steps. With those few extra seconds, Nancy vaulted over her bed and snatched the katana off the wall. In a fit of panic she ripped off the ornamental sheath and threw it at Mrs Spears. The red and gold covering cracked her square in the face, but it may as well have been a ball of tissue for all the stopping power it possessed.
    Nancy held the katana in both hands, pointed it at her enemy, and found that she was shaking too much to hold it steady. It was