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mother natures way of getting revenge. Karma kicking us all swiftly in our rear ends for whatever we may have done, or neglected to do.
     
    "Ian.." I spoke on a release of breath, not positive I could get the name out any other way. My throat felt like It had closed up completely, though I knew how untrue that was. However tight it felt, it hadn't closed up. I'd know if it had. I'd know. "Ian, come on. Come on, get up. We need to go. We really, really need to"
     
    Hands.
     
    Two of them.
     
    Technically, one and a half.
     
    A glance to the right showed one hand. It was covered (and I use that word loosely) with sickly looking, torn skin. It was obviously missing three fingers, and a fourth one up to the first knuckle. I knew what it meant, though I wished that it didn't. It meant there was a zombie behind me. It meant I was in trouble. It meant my chances of survival plummeted to the negatives.
     
    A terrible groan behind me finally forced me into action. I spun on my heel, breaking the undead mans at least I thought it was a man grip on me. However, the moment I was facing him, he dove at me. Digging fingers into the flesh on my shoulders, as he opened his mouth to take a bite. The smell wafting from it was even worse then that which belonged to the woman earlier.
     
    I resisted the urge to puke, and instead focused my energies on getting him away from me. The farther away he was, the less I could smell, the happier I'd be. So I pushed. I
    kicked. I couldn't get my arms out nearly enough to swing the chain. Realizing this, I dropped it, and seemed to finally gain Ian's attention.
     
    "Excel!" His voice was hoarse from crying, but loud all the same. Startling me, while the zombie kept pushing. Trying to get close to me. Trying to take a bite. Have a taste. For a moment, I wondered if the fear made us taste any better. The moment I realized I was thinking it, I was disgusted with myself. "Get away from her!"
    The undead man was pushed, violently, away from me. I heard something snap, and figured it was the hand he more or less caught himself with when he fell. It was bent at an awkward angle when he rose, glaring death at us from the depths of hell. No eyes should look like that, dead or alive. Zombie or human. They shouldn't. It just wasn't natural. It was disgusting. Frightening.
     
    I had no more time to contemplate it as Ian took hold of my wrist, ripping me from my spot in the room, out the door. The boy, a rather scrawny looking one while in his normal clothing that aspect of his body was only exemplified by the over-sized jersey didn't look as if he owned so much strength. Maybe it was fueled by fear, but he was pulling me into a run down the hall.
     
    It was with foot stopping horror that I realized the zombie was chasing us. Not hobbling after us.
    Not walking after us. Running after us.
    I only realized that I'd actually stopped moving when I nearly fell with the force of Ian's tug. He was panicking, and I couldn't blame him. I really couldn't. The moment I snapped out of my mesmerized state, I started to panic too, tried to continue running. However my legs had turned into rubber sometime in the quickly passing seconds, and I fell to the floor. Staring as Ian went down with me.
     
    The zombie was getting closer.
     
    I couldn't shake the thought that we were about to die. But suddenly the sound of gun fire rang out.
    Footsteps were obvious from behind us. A careless glance showed Dustin, and Cathy running in our direction. But Cathy didn't have her pistol drawn. That just confused me. It got me to stare at them for a moment, before looking back at our pursuer. There was no way she could have hidden her pistol in her skin tight pants, in the time it took me to look back.
     
    Someone else was there. On the other side.
    The zombie went down, to my relief. But I saw no one behind him. No broken glass, so it couldn't have come from outside. I was dying to know where the multiple shots had come from. But