Epidemic of the Undead: A Zombie Novel by P. A. Douglas

doors. At the very end, on the wall, facing Chris, was a full length mirror. He watched himself get closer as they stopped in front of the last door. They could hear voices.
    “Stephanie!” Chris called.
    Just as Chris passed the hallway bathroom, a zombie leaped out getting between him and Steve. As it lunged forward, it knocked Chris off balance. He dropped the handgun to the floor. A muffled thud rang out as the gun was kicked across the carpet and collided with the closest wall.
    “Chris!” Steve cried.
    The creature’s mouth was wide, not from a snarling pursuit, but from something much worse. Something had reached into this dead man’s mouth and pulled up his insides. The swollen oral cavity leaked pus and visceral waste. Intestines strung from deep within the throat dangled free past its lips. A large meaty sack of bloody fluid hung just above the floor as it crept forward. As the ghoul tried to call out, more of its innards came up, letting the exposed stomach sack reach the carpet. The creature’s next step landed on the bag and ruptured it. Blood, mangled remains of a previous victim, and the stench of rotting decay splashed across the floor and along the walls. The wet slopping sound made Chris want to vomit. The weight of the ghoul’s step as it came down on its own stomach yanked free more filth from inside its mouth. Chris and Steve heard something snap and tear like a dozen rubber bands inside the creature. With that sound, came the last of what remained lodged in its throat. It tumbled to the floor along with everything else that had previously hung from its dead lips. It cried out for flesh, the vocal cords no longer restrained by the hanging meaty substance. Even with its stomach splattered across the floor and stomped on, it still craved. It still had the need to feed.
    Steve fell back on the floor with his bat still in hand. He lost it. Vomit rushed up like a volcano spewing lava. There was nothing he could do to keep it down. The splashing wet sound of puke landed across his chest. “Fucking hell!”
    The zombie shambled toward Steve.
    Chris fumbled with the gun on the floor. Just as he brought it up to line up the sights, the door behind him swung open. Desperation and angst gripped Chris by a single thread as he turned. He had to save his friend or chance fending off the ghoul that was coming at him from behind.
    “Get down!”           
    Chris turned to face the creature. He was more startled that it wasn’t a zombie. It was a man coming at him and pointing a gun in his direction! 
    “Get down, I said!” The man shouted. It was the older man from the roof.
    Chris quickly stepped aside. The man wearing a long sleeve flannel shirt stepped past Chris with the handgun drawn. Two shots quickly rang out. With the gun’s report, the zombie went down on Steve, as it slumped to the floor, immobilized. Both shots had been a direct hit to the back of the skull.
    Steve screamed as the creature fell forward. Scrambling backward on his ass as fast as he could, the zombie fell dead at his feet. Smoke rose from the small bullet-sized openings on the back of the creatures head. Steve jumped to his feet, looking down at his vomit-covered shirt. “Looks like I might need to get a new one, yeah?” He wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. 
    Another shot echoed out. Steve shook with fear; feeling the air move from the bullet zipping right past his head. A loud thud shook at his side. He quickly turned and saw another dead zombie at his feet that must have been coming up behind him from the living room. “Shit . . . I’m not so sure Rambo here needed our help,” Steve said, stepping away from the corpses and toward the gunman and Chris. “Who the hell are you?”    
    “Names Brady, Brady Bingham. And trust me boy, that stunt you all pulled with that car was something else. Saved our lives, ya did. I owe ya one. But enough with all that. Now’s not the time for small talk. We needs to get