This is the first time I have been alone since the epidemic had started. It was chaos when the monsters broke into the mall. Everybody running screaming, there screams where louder then mine. “Dad” I screamed until tears welled up in my eyes and my body shook. No one looks down, they run. It’s like one of those shows you see on animal planet where the lions are chasing the gazelle, the young just fall back and no one looks back.

As I sit here in this dressing room I listen, I listen to the shuffle of feet the occasional moan. These are the monsters. I remember my the first night of the epidemic my parents both cried. You know something really must be wrong when you see your Dad break down and cry. My Dad was holding my Mom in the living room. Thats when I saw the first monster, it crashed through bay window with several behind but this one it looked like me and you only dirty, cross eyes, and it was covered in blood. It grabbed my Mother by the hair and pulled her into its grip. I remember the saliva running down its chin as it ripped through my mother’s trachea. My father grabbed my hand and we ran. There was not time for tears or mourning. My father knew something that I didn’t, that my mother was in fact very much alive.

More shuffles as I close my eyes, I haven’t slept since I was separated from my Dad. I’m guessing that was about three days ago. I feel tugs on my arm as my eyelids snap open. I see my mothers face and I feel the pressure on my wrist.

“Mama please your hurting me” I look into those cross, glazed eyes. I know she can’t hear me, she can’t even comprehend me. She brings my arm to her lips, its almost as if she kisses it first before she tears into it. My whole arm erupts in a burning sensation. I no longer Joshua Redmond, I am a monster.

******
“Everything has been taken from me my son Joshua and my wife Maria, I want to fight.” I say to Brooks begging her to let me go out on one of the missions.

“Fine ” Brooks says looking at me like it was no big deal.

When I wake up in the morning you can’t even see the person lying next to you so I know its now even close to dawn. I get dressed quickly and start to walk down through the parking garage, its amazing how even in the open air everything can still smell like piss and shit.

I get to the front of the airport or zone, whatever you want to call it and sit down and wait. A group of five assemble including myself. I am handed a crowbar and I don’t pay attention as the leader of the group goes over directions I assume there for me, but honestly I really don’t care anymore. They all look dreadful as if they where about to face death itself. I tune in when I hear “I-80 to Carousel Center” and I think of losing my son. The thought of finding my son crosses my mind but I know that this will never happen. We head out as we pass houses we see people who have hung themselves hanging out of their windows, they are the lucky ones. No one speaks as we slaughter killings countless ghouls. A swift crack to the skull with a crowbar and they drop. The only problem is when you get a whole group of them on you, five or six of them all clawing at you it’s as if your drowning in a sea of grabbing hands. When we finally get to Carousel we all split up, stupid idea if you ask me but we need to get “As much supplies as quickly as possible”. I enter the food court and go into the back room of a restaurant call Cajun Cafe. I hear feet shuffling and I know Z’s are back here.

I raise my crowbar ready to strike as I turn the corner however when I turn the corner I find myself looking directly into the eyes of my wife. My son is by her side and takes a bite out of my thigh, I collapse onto my wife and she takes a bite out of my shoulder. It is a family reunion.