• Nathan pulled the van to a stop just inside of the city, where the dead traffic became too bad to go on any further. Through the glow of the headlights Alystir could see moving shapes. Occasionally a walking corpse would come into view, misshapen and damaged, hunting like a starved animal for it's next meal. The sight would have sent shivers through any living person, but the two in the car had nothing to worry about. They were like them.

    Nathan sighed and reached over to flip on the radio, rolling the dial through static until he found a clear station.

    "And for the farm report, we've got Clancy Irving here. Clancy? How're the crops this year?"
    "s**t poor, Steve. Oh. Am I allowed to say 's**t' on the radio?"
    "Nobody cares anymore, Clancy. What are you doing to keep the zombie pest problem down?"
    "The zombies aren't so much a problem, shoot 'im dead from the guard tower and drag their carcasses in for fertilizer. Tomatoes never tasted better. It's the damn crows, Steve."
    "You heard it here first, folks. Zombies zero, crows one. How are the deliveries going?"
    "We still can't deliver to every city, ain't enough gas coming in for that. If only those damned army folks would come down here to start takin' care of business instead of staying out in China or wherever."
    "In our government's defense, there -are- a lot more zombies out in China. The president says after they clear out China they'll bring the leftover soldiers back here to clear out ours."
    "Why did we decide to elect that bozo anyway.."
    "He promised to legalize marijuana."
    "God bless America."

    Alystir stared out the window as he listened to the two men prattle on about the cattle next.. He remembered when the outbreak first started.. He was eighteen, and was working at McDonalds of all places. The chemical leak started from a facility right next to a major international airport a few miles from their little city. At first the symptoms were like that of the common cold, so most people went along with their commutes. It wasn't until days later that they started dying, along with everyone they infected, and everyone those people infected. It was shortly after that that the corpses started getting up again and attacking the living. Killing and spreading the virus even further.

    Alystir listened to the radio reports every day at work about new zombie numbers rising in America and other countries, hoping like Hell they wouldn't start coming into their town. But inevitably they did. One by one they started appearing. The government went into total chaos trying to figure out what to do, while the army fought the zombie outbreaks in the states on it's own for awhile. Then they were given the orders to join other armies in a world-wide sweep, starting in Asia where the numbers were the worst. Americans felt abandoned by their military and by their government and started forming militias to combat the zombies themselves. Alystir was in one. At least until he became a zombie himself.

    Climbing out of the van, Alystir moved to the back to start pulling out rifles to sling over his shoulders. "I don't see how we're going to make an impact, help the situation any."

    As Nathan sat in the back of the van, loading rifles for himself, he smiled at the boy. "It's a good way to let off some steam, isn't it?"

    And so they spent the rest of the night raining a shower of zombie brains upon the pavement.