Jimmy struggled to pull the gun free of the dead soldier’s holster as the dead man opened his mouth and drooled blood onto him. Yellow, red stained teeth drew closer to Jimmy’s neck. The Claire’s axe blade fell clean and smooth into the soldier’s skull. The dead man stopped moving and collapsed onto Jimmy. He shoved the dead man off of him as Claire placed her foot on the dead thing’s back and ripped the axe free.

“Come on! We gotta move!” she ordered as a rotting priest leapt over the house’s small fence and snarled at them. Jimmy felt the soldier’s gun in his hand and realized he’d managed to free it. His hand swung up taking aim at the priest but Claire knocked his hand down looking him in the eyes. “Run!” she yelled.

The priest charged them as Jimmy took off. Claire stood her ground swinging her axe like a sword. The blade caught the priest in his side and Claire used the creature’s own momentum to knock it into the yard’s swimming pool. The thing disappeared into the water with a loud splash but Claire didn’t see it happen, she was already running after Jimmy. He’d reached the back door and was fumbling with the keypad lock. She shoved him aside and typed in the code. The door popped open. Jimmy followed her inside slamming the door behind them. Claire slumped by the fridge, exhausted. Jimmy stood watching her. “That was too close,” he said.

“But it was fun, wasn’t it?” Claire giggled.

“If your uncle hadn’t been a nut and built this house with bloody steel reinforced doors and barred windows we’d be dead right now. You know that right?”

Claire looked disgusted. “Jimmy the whole F-ing world is dead and you still can’t loosen up can you?” She shook her head and turned away from him.

“Claire. . .” Jimmy started but she got up and walked out of the room leaving him alone in the kitchen to listen to the pounding on the door and walls as the dead outside howled in the night.

Claire had always been a bit odd. She was as much a thrill seeker as her uncle had been a paranoid nutcase. It’d never really mattered to Jimmy much. He’d always loved her and put up with her hoping it was a phase she’d grow out of as they got older together but now that world had turned into hell around them from what the government had labeled the “dead plague” her thrills had become more and more increasingly suicidal. He had no idea why he’d ever agreed to go out of the house with her tonight. He knew if she wanted to die he had no right to stop her but they had been married for a year and he truly loved her. If she were gone then he’d be alone with those things out there and that wasn’t something he wanted to imagine.

Jimmy took a breath to steady himself and headed upstairs. He found her curled up in her uncle’s bed, which had became their own after they‘d taken shelter here. Not bothering to remove his clothes or wash the soldier’s blood off of himself he slid under the covers with her and held her sobbing form in his arms.

He awoke to the sound of a large crash. Claire sat up in the bed and smiled. “Oh Jimmy, they’ve come.” she whispered. Jimmy listened to the raising screams of the dead as they tore through the house’s fortifications downstairs. He didn’t know how they’d managed to break through but they had. His hand reached for the .357 under his pillow as dozens of feet stomped their way up the stairs.

Claire looked at him with pleading eyes. Jimmy jerked up the gun, trying not to give himself time to think about what he was doing, and put a point blank round into Claire’s skull. As her body slid into the floor, he whispered, “I love you Claire but I can’t give up myself with a fight.”

He rushed out of the bedroom to find the hallway packed with the dead. He pointed his revolver at them and blew the lead creature’s head into pulp with a well placed shot. His mind raced trying to think of a way to escape from the second story of the house. The creatures moved like an unrelenting wave towards him in a headlong rush. Gunshots and screams echoed in the night as they fell upon him.