It was utterly ridiculous that Jimmy sang to Rebecca every night. She probably didn’t know he existed. Hell, he didn’t even know if she existed anymore.

Those monsters roaming and moaning around the base of the lighthouse, they seemed to have gotten to everyone. Billy, the redneck kid who used to punch Jimmy on the school bus. Jimmy was sure Billy was down there, wearing a Metallica t-shirt that was threadbare even before Billy became a decaying disease machine. Zombification hadn’t changed Billy much.

Mr. Olson, Jimmy’s math teacher, was down there, too, in all of his five foot two glory, his beige corduroy jacket with the leather elbow patches hanging loosely from his emaciated frame. Over the past five days, Jimmy had seen the clerk from the hardware store, the laundry attendant, the mayor, and several dozen of his classmates.

They found their way thirty yards down the rock-lined wharf, sometimes stumbling off into the bay. The lighthouse was smaller than most, about thirty-five feet tall. From Jimmy’s perch, he could see the faces clearly. They would lift their heads in his direction, not necessarily looking at him, but definitely sensing he was there, their cheeks twitching, lips curling. If they still had lips.

Jimmy had mixed feelings about the apocalypse, if that’s what this was. He was indifferent to most of the people in this town. Others had tortured him for the fifteen years of his life. School was hell. Most kids were mean, the teachers didn’t care, and the parents were worse. He didn’t necessarily mind seeing their whole world destroyed.

Plus he’d always loved zombie movies and books. He liked loud rock music and gory fun, a bit too loud and a bit too gory for his classmates, who thought he was just plain weird if not crazy. Now watching all of those zombie films may actually come in handy. He just hoped they got the “rules” right.

Then again, all of those assholes made things like video games and batteries and Sonic burgers. Those were going to be hard to replace. And he still needed to learn how to drive a car, but he supposed he wouldn’t be much of a danger on the road right now to anyone but himself. There was also the smell. It had gotten progressively worse over the past five days, mixing with the fish smell from the bay that surrounded him. He thought maybe there were zombie fish out there, but he couldn’t be sure.

The worst part was not knowing about Rebecca. They had both just started the ninth grade last month. They were in band together, had a few classes together. They had exchanged a few words in the hallway. She’d borrowed a pen from him once. Then he helped her when her locker was stuck. It wasn’t much, but he’d hoped she would remember the gestures and begin to recognize he was there in her world somewhere.

He had never gotten the nerve to put more than a sentence or two together in her presence. He was never quite smooth enough, never had enough friends to give him a push. So he sat in his room after school and wrote songs with her name in them. Cool, heavy stuff that required several stomp boxes to make his guitar howl, no mushy stuff. Jimmy hoped she was still alive and hiding somewhere.

If she were still in town, there wasn’t much hope. Jimmy could see a throng of walking corpses on the few streets between the lighthouse and the businesses on Beverly Avenue. He was lucky there was a metal rod on the inside of the door that made it impossible to open from the outside. Or at least that’s what he hoped. There were only a few stragglers in the immediate area, and none of them had made a serious attempt to get in yet.

Jimmy watched as dead Jenny Panero and dead Paul Rice found the metal door and started pounding and moaning. Jimmy ducked back inside and lay still and quiet. He could feel a slight vibration through the steel floor and hear their wailing, like they were begging for something their parents wouldn’t give them. To calm himself, Jimmy imagined the words they might be saying.

“But mom, I totally need the car to go to the mall,” said Jenny. “None of my earrings fit anymore. I need to make my dead rotting ears look all pretty. And I’m out of whore glitter.”

“Whore glitter,” Paul moaned.

Jimmy smiled a bit. He was much easier on Paul than the stuck up junior Jenny. He had kind of liked Paul. Paul had been a chess dork and a member of the Advanced Students Club. They never spoke much, but Paul had never looked down on Jimmy, either. Not the way that, say, Jenny looked down on Paul. He thought Paul may even have had a crush on Jenny when they were both still alive. Jimmy smiled at the thought that they could be together now.

For now, Jenny and Paul were alone at the door. No one else seemed to want to join them, and Jimmy was pretty sure the bar would hold. Sometimes it seemed the zombies were attracted to Jimmy’s guitar playing, even though it was an unamplified electric, an old Fender Jaguar knockoff Jimmy had bought with half a summer’s earnings two years before. Jimmy did have a tiny practice amp, the kind you would clip to your belt. But he never used it. He only had a couple of back-up 9 volt batteries, and he had no idea when he might run across any more.

Jimmy had read all of the zombie guides and seen all the movies. He’d always criticized the characters for not being prepared or making stupid mistakes. He never really thought he’d have to run from a crowd of brain-eaters, though, and when they came, he only had time to throw some food and a couple of things into his backpack and grab his guitar bag.

His stepfather Gil had ridiculed him for even having that much prepared. It was just Gil and Jimmy. His mother had died a few years before, and Jimmy never knew his biological father.

There had been reports on TV about riots breaking out on the outskirts of town, and that the violence was spreading. But in the footage, the rioters were moving way too slow. It was obvious to Jimmy. Zombies! How could the news teams be missing it?

The idea had excited him, and he had thrown a couple of bags of pretzels, four sandwiches, and a six pack of soda into his school backpack, along with his smart phone, iPod, and a notebook. It felt more like he were packing for a couple of days camping in the backyard than the apocalypse.

Some sort of political protest over taxes or something seemed a more realistic explanation for the news than zombies, but Jimmy couldn’t deny the images on TV. In any case, people were swarming in the street just one town over, and Jimmy thought he and his stepdad might have to leave in a hurry.

“Those fuckers get anywhere near my house, they’ll catch a beating,” Gil had said, nursing beer in his ratty old Barcalounger. “We’ll just lock the doors and get the shotgun from the basement.”

“But what if they’re zombies?” Jimmy had asked. He’d immediately wished he could have it back.

“Dumb ass,” Gil said. “Your mother turned you into a little pussy nerd. Get your head out of your ass.”

Jimmy had felt stupid and mad. He stopped getting ready to leave, but went around the house checking all of the locks anyway, Gil rolling his eyes at him whenever Jimmy passed by him watching the TV.

When he went to check the back door in the kitchen, he heard glass break at the front door, and then Gil, “Goddamit, you kids get the hell way from my house.”

Jimmy’s breath stopped and his eyes got wide. He forced himself to breathe as he walked to the doorway between the kitchen and living room. There was an arm sticking through one of the squares in the front door where the glass had been knocked out, reaching blindly for something. Gil grabbed it and was pulling at it with his foot on the door for leverage.

“Yeah!” Gil shouted. “Fucker! This what you want? You want to come in here? Huh? This what you want, big man!”

That’s when the arm came off, sending Gil sprawling back on his ass. The remaining nub kept wriggling. “What the fuck?” Gil said.

Jimmy laughed out loud. That made Gil even angrier. “What are you laughing at, pussy?” Gil said. “Get the shotgun from the basement.”

Jimmy did as he was told. He ran to the workbench where Gil kept the shotgun, grabbed it, and then grabbed a box of shells, accidentally grasping it by the bottom and spilling all but a couple of shells onto the floor. He ran upstairs with the gun and just a few shells in a box.

Gil grabbed the shotgun from Jimmy’s hand and scowled at the box for just a moment before returning his attention to the door.

“All of you jagoffs better move on right now,” Gil said. “I’ve got a shotgun, and I’ll use it.”

The nub kept wriggling. The pounding at the door continued, now accompanied by a low wail.

“Fine!” Gil yelled. “Fair warning. Eat it, ya shits.”

Gil fired at the door, managing to blast a hole where the lock and knob used to be. Panic hit Gil, and for a split second, there was silence. Then the door bust open and a pack of zombies fell into Gil, nearly burying him.

Jimmy ran to his room, grabbed his backpack and guitar case, and ran out of the back door, leaving Gil screaming for help.

Jimmy had run to his high school first, ducking between houses whenever he saw a horde gathering on a street or stumbling after another victim. There were a lot of people running, and Jimmy saw some of them run from one group of attackers straight into another, where they were converged upon. There were too many for Jimmy to see through the crowd, but he could tell what happened by the screams and gurgling sounds.

There had been a dance at George S. Kaufman Memorial High School that night, and the place was already overrun by the time Jimmy got there. Girls in summer dresses, boys in neatly pressed jeans and button-down shirts, a few in approximate punkwear. There were a few parents, too, who had come quickly in an apparent rescue attempt, missing a shoe or carrying some household weapon like a knife or a baseball bat.

Jimmy had heard the commotion from up the road, but hadn’t seen what was going on until he crested the hill where his school was and then taken cover crouching behind a small fence in a yard across the street. He laughed out loud to see a school bully eviscerated by what looked like a bunch of math geeks, all of whom had probably been wallflowers an hour ago. It was clear anyone still living wasn’t making an effective stand there.

Jimmy made a quick scan for Rebecca, trying to identify anyone with blonde hair that might fit her petite frame. He could not positively identify anyone and finally had to clear out.

The lighthouse had been the next safest place Jimmy could think of to go. It was stone with a metal door, and he could see anything coming from the length of a couple of football fields. If he could find a fishing pole, he thought he may even be able to fish over the railing.

He ran the couple of miles from the school to the wharf. It was deserted. The only boat left was the Brotherhood, a replica of an old trading ship with three tall masts and a bunch of complicated looking ropes and sails. People must have fled the zombies in others.

The lock on the lighthouse had been shot out, but the iron bar and slot was still there to secure the door. Anything useful that might have been inside had been looted. No food or supplies – not that there would have been much to begin with.

That had been five days ago. Jimmy had felt safe, but knew his time there was short. He finished a bag of pretzels, and forced the last few warm, syrupy sips of soda down his throat. That was the last of the food, and he had one more can of soda left, if he could stand to drink it. If he had been smarter, if he had really believed in zombies, he would have packed more food and brought water.

Jenny and Paul had stopped banging after a half an hour, apparently distracted by something else. Jimmy got up quietly and crept outside to the railing. Jenny and Paul were leaning over the water at the end of the wharf toward a seagull lazing in the sun several yards out. Their arms were flailing straight out in front of them. Jimmy looked around and found a fist-sized rock. He closed one eye, took aim, and fired a perfect shot at the back of Jenny’s head, knocking her face first into the drink.

Jenny stood up again, the water up to her chest, and started walking toward the gull. It flew off when Jenny got a few feet away, but Jenny kept walking until her head disappeared. Paul stopped reaching and stood on the bank, staring.

The splashing drew a clutch of zombies to the bank, where they piled up behind Paul. Jimmy recognized at least half of them as his former classmates. They pushed into a crowd until they finally started falling over, Paul first, then a lunch lady, the mayor, and then several members of the football team still in their uniforms and helmets. Jimmy felt sorry for them. Must have been hard to eat flesh through a facemask.

Wherever Jenny had gone to, most of her fellow flesh-eaters followed, marching off the bank and into the water. That left only a few of them between Jimmy and the landed end of the wharf. He might have a few minutes to escape. If only he could think of a place to escape to. He started to pull his things into his backpack and zip up his soft guitar case.

Halfway between the lighthouse and the shoreline was the Brotherhood. Worst-case scenario, he could run in there. The plank was out, but from the railing of the lighthouse, Jimmy couldn’t see anyone on the deck. There were a few dozen flesh eaters scattered around the wharf and beyond, those who hadn’t seemed to notice the little undead water ballet that had just unfolded. They just sort of shuffled in place, looking a bit dazed.

Jimmy could feel his calves twitch. He hadn’t been able to move much for five days, and his muscles seemed to be pushing him to lunge, to run anywhere, to stop waiting, even if it meant being out there with his undead former neighbors. He needed to move or he’d cramp.

A quick glance over the railing, no one at the door. First few were ten yards away, a few more after that, more on the main stretch of land at the end of the wharf. If he made it to the street, he could find a car. He had only just started driving, but he supposed it didn’t really matter if he hit anything, or anyone.

From there, what? He couldn’t guess, but it was better than starving in the lighthouse.

Jimmy slowly made his way down the spiral staircase, careful to avoid clanging too loudly on the metal steps, to where the door was bolted shut. He listened with his ear to the door, heard the gentle lapping of the water, a seagull complaining, a little bit of moaning. He carefully lifted the bolt, watching his hand to make sure it was doing exactly what he wanted it to do. He leaned the bolt against the wall. The door creaked open, painfully slow, Jimmy staying out of sight and behind the door until he could make his run for it.

Jimmy closed his eyes for a second, clenched every muscle in his body, and then sprang around the metal door and ran immediately into Ivan Turk, the football team’s star douchebag/linebacker. Ivan was knocked back a bit, but Jimmy fell back on his ass with a thud as a jolt shot through his tailbone and up his spine.

Ivan looked down at Jimmy, eyes widened by the heavy flesh pulling away from his eye sockets. Ivan leaned forward and fell on a stunned Jimmy, and they were nearly face to face, Ivan’s facemask getting in the way. Ivan stretched his jaw toward Jimmy, his forehead pressed against the front edge of his helmet.

Jimmy screamed and grabbed a fistful of jersey and pushed off Ivan’s floundering dead weight. Jimmy rolled over and jumped up, his feet tangling up in Ivan as he started toward town. He was bouncing off of bodies – where did they come from? The wharf had become crowded in a matter of minutes.  He made it almost as far as the Brotherhood when he saw he wasn’t going to make it much further. His first thought was to run to the ship.

That’s when he heard a woman’s scream. The space around him was filling rapidly with bodies, and as he turned to the Brotherhood, he saw the end of plank disappear onto the ship. A flash of a pink t-shirt and swinging long blond hair, and then it… she was gone onto the deck. Quickly. Quickly enough to still be alive.

Jimmy stopped. “Rebecca?” he yelled.

He got no answer, and became aware of cold hands on his neck. He broke free and ran back toward the lighthouse. Jimmy pushed past his fifth grade math teacher, a state trooper, two cheerleaders, and a couple he didn’t recognize in what had once been fancier clothes before the blood and rot soaked them. Must have been from the west side of town, Jimmy thought. He never got that way much.

The throng made a horrible noise, a throaty growl like they were all trying to form words and couldn’t quite get it together. A chorus of chain-smokers learning their first words in a new language.

He could feel hands everywhere, on his legs, slapping at his head, pushing him in the back. The crowd closed around him, insistent but weak. He easily broke the grasp of one just to feel another clamp onto him. He leaned forward, toppling everything in front of him as he ran, whirling his arms crazily to push and punch them away, swimming. He had to pull his guitar case away from them as he felt the lighthouse at his back before he could see it.

He hadn’t thought he’d be coming back, so he hadn’t closed the door. But it was that or shallow water teeming with floating and bobbing undead.

Jimmy pushed his way back into the lighthouse and grabbed the bolt, swinging it hard for any soft heads that might be lurking. He cleared the door and shut it, pushing his back into it and swinging the bolt back and forth in front of him to keep the three zombies left inside at bay.

To secure the door, he’d need to put the bolt back down into the slots on the floor and the door. But the three zombies hovered just out of range, as if contemplating the waving metal a couple of feet in front of them. Jimmy faintly heard himself yell, but it sounded to him like something drowning, muted by water. He told himself to stop, stop, stop, stop. Think. Stop. Figure this shit out.

Jimmy made one wide swing with the bolt then turned and slammed it into the door and the plate on the ground, barely getting it set before running back up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse. One of the corpses found its way and started to try to climb the stairs. Jimmy stepped onto the walk and stood to one side of the door, breathing hard.

It was a few minutes before the corpse made its way up the steps, tripping and crawling and rising again. Jimmy recognized the faded pants and snap-button cowboy shirt from his friend Larry’s wardrobe. Larry himself was harder to recognize. His face was a plate of dancing maggots, not much left to identify anyone.

Larry used to play bass with Jimmy sometimes. They had planned to start a band. They had talked about driving out to the next town to find clubs and try to pass for 18, as soon as the both had their learner’s permits. Jimmy’s heart sank to see him. If there were anyone he had hoped would have escaped, it was Larry. Outside of Rebecca, of course.

Now, Larry had to go.

Larry bumped into the glass wall inside the lighthouse for a minute before a lucky lunge led him out onto the walk. His mouth was still working, his teeth clicking together as he gnashed blindly. Jimmy ran around the walk and came up behind Larry on the other side, throwing his shoulder into Larry. He didn’t want to have to deal with the side with the mouth.

Jimmy managed to pick Larry up by his belt and clumsily lift and roll him over the railing. Larry landed on several zombies with a crack of weak bones, and his body was passed over their heads for several feet before falling in pieces into the horde.

“Sorry, Lar,” Jimmy said, looking over the railing. “Hope you enjoyed your last crowd dive.”

Larry’s departure left two downstairs, inside the lighthouse with Jimmy. They were trying to get up to the walk to feed. Jimmy could hear their skulls clank against the metal as they bumped into the handrail. Finding that first step would be a matter of trial and error. They weren’t quite as smart as Larry.

Jimmy’s mind flashed on a blur of pink, and he suddenly remembered Rebecca. He could see most of the deck of the Brotherhood from the railing of the lighthouse. His eyes moved quickly around the open space. Nothing. Could he have imagined it? The undead were falling over themselves, pushing toward the boat in the shallow water just offshore. They were after something.

The late afternoon skies were beginning to grey. Soon Jimmy wouldn’t be able to see much past the lighthouse at all. The moaning increased from down the spiral staircase. It almost sounded frustrated. Jimmy could barely see down the stairwell to the windowless room below, where the two zombies were attempting to find their way to a feeding. He had no real weapon to take them out. Nothing he could do from the top of the stairs except wait until they found their way up and push them over like Larry. There wouldn’t be much sleep for Jimmy tonight.

It had taken a while for Jimmy’s eyes to adjust to dark, but the crescent moon helped. The safest place to sit was outside, around the railing, opposite of the door to the outside. Jimmy had thought about shutting that door and getting some sleep, but if he woke up and the two maggotheads had found their way up, he’d be stuck outside with those things in the control room. He sat fingering the fretboard of his guitar, idly running through the songs he had written for Rebecca.

It had gotten difficult, for a while, to distinguish the sounds of the two zombies downstairs from the ones gathered around outside the lighthouse. They seemed to cycle – one started moaning, the rest started, until it became a dull, slow motion riot. Then they would calm down for a while. It was almost worse when they were quiet. What were they doing? It was unlikely they were working on a plan, but Jimmy got the feeling nonetheless that they were waiting for something, like they could swarm him whenever they wanted, piling on top of each other until they formed an inhuman pyramid and crawled right up over the railing.

Now it was quiet again. No crickets. It was too cold for flies or mosquitoes. Maybe an occasional bird beat its wings or squawked overhead. They seemed to be the only living creatures not affected by all of this. Jimmy thought of the dead wandering in the water, if the fish stayed away or just swam around the things. Did they recognize what these things were? That they were even a threat? Or were they just so much rotting fauna?

Feeling restless, Jimmy stood up and tried to survey the area around the lighthouse. The moonlight glinted off the rippling water on three sides of him. Ahead of him, in the direction of the wharf, was an ambiguous moving mass, mimicking the rippling of the water. Jimmy was exhausted but wired. He picked up his guitar and picked at it with his fingers, humming a tune that had wandered into his head intermittently over the past few days. He searched his pocket for a pick, and started to play it a little louder, and sing a little louder.

The crowd murmured in response, a low rumble. Jimmy was caught up in concentration, working on the song. He plugged the guitar into his practice amp and turned it up. He started singing full throated. The crowd got louder and raised their arms at their possible food source. Jimmy was struck by the scene, pale hands reflecting in the moonlight. It thrilled him.

Jimmy stopped for a moment. He couldn’t see too far out, which was frustrating. Inspiration hit. He went back into the lighthouse control room and started flicking switches. A light came on over the controls. He randomly pressed buttons and flipped switches until the main light came on and started rotating.

The light panned the crowd, flashing over faces with jaws dropped open, like they were trying to scream. Arms stretched upwards. Swaying. Jimmy began to play. He was in heaven.

He played the song he wrote for Rebecca, singing her name. The louder he sang, the louder the zombies moaned. The louder they moaned, the more it felt to Jimmy like the concert of his dreams. He pictured himself at the Milborn, the big local club. Then he pictured himself at the arena downtown. Then a stadium. A world tour, everywhere singing for his Rebecca. Everywhere playing for his heard of swaying, moaning fans.

That’s when he saw it again, something moving on the Brotherhood. Another flash of pink. And the blond hair. It was a girl standing on the deck, looking his way. Then it went dark again as the light swiveled away. It had to be her. He wondered if she could hear what he was playing.

He kept playing to his adoring crowd, his gaze focused squarely on the Brotherhood. He sang louder and turned his practice amp up as far as it would go, hoping the sound would travel. The light panned around excruciatingly slowly, the Brotherhood still in shadows. He could make out a form again on the deck. It was her size. He couldn’t be sure. But who else could it be?

It was everything he had ever hoped for. No more bullies. No more high school. Just Jimmy and his guitar, playing for his girl, standing room only.

He was screaming the song now, screaming her name, watching the shadows and waiting for the light to come around again. All of them were cheering for him. The math teacher who once called him stupid. The cool girls who giggled at him next to the jocks who made dumb jokes and then cheated off of him during tests. Maybe even Gil, somewhere in the dark.

Jimmy watched the slice of light pan over the glinting water, then the bow of the Brotherhood, the deck, and then, there she was. It was Rebecca. She was jumping up and down watching him play for her, gesticulating wildly, pointing at him.

That’s right, baby, he thought. I’m number one! Maybe by default, but still.

Rebecca was pointing with both fingers and yelling. An unusual gesture of appreciation. Jimmy stopped singing and squinted, leaning forward. A pile of cold flesh fell on him from behind. A hand grabbed his ankle, and he could feel teeth trying to break through the denim of his pant leg.

Jimmy screamed and kicked, pushing one corpse away only to find another one directly behind him. He had forgotten the two maggot farms at the foot of the stairs, and they had both found their way up to the walk. Jimmy got his hands on the chest of the standing zombie and kept his chomping, clicking mouth at bay. He felt teeth break on his jeans at his calf.

The moaning was louder, but Jimmy heard it faintly. “Jimmy! Jimmy!”

She knew his name.

The standing zombie pawed at him and his guitar, catching his fingers in the strings. The top two strings busted as they sliced through the rotting flesh. Jimmy didn’t have extras. It was going to be tough to play Rebecca’s song without the high end. Even tougher with a zombie brain, if he didn’t start concentrating on the two rotters he was tangled in.

Jimmy struggled to pull his right leg back, to shake the one on the ground, and wound up pulling both of them back with him. He kept moving, but the zombies kept their grip. The smell started to make Jimmy dizzy. He yelled as loud as he could, but it didn’t faze them.

The full weight of the standing zombie was starting to push on Jimmy. He wrenched himself violently to the left and heard his guitar neck clack on the railing. He pulled hard to the right and started to pull the upright one around, turning 180 degrees. He was now pushing one zombie back and pulling one forward with his leg. Jimmy kept his legs moving enough to avoid getting bit, but felt sharp nubs of teeth nipping.

If the zombie in front of him could breathe, Jimmy would have drowned the noxious fumes as its mouth neared his face. Jimmy brought the neck of his guitar up between them and tried to smack the zombie’s face with it, but there wasn’t enough room for it to have an impact. Teeth broke around stretching strings.

The zombie behind him had gotten up to its knees and was pawing at Jimmy. Jimmy reached one hand behind him to push it away and felt teeth graze the web of skin between his thumb and index finger. He panicked. Had it broken the skin? He wasn’t sure.

Jimmy turned enough to see Rebecca on the Brotherhood screaming for Jimmy, who might be the last man alive. Jimmy laughed painfully through his exertion at the thought that he might finally have his chance. She noticed him now.

“Rebecca!” he shouted. “Stay calm! I’ll save you!”

Then the zombie behind him was up, and Jimmy was thrashing violently to avoid the teeth, the fingernails, the bones poking through the rotting flesh of their hands. He banged his fist on the skull of the one in front of him, finding it soft but resilient, like punching a watermelon. His fist broke through and he felt jagged bones scrape his flesh as his hand plunged into grey matter. He screamed and tried to pull it out, forgetting to unball the fist.

He felt teeth on the back of his head, dragging across his scalp. Complete panic set in as he turned between the two and pushed his back against the railing. He finally freed his fist and one zombie crumpled to the ground. He hopped over the body and ran almost the full way around the railing until he was on the other side of the zombie still walking.

The light was still panning around, and he saw Rebecca again. She was all he could focus on. He did not see the crowd between them, which had increased in number during his struggle to the point where they were at maximum density. The zombies pushed against each other, sensing the last two bits of living flesh for miles around.

The zombie on the walk turned to him, but Jimmy didn’t see him, either. He kept his eyes trained on Rebecca, even though he couldn’t quite see her. He climbed up on the railing and yelled again, to let her know he was there, to let himself know he was still there.

Then he jumped.

Any sound was drowned out in Jimmy’s head by the blood pumping through his heart, up through the gashes on his hand and head. His muscles began to stiffen. He felt hands below him tearing at him, but he didn’t care. He pushed and kicked his way atop the crowd, working his way toward Brotherhood. As the light swooped around again, he could see Rebecca over the side of the ship, staring in shock.

“I’m coming, Rebecca,” he yelled, but the voice was unfamiliar.

Closer and closer he came, looking at the sea of undead piled right up to the edge of the Brotherhood. His vision faded into black and white. The crowd below him seemed to lose interest in getting a piece of him, and he stepped on heads and tried to plant his hands to crawl across them.

And then he was there. His hands were on the railing of the Brotherhood. The light came around again, and Jimmy saw Rebecca backing up quickly but unable to look away from him.

The last thing his brain registered before his heart stopped was her scream. And he smiled.

—–

Nick A. Zaino III is a journalist and musician who recently began writing fiction. His work on comedy and music has been published in the Boston Globe, Playboy, Blurt, and other publications. For the record, he prefers slow zombies.