Mark gripped the gun in his hand and aimed dead center at the zombie’s head, when he pulled the trigger bits of brain and skull sprayed everywhere. “Just admit that you were wrong.” He demanded and aimed for another. He was only around thirty, but could have been mistaken for fifty.

“I’m not the one to blame here.” His wife, Kathryn, said and shot two rounds out the window. She too looked old for her age, something that came with the situation they were in, but she had grown into it. The pair was stuck in their old kitchen, with its blood-splattered, now-useless conveniences in it, with hundreds of walking corpses wandering towards them outside. “Besides, I’m not the one who decided for us to stay put instead of moving north where these things can’t get us.”

The ghouls were pouring out of the woods in front of their house; the few other houses on the street had been cleared, Mark had been sure to do that.

“Are you kidding me? I wanted to go west, to the Rockies, but no ‘that would be too long, too dangerous’,” he retorted and took down two more, emptying his magazine. He pulled another from the pocket of his old faded jeans and reloaded his G21 pistol. “You just wanted to save your parents, and a lot of good they did.”

She stopped firing and glared at him, “You know what? Fuck you!” Kathryn fired off the rest of her own handgun out of one of the kitchen windows. “I didn’t want to lose what was closest to me; not like you who were willing to drop everything and run off to the West Coast.”

“I chose to stay because here was better than trying for the north. Everyone was going north; we would have been in that traffic jam that they just ate their way through. Would that have been fun?” He shot through the window he had been standing at, as one of them that had gotten too close for comfort. They had first heard the moans at four A.M., it was now six and there was no end in sight. The horde just kept coming and coming and it only seemed to fuel their rage at each other. “And what do you mean what’s closest to you? I’m your goddamn husband, I’m your everything.” He shouted over her gunfire – he knew she was trying to drown him out.

“I just don’t think someone who would up and leave everything he had worked for should be high on my list of things to care about.” Kathryn yelled back as she reloaded. She would have kept going, but one got close enough to stick its rotted arm, with part of the radius and ulna bones sticking out, inside. She quickly shot it, spraying blood on her and the sun yellow walls around her.

“Did you ever love me?” Mark asked, killing one that was at one point a woman, who was now missing both arms, that was trying to climb through the window.

“Of course I did, I still do.” She said as she looked over at him, “I just can’t believe how you could leave it all behind like that.” She picked up a fully automatic weapon and sprayed bullets at the encroaching horde, taking down a large number of the rotting corpses, their heads popping from the gunfire.

“Look around you.” He said, gesturing to the outside at the undead, “If you can’t learn to detach yourself from things, you won’t be able to survive. How do you not understand that?” He tossed a grenade out the window to clean their lawn.

“I’m still human Mark.” she said, putting down two more. She glanced out further and a small smile came to her lips, “I think they’re thinning out.” She aimed at one dragging itself along, its legs torn off, and put a bullet in between where its eyes had rotted away.

“That still doesn’t excuse stupidity…” He muttered and shot five in quick succession. “I think the real problem is that you’re still mad at me for killing them, for doing what needed to be done.”

“What? How dare you?” She shouted and took her new anger out on the ghouls outside, “I understand that they weren’t going to be them anymore – that it was necessary, but I still didn’t want to do it while they were still alive, I wanted to wait for them to turn.”

“That would have been too dangerous.” Mark dropped his pistol and took out an M5 rifle. “Die you little bitches,” he giggled as he started to shoot at them, taking quite a few down.

“Ok it was dangerous, I admit it, but why did you have to do it in front of me, with them still being awake? You were inhuman to them.”

“They were my in-laws…what did you expect?”

“Very funny, asshole. Now try to kill more of the dead guys, instead of winning this argument, or we’re gonna be overrun.” She shot at two who had made it to the window; one had no legs and had been missed due to its crawling, the other had bits of its skull showing and only one eye, which was locked on Kathryn.

Mark was about to retort when an explosion cut him off. Both of them turned to find a tank at the edge of the forest, about two hundred yards away from their house. A group of soldiers ran in front of it, towards them, killing any of the monsters left. Kathryn and Mark just stared out the window as the soldiers reached them.

“Are you two the only ones?” They were asked. He nodded, “Are either of you bitten?” Mark shook his head. With that sufficient information, the soldiers let them climb out of the window to the tank. As they crossed the yard, one of the bodies lying there shot its arm out and took hold of one of the soldier’s ankles. It pulled itself toward him with its only arm and bit into the back of his calf. Kathryn, reacting quicker than the soldiers, pulled out her G21 pistol and shot the thing on the ground, before quickly dispatching the screaming, crying, bitten soldier. The others led them back without a word and put them on the tank.

They sat in the transport area alone in an uncomfortable silence until Mark said, “I’m sorry about killing your parents…” He glanced at her apologetically.

Kathryn nodded, looking down, and smiled sadly, “I know they were too dangerous to let live. I’m sorry for making such a big deal.” The two of them smiled at each other as the tank started to move. “But I still want to know why you don’t want a baby.”

Mark just looked at her and started to slowly shake his head, “No…no discussion, not right now.”