Kae trudged through the searing summer heat, through a row between columns of trees in what had been an orchard.  The fruit couldn’t be harvested in time.  All of it had fallen from the trees and rotted on the ground below.  The oppressiveness of the odor was surpassed only by the flies.  Decay and death were everywhere.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.  She dragged her feet.  She’d no intention to survive.  The only plan she had was the dose of H in her bag.  It was enough for one.  She’d feel heaven seep into her bones – peace and contentment.  She wouldn’t notice when her breathing became shallow, irregular, and eventually stopped.  The horror the world had become would torment her no more.  The only thing keeping her alive is that she didn’t deserve it.  Megan had endured a horror of suffering, and had begged for death before the end.

Was it really an end?  What was it like?  They certainly seemed mindless,  but they could clearly see, hear, and must have been able to experience hunger.  Could they experience pain as well?  Were they people trapped inside the shambling, rotting forms, suffering the torment Megan had experienced in her final hours as a human?

The overdose would have been a clean death… too clean for her.  She deserved Megan’s fate.  But she never encountered just one zombie.  There were always dozens.  She was afraid they’d tear her apart and kill her before she’d had the chance to go through it – before she paid her debt.  So, she ran.  For some stupid reason, it always seemed to work out.  Lucky.  Too fucking lucky.

Kae appeared as a speck in his scope.  Harris trained his rifle on her, watching.

“Who is it?”  came a voice to his right.  “Is it Z?”

There were 28 of them in total.  His family, the Watsons from the next farm over, plus a growing number of wandering refugees fleeing from the small towns in the North Valley.  Too many to feed, but not enough to harvest the California fruit crop before it went bad.  He’d been in Afghanistan before then.  Platoon commander.  He’d expected to leave the war behind, come home, grow figs, and leave the terrible decisions behind him.  The wandering figure didn’t look right.  Might be Z, might not.

“You want me to drop her?”  came the voice again.

“They can’t bite from 600 yards away, Noah.  We got time.  No need to waste ammo unless we’re sure.”

Kae heard the zombie’s labored gait and periodic moans coming from her left.  She simply stopped and turned to face it.  The woman had been a farm worker.  The remains of her clothes hung in tatters.  She wore a disintegrating broad straw hat.  Kae looked around.  There were no others.  Just her.  The zombie saw her and suddenly became quite animated.  She groaned, and started toward the girl.  Kae stood her ground, watching the zombie carefully.  Her every movement.  The way her eyes looked.  Searching.  The zombie accelerated toward her.

“Goddammit she’s human.”  Harris said worriedly.  “Biter’s going for her now.”  He shouldered his rifle and took aim.

Kae felt a tingling.  Time seemed to slow down.  She felt every beat of her heart.  Her eyes were sad, and full of compassion as she watched the thing advance on her.  Something in her screamed to run, but Kae only held out her right arm, offering it up, and waited.  Kae didn’t even know it was a bullet.  At least not a first.  There was an impossibly loud crack, and the zombie’s head just exploded.  The inert body collapsed Kae, carried by its momentum.  Kae simply stared, stunned, as it slumped into her, then fell to the ground.  Then a thunderous boom from a great distance away.

Harris grit is teeth.  He’d seen it.  The woman had tried to be bit.  28 mouths to feed.  Could they take on another?  Especially someone who had clearly lost their mind and would be a danger to the community?  Time for another one of those god awful choices he’d come to hate.   At least he’d give her a better death than the one she was looking for.  “She’s bit!  Drop her!”  He lied.  Better to save the others from the burden of living with this.  That would be his alone.

Kae didn’t know what it was when she heard the first supersonic pop, followed by an angry buzzing sound.  The sound of something savaging branches and twigs erupted to her right.  Then she heard the first reports.  She was being shot at!  She hunched over, terrified, and raised her arms into the air.  The bullet caught her in the meat of her left arm, through and through.  .243 round, and it had lost just enough energy by the time it came that it didn’t blow her arm off.  She felt a shock – a heavy blow, like she’d been hit with a baseball bat.  She staggered back, and fell into an irrigation canal.   She didn’t actually understand what had happened until she saw the water run red with her blood.

Lucky.