Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Nine

     Right in front of us in the middle of the street lies a dog, a dead dog. It's pinned against a car by a large tree branch that pierced through its rib cage, and beside the scrawny dogs corpse is a biter. It's kneeled down on the ground, eating the dogs insides. The biter reaches into the gaping hole of the dogs stomach and pulls out it's intestines, eating it as its strung around its fingers. Jane suddenly turns to the side and vomits, reaching out and leaning against the wall. The feasting biter hears her vomit and turns it's half eaten face toward us, then stands and staggers to the fence, dragging the intestines along with him. Jane vomits again.

"Go inside." I lay my hand on her back. "You've seen enough for now." She slowly walks to the door as she holds her stomach, then enters. I walk back over to the fence as the biter tries to chomp on it. I pull out my hunting knife and stab it through the fence, into the biters eye socket. It collapses after I pull my knife out of its skull. I just stare at the dog in silence, feeling nothing but sorrow. Suddenly my stomach drops. I hear a whimper come from the other side of the car. Then out comes a puppy, scared and alone. It's soaked from the rain and scans the environment with fear as it stays low to the ground. It runs over to the corpse of the dog and cries, pawing at it.

"Come here boy." My voice cracks with sadness, I try to whistle but I can't. I swallow, trying to get rid of the lump of sorrow in my throat, then try to whistle again. The tiny puppy's head perks up and looks straight at me. It puts its tail between its legs and bolts, running down the street out of fear.

I put my hands on my hips and look up at the clear blue sky, taking a deep breath. Then I walk back inside, wanting to spare myself the other horrors that are sure to be around here somewhere.

"What's wrong?" Sammy asks Jane as she dry heaves into a bucket. She shakes her head.

"Nothing."

"It's just..." I take a deep breath, then run my fingers through my beard that's begging for a shave. "It's not looking so good out there." I clear my throat. "David, I'd like you to stay inside until we get the worst of it cleaned up."

He just looks at me, curious as to what we seen.

"Johnny, you mind coming with me? See what the damage is?" I ask.

"Sure." He stands, grabbing our second 9mm Beretta.

"We'll be back soon." I say as I approach the side door, realizing that facing the horrors of this world is inevitable if I wish to live.

"Now I see why Jane was so repulsed, so... disgusted." Johnny walks away from the fence and follows me toward the SUV as he stares down at the ground, unable to get that image out of his head just like Jane and I, but he didn't have to see it like we did... not like I did. He got lucky this time, he was spared from some of the horrific details.

Johnny and I hop over the SUV and instantly see that a path was created from the woods to the alley from so many biters walking through here. It was the biters I seen last night, but Johnny doesn't know it was biters. I didn't tell anybody, but once you see the many tracks of footprints it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

"What's the plan?" Johnny asks as he leans forward a bit, peeking down the back alley.

"I don't know." I pull out my hunting knife. "Let's just see how much damage the storm caused first." I walk to the right, following the back wall of the pizza parlor. I turn the corner and to my surprise there is small tree in one of the large picture windows, the intense winds must've uprooted it and tossed it in. Walking faster as Johnny follows I turn the next corner, stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of the pizza parlor. The front wall was almost all glass, now it's completely shattered. I turn away from the pizza parlor and look around the street. There's splintered wood littering the streets, as well as garbage, but most noticeable of all is the many body parts lying around. There are some dead biters lying around but there are also biter legs, arms and chunks of flesh that the storm had taken off. I just slowly walk down the middle of the street, not sure what to do. My eyes glance toward the dogs corpse once again as I near it but I force myself to look elsewhere, looking further down the street. The storm has gotten rid of the biters, at least for now. There's only two biters staggering around, still unaware of my presence. Then suddenly I hear a bark, it's the puppy, but it came from a few buildings down. One of the biters takes notice and follows the sound as another bark occurs.

"Come on." I wave Johnny toward me as I jog ahead, accidentally stepping on the intestines that are strung out all over the sidewalk.

Karols Koffee, the name of the coffee shop only three buildings down from the gun shop, that's where it came from. It's very dark inside so I pull my flashlight out and click it on. The front door is glass, or was glass, so I just step through, the tiny pieces crunching under my shoes. I let out a whistle, trying to get the dog to come but I hear nothing. The biter that entered before us is nowhere to be seen either I hold my flashlight up, looking behind the counter. There's blood splattered all over the wooden countertop that looks to be very old but other than that I see nothing. The front of the coffee shop s empty. The tables and chairs are knocked over. Everybody must've panicked when the infection hit, probably all tried to run out of here at once.

I walk around the end of the counter and step behind it, cautiously proceeding through a puddle of thick, coagulated blood. Walking past the coffee machine makes me wish for a nice fresh cup, just like I used to drink every morning, but all of my nostalgic feelings and thoughts suddenly dissipate as I hear a whelp. I take a few more quick steps forward and kick open the door that leads to the back room. My heart skips a beat when I see the biter standing there with his back to us. Looking down through its legs I see blood dripping down in front of him as it smacks its lips, it's eating something.

"No..." My jaw drops and my stomach churns. The biter slowly turns as I keep my flashlight pointed at it. Coffee beans crunch under its rotten bare feet. It turns and it has a handful of fur, and in the other... a tiny lifeless, four legged corpse.

"You stupid mutt." I say with anger as my eyes tear up a bit. "You should've came to me when you had the chance." I run at the biter and tackle it, then stab it in the face as it still has a mouthful of furry flesh in its mouth, but I don't stop there. I stab it again, and again, and again. I let out my anger, my hate. The hate that I have for these monsters.

Once there's no face left and its brains ooze out onto the coffee bean covered floor I stop.

"I think he's dead." Johnny looks at the biter. Johnny has never seen me like that before. He must be thinking I'm crazy.

"You seen that puppy earlier?" He asks, then sits down beside me as I scoot back against a shelf full of coffee beans. I just nod and look down at the floor.

"This world is so messed up." I say. "If it wasn't for David... I'm not sure if I'd still even be here."

He's quiet for a long moment.

"There's just some things you can't control..." He says. "Some things that you can't save. Death... is inevitable."

"No. Death shouldn't be like this." I reply. "This is more than death. Being eaten alive isn't death... it's torture... shear terror."