What Walks Among Us (book one)

Decapitating My Demons

I flinched back, and sucked in a breath at the pain that erupted in my shoulder. As I turned to inspect it, I watched the zombie fall behind me. Beck shouted something, bringing my attention back to him as warmth seeped out of my shoulder and was absorbed up my the fabrics of my shirt. Beck was no where in sight, his words lost in the mass of zombies that separated us.

The wound on my shoulder stung, but I knew that it was no more than a graze, because I hadn't been the intended target. Had I not flinched, I doubted the bullet would have done so much as cause a slight draft as it whizzed by.

A zombie with pieces of its scalp torn off and missing, reached out and grabbed a hold of my wrist. With a grunt I managed to shoot it, but it was replaced with two more and soon I was pressed up against the door of the house. My last bullet was shot into a sickly looking corpse, so old you couldn't tell whether it was male or female, much less anything else. It fell at my feet, when its head hit the ground it gave a crack and split into two.

Disgusted, I kicked it away and only then did I have the space to give a good look around. About thirty or so zombies littered the ground, and I could see the last ten or so trying to get at the guys. I hurried over to help them out, and tripped over a body. I held my breath as my gun flew out of my hand, and I landed in the mass of decay. Quickly, I scrambled to get my feet and brush off the more grotesque things that managed to cling to my person. Something on the ground caught my eye, and as I leaned down to pick it up, a zombie reached for me.

I scooped up the object and stomped on the zombies head in a solid movement. My boot went through the squishy skull, and the zombie didn't move again. The thing in my hand, I recognized as Beck's mother's necklace. The shot of a gun made me jump, and after quickly throwing the black cord around my neck, I ran over and pulled a zombie off of Michael. I didn't have any weapons that I could quickly grab, so I simply wrestled it to the ground. The thing felt no pain, which became clear as I was unable to do anything to properly kill it.

After a moment or two the zombie got the upper hand, and I was now on my back, punching at it, trying to keep its claw like fingernails well enough away from my face. For the most part I'd been keeping my eyes off its face, but now it was all I could do to not look away. Its eyes were a glazed over sickly shade of yellow, and its cheeks were sunken in. It smelled absolutely foul, and it took all I had not to stop fighting just to gag at the scent.

The zombie had a few missing teeth but that didn't falter its attempts to take a bite out of my flesh. I started to feel around the area, and finally found something, a rock it felt like. I brought the object up and smashed it into the side of the zombie's head, and it fell side ways. I rolled up to my knees and brought the rock down a few more times, until the zombie didn't so much as twitch with the breeze.

With heavy breaths I dropped the rock and sat back on my feet, taking a second to look around. Cody was no where to be seen, which made my heart beat unnaturally in my ears. I took another look around, searching the ground for his body.

"Cody ran off, taking a few zombies that chased after him," Chester said, when I caught his eye.

He looked like crap, a gash near his temple still bled small streams of blood, though it looked like the majority of the blood had stopped, and he had a nice black eye. His clothes were torn and covered in blood, most of it, I hoped, was not his.

Michael threw down his gun, as the barrel had become so clogged with zombie remains that it was now useless. He looked over at me, and gave a lopsided smile, "Kodi, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were a zombie," he said, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh at my appearance.

I saw Beck look over at me sharply, his gaze taking me in, "How did that happen?" he asked, looking kind of angry.

My lips formed a frown on their own accord as he walked towards me, not bothering to look at where, or what he was stepping on, "I tripped," I mumbled as he got close.