Cutting and prying his way to the roof only let Max know how screwed he really was. There must be over fifty zombies in my yard and who knows who many more inside? Where’s everyone else? I can’t be the only one alive already. I’m safe from them, but what am I going to do, just starve up here?

He sat on the roof and set the sword down, so he could bury his face in his hands. He allowed himself two minutes to wallow in his self-pity while the moaning of the dead became a constant chorus from hell.

“Ergg, this sucks.” He wiped a grimy hand over his wet brow and groaned. After a final deep breath, he said, “Alright, time to buck up.”

He stood up and took in the surroundings. He knew his yard well and there was plenty of gear that could help him, but there wasn’t much he could get from either his house or the yard. Undead swarmed everywhere. Their jaws snapped at the air. Even though he knew the things were mindless, he could swear he saw hate in their eyes. It was as though they hated his existence and wanted to devour it leaving nothing behind.

For his own satisfaction more than anything else, he lay on his stomach, near the edge of the roof, so he could get a few cinder blocks from his make-shift shelves. Max could only grab two safely, but these he happily tossed down onto the center of two of the zombie’s heads. They each when down, but in the time it took him to do all that another dozen had appeared.

“How has the world turned to shit so quickly? Damn!”

He started pacing. The frenzied mob of walking corpses did nothing but grow. On one for his sweeps, he stopped near his western neighbor’s house. The house stood ten feet away. A long jump, but maybe not impossible. There would be enough room for him to get a good running start.

Another thing that appealed to him was the house’s four foot high brick wall. Sure the zombies could pull themselves over, but as long as he didn’t get a broken ankle, he should have enough time to make a break for the alley.

If I blow it, it’s all over, but I don’t feel like spending another minute up here. “A man has to try,” he whispered.

After tossing his sword across, he went to the far end of the roof. He clenched his fists, took a deep breath, and then he was off. His boots tore into the shingles. Below the undead screeched and groaned. Reaching the edge, he lunched himself into the air. No one was more surprised than he when his toe hit the neighbor’s roof and he didn’t even lose his footing on the other side.

“Hot damn!”

But the zombies were already reacting and trying to stream into his neighbor’s yard. The low fence held them back, but it wouldn’t last for long. After tossing his sword off, Max quickly lowered himself to the ground. The first zombie toppled over the wall. It grunted when its face smashed into the dirt below.

Max snatched up his sword and hacked at the back of the thing’s neck. It took two meaty whacks, but the zombie stopped moving. But now another four were crashing onto his side. He fenced one through the eye, but then turned and ran. They stumbled after him as more poured over the wall.

With the help on his free hand, Max vaulted over the wall and took to the alley heading west. A tall zombie loomed up from behind a dumpster. Max swung the sword two handed, acting more like a batter than some medieval knight. A loud crack sounded and the thing went down hard. Max couldn’t be sure if it was dead or not, but just kept running.

He was almost free of the alley when something made him hold up. A cherry red mountain bike leaned against a garage and it wasn’t even locked. Despite the moaning that grew closer every second, Max took the time to climb over the chain link fence and grab the bike.

He let out a cheer as he tore off into the street. One hand held his sword against the handlebars while the other cranked up the gears as high as they could go. A minute later, the moaning had disappeared behind him.

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