The shortest of the college students lead the way as the group ran through alleys and avoided the bigger streets. The sounds of screaming echoed from every direction, but seemed to be worse from behind them, so they kept going. Mar and Cindy tried to stay in the middle of the men, who were really barely more than boys and she figured they were probably freshmen.

The shorter guy led them on. Sometimes he moved so fast they almost lost sight of him. A few times, he would discover an area blocked and hurry to retreat and take them through a safer way. The tallest one tried to keep up with the little guy and big beer belly boy, but ended up dropping back closer to where Mar jogged. “Hi, my name is Allen. Speedy Gonzales up there is Dave. The other tall guy’s John and we have Bogart guarding the rear.”

Mar wasn’t sure how to react. Part of her would have been happy getting attention from a tall, strong college student, but proved hard to be happy about anything when the world was ending. “I’m Mar, this is Cindy, and you are er… carrying Jenny.”

Allen tried to smile, but with strings of blood covering his face, it just looked scary. “Looks like we found ourselves in the middle of the apocalypse, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bogart began from behind him, but then screamed like a small girl, when two zombies stumbled out of the alley at him. One grabbed his hair while the second barreled into them, knocking all three onto the ground. Dave and John were quite a distance ahead of them, but turned around and began to sprint their way. It took Allen a few seconds to lower Jenny to the ground, before he could do anything. Cindy only screamed.

As he rushed forward, Allen yelled, “Watch over your friend and try to get her to stop screaming. It could attract more.”

But as soon as the statement left his lips, it became irrelevant, for poor Bogart screamed like the damned when the zombies began to pull huge chucks of flesh off his body. Allen let out a string of curses and drove forward with what looked like a World War II bayonet. He stabbed it thorough one of the attacker’s eyes and it went limp. He kicked the second one off and Dave finished it with a heavy pipe he had found some where. He must have smashed it a dozen times, before he finally stopped.

John leaned over his friend, but already his life leaked out of him.

“Look out, more are coming,” Cindy whimpered.

Looking back the way they had come, Mar saw that it was true. Scores of these walking dead lumbered at them from every direction. Gone were the hordes of college students and their small group seemed to be the only normal people left.

Mar looked back at the scene unfolding before her. John still leaned over Bogart trying to stop the bleeding from his face and neck. “Come on buddy, stay with me.”

“You might want to get away from him,” Mar said slowly.

“What do you know?” John said, with anger rising in his voice. “We could still save him.”

“Maybe you can’t and-”

But it was too late. Bogart’s eyes had gone glassy and with a savage jerk he leaned forward and tore into John’s throat with his teeth. He came away with a chuck a flesh big enough to clog a drain and wolfed it down with wet slurps.

They wanted to do something, but the rest of the evil horde was drawing too near.

“We gotta go!” Dave yelled.

Once again, Allen threw Jenny over his shoulder and the group set off. They had made it around the corner when a voice yelled to them. “This way. In here!”

Allen and Mar shared a look, but then he said, “What choice do we have? We need to get off the streets.”

“Hurry before they round the corner and see where we went,” Dave hissed.

Allen nodded and the group rushed toward the opened door.

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