The shotgun exploded in my hands, jerking back sharply.

Recovering, I quickly sighted down the

barrel at my prey. I didn’t have to search for long before the large spray of blood, bone and grey
matter indicated that it was a head shot, and I let out a loud whoop. Nice. After three months of
this Apocalypse Now crap, I should be able to take down a sentient zombie at ten feet. I smiled
smugly to myself and started towards the decapitated body, picking my way through the dusty,
rubble strewn street. Yes, I had gotten very good over time.
The zombie looked just as they all do, decaying flesh pulled tight over protruding bones,
ratted clothing shred in a way that could only be described as zombie chique. All in all it looked
just as any zombie I had ever seen in a bad Hollywood movie before all this had begun. They had
even gotten the outstretched arms, forever reaching for a tasty morsel of human flesh right. Ten
points for the imaginations of yesterday. The only things that they had never been successful in
truly capturing was the horror of the rotting flesh and the fetid smell of decay that clung to them,
wafting in the air far before you knew they were there.
I stood over the corpse, trying to keep professional. I was practically the official badass
zombie slayer of humankind after all. Now came the disgusting part. I could almost taste
Gregory’s agitation behind me, his distaste for what I was about to do coursing through the air. It
couldn’t be helped though. The small towns around here had been picked clean already, and
some of my best stuff came off of the zombies themselves. I slipped my hands carefully into the
pockets, the poor soul’s body indiscernible from male of female. I would have been okay with
anything, really, I’m not greedy, but two days ago I had lost my best knife after accidentally
stumbling upon four zombies. That had been a close call. I almost hadn’t walked away
afterwards.
My search of the zombie’s pockets proved fruitless, or headless, as the case may be, and I
walked back over to Gregory. I could tell he wasn’t happy with me, even though he didn’t say it.
Gregory never spoke when he went on hunts with me.
“It was necessary,” I said, looking into his glassy eyes.
He still didn’t say anything. Fine by me, it wasn’t as though I wanted to listen to his
griping. Silence stretched the limits of comfort and became awkward. My chapped hands
smoothed the dull barrel of the gun.
“Do you remember what day it is?” I paused, giving him the chance to answer. I knew he
wouldn’t, but it was polite to wait all the same.
“It’s the big FB day Gregory. I can’t believe you forgot. Do you remember how I told you
about when, days before the world ended and we got lumped together, I took that quiz on
facebook on how long I would survive a zombie takeover?” I laughed quietly at the memory,
recalling how obsessed I had once been with zombies. Life can be a real bitch.
Gregory just looked at me, but I could tell that he remembered. Sometimes, you just
know about him.
“Well, my silent companion, today is the final day that the quiz told me I would live to.
Get this, it said that I would be done in through my friendships.” Shaking my head I lay the
shotgun down across my knees. Like Gregory, or any of the others for that matter, would ever let
me down. We sat in silence, thinking about the day. If I could, I would celebrate my survival
with good beer and indulge in every carnal act I’d suppressed over the past three months, but as
it was, sitting with Gregory and hunting down zombie killers came in at a close second.
The wind shifted and blew at my back, lifting my hair to fly forwards and tickle my face.
For a moment I revelled in the cool breeze that blew, but the cloying smell of fetid flesh that
clung to the wind slowly registered in my brain. The next moments felt like swimming through
warm honey, my body going through the motions as my mind detached. Nearly two dozen
zombies had snuck up on us as I had jabbered away. We should have kept moving. The shotgun
jerked in my hands again and again, I was reloading like mad, but my hands were shaking too
badly to get off ant decent shots. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What the Hell was I thinking?
“Come on!” I screamed at Gregory, seeing a sudden pathway clear. Gregory just stood
there, gun held tightly in motionless hands, facing the enemy bearing down on us without fear.
His combat green body shone in the fading sunlight and his feet were firmly planted on the green
base that held him upright, defiantly refusing to move.
Tears streamed down my face making tracks in the blood and dust that coated them. My
eyes darted frantically between Gregory and the rapidly shrinking route to escape. I couldn’t get
him out and save us both. All these months together, not seeing another soul, and this was the
way it was going to end. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes as I pulled the trigger again to
clear my mind.
Lunging forwards, my hand grasped around Gregory’s body as the gap to freedom closed
in behind me. I picked up the small toy and cradled it in my hands lovingly, shielding his body
from the sight of the oncoming dead.
“We promised, remember?” I said, tucking him into the front of my jacket. I squared my
feet, staring at the mass of decayed flesh stumping our way, so close they blocked out the little
sunlight left in the sky. “I love you.”
Gregory didn’t say anything, but I knew he loved me too. Sometimes you just know.
As the first zombie reached us I raised my shotgun, double barrels gleaming brightly for
the first time. I pulled the trigger, but the crack that usually accompanied it never came. Out of
ammo. My hand reached for the absent knife that usually hung ready at my hip. Congratulations
gentlemen, you’ve just won the zombie lottery. Meal’s on me.
As the first zombie sank his discoloured teeth into my arm, pain raced through my
system. As I fell beneath the onslaught, one thought surfaced before blackness swallowed me.
Damn you facebook.