The clouds looked like wispy lamb fleeces, some unravelling at the edges, thin tendrils waiting to be spun, overlaid by dirty grey candy floss, bringing squally showers.

The landscape lay beneath her, silent, the fleeting sun glinting off static objects. Fields carved into portions still held that year’s harvest, untouched by machine. 

Ten months previously, a patient was admitted to the hospital with a mysterious disease. Within a week, he’d bitten several medics, making an impression.

Katie stood close to the refuge, a sunken bunker hatch, binoculars aloft, scanning the slopes below.

“Are they coming?” A nervous youth with glasses breathily plucked an inhaler from his pocket, his rasping slowly abated, a taser in his other hand.

She nodded. A lump formed in her throat. Her heart sped up. She didn’t ask if he was ready. No-one was.  

Like an unwanted stain, the disease had spread. 

Intrepid reporters were the first to fall, resolute about their profession, leaving lasting images of the ground, the screams muted.

Frequent groups made the one-way pilgrimage to the bunker, mulishly lurching with that halting gait. A faint destination from the cerebral cortex driving them onward.  

They brought with them the cloying smell of decay, unwashed bodies, excrement and the metallic odour on their clothes of blood, not of their type. All would reveal similar states of rotting flesh, blackened fingernails, green oozing from their gums, many with brown oxidised lips.

“Zombies!” 

Their leader, a soulless, sported an eye torn at the corner, the flesh flapping forlornly. His eyes were vacant cornflower, a crazed smile on his lips, with a dribble of jade saliva from one corner, like all the infected.

With a precision swing to the abdomen, he doubled over. She rose to discard the stale, pulling him up by his hair. A stake to the heart and putrefied olive spurted from the wound. His shell slithered to the mud. Two more tasered and Jayne’s spattered fletchers achieved their mark this time.

Safe, for now.

It was a Monday morning when Katie’s doorbell rang. The muted figure showed agitation through the vision panel. There was no escape. Kill or become. She opened the door, heart thumping. He snarled, and his hand reached for her. 

Automated aikido from a former life, broom handle to the face, stomach, sweep of the legs from under him. His lip was ragged, exposing his teeth, spittle flying from the hole. He looked beseeching, a flicker of recognition.

“Kill me.” He rasped. “Then run.”

She plunged a carving knife into his heart, grabbed her rucksack and, stepping over his body, kissed her hand, laying it on his temple, “Sorry Dad.” She whispered. And ran.