ONE

                      Day One: Crash Test Zombies

The tires squealed as the car spun out of control. Helplessly, John held onto the steering wheel with all his strength. The overturned bus seemed to leap out of the darkness and fill the windshield just as he rounded the curve. The car barely missed it as he swerved to avoid a collision. The road was filled with those…things. Each one stopping to look up when the headlights fell upon them. Their eyes reflecting the light. Some had entrails and flesh hanging from their mouths. All were covered in blood. For some strange reason they reminded John of crash test dummies. The thought left his mind just as quickly as it had come.

 The bus was overturned half in and half out of the road. The victims were strung out along side it. Each one besieged by these monsters... these walking corpses. Each body was in a different state of being consumed. Some now nothing more than bloody skeletons with meat clinging to bones here and there. Intestines and other body parts littered the road. There must have been a hundred of the creatures. Many were crushed by the car as it careened wildly. The stench that blew into the car was overwhelming. John felt his stomach begin to churn.

The bus driver, partially decapitated, hung out of the broken front window. His body being devoured as if by vultures on road kill. Except these weren’t vultures and they were no longer human. They were grotesque, bloody, evil caricatures.

As the car slid sideways it left the roadway and slid into the dirt on the shoulder. The tires dug into the soft ground as dirt flew in the window and into John’s mouth, nose and eyes. He felt the car leave the ground as it started to barrel roll, first once then two more times. The air bag smacked him in the face first, and then the overnight bag with his belongings hit him as it flew out the window.

Stopping on its side, the car sat there for a second then slammed back down, upright on it’s tires. Steam escaped from under the hood as blood from a gash on his forehead began to fill his eyes. Frantically he clawed at the seat belt trying to free himself.

Once free, he searched the car for his bag. He had to have it. It contained everything he needed to survive.

Still dazed he looked up the road toward the bus lying no more than seventy yards away. Smelling fresh blood the creatures turned and started toward the mangled car. John crawled out the window and flopped to the ground. He checked himself for injuries. Other than the gash on his forehead, a massive headache and bruised ribs, he seemed to have suffered no other damage. His head throbbed with every heartbeat.

The bag was lying in the road half way between the car and the bus. Regaining his feet, John shook the cobwebs from his head, ran around the car and took off. Ahead he saw two of them heading for him at a much faster pace than the others and with more purpos

“Ah hell,” he said out loud, “not them again.

 These two, or demons as John had come to refer to this different type of walking corpse, were faster and more intelligent than the others. He didn’t have time to ponder the reasons why they were different, but had made note of the different way they moved and carried themselves. They were pretty easy to spot if you knew what you were looking for. And here they were again.

Frantically he raced for the bag, reaching it mere seconds ahead of the fastest one. John unzipped it and grabbed the 9mm. Flipping the safety off he raised the weapon and fired three rounds into the first attacker as it closed in. The first and second round hit it in the chest but didn’t seem to slow him down. The third round entered his forehead spewing blood and gray matter out the back of it’s skull in a crimson spray. It dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap.