Blood Alley by T.F. Hanson Page A

protect himself as the creature advanced. His hand landed on a loose board from a broken pallet lying on the ground. He grasped the board, stood up and turned on the zombie. The board crashed into the creature’s head, knocking the zombie back. He raised the board again and struck a second time. This time the zombie fell to the ground. Conner kicked out with his boot, catching the zombie under the chin. An audible snap filled the alley as the zombie’s teeth came together from the impact.
    One more time the board came up and smashed the zombie on the side of the head, caving in its skull.
    Conner dropped the board and rushed over to his friend laying on the ground. He dropped to his knees. “Alex! Alex you bastard! Listen to me.”
    Alex slowly turned his head toward his friend. His mouth moved as he tried to say something.
    Conner leaned closer, his mind shutting away Alex’s torn apart throat and the blood pumping from his ripped apart arteries. He thought he heard his friend say, “Tell Emily I loved her.”
    A low wail began to fill the alleyway as Conner’s grief came to the front. The sound split the freezing night air as the loss of his best friend overcame all other feelings inside him.
    From somewhere in the dark of night a bang sounded as a door was thrown open and then a voice split the night. “We’re sleeping here. If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to get the militia.”
    At the mention of the militia, some sense of reason came back to Conner. It was as if someone had just thrown a cold bucket of water in his face. He looked down at his left arm, blood seeped from a tear in his jacket. His blood. Already a cold pain seeped up his arm.
    “I’m bitten,” he whispered as he peered up and down the alley expecting someone to be there.
    Since the Apocalypse, the number one rule in the new world was never, ever let yourself get bitten. If you were bitten by one of the Infected, you were to immediately turn yourself in to the authorities. If you were alone, you were expected to swallow a bullet, blow your head off. Make sure you could not hurt anyone else, ever.
    Conner stood up as he watched the light fade from Alex’s eyes. “I will buddy. I will let Emily know you loved her.”
    He stood there for a moment staring at his friend’s body and wondered what he should do next. A militia outpost was here in this quarter of New Atlanta, over by the east wall. He could be there in less than five minutes. Conner knew that was what he was supposed to do.
    “Not yet,” he whispered. “I need to go and find Emily. I need to let her know what Alex said."
    He started to move back down the alley from where they came, Emily’s apartment was in that direction. He would first go tell her what happened and then he would go to the militia. After two steps down the alley, he stopped. Turn myself in? They kill people who have been bitten.
    Conner knew one thing; he was not ready to die. He was only twenty-one years old, he survived the Zombie Apocalypse when he was only eight. Yeah he and Alex did it together and now Alex lay dead in a pool of his own blood, but Conner did not have to die too. Did he?
    Conner turned back in the other direction and sprinted down the alleyway towards the other end, the sounds of his steps echoing in the cold, dark night.
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    II
     
    Romulus Pike was loosing his patients. The zombie hunter had been stuck in line for over two hours this morning as he tried to leave New Atlanta. When he arrived at the gate to leave the city at 6:00 AM there had already been a line.
    Romulus was frustrated with the guards. They seemed to be just as concerned with checking those who wanted to leave the city as they were with the people coming into New Atlanta. He could understand the need to check those wanting entrance, the militia needed to make sure anyone coming in was not a carrier coming into the city to spread Freddy’s Disease, an infection named after Dr.