One Foot In Front of the Other (Free Story Friday) by Josh Hilden Page A

somewhere a good deal south of the creature’s skull. He swung and connected solidly with the knee of the zombie, there was a loud popping noise as the lower leg was dislocated from the upper leg and the creature, that should have been dead maybe twenty years ago but was not, fell to the ground leaving the dislocated section flopping and useless. The thing was persistent though and it began to crawl toward the boy. Its skeletal fingers were digging into the cracked and busted asphalt that was once the parking lot of a burned out shopping complex, moaning and reaching.
                  Dana shivered.
                  No matter how many times she heard it the hunting moan all zombies employed to call their brethren to the feast never failed to give her the creeps. She began to scan the tree line for movement, if they were lucky there wouldn’t be too many of the things within easy hearing distance, but then she heard the answering moans and knew luck was not with her today.
                  The boy did hear the moans of the dead and his head shot up as he spun around looking in all directions to see if any of the former residents of Wayne Michigan were about to put in an appearance. As his eyes scanned the over turned semi trailer Dana was leaning against, he jumped back half a step in surprise. He looked at the rifle braced across her forearm and cocked his head in a silent question, “Is that gonna be used on me?”
                  Dana shook her head and nodded toward the former soldier now less than five feet from the kids cracked and faded engineer’s boots. He looked down, raised his war club, and swung it down into the withered skull. There was the sound of a pumpkin splitting open and the creature stopped moving for good this time.
                  He started to walk toward Dana when motion in the old shopping center caught both of their eyes. Three figures were heading toward them reaching and moaning in anticipation of a warm meal.
                  “Come on kid.” Dana called out abandoning the noise discipline that had served her so well for the majority of her life. Now that they’d been made by the locals speed was more important than stealth. Zane would not have approved of this, she thought to herself as she raised the carefully maintained rifle and took aim on the closest zombie.
                  CRACK!
                  The head of the first zombie exploded and the creature dropped to the ground.
                  She worked the lever, ejecting the spent round and chambering the next … CRACK!
                  And the next one fell.
                  One more time she manipulated the weapon Zane had carried for fifteen years, beginning in Vancouver British Columbia and ending in a nameless little town in West Virginia … CRACK!
                  And the final one was dispatched.
                  “Wow” the kid breathed as he closed the last dozen yards between them. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?” He said. Dana was uncomfortable with the worshipful look she saw in his bright green eyes. She thought Zane may have seen the same thing when he found her trapped in the RV outside of Calgary.
                  “A friend taught me” she replied slinging the weapon over her shoulder. For a full minute neither spoke as they scanned the area for more visitors. To anyone living in the post plague world it was an action which had become second nature over the years.
                  “What were you doing out there?” Dana asked after she was relatively sure they were safe for the moment. You were never 100% safe in the open on the ground but it had been more than a year since Dana had encountered a real horde.
                  “What do you mean?” He asked strapping his club to his hip. The kid was all ropey muscles and