Undead L.A. 2 by Devan Sagliani

neighborhood searching for supplies—not survivors—and doing his part to put to rest as many of the afflicted as he could. He didn't know why he'd been spared when everyone else he loved and cared for around him had been swept away in the first forty-eight hours, but he found purpose in the aftermath, helping those who fell to the disease to find peace. While others might be afraid or repulsed by them, their rotting skin, their bulging eyes, their incessant, unrelenting hunger to consume human flesh, Adam instead just felt sorry for them.
    They were all once people , he thought, as a fresh wave of sadness enveloped him. They had people who loved them. They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, friends from school and work. They were important and special to someone. Except maybe these scumbag kiddie rapists, that is.
    “What's-a matter, sweetheart?” A high-pitched nasal voice asked with a sick laugh that caused the skin on Adam's arms to turn to gooseflesh. “Don’t-cha like us?” A round of low howls sounding like cavemen grunting erupted from his companions.
    Adam felt the hatred swell up in his heart as he got his first good look at the dirtballs holding down the crying girl. There were two older men who looked like they were in their mid-thirties and had been living on food stamps since long before the zombie apocalypse hit. One was white, a crooked-mouthed punk in a faded old blue hooded sweatshirt and stained jeans with greasy black hair, beady brown rat eyes, and a pencil thin mustache that was no thicker than a high school kid hitting puberty. Rounding it all out was his weak chin covered in a wisp of brown hair that looked like a smear of dirt or excrement. His eyes darted back and forth with perverted excitement while his thin, chapped lips peeled back to reveal the delighted jack-o-lantern smile of his crooked, brown teeth. Something about him reminded Adam of the hapless pirate henchman in those old Johnny Depp movies.
    The other guy was black, a thick guy in a bright red, puffy wind breaker jacket with ropy muscles showing just beneath his thin, bloodstained t-shirt. He had on baggy jeans and dirty, red ADIDAS sneakers. There was a red bandana hanging out of his jeans pocket, and his arms were covered in cheap, jailhouse tattoos. He had ashy skin, short, dreaded hair that stood up in places like knots, and several yellow-gold chain necklaces hanging around his neck. His face was a mask of determination, his eyes wide and alert with anticipation as he licked his lips like he was preparing for a holiday feast. In his right hand he held a switchblade to the girl's throat, but it had done little to restrain her, and there was a series of small cut marks visible in the white skin of her throat, bleeding from where she'd continued to thrash around wildly after being told to hold still.
    Good for you , Adam thought. Rule number one. Never stop fighting, no matter what .
    Adam's parents ran a furniture store across the street from the time he was a small child up until the end of September, when a mob of the undead had poured into the streets in search of fresh meat and engulfed them in their Chrysler Buick on Olympic Boulevard, bringing them to a terrifying standstill as hellish visions of people being ripped apart and eaten broke out all around them like some kind of awful B-movie horror film. He knew the area well from the years he'd spent helping his father at the store, which was more like a home to him at the end of the day than his parent's house over the hill in Encino. He'd even insisted on going to Fairfax High, and had spent countless afternoons doing his homework at either Canters or Damiano's across the street. Only one kid ever challenged him about his city-boy status. Jimmy Stewell, a doughy-looking bully who spent more time in the locker room than in class, thought he would impress his friends by picking on Adam the first week of school. Jimmy told him that he needed to get his skinny