Angel Perez, 44

The first thing they did was tear out his tongue.

Then they filled his mouth with rubbing alcohol.

Everything beyond that up to the moment of his death was just torture.

It really is hard to look at the list of things done to Angel Perez and say, "He deserved it," not so much because his crimes weren't atrocious, but because the punishment went on for so long and involved such horrific acts that...well...it really is hard to simply say, "He deserved it."

The fact is, his crimes were heinous and he deserved the most severe punishment imaginable, but the problem with that phrase "the most severe punishment imaginable" is that the human imagination is a seriously dark and fucked up originator...especially with things the way they are now.

Before all this, the three most horrendous ends Angel Perez could have encountered in this country were death by the electric chair, death by the gas chamber and death by lethal injection, all of which, studies had shown, weren't nearly as painful as people thought they should be, but now that the entire country and most of the planet has been overrun by walking corpses, the menu is a bit more extensive.

Bad news for Angel Perez.

Angel Perez was a rapist.

A child rapist.

And a murderer.

Sixteen girls before he was caught.

Sixteen.

Ranging from eleven to seventeen years old.

He was caught during a thunderstorm burying the sixteenth in a shallow, muddy grave by the West Wall.

Problem was, girl number sixteen wasn't dead. While he was...doing what he did, he'd slammed her head against the concrete floor of the garage he was using so hard that he thought he'd killed her, but he had just fractured her skull and knocked her unconscious. So while he was in the midst of throwing handfuls of wet, bloody earth on top of her limp body, she opened her eyes and screamed as if the world was ending...which, for her, it was.

A sentry heard the sound clearly through the storm and ran over, ready for the inevitable breech, allowing the things outside the walls in, ending this farce the people inside called living, once and for all.

What he found was Angel Perez, covered with blood, sporting an erection, strangling thirteen year old Marissa Bell to death.

He pulled Perez off her blood and dirt smeared form and commenced stomping him before he realized that Marissa was still alive.

Luckily for her, the sentry, Roberts, had been trained in CPR and had been able to revive her. He then radioed for help and that was that.

Perez said he was sick, he said he needed help.

He said he was molested as a child, he said that he had no control over his urges.

He said he was sorry again and again and again.

It was then they tore out his tongue and filled his mouth with rubbing alcohol.

A week after that, thirteen year old Marissa Bell killed herself.

That's when things got really bad for Angel Perez.

There were about four hundred people living here. It had originally been a gated community on the westernmost edge of what used to be the state of Washington. It had been built overlooking the Pacific Ocean on two sides, the north and west. Beyond the West and North walls were about fifty feet of treacherous slopes, then a sheer rock face, then the ocean. Beyond the South and East walls, death. The East and South walls were secure already, but they further fortified them and posted a rotation of sentries, usually just men between 25 and 40 who had good eyes and could stay awake for eight hours at a time. These four hundred or so travelers had discovered this place before things had gotten too out of hand, but it was clear how things were going to turn out and they all knew that if they didn't find a place to settle soon, they'd be dead in a few months. From what they could piece together, the people that had lived here before had all been obscenely rich and left soon after things went national, leaving most everything intact. Why no one had settled here already was anyone's guess, but it didn't matter to them. They'd found a home.

They were a bit overcrowded but there was unspoiled food and clean, running water and independent generators so they also had electricity. By the time they had reached this place, they were all too tired, too numb to think of a next step, so they settled and decided, collectively, to wait.

For the military, for the Rapture, for the food to run out, they didn't care.

They were just waiting.

Seven weeks after they had arrived, twelve year old Alicia Moore went missing. At first people just assumed that she'd snuck out for some reason and been killed by the walking dead. Her mother, who had already lost her husband and baby boy to them just crumbled under the weight of everything and went semi-catatonic. Two weeks after that, however, seventeen year old Claire Howard went missing. This raised questions. A twelve year old might not understand the enormity of what exactly was going on, but Claire was smart and her family had, somehow, remained intact through the trek. They said that, one night, she just didn't come home. Things continued along these lines for about three months until that night Roberts saved Marissa's life.

Something happens to survivors of a great cataclysm. Plagues, wars, terrorist attacks...they alter something fundamental inside a person. In most cases, life actually does go on, eventually. There is progress, healing, rebirth; but living in the world as it was today, there was none of that. Every day, the people would look outside the gates and see themselves...their flesh shredded, their eyes dusty, their bodies torn and desiccated...walking, moaning, feeding. When a human died, they became one of Them. And They would not die, They would not tire, They were forever. There was no way to truly adapt to what was going on. One merely developed survival skills. One of those skills was the ability to numb oneself, to kill a part of you; the part of you that feels. On the road, people learned just how fleeting life was. At literally any second, your mother, father, lover, child, sibling could be taken violently away from you forever. So they learned to kill that part of themselves. In some horrible way, they had grown used to this numbness. They couldn't hurt the zombies, they couldn't punish them. But that urge was still there. Underneath the numbness...that urge was still there.

And now, there was also Angel Perez.

Angel Perez who was worse than the shambling monsters outside their gates, because he did what he did willingly, to sate his own dark desires.

Angel Perez who had been fully conscious of what he was doing.

Angel Perez who could be punished for what he did.

Angel Perez who was now the target, the focus of all the people's inchoate, abstract rage.

What happened to this man over the next five weeks might have been categorized as "indescribable", but, the thing was, it was describable.

Easily describable.

Slowly, with the aid of the three doctors among the survivors (one being Dr. Chelsea Moore, Alica's mother), Angel Perez was killed.

His teeth were removed, his fingernails, toenails, fingers, toes, hands and feet were removed, his genitals were removed, patches of skin were removed, some surgically, some...less than surgically.

One eye was removed, so he could see what was being done to him and one ear was removed so he could hear himself scream, gasp, gurgle, choke.

Things that should remain inside a human were taken out and things that should not be inside a human were put in.

He was fed spoiled food and poisoned water that induced vomiting and diarrhea.

He was force fed rocks, glass, metal shavings and other miscellaneous indigestible material.

Bone was broken, skin was burned, muscle was flayed.

And the one thing that all the people had in common: while they were carrying out his sentence, they had the blank faces of factory workers. The slack yet determined expressions of people doing a job that had to be done. There wasn't any outright enjoyment, just a air of duty.

Eventually, after five weeks, thirty five days, of punishment, the body of people came to some unspoken agreement.

All that was left of Perez at this point was a torso and a barking, rasping head.

They gathered loosely around the garage where Perez had corrupted his last victim, the place they'd chosen as his torture chamber, carried him to the gate and unceremoniously threw him outside like a bag of trash.

After that, it didn't take long; the monsters on the other side of the gate didn't believe in vengeance.

Did Angel Perez deserve it?

Who can really say?

In the end, he paid for his sins, and those that had been committed against all of humanity.

He'd become their scapegoat; an effigy, a vessel to be filled with their impotent rage and hatred...and then shattered.

A monster had been killed, and a million more took his place.

Paul & Phil, 28

II.

“Do we have an exit strategy?” asked Paul, some time later over their umpteenth meal of spaghetti bolognaise.
“To be completely honest, no. I always thought we would just travel during the day so we can see them coming and all that. If they get too thick, we’ll climb something or go up some stairs.” answered Phil.
“Works for me.” said Paul.
He paused, then said, “You know, this is going to sound a little weird I’m sure, but, since all this happened, do you feel that things have…well…simplified a bit?”
“Oh absolutely,” responded Phil, “ think about it, we don’t have jobs or obligations or anything like them anymore. We have to stay alive and that’s pretty much all that’s required of us.”
“It’s very freeing, isn’t it?” asked Paul.
“Very. The stakes are higher, but the rules are simpler.” answered Phil.
They continued to eat in silence for a bit.
“You know, I was always curious how the whole power situation would go down during a zombie apocalypse. It’s weird that we still have power but we don’t have cable or phone service.” said Paul.
“How is that weird?” asked Phil.
“I don’t know. When you hear ‘zombie apocalypse’ do you think of power and running water and all that? Do you think, ‘oh, can’t text or check my e-mail, zombie apocalypse’? No, it’s all screaming and dying and dogs and cats living together…MASS HYSTERIA!”
Phil smiled, “True.”
“I thought for a moment that it was because there’s no reason for zombies to seek out power stations and fuck with them, but then again, there’s no reason for them to seek out anything else either, right? So why do we have power and water but no phones or cable?”
“Good question. Maybe since power is more of a priority, some disaster protocol was set in place? I mean, so much of our Internet is in Atlanta, but this might just be a problem with our local Time Warner place, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m glad this happened with Obama in the driver’s seat.”
“You think he has some sort of zombie apocalypse contingency plan?”
“Maybe. From what I hear he’s smart as fuck. I’m just saying that Bush would have just nuked everything in the name of his asshole Texan God probably.”
“Probably. One thing I am 100% certain about is that I’m happy these aren’t 28 Days Later zombies.”
“Fucking shit, yes! We wouldn’t last a week.” replied Paul.
“Anyway, as far as an exit strategy, not really sure. We should remember to take World War Z and the survival guide with us.” said Phil.
“Definitely. Ha. I wonder what Max Brooks thinks of all this shit. Do you think he’s as surprised as everyone else or do you think he’s feeling sort of smug?”
“I think it would take a major asshole to feel smug about something like this.”
“True, but think of everyone who said something like, ‘Oh, how’s the zombie book coming along! Yeah, that’s reeeal useful! Stupid kike!’”
“Why throw in the racial epithet?” asked Phil.
“Because deep down the person saying it knew that what Brooks was doing was right on and would not only sell millions of copies, but would also become utterly indispensable and be utilized by most of the literate human race as the sole guide to not being eaten by the risen dead before long.”
“I’ll accept that.” answered Phil in a neutral tone. “Although I think the point is moot. This guy is the son of Mel Brooks. The guy who wrote Spaceballs. I don’t know how seriously he took all this stuff.”
“Probably a bit more seriously than we did.”
“Mm.”
“What about weapons?” Paul asked.
“We don’t have anything here, do we?”
“Just some small knives. Are you proficient with anything?”
“Nope. Although I might create a weapon.” said Phil.
“Really? Like what?”
“Okay,” said Phil, leaning forward in his seat and holding his hands up, “I would have a pommel, like the handle of a whip.”
“…okay…” said Paul, a dubious smile growing on his face.
“Attached to the pommel would be eighteen loaded Desert Eagles with fishing line attached to each of the triggers.”
“Safety off.” said Paul, not asking.
“Safety off.” agreed Phil.
“Then, whenever there was trouble, I’d swing them over my head, and when I was ready, just jerk the whip handle, triggering all eighteen guns at once.” he looked at Paul, “What do you think?”
“Sounds good, but we only have sixteen Desert Eagles.”
“Oh, well then forget it.” said Phil abruptly.
“Maybe next time.” said Paul in a comforting voice.
“There might be some tools and stuff in the Superintendent’s place.”
“What’s that thing Brooks says is the ideal weapon?”
“It’s called a ‘trench spike’. They used it in World War One or Two. He says it’s like brass knuckles with a knife on the end.”
“Where in the fuck would we find one of those?”
“Max Brooks’ house?” suggested Paul.
“Probably those other two Desert Eagles as well.”
“Probably.”
“Any idea where he lives?”
“Probably not on the way to B.J.’s.”
“Maybe later then.”
“So when should we leave?” asked Paul.
Just then, all the lights in the apartment flickered, then brightened again, then flickered again, then went out. A few seconds later, there was a loud pop and they came back on again.
“You know, I can’t, with any real conviction, blame that on you…” said Philip, looking around the living room.
“But….?” asked Paul.
“…but I’m going to.” finished Philip.
“Excellent.” said Paul in a satisfied tone. “Shall we pack?”

Reggie Chilt, 34

Reggie was a bus driver, or had been before the dead people.

He had a good idea to keep his bus because it was big and hard to get into unless he opened the doors.

The windows were gun proof and they seemed to be dead person proof too.

So Reggie kept the bus.

He would drive around and help save people who weren't dead from people that were.

It was just like his old job but instead of stopping at the bright blue bus stop signs, he'd stop where there were people in trouble.

Also he was now allowed to run people over with his bus.

Dead people.

He was allowed to run over dead people.

One day he helped a lady who was bitten by a dead person, but Reggie didn't know that or else he wouldn't have let her on.

Obviously.

He thought the lady had fallen asleep and when she woke up he didn't know she was dead until she bit him right on the arm.

He screamed at her and punched her and punched her until she stopped moving for good.

He stopped the bus at the next corner and kicked the dead dead person out.

He kept driving, wondering why his arm felt so cold and so hot.

He remembered his friend, Sal, talking to him right before his first day.

"You'll do great, Reg. You'll do great. You can do this and you know you can!"

He then gave Reggie a big hug and Reggie cried, but just a little.

And Reggie did do a great job, at least that's what his Boss, Mr. Roger, said.

And some people called him names like "Slowpoke" and "Retard" and "Faggot" when he opened the door to the bus and smiled and welcomed them on, but that was okay, he didn't care.

He was doing great.

But now he wasn't.

His eyes hurt and his head hurt.

But his arm didn't hurt.

So that was okay.

Now he felt more sleepy than hurt.

When it was before the dead people, he'd have to drive the bus for six whole hours before he got to go home and sleep, but now he was in charge of the bus, so he could just pull over and take a nap.

No dead people would get in if he kept the doors closed so that was okay.

He turned on his blinking "trouble lights" and slowed the bus down.

He looked around the empty and saw no people dead or alive.

He was safe.

He would take a nap and then get something to eat.