Snippet #1753501

Geoff Matherson
Day Six
Frankie's Bar
Uptown

Seventh day on the run. One spear, one bottle of pills. No booze. Lost my pack to a walker. Three days of dry meat still in there. 'Least I still got Ghost with me. Keep hearing fucking shooting from the mall. Put--

The diary hit the ground with a thud, the pen landing beside it with a clatter. This was all forgotten as a low, desolate moan washed over the ruined interior of the bar. Geoff knew that sound all too well by now. There was one, if not more in his refuge.

The bar was too cramped for a well aimed spear. This was going to have to get personal. The knife felt heavy in his hand, clammy palms sticking to the rubber grip. It was an eight-inch kitchen knife, designed to chop vegetables, not flesh and bone. The Walker and pushed open the door Geoff had busted through not hours earlier, and was now shuffling around the bar.

It was one of the ugliest he'd seen so far. It was missing most of the flesh on the left side of it's face, one arm, and it's lower jaw. It's eyes were shot with crimson. Covering its limp, sagging form was an incongruous polka-dot dressing gown, with a Mills and Boon novel still stuffed in the pocket.

Suppressing a giggle, Geoff made a low growl in his throat, waiting for the reply that signalled the start of the attack. In a manoeuvre they had practised thirty times over the past week, the pair sprang into action.

Like a streak of silver lightning, Ghost shot from his hiding place under a table, throwing his considerable weight against the Walker's knees, causing it to stagger, its arms flailing wildly. Before it hit the ground, Geoff had looped a brawny arm around its torso, the crook of his elbow against the blood-matted fabric of the dressing gown.

The knife flashed downward, in a shallow arc, the wicked point sinking through the decomposing flesh and muscle, slipping between the vertebra of the thing's spine. The creature gurgled and sank to its knees, Geoff shivering with revulsion as it slipped from his grasp.

Bracing his foot in the small of its back, Geoff twisted and wrenched the knife, until the thing was decapitated. It wasn't pretty, but it was the only way to put them down. Time to move. The body and the blood would draw them like bears to a honey pot.

Geoff's worldly possessions consisted of a luminous pink “My Little Pony” daysack he'd liberated from a discarded pram. In the sack, he carried a bottle of vodka, two bottles of JD whiskey, a bottle of paracetamol and the butchering knife. His remaining fence-post spear was carried in his hand, ready to throw at any target.

He left the bar, Ghost padding along side him, ignoring the devastation that split the street. Pausing for a second, Geoff spread out a map of the town on the hood of a nearby car, ignoring the bullet-riddled corpses in the driver's seat. He was on the fringes of uptown, in the shopping district. The vagrant's goal was the bounteous residential suburbs of Uptown. Full of provisions, booze and pills. His next stop, however, would be the Seven Shells Gas Station.