Free Dead, but Not for Long by Matthew Kinney, Lesa Anders

chewing was
mechanical and the tofu flopped from her mouth. Then Eric had a breakthrough.
He returned upstairs to see his mother still sitting by the window, peeking out now and then.
    “Those people are getting closer,” she said in a nervous tone. “There are some in the yard now.”
    “It’ll be okay, Mom,” Eric assured her as he looked through the bathroom cabinets.
Disappointed, he went to the kitchen and checked under the sink.
    “Bingo!” he yelled, pulling out a mousetrap with a recently killed rodent.
    “What, Dear?” his mother asked.
    “Bingo,” he replied. “That’s what I’m going to call the dog.”
    He stuffed the dead mouse into his pocket as he ran back to the stairwell. Hesitating, he turned back.
    “And Mom, stay away from the window!”
    ~*~
    When Keith and Jack stepped out of the elevator onto the second floor, several pairs of eyes
turned their way, as well as a few single eyes. They moved down the hall,
dropping a couple of the infected right away to start clearing a path toward
the exercise room. Several more shots followed as the two men continued their grim work.
    “Watch the ones on the ground!” Jack yelled. “Looks like half of them are crawling.”
    Jack turned to run backwards behind Keith, watching for anything that might be exiting hidden doorways.
    “Gotcha,” Keith said. He spun to his right when he caught movement there. His shot took the
back of the ghoul’s skull off and left most of its brains on the wall. He
barely had time to swing back around before another one was right in front of
him. He shot for the heart, instinctively, cursing to himself when he realized
what he’d done. He fired again, this time aiming for the head and putting the
creature out of its misery. Two more took its place.
    “Jack!” he yelled, taking the one on the left. The one on the right dropped just a second later.
    “Thanks, Man, I owe you for that,” Keith said.
    “I have the feeling that the way this day’s been going, you’ll have plenty of chances to return the favor.”
    They continued to work their way down the hallway and finally reached the exercise room. Keith
grabbed the handle to open it, only to find the door locked. He swore quietly,
realizing that the gunshots were drawing more of the infected; many more.
    “Please tell me that you have a key for this room,” he said. The undead were swarming toward them from both directions.
    Jack held out a chain hooked to his belt with a multitude of keys on it.
    “I hope you have a lot of ammo,” he stated nervously while searching through the set.
    “I’d like to tell you that I do, but I’d hate to give you false hope.” Keith carefully
picked his shots, taking only the closest ones. Once down, they caused some of
the others to stumble, though they always got back up.
    Jack reached into a pocket of his uniform and pulled out a set of reading glasses. He put
them on and continued shuffling through his keys. “It’s hell getting old,” he mumbled without looking up.
    “Well, if you don’t find those keys soon, you might not have to worry about that anymore,”
Keith replied, firing off another shot. “Not that I’m trying to rush you or
anything,” he added, taking aim at another one and squeezing off a round to drop it in its tracks.
    “Ah ha!” Jack exclaimed as he held up a key and stuck it in the lock. “See? No problem.”
    He opened the door and quickly but cautiously entered with Keith right behind.
    “No problem,” Keith agreed with relief. Pushing the door closed again, he managed to turn the
lock from the inside just before dead hands began to slam against the door.
    “We may as well wait until they’re all here before we let them in. I’ll go check the physical therapy room,” Keith said.
    Jack started to search the exercise room. He was unnerved by the sight of the dead in the
hallway pressing their faces against the large viewing glass. Their numbers
seemed to be growing exponentially. He